Chapter Text
“Let us go then!” Valjean turned toward the door, looking like one of those foolish revolutionaries ready to jump head-first into trouble. His every gesture, from a quick and futile attempt to smooth out the wrinkles on his clothes to the shrugging on of an outer coat that was far too warm for a summer day like this, spoke of a man so intent on doing what was on his mind that he gave no thought whatsoever to other matters.
Jean Valjean hadn’t changed, Javert realized, and the thought brought a past image of Valjean to mind, of someone with a shorn head and shoulders of enormous strength, his memory of Jean-le-Cric. Here was the same man who, as a Toulon convict, would scale a wall or dive into the sea at the slightest whisper of freedom. Always action before thought, intent on destroying any barrier that stood in the way. His ghost vision gentled into M. Madeleine—still the same man. As mayor, Valjean had forced into people’s homes to dispense charity. Javert had scoffed and glared, only to be rebuffed with feigned innocence, with Madeleine’s fake smile.
He was no longer certain if Valjean had been smiling when his knife cut through the ropes that bound him. There was nothing comical about that encounter. His lips twisted in bitterness at the irony: Jean Valjean, the barrier breaker, defied Paris’s very barricades to force life into him.
And now he was forcing himself onto Javert’s investigation.
He did not fault Valjean for being the fretting father. But he did want to snarl at the erstwhile M. Madeleine. A good investigator must not leave anything unexamined. He had lost count on how many times he’d repeated this to the mayor.
“Javert?”
“Have you learned nothing over the years, you sham of a mayor?” he snapped.
Startled, Valjean aborted his attempt to reach for his hat. He turned instead toward Javert, frowning in confusion.
“My failures are many, Inspector. Tell me, what have I neglected to do in Montreuil?”
Pay attention to my reports! Javert’s mind screamed.
He settled for crossing his arms.
Something lurched in his stomach then, at the sight of Jean Valjean looking so perplexed, like a fish pulled out of water and was now being told to fly. What did I miss? the near-panicked plea in his eyes asked, begging for forgiveness of an unknown crime. The look twisted something painful deep inside him, and Javert sighed, his inner indignation receding in rapid degrees. Perhaps if their circumstances were flipped, Javert too would hasten toward the door.
“Valjean,” he began, a poor attempt at reassurance. The name rolled off his tongue like a well worn glove, familiar and fitting. Was that how he was starting to see this man now? A spark of anticipation stared back at him through gentle eyes, utterly guileless, open and waiting for Javert to explain his thoughts. Not a criminal, he realized. Not anymore.
He continued: “I have access to your living spaces, you will recall. In Cosette’s room, I found her diary. In the kitchen and later in the antechamber, I met and spoke with your portress. Outside, I met the porter. They both provided me with enough information to rule out several possibilities. I was led to Rue Plumet, No. 55, where I was able to examine a garden and retrieved invaluable evidences.”
He waited for Valjean to comprehend where this was leading. But while there was understanding in the content of what Javert delivered, Valjean had not yet caught onto the one glaring gap in the investigation.
“I have access to all your living spaces,” he prompted, “but I did not say I have been to every place that needs examination.”
“If you need entry into anywhere, you only need to ask –”
“So I should have asked a slumbering man?”
“Oh.” Valjean’s eyes widened, dawning with understanding. Finally. “Oh, you mean my bedchamber!”
Instead of turning toward the room, Valjean raised a hand to rub at his chin, scratching the white stubbles there as if having difficulty knowing what the next course of action should be. Javert bit back a harsh retort, remembering that he was not an incompetent police recruit, that Valjean would have no reason to think like a proper inspector.
Nevertheless, Javert’s patience was wearing thin.
Valjean looked as if he was trying to recall something. “I don’t think… no, Javert, Cosette never enters my room. I do not forbid her, but it seems to be against her sense of propriety that she has developed under the nuns.”
“You don’t think?” Were his arms not crossed in front of him, Javert may have yielded to the temptation of throwing both hands up in the air. “So because you cannot think it, she is therefore incapable of doing. Need I remind you that we are trying to find a young mademoiselle who left this place willingly and on her own? I very much doubt you thought that up.”
