The whole thing assumed the shape and consistency of a ball of dirty rubbish, about as big as the sealing-wax heads which thrifty women stick on the head of a large needle when the eye is broken.
“If I am examined first, we are saved; if it is the boy, all is lost,” said he to himself while he waited.
His plight was so sore that the strong man’s face was wet with white sweat.
Indeed, this wonderful man saw as clearly in his sphere of crime as Moliere did in his sphere of dramatic poetry, or Cuvier in that of extinct organisms.
Genius of whatever kind is intuition.
Below this highest manifestation other remarkable achievements may be due to talent.
This is what divides men of the first rank from those of the second.
Crime has its men of genius.
Jacques Collin, driven to bay, had hit on the same notion as Madame Camusot’s ambition and Madame de Serizy’s passion, suddenly revived by the shock of the dreadful disaster which was overwhelming Lucien.
This was the supreme effort of human intellect directed against the steel armor of Justice.
On hearing the rasping of the heavy locks and bolts of his door, Jacques Collin resumed his mask of a dying man; he was helped in this by the intoxicating joy that he felt at the sound of the warder’s shoes in the passage.
He had no idea how Asie would get near him; but he relied on meeting her on the way, especially after her promise given in the Saint–Jean gateway.
After that fortunate achievement she had gone on to the Place de Greve.
Till 1830 the name of La Greve (the Strand) had a meaning that is now lost.
Every part of the river-shore from the Pont d’Arcole to the Pont Louis–Philippe was then as nature had made it, excepting the paved way which was at the top of the bank.
When the river was in flood a boat could pass close under the houses and at the end of the streets running down to the river.
On the quay the footpath was for the most part raised with a few steps; and when the river was up to the houses, vehicles had to pass along the horrible Rue de la Mortellerie, which has now been completely removed to make room for enlarging the Hotel de Ville. So the sham costermonger could easily and quickly run her truck down to the bottom of the quay, and hide it there till the real owner — who was, in fact, drinking the price of her wares, sold bodily to Asie, in one of the abominable taverns in the Rue de la Mortellerie — should return to claim it.
At that time the Quai Pelletier was being extended, the entrance to the works was guarded by a crippled soldier, and the barrow would be quite safe in his keeping.
Asie then jumped into a hackney cab on the Place de l’Hotel de Ville, and said to the driver,
“To the Temple, and look sharp, I’ll tip you well.”
A woman dressed like Asie could disappear, without any questions being asked, in the huge market-place, where all the rags in Paris are gathered together, where a thousand costermongers wander round, and two hundred old-clothes sellers are chaffering.
The two prisoners had hardly been locked up when she was dressing herself in a low, damp entresol over one of those foul shops where remnants are sold, pieces stolen by tailors and dressmakers — an establishment kept by an old maid known as La Romette, from her Christian name Jeromette.
La Romette was to the “purchasers of wardrobes” what these women are to the better class of so-called ladies in difficulties — Madame la Ressource, that is to say, money-lenders at a hundred per cent.
“Now, child,” said Asie, “I have got to be figged out.
I must be a Baroness of the Faubourg Saint–Germain at the very least.
And sharp’s the word, for my feet are in hot oil.
You know what gowns suit me.
Hand up the rouge-pot, find me some first-class bits of lace, and the swaggerest jewelry you can pick out. — Send the girl to call a coach, and have it brought to the back door.”
“Yes, madame,” the woman replied very humbly, and with the eagerness of a maid waiting on her mistress.
If there had been any one to witness the scene, he would have understood that the woman known as Asie was at home here.
“I have had some diamonds offered me,” said la Romette as she dressed Asie’s head.
“Stolen?”
“I should think so.”
“Well, then, however cheap they may be, we must do without ’em.
We must fight shy of the beak for a long time to come.”
It will now be understood how Asie contrived to be in the Salle des Pas–Perdus of the Palais de Justice with a summons in her hand, asking her way along the passages and stairs leading to the examining judge’s chambers, and inquiring for Monsieur Camusot, about a quarter of an hour before that gentleman’s arrival.
Asie was not recognizable.
After washing off her “make-up” as an old woman, like an actress, she applied rouge and pearl powder, and covered her head with a well-made fair wig.
Dressed exactly as a lady of the Faubourg Saint–Germain might be if in search of a dog she had lost, she looked about forty, for she shrouded her features under a splendid black lace veil.
A pair of stays, severely laced, disguised her cook’s figure.
With very good gloves and a rather large bustle, she exhaled the perfume of powder a la Marechale.
Playing with a bag mounted in gold, she divided her attention between the walls of the building, where she found herself evidently for the first time, and the string by which she led a dainty little spaniel.
Such a dowager could not fail to attract the notice of the black-robed natives of the Salle des Pas–Perdus.
Besides the briefless lawyers who sweep this hall with their gowns, and speak of the leading advocates by their Christian names, as fine gentlemen address each other, to produce the impression that they are of the aristocracy of the law, patient youths are often to be seen, hangers-on of the attorneys, waiting, waiting, in hope of a case put down for the end of the day, which they may be so lucky as to be called to plead if the advocates retained for the earlier cases should not come out in time.
A very curious study would be that of the differences between these various black gowns, pacing the immense hall in threes, or sometimes in fours, their persistent talk filling the place with a loud, echoing hum — a hall well named indeed, for this slow walk exhausts the lawyers as much as the waste of words. But such a study has its place in the volumes destined to reveal the life of Paris pleaders.
Asie had counted on the presence of these youths; she laughed in her sleeve at some of the pleasantries she overheard, and finally succeeded in attracting the attention of Massol, a young lawyer whose time was more taken up by the Police Gazette than by clients, and who came up with a laugh to place himself at the service of a woman so elegantly scented and so handsomely dressed.
Asie put on a little, thin voice to explain to this obliging gentleman that she appeared in answer to a summons from a judge named Camusot.
“Oh! in the Rubempre case?”
So the affair had its name already.
“Oh, it is not my affair.