The Crime of the Boulevard, Page 2

  CHAPTER II.

  BERNARDET was quite an original character. Among the agents, some ofwhom were very odd, and among the devoted subalterns, this little man,with his singular mind, with his insatiable curiosity, reading anythinghe could lay his hands on, passed for a literary person. His chiefsometimes laughingly said to him:

  "Bernardet, take care! You have literary ambitions. You will begin todream of writing for the papers."

  "Oh, no, Monsieur Morel--but what would you?--I am simply amusingmyself."

  This was true. Bernardet was a born hunter. With a superior education,he might have become a savant, a frequenter of libraries, passing hislife in working on documents and in deciphering manuscripts. The son ofa dairyman; brought up in a Lancastrian school; reading with avidity allthe daily papers; attracted by everything mysterious which happened inParis; having accomplished his military duty, he applied for admissionto the Police Bureau, as he would have embarked for the New World, forMexico, or for Tonquin, in order to travel in a new country. Then hemarried, so that he might have, in his checkered existence, which wasdangerous and wearying,--a haven of rest, a fireside of peaceful joy.

  So he lived a double life--tracking malefactors like a bloodhound, andcultivating his little garden. There he devoured old books, for which hehad paid a few sous at some book stall; he read and pasted in old, oddleaves, re-bound them himself, and cut clippings from papers. He filledhis round, bald head with a mass of facts which he investigated,classified, put into their proper place, to be brought forth as occasiondemanded.

  He was an inquisitive person, a very inquisitive person, indeed.Curiosity filled his life. He performed with pleasure the most fatiguingand repulsive tasks that fall to a police officer's lot. They satisfiedthe original need of his nature, and permitted him to see everything, tohear everything, to penetrate into the most curious mysteries. To-day,in a dress suit with white tie, carelessly glancing over the crowds atthe opera, to discover the thieves who took opera glasses, which theysent to accomplices in Germany to be sold; to-morrow, going in raggedclothes to arrest a murderer in some cutthroat den in the Glaciere.

  M. Bernardet had taken possession of the office of the most powerfulbankers, seized their books and made them go away with him in a cab. Hehad followed, by order, the intrigues of more than one fine lady, whoowed to him her salvation. What if M. Bernardet had thought fit tospeak? But he never spoke, and reporters came out worsted from anyattempt at an interview with him. "An interview is silver, but silenceis gold," he was wont to say, for he was not a fool.

  He had assisted at spiritual seances and attended secret meetings ofAnarchists. He had occupied himself with occult matters, consulting themagicians of chance, and he had at his tongue's end the list ofconspirators. He knew the true names of the famous Greeks who shuffledcards as one scouts about under an assumed name. The gambling hells wereall familiar to him; he knew the churches in whose dark cornersassociates assembled to talk of _affairs_, who did not wish to be seenin beer shops nor spied upon in cabarets.

  Of the millions in Paris, he knew the secrets of this whirlpool ofhumanity.

  Oh! if he had ever become prefect of police, he would have studied hisParis, not at a distance, looking up statistics in books, or from thewindows of a police bureau, but in the streets, in wretched lodgings, inhovels, in the asylums of misery and of crime. But Bernardet was notambitious. Life suited him very well as he found it. His good wife hadbrought to him a small dower, and Bernardet, content with this poorlittle fortune, found that he had all the power he wanted--the power,when occasion demanded, of putting his hand on the shoulder of a formerMinister and of taking a murderer by the throat.

  One day a financier, threatened with imprisonment in Mazas, pleased himvery much. Bernardet entered his office to arrest him. He did not wishto have a row in the bank. The police officer and banker foundthemselves alone, face to face, in a very small room, a private office,with heavy curtains and a thick carpet, which stifled all noise.

  "Fifty thousand francs if you will let me escape," said the banker.

  "Monsieur le Comte jests"----

  "A hundred thousand!"

  "The pleasantry is very great, but it is a pleasantry."

  Then the Count, very pale, said: "And what if I crack your head?"

  "My brother officers are waiting for me," Bernardet simply replied."They know that our interview does not promise to be a long one, andthis last proposition, which I wish to forget like the others, wouldonly aggravate, I believe, if it became known, M. le Comte's case."

  Two minutes afterward the banker went out, preceding Bernardet, whofollowed him with bared head. The banker said to his employes, in aneasy tone: "Good-by for the moment, Messieurs, I will return soon."

  It was also Bernardet who, visiting the Bank Hauts-Plateaux, said to hischief: "Monsieur Morel, something very serious is taking place there."

