‘He is dead!’ replied Philippe. ‘He lodged with us, or rather had a room to carry on his chemical experiments, and we have just heard that his body has been found lifeless in the vaults of the Palais des Thermes.’
‘Murdered?’ asked both the Gascon and Maître Picard at once.
‘I know not,’ answered Glazer; ‘a hundred stories are already about, but we are too bewildered to attend to any. However, he has left nearly all his possessions in our keeping, and we must immediately seal them up until the pleasure of the authorities be known.’
‘It is the office of the Commissary of Police of the quartier,’ said Maître Picard.
‘I know it,’ answered Glazer impatiently. ‘But M. Artus is ill in bed, and he has deputed you to witness the process, as a man of good report in his jurisdiction. His clerk, Pierre Frater, has started to our house. I pray you come, without more loss of time.’
It was a sad trial for Maître Picard to leave his intended banquet, especially to the mercies of the Gascon, whose appetite, in common with that pertaining to all weakened intellects, was enormous. But the urgency of the case, and Philippe Glazer’s empressement, left him no chance of getting off the duty; and hastily gathering together his cloak, arms, and other marks of his authority, he turned out, not without much grumbling, to accompany Glazer to his father’s house in the Place Maubert, which was not above ten minutes’ walk from the Rue des Mathurins.
Late as it was, the news of Sainte-Croix’s death had travelled over that part of Paris contiguous to the scene of the event, and when Philippe and the bourgeois arrived the court was filled with people who had collected, in spite of the inclemency of the weather, to gain some authentic intelligence connected with the catastrophe. The fact that Exili was, in some way or another, connected with the accident, had already given rise to the most marvellous stories, the principal one being that the devil had been seen perched on the northern tower of Notre Dame with the wretched physician in his grasp, preparatory to carrying him off to some fearful place of torment, the mention of which provoked more crossings and holy words than all the masses which the gossipers had attended for the last week.
Elbowing his way through the throng, Maître Picard assumed all his wonted importance, whilst he ordered Philippe to admit no one but the members of his household; and then, accompanied by Pierre Frater, the Commissary’s clerk, he ascended to the room which Gaudin had occupied.
It teemed with that fearful interest which sudden death throws around the most unimportant objects connected with the existence of the victim. The pen lay upon the half-finished letters; a list of things to be attended to on the morrow was pinned to the wall; and the watch was ticking on its stand, although the hand that had put it in action was still and cold. On the table were some dice, at which their owner had evidently been working, to render their cast a certainty at the next game of hazard he engaged in. A flagon of wine, half-emptied, a book marked for reference, a cloak drying before the expiring embers of the fireplace, each inanimate article spoke with terrible meaning.
‘You have the seals, Maître Frater,’ said the bourgeois; ‘we will secure everything until we have further orders.’