"It is well that you did not bring Madame with you," he said. "You forbade her to come?"
And he looked at me with a keenness which, I trust, impressed the police official for whose benefit it was assumed.
"I begged her to remain in Paris."
"Ah!" and he gave a significant laugh. "However—so long as she is not here."
He was a white-faced man, who looked as if he had been dried up by some blanching process. One could imagine that the heart inside him was white also. In his own eyes it was evident that he was a vastly clever man. I thought him rather an ass.
"You know, gentlemen," he said, as he prepared his papers, "the recognition of the body is a mere formality."
"Then let us omit it, Monsieur le Préfet," exclaimed Alphonse, with characteristic cheerfulness; but the remark was treated with contempt.
"In July, gentlemen," went on the Préfet, "the Seine is warm—there are eels—a hundred animalculæ—a score of decomposing elements. However, there are the clothes—the contents of Monsieur le Vicomte's pockets—a signet ring. Shall we go? But first take another glass of wine. If the nerves are sensitive—a few drops of Benedictine?"
"If I may have it in a claret glass," said Alphonse, and he launched into a voluble explanation, to which the Préfet listened with a thin, transparent smile. I thought that he would have been better pleased had some of the Vicomte's titled friends come to observe this formality. But one's grand friends are better kept for fine weather only, and the official had to content himself with the company of a private secretary and the son of a ruined financier.
Alphonse and I had no difficulty in recognizing the small belongings which had been extracted from my old patron's sodden clothing. In the letter case was a letter from myself on some small matter of business. I pointed this out, and signed my name a second time on the yellow and crinkled paper for the further satisfaction of the lawyer. Then we passed into an inner room and stood in the presence of the dead man. The recognition was, as the Préfet had said, a painful formality. Alphonse Giraud and I swore to the clothing—indeed, the linen was marked plainly enough—and we left the undertaker to his work.