At the very time when Madame Hulot was calling on Josepha, Victorin,
in his study, was receiving an old woman of about seventy-five, who,
to gain admission to the lawyer, had used the terrible name of the
head of the detective force. The man in waiting announced:

"Madame de Saint-Esteve."

"I have assumed one of my business names," said she, taking a seat.

Victorin felt a sort of internal chill at the sight of this dreadful
old woman. Though handsomely dressed, she was terrible to look upon,
for her flat, colorless, strongly-marked face, furrowed with wrinkles,
expressed a sort of cold malignity. Marat, as a woman of that age,
might have been like this creature, a living embodiment of the Reign
of Terror.

This sinister old woman's small, pale eyes twinkled with a tiger's
bloodthirsty greed. Her broad, flat nose, with nostrils expanded into
oval cavities, breathed the fires of hell, and resembled the beak of
some evil bird of prey. The spirit of intrigue lurked behind her low,
cruel brow. Long hairs had grown from her wrinkled chin, betraying the
masculine character of her schemes. Any one seeing that woman's face
would have said that artists had failed in their conceptions of
Mephistopheles.

"My dear sir," she began, with a patronizing air, "I have long since
given up active business of any kind. What I have come to you to do, I
have undertaken, for the sake of my dear nephew, whom I love more than
I could love a son of my own.--Now, the Head of the Police--to whom
the President of the Council said a few words in his ear as regards
yourself, in talking to Monsieur Chapuzot--thinks as the police ought
not to appear in a matter of this description, you understand. They
gave my nephew a free hand, but my nephew will have nothing to say to
it, except as before the Council; he will not be seen in it."

"Then your nephew is--"

"You have hit it, and I am rather proud of him," said she,
interrupting the lawyer, "for he is my pupil, and he soon could teach
his teacher.--We have considered this case, and have come to our own
conclusions. Will you hand over thirty thousand francs to have the
whole thing taken off your hands? I will make a clean sweep of all,
and you need not pay till the job is done."

"Do you know the persons concerned?"

"No, my dear sir; I look for information from you. What we are told
is, that a certain old idiot has fallen into the clutches of a widow.
This widow, of nine-and-twenty, has