“The task is out of your power, sir.”
“Nevertheless, do what my colleague asks you,” urged M. Magloire.
Without any further opposition, and, who knows? Perhaps with a secret
hope which he would not confess to himself, Jacques informed the young
advocate of the most minute details about his relations to the Countess
Claudieuse. He told him at what hour she used to come to the house, what
roads she took, and how she was most commonly dressed. The keys of the
house were at Boiscoran, in a drawer which Jacques described. He had
only to ask Anthony for them. Then he mentioned how they might find
out what had become of that Englishman whose name he had borrowed.
Sir Francis Burnett had a brother in London. Jacques did not know his
precise address; but he knew he had important business-relations with
India, and had, once upon a time, been cashier in the great house of
Gilmour and Benson.
As to the English servant-girl who had for three years attended to
his house in Vine Street, Jacques had taken her blindly, upon the
recommendation of an agency in the suburbs; and he had had nothing to
do with her, except to pay her her wages, and, occasionally, some little
gratuity besides. All he could say, and even that he had learned by mere
chance, was, that the girl’s name was Suky Wood; that she was a native
of Folkstone, where her parents kept a sailor’s tavern; and that,
before coming to France, she had been a chambermaid at the Adelphi in
Liverpool.