"You are free, Mr. Sorel!"
The door of the detention room burst open with a bang, and Inspector Claude walked in.
Lionel was a little surprised, but quickly composed himself, pointing to the cell next to him: "What about him?"
Inspector Claude secretly took a deep breath, reviewed Chief Gigo's recent instructions, and smiled: "He is indeed the swindler who defrauded your family, and he also impersonated you to deceive Baroness Alekseyevna.
Moreover, he is undoubtedly the author of that erotic publication, the decadent city!"
Lionel: "...?"
Isn't this the strategy he had just thought of while sitting on the hard wooden bench? Did someone anticipate his anticipation?
Of course, he didn't know the complex office politics behind Chief Gigo's eagerness to pin this on the swindler, but he wisely didn't ask further, instead showing a relieved smile: "Oh? That's truly surprising... I didn't expect him to be quite talented..."
Inspector Claude breathed a sigh of relief at this: "Yes... otherwise, why would he think of impersonating you—let's go out."
As they passed the swindler's detention room, Lionel specifically stopped and asked Claude: "Can I see him?"
Claude nodded: "No problem." Then he pulled open the peephole on the iron door.
Lionel looked inside through the peephole, meeting the swindler's gaze.
Seeing Lionel unharmed, the swindler suddenly pounced and grabbed the iron bars on the peephole: "It's you... it's you..."
Lionel stepped back to avoid being sprayed with saliva.
He looked into the swindler's eyes: "You're a smart man, and a good actor, but..."
Before he could finish, the swindler laughed eerily: "Don't be smug. Lionel Sorel, is it? I remember now, ha, the Sorel Family family of Lalagne in the Alps, right? They have a son studying in Paris...
Your sister's name is Ivana, isn't it? She's a complete fool..."
With a clang, the peephole was closed again, and Claude's face was full of contempt: "All swindlers are like this, all talk and no substance."
At this moment, the swindler's voice was still clear through the iron door: "Eight years! Eight years at most! I'll be out of Toulon Prison... You just wait..."
Lionel's face immediately fell: "What a joke, only eight years? Is he telling the truth?"
Claude shook his head: "God knows, I'm not a judge either. But most of these fraudsters are proficient in the Penal Code, so he might have a point in saying that."
Lionel was a little regretful: "That's too easy for him..."
The swindler laughed wildly inside the detention room.
Claude now showed a cruel smile: "Fraud only gets eight years, but creating obscene works and blaspheming religion is another matter..."
The swindler's laughter stopped abruptly, and his voice became panicked: "Blasphemy? You... you're framing me..."
Lionel then remembered that France, at least nominally, was still a theocratic state, and the largest patron of the Church, calling itself the "eldest daughter of the Church."
The crime of blasphemy could sometimes be punished very severely, especially without powerful individuals to intercede.
Claude scoffed: "According to past precedents, such people are usually considered to be possessed by demons or mentally unstable. Their destination is probably a mental asylum."
Lionel shivered—a 19th-century mental asylum, that was truly a place of dread; even if you weren't crazy, you'd go crazy if you were locked up there.
The swindler froze in the detention room for a moment, then began to pound on the iron door, yelling in despair: "I don't want to go to a mental asylum! I want to go to prison! Let me go to prison! For as long as it takes..."
As the heavy iron door of the detention area closed, the swindler's roars became faint and inaudible.
Lionel was a little worried: "What if he adamantly refuses to admit it?"
Inspector Claude smiled meaningfully: "Don't worry, he will!"
Lionel nodded; in this regard, he still had great faith in 19th-century police.
Immediately, he became concerned about the most crucial issue: "The 5,000 francs our family was swindled out of..."
Inspector Claude patted his shoulder: "After the court's final judgment, the stolen money will be returned to you—provided he has any left."
As they spoke, Lionel had already followed Inspector Claude to the large outer office of the Paris Police Department.
It was unusually brightly lit and bustling with people, as lively as a marketplace.
With Lionel's arrival, all eyes focused on him; and Lionel also saw the familiar figures:
The white-haired Turgenev, the worried Flaubert, the angry but still polite Zola, Professor Taine with gold-rimmed glasses, and Daudet with beautifully curled beard...
Except for Professor Taine, almost all of them were seniors he had met at salons, and each of them had a worried expression on their face.
Seeing Lionel emerge unharmed, Ivan Turgenev was the first to greet him: "Are you alright? Chief Gigo just said it was all a misunderstanding..."
The others also came forward to greet Lionel, while reporters were held back at the periphery, but were trying hard to break through the police line.
At this moment, Chief Gigo squeezed in—this was probably the most stressful night of his three-year tenure as chief—and shook Lionel's hand: "I'm sorry, it was all that idiot Lefèvre...
But it's alright now, it was all a misunderstanding. The reporters are right outside, and I hope... I hope you can be understanding."
Lionel nodded and said with a smile: "You can't blame yourselves—you can only blame that swindler, he impersonated me so well! Didn't he, Mr. Turgenev?"
Turgenev frowned: "Indeed... If I hadn't met you, I might have mistaken that swindler for you too."
At this moment, a reporter squeezed out from under the crowd, pulled out a wooden box from behind him, and quickly drew out three legs to stabilize it.
"Everyone, please look forward and smile, Mr. Lionel, please stand in the middle..."
Chief Gigo immediately stood beside Lionel.
— — — —
The next day, Le Petit Parisien, which published a group photo of Lionel and several literary giants in the Paris Police Department office, sold out.
Newspapers at this time could not yet print photographs, so the newspaper used etchings based on the photographs, which were quite lifelike.
The "farce" that occurred last night at Baroness Alekseyevna's masquerade ball on Montmartre was also reported at great length.
Two "Lionel Sorels" colliding; the great swindler who traveled all over France arrested; the true author of the decadent city exposed...
Each and every one of these could have been a headline on that day's newspaper, let alone three events merging into one!
One front page was simply not enough; Le Petit Parisien used two full pages to publish this content— hastily produced overnight, this was all they could manage.
Just as readers finished the two pages, still wanting more, they turned to the back of the newspaper and saw a large line of text—
"The Conscience of the Sorbonne, the Genius Novelist, Victim of Fraud, Confidant of Parisian Women, Lionel Sorel with a Childlike Heart's latest work, deeply moving, tear-jerking, making everyone re-examine family, money, and kinship, not reading it means you're not French—
my uncle jules"
Lionel: "..."