“Who’s there?” he asked.
“We want to see M. Amédée Vacherot on urgent business.”
“That’s myself.”
“You?”
“Yes, I, the porter. But by what right . . . ?”
“Orders of the prefect of police,” said Don Luis, displaying a badge.
They entered the lodge. Amédée Vacherot was a little, respectable-looking old man, with white whiskers. He might have been a beadle.
“Answer my questions plainly,” Don Luis ordered, in a rough voice, “and don’t try to prevaricate. We are looking for a man called Siméon Diodokis.”
The porter took fright at once:
“To do him harm?” he exclaimed. “If it’s to do him harm, it’s no use asking me any questions. I would rather die by slow tortures than injure that kind M. Siméon.”