“What!
Are you living with Moses’ widow — the Jew who led the swindling gang in the South?” asked Jacques Collin.
For Trompe-la-Mort, like a great general, knew the person of every one of his army.
“That’s the woman,” said la Pouraille, much flattered.
“A pretty woman,” said Jacques Collin, who knew exactly how to manage his dreadful tools. “The moll is a beauty; she is well informed, and stands by her mates, and a first-rate hand.
Yes, la Gonore has made a new man of you!
What a flat you must be to risk your nut when you have a trip like her at home!
You noodle; you should have set up some respectable little shop and lived quietly.
— And what does she do?”
“She is settled in the Rue Sainte–Barbe, managing a house ——”
“And she is to be your legatee?
Ah, my dear boy, this is what such sluts bring us to when we are such fools as to love them.”
“Yes, but don’t you give her anything till I am done for.”
“It is a sacred trust,” said Jacques Collin very seriously. “And nothing to the pals?”
“Nothing!
They blowed the gaff for me,” answered la Pouraille vindictively.
“Who did?
Shall I serve ’em out?” asked Jacques Collin eagerly, trying to rouse the last sentiment that survives in these souls till the last hour. “Who knows, old pal, but I might at the same time do them a bad turn and serve you with the public prosecutor?”
The murderer looked at his boss with amazed satisfaction.
“At this moment,” the boss replied to this expressive look, “I am playing the game only for Theodore.
When this farce is played out, old boy, I might do wonders for a chum — for you are a chum of mine.”
“If I see that you really can put off the engagement for that poor little Theodore, I will do anything you choose — there!”
“But the trick is done.
I am sure to save his head.
If you want to get out of the scrape, you see, la Pouraille, you must be ready to do a good turn — we can do nothing single-handed ——”
“That’s true,” said the felon.
His confidence was so strong, and his faith in the boss so fanatical, that he no longer hesitated.
La Pouraille revealed the names of his accomplices, a secret hitherto well kept.
This was all Jacques needed to know.
“That is the whole story.
Ruffard was the third in the job with me and Godet ——”
“Arrache–Laine?” cried Jacques Collin, giving Ruffard his nickname among the gang.
“That’s the man.
— And the blackguards peached because I knew where they had hidden their whack, and they did not know where mine was.”
“You are making it all easy, my cherub!” said Jacques Collin.
“What?”
“Well,” replied the master, “you see how wise it is to trust me entirely.
Your revenge is now part of the hand I am playing.
— I do not ask you to tell me where the dibs are, you can tell me at the last moment; but tell me all about Ruffard and Godet.”
“You are, and you always will be, our boss; I have no secrets from you,” replied la Pouraille.
“My money is in the cellar at la Gonore’s.”
“And you are not afraid of her telling?”
“Why, get along!
She knows nothing about my little game!” replied la Pouraille. “I make her drunk, though she is of the sort that would never blab even with her head under the knife.
— But such a lot of gold ——!”
“Yes, that turns the milk of the purest conscience,” replied Jacques Collin.
“So I could do the job with no peepers to spy me. All the chickens were gone to roost.
The shiners are three feet underground behind some wine-bottles.
And I spread some stones and mortar over them.”
“Good,” said Jacques Collin. “And the others?”