I knew of Mademoiselle Esther’s intention of killing herself; and as young Lucien de Rubempre’s interests were involved, and I have a particular affection for him for sacredly secret reasons, I was going to try to persuade the poor creature to give up the idea, suggested to her by despair. I meant to tell her that Lucien must certainly fail in his last attempt to win Mademoiselle Clotilde de Grandlieu; and I hoped that by telling her she had inherited seven millions of francs, I might give her courage to live.
“I am convinced, Monsieur le Juge, that I am a martyr to the secrets confided to me.
By the suddenness of my illness I believe that I had been poisoned that very morning, but my strong constitution has saved me.
I know that a certain agent of the political police is dogging me, and trying to entangle me in some discreditable business. “If, at my request, you had sent for a doctor on my arrival here, you would have had ample proof of what I am telling you as to the state of my health.
Believe me, monsieur, some persons far above our heads have some strong interest in getting me mistaken for some villain, so as to have a right to get rid of me.
It is not all profit to serve a king; they have their meannesses. The Church alone is faultless.”
It is impossible to do justice to the play of Jacques Collin’s countenance as he carefully spun out his speech, sentence by sentence, for ten minutes; and it was all so plausible, especially the mention of Corentin, that the lawyer was shaken.
“Will you confide to me the reasons of your affection for Monsieur Lucien de Rubempre?”
“Can you not guess them?
I am sixty years of age, monsieur — I implore you do not write it. — It is because — must I say it?”
“It will be to your own advantage, and more particularly to Monsieur Lucien de Rubempre’s, if you tell everything,” replied the judge.
“Because he is — Oh, God! he is my son,” he gasped out with an effort.
And he fainted away.
“Do not write that down, Coquart,” said Camusot in an undertone.
Coquart rose to fetch a little phial of
“Four thieves’ Vinegar.”
“If he is Jacques Collin, he is a splendid actor!” thought Camusot.
Coquart held the phial under the convict’s nose, while the judge examined him with the keen eye of a lynx — and a magistrate.
“Take his wig off,” said Camusot, after waiting till the man recovered consciousness.
Jacques Collin heard, and quaked with terror, for he knew how vile an expression his face would assume.
“If you have not strength enough to take your wig off yourself —— Yes, Coquart, remove it,” said Camusot to his clerk.
Jacques Collin bent his head to the clerk with admirable resignation; but then his head, bereft of that adornment, was hideous to behold in its natural aspect.
The sight of it left Camusot in the greatest uncertainty.
While waiting for the doctor and the man from the infirmary, he set to work to classify and examine the various papers and the objects seized in Lucien’s rooms.
After carrying out their functions in the Rue Saint–Georges at Mademoiselle Esther’s house, the police had searched the rooms at the Quai Malaquais.
“You have your hand on some letters from the Comtesse de Serizy,” said Carlos Herrera. “But I cannot imagine why you should have almost all Lucien’s papers,” he added, with a smile of overwhelming irony at the judge.
Camusot, as he saw the smile, understood the bearing of the word “almost.”
“Lucien de Rubempre is in custody under suspicion of being your accomplice,” said he, watching to see the effect of this news on his examinee.
“You have brought about a great misfortune, for he is as innocent as I am,” replied the sham Spaniard, without betraying the smallest agitation.
“We shall see.
We have not as yet established your identity,” Camusot observed, surprised at the prisoner’s indifference. “If you are really Don Carlos Herrera, the position of Lucien Chardon will at once be completely altered.”
“To be sure, she became Madame Chardon — Mademoiselle de Rubempre!” murmured Carlos.
“Ah! that was one of the greatest sins of my life.”
He raised his eyes to heaven, and by the movement of his lips seemed to be uttering a fervent prayer.
“But if you are Jacques Collin, and if he was, and knew that he was, the companion of an escaped convict, a sacrilegious wretch, all the crimes of which he is suspected by the law are more than probably true.”
Carlos Herrera sat like bronze as he heard this speech, very cleverly delivered by the judge, and his only reply to the words “knew that he was” and “escaped convict” was to lift his hands to heaven with a gesture of noble and dignified sorrow.
“Monsieur l’Abbe,” Camusot went on, with the greatest politeness, “if you are Don Carlos Herrera, you will forgive us for what we are obliged to do in the interests of justice and truth.”
Jacques Collin detected a snare in the lawyer’s very voice as he spoke the words “Monsieur l’Abbe.” The man’s face never changed; Camusot had looked for a gleam of joy, which might have been the first indication of his being a convict, betraying the exquisite satisfaction of a criminal deceiving his judge; but this hero of the hulks was strong in Machiavellian dissimulation.
“I am accustomed to diplomacy, and I belong to an Order of very austere discipline,” replied Jacques Collin, with apostolic mildness. “I understand everything, and am inured to suffering.
I should be free by this time if you had discovered in my room the hiding-place where I keep my papers — for I see you have none but unimportant documents.”
This was a finishing stroke to Camusot: Jacques Collin by his air of ease and simplicity had counteracted all the suspicions to which his appearance, unwigged, had given rise.
“Where are these papers?”
“I will tell you exactly if you will get a secretary from the Spanish Embassy to accompany your messenger. He will take them and be answerable to you for the documents, for it is to me a matter of confidential duty — diplomatic secrets which would compromise his late Majesty Louis XVIII— Indeed, monsieur, it would be better —— However, you are a magistrate — and, after all, the Ambassador, to whom I refer the whole question, must decide.”
At this juncture the usher announced the arrival of the doctor and the infirmary attendant, who came in.
“Good-morning, Monsieur Lebrun,” said Camusot to the doctor. “I have sent for you to examine the state of health of this prisoner under suspicion.
He says he had been poisoned and at the point of death since the day before yesterday; see if there is any risk in undressing him to look for the brand.”
Doctor Lebrun took Jacques Collin’s hand, felt his pulse, asked to look at his tongue, and scrutinized him steadily.
This inspection lasted about ten minutes.
“The prisoner has been suffering severely,” said the medical officer, “but at this moment he is amazingly strong ——”
“That spurious energy, monsieur, is due to nervous excitement caused by my strange position,” said Jacques Collin, with the dignity of a bishop.