“Parbleu! with plenty of blunt you can get whatever you want; the peasants are as fond of money as city folk! I should say, more so.”
“Tell me what you have done.”
“I easily found the widow Tourniquoi’s house; and there I recognized the Jacqueline I saw yesterday; the little boy was playing in the yard.”
“Well?”
“I presented myself in my best clothes; a fine outside inspires more confidence.”
“You did well.”
“And yet, when I told that woman that I came from the Baronne de Mortagne, who wanted her to bring her son to her, she wouldn’t believe me; she was suspicious. But the three hundred francs in gold soon scattered all her doubts. When I told her further that the baroness would pay her in full for all the time she had kept the child, and that at three hundred and sixty francs a year for eight years she’d get near three thousand francs—Gad! then it was not joy, it was delirium!—I told her that she must go to Dieppe right away with young Emile. She would have started for China to get her three thousand francs! I gave her the address that you gave me, and she began to pack up at once.”
“To-night, on the eight o’clock train. She goes to Paris, and from there to Dieppe at the double quick; she’ll be there to-morrow.”
“That is good—very good! Now my mind is at rest in that direction.”