Twenty voices were ready to join with the one which had attempted to hearten the unhappy Nut. The thought of a catastrophe of such magnitude as the death of Chéri-Bibi did not enter the minds of a single one of them. Only a warder—or a mischief-maker like "Monsieur Désiré," would entertain such ridiculous nonsense. The man who could bring down Chéri-Bibi was not yet born. Chéri-Bibi had always done what he had set his mind to do.
When he longed to be off there was nothing more to be said. He knew how to let himself out! The warders were well aware of that. They had seen him subject to the most rigid discipline, never out of sight of a convict guard whose sole duty was to keep watch on his movements, and yet he had found means of getting the better of every obstacle. Moreover he had declared beforehand that he was going away. At the appointed day and hour, the thing was done.
Though he came back again and allowed himself to be recaptured, it was undoubtedly because he could not do without the air of the Pré. As he himself said: "A penal settlement is my hearth and home."
It was known that Chéri-Bibi invariably carried about with him his "outfit;" that is to say, everything that was necessary to enable him to escape when "it suited him." And no one knew how he managed to conceal the things.
On one occasion he allowed himself to be caught. He put his "going away kit" in a shoemaker's last over which he placed a piece of leather studded with nails as if he intended to begin making a pair of boots but the last was hollow and could be unscrewed, and it contained an elaborate collection of "necessaries"—mustaches, whiskers, false hair, a chisel, a small saw for sawing iron made from the spring of a watch, a tiny hand mirror for dressing purposes, needles and thread, and pen and paper.
He often let his shoemaker's last lie about on his bed, and sometimes he folded it under his arm when he went on forced labor.
It was quite an event when one day the inspecting officer who had been noticing the last for some time, ended by considering that the work of making a pair of boots was taking too long and confiscated it.
This time the fat was in the fire. But Chéri-Bibi had no end of other tricks up his sleeve. He would always get the better of them; that was certain.
At this point in the discussion the door was opened and a deputy warder entered. He came to inquire if they had yet discovered the way by which the five convicts had escaped. His two colleagues replied by a shrug of the shoulders.
"Say what you like, they can't have flown away," observed the newcomer.