Conscience Part 26

One morning a detective reached the Avenue de Clichy, and found the tailor Valerius in his shop, reading a newspaper. For it was not only when the country was in danger that Valerius had a pa.s.sion for reading papers, but every morning and evening.

Nothing that was published in the papers escaped him, and at the first words of the agent he understood immediately about what he was to be questioned.

"It is concerning the affair in the Rue Sainte-Anne that you wish this information?" he said.

"Frankly, yes."

"Well, frankly also, I do not know if the secrets of the profession permit me to answer you."

The agent, who was by no means stupid, immediately understood the man's character, and instead of yielding to the desire to laugh, caused by this reply honestly made by this good-natured man, whose long, black, bushy beard and bald head accentuated his gravity, he yielded to the necessity of the occasion.

"That is a question to discuss."

"Then let us discuss it. A customer, confiding in my honesty and discretion, gives me an order to make a pair of trousers; he pays me as he agreed, without beating me down, and on the day he promised. We are loyal to each other. I give him a pair of good trousers, honestly made, and he pays me with good money. We are even. Have I the right afterward, by imprudent words, or otherwise, to furnish clews against him? The case is a delicate one."

"Do you place the interest of the individual above that of society?"

"When it is a question of a professional secret, yes. Where should we be if the lawyer, the notary, the doctor, the confessor, the tailor, could accept compromises on this point of doctrine? It would be anarchy, simply, and in the end it would be the interest of society that would suffer."

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, pus.h.i.+ng 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."

"That would be by violence, and my responsibility would be at an end."

"And in these books the judge would see to whom you have furnished trousers of this stuff. It would only remain then to discover in whose interest you have wished to escape the investigations of the law."

Saying this, he took from his pocket a small box, and taking out a piece of paper, he took from it a b.u.t.ton to which adhered a piece of navy blue stuff.

Valerius, who was not in the least moved by the threat of the commissioner, for he was a man to brave martyrdom, looked at the box curiously. When the agent displayed the b.u.t.ton, a movement of great surprise escaped him.

"You see," the agent exclaimed, "that you know this cloth!"

"Will you permit me to look at it?" Valerius asked.

"Willingly, but on condition that you do not touch it; it is precious."

Valerius took the box, and approaching the front of the shop, looked at the b.u.t.ton and the piece of cloth.

"It is a b.u.t.ton marked 'A.P.,' as you see, and we know that you use these b.u.t.tons."

"I do not deny it; they are good b.u.t.tons, and I give only good things to my customers."

Returning the box to the agent, he took a large book and began to turn over the leaves; pieces of cloth were pasted on the pages, and at the side were several lines of large handwriting. Arriving at a page where was a piece of blue cloth, he took the box and compared this piece with that of the b.u.t.ton, examining it by daylight.

"Sir," he said, "I am going to tell you some very serious things."

"I am listening."

"We hold the a.s.sa.s.sin of the Rue Sainte-Anne, and it is I who will give you the means of discovering him."

"You have made trousers of this cloth?"

"I have made three pairs; but there is only one pair that can interest you, that of the a.s.sa.s.sin. I have just told you that the secrets of the profession prevented me from replying to your questions, but what I have just seen frees my conscience. 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. The trousers to which this stuff belongs"--he showed the b.u.t.ton--"I made for an individual whom I do not know, and who presented himself to me as an Alsacian, which I believed so much more easily, because he spoke with a strong foreign accent.

These trousers--I need not tell you how careful I was with them. I am a patriot, sir. He agreed to pay for them on delivery. When they were delivered, the young apprentice who took them had the weakness to not insist upon the money. I went to him, but could obtain nothing; he would pay me the next day, and so on. Finally he disappeared, leaving no address."

"And this customer?"

"I will give you his name without the slightest hesitation. Fritzner, not an Alsacian as I believed, but a Prussian to a certainty, who surely struck the blow; his disappearance the day after the crime is the proof of it."

"You say that you were not able to procure his address?"

"But you, who have other means at your disposal, can find him. He is twenty-seven or thirty years old, of middle height, blue eyes, a blond beard, and a complete blue suit of this cloth."

The agent wrote this description in his note-book as the tailor gave it to him.

"If he has not left Paris with these stolen thirty-five thousand francs, we shall find him, and the thanks will be yours," he said.

"I am happy to be able to do anything for you."

The agent was going, but he thought better of it.

"You said that you had made three suits of this cloth?"

"Yes, but there is only this Fritzner who counts. The two others are honest men, well known in the quarter, and they paid me honestly."

"Since they have no cause for alarm, you need have no scruples in naming them. It is not in the name of justice that I ask their names, but for myself.--They will look well in my report and will prove that I pushed my investigations thoroughly."

"One is a merchant in the Rue Truffant, and is called Monsieur Blanchet; the other is a young man just arrived from America, and his name is Monsieur Florentin Cormier."

"You say Florentin Cormier?" the agent asked, who remembered this name was that of one who had seen Caffie on the day of the crime. "Do you know him?"

"Not exactly; it is the first time that I have made clothes for him. But I know his mother and sister, who have lived in the Rue des Moines five or six years at least; good, honest people, who work hard and have no debts."

The next morning about ten o'clock, a short time after Phillis's departure, Florentin, who was reading the newspaper in the dining-room, while his mother prepared the breakfast, heard stealthy steps that stopped on the landing before their door. His ear was too familiar with the ordinary sounds in the house to be deceived; there was in these steps a hesitation or a precaution which evidently betrayed a stranger, and with the few connections they had, a stranger was surely an enemy--the one whom he expected.

A ring of the doorbell, given by a firm hand, made him jump from his chair. He did not hesitate; slowly, and with an air of indifference, he opened the door.

He saw before him a man of about forty years, with a polite and shrewd face, dressed in a short coat, and wearing a flat hat.