  "What is it, Bernardet?"

  "I do not know, but there is a meeting of the bank directors, andto-day, I saw two servants carry a man in there in an invalid's chair.It was the Baron de Cheylard."

  "Well?"

  "Baron Cheylard, in his quality of ex-Senator of the Second Empire, ofex-President of the Council, an ex-Commissioner of IndustrialExpositions, is Grand Cross of the Legion of Honor. Grand Cross--that isto say, that he cannot be pursued only after a decision of the Councilof the Order. And then, you understand--if the Bank of Hauts-Plateauxdemands the presence of its Vice-president, the Baron of Cheylard,paralyzed, half dead"----

  "It means that it has need of a thunderbolt?"

  "The Grand Cross, Monsieur. They would hesitate to deliver up to us theGrand Cross."

  "You are right, Bernardet. The bank must be in a bad fix. And you are avery keen observer. The mind of a literary man, Bernardet."

  "Oh, rather a photographic eye, Monsieur Morel. The habit of using akodak."

  Thus Bernardet passed his life in Paris. Capable of amassing a fortunein some Tricoche Agency if he had wished to exploit, for his ownbenefit, his keen observing powers, he thought only of doing his duty,bringing up his little girls and loving his wife. Mme. Bernardet wasamazed at the astonishing stories which her husband often related toher, and very proud that he was such an able man.

  M. Bernardet hurried toward M. Rovere's lodgings and Moniche trottedalong beside him. As they neared the house they saw that a crowd hadbegun to collect.

  "It is known already," Moniche said. "Since I left they have begun"----

  "If I enter there," interrupted the officer, "it is all right. You havea right to call any one you choose to your aid. But I am not aMagistrate. You must go for a Commissary of Police."

  "Oh, M. Bernardet," Moniche exclaimed. "You are worth more than all theCommissaries put together."

  "That does not make it so. A Commissary is a Commissary. Go and hunt forone."

  "But since you are here"----

  "But I am nothing. We must have a magistrate."

  "You are not a magistrate, then?"

  "I am simply a police spy."

  Then he crossed the street.

  The neighbors had gathered about the door like a swarm of flies around ahoney-comb. A rumor had spread about which brought together a crowdanimated by the morbid curiosity which is aroused in some minds of thehint of a mystery, and attracted by that strange magnetism which thatsinister thing, "a crime," arouses. The women talked in shrill tones,inventing strange stories and incredible theories. Some of the commonpeople hurried up to learn the news.

  At the moment Bernardet came up, followed by the concierge, a coupestopped at the door and a tall man got out, asking:

  "Where is M. Morel? I wish to see M. Morel."

  The Chief had not yet been advised, and he was not there. But the tallyoung man suddenly recognized Bernardet, and laid hold of him, pullinghim after him through the half-open door, which Moniche hastened to shutagainst the crowd.

  "We must call some officers," Bernardet said to the conci
erge, "or thecrowd will push in."

  Mme. Moniche was standing at the foot of the staircase, surrounded bythe lodgers, men and women, to whom she was recounting, for thetwentieth time, the story of how she had found M. Rovere with his throatcut.

  "I was going in to read the paper--the story--it is very interesting,that story. The moment had come when the Baron had insulted theAmerican colonel. M. Rovere said to me only yesterday, poor man: 'I amanxious to find out which one will be killed--the colonel or the baron.'He will never know! And it is he"----

  "Mme. Moniche," interrupted Bernardet, "have you any one whom you cansend for a Commissary?"

  "Any one?"

  "Yes," added Moniche. "M. Bernardet needs a magistrate. It is notdifficult to understand."

  "A Commissary?" repeated Mme. Moniche. "That is so. A Commissary; andwhat if I go for the Commissary myself, M. Bernardet?"

  "All right, provided you do not let the crowd take the house by assaultwhen you open the door."

  "Fear nothing," the woman said, happy in having something important todo, in relating the horrible news to the Commissary how, when she wasabout to enter the room for the purpose of reading, the----

  While she was going toward the door Bernardet slowly mounted the twoflights of stairs, followed by Moniche and the tall young man who hadarrived in his coupe at a gallop, in order to get the first news of themurder and make a "scoop" for his paper.

  The news had traveled fast, and his paper had sent him in haste to getall the details of the affair which could be obtained.

  The three men reached M. Rovere's door. Moniche unlocked it and steppedback, Bernardet, with the reporter at his heels, note book in hand,entered the room.