It was so hopelessly late by now that there was not a single cab to be had, and so the men began making their way to Javert's rooms on foot. Valjean felt ready to lie down and fall asleep right there in the street, propriety and safety be damned. Javert must have been even more exhausted; occasionally, he would trip over some insignificant unevenness between paving stones and curse under his breath. The first few times, Valjean steadied him; then he put an arm around Javert's waist and let him lean on his shoulder as he walked.

To keep both their minds off the fatigue and the long walk ahead, they talked.

"There is something I've been meaning to ask you," said Valjean.

"What?"

"How did you come to discover only recently that you had a brother?"

"It was a very strange story," said Javert. "I was already inclined to fatalism, and the events of those days served as my Confirmation of sorts. Do you believe in Fate?"

Valjean thought about it.

"Sometimes yes, sometimes no. Some things certainly have the air of being pre-ordained."

"Some people, as well," remarked Javert.

"What do you mean?"

"No matter where I find myself, however improbable the place, I can always count on you appearing from around the corner, or walking through a door, or even popping up from the ground before me. After a while, one stops even being surprised."

"Oh, come now…"

"And it was precisely thus with my brother."

"Your brother ambushed you from under a sewer grate?"

"Not far from it, as a matter of fact. The thing happened like this. About seven years ago, I was charged by the prefecture to investigate a brothel where some reports had it that the procuress was supplying her patrons with minors. Not girls of seventeen-sixteen – the morals brigades usually shut their eyes to that. This time, they were children of thirteen or twelve."

"I was explicitly ordered not to confide in Vidocq about the operation. Delavau gave me some vague hints and innuendoes, from which I was clearly supposed to derive that he suspected old Mec of either being one of the patrons, or splitting the profits with the proprietor, or secretly being the proprietor himself, or something of the sort. There was a fair amount of hemming and hawing, and talking around things, and playing at outraged virtue. I don't know why he bothered – it was perfectly obvious that he just couldn't stand the idea of Vidocq potentially upstaging the Prefecture. Not to mention that I knew Vidocq, and the idea that he would in fact buy a woman - - of any age! - in a brothel was ridiculous. He already had more mistresses than he knew what to do with; they hung off his neck in garlands."

"At first, I confess, I was puzzled. Why would Delavau charge me with this? He and I disliked each other tremendously. Until that point, I had got precious little in way of challenging assignments from him. And now, at a time when so many policemen were being pulled off sensible assignments and towards political espionage, he was giving me this prize of a job? Then it hit me: he expected me to fail. More than that, he probably planned on the investigation placing me into a compromising position, so that he would finally have the appearance of justification in dismissing me from the police."

"But of course you went ahead anyway," said Valjean.

"Well, naturally," replied Javert. "What was I to do? Disclose my suspicions to Delavau's face? Refuse an assignment that I'd have begged for from a different Prefect? I decided to go through with the investigation - let provocateurs try and catch me in a fault, it'll be time wasted."

"Of course, the other bewildering side of it was that Delavau knew there was absolutely no possibility of my investigating the operation by playing at being carnally interested in the goods the wicked procuress was offering. And moreover, she would know it as well. We were acquainted, she and I. She had been in and out of Saint Lazare for years and years, and my hand had been in a couple of those returns. As I'm sure I don't have to tell you, one gets to know one's arresting officer deuced well after a few goes. So not only did she know well that I was abstinent, she also knew that my taste ran altogether to men."

"I decided to reestablish acquaintanceship with her anyway. And imagine my surprise when very soon after our not entirely unaffectionate reunion, I received a note from her asking for a friendly visit. When I showed – in civilian garb, no need to agitate the hornet's nest needlessly – she welcomed me like I was her prodigal son. After some inane chatter, she lead me to a back room and confided to me that she had acquired some very special goods. 'What sort of goods?' asked I. 'The kind that will be very much to your taste, monsieur,' she replied. I made stupid eyes at her. I'm ace at making stupid eyes at women. Saves me from no end of trouble. She bade me wait in the room and left for some minutes, then returned and summoned me upstairs. 'Go to number 3,' she said, handing me a key. 'If you come out of there unhappy, then my name ain't Catherine.'"

