“That was pretty plucky,” said Cerizet; the tale excited him, and he showed openly that he saw the matter as an artist and a connoisseur.

“In that interval,” continued du Portail, “Madame Beaumesnil died, leaving her daughter a few fragments of a once great fortune, and the diamonds which the will expressly stated Lydie was to receive ’in case they were recovered.’”

“Ha! ha!” exclaimed Cerizet, “bad for Toupillier, because, having to do with a man of your calibre—­”

“Charles Crochard’s first object on being liberated was vengeance on Toupillier, and his first step was to denounce him to the police as receiver of the stolen property.  Taken in hand by the law, Toupillier defended himself with such singular good-humor, being able to show that no proof whatever existed against him, that the examining judge let him off.  He lost his place, however, as giver of holy water, obtaining, with great difficulty, permission to beg at the door of the church.  For my part, I was certain of his guilt; and I managed to have the closest watch kept upon him; though I relied far more upon myself.  Being a man of means and leisure, I stuck, as you may say, to the skin of my thief, and did, in order to unmask him, one of the cleverest things of my career.  He was living at that time in the rue du Coeur-Volant.  I succeeded in becoming the tenant of the room adjoining his; and one night, through a gimlet hole I had drilled in the partition, I saw my man take the case of diamonds from a very cleverly contrived hiding-place.  He sat for an hour gazing at them and fondling them; he made them sparkle in the light, he pressed them passionately to his lips.  The man actually loved those diamonds for themselves, and had never thought of turning them to money.”

“I understand,” said Cerizet,—­“a mania like that of Cardillac, the jeweller, which has now been dramatized.”

“That is just it,” returned du Portail; “the poor wretch was in love with that casket; so that when, shortly after, I entered his room and told him I knew all, he proposed to me to leave him the life use of what he called the consolation of his old age, pledging himself to make Mademoiselle de la Peyrade his sole heir, revealing to me at the same time the existence of a hoard of gold (to which he was adding every day), and also the possession of a house and an investment in the Funds.”

“If he made that proposal in good faith,” said Cerizet, “it was a desirable one.  The interest of the capital sunk in the diamonds was more than returned by that from the other property.”

“You now see, my dear sir,” said du Portail, “that I was not mistaken in trusting him.  All my precautions were well taken; I exacted that he should occupy a room in the house I lived in, where I could keep a close eye upon him.  I assisted him in making that hiding-place, the secret of which you discovered so cleverly; but what you did not find out was that in touching the spring that opened the iron safe you rang a bell in my apartment, which warned me of any attempt that was made to remove our treasure.”