"There's no doubt of it!" replied the notary. "By the way,"--one of his clerks had just knocked at the door and handed him a card,--"if you'll allow me to have him shown in here, you will see Altona himself. He is here. You can measure up the man; you will be able to judge whether it is possible that, having chosen the end, he resorted to the means, every means," and going through the motion of counting money, "this included." Landri did not need this meeting with the usurer-antiquary to know what to think concerning the nature of the conspiracy against the pictures, the tapestries and the furniture of the château of Grandchamp. The recollection of the advice insinuated by Chaffin: "Ask for your property," would have sufficed of itself, without this visit to Métivier, to convince him that the sending of the anonymous letter might be explained simply by a desire for money. At the moment that Jaubourg's legacy fell in, M. de Claviers was in the clutches of the Altona claim. He could free himself only by selling the treasures of the château. Chaffin's disappointment was proportioned, no doubt, to the commission that he lost. His knew his master's temperament. To betray to him his wife's liaison with his false friend was to make that money impossible of acceptance by him. If the rascal had letters of Madame de Claviers in hand, all was explained. This theory was less chimerical than the other, but upon how many hypotheses did even it rest! For a moment it seemed certainty to Landri, ready to collapse, as the first had done, upon examination. Meanwhile he exchanged a salutation with Master Altona, as the notary had slightingly dubbed the dealer in antiques. One had but to see the two men side by side, to understand that ten years earlier he would have called him "my boy," and ten years later he would call him "monsieur le baron."