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It was a fair-sized, prettily-furnished room, which, in ordinary times, must have been used also as a study. Two women sat weeping, one of whom, elderly and grey-haired, came up to Gaston Dutreuil. He explained the reason for Renine's presence and she at once cried, amid her sobs: "My daughter's husband is innocent, sir. Jacques? A better man never lived. He was so good-hearted! Murder his cousin?
This conversation was taking place in Renine's flat on the Boulevard Haussmann, to which Hortense had brought her friend Genevieve Aymard, a slender, pretty little creature with a face over-shadowed by an expression of the greatest melancholy. "Renine will be successful, take my word for it, Genevieve. You will, Renine, won't you?" "Please tell me the rest of the story, mademoiselle," he said.
And I am as much interested as yourself in not attracting attention, because I love Hortense Daniel and do not wish her name to be mixed up in your horrible story." They remained face to face during a long interval. Renine's expression was harsh and unyielding.
"How?" "Become the companion of my adventures. If any one calls on me for help, help him with me. If chance or instinct puts me on the track of a crime or the trace of a sorrow, let us both set out together. Do you consent?" "Yes," she said, "but...." She hesitated, as though trying to guess Renine's secret intentions.
"No, no, there's no need for that," Hortense hurriedly murmured. Renine's intuition, his subtlety, the skill with which he had managed the whole business: to her, for the moment, all these things remained in the background.
"Several ladies," Renine continued, "wrote the letters which are usual in such cases, to offer a home to the so-called Herminie. But I received an express letter which struck me as interesting." "From whom?" "Read it, M. de Lourtier." M. de Lourtier-Vaneau snatched the sheet from Renine's hands and cast a glance at the signature.
She flushed and murmured: "The murderer went to the pantry at M. Guillaume's and drank half a bottle of wine straight out of the bottle, which shows my husband's fingerprints." It seemed as though her strength was exhausted and as though, at the same time, the unconscious hope which Renine's intervention had awakened in her had suddenly vanished before the accumulation of adverse facts.
He did not accept Renine's invitation to look; he examined neither the hat-box nor the bank-notes. From the first moment, without taking the time to reflect and before his instinct could warn him, he believed what he was told and collapsed heavily into a chair, weeping. The surprise attack, to use Renine's expression, had succeeded.
Without quite knowing what he was saying and with the intention of responding to Renine's courteous behaviour, he tried in his turn to introduce the two ladies and let fall the astounding words: "My mother, Madame d'Imbleval; my mother, Madame Vaurois." For some time no one spoke. Renine bowed.
Renine's influence over her was complete. With a few sentences Renine had succeeded in subduing her and inspiring her with the will to obey. And once more Hortense realized all the man's power, authority and persuasion. "What was your husband?" he asked, after begging the mother and Gaston Dutreuil to preserve absolute silence. "An insurance-broker." "Lucky in business?" "Until last year, yes."
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