"And yesterday were dismissed," he continued easily, disregarding my astonishment. "Well, to-day you shall be reinstated—and rewarded. Your business here, I believe, was to recover her Majesty's dog, and earn the reward?"
I remembered that the wretch whose fingermarks were still on my throat might be within hearing, and I tried to utter a denial.
He waved it aside politely. "Just so," he said. "But I know your mind, better than you do yourself. Well, the dog is in that closet; and on two conditions it is at your service."
Amazed before, I stared at him now, in a stupor of astonishment.
"You are surprised?" he said. "Yet the case is of the simplest. We stole the dog, and now have our reasons for restoring it; but we cannot do so without incurring suspicion. You, on the other hand, who are known to the Bishop, and did not steal it, may safely restore it. I need not say that we divide the reward; that is one of the two conditions."
"And the other?" I stammered.
"That you refresh your memory as to the past," he answered lightly. "If I have the tale rightly, you saw a man convey a dog to this house, an empty house in the Montmartre Faubourg. You watched, and saw the man leave, and followed him; he took the alarm, fled, and dropped in his flight the dog's coat. I think I see it there. On that you hurried with the coat to Monseigneur, and gave him the address of the house, and——"
"And the dog!" I exclaimed.
"No. Let Monseigneur come and find the dog for himself," he answered, smiling. "In the closet."
I felt the blood tingle through all my limbs. "But if he comes, and does not find it?" I cried.