In the meanwhile there was the gold rat to show his teeth, and the red rust on the blade to suggest a horrible intimacy with the inner processes of the crime. They must suffice for curiosity until the appearance of the prisoner.
Monsieur the ex-Prefect, dished up at last to a ravenous company, surveyed the Court as he had always been wont to survey it, with a manner as from the chair rather than from the dock. He was perfectly cool and self-collected—dressed as for a gala—white-handed and sweet-scented—a fastidious macaroni—self-consciously caviarre to the general.
“Proceed, M. le Président,” he said. “I will venture to suggest to you the values of a dramatic brevity. I am entirely at your service—and the hangman’s.”
Dr Bonito, sitting slunk out of observation below the presidential chair, watched, across the room, the effect of this entry and rodomontade on a veiled female figure, which, standing among the spectators, had from the first caught his attention. Dull-sighted to all the world of beauty and sentiment, he was keen-eyed enough where his own appetites were concerned. He had early marked down this figure for his consideration, as a carrion-crow ogles a nesting rook. Its presence in this place did not surprise him. He might have wondered more if a case, so far-reaching in its sensational attractions, had failed to produce this apparition among many less interested. His curiosity was chiefly exercised as to its object in attending—whether from lust of triumph over, or from an inalienable infatuation for, a ruined betrayer. But he could gather nothing from its immovable attitude.
The Court took Monsieur the ex-Prefect at his word. Its processes were sharp, brief, and dramatic. By four o’clock in the afternoon it had sentenced the excellent petit-maître to his last dressing at the hands of the executioner.
Balmat had testified staunchly to the ownership of the knife; and the prisoner had applauded his evidence.
“Well spoken, Jacques. Thou art as upright a witness as a guide, Yes, the knife was mine.”
He had been advised by the President, M. Léotade, to sheathe his tongue.
“It is a weapon thou hast sharp reason to fear, Prefect,” he had answered.
There was some recapitulation of former evidence, which it is unnecessary to detail. Among others, the drunken rogue Target had been called, and Margot, his daughter. To all, it may be supposed, the drift of the inquiry was morally evident. They were summoned to condemn the prisoner—not to acquit him. It was very curious. Bonito, when it came to his turn, sniggered over the manner in which Fate had accommodated itself to his scheme of a persuasive magic. He recalled how he had engaged himself to put a spell on this man, so that he should volunteer a loathing of his office. He had not aimed at the moment at more than his deposition, which, so enforced, might have entailed troublesome consequences. Now, whatever ensued, Cartouche counted politically no longer. Whether he were hanged, or allowed to escape, he had ceased from the running. The gods had played into their oracle’s hands.