Hector Malot

“ With Saniel she was brave. Between her brother and mother, in this room that had witnessed their fears, not daring to speak loud, she was downcast, and let herself be overcome by their anxieties.
"Truly," she said, "it seems as if we were guilty and not innocent."
"And while we are tormenting ourselves, the criminal, probably, in perfect safety laughs at the police investigations; he had not thought of this button; chance throws it in his way. Luck is for him, and against us—once more."
This was the plaint that was often on Florentin's lips. ”

“ Why should he go and invite danger when he could be quiet, without any one giving him a thought? Was it not folly? The law wanted a criminal. Public curiosity demanded one. Why take away the one that they had? If he succeeded, would they not look for another? It was imprudence, and, to use the true word, madness. Now that he was no longer under the influence of Phillis's beautiful, tearful eyes, he would not commit this imprudence. All the evening this idea strengthened, and when he went to bed his resolution was taken. He would not go to the judge. ”

“ He did not believe that the investigations of the law would reach him now; everything conspired to confirm him in his scrutiny. That which he arranged so laboriously had succeeded according to his wish, and the only imprudence that he had committed, in a moment of aberration, seemed not to have been observed; no one had noticed his presence in the cafe opposite Caffie's house, and no one was astonished at his pertinacity in remaining there at an hour so unusual.
But it was not enough that he was safe; he must prevent Florentin from being unjustly condemned for a crime of which he was innocent. ”

“ CHAPTER XVII PHILLIS'S FEARS On Tuesday, a little before five o'clock, as she had promised, Phillis rang at Saniel's door, and he left his laboratory where he was at work, to let her in.
She threw herself on his neck.
"Well?" she asked, in a trembling voice.
He told her how he had played and won, without stating the exact sum; also the propositions of the Prince Mazzazoli, the meeting with Duphot, and the telegram to Jardine.
"Oh! What happiness!" she said, pressing him in her arms. "You are free!"
"No more creditors! I am my own master. You see it was a good inspiration. Justice willed it." ”

“ Say that it breaks my heart, my dear sir."
"But will you not permit yourself to be touched by the misery of a man who is young, intelligent, courageous, who will drown if a hand is not held out to help him? For you, the assistance that I ask so earnestly is nothing—"
"Three thousand francs! Nothing! Bless me! How you talk!"
"For me, if you refuse me, it is death."
Saniel began to speak with his eyes fixed on the hands of his watch, but presently, carried away by the fever of the situation, he raised them to look at Caffie, and to see the effect that he produced on him. ”

“ As I explained to you, when I make a pair of good trousers for a customer who pays me in good money, I do not think I have the right to reveal the affairs of my client to any one in the world, even to the law."
"I understand," interrupted the agent, whose impatience increased.
"But this reserve on my part rests on reciprocity: to a good customer, a good tailor. If the customer is not good the reciprocity ceases, or, rather, it continues on another footing—that of war; if any one treats me badly, I return the same. ”

“ Florentin continued in a low voice.
"They spoke to me of nothing else; or I heard only that when I was not addressed directly."
"What was said?"
"No one believes that the investigations of the police bear on the button."
"You see, Florentin," Madame Cormier interrupted, smiling at her son.
But he shook his head.
"However, the opinion of all has a value," Phillis cried.
"Speak lower," Florentin said. ”

“ With rapid but light steps he mounted behind her, and, on reaching Caffie's door, he rang the bell, taking care not to ring too loudly or too timidly; then he knocked three times, as Caffie had instructed him.
Was Caffie alone?
Up to this time all had gone as he wished; no one in the vestibule, no one on the stairs; fate was in his favor; would it accompany him to the end?
While he waited at the door, asking himself this question, an idea flashed into his mind. He would make a last attempt. If Caffie consented to make the loan he would save himself; if he refused, he condemned himself. ”

“ And we shared his alarm."
"Have you spoken to any one of this button?"
"Certainly not; we know too much. I tell you of it because I tell you everything; and if we are menaced, we have no help to expect, except from you. Florentin is a good boy, but he is weak and foolish. Mamma is like him in more than one respect, and as for me, although I am more resistant, I confess that, in the face of the law and the police, I should easily lose my head, like children who begin to scream when they are left in the dark. ”

“ How could he foresee that Caffie would be assassinated? That the crime would be so skilfully planned and executed that the criminal would escape? That two days later the police would find a button on which they would build a story that would make him the criminal? Florentin had not thought of all that. ”

“ To tell the truth, the danger of the concierge removed, all was not easy. There was the possibility of meeting one of the lodgers on the stairs; there was a chance of not finding Caffie at home, or, at least, not alone; or the bell might ring at the decisive moment. But, as everything depended upon chance, these circumstances could not be decided beforehand. It was a risk. If one of them happened, he would wait until the next day; it would be one more day of agitation to live through. ”

