“Ruffard’s pieces are with la Gonore in the poor woman’s bedroom, and he has her tight by that, for she might be nabbed as accessory after the fact, and end her days in Saint–Lazare.”
“The villain!
The reelers teach a thief what’s what,” said Jacques.
“Godet left his pieces at his sister’s, a washerwoman; honest girl, she may be caught for five years in La Force without dreaming of it.
The pal raised the tiles of the floor, put them back again, and guyed.”
“Now do you know what I want you to do?” said Jacques Collin, with a magnetizing gaze at la Pouraille.
“What?”
“I want you to take Madeleine’s job on your shoulders.”
La Pouraille started queerly; but he at once recovered himself and stood at attention under the boss’ eye.
“So you shy at that?
You dare to spoil my game?
Come, now! Four murders or three. Does it not come to the same thing?”
“Perhaps.”
“By the God of good-fellowship, there is no blood in your veins!
And I was thinking of saving you!”
“How?”
“Idiot, if we promise to give the money back to the family, you will only be lagged for life.
I would not give a piece for your nut if we keep the blunt, but at this moment you are worth seven hundred thousand francs, you flat.”
“Good for you, boss!” cried la Pouraille in great glee.
“And then,” said Jacques Collin, “besides casting all the murders on Ruffard — Bibi–Lupin will be finely cold. I have him this time.”
La Pouraille was speechless at this suggestion; his eyes grew round, and he stood like an image.
He had been three months in custody, and was committed for trial, and his chums at La Force, to whom he had never mentioned his accomplices, had given him such small comfort, that he was entirely hopeless after his examination, and this simple expedient had been quite overlooked by these prison-ridden minds.
This semblance of a hope almost stupefied his brain.
“Have Ruffard and Godet had their spree yet? Have they forked out any of the yellow boys?” asked Jacques Collin.
“They dare not,” replied la Pouraille. “The wretches are waiting till I am turned off.
That is what my moll sent me word by la Biffe when she came to see le Biffon.”
“Very well; we will have their whack of money in twenty-four hours,” said Jacques Collin. “Then the blackguards cannot pay up, as you will; you will come out as white as snow, and they will be red with all that blood!
By my kind offices you will seem a good sort of fellow led away by them.
I shall have money enough of yours to prove alibis on the other counts, and when you are back on the hulks — for you are bound to go there — you must see about escaping. It is a dog’s life, still it is life!”
La Pouraille’s eyes glittered with suppressed delirium.
“With seven hundred thousand francs you can get a good many drinks,” said Jacques Collin, making his pal quite drunk with hope.
“Ay, ay, boss!”
“I can bamboozle the Minister of Justice. — Ah, ha!
Ruffard will shell out to do for a reeler.
Bibi–Lupin is fairly gulled!”
“Very good, it is a bargain,” said la Pouraille with savage glee. “You order, and I obey.”
And he hugged Jacques Collin in his arms, while tears of joy stood in his eyes, so hopeful did he feel of saving his head.
“That is not all,” said Jacques Collin; “the public prosecutor does not swallow everything, you know, especially when a new count is entered against you.
The next thing is to bring a moll into the case by blowing the gaff.”
“But how, and what for?”
“Do as I bid you; you will see.”
And Trompe-la-Mort briefly told the secret of the Nanterre murders, showing him how necessary it was to find a woman who would pretend to be Ginetta.
Then he and la Pouraille, now in good spirits, went across to le Biffon.
“I know how sweet you are on la Biffe,” said Jacques Collin to this man.
The expression in le Biffon’s eyes was a horrible poem.
“What will she do while you are on the hulks?”
A tear sparkled in le Biffon’s fierce eyes.
“Well, suppose I were to get her lodgings in the Lorcefe des Largues” (the women’s La Force, i. e. les Madelonnettes or Saint–Lazare) “for a stretch, allowing that time for you to be sentenced and sent there, to arrive and to escape?”
“Even you cannot work such a miracle.
She took no part in the job,” replied la Biffe’s partner.