As a foretaste of the fulfilment of this promise, the company disposed of a second bottle of liqueur, and, becoming excited, they chattered at random for some time, but at length slowly dispersed, and the street relapsed into the silence of night.  But, a few hours later, the inhabitants were surprised to see the two ends occupied by unknown people, while other sinister-looking persons patrolled it all night, as if keeping guard.  The next morning a carriage escorted by police stopped at the widow Masson’s door.  An officer of police got out and entered a neighbouring house, whence he emerged a quarter of an hour later with Monsieur de Lamotte leaning on his arm.  The officer demanded the key of the cellar which last December had been hired from the widow Masson by a person named Ducoudray, and went down to it with Monsieur de Lamotte and one of his subordinates.

The carriage standing at the door, the presence of the commissioner Mutel, the chatter of the previous evening, had naturally roused everybody’s imagination.  But this excitement had to be kept for home use:  the whole street was under arrest, and its inhabitants were forbidden to leave their houses.  The windows, crammed with anxious faces, questioning each other, in the expectation of something wonderful, were a curious sight; and the ignorance in which they remained, these mysterious preparations, these orders silently executed, doubled the curiosity, and added a sort of terror:  no one could see the persons who had accompanied the police officer; three men remained in the carriage, one guarded by the two others.  When the heavy coach turned into the rue de la Mortellerie, this man had bent towards the closed window and asked—­

“Where are we?”

And when they answered him, he said—­

“I do not know this street; I was never in it.”

After saying this quite quietly, he asked—­

“Why am I brought here?”

As no one replied, he resumed his look of indifference, and betrayed no emotion, neither when the carriage stopped nor when he saw Monsieur de Lamotte enter the widow Masson’s house.

The officer reappeared on the threshold, and ordered Derues to be brought in.

The previous evening, detectives, mingling with the crowd, had listened to the hawker’s story of having met Derues near the Louvre escorting a large chest.  The police magistrate was informed in the course of the evening.  It was an indication, a ray of light, perhaps the actual truth, detached from obscurity by chance gossip; and measures were instantly taken to prevent anyone either entering or leaving the street without being followed and examined.  Mutel thought he was on the track, but the criminal might have accomplices also on the watch, who, warned in time, might be able to remove the proofs of the crime, if any existed.