Such was her insistence, the violence with which she claimed the right to go to her brother, to kneel beside him, that Monsieur Fuselier dared not refuse her this consolation.
"Control yourself, I beg of you! I am going to take you to him; but, for Heaven's sake, be reasonable! Control yourself!"
With his eyes he sought for the moral support of Fandor, whose presence he suddenly remembered. But our journalist, taking advantage of the momentary confusion, had quietly slipped from the room.
Evidently some unpleasant occurrence had upset the routine existence of the functionaries at the Dépôt. The warders were coming and going, talking among themselves, leaning against the doors of the numerous cells. The chief warder called one of his men:
"There must be no more of this disorder, Nibet!"
The chief warder was furious: he was about to hold forth to his subordinate, when an inspector approached.
"What is it?" he asked.
"Sergeant, it is Monsieur Jouet. He has a gentleman with him. He has a permit. Should I allow him to enter?"
"Who? Monsieur Jouet?"
"No, the gentleman accompanying him!"
"Hang it all! Why, yes—if he has a permit!"
The sergeant moved away shrugging his shoulders disgustedly.
"Not pleased with things this morning, the chief isn't," one of the warders remarked.
"Not likely, after last night's performance!"
"It's he who will catch it hot over this business!" The warder rubbed his hands, laughing.
Meanwhile, Fandor had appeared at the entrance of the corridor, under the guidance of a warder. He was thinking of the splendid copy he had secured: he was hoping that when Fuselier learned that a journalist had obtained admittance to the Dépôt, and had seen the corpse of Jacques Dollon in his cell, that he would not turn vicious: "But after all," said he to himself, "Fuselier is not the man to give me the go-by out of spite."
Fandor walked up and down the hall of the prison. He had informed the warders that he was waiting for the magistrate. "How strange life is!" thought he. "To think that once again I should be brought into close contact with Elizabeth Dollon, and that there is no likelihood of her recognising me—we were such children when we parted—she especially! Had she any recollection of the little rascal I was at the time of poor Madame de Langrune's assassination?" And, closing his eyes, Fandor tried to call to mind the features of the Jacques Dollon he used to know: it was useless! The body of Jacques Dollon he would be gazing at in a few minutes would be that of an unknown person, whose name alone awakened memories of bygone days. …
So to pass the time Fandor continued his marching up and down.
Monsieur Fuselier appeared at the entrance to the Dépôt, supporting the unsteady steps of poor Elizabeth Dollon. Fandor quickly drew back into an obscure corner:
"Better not attract attention to myself just at present," thought Fandor; "I will wait until the cell door is opened. If Fuselier does not wish to give me permission to remain, I can at any rate cast a rapid glance round that ill-omened little cell!"
Fandor followed, at a distance, the wavering steps of the poor girl whom Monsieur Fuselier was supporting with fatherly care.
When they paused before one of the cells pointed out by the head warder, Monsieur Fuselier turned to Elizabeth Dollon:
"Do you think you are strong enough to bear this trial, mademoiselle? … You are determined to see your brother?"
Elizabeth bent her head; the magistrate turned towards the warder:
"Open," said he. As the key was turned in the lock he said: "According to instructions from the Head, we have placed him on his bed again. … There is nothing to frighten you … he seems to be asleep. … Now then!"
But as he opened the door, stretching his arm in the direction of the bed where the body of Jacques Dollon should be, an oath escaped him:
"Great Heavens! The dead man is gone!"
In this cell with its bare walls, its sole furniture an iron bedstead and a stool riveted to the floor, in this little cell which the eye could glance round in a second, there was no vestige of a corpse: Jacques Dollon's body was not there!
"You have mistaken the cell," said the magistrate sharply.
"No, no!" cried the astounded warder.
"You can see, can't you, that Jacques Dollon is not there?"
"He was there a few minutes ago!"
"Then they must have taken him somewhere else!"
"The keys have never left me!"
"Oh, come now!"
"No, sir. He was there … now he isn't there! That's all I know! … Hey! You down there!" yelled the warder: "Who knows what has become of the corpse of cell 12? … The corpse we laid out just now?"
One after the other the warders came running. All confirmed what their chief had said: the dead body of Jacques Dollon had been left there, lying on the bed: not a soul had entered the cell: not a soul had touched the corpse! … Yet it was no longer there! Jérôme Fandor, well in the background, followed the scene with an ironical smile. The frantic warders, the growing stupefaction of Monsieur Fuselier, amused him prodigiously. The magistrate was trying to understand the how, why, and wherefore of this incredible disappearance:
"As this man is not here, he cannot have been dead … he has escaped … but if he wanted to escape he must have been guilty! … Oh, I cannot make head or tail of it!"
Seizing the head warder by the shoulders, almost roughly, Monsieur Fuselier asked:
"Look here, chief, was this man dead, or was he not?"
Elizabeth Dollon was repeating:
"He lives! He lives!" and laughing wildly.
The warder raised his hand as though taking a solemn oath:
"As to being dead, he was dead right enough! … The doctor will tell you so, too: also my colleague, Favril, who helped me to lay out the body on the bed."
"But how can a dead body get away from here? If he was dead, he could not have escaped!" said the magistrate.
"It is witchcraft!" declared the warder, with a shrug.
Fuselier flew into a rage:
"Had you not better confess that you and your colleagues did not keep proper watch and ward! … The investigation will show on whose shoulders the responsibility rests."
"But, sakes alive, monsieur!" expostulated the warder: "There aren't only two of us who have seen him dead! … There are all the hospital attendants of the Dépôt as well! … There is the doctor, and there are my colleagues to be counted in: the truth is, monsieur, some fifty persons have seen him dead!"
"So you say!" cried the impatient magistrate: "I am going to inform the Public Prosecutor of what has happened, and at once!"
As he was hurrying away, he spied Jérôme Fandor, who had not missed a single detail of the scene.
"You again!" exclaimed the irate magistrate: "How did you get in here?"
"By permit," replied our journalist.
"Well, you have learned what there is to know, haven't you? Be off, then! You are one too many here! … Frankly, there is no need for you to augment the scandal! … Will you, therefore, be kind enough to take yourself off?" And Fuselier, almost beside himself with rage, raced off to the Public Prosecutor's office.
After the magistrate's furious attack, Fandor could not possibly linger in the corridors of the Dépôt. The warders, too, were pressing their