"Pshaw, man! Speak up."
"It is not that you would get me personally into trouble, M"sieur Muller," said Guichet, slowly. "I am no coward, I hope--a coward would make a bad Garde Chiourme at Toulon, I fancy. And I"m not an escaped _forcat_. But--but, you see, I"ve worked my way into a connection here in Paris, and I"ve made myself a good name among the artists, and ...
and I hold to that good name above everything in the world."
"Naturally--rightly. But what has that to do with Lenoir?"
"Ah, M"sieur Muller, if you knew more about me, you would not need telling how much it has to do with him! I was not always a Garde Chiourme at Toulon. I was promoted to it after a time, for good conduct, you know, and that sort of thing. But--but I began differently--I began by wearing the prison dress, and working in the quarries."
"My good fellow," said Muller, gently, "I half suspected this--I am not surprised; and I respect you for having redeemed that past in the way you have redeemed it."
"Thank you, M"sieur Muller; but you see, redeemed or unredeemed, I"d rather be lying at the bottom of the Seine than have it rise up against me now,"
"We are men of honor," said Muller, "and your secret is safe with us."
"Not if you go to the Prefecture and inform against Bras de Fer on my words," exclaimed the model, eagerly. "How can I appear against him--Guichet the model--Guichet the Garde Chiourme--Guichet the _forcat?_ M"sieur Muller, I could never hold my head up again. It would be the ruin of me."
"You shall not appear against him, and it shall not be the ruin of you.
Guichet," said Muller. "That I promise you. Only a.s.sure me that what you have said is strictly correct--that Bras de Fer and Lenoir are one and the same person--an escaped _forcat_, condemned for life to the galleys."
"That"s as true, M"sieur Muller, as that G.o.d is in heaven," said the model, emphatically.
"Then I can prove it without your testimony--I can prove it by simply summoning any of the Toulon authorities to identify him."
"Or by stripping his shirt off his back, and showing the brand on his left shoulder," said Guichet. "There you"ll find it, T.F. as large as life--and if it don"t show at first, just you hit him a sharp blow with the flat of your hand, M"sieur Muller, and it will start out as red and fresh as if it had been done only six months ago. _Parbleu!_ I remember the day he came in, and the look in his face when the hot iron hissed into his flesh! They roar like bulls, for the most part; but he never flinched or spoke. He just turned a shade paler under the tan, and that was all."
"Do you remember what his crime was?" asked Muller
Guichet shook his head.
"Not distinctly," he said. "I only know that he was in for a good deal, and had a lot of things proved against him on his trial. But you can find all that out for yourself, easily enough. He was tried in Paris, about fourteen years ago, and it"s all in print, if you only know where to look for it."
"Then I"ll find it, if I have to wade through half the Bibliotheque Nationale!" said Muller. "Adieu, Guichet--you have done me a great service, and you may be sure I will do nothing to betray you. Let us shake hands upon it."
The color rushed into the model"s swarthy cheeks.
"_Comment_, M"sieur Muller!" he said, hesitatingly. "You offer to shake hands with me--after what I have told you?"
"Ten times more willing than before, _mon ami_," said Muller. "Did I not tell you just now that I respected you for having redeemed that past, and shall I not give my hand where I give my respect?"
The model grasped his outstretched hand with a vehemence that made Muller wince again.
"Thank you," he said, in a low, deep voice. "Thank you. Death of my life! M"sieur Muller, I"d go to the galleys again for you, after this--if you asked me."
"Agreed. Only when I do ask you, it shall be to pay a visit of ceremony to Monsieur Bras de Fer, when he is safely lodged again at Toulon with a chain round his leg, and a cannon-ball at the end of it."
And with this Muller turned away laughingly, and I followed him down the dimly-lighted stairs.
"By Jove!" he said, "what a grip the fellow gave me! I"d as soon shake hands with the Commendatore in Don Giovanni."
CHAPTER x.x.xVIII.
NUMBER TWO HUNDRED AND SEVEN.
Muller, when he so confidently proposed to visit Bras de Fer in his future retirement at Toulon, believed that he had only to lodge his information with the proper authorities, and see the whole affair settled out of hand. He had not taken the bureaucratic system into consideration; and he had forgotten how little positive evidence he had to offer. It was no easier then than now to inspire the official mind with either insight or decision; and the police of Paris, inasmuch as they in no wise differed from the police of to-day, yesterday, or to-morrow, were slow to understand, slow to believe, and slower still to act.
An escaped convict? Monsieur le Chef du Bureau, upon whom we took the liberty of waiting the next morning, could scarcely take in the bare possibility of such a fact. An escaped convict? Bah! no convict could possibly escape under the present admirable system. _Comment_! He effected his escape some years ago? How many years ago? In what yard, in what ward, under what number was he entered in the official books? For what offence was he convicted? Had Monsieur seen him at Toulon?--and was Monsieur prepared to swear that Lenoir and Bras de Fer were one and the same person? How! Monsieur proposed to identify a certain individual, and yet was incapable of replying to these questions! Would Monsieur be pleased to state upon what grounds he undertook to denounce the said individual, and what proof he was prepared to produce in confirmation of the same?
To all which official catechizing, Muller, who (wanting Guichet"s testimony) had nothing but his intense personal conviction to put forward, could only reply that he was ready to pledge himself to the accuracy of his information; and that if Monsieur the Chef du Bureau would be at the pains to call in any Toulon official of a few years"
standing, he would undoubtedly find that the person now described as calling himself Lenoir, and the person commonly known in the Bagnes as Bras de Fer, were indeed "one and the same."
