But the prisoner’s set, calm face did not move a muscle.
“Show the person in,” said Camusot roughly, his dissatisfaction betraying itself in spite of his seeming indifference.
This irritation was not lost on Jacques Collin, who had not counted on the judge’s sympathy, and sat lost in apathy, produced by his deep meditations in the effort to guess what the cause could be.
The usher now showed in Madame Poiret. At this unexpected appearance the prisoner had a slight shiver, but his trepidation was not remarked by Camusot, who seemed to have made up his mind.
“What is your name?” asked he, proceeding to carry out the formalities introductory to all depositions and examinations.
Madame Poiret, a little old woman as white and wrinkled as a sweetbread, dressed in a dark-blue silk gown, gave her name as Christine Michelle Michonneau, wife of one Poiret, and her age as fifty-one years, said that she was born in Paris, lived in the Rue des Poules at the corner of the Rue des Postes, and that her business was that of lodging-house keeper.
“In 1818 and 1819,” said the judge, “you lived, madame, in a boarding-house kept by a Madame Vauquer?”
“Yes, monsieur; it was there that I met Monsieur Poiret, a retired official, who became my husband, and whom I have nursed in his bed this twelvemonth past. Poor man! he is very bad; and I cannot be long away from him.”
“There was a certain Vautrin in the house at the time?” asked Camusot.
“Oh, monsieur, that is quite a long story; he was a horrible man, from the galleys——”