Then, hardly had the last stroke of eleven sounded, awakening the echoes of the empty galleries, than in the Court of Assizes itself, under the monumental desk, before which the justices sat in state by day, a noise made itself heard, long, strident, nerve-racking—the noise of an alarum clock!
Just as the alarum ceased its raucous call, a loud yawn resounded through the empty spaces of the chamber. The sleeper, who had selected this spot that he might indulge, all undisturbed, in a revivifying sleep, evidently took no pains to smother the sound of his voice, for, after yawning enough to dislocate his jaws, he uttered a loud: "Ah!" He accompanied his yawns with exclamations:
"It's a fact, the Republic doesn't do things up to the scratch! The rugs here are of poor quality!... I'm aching all over!... The floor is strewn with peach kernels—surely?... At any rate, it's a quiet hotel, and one is not disturbed—a truly delectable refuge to have a jolly good snore in!"
The sleeper sat up:
"What's the time exactly? Let us have a light on it!" A match was struck, and a tiny flare of light shone from under the desk of the presiding judge:
"Ten past eleven! I've still five minutes to be lazy in—and I shall need all of it, for I've a rough night before me! I can rest awhile, and think things over!"
The speaker calmly lay down again, trying to find a comfortable position on what he christened mentally: "The administrative peach kernels":
"Let me see, now!" he went on aloud. "At five in the afternoon it was known that Jacques Dollon had committed suicide; was probably innocent, and that his corpse had disappeared. Yesterday, at half-past five, La Capitale announced that he had a very pretty sister.... To-night at ten past eleven behold me, shut up quite alone in the Palais de Justice, free to proceed to the little investigation I think of making.... Jérôme Fandor, my dear friend, I congratulate you! You have not managed badly!...
"Yes," went on our journalist, "what a joke it is! Here have I got myself shut up in the Palais without the slightest difficulty! It is true, that if the assistant had been obliged to open, and verify, the contents of all the robing-rooms of all the judges, he would never have finished. As for me, in my cupboard, I followed all the good fellow's movements, and he never suspected my presence. If I am to be congratulated, he cannot be blamed for it! There I was, there I remained, and now I must be off!"
Fandor drew a small wax taper from his pocket and lighted it with a match.