Chapter 4

As for Fanferlot, he congratulated himself upon his success. No one but a woman could have drawn him so excellent a portrait; in a moment of excitement she had given him the most valuable information; he now knew the nature of the man with whom he had to deal, which in an investigation like that he was pursuing is the principal point.

“You know that M. Bertomy gambles,” he ventured to say, “and gambling is apt to lead a man--”

Mme. Gypsy shrugged her shoulders, and interrupted him:

“Yes, he plays,” she said, “but he is not a gambler. I have seen him lose and gain large sums without betraying the slightest agitation. He plays as he drinks, as he sups, as he falls in love--without passion, without enthusiasm, without pleasure. Sometimes he frightens me; he seems to drag about a body without a soul. Ah, I am not happy! Never have I been able to overcome his indifference, and indifference so great, so reckless, that I often think it must be despair; nothing will convince me that he has not some terrible secret, some great misfortune weighing upon his mind, and making life a burden.”

“Then he has never spoken to you of his past?”

“Why should he tell me? Did you not hear me? I tell you he does not love me!”

Mme. Nina was overcome by thoughts of the past, and tears silently coursed down her cheeks.

But her despair was only momentary. She started up, and, her eyes sparkling with generous resolution, she cried out:

“But I love him, and I will save him! I will see his chief, the miserable wretch who dares to accuse him. I will haunt the judges, and I will prove that he is innocent. Come, monsieur, let us start, and I promise you that before sunset he shall be free, or I shall be in prison with him.”

Mme. Gypsy’s project was certainly laudable, and prompted by the noblest sentiments; but unfortunately it was impracticable.

Moreover, it would be going counter to the plans of the detective.

Although he had resolved to reserve to himself all the difficulties as well as the benefits of this inquiry, Fanferlot saw clearly that he could not conceal the existence of Mme. Nina from the judge of instruction. She would necessarily be brought into the case, and sought for. But he did not wish her to take any steps of her own accord. He proposed to have her appear when and how he judged proper, so that he might gain for himself the merit of having discovered her.

His first step was to endeavor to calm the young woman’s excitement. He thought it easy to prove to her that the least interference in favor of Prosper would be a piece of folly.

“What will you gain by acting thus, my dear madame?” he asked. “Nothing. I can assure you that you have not the least chance of success. Remember that you will seriously compromise yourself. Who knows if you will not be suspected as M. Bertomy’s accomplice?”

But this alarming perspective, which had frightened Cavaillon into foolishly giving up a letter which he might so easily have retained, only stimulated Gypsy’s enthusiasm. Man calculates, while woman follows the inspirations of her heart. Our most devoted friend, if a man, hesitates and draws back: if a woman, rushes undauntedly forward, regardless of the danger.

“What matters the risk?” she exclaimed. “I don’t believe any danger exists; but, if it does, so much the better: it will be all the more to my credit. I am sure Prosper is innocent; but, if he should be guilty, I wish to share the punishment which awaits him.”

Mme. Gypsy’s persistence was becoming alarming. She hastily drew around her a cashmere shawl, and, putting on her hat, declared that she was ready to walk from one end of Paris to the other, in search of the judge.

“Come, monsieur,” she said with feverish impatience. “Are you not coming with me?”

Fanferlot was perplexed. Happily he always had several strings to his bow.

Personal considerations having no hold upon this impulsive nature, he resolved to appeal to her interest in Prosper.

“I am at your command, fair lady,” he said; “let us go if you desire it; only permit me, while there is yet time, to say that we are very probably going to do great injury to M. Bertomy.”

“In what way, if you please?”

“Because we are taking a step that he expressly forbade in his letter; we are surprising him--giving him no warning.”

Nina scornfully tossed her head, and replied:

“There are some people who must be saved without warning, and against their will. I know Prosper: he is just the man to let himself be murdered without a struggle, without speaking a word--to give himself up through sheer recklessness and despair.”

“Excuse me, madame,” interrupted the detective: “M. Bertomy has by no means the appearance of a man who has given up in despair. On the contrary, I think he has already laid his plan of defence. By showing yourself, when he advised you to remain in concealment, you will be very likely to make vain his most careful precautions.”

