He had 'made up' so that Daddy Jacques had not recognised him.
And yet Larsan had found the opportunity to rob the old man of a pair of old boots and a cast-off Basque cap, which the servant had tied up in a handkerchief, with the intention of carrying them to a friend, a charcoal-burner on the road to Epinay.

When the crime was discovered, Daddy Jacques had immediately recognised these objects as his.

They were extremely compromising, which explains his distress at the time when we spoke to him about them.

Larsan confessed it all to me.

He is an artist at the game.