t to invest his money for ten years,
that would be all told. But even if he lent it at high interest, as
he is suspected of doing there would be three hundred thousand francs
perhaps, and that is all. Five hundred thousand francs is a long way
short of a million. I should be quite content with the difference, and
no more of the _Belle Etoile_ for me!"

"Really!" said Corentin. "Then Monsieur David Sechard and his wife have
not a fortune of two or three millions?"

"Why," exclaimed the innkeeper's wife, "that is what the Cointets are
supposed to have, who robbed him of his invention, and he does not get
more than twenty thousand francs out of them. Where do you suppose such
honest folks would find millions? They were very much pinched while the
father was alive. But for Kolb, their manager, and Madame Kolb, who is
as much attached to them as her husband, they could scarcely have lived.
Why, how much had they with La Verberie!--A thousand francs a year
perhaps."

Corentin drew Derville aside and said:

"In vino veritas! Truth lives under a cork. For my part, I regard an inn
as the real registry office of the countryside; the notary is not
better informed than the innkeeper as to all that goes on in a small
neighborhood.--You see! we are supposed to know all about the Cointets
and Kolb and the rest.

"Your innkeeper is the living record of every incident; he does the work
of the police without suspecting it. A government should maintain
two hundred spies at most, for in a country like France there are ten
millions of simple-minded informers.--However, we need not trust to this
report; though even in this little town something would be known about
the twelve hundred thousand francs sunk in paying for the Rubempre
estate. We will not stop here long----"

"I hope not!" Derville put in.

"And this is why," added Corentin; "I have hit on the most natural way
of extracting the truth from the mouth of the Sechard couple. I rely
upon you to support, by your authority as a lawyer, the little trick I
shall employ to enable you to hear a clear and complete account of their
affairs.--After dinner we shall set out to call on Monsieur Sechard,"
said Corentin to the innkeeper's wife. "Have beds ready for us, we want
separate rooms. There can be no difficulty 'under the stars.'"

"Oh, monsieur," said the woman, "we invented the sign."

"The pun is to be found in every department," said Corentin; "it is no
monopoly of yours."