French.
Montor squinted. In his defense, the light was dim and the appearance of his visitor somewhat frightful and haggard. "Yes, yes," he said, but he could not remember the name. "That young man from Baltimore...but how have you come in here?"
"I spoke to your servant, in French, and told him we were to have an important government meeting that must be private. I ordered him to return in two hours, and paid him for his trouble."
"You had no right to..." Yes! Now Montor remembered this face. "I remember. I first met you in the reading rooms, studying the French newspapers. I helped you with your French language and took you around a bit. Quentin, isn't it? You were looking for the real Dup-"
"Quentin Hobson Clark. Yes, you remember."
"Very well, Monsieur... Clark ." The engine of Montor's mind was now clicking. "I shall have to ask you to leave my property at once."
Montor was alarmed to have an intruder in his lodging, even one who had previously been an acquaintance and had seemed so harmless. He was also alarmed at the name, Quentin Clark. He had retained almost no memory of the name from the reading room. But the name meant something else to him as of late.
It took Montor a few moments to be able to produce any sound, and it came out as merely a breath. "Murder! Murder!"
***
"Monsieur Montor," I said when he had finally calmed down, "I believe you know all about the Baron Dupin."
"You-" he began. "But you-" Montor was finally able to explain that Clark 's name had been wired to Montor as the suspect in the attempted assassination of a Frenchman.
"Yes. Me. But I did not shoot anyone. However, I believe you know something more to assist me in determining who did."
Montor now seemed more reluctant to cry out. "Help you? After you invade my house, bribe my servant? Why are you doing this?"
"Simply for truth. I have been forced to look for it with an ungloved hand, and I will."
"They told me you were in prison!"
"Did they tell you so? Did they tell you they were plying me with poisons to manipulate me into a confession?"
Montor muttered, "I do not know what you wish me to say, Monsieur Clark! I have nothing to do with such foul play and have never even met this...this...so-called baron!"
"The men pursuing him were a pair of French rogues. I believe they were under the command of someone else-some person of great intelligence and foresight." Since Bonjour had told me they could not have been working for the Baron's creditors, and since the rogues had spoken of "orders," I knew there was more to it than the two blackguards. "You are surely aware of Frenchmen in and out of this area."
"I do not stand at the harbor peeping into the windows of ships, Monsieur Clark! Do you know the police will look for you for this...this outrageous trespassing." He frowned, remembering they would already be looking for me for a far worse offense. "You seem very different from when we met, monsieur."
I stood above him and looked over him coolly. "I believe you know where men like them would hide, and who would shelter them. You know all the important French citizens who reside in the region of Baltimore. Perhaps some dangerous characters like these rogues would even find you."
"Monsieur Clark, I work directly for Louis-Napoleon since he has become president. If there were French outlaws here, and they wished to hide from your authorities and ours, they would not come to me. You see that, don't you? Think of it." He noticed that I listened seriously to this point, and now tried to switch topics to gain my sympathies. "Didn't I help you research Auguste Duponte, the real Monsieur Dupin? Yes, what of that? Did you find him in Paris?"
"This has nothing to do with Auguste Duponte," I said. I made no threatening motion, no sudden gesture toward him. Yet he cowered; that he believed me wild and violent made me almost inclined to prove him right.
It wasn't even necessary to demand that he tell me whatever he knew. "Bonapartes!" he suddenly babbled.
"What do you mean?" I asked, annoyed.
"In Baltimore," he continued. "Monsieur Jerome Bonaparte."
"You introduced me to some Bonapartes at that dress ball you took me to before I left for Paris. Jerome Bonaparte and his mother. But why would someone like Jerome Bonaparte know more about such rogues? They are relatives of Napoleon's, aren't they?"
"No. Yes.