Instead of being the boss of the hulks, I shall be a Figaro of the law, and avenge Lucien.
I can never be sure of demolishing Corentin excepting in the skin of a police agent.
And so long as I have a man to devour, I shall still feel alive.
— The profession a man follows in the eyes of the world is a mere sham; the reality is in the idea!” he added, striking his forehead. —“How much have we left in the cash-box?” he asked.
“Nothing,” said his aunt, dismayed by the man’s tone and manner. “I gave you all I had for the boy.
La Romette has not more than twenty thousand francs left in the business.
I took everything from Madame Nourrisson; she had about sixty thousand francs of her own. Oh! we are lying in sheets that have been washed this twelve months past.
That boy had all the pals’ blunt, our savings, and all old Nourrisson’s.”
“Making ——?”
“Five hundred and sixty thousand.”
“We have a hundred and fifty thousand which Paccard and Prudence will pay us.
I will tell you where to find two hundred thousand more.
The remainder will come to me out of Esther’s money.
We must repay old Nourrisson.
With Theodore, Paccard, Prudence, Nourrisson, and you, I shall soon have the holy alliance I require. — Listen, now we are nearly there ——”
“Here are the three letters,” said Jacqueline, who had finished unsewing the lining of her gown.
“Quite right,” said Jacques Collin, taking the three precious documents — autograph letters on vellum paper, and still strongly scented. “Theodore did the Nanterre job.”
“Oh! it was he.”
“Don’t talk. Time is precious.
He wanted to give the proceeds to a little Corsican sparrow named Ginetta. You must set old Nourrisson to find her; I will give you the necessary information in a letter which Gault will give you.
Come for it to the gate of the Conciergerie in two hours’ time.
You must place the girl with a washerwoman, Godet’s sister; she must seem at home there. Godet and Ruffard were concerned with la Pouraille in robbing and murdering the Crottats.
“The four hundred and fifty thousand francs are all safe, one-third in la Gonore’s cellar — la Pouraille’s share; the second third in la Gonore’s bedroom, which is Ruffard’s; and the rest is hidden in Godet’s sister’s house.
We will begin by taking a hundred and fifty thousand francs out of la Pouraille’s whack, a hundred thousand of Godet’s, and a hundred thousand of Ruffard’s.
As soon as Godet and Ruffard are nabbed, they will be supposed to have got rid of what is missing from their shares.
And I will make Godet believe that I have saved a hundred thousand francs for him, and that la Gonore has done the same for la Pouraille and Ruffard.
“Prudence and Paccard will do the job at la Gonore’s; you and Ginetta — who seems to be a smart hussy — must manage the job at Godet’s sister’s place.
“And so, as the first act in the farce, I can enable the public prosecutor to lay his hands on four hundred thousand francs stolen from the Crottats, and on the guilty parties.
Then I shall seem to have shown up the Nanterre murderer.
We shall get back our shiners, and are behind the scenes with the police.
We were the game, now we are the hunters — that is all.
“Give the driver three francs.”
The coach was at the Palais.
Jacqueline, speechless with astonishment, paid.
Trompe-la-Mort went up the steps to the public prosecutor’s room.
A complete change of life is so violent a crisis, that Jacques Collin, in spite of his resolution, mounted the steps but slowly, going up from the Rue de la Barillerie to the Galerie Marchande, where, under the gloomy peristyle of the courthouse, is the entrance to the Court itself.
Some civil case was going on which had brought a little crowd together at the foot of the double stairs leading to the Assize Court, so that the convict, lost in thought, stood for some minutes, checked by the throng.
To the left of this double flight is one of the mainstays of the building, like an enormous pillar, and in this tower is a little door.
This door opens on a spiral staircase down to the Conciergerie, to which the public prosecutor, the governor of the prison, the presiding judges, King’s council, and the chief of the Safety department have access by this back way.
It was up a side staircase from this, now walled up, that Marie Antoinette, the Queen of France, was led before the Revolutionary tribunal which sat, as we all know, in the great hall where appeals are now heard before the Supreme Court.
The heart sinks within us at the sight of these dreadful steps, when we think that Marie Therese’s daughter, whose suite, and head-dress, and hoops filled the great staircase at Versailles, once passed that way!
Perhaps it was in expiation of her mother’s crime — the atrocious division of Poland.
The sovereigns who commit such crimes evidently never think of the retribution to be exacted by Providence.
When Jacques Collin went up the vaulted stairs to the public prosecutor’s room, Bibi–Lupin was just coming out of the little door in the wall.
The chief of the “Safety” had come from the Conciergerie, and was also going up to Monsieur de Granville.
It was easy to imagine Bibi–Lupin’s surprise when he recognized, in front of him, the gown of Carlos Herrera, which he had so thoroughly studied that morning; he ran on to pass him.
Jacques Collin turned round, and the enemies were face to face.
Each stood still, and the self-same look flashed in both pairs of eyes, so different in themselves, as in a duel two pistols go off at the same instant.
“This time I have got you, rascal!” said the chief of the Safety Department.
“Ah, ha!” replied Jacques Collin ironically.