It flashed through his mind that Monsieur de Granville had sent some one to watch him, and, strange to say, it pained him to think the magistrate less magnanimous than he had supposed.
Bibi–Lupin bravely flew at Jacques Collin’s throat; but he, keeping his eye on the foe, gave him a straight blow, and sent him sprawling on his back three yards off; then Trompe-la-Mort went calmly up to Bibi–Lupin, and held out a hand to help him rise, exactly like an English boxer who, sure of his superiority, is ready for more.
Bibi–Lupin knew better than to call out; but he sprang to his feet, ran to the entrance to the passage, and signed to a gendarme to stand on guard.
Then, swift as lightning, he came back to the foe, who quietly looked on.
Jacques Collin had decided what to do. “Either the public prosecutor has broken his word, or he had not taken Bibi–Lupin into his confidence, and in that case I must get the matter explained,” thought he. —“Do you mean to arrest me?” he asked his enemy. “Say so without more ado.
Don’t I know that in the heart of this place you are stronger than I am?
I could kill you with a well-placed kick, but I could not tackle the gendarmes and the soldiers.
Now, make no noise. Where to you want to take me?”
“To Monsieur Camusot.”
“Come along to Monsieur Camusot,” replied Jacques Collin. “Why should we not go to the public prosecutor’s court?
It is nearer,” he added.
Bibi–Lupin, who knew that he was out of favor with the upper ranks of judicial authorities, and suspected of having made a fortune at the expense of criminals and their victims, was not unwilling to show himself in Court with so notable a capture.
“All right, we will go there,” said he.
“But as you surrender, allow me to fit you with bracelets. I am afraid of your claws.” And he took the handcuffs out of his pocket.
Jacques Collin held out his hands, and Bibi–Lupin snapped on the manacles.
“Well, now, since you are feeling so good,” said he, “tell me how you got out of the Conciergerie?”
“By the way you came; down the turret stairs.”
“Then have you taught the gendarmes some new trick?”
“No, Monsieur de Granville let me out on parole.”
“You are gammoning me?”
“You will see.
Perhaps it will be your turn to wear the bracelets.”
Just then Corentin was saying to Monsieur de Granville:
“Well, monsieur, it is just an hour since our man set out; are you not afraid that he may have fooled you?
He is on the road to Spain perhaps by this time, and we shall not find him there, for Spain is a whimsical kind of country.”
“Either I know nothing of men, or he will come back; he is bound by every interest; he has more to look for at my hands than he has to give.”
Bibi–Lupin walked in.
“Monsieur le Comte,” said he, “I have good news for you. Jacques Collin, who had escaped, has been recaptured.”
“And this,” said Jacques Collin, addressing Monsieur de Granville, “is the way you keep your word! — Ask your double-faced agent where he took me.”
“Where?” said the public prosecutor.
“Close to the Court, in the vaulted passage,” said Bibi–Lupin.
“Take your irons off the man,” said Monsieur de Granville sternly. “And remember that you are to leave him free till further orders.
— Go!
— You have a way of moving and acting as if you alone were law and police in one.”
The public prosecutor turned his back on Bibi–Lupin, who became deadly pale, especially at a look from Jacques Collin, in which he read disaster.
“I have not been out of this room. I expected you back, and you cannot doubt that I have kept my word, as you kept yours,” said Monsieur de Granville to the convict.
“For a moment I did doubt you, sir, and in my place perhaps you would have thought as I did, but on reflection I saw that I was unjust.
I bring you more than you can give me; you had no interest in betraying me.”
The magistrate flashed a look at Corentin.
This glance, which could not escape Trompe-la-Mort, who was watching Monsieur de Granville, directed his attention to the strange little old man sitting in an armchair in a corner.
Warned at once by the swift and anxious instinct that scents the presence of an enemy, Collin examined this figure; he saw at a glance that the eyes were not so old as the costume would suggest, and he detected a disguise.
In one second Jacques Collin was revenged on Corentin for the rapid insight with which Corentin had unmasked him at Peyrade’s.
“We are not alone!” said Jacques Collin to Monsieur de Granville.
“No,” said the magistrate drily.
“And this gentleman is one of my oldest acquaintances, I believe,” replied the convict.
He went forward, recognizing Corentin, the real and confessed originator of Lucien’s overthrow.
Jacques Collin, whose face was of a brick-red hue, for a scarcely perceptible moment turned white, almost ashy; all his blood rushed to his heart, so furious and maddening was his longing to spring on this dangerous reptile and crush it; but he controlled the brutal impulse, suppressing it with the force that made him so formidable.
He put on a polite manner and the tone of obsequious civility which he had practised since assuming the garb of a priest of a superior Order, and he bowed to the little old man.
“Monsieur Corentin,” said he, “do I owe the pleasure of this meeting to chance, or am I so happy as to be the cause of your visit here?”
Monsieur de Granville’s astonishment was at its height, and he could not help staring at the two men who had thus come face to face.