The law almost always leaves such murders unpunished, it is so difficult to know the rights of the case.
Peyrade looked with his keenest eye at the magistrate sent to examine him by the Prefet of Police.
Carlos struck him as satisfactory: a bald head, deeply wrinkled at the back, and powdered hair; a pair of very light gold spectacles, with double-green glasses over weak eyes, with red rims, evidently needing care.
These eyes seemed the trace of some squalid malady.
A cotton shirt with a flat-pleated frill, a shabby black satin waistcoat, the trousers of a man of law, black spun silk stockings, and shoes tied with ribbon; a long black overcoat, cheap gloves, black, and worn for ten days, and a gold watch-chain — in every point the lower grade of magistrate known by a perversion of terms as a peace-officer.
“My dear Monsieur Peyrade, I regret to find such a man as you the object of surveillance, and that you should act so as to justify it.
Your disguise is not to the Prefet’s taste.
If you fancy that you can thus escape our vigilance, you are mistaken.
You traveled from England by way of Beaumont-sur-Oise, no doubt.”
“Beaumont-sur-Oise?” repeated Peyrade.
“Or by Saint–Denis?” said the sham lawyer.
Peyrade lost his presence of mind.
The question must be answered.
Now any reply might be dangerous.
In the affirmative it was farcical; in the negative, if this man knew the truth, it would be Peyrade’s ruin.
“He is a sharp fellow,” thought he.
He tried to look at the man and smile, and he gave him a smile for an answer; the smile passed muster without protest.
“For what purpose have you disguised yourself, taken rooms at the Mirabeau, and dressed Contenson as a black servant?” asked the peace-officer.
“Monsieur le Prefet may do what he chooses with me, but I owe no account of my actions to any one but my chief,” said Peyrade with dignity.
“If you mean me to infer that you are acting by the orders of the General Police,” said the other coldly, “we will change our route, and drive to the Rue de Grenelle instead of the Rue de Jerusalem.
I have clear instructions with regard to you.
But be careful!
You are not in any deep disgrace, and you may spoil your own game in a moment.
As for me — I owe you no grudge.
— Come; tell me the truth.”
“Well, then, this is the truth,” said Peyrade, with a glance at his Cerberus’ red eyes.
The sham lawyer’s face remained expressionless, impassible; he was doing his business, all truths were the same to him, he looked as though he suspected the Prefet of some caprice.
Prefets have their little tantrums.
“I have fallen desperately in love with a woman — the mistress of that stockbroker who is gone abroad for his own pleasure and the displeasure of his creditors — Falleix.”
“Madame du Val–Noble?”
“Yes,” replied Peyrade. “To keep her for a month, which will not cost me more than a thousand crowns, I have got myself up as a nabob and taken Contenson as my servant.
This is so absolutely true, monsieur, that if you like to leave me in the coach, where I will wait for you, on my honor as an old Commissioner–General of Police, you can go to the hotel and question Contenson.
Not only will Contenson confirm what I have the honor of stating, but you may see Madame du Val–Noble’s waiting-maid, who is to come this morning to signify her mistress’ acceptance of my offers, or the conditions she makes.
“An old monkey knows what grimaces mean: I have offered her a thousand francs a month and a carriage — that comes to fifteen hundred; five hundred francs’ worth of presents, and as much again in some outings, dinners and play-going; you see, I am not deceiving you by a centime when I say a thousand crowns.
— A man of my age may well spend a thousand crowns on his last fancy.”
“Bless me, Papa Peyrade! and you still care enough for women to ——? But you are deceiving me. I am sixty myself, and I can do without ’em. — However, if the case is as you state it, I quite understand that you should have found it necessary to get yourself up as a foreigner to indulge your fancy.”
“You can understand that Peyrade, or old Canquoelle of the Rue des Moineaux ——”
“Ay, neither of them would have suited Madame du Val–Noble,” Carlos put in, delighted to have picked up Canquoelle’s address. “Before the Revolution,” he went on, “I had for my mistress a woman who had previously been kept by the gentleman-in-waiting, as they then called the executioner.
One evening at the play she pricked herself with a pin, and cried out — a customary ejaculation in those days —‘Ah! Bourreau!’ on which her neighbor asked her if this were a reminiscence?
— Well, my dear Peyrade, she cast off her man for that speech.
“I suppose you have no wish to expose yourself to such a slap in the face. — Madame du Val–Noble is a woman for gentlemen. I saw her once at the opera, and thought her very handsome. “Tell the driver to go back to the Rue de la Paix, my dear Peyrade.
I will go upstairs with you to your rooms and see for myself.
A verbal report will no doubt be enough for Monsieur le Prefet.”
Carlos took a snuff-box from his side-pocket — a black snuff-box lined with silver-gilt — and offered it to Peyrade with an impulse of delightful good-fellowship.
Peyrade said to himself:
“And these are their agents!
Good Heavens! what would Monsieur Lenoir say if he could come back to life, or Monsieur de Sartines?”
“That is part of the truth, no doubt, but it is not all,” said the sham lawyer, sniffing up his pinch of snuff. “You have had a finger in the Baron de Nucingen’s love affairs, and you wish, no doubt, to entangle him in some slip-knot. You missed fire with the pistol, and you are aiming at him with a field-piece.
Madame du Val–Noble is a friend of Madame de Champy’s ——”
“Devil take it.