‘Alas, Monsieur!’ M. de Boville exclaimed. ‘Your fears are unfortunately quite justified and you see before you a desperate man. I had two hundred thousand francs invested in the house of Morrel: that money was my daughter’s dowry; she was to be married in a fortnight. It was to be reimbursed, the first hundred thousand on the fifteenth of this month, the remainder on the fifteenth of next month. I advised Monsieur Morrel that I wished to have the money paid in due time; and now he has just been here, Monsieur, barely half an hour ago, to tell me that if his ship the Pharaon does not return between now and the fifteenth, he will be unable to reimburse me.’
‘But this sounds very like procrastination,’ said the Englishman.
‘Why not rather say that it sounds like bankruptcy!’ M. de Boville cried in despair.
The Englishman seemed to reflect for a moment, then said: ‘So you are anxious about the repayment of this debt?’
‘More than that: I consider it lost.’
‘Very well, I shall buy it from you.’
‘You?’
‘Yes, indeed.’
‘But at a huge discount, I don’t doubt?’
‘No, for two hundred thousand francs. Our company,’ the Englishman said with a laugh, ‘does not do that kind of business.’
‘And how will you pay?’
‘In cash.’
The Englishman took a sheaf of banknotes out of his pocket, probably amounting to twice the sum that M. de Boville was afraid of losing.
A look of joy suffused M. de Boville’s face, but he made an effort and said: ‘I must warn you, Monsieur, that in all probability you will not recover six per cent of the amount.’
‘That does not concern me,’ the Englishman replied. ‘It concerns the House of Thomson and French; I am only acting for them. Perhaps they wish to hasten the ruin of a rival firm. All that I do know, Monsieur, is that I am prepared to give you this sum in exchange for the transfer of the debt; all I shall want is a brokerage fee.’
‘What, Monsieur! This is too scrupulous!’ M. de Boville exclaimed. ‘There is usually a commission of one and a half per cent. Do you want two? Or three? Do you want five per cent? Or more? Tell me.’
‘Monsieur,’ said the Englishman with a laugh, ‘I am like my firm, which does not do that kind of business. No, my fee is of quite a different kind.’
‘Tell me. I am listening.’
‘You are the inspector of prisons?’
‘I have been for fourteen years.’
‘You hold the registers of admissions and discharges?’
‘Naturally.’
‘And notes concerning the prisoners are attached to these registers?’
‘There is a dossier on each prisoner.’
‘Well, Monsieur, I was brought up in Rome by a poor devil of an abbé who suddenly disappeared. I later learned that he was held in the Château d’If. I should like to have some information about his death.’
‘What was his name?’
‘Abbé Faria.’
‘Oh, yes! I remember very well!’ M. de Boville said. ‘He was mad.’
‘So it was said.’
‘Oh, there’s no doubt about it.’
‘Quite probably. What was the nature of his madness?’
‘He claimed to have knowledge of some huge treasure and would offer vast sums to the government if it would set him free.’
‘The poor devil! And he died?’
‘Yes, Monsieur, some five or six months ago, last February.’
‘You have an excellent memory, Monsieur, to remember the date so precisely.’
‘I recall it because something strange happened at the same time as the poor man’s death.’
‘Can you tell me what that was?’ the Englishman asked, with a look of curiosity that a close observer would have been surprised to see on his normally impassive features.
‘Why, yes, I can. The abbé’s cell was some forty-five or fifty feet approximately from that of a former Bonapartist agent, one of those who did most to assist in the usurper’s return in 1815, a very resolute and dangerous fellow.’
‘Indeed?’ said the Englishman.
‘Yes,’ said M. de Boville. ‘I even had occasion to see the man in 1816 or 1817, and you could only enter his cell with a squad of soldiers. The man made a deep impression on me; I shall never forget his face.’
The Englishman gave a hint of a smile.
‘So you say that the two cells…’ he continued.
