“Very well,” replied Lecoq, “I will take you for the morning, only I ought to warn you that we are starting on a long journey.”

“Oh, Cocotte’s legs may be relied upon.”

“My companion and myself have business in your own neighborhood.  It is absolutely necessary for us to find the Widow Chupin’s daughter-in-law; and I hope we shall be able to obtain her address from the police commissary of the district where the Poivriere is situated.”

“Very well, we will go wherever you wish; I am at your orders.”

A few moments later they were on their way.

Papillon’s features wore an air of self-satisfied pride as, sitting erect on his box, he cracked his whip, and encouraged the nimble Cocotte.  The vehicle could not have got over the ground more rapidly if its driver had been promised a hundred sous’ gratuity.

Father Absinthe alone was sad.  He had been forgiven by Lecoq, but he could not forget that he, an old police agent, had been duped as easily as if he had been some ignorant provincial.  The thought was humiliating, and then in addition he had been fool enough to reveal the secret plans of the prosecution!  He knew but too well that this act of folly had doubled the difficulties of Lecoq’s task.

The long drive in Father Papillon’s cab was not a fruitless one.  The secretary of the commissary of police for the thirteenth arrondissement informed Lecoq that Polyte Chupin’s wife lived with her child, in the suburbs, in the Rue de la Butte-aux-Cailles.  He could not indicate the precise number, but he described the house and gave them some information concerning its occupants.

The Widow Chupin’s daughter-in-law, a native of Auvergne, had been bitterly punished for preferring a rakish Parisian ragamuffin to one of the grimy charcoal-burners of the Puy de Dome.  She was hardly more than twelve years of age when she first came to Paris and obtained employment in a large factory.  After ten years’ privation and constant toil, she had managed to amass, sou by sou, the sum of three thousand francs.  Then her evil genius threw Polyte Chupin across her path.  She fell in love with this dissipated, selfish rascal; and he married her for the sake of her little hoard.

As long as the money lasted, that is, for some three or four months, matters went on pleasantly enough.  But as soon as the last franc had been spent, Polyte left his wife, and complacently resumed his former life of idleness, thieving, and debauchery.  When at times he returned home, it was merely with the view of robbing his wife of what little money she might have saved in the mean while; and periodically she uncomplainingly allowed him to despoil her of the last penny of her earnings.

Horrible to relate, this unworthy rascal even tried to trade on her good looks.  Here, however, he met with a strenuous resistance—­a resistance which excited not merely his own ire, but also the hatred of the villain’s mother—­that old hag, the Widow Chupin.  The result was that Polyte’s wife was subjected to such incessant cruelty and persecution that one night she was forced to fly with only the rags that covered her.  The Chupins—­mother and son—­believed, perhaps, that starvation would effect what their horrible threats and insidious counsel had failed to accomplish.  Their shameful expectations were not, however, gratified.