Mme. Gypsy was silently weighing the value of Fanferlot’s objections. Finally she said:

“I cannot remain here inactive, without attempting to contribute in some way to his safety. Can you not understand that this floor burns my feet?”

Evidently, if she was not absolutely convinced, her resolution was shaken. Fanferlot saw that he was gaining ground, and this certainty, making him more at ease, gave weight to his eloquence.

“You have it in your power, madame,” he said, “to render a great service to the man you love.”

“In what way, monsieur, in what way?”

“Obey him, my child,” said Fanferlot, in a paternal manner.

Mme. Gypsy evidently expected very different advice.

“Obey,” she murmured, “obey!”

“It is your duty,” said Fanferlot with grave dignity, “it is your sacred duty.”

She still hesitated; and he took from the table Prosper’s note, which she had laid there, then continued:

“What! M. Bertomy at the most trying moment, when he is about to be arrested, stops to point out your line of conduct; and you would render vain this wise precaution! What does he say to you? Let us read over this note, which is like the testament of his liberty. He says, ‘If you love me, I entreat you, obey.’ And you hesitate to obey. Then you do not love him. Can you not understand, unhappy child, that M. Bertomy has his reasons, terrible, imperious reasons, for your remaining in obscurity for the present?”

Fanferlot understood these reasons the moment he put his foot in the sumptuous apartment of the Rue Chaptal; and, if he did not expose them now, it was because he kept them as a good general keeps his reserve, for the purpose of deciding the victory.

Mme. Gypsy was intelligent enough to divine these reasons.

“Reasons for my hiding! Prosper wishes, then, to keep everyone in ignorance of our intimacy.”

She remained thoughtful for a moment; then a ray of light seemed to cross her mind, and she cried:

“Oh, I understand now! Fool that I was for not seeing it before! My presence here, where I have been for a year, would be an overwhelming charge against him. An inventory of my possessions would be taken--of my dresses, my laces, my jewels--and my luxury would be brought against him as a crime. He would be asked to tell where he obtained so much money to lavish all these elegancies on me.”

The detective bowed, and said:

“That is true, madame.”

“Then I must fly, monsieur, at once. Who knows that the police are not already warned, and may appear at any moment?”

“Oh,” said Fanferlot with easy assurance, “you have plenty of time; the police are not so very prompt.”

“No matter!”

And, leaving the detective alone in the parlor, Mme. Nina hastily ran into her bedroom, and calling her maid, her cook, and her little footman, ordered them to empty her bureau and chests of their contents, and assisted them to stuff her best clothing and jewels into her trunks.

Suddenly she rushed back to Fanferlot and said:

“Everything will be ready to start in a few minutes, but where am I to go?”

“Did not M. Bertomy say, my dear lady, to the other end of Paris? To a hotel, or furnished apartments.”

“But I don’t know where to find any.”

Fanferlot seemed to be reflecting; but he had great difficulty in concealing his delight at a sudden idea that flashed upon him; his little black eyes fairly danced with joy.

“I know of a hotel,” he said at last, “but it might not suit you. It is not elegantly furnished like this room.”

“Would I be comfortable there?”

“Upon my recommendation you would be treated like a queen, and, above all, concealed.”

“Where is it?”

“On the other side of the river, Quai Saint Michel, the Archangel, kept by Mme. Alexandre.”

Mme. Nina was never long making up her mind.

“Here are pen and paper; write your recommendation.”

He rapidly wrote, and handed her the letter.

“With these three lines, madame, you can make Mme. Alexandre do anything you wish.”

“Very good. Now, how am I to let Cavaillon know my address? It was he who should have brought me Prosper’s letter.”

“He was unable to come, madame,” interrupted the detective, “but I will give him your address.”

Mme. Gypsy was about to send for a carriage, but Fanferlot said he was in a hurry, and would send her one. He seemed to be in luck that day; for a cab was passing the door, and he hailed it.