Valjean looked as if the words had slapped him in the face. Javert forced back a tinge of remorse. No, he had no time for this. He walked past Valjean and strode into the room, his boots clicking a steady rhythm that neither forbade nor invited Valjean to follow.
He was assaulted at once with the lingering smell of the sewer. Despite open windows, the stench of Valjean’s discarded clothes and his wash basin black with the grime that he managed to rub off of himself filled the modest bedchamber. Memories of the previous night flooded into his mind—bridge, Seine, water, the almost jump. What am I doing here? a part of his mind protested, not for the first time since he had sent Valjean into this very room hours ago. Duty, he reminded himself, I must perform my duty. But this voice was losing its resolve, weakening, and he wondered if he would be able to convince himself long enough to finish the present case.
It wasn’t Valjean, or even Cosette, who was running out of time. It was Javert who was nearing the expiration of his sanity.
He forced his attention back onto the objects in the bedchamber: bed, night stand, armoire, desk, and chair.
He found what he needed within seconds.
“See, nothing unusual. Cosette hasn’t come in,” a voice that was almost petulant said behind him.
Just as well. It would be unseemly for Valjean to see him roll his eyes.
“I thought you are a pious man, Saint Valjean.”
“I am hardly a saint.” There was a pause, an audible moment of confusion. “What does my faith have to do with anything?”
“According to your daughter, everything.” He pointed to the Bible sitting atop Valjean’s night table. “One of your treasured possessions, I assume?”
“I… yes?”
He stepped back, moving out of the way. “Well, look at it.”
He started counting the seconds as Valjean eyed his Bible with furrowed brows.
“Javert, something is indeed amiss. My Bible looks different.”
It took all of his self-control to hold back a snort. Five.
“It… I don’t remember inserting anything into the pages.”
Eight.
Valjean continued to stare dumbly.
Twelve.
“It is a note.”
Seventeen.
“A note! Cosette has left me a note!”
Twenty-two. He waved a hand. “Go on then, read it. See what it says.”
Valjean needed no further prompting. Quick with the movement of a much younger man in Javert’s memory, he pulled the note from the Bible and unfolded it in one excited motion.
If someone were to ask Javert later to describe what he was witnessing, the inspector would not have the words for it. As soon as Valjean put eyes to Cosette’s words, his entire countenance was aglow with joy. The lines between his brows vanished; in their place was the deepening of lines around his eyes, the beginning of a smile that was both entirely natural and subconscious. The fingers clutching the letter trembled, and Valjean’s intake of air became quicker, as if he could not contain his excitement and needed more breaths to keep himself from fainting. Even if the sky were to rain down fire and the walls crumbled around him, Valjean would not have noticed—so focused was he on the first sign of his daughter after nearly two days that no rapture or Armageddon would be able to draw his attention away from the letter.
Javert stood watch, keeping still. It was fitting to leave Valjean to relish this moment by himself. The inspector in Javert would have demanded to seize the letter as evidence. This new part of him, however, the man with a new heart who could no longer behold Valjean and see anything but a good man, waited, counting past a hundred, looking away when he realized tears had begun rolling down Valjean’s face.
“Cosette, she didn’t forget me,” Valjean said at length, tore his eyes away from the letter and turned toward Javert. His voice trembled with fragile hope, as if he did not deserve such a sign of care from Cosette.
Javert’s legs walked forward on their own accord. His arms, too, had settled by his sides as he approached Valjean. “What does the letter say?” he asked quietly.
Valjean thrust the letter into his view, inviting him to take the paper. Javert lifted it out of trembling fingers but kept his gaze on Valjean, waiting to hear the content from his lips.
“She apologizes for leaving. She says there is a promise she must keep.” Valjean added: “And she says she loves me!”
“She would be a fool not to love you,” Javert muttered under his breath, pretending to scan the letter. In a louder voice, he said, “This promise. I do believe it confirms my hypothesis that she went to the garden in Rue Plumet for a rendez-vous.”
“To meet Marius.”
“That would be the logical conclusion.”
The mention of Marius’s name brought pain like a dark cloud on Valjean’s face. If this was the sole expression Javert had to go by, he would not have believed that the young man for whom Valjean risked his very life to rescue was the same Marius.
But though it was Marius’s name that brought on the dark clouds, it was the continued thoughts of Cosette that broke Valjean’s spirit like torrential rain melting rocks and mud off a mountain.
“It is my fault,” Valjean whispered, bringing a hand to cover his eyes, his shoulders slumped into a body that appeared to be caving in onto itself. “I told Cosette we would move to England. I made the decision without considering how she would feel. I am not a good father. I haven’t been a good father, to have failed to notice that Cosette has found love…”
“She did this behind your back,” Javert pointed out.
“She was afraid I would react badly, and she was right.”
“She disobeyed you!”
At this, Valjean unhid his face to glare at Javert. “She did no such thing! She was willing to accompany me to England even when I now know I have done her wrong. The thought to meet and get acquainted with Marius never crossed my mind, Javert. I hated the boy the moment I learned of his relations with Cosette.”
“Surely you exaggerate!” Javert could not envision Valjean, hair white and eyes kind, experiencing hatred. The man would not even treat him according to what he deserved.
But Valjean looked sheepish and lowered his head. “The thought of losing Cosette was terrifying to me,” he confessed quietly. “Until I had made the decision to go to the barricades, I was still wishing for the boy to perish there so I may keep Cosette to myself. Inspector, you have known me to be a thief and a fraud, but as you can see, my sins run much deeper.
“Cosette,” Valjean pushed on before Javert could point out the inaccuracies of his self-assessment. “Was she… did she resolve to leave home forever?”
Javert turned his eyes away, suddenly finding himself examining the Bible on the table. It looked bare without the inserted note. Where was the God who loved his favored child so much? Here was a book that promised love and peace and joy, and yet the task had fallen on him to speak sense into Valjean.
What could he say? I don't know would be the truth, but an unsatisfactory one. No would be a lie based on insufficient information. And he refused to contemplate the implication of answering in the affirmative. If this ungrateful child would choose her lover over her father, then in Javert’s mind she did not deserve to be welcomed home with open arms. But he would never say this to Valjean’s face.
As Javert hesitated, Valjean’s expression turned pained. “What does she need?” he said softly as if to himself. “She has everything and I would give her more! Oh God, what have I done? What did I do wrong?”
“Nothing,” Javert interjected. If his tone was too rough and lacking any pity, he didn’t care. “She believes she can only obtain that something she needs from Marius, her actions have said as much. This is not your fault. Remember: I have read her diary. She adores you. Do not for one instant believe that you have failed her in any way.”
Valjean did not believe him, he knew, but at least he ceased berating himself. Javert seized the opportunity to divert their focus back to the present, from reliving Cosette’s disappearance to finding her. “We have found the last piece of evidence. We now know where a note, if there is one, is to be sent to you. Come. We must go to Rue Plumet.”
When Valjean made no effort to move, he reached out a hand, hesitant, to tug at his elbow. Valjean did not flinch, he noticed. He also noticed that the arm was shaking slightly. But there was still strength in Valjean, and after a drawn out moment with both of them still like statues, Javert realized it was he who was clutching on for support instead. This thought rushed the roar of the Seine into his inner ear and his heart beat successively faster, the world falling around him, with Valjean as his only anchor. The world falling. Like it would have been had he jumped, if there had been no Jean Valjean to stop him.
Duty, something in him whispered, but that something was being overcome, drowning.
“Come,” he repeated, hoarsely, fighting against himself to focus on the present matter. “We must return to Rue Plumet.”
He was running out of time. He wondered if Valjean would be able to find Cosette on his own, or perhaps the Prefecture would be willing to assist M. Fauchelevent when he would no longer be alive to help.
But it was Valjean who once again bought him time, force-feeding him life. When Valjean turned and directed a small smile at him, Javert gasped, the gush of life breathing air into his drowning soul, the receding of crushing torrents.
“You are right, Inspector. I am ready. Let us go.”
They departed.
-
“Ah, I have always wondered how you disappeared from my perfect trap,” Javert said as they walked toward the house on Rue Plumet. To unknowing passersby, they must appear no different from two gentlemen long acquainted with each other, taking a stroll in the warmth of early June.
Javert barked a laugh, mirthless and bitter. “Scaling a wall into a convent. That possibility had never crossed my mind.”
Jean Valjean had spent the past half an hour relaying his life since Montreuil-sur-Mer. It did not escape his attention that Javert was determined to lift him out of his earlier melancholy. He did not want to dwell on the strangeness that Javert, of all people, was exerting effort to calm the turmoil of his mind, for the inspector looked pained at having to do so, his very soul seemed caught in a struggle against giving in and marching him straight into a police station.
Valjean had at first obliged to answer Javert’s inquiries to fill in the tense silence. But as he began describing his stay at the convent and later how he and Cosette had come to start a new life at the Rue Plumet, his words flowed as if of their own will, having found an audience at last to reveal a life that had been lived in secret.
To his surprise, Javert listened with interest. His eyes sparked with emotion ranging from curiosity to incredulity, and his face was unguarded in a rare state of openness that revealed the Inspector’s sharp mind working pieces of the puzzle together, forming a complete tale of the past nine years of his life. Valjean, too, felt no need to put up any mask: this was his full confession to the Law. Never in his decades of imagining this moment did he believe it would be almost enjoyable, like the gentle sun that was even now bathing him in the warmth of the summer day, shining upon him not to expose imperfections but to chase away the ghosts of his past.
Javert, he realized with a shudder, was the only one who knew almost everything about him and for so long. If they were not in public, Valjean could roll back the cuffs of his shirtsleeves to welcome the summer air on his skin, and he would not need to explain the markings that would be revealed. Nor did either of them have to describe the peculiarities of Mme. Prudhomme before sharing a groan at the memory of her tendency to let her cats wander up into trees and then wail loudly until her beloved pets could be rescued by Montreuil-sur-Mer’s already overtaxed police force. Lost in the recounting of both good and bad times of the past, Valjean caught a small but genuine smile directed his way. He didn’t think Javert was aware of it. He certainly hoped Javert was unaware of his response, of the hitching of his breath and of his ears growing warm in a way that he knew had nothing to do with the summer heat.
He wondered what sort of rapport could have developed between them if things were different, if they were not guard and convict, inspector and criminal.
A stray thought rose to his mind: when they would finally find Cosette (for she would be found), what would she think of Javert?
“She doesn’t know,” he blurted out.
Javert gave him an odd look.
“My past, what I was. I – she’s everything to me, I can’t tell her.”
He trained his eyes toward somewhere down the path, ignoring the way his heart was pounding as if threatening to break free of his ribcage. Dread, the word came to mind in his attempt to approximate what he was feeling—the absolute terror of having Cosette’s goodwill toward him shattered.
He was in a busy street in broad daylight, and yet he suddenly felt alone and plunged into darkness, the world fading away around him. But he kept walking, because Javert was still walking beside him, was still looking at him with unreadable eyes. He allowed heavy gaze to pin him down like a guard assessing a convict’s exposed back, considering where best to land the whip. But this gaze wasn’t cruel. It penetrated into Valjean’s deepest secrets but was ready to offer balm instead of lashes. Slowly, by focusing on Javert’s presence next to him, Valjean rejoined Paris’s streets and citizens. Crowds of people were going on with their lives as if yesterday had never happened, save for the debris on the ground and gendarmes running here and there, barking an occasional order. Sounds of people bustling about once again filled his ears.
“You should tell her, Monsieur Fauchelevent,” Javert replied as a Parisian walking in the opposite direction squeezed through the narrow gap between them.
Valjean shook his head. This was not a question of should or should not. He simply couldn’t.
And at the thought, he realized there was one other request he needed to make of Javert.
“Javert… Inspector,” he said, quietly, barely above a whisper. “Would you take me away in private, when the time comes? I do not ask it to have my dignity preserved, I am ready to endure shame and humiliation. But not in front of Cosette, please, I beg you. To horrify her so… I will never forgive myself.”
He turned his head toward Javert when no reply came. Javert’s mouth was pressed thin; the tension around his eyes seemed to etch the lines there deeper. Valjean sighed, regret flooding his heart for making such an impertinent request of the inspector. Criminals did not get to define the terms of their punishment. To Javert, Jean Valjean would always be a criminal, their present lack of animosity notwithstanding. He had overstepped his bounds.
Before he could apologize, however, Javert spoke: “The streets are crowded. Let us not speak any more of this in public.”
It was a sensible remark. Valjean nodded, and they walked the rest of the way in silence.
-
“What are we looking for?” Valjean asked when they entered the garden of his erstwhile home. Even under less-than-pleasant circumstances, Javert noted that Valjean looked around the place like a traveler coming home from a long journey, full of longing for the past.
We moved away two days ago, Valjean had said, placing the blame on those who had uncovered the connection between 55 Rue Plumet and the name Fauchelevent. But Javert knew the true reason: Valjean was fleeing from him. He wondered what peace he had shattered between the old man and his daughter over the years, how many times they had moved. From the look of Valjean, his sudden display of nostalgia wasn't over a house and a garden he’d left two days ago; he was bidding farewell to a foregone time of happiness, readying himself for the inevitability of the bagne.
He wondered when he should tell Valjean that he would never again wear a galley slave’s chains. He wondered also how Valjean would react to the offer to exchange a life for a life, at the close of the present case, when they would both realize that more was needed of him to repay decades of debt.
Valjean would be horrified, he concluded. Perhaps it was best for him to quietly slip away after all of this.
He felt an inexplicable need to fill in the silence. He cleared his throat.
“When I visited this morning, I only focused on uncovering clues about Cosette. Now that I know she is a tenacious young lady, I am certain that she would not have left this place unless there was a reason to. Someone must have been here to deliver a message, to bring her news about Marius. We must search for signs of that.”
Javert trailed his eyes after Valjean, who didn’t seem to hear a word he’d said. Valjean was walking toward a garden shed. He hesitated. Something in Valjean’s posture bade him to go no further, to let the old man relive his memory. When Valjean put a hand to the door and opened it as if a rich man coming home to his mansion, Javert understood: Jean Valjean had spent more nights living in this shed than inside the comfort of the house.
It wasn’t difficult to deduce why: Valjean did this for Cosette’s safety, to disassociate himself from the girl as much as possible, to preserve a veneer of respectability for a whore’s daughter lest he was discovered and taken away. He did this out of love.
The unfamiliar sensation of something prickling at his conscience overwhelmed his senses. There was no one except himself in all of Paris who still knew of Jean Valjean’s past. The former convict did this, and doubtless resorted to other measures to conceal his identity, all to hide from him.
He was deep in self-recrimination when, turning from looking out of the garden toward the shed, a flash of white caught his eye. Was that a piece of paper lodged between the bars of the metal gate? He was certain it wasn’t there several hours ago. “Valjean!” he called as he approached the gate. It was indeed a piece of paper, a written note of some sort, and he snatched it from between the bars and pocketed it. He examined the metal gate. In most of the ledges aside from the one on which the note was placed, the bars were covered in dust or mossy slime, or a combination of both. This ledge was clean. It had been used as a place to send and receive messages for some time.
“Valjean, a note has arrived!” he said as he hastened to the shed. He did not allow himself to yield to excitement or apprehension, for there was rarely any benefit in jumping to a premature conclusion. The note could be anything and from anyone. As he neared the shed, he could feel Valjean’s frantic anticipation calling out to him from the other side of the door. Well, he thought, that made two of them.
Javert found himself inside an utterly bare space save for a straw mattress and a work surface covered with a multitude of gardening tools. The sight jarred him away from all thoughts about the note. There was no fireplace in here, not one trace of anything that would provide comfort. He wondered if this was Valjean’s way of condemning himself to a life of the bagne outside of Toulon. Even the most humble servant’s quarters were more livable than this.
“Javert?” Valjean’s voice brought his mind back to the present.
He extended a hand. “I found this, lodged at the gate. It wasn’t there when I visited earlier.”
“Can it be –”
“No guesses, Valjean. Let the note be its own witness. Here –” he unfolded the paper, lifting it to eye level so both of them could read together. He saw Valjean pushing forward in resolve; he found himself doing the same.
Javert expected the note to be either addressed to or written by anyone from Cosette to Marius, or even Marius’s family or his associates, or—heaven forbid, an abductor’s ransom note—but not this:
My Dearest Marius,
If you are reading this, it means I am dead and my sister has kept her word to deliver my letter to you. Gavroche, that little boy, will you take care of him? He is my brother. Word will never capture how I feel toward you. But I guess it doesn’t matter anymore. Oh and Mademoiselle Cosette, I know you must be surprised to find a letter in your usual place written by someone else. I’m sorry, I know of no other way to get this message to Marius.
With all my heart, good bye.
Éponine
Éponine? “This is the girl at the barricades, the one pretending to be one of the students.” He considered the letter further. “She wrote this before the revolt began, or rather, convinced someone to do it for her. The girl cannot read or write.”
Realization dawned in Valjean’s eyes. He too had remembered the face that he now knew bore this name. “Do you mean that Cosette has gone with this Éponine’s sister?”
“No, the timing would be inconsistent. Cosette was already gone from here when I visited in the morning. There was no note then. This message came in the past two hours.”
“But what if –”
“No, Valjean. This is peculiar but unrelated. As I have said, the letter was arranged prior to any shot was fired from the barricades and long before Cosette disappeared from here.” He held up the letter for a closer inspection, fingers tapping at the edge of the paper. Though unrelated to the disappearance, Éponine’s sister was worth interrogating… “But this sister can prove useful to us still.”
“So what do we do?”
He almost regretted his words, for the way it ignited a spark of hope in Valjean’s eyes. He didn’t want to have to extinguish it later if the pursuit after the girl proved futile. But it was the best option they had at the moment.
“There are two people who know about Cosette and Marius’s relations –” He glanced at Valjean; the old man had tensed at his choice of word. He ignored the parental reflex. “– one is Marius, who is quite incapacitated at the moment. The other would be this Éponine’s sister. I believe you know her?”
Valjean shook his head.
“Ah, so you haven’t made the connection yet. Éponine and Gavroche have several more siblings, one of which is about the same age as Éponine, a younger sister named Azelma. I am well acquainted with this family because of their parents’ notoriety. I believe,” he said, holding Valjean’s gaze, “you are familiar with the name Thénardier?”
-
Thénardier! The word rang loudly in Valjean’s ears, like prison cannons that screamed to the world of Prisoner 24601’s escape each time he broke out of Toulon—the sound of extinguished hope. The scoundrel had once tried to extort his entire fortune from him. Would he now demand the safety—or God forbid, the very life—of Cosette? The thought shook his mind like a tree split open by lightning. His body, too, trembled, for he saw Javert bend down to pick up a fallen tool, shaken off the table from his shudder.
“We don’t know yet if Azelma has made the connection between Marius and Cosette, and from Cosette to you,” Javert’s voice drifted in from what sounded like far away. “I am certain that Éponine did not divulge anything, given her apparent fondness for Marius. And as I have deduced, Cosette and Azelma did not cross paths. The timing we were able to establish disproves that. There is nothing yet that ties Cosette to Thénardier the elder.”
M. Madeleine knew Javert to be a man of flawless deductions. Even Jean Valjean the fugitive would confess to the inspector’s sensibility. But M. Fauchelevent, father of Cosette, had no such faith. Until Cosette was back in his arms and he could touch a finger to her cheek, he would not believe.
A hand rested on his shoulder. The gesture was uncertain, but no less determined. “Valjean?”
A day ago, this hand would have dragged him back to hell. No, if he were to believe in the absurdity of his present truce with Javert, then he must trust in the man’s abilities as well. “Forgive me, Inspector. I – I did not have a good history with Thénardier, not since the day when I took Cosette away from their despicable inn in Montfermeil.”
“Understood. Yet I would insist again that there is no cause for alarm. This Azelma was honoring her sister’s request. She has not been trailing you or Cosette, or she would have known that you no longer live here.”
It was always cold logic for the inspector, and Valjean desperately clung on, grasping at the voice of reason amid his fears and anxiousness. He had never known Javert to be wrong yet.
“Thank you,” he said as he placed a hand over Javert’s. It tensed, but did not pull away. Valjean smiled. “Age and concern have addled my mind. I would not have been able to… Javert, I cannot thank you enough.”
He released his hand over Javert’s. With wonder, he noted that Javert did not immediately pull away, but gave his shoulder a final, reassuring squeeze before retreating.
“So we go find Azelma, then?”
“No, we wait for her to come to us.”
Valjean turned to the inspector. “How?”
Javert took from his pocket the letter that Cosette had written for him. The color of the paper was whiter than Éponine’s, its stock heavier. “We pretend this is Marius’s response and wait outside the gate. She will approach when she believes a reply has been left for her. We will then have a potential witness to question.”