"But Monsieur le Commissionaire…"
"Inspector Javert," Commissioner Maurice Genot stood from his bureau, "with all due respect to you, I would advise against this plan of yours," his fat hand ran around the top edge of his balding head, "However, that does not mean I will not sign off on the warrant. But I do so with a serious encouragement for you to reconsider in just what manner you use that new lackey of yours. She has been officially in the service for little over a day now, and you intend to plant her as one of this whorehouse's employees, using her to get a confession from Tournot during their… tête-à-tête encounter. It seems risky to me, Javert, but I trust your judgment."
Javert bowed his head slightly in reverence, "I thank you, Monsieur, but I have little doubt that Officer Rénauld will rise to the occasion."
The Commissioner grabbed his quill and pulled the warrant on his desktop before him, "But you do maintain some doubt, Javert."
Javert remained silent, only nodding in reply once his superior's gaze pushed the point as he looked up from the document. He forced as reassuring of a smile as he was capable of, "Regardless, I am confident in my plan, Monsieur le Commissionaire, so long as you do not order me to do otherwise."
Commissioner Genot shrugged in reply, yet he couldn't help but wince as he crossed the T of his signature. "You will find plenty of discarded and collected clothing to choose from for the woman's disguise. Somehow prostitutes tend to forget their effects and accessories when they're freed from our prison cells, not that they ever enter with much to begin with, mind you." He set the quill back in its inkpot, and looking up, something about the Inspector caught his eye. He noticed a variable difference in sheen to his Inspector's eyes and the slightest of change in the man's jaw line. They both seemed softer than was so strikingly customary for him before. Reaching across his bureau, the Commissioner proffered the signed warrant, which Javert took with keen excitement.
"I will assemble a force of men tomorrow for Tournot's arrest," Javert spoke quickly as he neatly folded the paper in quarters and placed it in his breast pocket, "and Thursday will see my plan as I have described to you. Should any changes be necessary, I will of course inform you, Monsieur."
"Yes, yes, Javert; I expect nothing less from you," Genot waved him in dismissal from his room, "Now go find what clothing… or lack thereof... you require from the guards. I'm sure the former Comptesse will make for a stunningly irresistible whore, especially once she's…"
"Of course, Monsieur," Javert replied in such forceful rapidity that Genot lost his train of thought. His jaw clenched tightly, his stance was wide and stiff, and his hands he clasped firmly behind his back—the Inspector was every inch at attention. However, Commissioner Genot noticed that spark behind his green eyes flicker and glow brighter; he had touched a nerve somewhere underneath the Inspector's hardened exterior.
Javert drew his legs together, bowing deeply at the waist before replacing his bicorn on his dark hair, "Now, pardon me, Commissioner Genot, if you please. I will find what materials I require, as you have suggested." The door shut with a firm slam behind him.
Seating his large self back down in his chair, Genot's pudgy fingers scratched and ran over his stubbly chin. The Inspector had been in Paris for years already and risen smartly through the ranks, but it had been a long time even since his arrival, that he last observed such variations in the man's attitudes. The last incidence had been in reference to some affair to do with the back garden wall of a convent somewhere in the city, but that was long ago. Something new had stimulated the man's enthusiasm and dogged attention, and he doubted it was the minor criminal Javert planned to bring to justice next.
###
"Here now, gamin, where do you think you're going?" Javert called down the hallway to his office, irate to find one of the Préfecture's sooty, filthy errand boys about to open his door. Striding quickly over, he took careful note of the large brown paper sack in the brat's arm. Snot-nosed and trembling, the boy shied from the door instantly, grabbing his battered cap in one hand and doffing it clumsily in respect for the Inspector.
In his raging march down the hall, Javert had pulled his truncheon from its place at his side, and now, as he glared down at the urchin, he tapped it slowly and rhythmically into the palm of his hand. And he sneered wider, watching the boy's face wince with each muted beat. At least the brat had reverence for his superiors. "Well, gamin? Speak up and answer my question."
"P-please,Inspector Javert. I'm only following orders here," the kid wiped away snot with his filthy free hand.
With his club, he opened the top of the sack wider, peering into to its contents, "Whose orders?"
"That woman officer you've got now, Inspector. Gave me a whole ten francs to purchase what she wanted," the boy shied away as Javert prodded deeper with his club into the bag to see the items. A cheap bar of common soap, spools of ribbon, a small, course hairbrush, common towel cloth, all meaningless items a woman like her would need, he sneered. The boy smiled as he stepped away, closing the bag from the policeman, "Said I could keep the change, so naturally I may have purchased her items on the cheaper end. Made a whole five francs myself, I did."
"Give that bag to me, boy," Javert replaced his truncheon, ripping the sack from the brat's weak grasp, ignoring his complaining, grating whine. "She told you to bring her items into my office, did she?"
The boy nodded, and the Inspector's jaw clenched in vexation; how he hated to have his spaces treated in such a vile, disrespectful manner. "About your business, boy," he dismissed him, waiting until the urchin had turned the opposite corner before grasping the door handle himself.
But, pulling up sharply, he remembered himself. He still required that damned clothing for her disguise. Fetch that now, and deposit both rags and sack in her chamber for her use later. Yes, he thought to himself as his hand slipped silently from the handle, let her attend on him a bit longer in there. A further lesson in patience and obedience. He nodded firmly to himself before strutting off in the direction of the guards' quarters for a fitting costume.
If only he had paused a bit longer outside his own office, perhaps he would have noticed the inner silence, the audible stillness like death that filled his unoccupied office.