"I do not know," thought Bernardet as he returned home. "What one knows very well indeed, what one cannot deny, oh, that would be impossible! is that on the retina of the dead man's eye, reflected there at the supreme moment of the agony, is found the image of this Dantin, his face, his features; this man, in a word, denounced by this witness which is worth all other witnesses in the world! This assassinated man cast a last look upon his murderer as he called for aid; a last cry for 'Help!' in the death rattle!—and this man says: 'I do not know!' But the dead man knew; and the kodak knows, also. It has no passion, no anger, no hate, because it registers what passes; fixes that which is fleeting!"
Bernardet was obstinate in his conviction. He was perfectly rooted in it. What if he had not persisted in believing that photography would reveal the truth? What weighty reason, what even acceptable one was there which obliged Dantin to remain silent in the presence of the Examining Magistrate and his registrar—in the secret interview of an examination—when in order to escape a prison, an accusation, he had only to speak two words? But if Dantin said nothing, was it because he had nothing to say? If he had given no explanation, was it because he had none to give? An innocent man does not remain silent. If at the instant when M. Ginory pressed the ivory button the other day, if the man had been able to defend himself, would he not have done it? One knew the secret reason of criminals for keeping silent. Their best reason is their guilt.
Only, it seemed now certain that Dantin, although guilty, had an accomplice. Yes, without doubt, the man with the sombrero, the seller of the portrait. Where could he now be in hiding?
"Not easy," Bernardet repeated the words: "Not easy; no, not easy at all to run him out of his rabbit hutch."
The Woman in Black, the visitor, would be another important clue. On this side the situation seemed a simple one. Or was this woman also an accomplice, and would she remain silent, hidden in the Province? Or would the death of Rovère draw her to Paris, where she might be recognized and become a witness for Justice?
But the days passed. What was called the mystery of the Boulevard de Clichy continued to interest and excite the public. Violent and perplexing Parliamentary discussions could not distract attention from a crime committed in broad daylight, almost as one might say, in the street, and which made one doubt the security of the city, the efficiency of the police. The fall of a Ministry, predicted each morning and anticipated in advance, could not thrust aside morbid interest in this murder. The death of the ex-Consul was a grand actuality!
Jacques Dantin thus became a dramatic personage; the reporters created legends about him; some declared him guilty and brought up in support of their conviction some anecdotes, some tales from the clubs, given as proofs; others asked if the suppositions were sufficiently well based to accuse a man in advance of trial, and these latter ardently took up his defense. Paul Rodier had even, with much dexterity and eloquence, diplomatically written two articles, one on either side of the question.
"It is," he said to himself, "the sure way of having told the truth on one side or the other."
Bernardet did not renounce for an instant the hope of finding the man who had sold the picture. It was not the first time that he had picked the needle from a cartful of hay. Paris is large, but this human sea has its particular currents, as the ocean has special tides, and the police officer knew it well. Here or there, some day he would meet the man, cast up by the torrent like a waif.
First of all, the man was probably a stranger from some foreign land. Wearing a hat like a Spaniard, he had not had time to change the style of dress of the country from which he had come in search of adventures. Bernardet haunted the hotels, searched the registers, made conversation with the lodgers. He found poor persons who had come from foreign countries, but whose motives for coming to Paris were all right. Bernardet never stopped searching a moment; he went everywhere, curious and prying—and it pleased him, when he found a leisure evening, to go to some of the strange wine shops or ale houses (called cabarets) to find subjects for observation. These cabarets are very numerous on the outskirts of Montmartre, in the streets and boulevards at the foot of the Butte. Bizarre inventions, original and disagreeable creations, where the ingenuity of the enterprisers sometimes made them hideous in order to attract; to cater to the idle, and to hold the loungers from among the higher classes. Cabarets born of the need for novelty, which might stimulate the blasé; the demand for something eccentric almost to morbid irony. A Danse Macabre trod to the measures of an operetta; pleasantries of the bunglers adopting the cure-alls of the saw-bones, and juggling with their empty heads while dreaming the dreams of a Hamlet.