“Who would ever imagine, now, that the place was full of police?” observed the butter dealer.

“Oh! they’re in the garret at the top,” said the old maid.  “They’ve left the window open, you see, just as they found it.  Look!  I think I can see one of them hiding behind the pomegranate on the balcony.”

The others excitedly craned out their necks, but could see nothing.

“Ah, no, it’s only a shadow,” continued Mademoiselle Saget.  “The little curtains even are perfectly still.  The detectives must be sitting down in the room, and keeping quiet.”

Just at that moment the women caught sight of Gavard coming out of the fish market with a thoughtful air.  They looked at him with glistening eyes, without speaking.  They had drawn close to one another, and stood there rigid in their drooping skirts.  The poultry dealer came up to them.

“Have you seen Florent go by?” he asked.

They replied that they had not.

“I want to speak to him at once,” continued Gavard.  “He isn’t in the fish market.  He must have gone up to his room.  But you would have seen him, though, if he had.”

The women had turned rather pale.  They still kept looking at each other with a knowing expression, their lips twitching slightly every now and then.  “We have only been here some five minutes, said Madame Lecoeur unblushingly, as her brother-in-law still stood hesitating.

“Well, then, I’ll go upstairs and see.  I’ll risk the five flights,” rejoined Gavard with a laugh.

La Sarriette stepped forward as though she wished to detain him, but her aunt took hold of her arm and drew her back.

“Let him alone, you big simpleton!” she whispered.  “It’s the best thing that can happen to him.  It’ll teach him to treat us with respect in future.”

“He won’t say again that I ate tainted meat,” muttered Mademoiselle Saget in a low tone.

They said nothing more.  La Sarriette was very red; but the two others still remained quite yellow.  But they now averted their heads, feeling confused by each other’s looks, and at a loss what to do with their hands, which they buried beneath their aprons.  Presently their eyes instinctively came back to the house, penetrating the walls, as it were, following Gavard in his progress up the stairs.  When they imagined that he had entered Florent’s room they again exchanged furtive glances.  La Sarriette laughed nervously.  All at once they fancied they could see the window curtains moving, and this led them to believe that a struggle was taking place.  But the house-front remained as tranquil as ever in the sunshine; and another quarter of an hour of unbroken quietness passed away, during which the three women’s nervous excitement became more and more intense.  They were beginning to feel quite faint when a man hurriedly came out of the passage and ran off to get a cab.  Five minutes later Gavard appeared, followed by two police officers.  Lisa, who had stepped out on to the footway on observing the cab, hastily hurried back into the shop.