aken into a Government department again;
they might make you secretary to a Commissary of Police; you could
accept that post without prejudice to your retiring pension."

Mlle. Michonneau interposed at this point with, "What is there to hinder
Trompe-la-Mort from making off with the money?"

"Oh!" said the detective, "a man is told off to follow him everywhere he
goes, with orders to kill him if he were to rob the convicts. Then it is
not quite as easy to make off with a lot of money as it is to run away
with a young lady of family. Besides, Collin is not the sort of fellow
to play such a trick; he would be disgraced, according to his notions."

"You are quite right, sir," said Poiret, "utterly disgraced he would
be."

"But none of all this explains why you do not come and take him without
more ado," remarked Mlle. Michonneau.

"Very well, mademoiselle, I will explain--but," he added in her ear,
"keep your companion quiet, or I shall never have done. The old boy
ought to pay people handsomely for listening to him.--Trompe-la-Mort,
when he came back here," he went on aloud "slipped into the skin of an
honest man; he turned up disguised as a decent Parisian citizen, and
took up his quarters in an unpretending lodging-house. He is cunning,
that he is! You don't catch him napping. Then M. Vautrin is a man of
consequence, who transacts a good deal of business."

"Naturally," said Poiret to himself.

"And suppose that the Minister were to make a mistake and get hold of
the real Vautrin, he would put every one's back up among the business
men in Paris, and public opinion would be against him. M. le Prefet de
Police is on slippery ground; he has enemies. They would take advantage
of any mistake. There would be a fine outcry and fuss made by the
Opposition, and he would be sent packing. We must set about this just as
we did about the Coignard affair, the sham Comte de Sainte-Helene; if
he had been the real Comte de Sainte-Helene, we should have been in the
wrong box. We want to be quite sure what we are about."

"Yes, but what you want is a pretty woman," said Mlle. Michonneau
briskly.

"Trompe-la-Mort would not let a woman come near him," said the
detective. "I will tell you a secret--he does not like them."

"Still, I do not see what I can do, supposing that I did agree to
identify him for two thousand francs."

"Nothing simpler," said the stranger. "I will send you a little bottle
containing a dose that will send