The second shot hit no one in particular and everyone at once. In the blink of an eye, all hell broke loose.
It took a solid half hour on the part of the soldiers, the gendarmes (whom Treilhard had rebaptised into "municipal guards" a year ago, which was just about the only thing he'd done during his forty-nine glorious days as Prefect) and the inspectors to clear the square and restore traffic. It might've happened quicker, but the shots attracted to the square three mounted National Guardsmen, who naturally did what any bunch of fat incompetent civilian slobs without proper police or military training would do in their place: trotted on everyone's feet and contributed heartily to the general panic.
The crowd had not been at all politically charged and no one besides a couple of boisterous sots offered any real resistance. What Javert had initially taken to be an audacious political stunt by the Republicans – pontificating right under the Prefect's windows – was quickly re-classified by him as a "Lunchtime Spectacle." The windbag's attentive audience was mostly comprised of marchandes, fishwives and a medley of docks workers, all of them out to take in some entertainment with their midday meal. The only ones with any political intent in the gathering were the few students assembled around the blond provocateur. They also offered no resistance to the policemen, although Javert was certain that at least one of them – the girlishly pretty black-haired boy with the air of a nervous abbot – allowed himself to be seated into the black fiacre without making a fuss not because he had made up his mind to bear the ordeal with dignity, but out of simple lack of comprehension of what was happening to him.
As the fiacres stuffed with students and the over-excited rowdies rolled off towards Place du Chatelet, the last of the "flying ambulances" bearing the wounded departed for Hotel Dieu and the coach bearing the sole victim set off for the Morgue, Javert allowed himself to recall to the "other" detained. There were three of them: a well-dressed bourgeois girl of about sixteen and her aged father (or perhaps youngish grandfather), both of whom had stood at very close proximity to the assassinated man, and a gamin of nine or ten, whose too-thoughtful mien had caught Javert's eye in the split second before the second shot rang out. On Javert's insistence, the girl and her father had been escorted by two "municipal guards" towards a fiacre waiting near Pont Neuf, a good distance away from the excitement. As for the gamin, Javert personally handed him over for supervision to one of Coco Lacour's men, a veteran agent with a rap sheet that read like a bad novella and a father of six. They were going to wait up for him this evening at the "suite of cabinets" on Rue Sainte-Anne. He had to meet up with Vidocq anyhow – might as well kill two birds with one stone.
After dispatching the last team of inspectors back to Place du Chatelet to deliver the final report, Javert set off briskly towards the fiacre with his two bourgeois witnesses. Truth be told, he had only a very general idea of what he wanted to accomplish by separating them from the general mélange that was being shoved into "salad-tossers" and carted off to prison depots for questioning. He didn't have a chance to get a good look at either the father or the daughter before he gave the orders to take them away. But something told him that he needed to handle these people personally, and Javert was not one to discount professional intuition. And now that circumstances permitted him to think of things other than the immediate safety of civilians caught under fire and the hooves of spooked horses, he decided that it would be best to question his witnesses immediately. Who could tell what bizarre and fantastic untruths both of them, and the girl especially, might invent about the murder after several fretful hours?
Javert found both of them in relatively downbeat spirits, although there was no cursing or ranting on the part of the father and no hysterics or fainting on the part of the girl. And yet despite their exterior calm, Javert could see plainly that both were scared out of their wits. The man's head was lowered and his hands shook visibly in his sleeves. The girl was frowning, moving her lips soundlessly, as if arguing with herself, and tracing geometric figures on her window with a dainty finger.
Javert took a long, hard look at both his captives, then slowly raised a hand and pushed the man's wide-brimmed hat up from his eyes. The man did not react for a moment, then sighed and took his hat off altogether, rubbing his face slowly and wearily, as if wiping off a week's worth of labor sweat. He said nothing, but nothing needed to be said. They both knew Javert had recognized him.
Somewhat dazed, Javert swiped off his own top hat and took the seat next to Valjean. The thought occurred to him that he should say something friendly to calm down the young lady, but she was taking no notice of him, and he decided against it. It was probably just as well: his stock of pleasantries appropriate for bourgeois women consisted of "Lovely weather we're having today," which was a work-horse that got him through about twenty to thirty percent of all occasions; "You have a lovely home, Madame," which carried him through about another fifteen; and "Your children (cats, dogs, parakeets, and, on one occasion, mice) are delightful," which took care of most of the rest, given how many bourgeois women compulsively surrounded themselves with small squawking things of various species. For this occasion he had no ready line. "Hey, aren't you the daughter of that whore I booked seven years ago for Drunk-and-Disorderly" just didn't have a ring to it.
"Driver," Javert called out as he picked up the hem of his overcoat from where it got pinched by the door of the fiacre, " - to the Champs Elysees."
"I think after all that's happened, some time in the park ought to do all three of us a world of good," he added and smiled the sweetest smile in his arsenal at Valjean.
"I have only one request: let her go."
Javert cocked an eyebrow.
"Why?" he replied out loud.
"Because it's me you want, and she is innocent of all of this."
"We are none of us innocent, Monsieur Madeleine," Javert pronounced with mocking didacticism. "The Congregation being still rather in vogue with the government, and the doctrine of the Original Sin being still rather in vogue with the Congregation. Ceterus paribus."
Valjean frowned. This strange cynic sounded nothing like the Javert he knew.
"What good could possibly come of your detaining her?"
Javert sighed and lowered his voice.
"Has anyone ever told you that you are a monster of vanity, Valjean? I don't suppose it has even occurred to you that I could be interested in what she has to say about this bloody mess? Her having been in the closest geographical proximity, as it were?.."
The end of the last sentence was a barely audible murmur - Javert had become distracted by something outside.
"You think she murdered that man!" Valjean was having trouble keeping his voice down. "How co…"
"I think very little," said Javert, cutting him off in mid-word. "I make inquiries; I construct theories; I seek evidence; I draw conclusions. I think only that this little café under those pretty elms looks absolutely perfect for our little chat. Driver! drop us off here."