ARTHUR.T Stories ----The "Duc de Nevers ----VII---Page 36

One morning there lay on my desk a note finely written in pencil and
dated:

TOMBS PRISON.
MONSIEUR:

Will you be so gracious as to extend to the undersigned the courtesy of a private interview in your office? I have a communication of the highest importance to make to you.

Respectfully,

CHARLES JULIUS FRANCIS DE NEVERS.

Across the street in the courtyard the prisoners were taking their daily

exercise. Two by two they marched slowly around the enclosure in the

centre of which a small bed of geraniums struggled bravely in mortal

combat with the dust and grime of Centre Street. Some of the prisoners

walked with heads erect and shoulders thrown back, others slouched along
with their arms dangling and their chins resting upon their chests. When
one of them failed to keep up with the rest, a keeper, who stood in the
shade by a bit of ivy in a corner of the wall, got after him. 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.

I had almost forgotten that I was expecting a visitor when, a couple of

hours later, an undersized deputy-sheriff entered my office and reported
that he had a prisoner in his custody for whom I had sent to the Tombs.
Glancing up from my desk I saw standing behind his keeper a tall and
distinguished-looking man in fashionably cut garments, whose well shaped head and narrow face, thin aquiline nose, and carefully trimmed pointed
beard seemed to bespeak somewhat different antecedents from those of the ordinary occupant of a cell in the City Prison. I should have
instinctively risen from my chair and offered my aristocratic looking
visitor a chair had not the keeper unconsciously brought me to a
realization of my true position by remarking:

"Say, Counsellor, I guess while you're talking to his nibs I'll step out into the hall and take a smoke."

"Certainly," said I, glad to be rid of him, "I will be responsible for the--er--prisoner."

Then, as the keeper hesitated in putting his suggestion into execution, I reached into the upper right-hand drawer of my desk, produced two of what are commonly known in the parlance of the Criminal Courts Building as "cigars" and handed them to him.

"Well," said I, after the keeper had departed closing the door behind
him and leaving the visitor standing in the middle of the office, "I
have sent for you as you requested and shall be glad to hear anything
you have to say. Of course any communication which you may see fit to
make to me is voluntary and, in the event for your trial for--er--any
crime with which you may be charged, may be used against you." I had a
certain feeling of embarrassment in making this customary declaration
since the whole idea of this person being a criminal was so incongruous

as to put a heavy strain on one's credulity. However, I recalled that a

certain distinguished Englishman of letters has declared "that there is

no essential incongruity between crime and culture." He acknowledged my remark with a slight smile of half-amused deprecation and with a
courteous bow took the seat to which I motioned him.

"I wish to thank you," he said in excellent English marked by the

slightest possible suggestion of a foreign accent, "for your exceeding

courtesy in responding so quickly to my request. I am aware," he added, "that it is unusual for prisoners to seek interviews with the--what
shall I say--_juge d'instruction_, as we call him, but," he added with a smile, "I think you will find that mine is an unusual affair."

I had already begun to think so, and reaching to the upper drawer on the
left-hand side of my desk, I produced from the box reserved for judges,
prominent members of the bar, borough presidents, commissioners of
departments and distinguished foreigners, a Havana of the variety known
in our purlieus as a "_good_ cigar," and tendered the same to him.

"Ah," he said, "many thanks, _merci, non_, I do not smoke the cigar.

M'sieu' perhaps has a cigarette? M'sieu' will pardon me if I say that

this is the first act of kindness which has been accorded to me since my incarceration three weeks ago."

Somewhere I found a box of cigarettes, one of which he removed, gracefully holding it between fingers which I noticed were singularly white and delicate, and lighting it with the air of a diplomat at an international conference.

"You can hardly appreciate," he ventured, "the humiliation to which I, an officer and a gentleman of France, have been subjected."

I lighted the cigar which he had declined and with mingled feelings of
embarrassment, distrust and curiosity inquired if his name was Charles
Julius Francis de Nevers. I wish it were possible to describe the
precise look which flashed across his face as he answered my question.

"That is my name," he said, "or at least rather, I am Charles Julius

Francis, and I am of Nevers. May I speak confidentially? Were my family to be aware of my present situation they would never recover from the humiliation and disgrace connected with it."

"Certainly," said I, "anything which you may tell me which you wish to be kept confidential I will treat as such, provided, of course, that
what you tell me is the truth."

"You shall hear nothing else," he replied. Then leaning back in his

chair he said simply and with great dignity, "I am by direct inheritance

today the Duc de Nevers, my father, the last duke, having died in the month of February, 1905."

Any such announcement would ordinarily have filled me with amusement, but that the gentleman sitting before me should declare himself to be a duke or even a prince seemed entirely natural.

"Indeed!" said I, unable to think of any more appropriate remark.

"Yes," said De Nevers, "and M'sieu' is naturally surprised that one of
my distinguished position should be now a tenant of an American jail.
But if M'sieu' will do me the honor of listening for a few moments I
will explain my present extraordinary predicament. I am Charles Julius
Francois, eldest son of the late Oscar Odon, Duc de Nevers, Grand
Commander of the Legion of Honor, and Knight of the Garter. I was born
in Paris in the year 1860 at 148 Rue Champs Elysee; my mother, the
dowager duchess, is now residing at the Chateau de Nevers in the
Province of Nievre in France. My sister Jeanne married Prince Henry of
Aremberg, and now lives in Brussells at the Palais d'Aremberg, situated
at the corner of the Rue de Regence near the Palais de Justice. My
sister Louise, the Countess of Kilkenny, is living in Ireland. My sister
Camille married the Marquis of Londonderry and is residing in London at
the present time. My sister Evelyn married the Earl of Dudley and is
living in Dublin. I have one other sister, Marie, who is with my mother.
My brother, Count Andre de Nevers is at present Naval Attache at Berlin.
My brother Fernand is an officer of artillery stationed in Madagascar,
and my youngest brother Marcel is also an officer of artillery attached
to the 8th Regiment in Nancy. I make this statement by way of
introduction in order that you may understand fully my situation. During
my childhood I had an English tutor in Paris, and when I reached the age
of ten years I was sent by my father to the College Louis le Grand where
I took the course of Science and Letters and graduated from the Lycee
with the degree of Bachelor on the 5th of August, 1877. Having passed my
examination for the Polytechnic I remained there two years, and on my
graduation received a commission as Sous-Lieutenant of Engineers, and
immediately entered the Application School at Fontainebleau, where I was
graduated in 1881 as Lieutenant of Engineers and assigned to the First
Regiment of Engineers at Versailles--"

De Nevers paused and exhaled the cigarette smoke.