About two hours after this I was sauntering along in the direction of Stoke-Newington, where I was desirous of making some inquiries as to another matter, and had passed the Kingslaw Gate a few hundred yards, when a small discolored printed handbill, lying in a haberdasher’s shop window, arrested my attention. It ran thus:—“Two guineas reward.—Lost, an Italian greyhound. The tip of its tail has been chopped off, and it answers to the name of Fidèle.” Underneath, the reader was told in writing to “inquire within.”
“Fidèle!” I mentally exclaimed. “Any relation to M. le Breton’s fair correspondent’s Fidèle, I wonder?” In a twinkling my pocket-book was out, and I reperused by the gas-light on one of the perfumed scraps of paper the following portion of a sentence, “ma pauvre Fidèle est per”——. The bill, I observed, was dated nearly three weeks previously. I forthwith entered the shop, and pointing to the bill, said I knew a person who had found such a dog as was there advertised for. The woman at the counter said she was glad to hear it, as the lady, formerly a customer of theirs, was much grieved at the animal’s loss.
“What is the lady’s name?” I asked.
“I can’t rightly pronounce the name,” was the reply. “It is French, I believe; but here it is, with the address, in the day-book, written by herself.”
I eagerly read—“Madame Levasseur, Oak Cottage; about one mile on the road from Edmonton to Southgate.” The hand-writing greatly resembled that on the scraps I had taken from M. le Breton’s desk; and the writer was French too! Here were indications of a trail which might lead to unhoped-for success, and I determined to follow it up vigorously. After one or two other questions, I left the shop, promising to send the dog to the lady the next day. My business at Stoke-Newington was soon accomplished. I then hastened westward to the establishment of a well-known dog-fancier, and procured the loan, at a reasonable price, of an ugly Italian hound: the requisite loss of the tip of its tail was very speedily accomplished, and so quickly healed, that the newness of the excision could not be suspected. I arrived at the lady’s residence about twelve o’clock on the following day, so thoroughly disguised as a vagabond Cockney dog-stealer, that my own wife, when I entered the breakfast parlor just previous to starting, screamed with alarm and surprise. The mistress of Oak Cottage was at home, but indisposed, and the servant said she would take the dog to her, though, if I would take it out of the basket, she herself could tell me if it was Fidèle or not. I replied that I would only show the dog to the lady, and would not trust it out of my hands. This message was carried up stairs, and after waiting some time outside—for the woman, with natural precaution, considering my appearance, for the safety of the portable articles lying about, had closed the street-door in my face—I was readmitted, desired to wipe my shoes carefully, and walk up. Madame Levasseur, a showy looking woman, though not over-refined in speech or manners, was seated on a sofa, in vehement expectation of embracing her dear Fidèle; but my vagabond appearance so startled her, that she screamed loudly for her husband, M. Levasseur. This gentleman, a fine, tall, whiskered, moustached person, hastened into the apartment half-shaved, and with his razor in his hand.
“Qu’est ce qu’il y a donc?” he demanded.
“Mais voyez cette horreur là,” replied the lady, meaning me, not the dog, which I was slowly emancipating from the basket-kennel. The gentleman laughed; and reassured by the presence of her husband, Madame Levasseur’s anxieties concentrated themselves upon the expected Fidèle.
“Mais, mon Dieu!” she exclaimed again as I displayed the aged beauty I had brought for her inspection, “why, that is not Fidèle!”
“Not, marm?” I answered, with quite innocent surprise. “Vy, ere is her wery tail;” and I held up the mutilated extremity for her closer inspection. The lady was not, however, to be convinced even by that evidence; and as the gentleman soon became impatient of my persistence, and hinted very intelligibly that he had a mind to hasten my passage down stairs with the toe of his boot, I, having made the best possible use of my eyes during the short interview, scrambled up the dog and basket, and departed.
“No female relative or acquaintance hasn’t he?” was my exulting thought as I gained the road. “And yet if that is not M. le Breton’s picture between those of the husband and wife, I am a booby, and a blind one.” I no longer in the least doubted that I had struck a brilliant trail; and I could have shouted with exultation, so eager was I not only to retrieve my, as I fancied, somewhat tarnished reputation for activity and skill, but to extricate the plundered firm from their terrible difficulties; the more especially as young M. Bellebon, with the frankness of his age and nation, had hinted to me—and the suddenly tremulous light of his fine expressive eyes testified to the acuteness of his apprehensions—that his marriage with a long-loved and amiable girl depended upon his success in saving the credit of his house.