“Wait here,” he said to the driver, after telling him that he was a detective, “for a little brunette who is coming down with some trunks. If she tells you to drive her to Quai Saint Michel, crack your whip; if she gives you any other address, get down from your seat, and arrange your harness. I will keep in sight.”

He stepped across the street, and stood in the door of a wine-store. He had not long to wait. In a few minutes the loud cracking of a whip apprised him that Mme. Nina had started for the Archangel.

“Aha,” said he, gayly, “I told _her_, at any rate.”

IV

At the same hour that Mme. Nina Gypsy was seeking refuge at the Archangel, so highly recommended by Fanferlot the Squirrel, Prosper Bertomy was being entered on the jailer’s book at the police office.

Since the moment when he had resumed his habitual composure, he had not faltered.

Vainly did the people around him watch for a suspicious expression, or any sign of giving way under the danger of his situation.

His face was like marble.

One would have supposed him insensible to the horrors of his condition, had not his heavy breathing, and the beads of perspiration standing on his brow, betrayed the intense agony he was suffering.

At the police office, where he had to wait two hours while the commissary went to receive orders from higher authorities, he entered into conversation with the two bailiffs who had charge of him.

At twelve o’clock he said he was hungry, and sent to a restaurant near by for his breakfast, which he ate with a good appetite; he also drank nearly a bottle of wine.

While he was thus occupied, several clerks from the prefecture, who have to transact business daily with the commissary of police, curiously watched him. They all formed the same opinion, and admiringly said to each other:

“Well, he is made of strong material, he is!”

“Yes, my dandy looks too lamb-like to be left to his own devices. He ought to have a strong escort.”

When he was told that a coach was waiting for him at the door, he at once got up; but, before going out, he requested permission to light a cigar, which was granted.

A flower-girl stood just by the door, with her stand filled with all varieties of flowers. He stopped and bought a bunch of violets. The girl, seeing that he was arrested, said, by way of thanks:

“Good luck to you, my poor gentleman!”

He appeared touched by this mark of interest, and replied:

“Thanks, my good woman, but ‘tis a long time since I have had any.”

It was magnificent weather, a bright spring morning. As the coach went along Rue Montmartre, Prosper kept his head out of the window, at the same time smilingly complaining at being imprisoned on such a lovely day, when everything outside was so sunny and pleasant.

“It is singular,” he said, “I never felt so great a desire to take a walk.”

One of the bailiffs, a large, jovial, red-faced man, received this remark with a hearty burst of laughter, and said:

“I understand.”

To the court clerk, while he was going through the formalities of the commitment, Prosper replied with haughty brevity to the indispensable questions asked him.

But when he was ordered to empty his pockets on the table, and they began to search him, his eyes flashed with indignation, and a single tear dropped upon his flushed cheek. In an instant he had recovered his stony calmness, and stood up motionless, with his arms raised in the air so that the rough creatures about him could more conveniently ransack him from head to foot, to assure themselves that he had no suspicious object hid under his clothes.

The search would have, perhaps, been carried to the most ignominious lengths, but for the intervention of a middle-aged man of rather distinguished appearance, who wore a white cravat and gold spectacles, and was sitting quite at home by the fire.

He started with surprise, and seemed much agitated, when he saw Prosper brought in by the bailiffs; he stepped forward, and seemed about to speak to him, then suddenly changed his mind, and sat down again.

In spite of his own troubles, Prosper could not help seeing that this man kept his eyes fastened upon him. Did he know him? Vainly did he try to recollect having met him before.

This man, treated with all the deference due to a chief, was no less a personage than M. Lecoq, a celebrated member of the detective corps.

When the men who were searching Prosper were about to take off his boots, saying that a knife might be concealed in them. M. Lecoq waved them aside with an air of authority, and said:

“You have done enough.”

He was obeyed. All the formalities being ended, the unfortunate cashier was taken to a narrow cell; the heavily barred door was swung to and locked upon him; he breathed freely; at last he was alone.

Yes, he believed himself to be alone. He was ignorant that a prison is made of glass, that the accused is like a miserable insect under the microscope of an entomologist. He knew not that the walls have stretched ears and watchful eyes.

