The ex-cook uttered an oath. “Then you too are watching Caroline,” said he. “I knew well that there was some one else in the field, but that was no matter of mine.” “Well, tell me why you are watching her?” “How can you ask me? You know that my motto is silence and discretion, and that this is a secret intrusted to my honor.” Tantaine shrugged his shoulders. “Why do you talk like that, when you know very well that you are following Ambrose on your own account, hoping by that means to penetrate a secret, only a small portion of which has been intrusted to you?” remarked he. “Are you certain of this statement?” asked the man, with a cunning look. “So sure that I can tell you that the matter was placed in your hands by a certain M. Catenac.” The expression in Perpignan’s face changed from astonishment to fear. “Why, this Mascarin knows everything,” muttered he. “No,” replied Tantaine, “my master does not know everything, and the proof of this is, that I have come to ask you what occurred between Catenac’s client and yourself, and this is the service that we expect from you.” “Well, if I must, I must. About three weeks ago, one morning, I had just finished with half a dozen clients at my office in the Rue de Fame, when my servant brought me Catenac’s card. After some talk, he asked me if I could find out a person that he had utterly lost sight of. Of course I said, yes, I could. Upon this he asked me to make an appointment for ten the next morning, when some one would call on me regarding the affair. At the appointed time a shabbily dressed man was shown in. I looked at him up and down, and saw that, in spite of his greasy hat and threadbare coat, his linen was of the finest kind, and that his shoes were the work of one of our best bootmakers. ‘Aha,’ said I to myself, ‘you thought to take me in, did you!’ I handed him a chair, and he at once proceeded to let me into his reasons for coming. ‘Sir,’ said he, ‘my life has not been a very happy one, and once I was compelled to take to the Foundling Asylum a child that I loved very dearly, the son of a woman whom I adored. She is dead now, and I am old and solitary. I have a small property, and would give half of it to recover the child. Tell me, is there any chance of my doing so?’ You must imagine, my dear sir,” continued he, after a slight pause, “that I was much interested in this story, for I said to myself, that the man’s fortune must be a very small one if half of it would not amply repay me for making a journey to the Foundling Hospital. So I agreed to undertake the business, but the old fellow was too sharp for me. ‘Stop a bit, and let me finish,’ said he, ‘and you will see that your task will not be so easy as you seem to think it.’ I, of course, bragged of my enormous sources of information, and the probability of ultimate success.” “Keep to your story,” said Tantaine impatiently, “I know all about that.”