‘Were about fifty feet apart, but it seems that this Edmond Dantès…’
‘This dangerous man was called…’
‘Edmond Dantès. Yes, Monsieur, it appears that this Edmond Dantès had obtained some tools, or made them for himself, because they found a passageway through which the two prisoners used to communicate.’
‘The passage was no doubt made with a view to escape?’
‘Precisely. But, unfortunately for the prisoners, Abbé Faria had a seizure and died.’
‘I understand. That must have put an end to the plans for escape.’
‘As far as the dead man was concerned, yes,’ M. de Boville replied. ‘But not for the one who was left alive. On the contrary, this Dantès saw the means to hasten his escape. No doubt he thought that prisoners who die in the Château d’If are buried in an ordinary cemetery. He moved the dead man into his own cell, took his place in the shroud into which he had been sewn and waited for the body to be buried.’
‘That was a risky plan, arguing some courage,’ the Englishman said.
‘Ah, as I told you, Monsieur, he was a very dangerous fellow; but, fortunately, he himself relieved the government of any fears it may have had on his account.’
‘How was that?’
‘What? Don’t you understand?’
‘No.’
‘The Château d’If has no cemetery. The dead are simply thrown into the sea after a thirty-six-pound cannonball has been tied to their legs.’
‘Which means?’ said the Englishman, as if he was finding it hard to follow.
‘Well, of course they attached the weight to his legs and threw him into the sea.’
‘Really?’ the Englishman exclaimed.
‘Yes, Monsieur,’ the inspector went on. ‘You can just imagine the fugitive’s amazement when he felt himself falling from the top of the cliff. I should like to have seen his face at that moment.’
‘It would have been difficult.’
‘No matter!’ said M. de Boville, in much better humour, now that he was certain of recovering his two hundred thousand francs. ‘No matter! I can still imagine it!’ And he burst out laughing.
‘So can I,’ said the Englishman, starting to laugh in his turn, but in the way that the English laugh, through clenched teeth.
‘I suppose that means,’ he went on, being the first to regain his composure, ‘that he was drowned.’
‘Yes. Well and truly.’
‘With the result that the prison governor got rid of the maniac and the madman simultaneously?’
‘Just as you say.’
‘I imagine some sort of report was drawn up about it?’
‘Yes, certainly, a death certificate. You understand, Dantès’ relatives, if he has any, might wish to know for certain whether he was alive or dead.’
‘And now they can rest assured if they have anything to inherit from him. He is definitely dead?’
‘Oh, heavens yes, no doubt about it. They will have a certificate whenever they want.’
‘So be it,’ said the Englishman. ‘But to return to the registers…’
‘Indeed. This story distracted us. Forgive me.’
‘For what? For the story? Not at all, it intrigued me.’
‘It is intriguing. So, Monsieur, you want to see everything concerning your poor abbé; he was as mild as a lamb.’
‘I should very much like to.’
‘Come into my study and I shall show it to you.’
They both went into M. de Boville’s study, w
here everything was perfectly in order: each register at its number, each dossier in its box. The inspector asked the Englishman to sit down in the armchair and put in front of him the register and dossier relating to the Château d’If, allowing him to peruse it at his leisure, while he sat in a corner and read the newspaper.
The Englishman had no difficulty finding the dossier concerning Abbé Faria, but it appeared that he had been greatly interested in the story that M. de Boville had told him because, after studying these first papers, he continued to peruse the file until he came to the bundle concerning Edmond Dantès. Here, he found everything in its place: the denunciation, the interrogation, M. Morrel’s petition and M. de Villefort’s annotation. He quietly folded the denunciation and put it in his pocket; read the interrogation and observed that it did not mention the name of Noirtier; and read through the petition dated 10 April 1815, in which Morrel, following the advice of the deputy prosecutor, had exaggerated the services rendered by Dantès to the imperial cause – with the best of intentions, since Napoleon was then still on the throne – all of which was confirmed by Villefort’s signature. At this, he understood everything. Under the Second Restoration, this petition to Napoleon, which Villefort had kept, became a deadly weapon in the hands of the royal prosecutor. Thus he was not surprised, continuing through the register, to find these sentences bracketed together opposite his name:
EDMOND DANTES:
Fanatical Bonapartist. Played an active part in the return from Elba.
