Part 9 (1/2)
”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 Depot 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 Jerome 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 Depot. The warders, too, were pressing their attentions on him and on Elizabeth Dollon:
”This way, monsieur!... Madame, this way!... Ah, it's a wretched business!... Here, this way! This way!... Be off, as fast as you can!”
Presently Fandor was descending the grand staircase of the Palais, steadying the uncertain steps of poor Elizabeth Dollon.
”I implore you to help me!” she cried: ”Help me: help us! My brother is guiltless--I could swear to that!... He must--must be found!... This hideous nightmare must end!”
”Mademoiselle, I ask nothing better, only ... where to find him?”
”Ah, I have no idea, none!... I implore you, you who must know influential people in high places, do not leave any stone unturned, do all that is humanly possible to save him--to save us!”
Intensely moved by the poor girl's anguish of mind, Fandor could not trust himself to speak. He bent his head in the affirmative merely.
Hailing a cab, he put her into it, gave the address to the driver, and as he was closing the door Elizabeth cried:
”Do all that is humanly possible--do everything in the world!”
”I swear to you I will get at the truth,” was Fandor's parting promise.
The cab had disappeared, but our journalist stood motionless, absorbed in his reflections. At last, uttering his thoughts aloud, he said:
”If the Baroness de Vibray has written that she has killed herself, then she has killed herself, and Dollon is innocent. It's true the letter may be fict.i.tious ... therefore we must put it aside--we have no guarantee as to its genuineness.... Here is the problem: Jacques Dollon is dead, and yet has left the Depot! Yes, but how?”
Jerome Fandor went off in the direction of the offices of _La Capitale_ so absorbed in thought that he jostled the pa.s.sers-by, without noticing the angry glances bestowed on him:
”Jacques Dollon, dead, has left the Depot!” He repeated this improbable statement, so absurd, of necessity incorrect; repeated it to the point of satiety: