Suddenly, in the half dark, his foot struck against something. M. Moche, his sight getting accustomed to the dim light, gazed down at this “something” with haggard eyes—it was the body of a man lying quite still, face downwards on the floor!—the body of the bank collector! At the back of the neck showed a fearful wound.
The thing was beyond a doubt—Paulet had murdered the employé from the Comptoir National.
The unfortunate man’s wallet lay beside him, wide open, and M. Moche could see that its contents had not yet been touched. The bank notes stuck half out of the case, like the contents of a parcel that has been ripped up; you had only to stoop to help yourself. It was plain Paulet and Nini, their victim once dead, had merely shut to the door, without making sure it was fastened, calm and confident in their conviction that nobody in the house, empty at this hour of the day, would come in to surprise them.
The deed once done, they had deemed the most urgent thing was to set to work instantly to cleanse their hands and clothes in order to get rid of the evidences of their guilt at the earliest possible moment. The corpse lay absolutely motionless. Not a doubt the bank employé had been killed outright with one blow.
During the few seconds M. Moche stood hesitating before the ghastly sight, he could still hear the two accomplices minutely discussing the details of their cleansing operations. But there was something else that, even more than his curiosity to overhear what they were saying, held the old advocate’s attention—to wit, the bank notes that overflowed the wallet, that were all but out of their receptacle, that seemed to be actually offering themselves to whosoever cared to appropriate them.
It was a strong temptation—and M. Moche did not resist it!
Creeping like a cat, hiding in the semi-darkness of the little passage, with a thousand precautions, he advanced step by step; he reached out his hairy hand, his fingers shook as they touched the brass fittings of the open wallet; then his hand fell on the bundle of notes. Suddenly he sprang back in alarm—Paulet and Nini had stopped talking. Had they heard him?
But presently the same excited conversation began again. Whereupon M. Moche, with an ugly smile on his face, crept down again to his own floor, bolted his door and counted his spoils. Yes, it was a fine stroke of business; not only did he recover his own ten thousand-franc notes, but with them were ten others of the same denomination!
“Ha, ha! Money well invested and that brings in cent. per cent. on the nail, or I don’t know what I’m talking about!” M. Moche muttered in delight, his eyes sparkling with greed.
But next moment, the old man turned ghastly pale. The front-door bell had rung! Instinctively, M. Moche crammed into his pocket the notes he had just stolen so audaciously, and with the aplomb of a hardened thief.