To be kept in solitary confinement, under the closest supervision.
Beneath these lines, in different handwriting, he read: ‘In view of the above note, no action.’
However, by comparing the writing in the brackets with that on the certificate under M. Morrel’s petition, he felt certain that both were in the same hand, and that the hand was Villefort’s.
As for the note appended to the note, the Englishman realized that it must have been placed there by an inspector who had taken a passing interest in Dantès’ case, but who would have been unable to take any further steps in his favour because of the information that we have just quoted.
As we mentioned, the inspector had placed himself some distance away and was reading Le Drapeau Blanc, so as not to inconvenience Abbé Faria’s former pupil. This is why he did not see the Englishman fold and pocket the denunciation that Danglars had written in the arbour at La Réserve, which bore the stamp of the Marseille post office for the evening collection at 6 o’clock on 27 February.
We have to admit, on the other hand, that, even if he had seen this, he attached too little importance to this scrap of paper and too much to his two hundred thousand francs to protest at what the Englishman was doing, however improper it might be.
‘Thank you,’ the latter said, slamming the register shut. ‘I have what I need. Now I must keep my side of the bargain. Prepare a transfer of the money you are owed, in which you acknowledge that you have received the full sum, and I shall count it out.’
He got up so that M. de Boville could take his place at the desk, where he sat down and proceeded, as quickly and simply as possible, to draw up the necessary paper, while the Englishman was counting the banknotes on to the edge of the filing cabinet.
XXIX
MORREL AND COMPANY
Someone who had known the interior of the House of Morrel a few years earlier, and who had then returned to Marseille at the period now reached by our narrative, would have found it much changed.
In place of that relaxed atmosphere of life and good cheer that seems to be, so to speak, exhaled by a firm enjoying prosperity; in place of the happy faces looking out of the windows and the busy clerks hurrying down the corridors with pens behind their ears; in place of the courtyard full of boxes, resounding to the shouts and laughter of the delivery men; in place of all this, from the moment he came in, he would have found an indefinable air of sadness and death. The corridor was empty, the courtyard deserted; and, of all the many employees who had once crowded into the offices, only two remained: the first was a young man, aged about twenty-three or twenty-four, named Emmanuel Herbault, who was in love with M. Morrel’s daughter and had stayed with the firm despite his relatives’ efforts to extricate him; while the other was an old cashier, one-eyed, nicknamed Coclès by the young people who had once populated this vast, busy hive which was now almost uninhabited, a label that had now so completely and utterly replaced any previous ones, that in all probability he would not even have turned around if someone were to have called him by his true name.
Coclès had remained in M. Morrel’s service, and the good man’s situation had changed in a rather unusual way: he had simultaneously risen to the rank of cashier and fallen to that of a house servant.
He was still the same Coclès for all that, kind, patient and devoted, but immovable when it came to arithmetic, the only point on which he would have challenged the whole world, even M. Morrel, knowing nothing beyond his Pythagorean tables, but having these at his fingertips, whichever way one chose to turn them or however one tried to lure him into error.
In the midst of the general depression that had settled over the firm of Morrel and Son, Coclès was the only one who had remained impassive. There should be no mistake: this impassivity was not due to any lack of feeling, but on the contrary to an unshakeable faith. We have mentioned that the host of clerks and employees who owed their livelihood to the shipowner’s firm had gradually deserted the office and the shop, like the rats which, so they say, gradually leave a ship when it has been preordained by fate to perish at sea, with the result that these self-interested guests have entirely abandoned it by the time it sets sail. Coclès had watched all of them depart without even thinking to enquire into the cause of their departure. Everything for Coclès came down to a matter of numbers and, in the twenty years that he had worked for Morrel’s, he had always seen payments go through without hindrance and with such regularity that he could no more accept an end to that regularity or a suspension of those payments, than a miller whose wheel is turned by the waters of a plentiful stream would accept that the same stream might cease to flow. Indeed, nothing so far had threatened Coclès’ confidence. The previous month’s payments had gone through with absolute punctuality. Coclès had noted an error of seventy centimes which M. Morrel had made to his own detriment and, the same day, brought the excess fourteen sous to M. Morrel, who took them with a melancholy smile and dropped them into an almost empty drawer, saying: ‘Coclès, Coclès, you are a jewel among cashiers.’
