“There has been no change since I last wrote to him.  Give him my compliments, and tell him that I am out again.”

The servant bowed.  Lecoq took a seat beside the magistrate and the cab started off.

“That fellow is one of D’Escorval’s servants,” remarked M. Segmuller.  “He’s richer than I, and can well afford to keep a footman.”

“D’Escorval’s,” ejaculated Lecoq, “the magistrate who—­”

“Precisely.  He sent his man to me two or three days ago to ascertain what we were doing with our mysterious May.”

“Then M. d’Escorval is interested in the case?”

“Prodigiously!  I conclude it is because he opened the prosecution, and because the case rightfully belongs to him.  Perhaps he regrets that it passed out of his hands, and thinks that he could have managed the investigation better himself.  We would have done better with it if we could.  I would give a good deal to see him in my place.”

But this change would not have been at all to Lecoq’s taste.  “Ah,” thought he, “such a fellow as D’Escorval would never have shown me such confidence as M. Segmuller.”  He had, indeed, good reason to congratulate himself:  for that very day M. Segmuller, who was a man of his word, a man who never rested until he had carried his plan into execution, actually induced the authorities to allow May to be set at liberty; and the details of this measure only remained to be decided upon.  As regards the proposed transfer of the suspected murderer to another prison, this was immediately carried into effect, and May was removed to Mazas, where Lecoq had no fear of Gevrol’s interference.

That same afternoon, moreover, the Widow Chupin received her conditional release.  There was no difficulty as regards her son, Polyte.  He had, in the mean time, been brought before the correctional court on a charge of theft; and, to his great astonishment, had heard himself sentenced to thirteen months’ imprisonment.  After this, M. Segmuller had nothing to do but to wait, and this was the easier as the advent of the Easter holidays gave him an opportunity to seek a little rest and recreation with his family in the provinces.

On the day he returned to Paris—­the last of the recess, and by chance a Sunday—­he was sitting alone in his library when his cook came to tell him that there was a man in the vestibule who had been sent from a neighboring register office to take the place of a servant he had recently dismissed.  The newcomer was ushered into the magistrate’s presence and proved to be a man of forty or thereabouts, very red in the face and with carroty hair and whiskers.  He was, moreover, strongly inclined to corpulence, and was clad in clumsy, ill-fitting garments.  In a complacent tone, and with a strong Norman accent, he informed the magistrate that during the past twenty years he had been in the employment of various literary men, as well as of a physician, and notary; that he was familiar with the duties that would be required of him at the Palais de Justice, and that he knew how to dust papers without disarranging them.  In short, he produced such a favorable impression that, although M. Segmuller reserved twenty-four hours in which to make further inquiries, he drew a twenty-franc piece from his pocket on the spot and tendered it to the Norman valet as the first instalment of his wages.