# File No. 113 — Character guide

> Key figures in File No. 113 by Émile Gaboriau.

- [Prosper Bertomy](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/file_no_113_se/characters/prosper_bertomy.md): Prosper Bertomy is the handsome, well-dressed head clerk at Fauvel's banking house, engaged to the banker's niece Madeleine and regarded as a model of probity. When three hundred and fifty thousand francs vanish from the
- [Marquis de Clameran](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/file_no_113_se/characters/marquis_de_clameran.md): The Marquis Louis de Clameran arrives at Fauvel's bank demanding payment with a haughty insolence that stings the banker into open resentment, then returns hours later to apologize before the assembled clerks with a humi
- [Gaston de Clameran](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/file_no_113_se/characters/gaston_de_clameran.md): Gaston de Clameran loves Valentine de la Verberie across a feud between their families, a love kept secret until gossip and violence tear it into the open. Wanted for killing two men who dared speak her name, he crosses 
- [Mme. Fauvel](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/file_no_113_se/characters/mme_fauvel.md): Mme. Fauvel presides over a respectable household as the wife of a wealthy Parisian banker, yet she lives under the weight of a past she has never confessed to anyone. When her son Raoul forces from her the key to the mo
- [Valentine](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/file_no_113_se/characters/valentine.md): Valentine de la Verberie loves Gaston de Clameran with a passion that defies the feud between their families, but when he begs her to flee with him after killing two men, she refuses. Her duty to a hard, friendless mothe
- [Fanferlot](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/file_no_113_se/characters/fanferlot.md): Fanferlot the Squirrel, as his colleagues call him, lodges at the Archangel and turns its corridors into a surveillance post, hiding in cupboards and darting into the street in linen blouses and false whiskers. Vain, exc
- [Madeleine](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/file_no_113_se/characters/madeleine.md): Madeleine moves through the Fauvel household with a delicacy so fine it shows in the smallest habits of her day, and a conscience she will not bend for anyone. When Prosper reappears, her calm shatters for a moment befor
- [André Fauvel](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/file_no_113_se/characters/andre_fauvel.md): André Fauvel stands at the head of a prosperous banking house and a family that believes its past is settled. But the Marquis of Clameran arrives with knowledge of a youthful passion, a sacrificed brother, and a child Mm
- [M. Verduret](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/file_no_113_se/characters/verduret.md): Verduret works the case from outside the official police, dragging a reluctant Prosper through rain and sleet to peer into Raoul de Lagors's lighted window. He is older than his companion but tireless, indifferent to mud
- [Raoul de Lagors](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/file_no_113_se/characters/raoul_de_lagors.md): Raoul de Lagors occupies a narrow two-story house in the middle of an immense garden, with only one window lit after dark and a staff that vanishes by dinner. He is charming enough to move easily among the wealthy, yet h
- [Nina Gypsy](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/file_no_113_se/characters/nina_gypsy.md): Nina Gypsy lodges under Mme. Alexandre's roof, where she is watched, protected, and quietly used as bait by a detective who hides in closets. When an anonymous note summons her to a public rendezvous near the Saint Jacqu
- [M. Lecoq](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/file_no_113_se/characters/lecoq.md): Lecoq arrives at Prosper's examination with the deference of subordinates trailing him and the calm of a man who has seen every variety of guilt. He waves aside the searchers who want to strip the prisoner's boots, ends 
- [M. Patrigent](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/file_no_113_se/characters/patrigent.md): Patrigent embodies the examining magistrate's ideal: unhurried, methodical, and willing to spend years untangling a case rather than risk a hasty judgment. Yet his very thoroughness can look like slowness to those awaiti
- [Cavaillon](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/file_no_113_se/characters/cavaillon.md): A clerk at the bank and friend of Prosper.
- [Mihonne](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/file_no_113_se/characters/mihonne.md): A loyal servant in the de Clameran household.
- [Joseph Dubois](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/file_no_113_se/characters/joseph_dubois.md): A detective working undercover with Fanferlot.
- [Caldas](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/file_no_113_se/characters/caldas.md): A mysterious figure who appears during the investigation.
- [Jean](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/file_no_113_se/characters/jean.md): An elderly servant at the de Clameran estate.
- [Manuel](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/file_no_113_se/characters/manuel.md): A servant in the de Clameran household.
- [Countess de la Verberie](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/file_no_113_se/characters/countess_de_la_verberie.md): Valentine's proud and aristocratic mother.

HTML index: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/file_no_113_se/characters