On reaching the courtyard of the Conciergerie, Camusot went to the Governor’s room and led him into the middle of the pavement, where no one could overhear them.
“My dear sir, do me the favor of going to La Force, and inquiring of your colleague there whether he happens at this moment to have there any convicts who were on the hulks at Toulon between 1810 and 1815; or have you any imprisoned here?
We will transfer those of La Force here for a few days, and you will let me know whether this so-called Spanish priest is known to them as Jacques Collin, otherwise Trompe-la-Mort.”
“Very good, Monsieur Camusot. — But Bibi–Lupin is come . . . ”
“What, already?” said the judge.
“He was at Melun.
He was told that Trompe-la-Mort had to be identified, and he smiled with joy. He awaits your orders.”
“Send him to me.”
The Governor was then able to lay before Monsieur Camusot Jacques Collin’s request, and he described the man’s deplorable condition.
“I intended to examine him first,” replied the magistrate, “but not on account of his health.
I received a note this morning from the Governor of La Force.
Well, this rascal, who described himself to you as having been dying for twenty-four hours past, slept so soundly that they went into his cell there, with the doctor for whom the Governor had sent, without his hearing them; the doctor did not even feel his pulse, he left him to sleep — which proves that his conscience is as tough as his health.
I shall accept this feigned illness only so far as it may enable me to study my man,” added Monsieur Camusot, smiling.
“We live to learn every day with these various grades of prisoners,” said the Governor of the prison.
The Prefecture of police adjoins the Conciergerie, and the magistrates, like the Governor, knowing all the subterranean passages, can get to and fro with the greatest rapidity.
This explains the miraculous ease with which information can be conveyed, during the sitting of the Courts, to the officials and the presidents of the Assize Courts.
And by the time Monsieur Camusot had reached the top of the stairs leading to his chambers, Bibi–Lupin was there too, having come by the Salle des Pas–Perdus.
“What zeal!” said Camusot, with a smile.
“Ah, well, you see if it is he,” replied the man, “you will see great fun in the prison-yard if by chance there are any old stagers here.”
“Why?”
“Trompe-la-Mort sneaked their chips, and I know that they have vowed to be the death of him.”
They were the convicts whose money, intrusted to Trompe-la-Mort, had all been made away with by him for Lucien, as has been told.
“Could you lay your hand on the witnesses of his former arrest?”
“Give me two summonses of witnesses and I will find you some to-day.”
“Coquart,” said the lawyer, as he took off his gloves, and placed his hat and stick in a corner, “fill up two summonses by monsieur’s directions.”
He looked at himself in the glass over the chimney shelf, where stood, in the place of a clock, a basin and jug. On one side was a bottle of water and a glass, on the other a lamp.
He rang the bell; his usher came in a few minutes after.
“Is anybody here for me yet?” he asked the man, whose business it was to receive the witnesses, to verify their summons, and to set them in the order of their arrival.
“Yes, sir.”
“Take their names, and bring me the list.”
The examining judges, to save time, are often obliged to carry on several inquiries at once.
Hence the long waiting inflicted on the witnesses, who have seats in the ushers’ hall, where the judges’ bells are constantly ringing.
“And then,” Camusot went on, “bring up the Abbe Carlos Herrera.”
“Ah, ha!
I was told that he was a priest in Spanish.
Pooh!
It is a new edition of Collet, Monsieur Camusot,” said the head of the Safety department.
“There is nothing new!” replied Camusot. And he signed the two formidable documents which alarm everybody, even the most innocent witnesses, whom the law thus requires to appear, under severe penalties in case of failure.
By this time Jacques Collin had, about half an hour since, finished his deep meditations, and was armed for the fray.
Nothing is more perfectly characteristic of this type of the mob in rebellion against the law than the few words he had written on the greasy scraps of paper.
The sense of the first — for it was written in the language, the very slang of slang, agreed upon by Asie and himself, a cipher of words — was as follows:—
“Go to the Duchesse de Maufrigneuse or Madame de Serizy: one of them must see Lucien before he is examined, and give him the enclosed paper to read.
Then find Europe and Paccard; those two thieves must be at my orders, and ready to play any part I may set them.
“Go to Rastignac; tell him, from the man he met at the opera-ball, to come and swear that the Abbe Carlos Herrera has no resemblance to Jacques Collin who was apprehended at Vauquer’s.
Do the same with Dr. Bianchon, and get Lucien’s two women to work to the same end.”
On the enclosed fragment were these words in good French:
“Lucien, confess nothing about me.
I am the Abbe Carlos Herrera.
Not only will this be your exculpation; but, if you do not lose your head, you will have seven millions and your honor cleared.”
These two bits of paper, gummed on the side of the writing so as to look like one piece, were then rolled tightly, with a dexterity peculiar to men who have dreamed of getting free from the hulks.