When the man had started, M. Segmuller began to recover his composure.
"We must not lose valuable time," he said to his clerk. "I was to
examine the widow Chupin's son. I had better do so now. Go and tell them
to bring him to me. Lecoq left the order at the prison."
In less than a quarter of an hour Polyte entered the room. From head to
foot, from his lofty silk cap to his gaudy colored carpet slippers,
he was indeed the original of the portrait upon which poor Toinon the
Virtuous had lavished such loving glances. And yet the photograph was
flattering. The lens had failed to convey the expression of low cunning
that distinguished the man's features, the impudence of his leering
smile, and the mingled cowardice and ferocity of his eyes, which never
looked another person in the face. Nor could the portrait depict the
unwholesome, livid pallor of his skin, the restless blinking of his
eyelids, and the constant movement of his thin lips as he drew them
tightly over his short, sharp teeth. There was no mistaking his nature;
one glance and he was estimated at his worth.
When he had answered the preliminary questions, telling the magistrate
that he was thirty years of age, and that he had been born in Paris, he
assumed a pretentious attitude and waited to see what else was coming.
But before proceeding with the real matter in hand, M. Segmuller wished
to relieve the complacent scoundrel of some of his insulting assurance.
Accordingly, he reminded Polyte, in forcible terms, that his sentence
in the affair in which he was now implicated would depend very much upon
his behavior and answers during the present examination.
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