“I was told that a lady had already placed herself in the way of Jacques Collin when he was brought up from the cells to be examined. That woman got into the guardroom at the top of the narrow stairs from the mousetrap; the ushers told me, and I blamed the gendarmes.”
“Oh! the Palais needs entire reconstruction,” said Monsieur de Granville. “But it is an outlay of twenty to thirty million francs! Just try asking the Chambers for thirty millions for the more decent accommodation of Justice.”
The sound of many footsteps and a clatter of arms fell on their ear. It would be Jacques Collin.
The public prosecutor assumed a mask of gravity that hid the man. Camusot imitated his chief.
The office-boy opened the door, and Jacques Collin came in, quite calm and unmoved.
“You wished to speak to me,” said Monsieur de Granville. “I am ready to listen.”
“Monsieur le Comte, I am Jacques Collin. I surrender!”
Camusot started; the public prosecutor was immovable.
“As you may suppose, I have my reasons for doing this,” said Jacques Collin, with an ironical glance at the two magistrates. “I must inconvenience you greatly; for if I had remained a Spanish priest, you would simply have packed me off with an escort of gendarmes as far as the frontier by Bayonne, and there Spanish bayonets would have relieved you of me.”
The lawyers sat silent and imperturbable.