"
"Trompe-la-Mort?" said Pioret. "Dear me, he is very lucky if he
deserves that nickname."
"Well, yes," said the detective. "They call him so because he has been
so lucky as not to lose his life in the very risky businesses that he
has carried through. He is a dangerous man, you see! He has qualities
that are out of the common; the thing he is wanted for, in fact, was a
matter which gained him no end of credit with his own set----"
"Then is he a man of honor?" asked Poiret.
"Yes, according to his notions. He agreed to take another man's crime
upon himself--a forgery committed by a very handsome young fellow that
he had taken a great fancy to, a young Italian, a bit of a gambler,
who has since gone into the army, where his conduct has been
unexceptionable."
"But if his Excellency the Minister of Police is certain that M.
Vautrin is this _Trompe-la-Mort_, why should he want me?" asked Mlle.
Michonneau.
"Oh yes," said Poiret, "if the Minister, as you have been so obliging
as to tell us, really knows for a certainty----"
"Certainty is not the word; he only suspects. You will soon understand
how things are. Jacques Collin, nicknamed _Trompe-la-Mort_, is in the
confidence of every convict in the three prisons; he is their man of
business and their banker.
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