Free eBooks at Planet eBook.com 803
He followed his man to the Gorbeau house, and got ‘the
old woman’ to talking, which was no difficult matter. The
old woman confirmed the fact regarding the coat lined with
millions, and narrated to him the episode of the thousand-
franc bill. She had seen it! She had handled it! Javert hired a
room; that evening he installed himself in it. He came and
listened at the mysterious lodger’s door, hoping to catch the
sound of his voice, but Jean Valjean saw his candle through
the key-hole, and foiled the spy by keeping silent.
On the following day Jean Valjean decamped; but the
noise made by the fall of the five-franc piece was noticed
by the old woman, who, hearing the rattling of coin, sus-
pected that he might be intending to leave, and made haste
to warn Javert. At night, when Jean Valjean came out, Javert
was waiting for him behind the trees of the boulevard with
two men.
Javert had demanded assistance at the Prefecture, but
he had not mentioned the name of the individual whom he
hoped to seize; that was his secret, and he had kept it for
three reasons: in the first place, because the slightest indis-
cretion might put Jean Valjean on the alert; next, because,
to lay hands on an ex-convict who had made his escape and
was reputed dead, on a criminal whom justice had formerly
classed forever as among malefactors of the most danger-
ous sort, was a magnificent success which the old members
of the Parisian police would assuredly not leave to a new-
comer like Javert, and he was afraid of being deprived of
his convict; and lastly, because Javert, being an artist, had a
taste for the unforeseen. He hated those well-heralded suc-