“Prudence and Paccard will do the job at la Gonore’s; you and Ginetta—who seems to be a smart hussy—must manage the job at Godet’s sister’s place.
“And so, as the first act in the farce, I can enable the public prosecutor to lay his hands on four hundred thousand francs stolen from the Crottats, and on the guilty parties. Then I shall seem to have shown up the Nanterre murderer. We shall get back our shiners, and are behind the scenes with the police. We were the game, now we are the hunters—that is all.
“Give the driver three francs.”
The coach was at the Palais. Jacqueline, speechless with astonishment, paid. Trompe-la-Mort went up the steps to the public prosecutor’s room.
A complete change of life is so violent a crisis, that Jacques Collin, in spite of his resolution, mounted the steps but slowly, going up from the Rue de la Barillerie to the Galerie Marchande, where, under the gloomy peristyle of the courthouse, is the entrance to the Court itself.
Some civil case was going on which had brought a little crowd together at the foot of the double stairs leading to the Assize Court, so that the convict, lost in thought, stood for some minutes, checked by the throng.
To the left of this double flight is one of the mainstays of the building, like an enormous pillar, and in this tower is a little door. This door opens on a spiral staircase down to the Conciergerie, to which the public prosecutor, the governor of the prison, the presiding judges, King’s council, and the chief of the Safety department have access by this back way.
It was up a side staircase from this, now walled up, that Marie Antoinette, the Queen of France, was led before the Revolutionary tribunal which sat, as we all know, in the great hall where appeals are now heard before the Supreme Court. The heart sinks within us at the sight of these dreadful steps, when we think that Marie Therese’s daughter, whose suite, and head-dress, and hoops filled the great staircase at Versailles, once passed that way! Perhaps it was in expiation of her mother’s crime—the atrocious division of Poland. The sovereigns who commit such crimes evidently never think of the retribution to be exacted by Providence.
When Jacques Collin went up the vaulted stairs to the public prosecutor’s room, Bibi-Lupin was just coming out of the little door in the wall.
The chief of the “Safety” had come from the Conciergerie, and was also going up to Monsieur de Granville. It was easy to imagine Bibi-Lupin’s surprise when he recognized, in front of him, the gown of Carlos Herrera, which he had so thoroughly studied that morning; he ran on to pass him. Jacques Collin turned round, and the enemies were face to face. Each stood still, and the self-same look flashed in both pairs of eyes, so different in themselves, as in a duel two pistols go off at the same instant.