Chapter 10
Vidocq rolled his eyes to Heaven, as if calling upon it to take note of his suffering, and pushed past his agent into the unlit, windowless backroom, murmuring:
"Take care this doesn't get ugly."
"Don't I always?" replied Javert. His grin now looked very little like an expression of good humor and very much like lock-jaw. "Valjean, go in as well."
Valjean, who had heard everything but understood nothing, did not obey immediately. Instead he paused by Javert's side to look the man in the face. There was something peculiar about it.
"What's the matter?" asked Javert.
Valjean thought back to the strange fit he had witnessed Javert have by the bar and decided to risk a question.
"Are you feeling all right? You look terrible."
"Since when is that news?" said Javert through his teeth, which made his words acquire extra hissing consonants.
"I mean, you look unwell," mumbled Valjean, squinting in the dim light. "Something is not right. It's your eyes - they have gone uneven," he exclaimed, realizing what was bothering him.
The grin faltered.
"Uneven?"
"One is gray, but the other is black," explained Valjean. "The pupil is blown. And the other is a pinpoint."
The grin melted. Javert's right eye, which remained its usual steel gray, was still examining Valjean's face without blinking. The other eye was now a black abyss.
"Thank you for the warning," said Javert. He sounded as he looked: haggard. "I apologize in advance. This is... somewhat unexpected."
"What is "this"? What is happening to you?"
"Are you in decent form?" asked Javert. "I know you carried that boy on your shoulders a fair distance. Would you be able to assist a larger and heavier man up four and a half flights of stairs? No need for lifting. One could drag."
"I would," answered Valjean, chills of apprehension running up his spine.
"That's good." Javert turned to enter the room, but Valjean gripped his arm.
"No. Stay and explain yourself," he commanded. He had not addressed Javert in this manner since he'd been Mayor and Javert his subordinate, but his patience was at an end. Enough mysteries, thought Valjean. Enough frightful surprises.
For a few moments, Javert simply peered at him with eerily mismatched eyes. "All right," he said calmly after a while. "I weigh around eighty kilos - one hundred and sixty pounds, if you prefer. I reside on the third floor of my tenement. And there is a substantial chance that by the end of the evening, I will be unable to walk on my own."
With that, Javert turned on his heel and walked in to join Vidocq, who had been cursing up a storm as he tinkered noisily with a busted oil lamp.