He regretted the abolition of torture, the refined cruelty of the middle ages: quartering, the stake, the wheel. The guillotine acts so quickly that the condemned man has scarcely time to feel the cold steel cutting through his muscles; it is nothing more than a fillip on the neck. Through trying so much to mitigate the pain of death, it has now become little more than a joke, and might be abolished altogether.
The certainty of confounding Noel, of delivering him up to justice, of taking vengeance upon him, alone kept old Tabaret up.
“It is clear,” he murmured, “that the wretch forgot his things at the railway station, in his haste to rejoin his mistress. Will they still be found there? If he has had the prudence to go boldly, and ask for them under a false name, I can see no further proofs against him. Madame Chaffour’s evidence won’t help me. The hussy, seeing her lover in danger, will deny what she has just told me; she will assert that Noel left her long after ten o’clock. But I cannot think he has dared to go to the railway station again.”
About half way down the Rue Richelieu, M. Tabaret was seized with a sudden giddiness.
“I am going to have an attack, I fear,” thought he. “If I die, Noel will escape, and will be my heir. A man should always keep his will constantly with him, to be able to destroy it, if necessary.”
A few steps further on, he saw a doctor’s plate on a door; he stopped the cab, and rushed into the house. He was so excited, so beside himself, his eyes had such a wild expression, that the doctor was almost afraid of his peculiar patient, who said to him hoarsely: “Bleed me!”
The doctor ventured an objection; but already the old fellow had taken off his coat, and drawn up one of his shirtsleeves.
“Bleed me!” he repeated. “Do you want me to die?”
The doctor finally obeyed, and old Tabaret came out quieted and relieved.
An hour later, armed with the necessary power, and accompanied by a policeman, he proceeded to the lost property office at the St. Lazare railway station, to make the necessary search. It resulted as he had expected. He learnt that, on the evening of Shrove Tuesday, there had been found in one of the second class carriages, of train No. 45, an overcoat and an umbrella. He was shown the articles; and he at once recognised them as belonging to Noel. In one of the pockets of the overcoat, he found a pair of lavender kid gloves, frayed and soiled, as well as a return ticket from Chatou, which had not been used.