The morning after Valentine's death dawns dull and cloudy while undertakers wrap her in the cambric she bought a fortnight before. Noirtier is carried from her room without protest, Abbé Busoni keeps vigil until daylight and slips away unseen, and d'Avrigny finds the paralytic sleeping with an almost smiling calm that astonishes Villefort. The procureur has not slept; he shows d'Avrigny the accusation papers he has written against Benedetto and begs work to numb grief before noon brings the funeral coaches to the Faubourg Saint-Honoré.
At the reception Debray, Château-Renaud, and Beauchamp gossip about the contract Valentine never signed while searching for Monte Cristo and wondering where Morrel has gone. Beauchamp met the count heading to Danglars' bank on the Rue de la Chaussée d'Antin, and the ruined baron receives him with a smile that mixes misfortune and affable complaint about Morcerf, Benedetto, Eugénie's flight, and Villefort's dead daughter.
Monte Cristo watches Danglars sign five million-franc drafts on the Bank of France payable to bearer at sight, then folds the notes into his pocket with a receipt in full for their six-million account. Danglars stammers that the money was promised to charity, but the count keeps the paper just as M. de Boville arrives for the widows' and orphans' five millions. Once the count leaves, Danglars tells Boville to wait twenty-four hours because Monte Cristo has just carried off their deposit.
Alone, Danglars exclaims fool at the charity inspector's back, encloses the count's receipt in his pocket-book, double-locks his study, burns compromising papers, gathers fifty thousand francs in bank-notes, and checks a passport still valid two months longer. He writes his wife that he will place the letter on her table tonight, plans to be far away by noon, and leaves the house prepared for flight while Paris still mourns upstairs.
Coming Up in Chapter 105
While Danglars double-locks his study and plans flight at noon, Valentine's funeral procession will cross Paris toward the Père-Lachaise vault where Morrel kneels at the grating and Monte Cristo will shatter a window to stop his pistols.
