But Claude's flat refusal to go farther with the matter, a refusal on which, up to the time of Basterga's abrupt entrance, the Syndic had made no impression, was a factor; and reluctantly, after some thought, Blondel put him out of his mind.
To do the thing himself was his next idea.

But the scare of the night before had given him a distaste for the house; and he shrank from the attempt with a timidity he did not understand.

He held the room in abhorrence, the house in dread; and though he told himself that in the last resort--perhaps he meant the last but one--he should venture, while there was any other way he put that plan aside.
And there was another way: there were others through whom the thing could be done.

Grio, indeed, who had access to the room and the box, was Basterga's creature; and the Syndic dared not tamper with him.

But there was a third lodger, a young fellow, of whom the inquiries he had made respecting the house had apprised him.