“Good old Caesar!  There, there!” murmured Coquenil, fondling the eager head.  “It’s all right, Bonneton,” and coming forward, he held out his hand as the guardian lifted his lantern in suspicious scrutiny.

“M.  Paul, upon my soul!” exclaimed the sacristan.  “What are you doing here at this hour?”

“It’s a little—­er—­personal matter,” coughed Coquenil discreetly, “partly about Caesar.  Can we sit down somewhere?”

Still wondering, Bonneton led the way to a small room adjoining the treasure chamber, where a dim lamp was burning; here he and his associates got alternate snatches of sleep during the night.

“Hey, Francois!” He shook a sleeping figure on a cot bed, and the latter roused himself and sat up.  “It’s time to make the round.”

Francois looked stupidly at Coquenil and then, with a yawn and a shrug of indifference, he called to the dog, while Caesar growled his reluctance.

“It’s all right, old fellow,” encouraged Coquenil, “I’ll see you again,” whereupon Caesar trotted away reassured.

“Take this chair,” said the sacristan.  “I’ll sit on the bed.  We don’t have many visitors.”

“Now, then,” began M. Paul.  “I’ll come to the dog in a minute—­don’t worry.  I’m not going to take him away.  But first I want to ask about that girl who sells candles.  She boards with you, doesn’t she?”

“Yes.”

“You know she’s in love with this American who’s in prison?”

“I know.”

“She came to see me the other day.”

“She did?”

“Yes, and the result of her visit was—­well, it has made a lot of trouble.  What I’m going to say is absolutely between ourselves—­you mustn’t tell a soul, least of all your wife.”

“You can trust me, M. Paul,” declared Papa Bonneton rubbing his hands in excitement.

“To begin with, who is the man with the long little finger that she told me about?” He put the questions carelessly, as if it were of no particular moment.

“Why, that’s Groener,” answered Bonneton simply.

“Groener?  Oh, her cousin?”

“Yes.”

“I’m interested,” went on the detective with the same indifferent air, “because I have a collection of plaster hands at my house—­I’ll show it to you some day—­and there’s one with a long little finger that the candle girl noticed.  Is her cousin’s little finger really very long?”

“It’s pretty long,” said Bonneton.  “I used to think it had been stretched in some machine.  You know he’s a wood carver.”

“I know.  Well, that’s neither here nor there.  The point is, this girl had a dream that—­why, what’s the matter?”

“Don’t talk to me about her dreams!” exclaimed the sacristan.  “She used to have us scared to death with ’em.  My wife won’t let her tell ’em any more, and it’s a good thing she won’t.”  For a mild man he spoke with surprising vehemence.

“Bonneton,” continued the detective mysteriously, “I don’t know whether it’s from her dreams or in some other way, but that girl knows things that—­that she has no business to know.”