Page:Memoirs of Vidocq, Volume 2.djvu/193

 at the charge, and for the simple reason that I myself had been the first to set the rumour afloat." St Germain stared with wonder. "My good fellow," said I, "you are well aware that I managed to escape from the police whilst they were transferring me from la Force to Bicêtre. Well! I went to Paris, and stayed there till I could go elsewhere. One must live, you know, how and where one can. Unfortunately, I am still compelled to play at hide and seek, and it is only by assuming a variety of disguises that I dare venture abroad, to look about and just see what my old friends are doing; but in spite of all my precautions, I live in constant dread of many individuals, whose keen eye quickly penetrated my assumption of other names and habits than my own; and who, having formerly been upon terms of familiarity with me, pestered me with questions I had no other means of shaking off, than by insinuating that I was in the pay of the police; and thus I obtained the double advantage of evading in my character of 'spy,' both their suspicions and ill will, should they feel disposed to exercise it in the procuring my arrest."

"Enough—enough," interrupted St Germain; "I believe you; and, to convince you of the unbroken confidence I place in you, I will let you into the secret of our plans for to-night.—At the corner of the Rue d'Enghien, where it joins the Rue Hauteville, lives a banker, whose house looks out upon a very extensive garden; a circumstance greatly in favour both of our expedition and our escape after its completion. This same banker is now absent, and the cash-box, in which is a considerable sum in specie, besides bank notes, &c. is only guarded by two persons—Well, you can guess the rest. We mean to make it our own, by the law of possession, this very evening. Three of us are bound by oath to do the job, which will turn out so profitably, but we want another; and now that you have cleared your character and given scandal the lie, you