Though Fandor could obtain a sufficient supply of air through the openings in the wickerwork, he could not see what was going on: he could only listen with all his ears.
Madame Bourrat accompanied her strange visitors.
"It is here," she exclaimed, "that the journalist, Jérôme Fandor, found my boarder stretched out on the floor.... You see, in this corner, is the gas stove with its tubing! They have forgotten to refix it to the pipe; but there is no danger, the tap is turned off and so is the meter."
The personage who had given out that he was a police inspector, whose voice was probably an assumed one, replied only by monosyllables. Fandor did not recognise his voice. But there was another speaker, who also had very little to say for himself; and Fandor thought he recognised certain tones as belonging to a man who had been much in his thoughts of late.
"Thomery!" thought he. "Is it Thomery?"
But he only knew the sugar refiner by sight, and had heard him speak but once or twice at the ball: that was not enough to go on, for Fandor had not paid special attention to the distinguishing tone and quality of his host's voice. Nevertheless, he could not get out of his head the idea that the celebrated sugar refiner, honoured by all Paris, esteemed by everybody, was standing only a step or two away from him now in this house of strange happenings, and under very peculiar circumstances. "Was he a burglar—an assassin? One of a nefarious band?"
For Fandor was now convinced that these were not police emissaries bearing a legal mandate to search and distrain: no, they were robbers, criminals! He was preparing to rise from his hiding place and appear before the bandits: he would fire a few shots and make the deuce of a row and rouse the neighbourhood. He would also save poor Madame Bourrat, who was certainly not their accomplice. Just then he heard the pretended police inspector say:
"Will you provide us with writing materials, madame? We must write an official report."
"Why, certainly, monsieur," replied Madame Bourrat. "I will go downstairs and get what you require."
Fandor heard her leave the room. No sooner had she gone than a hurried conversation began in low tones. Clearly Jules was guilty, for the pretended police inspector asked: