Somehow
the note on the desk did not seem to fit any one of the gentry whom I
could see so distinctly from my window. The name, too, did not have the
customary Tombs sound--De Nevers? _De Nevaire_--I repeated it slowly to
myself with varying accent. It seemed as though I had known the name
before. It carried with it a suggestion of the novels of Stanley J.
Weyman, of books on old towns and the chateaux and cathedrals of France.
I wondered who the devil Charles Julius Francis de Nevers could be.
Of course, if one answered all the letters one gets from the Tombs it
would keep a secretary busy most of the working hours of the day, and if
one acceded to all the various requests the prisoners make to interview
them personally or to see their fathers, mothers, sisters, brothers,
sweethearts and wives, a prosecutor might as well run an intelligence
office and be done with it. But as I re-read the note I began to have a
sneaking feeling of curiosity to see what Charles Julius Francis de
Nevers looked like, so I departed from the usual rule of my office, rang
for a messenger and directed him to ascertain the full name of the
prisoner from whom the note had come, the crime with which he was
charged, and the date of his incarceration, also to supply me at once
with copies of the indictment and the complaint; then I instructed him
to have De Nevers brought over as soon as he could be got into shape.
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