He was so sure of being alone that he at once gave vent to his suppressed feelings, and, dropping his mask of impassibility, burst into a flood of tears. His long-restrained anger now flashed out like a smouldering fire.

In a paroxysm of rage he uttered imprecations and curses. He dashed himself against the prison-walls like a wild beast in a cage.

Prosper Bertomy was not the man he appeared to be.

This haughty, correct gentleman had ardent passions and a fiery temperament.

One day, when he was about twenty-four years of age, he had become suddenly fired by ambition. While all of his desires were repressed, imprisoned in his low estate, like an athlete in a strait-jacket, seeing around him all these rich people with whom money assumed the place of the wand in the fairy-tale, he envied their lot.

He studied the beginnings of these financial princes, and found that at the starting-point they possessed far less than himself.

How, then, had they succeeded? By force of energy, industry, and assurance.

He determined to imitate and excel them.

From this day, with a force of will much less rare than we think, he imposed silence upon his instincts. He reformed not his morals, but his manners; and so strictly did he conform to the rules of decorum, that he was regarded as a model of propriety by those who knew him, and had faith in his character; and his capabilities and ambition inspired the prophecy that he would be successful in attaining eminence and wealth.

And the end of all was this: imprisoned for robbery; that is, ruined!

For he did not attempt to deceive himself. He knew that, guilty or innocent, a man once suspected is as ineffaceably branded as the shoulder of a galley-slave.

Therefore what was the use of struggling? What benefit was a triumph which could not wash out the stain?

When the jailer brought him his supper, he found him lying on his pallet, with his face buried in the pillow, weeping bitterly.

Ah, he was not hungry now! Now that he was alone, he fed upon his own bitter thoughts. He sank from a state of frenzy into one of stupefying despair, and vainly did he endeavor to clear his confused mind, and account for the dark cloud gathering about him; no loop-hole for escape did he discover.

The night was long and terrible, and for the first time he had nothing to count the hours by, as they slowly dragged on, but the measured tread of the patrol who came to relieve the sentinels. He was wretched.

At dawn he dropped into a sleep, a heavy, oppressive sleep, which was more wearisome than refreshing; from which he was startled by the rough voice of the jailer.

“Come, monsieur,” he said, “it is time for you to appear before the judge of instruction.”

He jumped up at once, and, without stopping to repair his disordered toilet, said:

“Come on, quick!”

The constable remarked, as they walked along:

“You are very fortunate in having your case brought before an honest man.”

He was right.

Endowed with remarkable penetration, firm, unbiased, equally free from false pity and excessive severity, M. Patrigent possessed in an eminent degree all the qualities necessary for the delicate and difficult office of judge of instruction.

Perhaps he was wanting in the feverish activity which is sometimes necessary for coming to a quick and just decision; but he possessed unwearying patience, which nothing could discourage. He would cheerfully devote years to the examination of a case; he was even now engaged on a case of Belgian bank-notes, of which he did not collect all the threads, and solve the mystery, until after four years’ investigation.

Thus it was always to his office that they brought the endless lawsuits, half-finished inquests, and tangled cases.

This was the man before whom they were taking Prosper; and they were taking him by a difficult road.

He was escorted along a corridor, through a room full of policemen, down a narrow flight of steps, across a kind of cellar, and then up a steep staircase which seemed to have no terminus.

Finally he reached a long narrow galley, upon which opened many doors, bearing different numbers.

The custodian of the unhappy cashier stopped before one of these doors, and said:

“Here we are; here your fate will be decided.”

At this remark, uttered in a tone of deep commiseration, Prosper could not refrain from shuddering.

It was only too true, that on the other side of this door was a man upon whose decision his freedom depended.

Summoning all his courage, he turned the door-knob, and was about to enter when the constable stopped him.

“Don’t be in such haste,” he said; “you must sit down here, and wait till your turn comes; then you will be called.”

The wretched man obeyed, and his keeper took a seat beside him.

Nothing is more terrible and lugubrious than this gallery of the judges of instruction.

