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Before long the rich bourgeois, who still met in Dionis's salon, noticed a great change in the manners and behavior of the man who had hitherto been so free of care. "I don't know what has come to Minoret, he is all no how," said his wife, from whom he was resolved to hide his daring deed.
Some of the persons who frequented Dionis's salon attributed these manoeuvres to the Marquis du Rouvre, then much hampered in means, for Massin held his notes to a large amount.
Though Goupil had concluded his bargain with the sheriff the night before, he now impudently refused to fulfil it. "My dear Lecoeur," he said, "I am unexpectedly enabled to buy up Monsieur Dionis's practice; I am therefore in a position to help you to sell to others. Tear up the agreement; it's only the loss of two stamps, here are seventy centimes."
"If Monsieur Dionis's advice is good," said Madame Cremiere to Madame Massin, "we had better go and call on our uncle, as we used to do, every Sunday evening, and behave exactly as Monsieur Dionis has told us." "Yes, and be received as he received us!" cried Zelie. "Minoret and I have more than forty thousand francs a year, and yet he refused our invitations! We are quite his equals.
"I'd give thirty thousand francs if God would call uncle to himself before the marriage of young Portenduere with that affected minx can take place," she said. Goupil accompanied Monsieur and Madame Minoret to the middle of their great courtyard, and there said, looking round to see if they were quite alone: "Will you give me the means of buying Dionis's practice?
"Do you want to be a notary?" answered the justice of peace, looking sternly at Dionis's proposed successor. "Of course I do," cried Goupil. "I've swallowed too many affronts not to succeed now. I beg you to believe, monsieur, that the miserable creature once called Goupil has nothing in common with Maitre Jean-Sebastien-Marie Goupil, notary of Nemours and husband of Mademoiselle Massin.
Suppose Dionis went over to Ursula just to get the old man's business?" "I am sure of him," said the clerk of the court, giving her a sly look out of his spiteful little eyes. He was just going to add, "because I hold something over him," but he withheld the words. "I am quite of Dionis's opinion," he said aloud. "So am I," cried Zelie, who now suspected the notary of collusion with the clerk.
Bongrand knew Dionis's opinion as to the invalidity of a will made by the doctor in favor of Ursula; for Nemours was so preoccupied with the Minoret affairs that the matter had been much discussed among the lawyers of the little town.
This goes far to prove that those numbers are those of five certificates of investments made on the same day and noted down by the doctor in case of loss. I advised him to take certificates to bearer for Ursula's fortune, and he must have made his own investment and that of Ursula's little property the same day. I'll go to Dionis's office and look at the inventory. Ha!
After a few meetings at the notary's, Cremiere, Massin, the post master, and their adherents took a habit of assembling there. By the time the doctor returned, Dionis's office and salon were the camp of his heirs.
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