CHAPTER VIII.
THE police officer did not follow the autopsical operations closely. Hewas eager to know--he was impatient for the moment when, having takenthe picture, he might develop the negatives and study them to see if hecould discover anything, could decipher any image. He had usedphotography in the service of anthropometry; he had taken the picturesat the Morgue with his kodak, and now, at home in his little room, whichhe was able to darken completely, he was developing his plates.
Mme. Bernardet and the children were much struck with the expression ofhis face. It was not troubled, but preoccupied and as if he werecompletely absorbed. He was very quiet, eating very little, and seemedthoughtful. His wife asked him, "Art thou ill?" He responded, "No, Ithink not." And his little girls said to each other in low tones, "Papais on a trail!"
He was, in truth! The hunting dog smelled the scent! The pictures whichhe had taken of the retina and had developed showed a resultsufficiently clear for Bernardet to feel confident enough to tell hischief that he distinctly saw a visage, the face of a man, confused, nodoubt, but clear enough to recognize not only a type, but a distincttype. As from the depths of a cloud, in a sort of white halo, a humanface appeared whose features could be distinctly seen with a magnifyingglass! The face of a man with a pointed black beard, the forehead alittle bald, and blackish spots which indicated the eyes. It was only aphantom, evidently, and the photographer at the Prefecture seemed moremoved than Bernardet by the proofs obtained. Clearer than in spiritphotographs, which so many credulous people believe in, the image showedplainly, and in studying it one could distinctly follow the contours. Aspectre, perhaps, but the spectre of a man who was still young andresembled, with his pointed beard, some trooper of the sixteenthcentury, a phantom of some Seigneur Clouet.
"For example," said the official photographer, "if one could discover amurderer by photographing a dead man's eyes, this would be miraculous.It is incredible!"
"Not more incredible," Bernardet replied, "than what the papers publish:Edison is experimenting on making the blind see by using the RoentgenRays. There is a miracle!"
Then Bernardet took his proofs to M. Ginory. The police officer feltthat the magistrate, the sovereign power in criminal researches, ought,above everything, to collaborate with him, to consent to theseexperiments which so many others had declared useless and absurd. Thetaste for researches, which was with M. Ginory a matter of temperamentas well as a duty to his profession, was, fortunately, keen on thisscent. Criminals call in their argot, the judges, "the pryers."Curiosity in this man was combined with a knowledge of profoundresearches.
When Bernardet spread out on M. Ginory's desk the four photographs whichhe had brought with him, the first remark which the examining Magistratemade was: "But I see nothing--a cloud, a mist, and then after?"Bernardet drew a magnifying glass from his pocket and pointed out as hewould have explained an enigmatical design, the lineaments, moving hisfinger over the contour of the face which his nail outlined, that humanface which he had seen and studied in his little room in the passage ofthe Elysee des Beaux-Arts. He made him see--after some moments of minuteexamination--he made him see that face. "It is true--there is an imagethere," exclaimed M. Ginory. He added: "Is it plain enough for me to seeit so that I can from it imagine a living being? I see the form, divinedit at first, saw it clearly defined afterward. At first it seemed veryvague, but I find it sufficiently well defined so that I can see eachfeature, but without any special character. Oh!" continued M. Ginory,excitedly, rubbing his plump little hands, "if it was only possible, ifit was only possible! What a marvel!"
"It is possible, Monsieur le Juge! have faith," Bernardet replied."I swear to you that it is possible." This enthusiasm gained overthe Examining Magistrate. Bernardet had found a fellow-sympathizerin his fantastic ideas. M. Ginory was now--if only to try theexperiment--resolved to direct the investigation on this plan. He wasanxious to first show the proofs to those who would be apt to recognizein them a person whom they might have once seen in the flesh. "ToMoniche first and then to his wife," said Bernardet.
"Who is Moniche?"
"The concierge in the Boulevard de Clichy."
Ordered to come to the court, M. and Mme. Moniche were overjoyed. Theywere summoned to appear before the Judges. They had become importantpersonages. Perhaps their pictures would be published in the papers.They dressed themselves as for a fete. Mme. Moniche in her Sunday beststrove to do honor to M. Rovere. She said to Moniche in all sincerity:"Our duty is to avenge him."
While sitting on a bench in one of the long, cold corridors, the porterand his wife saw pass before them prisoners led by their jailers; somelooked menacing, while others had a cringing air and seemed to try toescape notice. These two persons felt that they were playing roles asimportant as those in a melodrama at the Ambigu. The time seemed longto them, and M. Ginory did not call them as soon as they wished that hewould. They thought of their home, which, while they were detainedthere, would be invaded by the curious, the gossips and reporters.
"How slow these Judges are," growled Moniche.
When he was conducted into the presence of M. Ginory and his registrar,and seated upon a chair, he was much confused and less bitter. He felt avague terror of all the paraphernalia of justice which surrounded him.He felt that he was running some great danger, and to the Judge'squestions he replied with extreme prudence. Thanks to him and his wifeM. Ginory found out a great deal about M. Rovere's private life; hepenetrated into that apparently hidden existence, he searched to see ifhe could discover, among the people who had visited the old ex-Consulthe one among all others who might have committed the deed.
"You never saw the woman who visited Rovere?"
"Yes. The veiled lady. The Woman in Black. But I do not know her. No oneknew her."
The story told by the portress about the time when she surprised thestranger and Rovere with the papers in his hand in front of the opensafe made quite an impression on the Examining Magistrate.
"Do you know the name of the visitor?"
"No, Monsieur," the portress replied.
