He was about to shuffle off again when Tournefort broke in roughly: 

“None of that nonsense, Grosjean!  Where are the aristos?”

“The aristos, citizen?” queried Grosjean, and nothing could have looked more utterly, more ludicrously bewildered than did the old concierge at this moment.  “What aristos?”

“Bertin and Madame la Comtesse,” retorted Tournefort gruffly.  “I heard them talking.”

“You have been dreaming, citizen Tournefort,” the old man said, with a husky little laugh.  “Sit down, and let me get you some coffee—­”

“Don’t try and hoodwink me, Grosjean!” Tournefort cried now in a sudden access of rage.  “I tell you that I saw the light.  I heard the aristos talking.  There was a man named Bertin, and a woman he called ’Madame la Comtesse,’ and I say that some devilish royalist plot is being hatched here, and that you, Grosjean, will suffer for it if you try and shield those aristos.”

“But, citizen Tournefort,” replied the concierge meekly, “I assure you that I have seen no aristos.  The door of my bedroom was open, and the lamp was by my bedside.  Amelie, too, has only been in bed a few minutes.  You ask her!  There has been no one, I tell you—­no one!  I should have seen and heard them—­the door was open,” he reiterated pathetically.

“We’ll soon see about that!” was Tournefort’s curt comment.

But it was his turn indeed to be utterly bewildered.  He searched—­none too gently—­the squalid little lodge through and through, turned the paltry sticks of furniture over, hauled little Amelie, Grosjean’s granddaughter, out of bed, searched under the mattresses, and even poked his head up the chimney.

Grosjean watched him wholly unperturbed.  These were strange times, and friend Tournefort had obviously gone a little off his head.  The worthy old concierge calmly went on getting the coffee ready.  Only when presently Tournefort, worn out with anger and futile exertion, threw himself, with many an oath, into the one armchair, Grosjean remarked coolly: 

“I tell you what I think it is, citizen.  If you were standing just by the door of the lodge you had the back staircase of the house immediately behind you.  The partition wall is very thin, and there is a disused door just there also.  No doubt the voices came from there.  You see, if there had been any aristos here,” he added naively, “they could not have flown up the chimney, could they?”

That argument was certainly unanswerable.  But Tournefort was out of temper.  He roughly ordered Grosjean to bring the lamp and show him the back staircase and the disused door.  The concierge obeyed without a murmur.  He was not in the least disturbed or frightened by all this blustering.  He was only afraid that getting out of bed had made his cold worse.  But he knew Tournefort of old.  A good fellow, but inclined to be noisy and arrogant since he was in the employ of the Government.  Grosjean took the precaution of putting on his trousers and wrapping an old shawl round his shoulders.  Then he had a final sip of hot coffee; after which he picked up the lamp and guided Tournefort out of the lodge.