Everybody would have run away; and what a pack of lies they would have told me! So I had to assume that hideous masquerade. To think that Ionce took six months' lessons from a music-teacher merely to fit myself for that character! A wandering musician, you see, can go anywhere, and nobody is surprised; he goes about the streets, or he travels along the high-road; he enters into yards, and slips into houses; he asks alms: and in so doing, he accosts everybody, speaks to them, follows them. And as to my precious dialect, you must know Ihave been down here once for half a year, hunting up counterfeiters;and, if you don't catch a provincial accent in six months, you don't deserve belonging to the police. And I do belong to it, to the great distress of my wife, and to my own disgust.""If your ambition is really what you say, my dear, Goudar," said M.
Folgat, interrupting him, "you may be able to leave your profession very soon--if you succeed in saving M. de Boiscoran.""He would give me his house in Vine Street?""With all his heart!"
The detective looked up, and repeated slowly,--"The house in Vine Street, the paradise of this world. An immense garden, a soil of marvellous beauty. And what an exposure! There are walls there on which I could raise finer peaches than they have at Montreuil, and richer Chasselas than those of Fontainebleau!""Did you find any thing there?" asked M. Folgat.
Goudar, thus recalled to business, looked angry again.
"Nothing at all," he replied. "Nor did I learn any thing from the tradesmen. I am no further advanced than I was the first day.""Let us hope you will have more luck here.""I hope so; but I need your assistance to commence operations. I must see Dr. Seignebos, and Mechinet the clerk. Ask them to meet me at the place I shall assign in a note which I will send them.""I will tell them."
"Now, if you want my /incognito/ to be respected, you must get me a permit from the mayor, for Goudar, street-musician. I keep my name, because here nobody knows me. But I must have the permit this evening.
Wherever I might present myself, asking for a bed, they would call for my papers.""Wait here for a quarter of an hour, there is a bench," said M.
Folgat, "and I'll go at once to the mayor."A quarter of an hour later, Goudar had his permit in his pocket, and went to take lodgings at the Red Lamb, the worst tavern in all Sauveterre.
When a painful and inevitable duty is to be performed, the true character of a man is apt to appear in its true light. Some people postpone it as long as they can, and delay, like those pious persons who keep the biggest sin for the end of their confession: others, on the contrary, are in a hurry to be relieved of their anxiety, and make an end of it as soon as they can. M. Folgat belonged to this latter class.
Next morning he woke up at daylight, and said to himself,--"I will call upon the Countess Claudieuse this morning."At eight o'clock, he left the house, dressed more carefully than usual, and told the servant that he did not wish to be waited for if he should not be back for breakfast.
He went first to the court-house, hoping to meet the clerk there. He was not disappointed. The waiting-rooms were quite deserted yet; but Mechinet was already at work in his office, writing with the feverish haste of a man who has to pay for a piece of property that he wants to call his own.
When he saw Folgat enter, he rose, and said at once,--"You have heard the decision of the court?""Yes, thanks to your kindness; and I must confess it has not surprised me. What do they think of it here?""Everybody expects a condemnation."
"Well, we shall see!" said the young advocate.
And, lowering his voice, he added,--
"But I came for another purpose. The agent whom I expected has come, and he wishes to see you. He will write to you to make an appointment, and I hope you will consent.""Certainly, with all my heart," replied the clerk. "And God grant that he may succeed in extricating M. de Boiscoran from his difficulties, even if it were only to take the conceit out of my master.""Ah! is M. Galpin so triumphant?"
"Without the slightest reserve. He sees his old friend already at the galleys. He has received another letter of congratulation from the attorney general, and came here yesterday, when the court had adjourned, to read it to any one who would listen. Everybody, of course, complimented him, except the president, who turned his back upon him, and the commonwealth attorney, who told him in Latin that he was selling the bear's skin before he had killed him."In the meantime steps were heard coming down the passages; and M.
Folgat said hurriedly,--
"One more suggestion. Goudar desires to remain unknown. Do not speak of him to any living soul, and especially show no surprise at the costume in which you see him."The noise of a door which was opened interrupted him. One of the judges entered, who, after having bowed very civilly, asked the clerk a number of questions about a case which was to come on the same day.
"Good-bye, M. Mechinet," said the young advocate.
And his next visit was to Dr. Seignebos. When he rang the bell, a servant came to the door, and said,--"The doctor is gone out; but he will be back directly, and has told me to beg you to wait for him in his study."Such an evidence of perfect trust was unheard of. No one was ever allowed to remain alone in his sanctuary. It was an immense room, quite full of most varied objects, which at a glance revealed the opinions, tastes, and predilections of the owner. The first thing to strike the visitor as he entered was an admirable bust of Bichat, flanked on either side by smaller busts of Robespierre and Rousseau. Aclock of the time of Louis
