"I should fully agree with you if the bloodhound were faithful, but I fear it is not." "Ah, M. Narcisse, you think--" "I think that, instead of putting us on the track, you amuse yourself with setting us on a false scent, and abuse the confidence placed in you. Every day you promise to aid us to lay hands on the gang, and that day never arrives." "What if the day arrives to-day, M. Narcisse, as I am sure it will? What if I bring together in a parcel Barbillon, Nicholas Martial, the widow, her daughter, and the Chouette? Will that or will it not be a good sweep of the net? Will you then mistrust me any longer?" "No; and you will have rendered a real service; for there are very strong presumptive facts against this gang,--suspicions almost assured, but, unfortunately, no proofs." "So, then, a small fag-end of actual crime, which would allow of their being apprehended, would help amazingly to unravel the difficult skein,--eh, M. Narcisse?" "Most decidedly. And you assure me that there has not been the slightest incitement on your part towards the _coup_ which they are now going to attempt?" "No, on my honour! It is the Chouette, who came to me to propose inveigling the diamond-matcher here when that infernal hag learned from my son that Morel, the lapidary, who lives in the Rue du Temple, was a workman in real stones, and not in false, and that Mother Mathieu had frequently considerable value about her person, I acceded to the proposition, and suggested to the Chouette that the Martials and Barbillon should join her, so that I might be able to put the whole party into your hands." "And the Schoolmaster,--that fellow who is so dangerous, so powerful, and so ferocious, and who was always with the Chouette,--one of the frequenters of the _tapis-franc_?" "The Schoolmaster?" said Bras-Rouge, feigning astonishment. "Yes, a convict escaped from the galleys at Rochefort, Anselm Duresnel by name, sentenced for life. We know now that he disfigured himself on purpose, that he might not be recognised. Have you no trace of him?" "None," replied Bras-Rouge, boldly, for he had his reasons for the lie, the Schoolmaster being at this very moment shut up in one of the cellars of the cabaret. "There is every reason to believe that the Schoolmaster is the author of fresh murders. He would be an important capture." "No one knows what has become of him for the last six weeks." "And that's the reason you are reproached with having lost all trace of him." "Always reproaches, M. Narcisse, always!" "Not for want of ample cause! And how goes on the smuggling?" "Is it not necessary that I should know something of all kinds of persons--smugglers as well as others--in order to put you on the scent? I disclosed to you that pipe to introduce liquids, established outside the Barriere du Trone, and coming into a house in the street."