The Count of Monte Cristo

“Were they alone?”

“There was a third person with them whom I knew perfectly well, and who had, in all probability, made their acquaintance; he was a tailor named Caderousse, but he was quite intoxicated. Stay!—stay!—How strange that it should not have occurred to me before! Now I remember quite well that on the table round which they were sitting were pens, ink, and paper. Oh! the heartless, treacherous scoundrels!” exclaimed Dantès, pressing his hand to his throbbing brows.

“Is there anything else I can assist you in discovering, besides the villainy of your friends?” inquired the abbé.

“Yes, yes,” replied Dantès eagerly; “I would beg of you, who see so completely to the depths of things, and to whom the greatest mystery seems but an easy riddle, to explain to me how it was that I underwent no second examination, was never brought to trial, and, above all, my being condemned without ever having had sentence passed on me?”

“That is altogether a different and more serious matter,” responded the abbé. “The ways of justice are frequently too dark and mysterious to be easily penetrated. All we have hitherto done in the matter has been child’s play. If you wish me to enter upon the more difficult part of the business, you must assist me by the most minute information on every point.”

“That I will, gladly. So pray begin, my dear abbé, and ask me whatever questions you please; for, in good truth, you seem to turn over the pages of my past life far better than I could do myself.”

“In the first place, then, who examined you,—the procureur du roi, his deputy, or a magistrate?”

“The deputy.”

“Was he young or old?”

“About six or seven-and-twenty years of age, I should say.”

“To be sure,” answered the abbé. “Old enough to be ambitious, but not sufficiently so to have hardened his heart. And how did he treat you?”

“With more of mildness than severity.”

“Did you tell him your whole story?”

“I did.”

“And did his conduct change at all in the course of your examination?”

“Yes; certainly he did appear much disturbed when he read the letter that had brought me into this scrape. He seemed quite overcome at the thoughts of the danger I was in.”

“You were in?”

“Yes; for whom else could he have felt any apprehensions?”

“Then you feel quite convinced he sincerely pitied your misfortune?”

“Why, he gave me one great proof of his sympathy, at least.”

“And what was that?”

“He burnt the sole proof that could at all have criminated me.”

“Do you mean the letter of accusation?”

“Oh, no! the letter I was entrusted to convey to Paris.”

“Are you sure he burnt it?”

“He did so, before my eyes.”

“Ay, indeed! that alters the case, and leads to the conclusion, that this man might, after all, be a greater scoundrel than I at first believed.”

“Upon my word,” said Dantès, “you make me shudder. If I listen much longer to you, I shall believe the world is filled with tigers and crocodiles.”

“Only remember that two-legged tigers and crocodiles are more dangerous than those that walk on four.”

“Never mind, let us go on.”

“With all my heart! You tell me he burnt the letter in your presence?”

“He did; saying at the same time, ‘You see I thus destroy the only proof existing against you.’”

“This action is somewhat too sublime to be natural.”

“You think so?”

“I am sure of it. To whom was this letter addressed?”

“To M. Noirtier, No. 13, Rue Coq-Héron, Paris.”

“Now can you conceive any interest your heroic deputy-procureur could by possibility have had in the destruction of that letter?”

“Why, it is not altogether impossible he might have had, for he made me promise several times never to speak of that letter to any one, assuring me he so advised me for my own interest; and more than this, he insisted on my taking a solemn oath never to utter the name mentioned in the address.”

“Noirtier!” repeated the abbé; “Noirtier!—I knew a person of that name at the court of the Queen of Etruria,—a Noirtier, who had been a Girondin during the revolution! What was your deputy called?”

“De Villefort!”

The abbé burst into a fit of laughter; while Dantès gazed on him in utter astonishment.

“What ails you?” said he, at length.

“Do you see this ray of light?”

“I do.”

“Well! I see my way into the full meaning of all the proceedings against you more clearly than you even discern that sunbeam. Poor fellow! poor young man! And you tell me this magistrate expressed great sympathy and commiseration for you?”

“He did!”

“And the worthy man destroyed your compromising letter?”

“He burnt it before me!”

“And then made you swear never to utter the name of Noirtier?”

“Certainly!”