“In which case, no doubt,” I retorted with suave urbanity, “the police will search my rooms where I lodge, and they will find the receipt from the Mont de Piete, which I had mislaid.  And then the gossip will be all over Paris that Mme. la Marquise de Firmin-Latour had to pawn her jewels in order to satisfy the exigencies of her first and only lawful husband who has since mysteriously disappeared; and some people will vow that he never came back from the Antipodes, whilst others—­by far the most numerous—­will shrug their shoulders and sigh:  ’One never knows!’ which will be exceedingly unpleasant for Mme. la Marquise.”

Both M. Mauruss Mosenstein and the juge d’instruc-tion said a great deal more that afternoon.  I may say that their attitude towards me and the language that they used were positively scandalous.  But I had become now the master of the situation and I could afford to ignore their insults.  In the end everything was settled quite amicably.  I agreed to dispose of the receipt from the Mont de Piete to M. Mauruss Mosenstein for the sum of two hundred francs, and for another hundred I would indicate to him the banking house where his precious son-in-law had deposited the half-million francs obtained for the emeralds.  This latter information I would indeed have offered him gratuitously had he but known with what immense pleasure I thus put a spoke in that knavish Marquis’s wheel of fortune.

The worthy Israelite further agreed to pay me an annuity of two hundred francs so long as I kept silent upon the entire subject of Mme. la Marquise’s first husband and of M. le Marquis’s role in the mysterious affair of the Rue Daunou.  For thus was the affair classed amongst the police records.  No one outside the chief actors of the drama and M. le Juge d’Instruction ever knew the true history of how a dashing young cavalry officer came to be assaulted and left to starve for three days in the humble apartment of an attorney-at-law of undisputed repute.  And no one outside the private bureau of M. le Juge d’Instruction ever knew what it cost the wealthy M. Mosenstein to have the whole affair “classed” and hushed up.

As for me, I had three hundred francs as payment for work which I had risked my neck and my reputation to accomplish.  Three hundred instead of the hundred thousand which I had so richly deserved:  that, and a paltry two hundred francs a year, which was to cease the moment that as much as a rumour of the whole affair was breathed in public.  As if I could help people talking!

But M. le Marquis did not enjoy the fruits of his villainy, and I had again the satisfaction of seeing him gnaw his finger-nails with rage whenever the lovely Rachel paid for his dinner at fashionable restaurants.  Indeed Papa Mosenstein tightened the strings of his money-bags even more securely than he had done in the past.  Under threats of prosecution for theft and I know not what, he forced his son-in-law to disgorge