“This moment.  Give me time to change my costume; and I am at your service.  You will have to give me the keys of the house in Passy.”

“I have them here in my pocket.”

“Well, then let us go there at once; for I must, first of all, reconnoitre the ground.  And you shall see if it takes me long to dress.”

In less than fifteen minutes he reappeared in a long overcoat, with gloves on, looking, for all the world, like one of those retired grocers who have made a fortune, and settled somewhere outside of the corporation of Paris, displaying their idleness in broad daylight, and repenting forever that they have given up their occupation.

“Let us go,” he said to the lawyer.

After having bowed to Mrs. Goudar, who accompanied them with a radiant smile, they got into the carriage, calling out to the driver,—­

“Vine Street, Passy, No. 23.”

This Vine Street is a curious street, leading nowhere, little known, and so deserted, that the grass grows everywhere.  It stretches out long and dreary, is hilly, muddy, scarcely paved, and full of holes, and looks much more like a wretched village lane than like a street belonging to Paris.  No shops, only a few homes, but on the right and the left interminable walls, overtopped by lofty trees.

“Ah! the place is well chosen for mysterious rendezvouses,” growled Goudar.  “Too well chosen, I dare say; for we shall pick up no information here.”

The carriage stopped before a small door, in a thick wall, which bore the traces of the two sieges in a number of places.

“Here is No. 23,” said the driver; “but I see no house.”

It could not be seen from the street; but, when they got in, Mr. Folgat and Goudar saw it, rising in the centre of an immense garden, simple and pretty, with a double porch, a slate roof, and newly-painted blinds.

“Great God!” exclaimed the detective, “what a place for a gardener!”

And M. Folgat felt so keenly the man’s ill-concealed desire, that he at once said,—­

“If we save M. de Boiscoran, I am sure he will not keep this house.”

“Let us go in,” cried the detective, in a voice which revealed all his intense desire to succeed.

Unfortunately, Jacques de Boiscoran had spoken but too truly, when he said that no trace was left of former days.  Furniture, carpets, all was new; and Goudar and M. Folgat in vain explored the four rooms down stairs, and the four rooms up stairs, the basement, where the kitchen was, and finally the garret.

“We shall find nothing here,” declared the detective.  “To satisfy my conscience, I shall come and spend an afternoon here; but now we have more important business.  Let us go and see the neighbors!”

There are not many neighbors in Vine Street.

A teacher and a nurseryman, a locksmith and a liveryman, five or six owners of houses, and the inevitable keeper of a wine-shop and restaurant, these were the whole population.