Before getting Renée to relinquish her share of the property, however, he took the precaution of sounding out Larsonneau about the extortion he suspected him of plotting. Saccard’s instinct saved him in this instance, for the expropriation agent had meanwhile come to the conclusion that the fruit was ripe for the picking. When Saccard walked into Larsonneau’s office on the rue de Rivoli, he found his colleague in a bad way, showing signs of the most violent desperation.

“Oh, my friend!” Larsonneau murmured, taking Saccard by the hand. “We’re done for. . . . I was about to run over to your place to figure a way out of this awful mess.”

While Larsonneau wrung his hands and attempted to force out a sob, Saccard noticed that he had been signing letters a moment before and that the signatures looked remarkably precise. He stared at him calmly and said, “Bah! So what’s happened to us?”

The other man did not answer immediately, however. He had flung himself down in a chair behind his desk, and there, with his elbows resting on the blotter, his forehead in his hands, he furiously shook his head. Finally, in a choking voice, he said, “Someone stole the ledger, you see. . . .”

The story he told was this: one of his clerks, a scoundrel worthy of the penitentiary, had made off with a large number of files, including the notorious ledger. Worse, the thief had realized what the document was worth and was asking for 100,000 francs in exchange for its return.

Saccard pondered the matter. The story struck him as a crude fabrication. Obviously Larsonneau didn’t much care whether or not he was believed. He was simply looking for a pretext to let it be known that he wanted 100,000 francs out of the Charonne deal and, indeed, that for that amount of money he would hand over the compromising papers in his possession. To Saccard the price seemed too steep. He would willingly have given his former partner a share in the spoils, but this attempt to spring a trap and this presumptuousness in taking him for a fool he found irritating. Yet he was not without worries. He knew the man he was dealing with and knew that he was quite capable of taking the papers to his brother the minister, who would certainly pay to hush up any scandal.

“Damn!” Saccard muttered, now taking a seat himself. “That’s a nasty story. . . . Would it be possible to see the scoundrel in question?”

“I’ll send for him,” Larsonneau replied. “He lives close by, on rue Jean Lantier.”

Before ten minutes had passed, a short, shifty-eyed fellow with light-colored hair and red blotches all over his face quietly entered the room, carefully making sure that the door made no sound. He was wearing a shabby black frock coat that was too large for him and shockingly threadbare. Standing at a respectful distance from Saccard, he calmly examined the financier out of the corner of his eye. Larsonneau, who addressed this man as Baptistin, subjected him to an interrogation, to which he responded in monosyllables, showing no sign of becoming rattled. He withstood this grilling without flinching even though his employer felt compelled to accompany each of his questions with epithets such as thief, crook, and scoundrel.

Saccard admired the wretched fellow’s sangfroid. At one point, the expropriation agent leapt from his chair as if to strike him, and he merely retreated a step and narrowed his eyes a bit more in a gesture of humility.

“That’s enough, leave him alone,” the financier said. “So then, sir, you’re asking 100,000 francs to return the papers?”

“Yes, 100,000 francs,” the young man answered.

With that he left the room. Larsonneau seemed unable to get a grip on himself. “The gall! What a scoundrel!” he sputtered. “Did you see his shifty eyes? . . . Fellows like that look timid, but for twenty francs they’d kill a man for you.”

Saccard, however, interrupted him: “Bah! He’s nothing to be afraid of. I think we’ll be able to make a deal with him. . . . I came about something far more worrisome. . . . You were right to distrust my wife, my good friend. She’s selling her share of the property to M. Haffner. She says she needs money. Her friend Suzanne must have put her up to it.”

Larsonneau abruptly quit sighing. He listened, the color having drained from his face, and adjusted his starched collar, which had curled in his wrath.

“This sale,” Saccard went on, “will ruin our hopes. If M. Haffner becomes your partner, not only will our profits be compromised, but I’m awfully afraid we may find ourselves in a very unpleasant situation, as the gentleman is quite meticulous and may insist on going over the accounts.”

