"Pay for a drink, and I'll listen to you," said Hogshead Geoffroy to his
sister.
After numerous visits to the many bars and drinking saloons that
surround the markets, they had finally gone for a late supper into the
Saint-Anthony's Pig, the most popular tavern in the neighbourhood,
Geoffroy having reconciled himself to waiting for the result of the
examination, which would not be announced until the following day.
* * * * *
A new and original attraction had been stationed outside the
Saint-Anthony's Pig for the last few days. After the formal enquiries
succeeding his discovery of the drowned body in the river, Bouzille had
come to Paris to see the Eiffel Tower. He had met with but a week's
delay in his itinerary, having been locked up for that time at Orleans
for some trifling misdemeanour.
On entering the capital, Bouzille's extraordinary equipage had caused
quite a sensation, and as the worthy fellow, with utter disregard of the
heavy traffic in the city, had careered about in it through the most
crowded streets, he had very soon been run in and taken to the nearest
lock-up. His train had been confiscated for forty-eight hours, but as
there was nothing really to be objected against the tramp, he had merely
been requested to make himself scarce, and not to do it again.
Bouzille did not quite know what to make of it all. But while he was
towing his two carriages behind his tricycle towards the Champ-de-Mars,
from which point he would at last be able to contemplate the Eiffel
Tower, he had fallen in with the editor of the _Auto_, to whom, in
exchange for a bottle of wine at the next café, he had ingenuously
confided his story. A sensational article about the globe-trotting tramp
appeared in the next number of that famous sporting journal, and
Bouzille woke to find himself famous. The next thing that happened was
that François Bonbonne, the proprietor of the Saint-Anthony's Pig,
shrewdly foreseeing that this original character with his remarkable
equipage would furnish a singular attraction, engaged him to station
himself outside the establishment from eleven to three every night, in
return for his board and lodging and a salary of five francs a day.
It need not be said that Bouzille had closed with the offer. But getting
tired of cooling his heels on the doorstep, he had gradually taken to
leaving his train on the pavement and himself going down into the
basement hall, where he generously returned his five francs every night
to the proprietor, in exchange for potations to that amount.
* * * * *
In the basement of the Saint-Anthony's Pig the atmosphere was steadily
getting cloudier, and the noise louder. The time was about a quarter to
two. The "swells," and the young men about town who went to have a bowl
of onion soup at the popular café because that was the latest correct
thing to do, had withdrawn. The few pale and shabby dancers had given
their show, and in another ten minutes, when the wealthy customers had
departed, the supper room would resume its natural appearance and
everybody would be at home. François Bonbonne had just escorted the last
toffs up the narrow corkscrew staircase that led from the basement to
the ground-floor, and now he stood, his stout person entirely filling
the only exit, unctuously suggesting that perhaps somebody would like to
give an order for a hot wine salad.
Berthe was sitting in a corner beside her brother, whom the warmth of
the room and his numerous potations had rendered drowsy, and thinking it
an opportune moment to tell him of her scheme, before he became
talkative or quarrelsome, she began to explain.
"There's nothing much to do, but I want a strong man like you."
"Any barrels to roll anywhere?" he enquired in a thick voice.
Berthe shook her head, her glance meanwhile resting mechanically on a
small young man with a budding beard and a pale face, who had just taken
a seat opposite her and was timidly ordering a portion of sauerkraut.
"I want some bars removed from a window; they are iron bars set in
stone, but the stone is worn and the bars are very rusty, and anybody
with a little strength could wrench them out."
"And that's all?" Geoffroy enquired suspiciously.
"Yes, that's all."
"Then I shall be very glad to help you: I suppose it will be worth
something, won't it?" He broke off short, noticing that a man sitting
close by seemed to be listening attentively to the conversation. Berthe
followed his eyes, and then turned with a smile to her brother.
"That's all right; don't mind; I know that man," and in proof of the
statement she held out a friendly hand to the individual who seemed to
be spying upon them. "Good evening again, M. Julot: how are you, since I
saw you just now? I did not notice you were here."
Julot shook hands with her and without evincing any further interest in
her, went on with the conversation he was having with his own companion,
a clean-shaven fellow.
"Go on, Billy Tom," he said in low tones. "Tell me what has happened."
"Well, there has been the devil to pay at the Royal Palace, owing to
that----accident, you know; of course I was not mixed up in it in any
way: I'm only interpreter, and I stick to my own job. But three weeks
after the affair, Muller was suddenly kicked out, owing to the door
having been opened for the chap who worked the robbery."
"Muller, Muller?" said Julot, seeming to be searching his memory. "Who
is Muller?"
"Why, the watchman on the second floor."
"Oh, ah, yes; and who turned him out?"
"I think his name is Juve."
"Oh--ho!" Julot muttered to himself. "I thought as much!"
There was a noise at the entrance of the hall, and down the corkscrew
staircase came two people who, judging by the greeting they received,
were very popular: Ernestine, a well-known figure, and Mealy Benoît, who
was very drunk.
