"Monsieur Bahuchet."
At a sign from her mistress she admitted the little man, who confounded himself in reverences to Mademoiselle de Mongarcin.
"Here you are at last, monsieur! that is most fortunate!" cried Valentine; "it seems that it is very difficult to have speech with you.—Stay, Miretta, stay; I have no secrets from you, as you know.—When you go out for an hour, monsieur le clerc, does it mean that you will not return during the day?"
"A thousand pardons, mademoiselle!" replied Bahuchet, trying to assume a graceful attitude; "most certainly, if I had known, if I had been able to guess, that mademoiselle wished to speak with me, I would have returned to the office much sooner; and yet, mademoiselle, I am very excusable this time. I did not pass my time, as I often do, watching the open-air exhibitions of Turlupin and Gauthier-Garguille, or Brioché's Marionettes. No, indeed! The news was too interesting to-day; it had to do with so serious an event, accompanied by such mysterious circumstances, that—I give you my word, mademoiselle—the least inquisitive man could not have resisted the desire to see what I saw."
"Some new amourette, I suppose? some nocturnal rendezvous that you surprised?"
"No, mademoiselle; this is no question of amourettes, but of a murder committed last night. When I say last night, I am wrong; it was perhaps a fortnight ago, perhaps longer; but the victim was not discovered until last night."
"A murder! and you witnessed it?"
"No, thank God! When I say thank God, I do not mean that I am not very curious to know how it came about. But, no, although I am very brave, there are things that make one shudder simply to think of them!"
"Come, monsieur, pray explain to us what you have learned that is so shocking?"
"Mademoiselle, I had been as far as the corner of Rue Barbette on business for the office; I was about to return to Maître Bourdinard's, planning, I admit, to go by way of Pont-Neuf, for I know no more attractive, more diverting spot for the curious observer. It is the rendezvous of the whole city! Who does not cross Pont-Neuf? One sees there at the same moment, soldiers, bourgeois, priests, students, abbés, courtiers, pages, peasants, and women!"