When Caderousse turned around, he saw behind him La Carconte, paler and trembling more than ever.
“Is, then, all that I have heard really true?” she inquired.
“What? That he has given the diamond to us only?” inquired Caderousse, half bewildered with joy; “yes, nothing more true! See, here it is.”
The woman gazed at it a moment, and then said, in a gloomy voice, “Suppose it’s false?”
Caderousse started and turned pale.
“False!” he muttered. “False! Why should that man give me a false diamond?”
“To get your secret without paying for it, you blockhead!”
Caderousse remained for a moment aghast under the weight of such an idea.
“Oh!” he said, taking up his hat, which he placed on the red handkerchief tied round his head, “we will soon find out.”
“In what way?”
“Why, the fair is on at Beaucaire, there are always jewellers from Paris there, and I will show it to them. Look after the house, wife, and I shall be back in two hours,” and Caderousse left the house in haste, and ran rapidly in the direction opposite to that which the priest had taken.
“Fifty thousand francs!” muttered La Carconte when left alone; “it is a large sum of money, but it is not a fortune.”
Chapter 28. The Prison Register
The day after that in which the scene we have just described had taken place on the road between Bellegarde and Beaucaire, a man of about thirty or two-and-thirty, dressed in a bright blue frock coat, nankeen trousers, and a white waistcoat, having the appearance and accent of an Englishman, presented himself before the mayor of Marseilles.