Benoît lurched from one table to another, leaning on every head and pair
of shoulders that came his way, and reached an empty seat on a lounge
into which he crushed, half squashing the pale young man with the
budding beard. The lad made no protest, seeming to be afraid of his
neighbour's bulk, but merely wriggled sideways and tried to give the
new-comer all the room he wanted. Benoît did not seem even to notice the
humble little fellow, but Ernestine took pity on him and assured him
that she would look after him.
"All right, sonny," she said, "Mealy won't squash you; and if he tries
any of his games on you, Ernestine will look after you." She took his
head between her two hands and kissed his forehead affectionately,
ignoring Mealy Benoît's angry protests. "He's a dear little chap: I like
him," she said to the company at large. "What's your name, deary?"
The boy blushed to the tips of his ears.
"Paul," he murmured.
But François Bonbonne the proprietor, with his usual keen eye to
business, arrived just then and set down before Mealy Benoît the famous
hot wine salad of which he had spoken before. Behind Bonbonne came
Bouzille, who had left his turn-out on the pavement and come down into
the supper room to eat and drink his five francs, and more if credit
could be got.
Benoît caught sight of Hogshead Geoffroy and immediately offered to
clink glasses with him; he pushed a glass towards him, inviting him to
dip it with the rest into the steaming bowl; but Geoffroy was warming up
under the influence of alcohol, and broke into a sudden flame of wrath
at sight of Mealy Benoît. If Benoît should be given the first place, it
would be a rank injustice, he reflected, for he, Geoffroy, was most
certainly the stronger man. And besides, the sturdy Hogshead was
beginning to wonder whether his rival might not have devised an odious
plot against him and put the famous piece of orange-peel upon the track,
but for which Geoffroy would have won hands down. So Geoffroy, very
drunk, offered Benoît, who was no whit more sober, the gross affront of
refusing to clink glasses with him!
"Why, it's you!" exclaimed Bouzille, in ringing tones of such glad
surprise that everybody turned round to see whom he was addressing.
Julot and Berthe looked with the rest.
"Why, it's the green man of just now," said the asylum nurse to her
companion, and he assented, moodily enough.
"Yes, it's him right enough."
Bouzille took no notice of the attention he had provoked, and did not
seem to notice that the green man appeared to be anything but pleased at
having been recognised.
"I've seen you before, I know," he went on; "where have I met you?"
The green man did not answer; he affected to be engrossed in a most
serious conversation with the friend he had brought with him into the
supper room, a shabby individual who carried a guitar. But Bouzille was
not to be put off, and suddenly he exclaimed, with perfect indifference
to what his neighbours might think:
"I know: you are the tramp who was arrested with me down there in Lot!
The day of that murder--you know--the murder of the Marquise de
Langrune!"
Bouzille in his excitement had caught the green man by the sleeve, but
the green man impatiently shook him off, growling angrily.
"Well, and what about it?"
* * * * *
For some minutes now Hogshead Geoffroy and Mealy Benoît had been
exchanging threatening glances. Geoffroy had given voice to his
suspicions, and kind friends had not failed to report his words to
Benoît. Inflamed with drink as they were, the two men were bound to come
to blows before long, and a dull murmur ran through the room heralding
the approaching altercation. Berthe, anxious on her brother's behalf,
and a little frightened on her own, did all she could to induce
Geoffroy to come away, but even though she promised to pay for any
number of drinks elsewhere, he refused to budge from the bench where he
was sitting hunched up in a corner.
* * * * *
When at length he got rid of Bouzille and his exasperating garrulity,
the green man resumed his conversation with his friend with the guitar.
"It's rather odd that he hasn't a trace of accent," the latter remarked.
"Oh, it's nothing for a fellow like Gurn to speak French like a
Frenchman," said the green man in a low tone; then he stopped nervously.
Ernestine was walking about among the company, chatting to one and
another and getting drinks, and he fancied that she was listening to
what he said.
But another duologue rose audible in another part of the room.
"If the gentleman would like to show his strength there's someone ready
to take him on."
Hogshead Geoffroy had thrown down his glove!
Silence fell upon the room. It was Mealy Benoît's turn to answer. At
that precise moment, however, Benoît was draining the salad bowl. He
slowly swallowed the last of the red liquid--one can't do two things at
once--laid the bowl down, empty, on the table, and in thundering,
dignified tones demanded another, wiped his lips on the back of his
sleeve, and turned his huge head towards the corner where Geoffroy was
hunched up, saying, "Will the gentleman kindly repeat his last remark?"
* * * * *
Ernestine moved furtively to Julot's side, and affecting to be
interested only in the argument going on between Geoffroy and Benoît,
said without looking at him:
"The pale man, with the greenish complexion, said to the man with the
guitar, 'It's he, all right, because of the burn in the palm of his
hand.'"
Julot choked back an oath, and instinctively clenched his fist, but
Ernestine already had moved on and was huskily chaffing the young man
with the budding beard. Julot sat with sombre face and angry eyes, only
replying in curt monosyllables to the occasional remarks of his next
neighbour, Billy Tom. Marie, the waitress, was passing near him and he
signed to her to stop.
