“Not a bit.  I do not know whether the old man was sharp enough to read in the expression of my features that I had not the smallest hope of success; be that as it may, he could give me no further information that day, declaring that he came in only to consult me, and that everything must be done in a most confidential way.  I hastened to assure him that my office was a perfect tomb of secrets.  He told me that he took that for granted.  Then telling me that he wished me to draw up a precis of my intended course, he took out a note for five hundred francs, which he handed to me for my time.  I refused to take it, though it cost me a struggle to do so, for I thought that I should make more out of him later on.  But he insisted on my taking it, saying that he would see me again soon, and that Catenac would communicate with me.  He left me less interested in the search than in who this old man could possibly be.”

Tantaine felt that Perpignan was telling the truth.

“Did you not try and find out that?” asked he.

Perpignan hesitated; but feeling convinced that there was no loophole for escape, he answered, “Hardly had my visitor left than, slipping on a cap and a workman’s blouse, I followed him in his track, and saw him enter one of the finest houses in the Rue de Varennes.”

“He lived there then?”

“He did, and he was a very well-known man—­the Duke de Champdoce.”

“Yes, I know all that,” answered Tantaine, placidly, “but I can’t, for the life of me, imagine the connection between the Duke and Caroline Schimmel.”

Perpignan raised his eyebrows.

“Why did you put a man to watch her?” asked Tantaine.

“My reasons for doing so were most simple.  I made every inquiry regarding the Duke; learned that he was very wealthy, and lived a very steady life.  He is married, and loves his wife dearly.  They had one son, whom they lost a year ago, and have never recovered from the shock.  I imagine that this Duke, having lost his legitimate heir, wished me to find his other son.  Do you not think that I am right?”

“There is something in it; but, after all, you have not explained your reasons for watching Caroline.”

Perpignan was no match for Mascarin’s right-hand man, but he was keen enough to discern that Tantaine was putting a string of questions to him which had been prepared in advance.  This he, however, was powerless to resent.

“As you may believe,” said he, “I made every inquiry into the past as well as the present of the Duke, and also tried to discover who was the mother of the child, but in this I entirely failed.”

“What! not with all your means?” cried Tantaine, with a sneer.

“Laugh at me as much as you like; but out of the thirty servants in the Champdoce establishment, not one has been there more than ten years.  Nor could I anywhere lay my hands upon one who had been in the Duke’s service in his youth.  Once, however, as I was in the wineshop in the Rue de Varennes, I quite by chance heard allusion made to a woman who had been in the service of the Duke twenty-five years ago, and who was now in receipt of a small allowance from him.  This woman was Caroline Schimmel.  I easily found out her address, and set a watch on her.”