The Governor took the permit and read, “Introduced by His Excellency the Comte de Serizy.”
“Ah! Madame de San-Esteban, Madame la Marquise,” cried Carlos Herrera, “what admirable devotion!”
“But, madame, such interviews are against the rules,” said the good old Governor. And he intercepted the advance of this bale of black watered-silk and lace.
“But at such a distance!” said Jacques Collin, “and in your presence——” and he looked round at the group.
His aunt, whose dress might well dazzle the clerk, the Governor, the warders, and the gendarmes, stank of musk. She had on, besides a thousand crowns of lace, a black India cashmere shawl, worth six thousand francs. And her chasseur was marching up and down outside with the insolence of a lackey who knows that he is essential to an exacting princess. He spoke never a word to the footman, who stood by the gate on the quay, which is always open by day.
“What do you wish? What can I do?” said Madame de San-Esteban in the lingo agreed upon by this aunt and nephew.
This dialect consisted in adding terminations in ar or in or, or in al or in i to every word, whether French or slang, so as to disguise it by lengthening it. It was a diplomatic cipher adapted to speech.
“Put all the letters in some safe place; take out those that are most likely to compromise the ladies; come back, dressed very poorly, to the Salle des Pas-Perdus, and wait for my orders.”
Asie, otherwise Jacqueline, knelt as if to receive his blessing, and the sham priest blessed his aunt with evengelical unction.
“Addio, Marchesa,” said he aloud. “And,” he added in their private language, “find Europe and Paccard with the seven hundred and fifty thousand francs they bagged. We must have them.”