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meet than the wolf.
‘What do you want?’ he said to Marius, without adding
‘monsieur.’
‘Is this Monsieur le Commissaire de Police?’
‘He is absent. I am here in his stead.’
‘The matter is very private.’
‘Then speak.’
‘And great haste is required.’
‘Then speak quick.’
This calm, abrupt man was both terrifying and reassuring
at one and the same time. He inspired fear and confidence.
Marius related the adventure to him: That a person with
whom he was not acquainted otherwise than by sight, was
to be inveigled into a trap that very evening; that, as he oc-
cupied the room adjoining the den, he, Marius Pontmercy,
a lawyer, had heard the whole plot through the partition;
that the wretch who had planned the trap was a certain
Jondrette; that there would be accomplices, probably some
prowlers of the barriers, among others a certain Panchaud,
alias Printanier, alias Bigrenaille; that Jondrette’s daugh-
ters were to lie in wait; that there was no way of warning
the threatened man, since he did not even know his name;
and that, finally, all this was to be carried out at six o’clock
that evening, at the most deserted point of the Boulevard de
l’Hopital, in house No. 50-52.
At the sound of this number, the inspector raised his
head, and said coldly:—
‘So it is in the room at the end of the corridor?’
‘Precisely,’ answered Marius, and he added: ‘Are you ac-