So Coclès left, more or less satisfied. Praise from M. Morrel, himself a jewel among the best men in Marseille, did more for Coclès’ self-esteem than a bonus of fifty écus.
However, since achieving this victory over the end-of-month payments, M. Morrel had suffered some moments of agony. It had meant mustering all his resources. Fearful that the rumour concerning his difficulties might spread through the town if he was seen to be turning to such extremities, he had travelled in person to the fair at Beaucaire to sell some jewellery belonging to his wife and daughter, and part of his silver. As a result of this sacrifice, the reputation of the house of Morrel had been spared the slightest hint of a stain, but the cashbox was totally empty. With its usual egoism, all credit had slipped away, terrified by the rumours: the truth was that if he was to meet the hundred thousand francs which he would owe M. de Boville on the 15th of the present month, and the second hundred thousand francs which would fall due on the 15th of the month following, M. Morrel’s only hope lay in the return of the Pharaon, which had certainly set sail, as they knew from another ship which had weighed anchor at the same time and which had come safely to port. But this ship (coming, like the Pharaon, from Calcutta) had arrived a fortnight earlier, while there was as yet no news of the Pharaon.
This is how things stood when, the day after concluding the important business we have described with M. de Boville, the agent of the firm of Thomson and French, of Rome, announced himself on his arrival at
Morrel and Son.
He was received by Emmanuel. The young man shied away from any unfamiliar face, because each new one meant a new creditor who had come to demand something from the shipowner, and he wished to spare his employer the unpleasantness of this visit; so he questioned the stranger; but the latter declared that he had nothing to say to M. Emmanuel: he wished to speak to M. Morrel in person. With a sigh, Emmanuel called Coclès. Coclès appeared, and the young man asked him to take the stranger to see M. Morrel.
Coclès went ahead, the stranger following. On the staircase they passed a beautiful girl of between sixteen and seventeen, who looked uneasily at the stranger. The latter noticed the look, though it was lost on Coclès.
‘Monsieur Morrel is in his study, Mademoiselle Julie?’ he asked.
‘Yes – at least I think he is,’ the girl replied, hesitating. ‘Coclès, you go first and see, and if my father is there, announce the gentleman.’
‘There is no point in announcing me, Mademoiselle,’ the Englishman replied. ‘Monsieur Morrel does not know my name. This good man has only to let him know that I am the head clerk of Messrs Thomson and French, of Rome, with whom your father’s firm does business.’
The girl paled and carried on down the stairs, while Coclès and the stranger continued on their way up. She went into the office where Emmanuel was sitting, and Coclès, using a key that had been entrusted to him and which warned the boss of some important arrival, opened a door in a corner of the second-floor landing, showed the stranger into an antechamber, opened a second door, which he then closed behind him and, after momentarily leaving the emissary of Thomson and French on his own, reappeared and signalled to him to enter. The Englishman did so, to find M. Morrel sitting at a table, paling at the awful columns of figures in the register that recorded his debts.
Seeing the foreigner, he closed the register, rose and drew up a chair. Then, when the other man was seated, he sat down.
Fourteen years had profoundly changed the merchant who, thirty-six years old at the beginning of this story, was now about to reach fifty: his hair was grey, his forehead was lined with anxious furrows and his look, which had once been so firm and confident, had become vague and irresolute, as if it were constantly trying to avoid having to settle on a single idea or a single person.