"I turned the key in the lock and walked in. It was dusk already, and there was only a candle stub burning on the night table. Someone was lying in the bed, atop of the sheets, but I couldn't see who."

"'You there,' I said. 'Are you waiting for anyone?' And suddenly I hear this boy's voice squeak back: 'I'm waiting for you, sir.'"

"My mouth went dry. She gave me a child for the evening! This was fantastic luck. I closed the door, walked to the bed and lifted the candle. And what did I see? A fellow, sure, and a tolerably young one, but nothing even close to a child. He couldn't have been less than twenty-five."

"I was so disappointed that I blurted out: 'Damn. I thought you'd be a little boy.'"

"No!"

"Yes! And do you know what he did then?"

"Can't begin to imagine," said Valjean.

"He punched me in the face!"

Valjean burst out laughing.

"'Ha ha ha' – yes, go on and laugh! I woke up on the bed with a wicked headache. Right across from me sat the not-a-little-boy, looking sullen and contrite; in the corner stood my procuress with a very sour mien, and on the chair next to the bed sat Vidocq. 'Congratulations,' said he, 'to both of you, on a job well botched.' 'What the hell happened?' I asked. My tongue was swollen – apparently, I bit it when I passed out. 'Meet your double,' said Vidocq. 'He was approaching the job from the opposite end, you might say.'"

They turned into Rue Paveé .

"And that is how I met my brother," concluded Javert. "Vidocq and Delavau smashed us together like two boules."

"An agent in the Sûreté. You are right, it's a very strange coincidence."

"Actually, he wasn't an agent. He was an out of work actor. Vidocq had received similar reports about the brothel, so he hired Jeannot to impersonate a travailleuse and convinced the procuress to take him on. He'd been at it for only a few days. His virtue was safe enough – the brothel was not known to cater to sodomites, so none showed up there. He had not yet found out anything. But Catherine decided to try her goods out on a customer, so she sent me her little missive."

"But how did you find out he was your brother?"

"How do you think? At some point, we introduced ourselves and discovered that we shared a last name. I thought – well, what if? So I tracked down his birth and baptismal certificates. And there it was, black on white: father: Diego Xavier, mother: Jeanne Xavier. Born May 1798, in Paris, baptized in Saint-Sulpice a month later, an infant boy, Jean Xavier. In the world, Jeannot. When I revealed the truth to him, he jumped into my arms."

"Were there any other children in the family?"

"That was rather the trouble. The woman did have an older son, from a previous marriage. Jeannot doted on him when he was little, but the boy grew up sullen and unhappy. He left home early. He is a commis-voyageur now, between England and France. Married to a real pill, but with two adorable children."

"How did the parents come to meet?"

"From what I could gather, old Xavier came to Paris after being released from Toulon, with full intent to restart his career as a rogue. Jeanne came from the provinces, with her little boy in tow. I do not know how they met. It was a second marriage for both of them. By all accounts, it was a good match. Jeannot says father had been a cobbler as far back as he recalled, and kept at it until his death. In fact, it was only on his deathbed that he told Jeannot he had been a convict and lived in violation of his ban the whole time he was married. The wife did not want to move back to the country, and he did not dare tell her why he was not allowed to stay in Paris, for fear that she would abandon him. So he stayed with her and kept his head low for almost fifteen years."

"And is his wife still alive?" asked Valjean with a catch in his throat.

"Indeed she is. A sprightly old woman, very entrepreneurial. Bought a small printing office recently, as a matter of fact. She had started out doing odd jobs in it years ago. When the owner went bankrupt and had to sell the place, she borrowed some money from her eldest son and bought it cheap. Things have a strange way of working themselves out."

They arrived at the door of Javert's house.

"I shall sleep for a week," declared Javert, taking hold of the door handle. Then he turned to Valjean, looked at him intently, and took a small but audible breath.

"You are welcome to come up," he said simply.

For a few seconds, a heavy silence hung in the air.

"I shan't snore, I promise."

Valjean remained silent. The moon had come out from behind the clouds, lighting up Javert's gray eyes with silver sparks. Looking into them, Valjean could think of nothing other than how very happy he was.

"Come, it's late. Give a sign of life already. Aye or nay? Gy ou ni…?"

Before Javert had finished the word, Valjean stepped forward and closed the distance between them.

THE END