That fact seemed to require that a wisely conducted inquiry should begin with an interview with Joseph, the confidential servant of whom Jaubourg had said on his death-bed: "You can believe him. He is reliable, perfectly reliable." Landri had not seen him since the time in the chamber of death when the marquis was kneeling at the bedside, praying. In imagination he saw that figure, in black coat and white cravat, making the final arrangements--that impassive face of a close-mouthed witness or confederate. Joseph had been in his master's service thirty years. He must inevitably have discovered Jaubourg's liaison with Madame de Claviers. He knew the secret of Landri's birth. The young man recalled his singular expression when he brought him a message, at Grandchamp, on the day before his master's death. Moreover, was not Joseph there, assisting Dr. Pierre Chaffin, when the invalid, in his delirium, said so many terribly incriminating things? That thought made the prospect of a conversation with the man so painful that Landri recoiled at first. "This is cowardly," he said to himself the next moment. "If I can't face suffering of that sort for _him_, of what am I capable?" Having determined upon this interview, the most elementary shrewdness bade him bring it about without warning. The young man was not aware of one fact which was likely to facilitate his task: M. de Claviers, as may be imagined, had shrunk in horror from the thought of putting his foot in Jaubourg's apartment again. Having resolved to return the detestable legacy, and not choosing to order a sale, which would have attracted notice, he had placed the apartment, until further orders, in charge of the old maître d'hôtel. When Landri went to Rue de Solferino to ask his address, the concierge replied with evident surprise, "Why, he's upstairs, Monsieur le Comte!" which proved to the investigator what a delicate affair he had undertaken. The slightest imprudence was likely to arouse a very dangerous curiosity. And so all the efforts of his will were combined to make his face impenetrable while he awaited the maître d'hôtel in the library, into which an old woman who answered his ring had ushered him. She was the "spouse" of "Monsieur Joseph," who acted as laundress to the establishment during Jaubourg's lifetime. The couple had a daughter. Mademoiselle Amélie, whom their indulgent employer had allowed them to keep with them. How was it possible to associate the idea of a criminal conspiracy with the head of a bourgeois family, hungry for respectability? Madame Joseph had a certain matronly dignity, which she displayed as she opened the windows and explained the music of a piano, which was Mademoiselle Amélie's. "We had it brought into the apartment," she said, "because we never leave it now, on account of the bric-à-brac."