The Count of Monte Cristo (Unabridged Penguin) (30 page)

‘Who supplied you with the rope for this wonderful contrivance?’ he asked.

‘First of all, some shirts that I had, then the sheets from my bed which I unpicked, in my three years’ captivity in Fenestrelle. When I was transported to the Château d’If, I found the means to bring the threads with me and I carried on working after I arrived here.’

‘Did no one notice that your bed-linen no longer had any hems?’

‘I resewed it.’

‘What with?’

‘With this needle.’

The abbé, parting a shred of his clothes, showed Dantès a long, sharp fishbone, still threaded, which he carried with him.

‘Yes,’ he continued. ‘At first I thought of loosening the bars and escaping through this window, which is a little wider than yours, as you can see; I should have widened it still further during my escape. But I noticed that the window gives access only to an inner courtyard, so I abandoned the plan as being too risky. However, I kept the ladder in case some opportunity should arise for one of those escapes I mentioned, which are the outcome of chance.’

Dantès appeared to be examining the ladder, while his mind was actually on something else; an idea had entered his head. It was that this man, so intelligent, so ingenious and so deep in understanding, might see clearly in the darkness of his own misfortune and make out something that he had failed to see.

‘What are you thinking about?’ the abbé asked with a smile, imagining that Dantès’ silence must indicate a very high degree of admiration.

‘Firstly, I am thinking of one thing, which is the vast knowledge that you must have expended to attain the point that you have reached. What might you not have done, had you been free?’

‘Perhaps nothing: the overflowing of my brain might have evaporated in mere futilities. Misfortune is needed to plumb certain mysterious depths in the understanding of men; pressure is needed to explode the charge. My captivity concentrated all my faculties on a single point. They had previously been dispersed, now they clashed in a narrow space; and, as you know, the clash of clouds produces electricity, electricity produces lightning and lightning gives light.’

‘No, I know nothing,’ said Dantès, ashamed of his ignorance. ‘Some of the words that you use are void of all meaning for me; how lucky you are to know so much!’

The abbé smiled: ‘You said a moment ago that you were thinking of two things.’

‘Yes.’

‘You have only told me one of them. What is the other?’

‘The other is that you have told me about your life, but you know nothing about mine.’

‘Your life, young man, has been somewhat short to contain any events of importance.’

‘It does contain one terrible misfortune,’ said Dantès; ‘a misfortune that I have not deserved. And I should wish, so that I may no longer blaspheme against God as I have occasionally done, to have some men whom I could blame for my misfortune.’

‘So you claim to be innocent of the crime with which you are charged?’

‘Entirely innocent, I swear it by the heads of the two people whom I hold most dear, my father and Mercédès.’

‘Well then,’ said the abbé, closing the hiding-place and putting his bed back in its place. ‘Tell me your story.’

Dantès told what he called his life story, which amounted to no more than a voyage to India and two or three voyages to the Levant, until finally he arrived at his last journey, the death of Captain Leclère, the packet that the captain gave him for the marshal, the interview with the marshal, the letter he was handed, addressed to a certain M. Noirtier; and, after that, his return to Marseille, his reunion with his father, his love for Mercédès, his betrothal, his arrest, his interrogation, his temporary confinement at the Palais de Justice, and then his final imprisonment in the Château d’If. From that point, Dantès knew nothing more, not even the amount of time that he had been a prisoner.

When the story concluded, the abbé was deep in thought; then, after a moment, he said: ‘There is a very profound axiom in law, which is consistent with what I told you a short time ago, and it is this: unless an evil thought is born in a twisted mind, human nature is repelled by crime. However, civilization has given us needs, vices and artificial appetites which sometimes cause us to repress our good instincts and lead us to wrongdoing.
¹
Hence the maxim: if you wish to find the guilty party, first discover whose interests the crime serves! Whose interests might be served by your disappearance?’

‘No one’s, for heaven’s sake! I was so insignificant!’

‘That is not the answer, because that answer is wanting in both logic and common sense. Everything, my good friend, is relative, from the king who stands in the way of his designated successor to the employee who impedes the supernumerary: if the king dies, the successor inherits a crown; if the employee dies, the supernumerary inherits a salary of twelve hundred
livres
. These twelve hundred
livres
are his civil list: they are as necessary to his survival as the king’s twelve million. Every individual, from the lowest to the
highest on the social scale, is at the centre of a little network of interests, with its storms and its hooked atoms, like the worlds of Descartes;
²
except that these worlds get larger as one goes up: it is a reverse spiral balanced on a single point. So let’s get back to your world: you were about to be appointed captain of the
Pharaon
?’

‘Yes.’

‘You were about to marry a beautiful young woman?’

‘Yes.’

‘Was it in anyone’s interest that you should not become captain of the
Pharaon
? Was it in anyone’s interest that you should not marry Mercédès? Answer the first question first: order is the key to all problems. Would anyone gain by your not becoming captain of the
Pharaon
?’

‘No, I was well-loved on board. If the sailors could have chosen their own leader, I am sure that they would have picked me. Only one man had a reason to dislike me: a short time before, I had quarrelled with him and challenged him to a duel, which he refused.’

‘Really? And what was the man’s name?’

‘Danglars.’

‘What was his position on board?’

‘Supercargo.’

‘If you had become captain, would you have kept him in his post?’

‘No, if the choice had been mine, because I thought I had discovered some irregularities in his accounts.’

‘Very well. Now, was anyone present at your last meeting with Captain Leclère?’

‘No, we were alone.’