Stretching the whole length of the wall is a wooden bench blackened by constant use. This bench has for the last ten years been daily occupied by all the murderers, thieves, and suspicious characters of the Department of the Seine.

Sooner or later, fatally, as filth rushes to a sewer, does crime reach this gallery, this dreadful gallery with one door opening on the galleys, the other on the scaffold. This place was vulgarly and pithily denominated by a certain magistrate as the great public wash-house of all the dirty linen in Paris.

When Prosper reached the gallery it was full of people. The bench was almost entirely occupied. Beside him, so close as to touch his shoulder, sat a man with a sinister countenance, dressed in rags.

Before each door, which belonged to a judge of instruction, stood groups of witnesses talking in an undertone.

Policemen were constantly coming and going with prisoners. Sometimes, above the noise of their heavy boots, tramping along the flagstones, could be heard a woman’s stifled sobs, and looking around you would see some poor mother or wife with her face buried in her handkerchief, weeping bitterly.

At short intervals a door would open and shut, and a bailiff call out a name or number.

This stifling atmosphere, and the sight of so much misery, made the cashier ill and faint; he was feeling as if another five minutes’ stay among these wretched creatures would make him deathly sick, when a little old man dressed in black, wearing the insignia of his office, a steel chain, cried out:

“Prosper Bertomy!”

The unhappy man arose, and, without knowing how, found himself in the office of the judge of instruction.

For a moment he was blinded. He had come out of a dark room; and the one in which he now found himself had a window directly opposite the door, so that a flood of light fell suddenly upon him.

This office, like all those on the gallery, was of a very ordinary appearance, small and dingy.

The wall was covered with cheap dark green paper, and on the floor was a hideous brown carpet, very much worn.

Opposite the door was a large desk, filled with bundles of law-papers, behind which was seated the judge, facing those who entered, so that his face remained in the shade, while that of the prisoner or witness whom he questioned was in a glare of light.

At the right, before a little table, sat a clerk writing, the indispensable auxiliary of the judge.

But Prosper observed none of these details: his whole attention was concentrated upon the arbiter of his fate, and as he closely examined his face he was convinced that the jailer was right in calling him an honorable man.

M. Patrigent’s homely face, with its irregular outline and short red whiskers, lit up by a pair of bright, intelligent eyes, and a kindly expression, was calculated to impress one favorably at first sight.

“Take a seat,” he said to Prosper.

This little attention was gratefully welcomed by the prisoner, for he had expected to be treated with harsh contempt. He looked upon it as a good sign, and his mind felt a slight relief.

M. Patrigent turned toward the clerk, and said:

“We will begin now, Sigault; pay attention.”

“What is your name?” he then asked, looking at Prosper.

“Auguste Prosper Bertomy.”

“How old are you?”

“I shall be thirty the 5th of next May.”

“What is your profession?”

“I am--that is, I was--cashier in M. Andre Fauvel’s bank.”

The judge stopped to consult a little memorandum lying on his desk. Prosper, who followed attentively his every movement, began to be hopeful, saying to himself that never would a man so unprejudiced have the cruelty to send him to prison again.

After finding what he looked for, M. Patrigent resumed the examination.

“Where do you live?”

“At No. 39, Rue Chaptal, for the last four years. Before that time I lived at No. 7, Boulevard des Batignolles.”

“Where were you born?”

“At Beaucaire in the Department of the Gard.”

“Are your parents living?”

“My mother died two years ago; my father is still living.”

“Does he live in Paris?”

“No, monsieur: he lives at Beaucaire with my sister, who married one of the engineers of the Southern Canal.”

It was in broken tones that Prosper answered these last questions. There are moments in the life of a man when home memories encourage and console him; there are also moments when he would be thankful to be without a single tie, and bitterly regrets that he is not alone in the world.

M. Patrigent observed the prisoner’s emotion, when he spoke of his parents.

“What is your father’s calling?” he continued.

“He was formerly superintendent of the bridges and canals; then he was employed on the Southern Canal, with my brother-in-law; now he has retired from business.”