“Ah!  I did not lie, sir.  When dinner was over, I had lost my consciousness, and I did not get wide awake again till noon on the next day.  Chevassat had the whole night and next morning.”

Then, as a suspicion suddenly flashed through Crochard’s mind, he exclaimed,—­

“Ah, the brigand!  Why did he urge me never to write to him otherwise than ’to be called for’?”

The magistrate had turned to his clerk.

“Go down,” he said, “and see if any of the merchants in town have a Paris Directory.”

The clerk went off like an arrow, and appeared promptly back again with the volume in question.  The magistrate hastened to look up the address given by the prisoner, and found it entered thus:  “Langlois, sumptuous apartments for families and single persons.  Superior attendance.”

“I was almost sure of it,” he said to himself.

Then handing Daniel the paper on which the words “University” and “Street” could be deciphered, he asked,—­

“Do you know that handwriting, M. Champcey?”

Too full of the lawyer’s shrewd surmises to express any surprise, Daniel looked at the words, and said coolly,—­

“That is Maxime de Brevan’s handwriting.”

A rush of blood colored instantly the pale face of Crochard.  He was furious at the idea of having been duped by his accomplice, by the instigator of the crime he had committed, and for which he would probably never have received the promised reward.

“Ah, the brigand!” he exclaimed.  “And I, who was very near not denouncing him at all!”

A slight smile passed over the lawyer’s face.  His end had been attained.  He had foreseen this wrath on the part of the prisoner; he had prepared it carefully, and caused it to break out fully; for he knew it would bring him full light on the whole subject.

“To cheat me, me!” Crochard went on with extraordinary vehemence,—­“to cheat a friend, an old comrade!  Ah the rascal!  But he sha’n’t go to paradise, if I can help it!  Let them cut my throat, I don’t mind it; I shall be quite content even, provided I see his throat cut first.”

“He has not even been arrested yet.”

“But nothing is easier than to catch him, sir.  He must be uneasy at not hearing from me; and I am sure he is going every day to the post-office to inquire if there are no letters yet for M. X. O. X. 88.  I can write to him.  Do you want me to write to him?  I can tell him that I have once more missed it, and that I have been caught even, but that the police have found out nothing, and that they have set me free again.  I am sure, after that, the scamp will keep quiet; and the police will have nothing to do but to take the omnibus, and arrest him at his lodgings.”

The magistrate had allowed the prisoner to give free vent to his fury, knowing full well by experience how intensely criminals hate those of their accomplices by whom they find themselves betrayed.  And he was in hopes that the rage of this man might suggest a new idea, or furnish him with new facts.  When he saw he was not likely to gain much, he said,—­