‘Could anyone have overheard your conversation?’

‘Yes, the door was open and… wait! Yes, yes, Danglars went past just at the moment when Captain Leclère gave me the packet to deliver to the marshal.’

‘Good,’ the abbé said. ‘Now we are getting somewhere. Did you take anyone off the ship with you when you anchored on Elba?’

‘No one.’

‘You were given a letter.’

‘Yes, by the Grand Marshal.’

‘What did you do with it?’

‘I put it into my briefcase.’

‘Did you have your briefcase with you? How could a briefcase intended to contain an official letter fit into a sailor’s pocket?’

‘You are right: my briefcase was on board.’

‘So it was only when you returned on board that you put the letter into the briefcase?’

‘That is right.’

‘What did you do with the letter between Porto Ferrajo and the ship?’

‘I held it in my hand.’

‘So that when you came back on board the
Pharaon
, anyone could have seen that you were carrying a letter?’

‘Yes.’

‘Danglars as well as anyone else?’

‘Danglars as well as anyone else.’

‘Now, listen carefully and concentrate your memory: do you remember the precise terms in which the denunciation was phrased?’

‘Indeed, I do. I read it three times, and every word is etched on my memory.’

‘Repeat it to me.’

Dantès paused to gather his thoughts, then said: ‘Here it is, word for word:

The crown prosecutor is advised, by a friend of the monarchy and the faith, that one Edmond Dantès, first mate of the
Pharaon
, arriving this morning from Smyrna, after putting in at Naples and Porto Ferrajo, was entrusted by Murat with a letter for the usurper and by the usurper with a letter to the Bonapartist committee in Paris.

Proof of his guilt will be found when he is arrested, since the letter will be discovered either on his person, or at the house of his father, or in his cabin on board the
Pharaon
.’

The abbé shrugged his shoulders.

‘It is as clear as daylight, and you must have a very simple and kind heart not to have guessed the truth immediately.’

‘Do you think so?’ Dantès exclaimed. ‘Oh, it would be most dastardly.’

‘What was Danglars’ handwriting like, normally?’

‘A fine, copperplate hand.’

‘And what was the writing of the anonymous letter?’

‘Writing that leant backwards.’

The abbé smiled: ‘Disguised, surely?’

‘Very firm for a disguised hand.’

‘Wait,’ he said, taking his pen – or the implement that he called a pen – dipping it in the ink and writing with his left hand, on a ready-prepared piece of cloth, the first two or three lines of the denunciation. Dantès started back and looked at the abbé with something close to terror.

‘It’s astonishing,’ he said. ‘That writing is so like the other.’

‘That is because the denunciation was written with the left hand. I have noticed something,’ the abbé added, ‘which is that while all handwriting written with the right hand varies, all that done with the left hand looks the same.’

‘Is there anything that you haven’t seen or observed?’

‘Let’s continue.’

‘Yes, willingly.’

‘What about the second question?’

‘I am listening.’

‘Was there someone who stood to gain if you did not marry Mercédès?’

‘Yes, a young man who was in love with her.’

‘Called?’

‘Fernand.’

‘A Spanish name… ?’

‘He is a Catalan.’

‘Do you think him capable of writing this letter?’

‘No! He would have put a knife in me, quite simply.’

‘Yes, that is like a Spaniard: a killing, certainly, but a cowardly act, no.’

‘In any case,’ Dantès went on, ‘he knew none of the details which were in the denunciation.’

‘You confided them to no one?’

‘No one.’

‘Not even your mistress?’

‘Not even my fiancée.’

‘It must be Danglars.’

‘Now I am sure of it.’

‘Wait: did Danglars know Fernand?’

‘No… Or… Yes: I remember…’

‘What do you remember?’

‘Two days before my wedding, I saw them sitting together at Père Pamphile’s. Danglars was friendly and merry, Fernand pale and troubled.’

‘Were they alone?’

‘No, they had someone else with them, someone I know well, who had no doubt introduced them to each other, a tailor called Caderousse; but he was already drunk. Wait… wait… How did I forget this? Near the table where they were drinking, there was an inkwell, some paper and pens…’ (Dantès drew his hand across his brow). ‘Oh, the villains! The villains!’

‘Do you want to know anything else?’ the abbé said, smiling.

‘Yes, since you understand everything, since you can see everything clearly, I want to know why I was only interrogated once, why I was not given judges to try me and why I have been condemned unheard.’

‘Ah, there now,’ said the abbé, ‘that is rather more serious. Justice has dark and mysterious ways which are hard to fathom. So far, with your two friends, what we did was child’s play, but on this other matter you must be as accurate as you can possibly be.’

‘You ask the questions, because you truly seem to see into my life more clearly than I do myself.’

‘Who interrogated you? Was it the crown prosecutor, the deputy or the investigating magistrate?’

‘The deputy.’

‘Young or old?’

‘Young: twenty-six or twenty-seven.’

‘Good! Not yet corrupt, but already ambitious,’ the abbé said. ‘What was his manner towards you?’

‘Kind rather than harsh.’

‘Did you tell him everything?’

‘Everything.’

‘Did his manner change in the course of the interrogation?’

‘For a moment, it changed, when he had read the letter that compromised me. He seemed to be overwhelmed by my misfortune.’

‘By your misfortune?’

‘Yes.’

‘Are you quite sure that it was your misfortune that he felt?’

‘He gave me every evidence of his sympathy, at any rate.’

‘In what way?’

‘He burned the only document that could compromise me.’