This cry reached the ear of Jacques Collin, who was thus prepared to see her.
The sergeant flew after Madame la Baronne, seized her by the middle, and lifted her back like a feather into the midst of a group of five gendarmes, who started up as one man; for in that guardroom everything is regarded as suspicious.
The proceeding was arbitrary, but the arbitrariness was necessary.
The young lawyer himself had cried out twice,
“Madame! madame!” in his horror, so much did he fear finding himself in the wrong.
The Abbe Carlos Herrera, half fainting, sank on a chair in the guardroom.
“Poor man!” said the Baroness. “Can he be a criminal?”
The words, though spoken low to the young advocate, could be heard by all, for the silence of death reigned in that terrible guardroom.
Certain privileged persons are sometimes allowed to see famous criminals on their way through this room or through the passages, so that the clerk and the gendarmes who had charge of the Abbe Carlos made no remark.
Also, in consequence of the devoted zeal of the sergeant who had snatched up the Baroness to hinder any communication between the prisoner and the visitors, there was a considerable space between them.
“Let us go on,” said Jacques Collin, making an effort to rise.
At the same moment the little ball rolled out of his sleeve, and the spot where it fell was noted by the Baroness, who could look about her freely from under her veil.
The little pellet, being damp and sticky, did not roll; for such trivial details, apparently unimportant, had all been duly considered by Jacques Collin to insure success.
When the prisoner had been led up the higher part of the steps, Asie very unaffectedly dropped her bag and picked it up again; but in stooping she seized the pellet which had escaped notice, its color being exactly like that of the dust and mud on the floor.
“Oh dear!” cried she, “it goes to my heart. — He is dying ——”
“Or seems to be,” replied the sergeant.
“Monsieur,” said Asie to the lawyer, “take me at once to Monsieur Camusot; I have come about this case; and he might be very glad to see me before examining that poor priest.”
The lawyer and the Baroness left the guardroom, with its greasy, fuliginous walls; but as soon as they reached the top of the stairs, Asie exclaimed:
“Oh, and my dog!
My poor little dog!” and she rushed off like a mad creature down the Salle des Pas–Perdus, asking every one where her dog was.
She got to the corridor beyond (la Galerie Marchande, or Merchant’s Hall, as it is called), and flew to the staircase, saying,
“There he is!”
These stairs lead to the Cour de Harlay, through which Asie, having played out the farce, passed out and took a hackney cab on the Quai des Orfevres, where there is a stand; thus she vanished with the summons requiring “Europe” to appear, her real name being unknown to the police and the lawyers.
“Rue Neuve–Saint-Marc,” cried she to the driver.
Asie could depend on the absolute secrecy of an old-clothes purchaser, known as Madame Nourrisson, who also called herself Madame de Saint–Esteve; and who would lend Asie not merely her personality, but her shop at need, for it was there that Nucingen had bargained for the surrender of Esther.
Asie was quite at home there, for she had a bedroom in Madame Nourrisson’s establishment.
She paid the driver, and went up to her room, nodding to Madame Nourrisson in a way to make her understand that she had not time to say two words to her.
As soon as she was safe from observation, Asie unwrapped the papers with the care of a savant unrolling a palimpsest.
After reading the instructions, she thought it wise to copy the lines intended for Lucien on a sheet of letter-paper; then she went down to Madame Nourrisson, to whom she talked while a little shop-girl went to fetch a cab from the Boulevard des Italiens.
She thus extracted the addresses of the Duchesse de Maufrigneuse and of Madame de Serizy, which were known to Madame Nourrisson by her dealings with their maids.
All this running about and elaborate business took up more than two hours.
Madame la Duchesse de Maufrigneuse, who lived at the top of the Faubourg Saint–Honore, kept Madame de Saint–Esteve waiting an hour, although the lady’s-maid, after knocking at the boudoir door, had handed in to her mistress a card with Madame de Saint–Esteve’s name, on which Asie had written,
“Called about pressing business concerning Lucien.”
Her first glance at the Duchess’ face showed her how till-timed her visit must be; she apologized for disturbing Madame la Duchesse when she was resting, on the plea of the danger in which Lucien stood.
“Who are you?” asked the Duchess, without any pretence at politeness, as she looked at Asie from head to foot; for Asie, though she might be taken for a Baroness by Maitre Massol in the Salle des Pas–Perdus, when she stood on the carpet in the boudoir of the Hotel de Cadignan, looked like a splash of mud on a white satin gown.
“I am a dealer in cast-off clothes, Madame la Duchesse; for in such matters every lady applies to women whose business rests on a basis of perfect secrecy.
I have never betrayed anybody, though God knows how many great ladies have intrusted their diamonds to me by the month while wearing false jewels made to imitate them exactly.”
“You have some other name?” said the Duchess, smiling at a reminiscence recalled to her by this reply.
“Yes, Madame la Duchesse, I am Madame de Saint–Esteve on great occasions, but in the trade I am Madame Nourrisson.”
“Well, well,” said the Duchess in an altered tone.
“I am able to be of great service,” Asie went on, “for we hear the husbands’ secrets as well as the wives’.
I have done many little jobs for Monsieur de Marsay, whom Madame la Duchesse ——”
“That will do, that will do!” cried the Duchess. “What about Lucien?”
“If you wish to save him, madame, you must have courage enough to lose no time in dressing. But, indeed, Madame la Duchesse, you could not look more charming than you do at this moment.
You are sweet enough to charm anybody, take an old woman’s word for it!
In short, madame, do not wait for your carriage, but get into my hackney coach.
Come to Madame de Serizy’s if you hope to avert worse misfortunes than the death of that cherub ——”
“Go on, I will follow you,” said the Duchess after a moment’s hesitation. “Between us we may give Leontine some courage . . . ”
Notwithstanding the really demoniacal activity of this Dorine of the hulks, the clock was striking two when she and the Duchesse de Maufrigneuse went into the Comtesse de Serizy’s house in the Rue de la Chaussee-d’Antin.
Once there, thanks to the Duchess, not an instant was lost.