In the Days of My Youth: A Novel
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CHAPTER XXXIX.
THE END OF BRAS BE FER.
LENOIR's first impulse was to struggle in silence; then, finding escapehopeless, he folded his arms and submitted.
"So, it is Monsieur Mueller who has done me this service," he saidcoldly; but with a flash in his eye like the sudden glint in the eye ofa cobra di capello. "I will take care not to be unmindful of theobligation."
Then, turning impatiently upon the sergeant:--
"Have you no carriage at hand?" he said, sharply; "or do you want tocollect a crowd in the street?"
The cab, however, which had been waiting a few doors lower down, droveup while he was speaking. The sergeant hurried him in; the half-dozenloiterers who had already gathered about us pressed eagerly forward; twoof the soldiers and the sergeant got inside; Mueller and I scrambled upbeside the driver; word was given "to the Prefecture of Police;" and wedrove rapidly away down the Rue du Faubourg St. Denis, through the archof Louis Quatorze, out upon the bright noisy Boulevard, and on throughthoroughfares as brilliant and crowded as at midday, towards the quaysand the river.
Arrived at the Quai des Ortevres, we alighted at the Prefecture, andwere conducted through a series of ante-rooms and corridors into thepresence of the same bald-headed Chef de Bureau whom we had seen on eachprevious occasion. He looked up as we came in, pressed the spring of asmall bell that stood upon his desk, and growled something in the ear ofa clerk who answered the summons.
"Sergeant," he said, pompously, "bring the prisoner under thegas-burner."
Lenoir, without waiting to be brought, took a couple of steps forward,and placed himself in the light.
Monsieur le Chef then took out his double eye-glass, and proceeded tocompare Lenoir's face, feature by feature, with a photograph which hetook out of his pocket-book for the purpose.
"Are you prepared, Monsieur," he said, addressing Mueller for the firsttime--"are you, I say, prepared to identify the prisoner upon oath?"
"Within certain limitations--yes," replied Mueller.
"Certain limitations!" exclaimed the Chef, testily. "What do you mean by'certain limitations?' Here is the man whom you accuse, and here is thephotograph. Are you, I repeat, prepared to make your deposition beforeMonsieur le Prefet that they are one and the same person?"
"I am neither more nor less prepared, Monsieur," said Mueller, "than youare; or than Monsieur le Prefet, when he has the opportunity of judging.As I have already had the honor of informing you, I saw the prisoner forthe first time about two months since. Having reason to believe that hewas living in Paris under an assumed name, and wearing a decoration towhich he had no right, I prosecuted certain inquiries about him. Theresult of those inquiries led me to conclude that he was an escapedconvict from the Bagnes of Toulon. Never having seen him at Toulon, Iwas unable to prove this fact without assistance. You, Monsieur, havefurnished that assistance, and the proof is now in your hand. It onlyremains for Monsieur le Prefet and yourself to decide upon its value."
"Give me the photograph, Monsieur Marmot," said a pale little man inblue spectacles, who had come in unobserved from a door behind us, whileMueller was speaking.
The bald-headed Chef jumped up with great alacrity, bowed like a secondSir Pertinax, and handed over the photograph.
"The peculiar difficulty of this case, Monsieur le Prefet" ... he began.
The Prefet waved his hand.
"Thanks, Monsieur Marmot," he said, "I know all the particulars of thiscase. You need not trouble to explain them. So this is the photographforwarded from Toulon. Well--well! Sergeant, strip the prisoner'sshoulders."
A sudden quiver shot over Lenoir's face at this order, and his cheekblenched under the tan; but he neither spoke nor resisted. The nextmoment his coat and waistcoat were lying on the ground; his shirt, tornin the rough handling, was hanging round his loins, and he stood beforeus naked to the waist, lean, brown, muscular--a torso of an athlete donein bronze.
We pressed round eagerly. Monsieur le Chef put up his double eye-glass;Monsier le Prefet took off his blue spectacles.
"So--so," he said, pointing with the end of his glasses towards awhitish, indefinite kind of scar on Lenoir's left shoulder, "here is amark like a burn. Is this the brand?"
The sergeant nodded.
"V'la, M'sieur le Prefet!" he said, and struck the spot smartly withhis open palm. Instantly the smitten place turned livid, while from themidst of it, like the handwriting on the wall, the fatal letters T. F.sprang out in characters of fire.
