Page:Novels of Honoré de Balzac Volume 23.djvu/284

 expressing it, made the postmaster turn pale more than once.

“And yet they have searched everything thoroughly, they, in order to find money, I, to find a will which ought to be in Monsieur de Portenduère’s favor,” said the justice of the peace the day on which the inventory was closed. “They have scattered the cinders, raised the marbles, felt the slippers, pierced through the wooden beds, emptied the mattresses, pricked the blankets and quilts, turned out his eiderdown, examined the papers bit by bit, and the drawers, upset the floor of the cellar, and I urged them on to these devastations!”

“What do you think of it?” said the curé.

“The will has been suppressed by one of the heirs.”

“And the papers?”

“Look for them then! Find out what you can of the ways of such sneaking, sly, miserly people as the Massins and the Crémières! How are you to thoroughly understand a fortune like Minoret’s? he receives two hundred thousand francs of the inheritance, and they say he is going to sell his license, his house and his shares in the stage-coach, three hundred and fifty thousand francs.—What sums! without counting the savings of his thirty odd thousand francs income from landed property—Poor doctor!”

“Perhaps the will has been hidden in the library?” said Savinien.

“Therefore I do not dissuade the little one from