edding."

"Ah, he spoke to you about the wedding, then?"

"Wait a minute. Hector seemed very much embarrassed, not knowing
how to avoid the disturbance he feared. Then I advised him to send
the servant off out of the way on the wedding-day. He thought a
moment, and said that my advice was good. He added that he had
found a means of doing this; on the evening of the marriage he
would send the man on an errand for me, telling him that the affair
was to be concealed from the countess. I was to dress up--as a
chambermaid, and wait for the man at the cafe in the Place du
Chatelet, between half-past nine and ten that evening; I was to sit
at the table nearest the entrance on the right, with a bouquet in
my hand, so that he should recognize me. He would come in and give
me a package; then I was to ask him to take something, and so get
him tipsy if possible, and then walk about Paris with him till
morning."

Jenny expressed herself with difficulty, hesitating, choosing her
words, and trying to remember exactly what Tremorel said.

"And you," interrupted M. Lecoq, "did you believe all this story
about a jealous servant?"

"Not quite; but I fancied that he had some intrigue on foot, and I
wasn't sorry to help him deceive a woman whom I detested, and who
had wronged me."

"So you did as he told you?"

"Exactly, from beginning to end; everything happened just as Hector
had foreseen. The man came along at just ten o'clock, took me for
a maid, and gave me the package. I naturally offered him a glass
of beer; he took it and proposed another, which I also accepted.
He is a very nice fellow, this gardener, and I passed a very
pleasant evening with him. He knew lots of queer things, and--"

"Never mind that. What did you do then?"

"After the beer we had some wine, then some beer again, then some
punch, then some more wine--the gardener had his pockets full of
money. He was very tipsy by eleven and invited me to go and have
a dance with him at the Batignolles. I refused, and asked him to
escort me back to my mistress at the upper end of the Champs
Elysees. We went out of the cafe and walked up the Rue de Rivoli,
stopping every now and then for more wine and beer. By two o'clock
the fellow was so far gone that he fell like a lump on a bench near
the Arc de Triomphe, where he went to sleep; and there I left him."

"Well, where did you go?"

"Home."

"What has become of the package?"

"Oh, I intended to throw it into the