This negative result made Madame indignant. She railed violently at the magistracy, which could not recover her silver service. But nevertheless she did not give up hope of finding "the cruet of Louis XVI," as Joseph called it. Every day she concocted new and outlandish schemes, which she sent to the magistrates, who, tiring at last of all this nonsense, did not even answer her. At last I was reassured concerning Joseph; for I was always afraid that some catastrophe would overtake him.
Joseph had again become silent and devoted, the family servant, the rare pearl. I cannot help puffing with laughter at the recollection of a conversation which, on the very day of the robbery, I overheard behind the door of the salon, between Madame and the prosecuting attorney, a dry little man, with thin lips and bilious complexion, whose profile was as sharp as the edge of a sword.
"You do not suspect anybody among your people?" asked the prosecuting attorney. "Your coachman?"
"Joseph!" cried Madame, scandalized, "a man who is so devoted to us, who has been in our service for more than fifteen years! Honesty itself, Monsieur; a pearl! He would throw himself into the fire for us."
Anxious, with wrinkled brow, she reflected:
"Unless it were this girl, the chambermaid. I do not know her. Perhaps she has very bad relations in Paris. Several times I have caught her drinking the table-wine and eating our prunes. A servant who drinks his master's wine is capable of anything."
And she murmured:
"One should never take servants from Paris. She is singular, indeed."
Just fancy the mean thing!
That is the way with suspicious people. They suspect everybody, save him who robs them, of course. For I was more and more convinced that Joseph had been the soul of this affair. For a long time I had watched him, not from any hostile feeling, as you may know, but from curiosity; and I was certain that this faithful and devoted servant, this unique pearl, was foraging in the house for all he was worth. He stole oats, coal, eggs, all sorts of little things that could be sold without giving any trace of their origin. And his friend, the sacristan, did not come to the harness-room in the evening for nothing, and simply to discuss the benefits of anti-Semitism. Being a circumspect, patient, prudent, methodical man, Joseph was not unaware that petty larcenies, committed daily, foot up largely at the end of the year, and I am persuaded that in this way he tripled and quadrupled his wages,—a thing never to be disdained. I know very well that there is a difference between these little thefts and such an audacious pillage as that of the night of December 24. That proves that he liked also to work on the grand scale. How do I know that Joseph was not then a member of a gang? Ah! how I should have liked to know all that, and how I should like to know it still.