About half-past two o’clock in the afternoon, Auguste, who went himself as far as the Champs Elysees, sent the package from there by a street messenger to Doctor Halpersohn’s house; then he walked slowly homeward by the pont de Jena, the Invalides, and the boulevards, relying on Halpersohn’s generosity.

The Polish doctor had meanwhile discovered the theft, and he instantly changed his opinion of his clients.  He now thought the old man had come to rob him, and being unable to succeed, had sent the boy.  He doubted the rank they had claimed, and went straight to the police-office where he lodged a complaint, requesting that the lad might be arrested at once.

The prudence with which the law proceeds seldom allows it to move as rapidly as complainants desire; but about three o’clock of that day a commissary of police, accompanied by agents who kept watch outside the house, was questioning Madame Vauthier as to her lodgers, and the widow was increasing, without being aware of it, the suspicions of the policeman.

When Nepomucene saw the police agents stationed outside the house, he thought they had come to arrest the old man, and as he was fond of Monsieur Auguste, he rushed to meet Monsieur Bernard, whom he now saw on his way home in the avenue de l’Observatoire.

“Hide yourself, monsieur!” he cried, “the police have come to arrest you.  The sheriff was here yesterday and seized everything.  Madame Vauthier didn’t give you the stamped papers, and she says you’ll be in Clichy to-night or to-morrow.  There, don’t you see those policemen?”

Baron Bourlac immediately resolved to go straight to Barbet.  The former publisher lived in the rue Saint-Catherine d’Enfer, and it took him a quarter of an hour to reach the house.

“Ah!  I suppose you have come to get that bill of sale,” said Barbet, replying to the salutation of his victim.  “Here it is.”

And, to Baron Bourlac’s great astonishment, he held out the document, which the baron took, saying,—­

“I do not understand.”

“Didn’t you pay me?” said the usurer.

“Are you paid?”

“Yes, your grandson took the money to the sheriff this morning.”

“Then it is true you made a seizure at my house yesterday?”

“Haven’t you been home for two days?” asked Barbet.  “But an old magistrate ought to know what a notification of arrest means.”

Hearing that remark, the baron bowed coldly to Barbet and returned home, thinking that the policemen whom Nepomucene had pointed out must have come for the two impecunious authors on the upper floor.  He walked slowly, lost in vague apprehensions; for, in spite of the explanation he gave himself, Nepomucene’s words came back, and seemed to him more and more obscure and inexplicable.  Was it possible that Godefroid had betrayed him?

XIX

VENGEANCE

The old man walked mechanically along the rue Notre-Dame des Champs, and entered the house by the little door, which he noticed was open.  There he came suddenly upon Nepomucene.