"But if you should see him again would you recognize him?"
"Certainly! I see his face there, before me!"
She made haste to return to her home so that she might relate herimpressions to her fellow gossips. The worthy couple left the courtpuffed up with self-esteem because of the role which they had beencalled upon to play. The obsequies were to be held the next day, and theprospect of a dramatic day in which M. and Mme. Moniche would still playthis important role, created in them an agony which was almost joyous.The crowd around the house of the crime was always large. Some fewpassers-by stopped--stopped before the stone facade behind which amurder had been committed. The reporters returned again and again fornews, and the couple, greedy for glory, could not open a paper withoutseeing their names printed in large letters. One journal had thatmorning even published an especial article: "Interviews with M. and Mme.Moniche."
The crowd buzzed about the lodge like a swarm of flies. M. Rovere's bodyhad been brought back from the Morgue. The obsequies would naturallyattract an enormous crowd; all the more, as the mystery was still asdeep as ever. Among his papers had been found a receipt for a tomb inthe cemetery at Montmartre, bought by him about a year before. Inanother paper, not dated, were found directions as to how his funeralwas to be conducted. M. Rovere, after having passed a wandering life,wished to rest in his native country. But no other indications of hiswishes, nothing about his relatives, had been found. It seemed as if hewas a man without a family, without any place in society, or any claimon any one to bury him. And this distressing isolation added to themorbid curiosity which was attached to the house, now all draped inblack, with the letter "R" standing out in white against its silverescutcheon.
Who would be chief mourner? M. Rovere had appointed no one. He had askedin that paper that a short notice should be inserted in the paper givingthe hour and date of the services, and giving him the sim
ple titleex-Consul. "I hope," went on the writer, "to be taken to the cemeteryquietly and followed by intimate friends, if any remain."
Intimate friends were scarce in that crowd, without doubt, but the deadman's wish could hardly be carried out. Those obsequies which he hadwished to be quiet became a sort of fete, funereal and noisy; where thethousands of people crowding the Boulevard crushed each other in theirdesire to see, and pressed almost upon the draped funeral car which theneighbors had covered with flowers.
Everything is a spectacle for Parisians. The guardians of the peacestrove to keep back the crowds; some gamins climbed into the branches ofthe trees. The bier had been placed at the foot of the staircase in thenarrow corridor opening upon the street. Mme. Moniche had placed upon atable in the lodge some loose leaves, where Rovere's unknown friendscould write their names.
Bernardet, alert, with his eyes wide open, studying the faces, searchingthe eyes, mingled with the crowd, looked at the file of people,scrutinized, one by one, the signatures; Bernardet, in mourning, wearingblack gloves, seemed more like an undertaker's assistant than a policespy. Once he found himself directly in front of the open door of thelodge and the table where the leaves lay covered with signatures; whenin the half light of the corridor draped with black, where the bier lay,he saw a man of about fifty, pale and very sad looking. He had arrived,in his turn in the line, at the table, where he signed his name. Mme.Moniche, clothed in black, with a white handkerchief in her hand,although she was not weeping, found herself side by side with Bernardet;in fact, their elbows touched. When the man reached the table, comingfrom the semi-darkness of the passage, and stepped into the light whichfell full on him from the window, the portress involuntarily exclaimed,"Ah!" She was evidently much excited, and caught the police officer bythe hand and said:
"I am afraid!"
She spoke in such a low tone that Bernardet divined rather than heardwhat she meant in that stifled cry. He looked at her from the corner ofhis eye. He saw that she was ghastly, and again she spoke in a low tone:"He! he whom I saw with M. Rovere before the open safe!"
Bernardet gave the man one sweeping glance of the eye. He fairly piercedhim through with his sharp look. The unknown, half bent over the tablewhereon lay the papers, showed a wide forehead, slightly bald, and apointed beard, a little gray, which almost touched the white paper as hewrote his name.
Suddenly the police officer experienced a strange sensation; it seemedto him that this face, the shape of the head, the pointed beard, he hadrecently seen somewhere, and that this human silhouette recalled to himan image which he had recently studied. The perception of a possibilityof a proof gave him a shock. This man who was there made him thinksuddenly of that phantom discernible in the photographs taken of theretina of the murdered man's eye.
"Who is that man?"
Bernardet shivered with pleasurable excitement, and, insisting upon hisown impression that this unknown strongly recalled the image obtained,and mentally he compared this living man, bending over the table,writing his name, with that spectre which had the air of a trooper whichappeared in the photograph. The contour was the same, not only of theface, but the beard. This man reminded one of a Seigneur of the time ofHenry III., and Bernardet found in that face something formidable. Theman had signed his name. He raised his head, and his face, of a dullwhite, was turned full toward the police officer; their looks crossed,keen on Bernardet's side, veiled in the unknown. But before the fixityof the officer's gaze the strange man dropped his head for a moment;then, in his turn, he fixed a piercing, almost menacing, gaze onBernardet. Then the latter slowly dropped his eyes and bowed; theunknown went out quickly and was lost in the crowd before the house.
"It is he! it is he!" repeated the portress, who trembled as if she hadseen a ghost.
Scarcely had the unknown disappeared than the police officer took buttwo steps to reach the table, and bending over it in his turn, he readthe name written by that man:
"Jacques Dantin."
The name awakened no remembrance in Bernardet's mind, and now it was aliving problem that he had to solve.
"Tell no one that you have seen that man," he hastily said to Mme.Moniche. "No one! Do you hear?" And he hurried out into the Boulevard,picking his way through the crowd and watching out to find that JacquesDantin, whom he wished to follow.