Two hours after Maitre Magloire’s report, the police went to search
Jules Tarot’s house.
At sight of the officers, the workman and his wife turned deadly pale,
and were seized with a nervous tremor that could not escape Maitre
Magloire’s practiced eye, Yet the most thorough investigation failed to
detect anything suspicious, and the policemen were about to withdraw,
when the detective noticed Tarot’s wife glance anxiously at a cage hung
in the window.
This was a ray of light. In less than an instant Magloire had unhooked
and taken down the cage. Between the boards, at the bottom, twelve
hundred-franc bank-bills were found.
This discovery seemed to crush the workman. As to his wife, she began
to utter piercing shrieks, protesting that both she and her husband were
innocent. They were arrested, conveyed to head-quarters, and questioned
by the magistrate. Their answers were precisely the same.
They acknowledged having received a visit from their employer Saturday
evening. He seemed so ill that they asked him to take something to
drink, but he refused. He had come, he said, to give a large order, and
proposed that Tarot should undertake it, employing his own workmen.
They replied that they had no means to do so, whereupon their
employer answered: “No matter, I’ll supply the money.” And laid twelve
hundred-franc bills on the table.
At eleven o’clock M. Jandidier asked his workman to accompany him; he
was going to the Faubourg Saint Antoine. Tarot went as far as the Place
de la Bastile, crossing the foot-bridge of Constantine, and walking
along the canal.
The magistrate asked both husband and wife the very natural question:
“Why did you hide the money?”
They made the same reply.
Monday morning, hearing of M. Jandidier’s disappearance, they were
seized with terror. Tarot said to his wife: “If it is known that our
employer came here, that I crossed the bridge and followed the edge of
the canal with him, I shall be seriously compromised. If this money were
found in our possession we should be lost.”
The wife then wanted to burn the notes, but Tarot opposed the plan,
intending to return them to the family.
This explanation was reasonable and plausible, if not probable, but it
was merely an explanation. Tarot and his wife were kept under arrest.