s soon as Godet and Ruffard are nabbed,
they will be supposed to have got rid of what is missing from their
shares. And I will make Godet believe that I have saved a hundred
thousand francs for him, and that la Gonore has done the same for la
Pouraille and Ruffard.

"Prudence and Paccard will do the job at la Gonore's; you and
Ginetta--who seems to be a smart hussy--must manage the job at Godet's
sister's place.

"And so, as the first act in the farce, I can enable the public
prosecutor to lay his hands on four hundred thousand francs stolen from
the Crottats, and on the guilty parties. Then I shall seem to have shown
up the Nanterre murderer. We shall get back our shiners, and are
behind the scenes with the police. We were the game, now we are the
hunters--that is all.

"Give the driver three francs."

The coach was at the Palais. Jacqueline, speechless with astonishment,
paid. _Trompe-la-Mort_ went up the steps to the public prosecutor's
room.

A complete change of life is so violent a crisis, that Jacques Collin,
in spite of his resolution, mounted the steps but slowly, going up from
the Rue de la Barillerie to the Galerie Marchande, where, under the
gloomy peristyle of the courthouse, is the entrance to the Court itself.

Some civil case was going on which had brought a little crowd together
at the foot of the double stairs leading to the Assize Court, so that
the convict, lost in thought, stood for some minutes, checked by the
throng.

To the left of this double flight is one of the mainstays of the
building, like an enormous pillar, and in this tower is a little door.
This door opens on a spiral staircase down to the Conciergerie, to which
the public prosecutor, the governor of the prison, the presiding judges,
King's council, and the chief of the Safety department have access by
this back way.

It was up a side staircase from this, now walled up, that Marie
Antoinette, the Queen of France, was led before the Revolutionary
tribunal which sat, as we all know, in the great hall where appeals are
now heard before the Supreme Court. The heart sinks within us at the
sight of these dreadful steps, when we think that Marie Therese's
daughter, whose suite, and head-dress, and hoops filled the great
staircase at Versailles, once passed that way! Perhaps it was in
expiation of her mother's crime--the atrocious division of Poland.
The sovereigns who commit such crimes evidently never think of the
retribution