Whereupon Monsieur le Chef--a pompous personage, with a bald head and a white moustache--shrugged his shoulders, smiled incredulously, had the honor to point out to Monsieur that the Government could by no means be at the expense of conveying an inspector from Toulon to Paris on so shadowy and unsupported a statement, and politely bowed us out.
Thus rebuffed, Muller began to despair of present success; whilst I, in default of any brighter idea, proposed that he should take legal advice on the subject. So we went to a certain avocat, in a little street adjoining the ecole de Droit, and there purchased as much wisdom as might be bought for the sum of five francs sterling.
The avocat, happily, was fertile in suggestions. This, he said, was not a case for a witness. Here was no question of appearing before a court.
With the foregone offences of either Lenoir or Bras de Fer, we had nothing to do; and to convict them of such offences formed no part of our plan. We only sought to show that Lenoir and Bras de Fer were in truth "one and the same person," and we could only do so upon the authority of some third party who had seen both. Now Monsieur Muller had seen Lenoir, but not Bras de Fer; and Guichet had seen Bras de Fer, but not Lenoir. Here, then, was the real difficulty; and here, he hoped, its obvious solution. Let Guichet be taken to some place where, being himself unseen, he may obtain a glimpse of Lenoir. This done, he can, in a private interview of two minutes, state his conviction to Monsieur the Chef de Bureau--_voila tout_! If, however, the said Guichet can be persuaded by no considerations either of interest or justice, then another very simple course remains open. Every newly-arrived convict in every penal establishment throughout France is photographed on his entrance into the Bagne, and these photographs are duly preserved for purposes of identification like the present. Supposing therefore Bras de Fer had not escaped from Toulon before the introduction of this system, his portrait would exist in the official books to this day, and might doubtless be obtained, if proper application were made through an official channel.
Armed with this information, and knowing that any attempt to induce Guichet to move further in the matter would be useless, we then went back to the Bureau, and with much difficulty succeeded in persuading M.
le Chef to send to Toulon for the photograph. This done, we could only wait and be patient.
Briefly, then, we did wait and were patient--though the last condition was not easy; for even I, who was by no means disposed to sympathize with Muller in his solicitude for the fair Marie, could not but feel a strange contagion of excitement in this _cha.s.se au forcat_. And so a week or ten days went by, till one memorable afternoon, when Muller came rushing round to my rooms in hot haste, about an hour before the time when we usually met to go to dinner, and greeted me with--
"Good news, _mon vieux_! good news! The photograph has come--and I have been to the Bureau to see it--and I have identified my man--and he will be arrested to-night, as surely as that he carries T.F. on his shoulder!"
"You are certain he is the same?" I said.
"As certain as I am of my own face when I see it in the looking-gla.s.s."
And then he went on to say that a party of soldiers were to be in readiness a couple of hours hence, in a shop commanding Madame Marot"s door; that he, Muller, was to be there to watch with them till Lenoir either came out from or went into the house; and that as soon as he pointed him out to the sergeant in command, he was to be arrested, put into a cab waiting for the purpose, and conveyed to La Roquette.
Behold us, then, at the time prescribed, lounging in the doorway of a small shop adjoining the private entrance to Madame Marot"s house; our hands in our pockets; our cigars in our mouths; our whole att.i.tude expressive of idleness and unconcern. The wintry evening has closed in rapidly. The street is bright with lamps, and busy with pa.s.sers-by. The shop behind us is quite dark--so dark that not the keenest observer pa.s.sing by could detect the dusky group of soldiers sitting on the counter within, or the gleaming of the musket-barrels which rest between their knees. The sergeant in command, a restless, black-eyed, intelligent little Gascon, about five feet four in height, with a revolver stuck in his belt, paces impatiently to and fro, and whistles softly between his teeth. The men, four in number, whisper together from time to time, or swing their feet in silence.
Thus the minutes go by heavily; for it is weary work waiting in this way, uncertain how long the watch may last, and not daring to relax the vigilance of eye and ear for a single moment. It may be for an hour, or for many hours, or it may be for only a few minutes-who can tell? Of Lenoir"s daily haunts and habits we know nothing. All we do know is that he is wont to be out all day, sometimes returning only to dress and go out again; sometimes not coming home till very late at night; sometimes absenting himself for a day and a night, or two days and two nights together. With this uncertain prospect before us, therefore, we wait and watch, and watch and wait, counting the hours as they strike, and scanning every face that gleams past in the lamplight.
So the first hour goes by, and the second. Ten o"clock strikes. The traffic in the street begins perceptibly to diminish. Shops close here and there (Madame Marot"s shutters have been put up by the boy in the oilskin ap.r.o.n more than an hour ago), and the _chiffonnier_, sure herald of the quieter hours of the night, flits by with rake and lanthorn, observant of the gutters.
The soldiers on" the counter yawn audibly from time to time; and the sergeant, who is naturally of an impatient disposition, exclaims, for the twentieth time, with an inexhaustible variety, however, in the choice of expletives:--
"_Mais; nom de deux cent mille petards_! will this man of ours never come?"
To which inquiry, though not directly addressed to myself, I reply, as I have already replied once or twice before, that he may come immediately, or that he may not come for hours; and that all we can do is to wait and be patient. In the midst of which explanation, Muller suddenly lays his hand on my arm, makes a sign to the sergeant, and peers eagerly down the street.
There is a man coming up quickly on the opposite side of the way. For myself, I could recognise no one at such a distance, especially by night; but Muller"s keener eye, made keener still by jealousy, identifies him at a glance.
It is Lenoir.