“Why,” exclaimed the innkeeper’s wife, “that is what the Cointets are supposed to have, who robbed him of his invention, and he does not get more than twenty thousand francs out of them. Where do you suppose such honest folks would find millions? They were very much pinched while the father was alive. But for Kolb, their manager, and Madame Kolb, who is as much attached to them as her husband, they could scarcely have lived. Why, how much had they with La Verberie!--A thousand francs a year perhaps.” Corentin drew Derville aside and said: “In vino veritas! Truth lives under a cork. For my part, I regard an inn as the real registry office of the countryside; the notary is not better informed than the innkeeper as to all that goes on in a small neighborhood.--You see! we are supposed to know all about the Cointets and Kolb and the rest. “Your innkeeper is the living record of every incident; he does the work of the police without suspecting it. A government should maintain two hundred spies at most, for in a country like France there are ten millions of simple-minded informers.--However, we need not trust to this report; though even in this little town something would be known about the twelve hundred thousand francs sunk in paying for the Rubempre estate. We will not stop here long----” “I hope not!” Derville put in. “And this is why,” added Corentin; “I have hit on the most natural way of extracting the truth from the mouth of the Sechard couple. I rely upon you to support, by your authority as a lawyer, the little trick I shall employ to enable you to hear a clear and complete account of their affairs.--After dinner we shall set out to call on Monsieur Sechard,” said Corentin to the innkeeper’s wife. “Have beds ready for us, we want separate rooms. There can be no difficulty ‘under the stars.’” “Oh, monsieur,” said the woman, “we invented the sign.” “The pun is to be found in every department,” said Corentin; “it is no monopoly of yours.” “Dinner is served, gentlemen,” said the innkeeper. “But where the devil can that young fellow have found the money? Is the anonymous writer accurate? Can it be the earnings of some handsome baggage?” said Derville, as they sat down to dinner. “Ah, that will be the subject of another inquiry,” said Corentin. “Lucien de Rubempre, as the Duc de Chaulieu tells me, lives with a converted Jewess, who passes for a Dutch woman, and is called Esther van Bogseck.” “What a strange coincidence!” said the lawyer. “I am hunting for the heiress of a Dutchman named Gobseck--it is the same name with a transposition of consonants.” “Well,” said Corentin, “you shall have information as to her parentage on my return to Paris.” An hour later, the two agents for the Grandlieu family set out for La Verberie, where Monsieur and Madame Sechard were living.