He was relieved, yes, terribly relieved. And thankful, that too. But the curious sensation that clenched its fingers around the man’s insides as he perused the Moniteur was not relief, but disappointment.

So that was all his pursuer had been; a harmless madman that had taken his leave of the world in the same way that he had entered it, shrouded in mystery and painful loneliness. Fearing the tall, dark form as he did, Valjean couldn’t help but admire the man who had known him in Montreuil Sur Mer, who had seen him at the barricades, who could see through every pseudonym and disguise. He regarded Javert as a sort of dark angel, seeing past every untruth Valjean uttered and into the older man’s very soul. Killed himself in the night.

Valjean shuddered. How horrible, to die alone! Had there been nothing in this world that could have pulled the mad Inspector back off the parapet of the Pont Neuf? Skating his dry fingers over the crisp paper, he leaned forward in his chair, closer to the light. He did not read further. His eyes rested on the name as he recalled the man’s face as he had last seen it. He must’ve been mad then, to let him go. Had he always been mad?

He had certainly been particular, but then, what man didn’t have his own quirks and habits? And terrifying enough to play the part of a madman, yes. Had his shady origins brought this upon him? Had some hereditary virus lain dormant in his brain for years and years, finally consuming his mind that unusually warm June evening? That seemed a reasonable explanation, and Valjean parted his cracked lips in preparation for a murmured prayer. Poor soul.

But then! If it had been some malady in the brain, what could have set it off? This was the question Valjean had been avoiding as he gazed at the name, as the syllables echoed inside his skull, as he mouthed the word, his front teeth playing on the inside of his bottom lip for too long. The slow, dull repetition of a name of a man who was now dead because of him.

Perhaps (and this was still strictly a perhaps, Valjean reminded himself) it had been his release of Javert the evening prior that had set free the savage worm inside Javert’s head. Perhaps it had been his simple action, something any man with a scrap of humanity in him would have done, that had jarred loose the latent disease in Javert’s mind, that which killed him surer than the fall and water ever did.

But maybe it wasn’t that at all! Javert had still been the same man, sane or not, when he had met Valjean outside the sewer gates. Was it his caring for the wounded boy that had done it? Again, a simple act that any man in his place would have done. If this was what had unsettled Javert, then he had already been very far gone indeed.

And if Javert had truly been that far gone, then it wasn’t, it couldn’t be Valjean’s fault. The man had been mad. The man had always been mad. Admirably intelligent, devoted to his duty, and completely out of his head.

Still, the tragedy was terribly disappointing. If the circumstances had been different, Valjean would have liked to talk to the Inspector. He had been a fascinating creature back in Montreuil Sur Mer.

With a “God grant him mercy”, Valjean folded the newspaper and set it aside. He couldn’t quite bring himself to crumple it up.