All at once, towards the end of February, 1832, it was discovered that Brujon, that somnolent fellow, had had three different commissions executed by the errand-men of the establishment, not under his own name, but in the name of three of his comrades; and they had cost him in all fifty sous, an exorbitant outlay which attracted the attention of the prison corporal.
Inquiries were instituted, and on consulting the tariff of commissions posted in the convict’s parlor, it was learned that the fifty sous could be analyzed as follows: three commissions; one to the Pantheon, ten sous; one to Val-de-Grace, fifteen sous; and one to the Barriere de Grenelle, twenty-five sous.
This last was the dearest of the whole tariff.
Now, at the Pantheon, at the Val-de-Grace, and at the Barriere de Grenelle were situated the domiciles of the three very redoubtable prowlers of the barriers, Kruideniers, alias Bizarro, Glorieux, an ex-convict, and Barre-Carosse, upon whom the attention of the police was directed by this incident.
It was thought that these men were members of Patron Minette; two of those leaders, Babet and Gueulemer, had been captured.
It was supposed that the messages, which had been addressed, not to houses, but to people who were waiting for them in the street, must have contained information with regard to some crime that had been plotted.
They were in possession of other indications; they laid hand on the three prowlers, and supposed that they had circumvented some one or other of Brujon’s machinations.
About a week after these measures had been taken, one night, as the superintendent of the watch, who had been inspecting the lower dormitory in the Batiment-Neuf, was about to drop his chestnut in the box—this was the means adopted to make sure that the watchmen performed their duties punctually; every hour a chestnut must be dropped into all the boxes nailed to the doors of the dormitories—a watchman looked through the peep-hole of the dormitory and beheld Brujon sitting on his bed and writing something by the light of the hall-lamp.
The guardian entered, Brujon was put in a solitary cell for a month, but they were not able to seize what he had written.
The police learned nothing further about it.
What is certain is, that on the following morning, a “postilion” was flung from the Charlemagne yard into the Lions’ Ditch, over the five-story building which separated the two court-yards.
What prisoners call a “postilion” is a pallet of bread artistically moulded, which is sent into Ireland, that is to say, over the roofs of a prison, from one courtyard to another.
Etymology: over England; from one land to another; into Ireland.
This little pellet falls in the yard.
The man who picks it up opens it and finds in it a note addressed to some prisoner in that yard.
If it is a prisoner who finds the treasure, he forwards the note to its destination; if it is a keeper, or one of the prisoners secretly sold who are called sheep in prisons and foxes in the galleys, the note is taken to the office and handed over to the police.
On this occasion, the postilion reached its address, although the person to whom it was addressed was, at that moment, in solitary confinement.
This person was no other than Babet, one of the four heads of Patron Minette.
The postilion contained a roll of paper on which only these two lines were written:—
“Babet.
There is an affair in the Rue Plumet.
A gate on a garden.”
This is what Brujon had written the night before.
In spite of male and female searchers, Babet managed to pass the note on from La Force to the Salpetriere, to a “good friend” whom he had and who was shut up there.
This woman in turn transmitted the note to another woman of her acquaintance, a certain Magnon, who was strongly suspected by the police, though not yet arrested.
This Magnon, whose name the reader has already seen, had relations with the Thenardier, which will be described in detail later on, and she could, by going to see Eponine, serve as a bridge between the Salpetriere and Les Madelonettes.
It happened, that at precisely that moment, as proofs were wanting in the investigation directed against Thenardier in the matter of his daughters, Eponine and Azelma were released.
When Eponine came out, Magnon, who was watching the gate of the Madelonettes, handed her Brujon’s note to Babet, charging her to look into the matter.
Eponine went to the Rue Plumet, recognized the gate and the garden, observed the house, spied, lurked, and, a few days later, brought to Magnon, who delivers in the Rue Clocheperce, a biscuit, which Magnon transmitted to Babet’s mistress in the Salpetriere.
A biscuit, in the shady symbolism of prisons, signifies: Nothing to be done.
So that in less than a week from that time, as Brujon and Babet met in the circle of La Force, the one on his way to the examination, the other on his way from it:—
“Well?” asked Brujon, “the Rue P.?”
“Biscuit,” replied Babet.
Thus did the f?tus of crime engendered by Brujon in La Force miscarry.
This miscarriage had its consequences, however, which were perfectly distinct from Brujon’s programme.
The reader will see what they were.
Often when we think we are knotting one thread, we are tying quite another.
CHAPTER III—APPARITION TO FATHER MABEUF
Marius no longer went to see any one, but he sometimes encountered Father Mabeuf by chance.
While Marius was slowly descending those melancholy steps which may be called the cellar stairs, and which lead to places without light, where the happy can be heard walking overhead, M. Mabeuf was descending on his side.
The Flora of Cauteretz no longer sold at all.
The experiments on indigo had not been successful in the little garden of Austerlitz, which had a bad exposure.
M. Mabeuf could cultivate there only a few plants which love shade and dampness.
Nevertheless, he did not become discouraged.
He had obtained a corner in the Jardin des Plantes, with a good exposure, to make his trials with indigo “at his own expense.”
For this purpose he had pawned his copperplates of the Flora.
He had reduced his breakfast to two eggs, and he left one of these for his old servant, to whom he had paid no wages for the last fifteen months.
And often his breakfast was his only meal.
He no longer smiled with his infantile smile, he had grown morose and no longer received visitors.
Marius did well not to dream of going thither.