Javert's triumph in the Gorbeau hovel seemed complete, but had not been so. In the first place, and this constituted the principal anxiety, Javert had not taken the prisoner prisoner. The assassinated man who flees is more suspicious than the assassin, and it is probable that this personage, who had been so precious a capture for the ruffians, would be no less fine a prize for the authorities. And then, Montparnasse had escaped. He had encountered Éponine under the trees and had led her off, preferring to play the lover with the daughter rather than the thief with the father. It was well that he did so. He was free. As for Éponine, Javert had caused her to be seized; a mediocre consolation. She had joined Azelma at Les Madelonettes. And finally, on the way from the Gorbeau house to La Force, one of the principal prisoners, Claquesous, had been lost. He had converted himself into vapor. On arriving at the prison, there was no Claquesous. Had the fairies or the police had a hand in it? Did this man belong to the double enigma of order and disorder? Javert did not accept such compromises, but his squad included other inspectors more initiated than he in the secrets of the Prefecture, and Claquesous had been such a villain that he might make a very good agent. These double-edged rascals do exist. Javert appeared to be more irritated than amazed. As for Marius, that booby of a lawyer, whose name Javert had forgotten, he attached very little importance to him. A lawyer can be hunted up at any time. But was he a lawyer after all?
The investigation had begun. The magistrate had thought it advisable not to put one of the band in close confinement, in the hope that he would chatter. This man was Brujon, the long-haired man of the Rue du Petit-Banquier. He had been let loose in the Charlemagne courtyard. His name is one of the souvenirs of La Force: on a wall in the Lion's Ditch could still be seen a fortress carved with a nail, and beneath it BRUJON, 1811. The Brujon of 1811 was the father of the Brujon of 1832. The latter was a very cunning young spark with a bewildered and plaintive air. It was in consequence of this plaintive air that the magistrate had released him into the yard. Robbers do not interrupt their profession because they are in the hands of justice. They are artists who have one picture in the salon and who toil nonetheless on a new work in their studios. Brujon seemed stupefied by prison. He stood by the hour before the sutler's window, staring at a list of prices, or chattered his teeth and inquired whether a bed in the fever ward was vacant. All at once, towards the end of February, 1832, it was discovered that this somnolent fellow had had three commissions executed by the errand-men, not under his own name, but in the name of three of his comrades. They had cost him fifty sous, an exorbitant outlay. The three addresses were the domiciles of three redoubtable prowlers of the barriers. It was thought that these men were members of Patron-Minette; two of the leaders had already been captured. The messages had been addressed, not to houses, but to people waiting in the street. The police laid hands on the three prowlers and supposed they had circumvented some machination. About a week later, a watchman looking through a peep-hole beheld Brujon sitting on his bed and writing by the hall-lamp. He was put in a solitary cell for a month, but they were not able to seize what he had written. What is certain is that on the following morning a postilion was flung from the Charlemagne yard into the Lions' Ditch, over the five-story building which separated the two courtyards. What prisoners call a postilion is a pallet of bread artistically moulded, sent over the roofs from one courtyard to another. The man who picks it up finds a note. On this occasion the postilion reached its address, although the person to whom it was addressed was, at that moment, in solitary confinement. This person was Babet, one of the four heads of Patron-Minette. The roll of paper had only two lines: Babet. There is an affair in the Rue Plumet. A gate on a garden.
In spite of searchers, Babet managed to pass the note on from La Force to a good friend in the Salpêtrière. This woman transmitted it to Magnon, who was strongly suspected by the police, though not yet arrested. Magnon had relations with the Thénardier, and she could, by going to see Éponine, serve as a bridge between the two prisons. It happened that, as proofs were wanting in the investigation against Thénardier in the matter of his daughters, Éponine and Azelma were released. When Éponine came out, Magnon, who was watching the gate, handed her Brujon's note to Babet, charging her to look into the matter. Éponine went to the Rue Plumet, recognised the gate and the garden, observed the house, spied, lurked, and, a few days later, brought to Magnon a biscuit, which Magnon transmitted back. A biscuit, in the shady symbolism of prisons, signifies: Nothing to be done. So that in less than a week, as Brujon and Babet met in the circle of La Force, the one on his way to the examination, the other on his way from it: Well? asked Brujon, the Rue P.? Biscuit, replied Babet. Thus did the foetus of crime engendered by Brujon in La Force miscarry. This miscarriage had its consequences, however, which were perfectly distinct from Brujon's programme. Often when we think we are knotting one thread, we are tying quite another.