“ The agent, who had no time to lose, began to be impatient.
"I will tell you," he said, "that the tailor, however important his profession may be, is not placed exactly as the doctor or confessor. Have you not a book in which you write your customers' orders?"
"Certainly."
"So that if you persevere in a theory, pushing it to an extreme, I need only to go to the commissioner of your quarter, who, in virtue of the power of the law conferred upon him, will seize your books." ”

“ Phillis said. "Precisely because he may be what you think, reserve is necessary. You tell him what is passed. If he accepts it and your innocence, it is well; he will not betray your secret voluntarily nor by stupidity. But he will not accept it; he will look beyond. He will suppose that you wish to deceive him, and he will suspect you. In that case, would he not go and tell all to the police commissioner of our quarter? As for me, I think it is a danger that it would be foolish to risk." ”

“ It was of Caffie that he should think, and of the plan which in an instant flashed through his mind in the street, before he decided to pick up this knife.
Evidently things were neither so simple nor so easy as they at first appeared, and to insure the success of his plan a combination of circumstances was necessary, which might be difficult to bring about.
Would not the concierge see him pass? Would no one go up or down the stairs? Would Caffie be alone? Would he open the door? ”

“ He felt himself firm, and his pulse, he was certain, beat regularly. He was as he had imagined he would be; experience confirmed his foresight; his hand would tremble no more than his will.
As he passed before the house he saw the concierge come slowly out of her lodge and close her door carefully, putting the key in her pocket. In her left hand she held something white that he could not see distinctly in the twilight, but it was probably the wax-taper which, doubtless, she had not lighted for fear the wind would blow it out. ”

“ Madame Cormier, beginning to weep.
It required several minutes for Phillis to quiet her a little.
"We must think of him, mamma; we must not give up."
"You are going to do something, are you not, my little Phillis?"
"I am going to find Doctor Saniel."
"He is a doctor, not a lawyer."
"It is exactly as a doctor that he can save Florentin. He knows that Caffie was killed without a struggle between him and the assassin; consequently without the wrenching off of a button. He will say it and prove it to the judge, and Florentin's innocence is evident. I am going to see him." ”

“ I was at Caffies the day of the crime. I lost there a button torn off by violence. This button picked up by the police proves, according to them, the criminality of the one who lost it. They will find that I am the one—"
"They will not find you."
"Let us admit that they do find me. How should I defend myself?"
"By proving that you were not in the Rue Sainte-Anne between five and six o'clock, since you were here." ”

“ Going from one idea to another, tossed by irresolution, he was by no means the strong man that he had believed himself: one to go to the end unmoved, ready to face every attack; master of his nerves as of his will, in full possession of all his powers. On the contrary, he had been the plaything of agitation and weakness. If a serious danger had risen. ”

“ This evening the theme of the discourse was a phrase of Chateaubriand's: "The tiger kills and sleeps; man kills and is sleepless." On listening to the discussion, Saniel said to himself that it was truly a pity not to be able to reply to all this rhetoric by a simple fact of personal experience. He had never slept so well, so tranquilly, as since Caffie's death, which relieved him from all the cares that in these last months had tormented and broken his sleep so much. ”

“ If Florentin had indulged in the smallest illusion about his appearance before the judge, the manner of conducting the interview would have destroyed it. It was not a witness who was being questioned, it was a culprit. He had not to enlighten the justice, he had to defend himself.
"Perfectly," he said. "It is not so long ago. On leaving the Rue Sainte-Anne, as I had nothing to do, I went down to the quays, and looked at the old books from the Pont Royale to the Institute; but at this moment a heavy shower came on, and I returned to the Batignolles, where I remained with my mother." ”

“ In going before it, I make myself the defender of your brother."
"That is exactly what I ask of you."
"And in presenting myself as his defender, I take away the weight of my deposition, which would have more authority if it were that of a simple witness."
"But when will you be asked for this deposition? Think of Florentin's sufferings during this time, of mamma's, and of mine. He may lose his head; he may kill himself. His spirit is not strong, nor is mamma's. How will they bear all that the newspapers will publish?"
Saniel hesitated a moment. ”

“ One does not die because one cannot pay three thousand francs."
The chair in which Caffie seated himself was an old Voltaire, with an inclined back, and he half reclined in it. As his shirtcollar was too large for him since he had become thin, and his narrow cravat was scarcely tied, he displayed as much throat as jaw.
Saniel, behind the chair, had taken the knife in his right hand, while he pressed the left heavily on Caffies forehead, and with a powerful stroke, as quick as lightning, he cut the larynx under the glottis, as well as the two carotid arteries, with the jugular veins. ”

“ Even when he turned into the Rue Sainte-Anne he found it bore its ordinary aspect. A few passers-by, not curious; no groups on the sidewalk; no shopkeepers at their doors. Nothing was different from usual.
Apparently, nothing had yet been discovered. Then he stopped, judging it useless to go farther. Already he had passed too much time before Caffie's door, and when one was of his build, above the medium height, with a physiognomy and appearance unlike others, one should avoid attracting attention. ”