Between the moments that he passed in this way, in this heart-rending attitude of dissimulation before the world, and the hours which he had at once adopted the delicious habit of devoting, every afternoon, to the comforter of Rue Monsieur, his only preoccupation was this: to find a scent and follow it. But what scent? But how?
"I must proceed upon the definite facts," he said to himself the first day. Now, what were these "definite facts?" That the sending of Madame de Claviers' letter to her husband was coincident with the publication of Jaubourg's will. What could the sender have hoped? That M. de Claviers would refuse to accept the property. Who would have profited by his refusal? The heirs-at-law. It was advisable therefore to investigate in that direction, leaving Privat out of the question. Landri knew that officer too well to suppose for an instant that he, who was rich in his own right and through his wife, would have been guilty of so base an action. For whose benefit, indeed? The Privats had no children.
Certain inquiries, cautiously instituted, convinced him that the other three heirs were no more open to suspicion. One was a wholesale tradesman on Rue du Sentier, Paris; another, the owner of extensive vineyards near Lectoure, where the Jaubourgs originally came from; the third, a magistrate of distinction, held the office of procureur-général in one of the courts of appeal in the Nord.
There was a whole course of social philosophy in this list of Charles Jaubourg's cousinships. He himself had been the fashionable bourgeois who becomes an aristocrat. He had, unconsciously, in a liaison with a great lady, gratified the craving for being ennobled which is the natural instinct, and if well directed, perfectly legitimate and praiseworthy, of the best representatives of the middle classes. To Landri's mind the stations occupied by the dead man's relations were simply a guaranty that no one of them was the denouncer he sought. These first "definite facts" suggested no tenable hypothesis.
Another "definite fact" was the theft of Madame de Claviers' letter. A letter may be stolen only from the person who sends it or the person to whom it is sent. The Marquise de Claviers-Grandchamp had been dead fifteen years. It was possible that the letter had been stolen fifteen years before, and that the thief had let all that time pass without using it, but it was most improbable. Now, when one is pursuing an investigation of this sort, the rule is not to turn to the improbable until one has followed all the probable clues. The wisest course therefore was to assume that it had been stolen at Jaubourg's apartment. What a contradiction it was that a man so prudent, so on his guard, who had worked so hard to conceal his fatherhood should preserve such terribly condemnatory pages! It might be explained by the ardor of a passion that must have been very great. Did he not sacrifice his whole life to it? Precisely because he knew the danger of not destroying such a correspondence, Madame de Claviers' lover must have multiplied his precautions. That letter and the others referred to by the anonymous writer could have been stolen therefore only by a person familiar with all his habits, and at a time when he was incapable of keeping watch on them. The theft must have been committed either during his sickness or immediately after his death. What was the meaning of those words, "other documents?" Evidently, the rest of the correspondence. But why was that single letter sent, unaccompanied by any demand for money, and followed by several weeks of silence? That was an enigma. But it did not explain away the "definite fact."
That fact seemed to require that a wisely conducted inquiry should begin with an interview with Joseph, the confidential servant of whom Jaubourg had said on his death-bed: "You can believe him. He is reliable, perfectly reliable." Landri had not seen him since the time in the chamber of death when the marquis was kneeling at the bedside, praying. In imagination he saw that figure, in black coat and white cravat, making the final arrangements—that impassive face of a close-mouthed witness or confederate. Joseph had been in his master's service thirty years. He must inevitably have discovered Jaubourg's liaison with Madame de Claviers. He knew the secret of Landri's birth. The young man recalled his singular expression when he brought him a message, at Grandchamp, on the day before his master's death. Moreover, was not Joseph there, assisting Dr. Pierre Chaffin, when the invalid, in his delirium, said so many terribly incriminating things? That thought made the prospect of a conversation with the man so painful that Landri recoiled at first.
"This is cowardly," he said to himself the next moment. "If I can't face suffering of that sort for him, of what am I capable?"
Having determined upon this interview, the most elementary shrewdness bade him bring it about without warning. The young man was not aware of one fact which was likely to facilitate his task: M. de Claviers, as may be imagined, had shrunk in horror from the thought of putting his foot in Jaubourg's apartment again. Having resolved to return the detestable legacy, and not choosing to order a sale, which would have attracted notice, he had placed the apartment, until further orders, in charge of the old maître d'hôtel. When Landri went to Rue de Solferino to ask his address, the concierge replied with evident surprise, "Why, he's upstairs, Monsieur le Comte!" which proved to the investigator what a delicate affair he had undertaken. The slightest imprudence was likely to arouse a very dangerous curiosity. And so all the efforts of his will were combined to make his face impenetrable while he awaited the maître d'hôtel in the library, into which an old woman who answered his ring had ushered him. She was the "spouse" of "Monsieur Joseph," who acted as laundress to the establishment during Jaubourg's lifetime. The couple had a daughter. Mademoiselle Amélie, whom their indulgent employer had allowed them to keep with them. How was it possible to associate the idea of a criminal conspiracy with the head of a bourgeois family, hungry for respectability?
Madame Joseph had a certain matronly dignity, which she displayed as she opened the windows and explained the music of a piano, which was Mademoiselle Amélie's.
"We had it brought into the apartment," she said, "because we never leave it now, on account of the bric-à-brac."