"I'm tired out; I must sit down," resumed La Couteau, seating herself on the narrow bench behind the counter. "Ah! what a trade! And to think that we are always received as if we were heartless criminals and thieves!"
She also had become withered, her sunburnt, tanned face suggesting more than ever the beak of a bird of prey. But her eyes remained very keen, sharpened as it were by ferocity. She no doubt failed to get rich fast enough, for she continued wailing, complaining of her calling, of the increasing avarice of parents, of the demands of the authorities, of the warfare which was being declared against nurse-agents on all sides. Yes, it was a lost calling, said she, and really God must have abandoned her that she should still be compelled to carry it on at forty-five years of age. "It will end by killing me," she added; "I shall always get more kicks than money at it. How unjust it is! Here have I brought you back a superb child, and yet you look anything but pleased-it's enough to disgust one of doing one's best!"
In thus complaining her object perhaps was to extract from the haberdasher as large a present as possible. Madame Menoux was certainly disturbed by it all. Her boy woke up and began to wail loudly, and it became necessary to give him a little lukewarm milk. At last, when the accounts were settled, the nurse-agent, seeing that she would have ten francs for herself, grew calmer. She was about to take her leave when Madame Menoux, pointing to Mathieu, exclaimed: "This gentleman wished to speak to you on business."
Although La Couteau had not seen the gentleman for several years past, she had recognized him perfectly well. Still she had not even turned towards him, for she knew him to be mixed up in so many matters that his discretion was a certainty. And so she contented herself with saying: "If monsieur will kindly explain to me what it is I shall be quite at his service."
"I will accompany you," replied Mathieu; "we can speak together as we walk along."
"Very good, that will suit me well, for I am rather in a hurry."
Once outside, Mathieu resolved that he would try no ruses with her. The best course was to tell her plainly what he wanted, and then to buy her silence. At the first words he spoke she understood him. She well remembered Norine's child, although in her time she had carried dozens of children to the Foundling Hospital. The particular circumstances of that case, however, the conversation which had taken place, her drive with Mathieu in a cab, had all remained engraved on her memory. Moreover, she had found that child again, at Rougemont, five days later; and she even remembered that her friend the hospital-attendant had left it with La Loiseau. But she had occupied herself no more about it afterwards; and she believed that it was now dead, like so many others. When she heard Mathieu speak of the hamlet of Saint-Pierre, of Montoir the wheelwright, and of Alexandre-Honore, now fifteen, who must be in apprenticeship there, she evinced great surprise.
"Oh, you must be mistaken, monsieur," she said; "I know Montoir at Saint-Pierre very well. And he certainly has a lad from the Foundling, of the age you mention, at his place. But that lad came from La Cauchois; he is a big carroty fellow named Richard, who arrived at our village some days before the other. I know who his mother was; she was an English woman called Amy, who stopped more than once at Madame Bourdieu's. That ginger-haired lad is certainly not your Norine's boy. Alexandre-Honore was dark."
"Well, then," replied Mathieu, "there must be another apprentice at the wheelwright's. My information is precise, it was given me officially."
After a moment's perplexity La Couteau made a gesture of ignorance, and admitted that Mathieu might be right. "It's possible," said she; "perhaps Montoir has two apprentices. He does a good business, and as I haven't been to Saint-Pierre for some months now I can say nothing certain. Well, and what do you desire of me, monsieur?"
He then gave her very clear instructions. She was to obtain the most precise information possible about the lad's health, disposition, and conduct, whether the schoolmaster had always been pleased with him, whether his employer was equally satisfied, and so forth. Briefly, the inquiry was to be complete. But, above all things, she was to carry it on in such a way that nobody should suspect anything, neither the boy himself nor the folks of the district. There must be absolute secrecy.
"All that is easy," replied La Couteau, "I understand perfectly, and you can rely on me. I shall need a little time, however, and the best plan will be for me to tell you of the result of my researches when I next come to Paris. And if it suits you you will find me to-day fortnight, at two o'clock, at Broquette's office in the Rue Roquepine. I am quite at home there, and the place is like a tomb."
Some days later, as Mathieu was again at the Beauchene works with his son Blaise, he was observed by Constance, who called him to her and questioned him in such direct fashion that he had to tell her what steps he had taken. When she heard of his appointment with La Couteau for the Wednesday of the ensuing week, she said to him in her resolute way: "Come and fetch me. I wish to question that woman myself. I want to be quite certain on the matter."
In spite of the lapse of fifteen years Broquette's nurse-office in the Rue Roquepine had remained the same as formerly, except that Madame Broquette was dead and had been succeeded by her daughter Herminie. The sudden loss of that fair, dignified lady, who had possessed such a decorative presence and so ably represented the high morality and respectability of the establishment, had at first seemed a severe one. But it so happened that Herminie, a tall, slim, languid creature that she was, gorged with novel-reading, also proved in her way a distinguished figurehead for the office. She was already thirty and was still unmarried, feeling indeed nothing but loathing for all the mothers laden with whining children by whom she was surrounded. Moreover, M. Broquette, her father, though now more than five-and-seventy, secretly remained the all-powerful, energetic director of the place, discharging all needful police duties, drilling new nurses like recruits, remaining ever on the watch and incessantly perambulating the three floors of his suspicious, dingy lodging-house.
La Couteau was waiting for Mathieu in the doorway. On perceiving Constance, whom she did not know, for she had never previously met her, she seemed surprised. Who could that lady be? what had she to do with the affair? However, she promptly extinguished the bright gleam of curiosity which for a moment lighted up her eyes; and as Herminie, with distinguished nonchalance, was at that moment exhibiting a party of nurses to two gentlemen in the office, she took her visitors into the empty refectory, where the atmosphere was as usual tainted by a horrible stench of cookery.