The expropriation agent began pacing the room in an agitated manner, his patent-leather boots creaking on the carpet. “You see what predicaments you get yourself into by doing favors for people,” he muttered. “But if I were you, my friend, I’d do everything in my power to prevent my wife from making such a foolish move. I’d beat her before I’d allow such a thing to happen.”

“Really?” the financier said with a sly smile. “I have no more influence over my wife than you seem to have over this scoundrel Baptistin.”

Larsonneau stopped short in front of Saccard, who had not stopped smiling, and appraised him carefully. Then he resumed his pacing, but with a slower, more measured step. He went over to a mirror, tightened the knot of his necktie, and continued walking, having regained his customary elegance. Suddenly he blurted out, “Baptistin!”

The short, shifty-eyed fellow reentered the room, but this time through a different door. He no longer had his hat and was rolling a quill pen between two fingers.

“Go get the ledger,” Larsonneau ordered.

When he had left, Larsonneau discussed the sum he was to be paid. In the end he said bluntly, “Do this for me.”

Saccard then agreed to pay 30,000 francs out of the future profits on the Charonne affair. He reckoned that even at that price he would still be escaping the usurer’s gloved clutches relatively cheaply. Larsonneau, continuing the charade to the end, insisted that the promissory note be made out in his name, saying that he would be accountable to the young man for the 30,000 francs. Saccard chuckled with relief as he burned the ledger in the fireplace, one page at a time. When he was done, he vigorously shook Larsonneau’s hand and left with these parting words: “You’ll be at Laure’s tonight, won’t you? . . . Wait for me. I’ll work things out with my wife, and we’ll make our final decisions.”

Laure d’Aurigny, who moved frequently, was at that time living in a large apartment on boulevard Haussmann opposite the Chapelle Expiatoire. ¹¹ She had only recently decided to open her apartment to visitors one day a week, just like any other society hostess. These gatherings assembled in one place the men who saw her one at a time during the week. Aristide Saccard reigned in triumph on these Tuesday evenings. He was the incumbent lover, and he laughed vaguely and looked the other way whenever the mistress of the house betrayed him by dragging one of the other gentlemen off to a private place and granting him an assignation for later that same night. When he was left alone at the end of the evening, the last of the crowd of visitors, he would light yet another cigar, talk business for a while, and tease Laure about the fellow cooling his heels outside waiting for him to leave. Then, after calling Laure his “dear child” and giving her a little pat on the cheek, he would leave quietly through one door as the waiting gentleman entered through another. Both he and his “mistress” continued to take pleasure in the secret alliance that had consolidated Saccard’s credit and earned Mlle d’Aurigny two sets of furniture in one month. But Laure wanted this comedy to end. The finale, worked out ahead of time, was to take the form of a public breakup, the beneficiary of which was to be some poor imbecile who would pay dearly for the right of being Laure’s official, publicly acknowledged keeper. That imbecile had been found. The duc de Rozan, tired of importuning the women of his own set to no avail, dreamed of acquiring a reputation as a debauchee to lend a little relief to his colorless personality. He was an assiduous guest at Laure’s Tuesdays and had managed to conquer her with his absolute naïveté. Unfortunately, he was still, at the age of thirty-five, dependent on his mother to the point where he never had more than ten louis spending money in his pocket at any given time. On nights when Laure deigned to take those ten louis from him, feeling sorry for herself and letting it be known that 100,000 francs was what she needed, he promised her that as soon as he had the final say in the matter, that sum would be hers. It was then that it occurred to her to put him in touch with Larsonneau, a faithful friend of the establishment. The two men had lunch together at Tortoni’s, and over dessert Larsonneau, while recounting his amours with a delectable Spaniard, let it be known that he was in touch with some people who were in a position to lend money, though he sternly warned Rozan never to fall into their clutches. This revelation drove the duke wild, and in the end he succeeded in extracting from his good friend a promise to take care of “this little matter.” Larsonneau took such good care of it that he had come prepared to deliver the money on the very evening that Saccard proposed they meet at Laure’s.