Lenoir flashed a savage glance upon us, and checked the imprecation thatrose to his lips. Monsieur le Prefet, with a little nod of satisfaction,put on his glasses again, went over to the table, took out a printedform from a certain drawer, dipped a pen in the ink, and said:--
"Sergeant, you will take this order, and convey Number Two Hundred andSeven to the Bicetre, there to remain till Thursday next, when he willbe drafted back to Toulon by the convict train, which leaves two hoursafter midnight. Monsieur Mueller, the Government is indebted to you forthe assistance you have rendered the executive in this matter. You areprobably aware that the prisoner is a notorious criminal, guilty of oneproved murder, and several cases of forgery, card-sharping, and thelike. The Government is also indebted to Monsieur Marmot" (here heinclined his head to the bald-headed Chef), "who has acted with hisusual zeal and intelligence."
Monsieur Marmot, murmuring profuse thanks, bowed and bowed again, andfollowed Monsieur le Prefet obsequiously to the door. On the threshold,the great little man paused, turned, and said very quietly: "Youunderstand, sergeant, this prisoner does _not_ escape again;" and sovanished; leaving Monsieur Marmot still bowing in the doorway.
Then the sergeant hurried on Lenoir's coat and waistcoat, clapped a pairof handcuffs on his wrists, thrust his hat on his head, and prepared tobe gone; Monsieur, the bald-headed, looking on, meanwhile, with theutmost complacency, as if taking to himself all the merit of discoveryand capture.
"Pardon, Messieurs," said the serjeant, when all was ready. "Pardon--buthere is a fellow for whom I am responsible now, and who must be strictlylooked after. I shall have to put a gendarme on the box from here to theBicetre, instead of you two gentlemen."
"All right, _mon ami_" said Mueller. "I suppose we should not have beenadmitted if we had gone with you?"
"Nay, I could pass you in, Messieurs, if you cared to see the affair tothe end, and followed in another _fiacre_."
So we said we would see it to the end, and following the prisoner andhis guard through all the rooms and corridors by which we had come,picked up a second cab on the Quai des Orfevres, just outside thePrefecture of Police.
It was now close upon midnight. The sky was flecked with driving clouds.The moon had just risen above the towers of Notre Dame. The quays weresilent and deserted. The river hurried along, swirling and turbulent.The sergeant's cab led the way, and the driver, instead of turning backtowards the Pont Neuf, followed the line of the quays along the southernbank of the Ile de la Cite; passing the Morgue--a mass of sinistershadow; passing the Hotel Dieu; traversing the Parvis Notre Dame; andmaking for the long bridge, then called the Pont Louis Philippe, whichconnects the two river islands with the northern half of Paris.
"It is a wild-looking night," said Mueller, as we drove under themountainous shadow of Notre Dame and came out again in sight ofthe river.
"And it is a wild business to be out upon," I added. "I wonder if thisis the end of it?"
The words were scarcely past my lips when the door of the cab ahead flewsuddenly open, and a swift something, more like a shadow than a man,darted across the moonlight, sprang upon the parapet of the bridge, anddisappeared!
In an instant we were all out--all rushing to and fro--all shouting--allwild with surprise and confusion.
"One man to the Pont d'Arcole!" thundered the sergeant, running alongthe perapet, revolver in hand. "One to the Quai Bourbon--one to the Pontde la Cite! Watch up stream and down! The moment he shows his head abovewater, fire!"
/> "But, in Heaven's name, how did he escape?" exclaimed Mueller.
"_Grand Dieu_! who can tell--unless he is the very devil?" cried thesergeant, distractedly. "The handcuffs were on the floor, the door wasopen, and he was gone in a breath! Hold! What's that?"
The soldier on the Pont de la Cite gave a shout and fired. There was asplash--a plunge--a rush to the opposite parapet.
"There he goes!"
"Where?"
"He has dived again!"
"Look--look yonder--between the floating bath and the bank!"
The sergeant stood motionless, his revolver ready cocked--the waterswirled and eddied, eddied and parted--a dark dot rose for a second tothe surface!
Three shots fired at the same moment (one by the sergeant, two by thesoldiers) rang sharply through the air, and were echoed with startlingsuddenness again and again from the buttressed walls of Notre Dame. Erethe last echo had died away, or the last faint smoke-wreath had faded,two boats were pulling to the spot, and all the quays were alive with afast-gathering crowd. The sergeant beckoned to the gendarme who had comeupon the box.
"Bid the boatmen drag the river just here between the two bridges," hesaid, "and bring the body up to the Prefecture." Then, turning to Muellerand myself, "I am sorry to trouble you again, Messieurs," he said, "butI must ask you to come back once more to the Quai des Orfevres, todepose to the facts which have just happened."
"But is the man shot, or has he escaped?" asked a breathless bystander.
"Both," said the sergeant, with a grim smile, replacing his revolver inhis belt. "He has escaped Toulon; but he has gone to the bottom of theSeine with something like six ounces of lead in his skull."