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Had he not repented even to remorse his having signed the warrant of arrest, and his having accepted the duty of investigating the case. Old Tabaret's incomprehensible change of opinion troubled him, too. All these feelings combined, inspired M. Daburon with a feverish hatred, and urged him on in the path which he had chosen.
"Oh, I don't know! He made the mistake of not fixing a price with her. According to my calculation, she must have, during the four years that she has been under his protection, cost him close upon five hundred thousand francs." Four years? Five hundred thousand francs! These words, these figures, burst like bombshells on old Tabaret's brain. Half a million! In that case, Noel was utterly ruined.
Putting a bold face on it, however, he acted at once and staked his all. To put the police on Albert's track was to guarantee his own safety, to insure to himself, in the event of a probable success, Count de Commarin's name and fortune. Circumstances, as well as his own terror, increased his boldness and his ingenuity. Old Tabaret's visit occurred just at the right moment.
One man ran out; while the others, under old Tabaret's direction, raised the body, and carried it to Madame Juliette's bedroom where they laid it on the bed. "For his sake, I trust his wounds are mortal!" murmured the old detective, whose anger left him at the sight. "After all, I loved him as though he were my own child; his name is still in my will!" Old Tabaret stopped.
A repulse at the magistrate's hands had entered too much into M. Tabaret's anticipations for him to appear troubled or discouraged. He declared that, for the present, he would insist no more; he had full confidence in the magistrate's wisdom and impartiality. All he wished was to put him on his guard against the presumptions which he himself unfortunately had taken such pains to inspire.
Such was old Tabaret's information, when on the Monday morning he called at the Palais de Justice, in order to find out if the record of Widow Lerouge's past life had been received. He found that nothing had arrived, but in the passage he met Gevrol and his man. The chief of detectives was triumphant, and showed it too.
Tabaret's submission tickled his pretensions as a detective immensely; for in reality he thought the old man very clever. He was softened. "I suppose," he said patronisingly, "you refer to the La Jonchere affair?" "Alas! yes, my dear M. Gevrol, I wished to work without you, and I have got myself into a pretty mess."
To an ordinary mind like M. Tabaret's he used the exaggeration of anger; but to a man of superior intelligence like M. Daburon, he employed the exaggeration of restraint. With the detective he had rebelled against his unjust lot; but with the magistrate he seemed to bow, full of resignation, before a blind fatality.
At supper, I had to treat him like a perfect stranger, because some of his friends were present." This, then, was the alibi prepared in case of trouble. Juliette, had she been less carried away by her own feelings, would have noticed old Tabaret's emotion, and would certainly have held her tongue. He was perfectly livid, and trembled like a leaf.
"It is not worth while," he replied, "for I live, as I have had the honour of telling you, in the Rue St. Lazare, only a few steps from here." "Till to-morrow, then!" said M. Daburon. "Till to-morrow," replied old Tabaret; and he added, "We shall succeed." M. Tabaret's house was in fact not more than four minutes' walk from the railway terminus of St. Lazare.
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