BERNARDET was quite an original character. Among the agents, some of
whom were very odd, and among the devoted subalterns, this little man,
with his singular mind, with his insatiable curiosity, reading anything
he could lay his hands on, passed for a literary person. His chief
sometimes laughingly said to him:
"Bernardet, take care! You have literary ambitions. You will begin to
dream of writing for the papers."
"Oh, no, Monsieur Morel--but what would you?--I am simply amusing
myself."
This was true. Bernardet was a born hunter. With a superior education,
he might have become a savant, a frequenter of libraries, passing his
life in working on documents and in deciphering manuscripts. The son of
a dairyman; brought up in a Lancastrian school; reading with avidity all
the daily papers; attracted by everything mysterious which happened in
Paris; having accomplished his military duty, he applied for admission
to the Police Bureau, as he would have embarked for the New World, for
Mexico, or for Tonquin, in order to travel in a new country. Then he
married, so that he might have, in his checkered existence, which was
dangerous and wearying,--a haven of rest, a fireside of peaceful joy.
So he lived a double life--tracking malefactors like a bloodhound, and
cultivating his little garden. There he devoured old books, for which he
had paid a few sous at some book stall; he read and pasted in old, odd
leaves, re-bound them himself, and cut clippings from papers. He filled
his round, bald head with a mass of facts which he investigated,
classified, put into their proper place, to be brought forth as occasion
demanded.
He was an inquisitive person, a very inquisitive person, indeed.
Curiosity filled his life. He performed with pleasure the most fatiguing
and repulsive tasks that fall to a police officer's lot. They satisfied
the original need of his nature, and permitted him to see everything, to
hear everything, to penetrate into the most curious mysteries. To-day,
in a dress suit with white tie, carelessly glancing over the crowds at
the opera, to discover the thieves who took opera glasses, which they
sent to accomplices in Germany to be sold; to-morrow, going in ragged
clothes to arrest a murderer in some cutthroat den in the Glaciere.
M. Bernardet had taken possession of the office of the most powerful
bankers, seized their books and made them go away with him in a cab. He
had followed, by order, the intrigues of more than one fine lady, who
owed to him her salvation. What if M. Bernardet had thought fit to
speak? But he never spoke, and reporters came out worsted from any
attempt at an interview with him. "An interview is silver, but silence
is gold," he was wont to say, for he was not a fool.
He had assisted at spiritual seances and attended secret meetings of
Anarchists. He had occupied himself with occult matters, consulting the
magicians of chance, and he had at his tongue's end the list of
conspirators. He knew the true names of the famous Greeks who shuffled
cards as one scouts about under an assumed name. The gambling hells were
all familiar to him; he knew the churches in whose dark corners
associates assembled to talk of _affairs_, who did not wish to be seen
in beer shops nor spied upon in cabarets.
Of the millions in Paris, he knew the secrets of this whirlpool of
humanity.
Oh! if he had ever become prefect of police, he would have studied his
Paris, not at a distance, looking up statistics in books, or from the
windows of a police bureau, but in the streets, in wretched lodgings, in
hovels, in the asylums of misery and of crime. But Bernardet was not
ambitious. Life suited him very well as he found it. His good wife had
brought to him a small dower, and Bernardet, content with this poor
little fortune, found that he had all the power he wanted--the power,
when occasion demanded, of putting his hand on the shoulder of a former
Minister and of taking a murderer by the throat.
One day a financier, threatened with imprisonment in Mazas, pleased him
very much. Bernardet entered his office to arrest him. He did not wish
to have a row in the bank. The police officer and banker found
themselves 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, and
this last proposition, which I wish to forget like the others, would
only aggravate, I believe, if it became known, M. le Comte's case."
Two minutes afterward the banker went out, preceding Bernardet, who
followed him with bared head. The banker said to his employes, in an
easy tone: "Good-by for the moment, Messieurs, I will return soon."
It was also Bernardet who, visiting the Bank Hauts-Plateaux, said to his
chief: "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, and
to-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, of
ex-President of the Council, an ex-Commissioner of Industrial
Expositions, is Grand Cross of the Legion of Honor. Grand Cross--that is
to say, that he cannot be pursued only after a decision of the Council
of the Order. And then, you understand--if the Bank of Hauts-Plateaux
demands 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 the
Grand Cross."
"You are right, Bernardet. The bank must be in a bad fix. And you are a
very keen observer. The mind of a literary man, Bernardet."
"Oh, rather a photographic eye, Monsieur Morel. The habit of using a
kodak."
Thus Bernardet passed his life in Paris. Capable of amassing a fortune
in some Tricoche Agency if he had wished to exploit, for his own
benefit, his keen observing powers, he thought only of doing his duty,
bringing up his little girls and loving his wife. Mme. Bernardet was
amazed at the astonishing stories which her husband often related to
her, and very proud that he was such an able man.
M. Bernardet hurried toward M. Rovere's lodgings and Moniche trotted
along beside him. As they neared the house they saw that a crowd had
begun 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 have
a right to call any one you choose to your aid. But I am not a
Magistrate. You must go for a Commissary of Police."
"Oh, M. Bernardet," Moniche exclaimed. "You are worth more than all the
Commissaries put together."
"That does not make it so. A Commissary is a Commissary. Go and hunt for
one."
"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 a
honey-comb. A rumor had spread about which brought together a crowd
animated by the morbid curiosity which is aroused in some minds of the
hint of a mystery, and attracted by that strange magnetism which that
sinister thing, "a crime," arouses. The women talked in shrill tones,
inventing strange stories and incredible theories. Some of the common
people hurried up to learn the news.
At the moment Bernardet came up, followed by the concierge, a coupe
stopped 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 tall
young man suddenly recognized Bernardet, and laid hold of him, pulling
him after him through the half-open door, which Moniche hastened to shut
against the crowd.
"We must call some officers," Bernardet said to the concierge, "or the
crowd will push in."
Mme. Moniche was standing at the foot of the staircase, surrounded by
the lodgers, men and women, to whom she was recounting, for the
twentieth time, the story of how she had found M. Rovere with his throat
cut.
"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 the
American colonel. M. Rovere said to me only yesterday, poor man: 'I am
anxious 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 can
send for a Commissary?"
"Any one?"
"Yes," added Moniche. "M. Bernardet needs a magistrate. It is not
difficult to understand."
"A Commissary?" repeated Mme. Moniche. "That is so. A Commissary; and
what if I go for the Commissary myself, M. Bernardet?"
"All right, provided you do not let the crowd take the house by assault
when you open the door."
"Fear nothing," the woman said, happy in having something important to
do, in relating the horrible news to the Commissary how, when she was
about to enter the room for the purpose of reading, the----
While she was going toward the door Bernardet slowly mounted the two
flights of stairs, followed by Moniche and the tall young man who had
arrived in his coupe at a gallop, in order to get the first news of the
murder and make a "scoop" for his paper.
The news had traveled fast, and his paper had sent him in haste to get
all the details of the affair which could be obtained.
The three men reached M. Rovere's door. Moniche unlocked it and stepped
back, Bernardet, with the reporter at his heels, note book in hand,
entered the room.