"Say, Marie," he said, nodding towards the window that was behind him,
"what does that window open on to?"
The girl thought for a moment.
"On to the cellar," she said; "this hall is in the basement."
"And the cellar," Julot went on; "how do you get out of that?"
"You can't," the servant answered; "there's no door; you have to come
through here."
Momentarily becoming more uneasy, Julot scrutinised the long tunnel of a
room at the extreme end of which he was sitting; there was only one
means of egress, up the narrow corkscrew staircase leading to the
ground-floor, and at the very foot of that staircase was the table
occupied by the green man and the man with the guitar.
* * * * *
A plate aimed by Hogshead Geoffroy at Mealy Benoît crashed against the
opposite wall. Everyone jumped to his feet, the women screaming, the men
swearing. The two market porters stood confronting one another, Hogshead
Geoffroy brandishing a chair, Benoît trying to wrench the marble top
from a table to serve as a weapon. The mêlée became general, plates
smashing on the floor, and dinner things flying towards the ceiling.
Suddenly a shot rang out, but quickly though it had been fired, the
green man and the man with the guitar had seen who fired it. For the
last few minutes, indeed, these two mysterious individuals had never
taken their eyes off Julot.
Julot, whom Berthe had supposed from his appearance to be an honest
cattle-drover, was undoubtedly a wonderful shot. Having observed that
the room was lighted by a single chandelier composed of three electric
lamps, and that the current was supplied by only two wires running along
the cornice, Julot had taken aim at the wires and cut them clean in two
with a single shot!
Immediately following upon the shot, the room was plunged into absolute
darkness. A perfectly incredible uproar ensued, men and women struggling
together and shouting and trampling one another down, and crockery and
dinner things crashing down from the side-boards and tables on to the
floor.
Above the din a sudden hoarse cry of pain rang out, "Help!" and
simultaneously Berthe, who was lost among the mob, heard a muttered
exclamation in her ear and felt two hands groping all over her body as
if trying to identify her. The young nurse was the only woman in the
room wearing a hat. Half swooning with terror, she felt herself picked
up and thrust upon a bench, and then someone whispered in a vinous
voice: "You are not to help no. 25, the Rambert woman, to escape."
Berthe was so utterly astonished that she overcame her fright
sufficiently to stammer out a question:
"But what--but who----?"
Lower still, but yet more peremptorily, the voice became audible again.
"Fantômas forbids you to do it! And if you disobey, you die!"
The nurse dropped back upon the bench half fainting with fright, and the
row in the supper room grew worse. Three men were fighting now, the
green man being at grips with two at once. The green man did not seem to
feel the blows rained on him, but with a strength that was far beyond
the ordinary he gripped hold of an arm and slid his hands along the
sleeve, never letting go of the arm, until he reached the wrist, when
wrenching open the clenched fist he slipped his fingers on to the palm
of the hand. A little exclamation of triumph escaped him, and
simultaneously the owner of the hand uttered an exclamation of pain, for
the green man's fingers had touched a still raw wound upon the hollow of
the palm.
But at that instant his leg was caught between two powerful knees, and
the slightest pressure more would have broken it. The green man was
forced to let go the hand he held; he fell to the ground with his
adversary upon him, and for a moment thought that he was lost. But at
the same moment his adversary let go of him in turn, having been taken
by surprise by yet a third combatant who joined in the fray and
separated the first two, devoting himself to a furious assault upon the
man whom the green man had tried to capture. The green man passed a
rapid hand over the individual who had just rescued him from the fierce
assault, and was conscious of a shock of surprise as he identified the
young man with the budding beard; thereupon he collared him firmly by
the neck and did not let him go.
* * * * *
In the crush the combatants had been forced towards the staircase, and
at this narrow entrance into the hall bodies were being trampled
underfoot and piercing screams rent the air. François Bonbonne had not
made the least attempt to interfere. He knew exactly the proper
procedure when trouble of this sort broke out, and he had gone to the
corner of the street and sent the constable on duty there to the nearest
police station for help. Directly the first gendarmes arrived, François
Bonbonne led them behind the counter in the shop and showed them the
fire hose; with the skill acquired by long practice, they rapidly
unrolled the pipe, introduced it into the narrow mouth of the staircase,
turned on the tap, and proceeded to drench everybody in the supper room
below.
The unexpected sousing pulled the combatants up short, separated all the
champions, and drove the howling and shrieking mob back to the far end
of the room. The operation lasted for a good five minutes, and when the
gendarmes considered that the customers of the Saint-Anthony's Pig were
sufficiently quieted down, the sergeant threw the light of a lantern,
which the proprietor obligingly had ready for him, over the supper room,
and peremptorily ordered the company to come up, one by one.
Seeing that resistance would be futile, the company obeyed. As they
slowly emerged at the top of the corkscrew staircase, meek and subdued,
the gendarmes at the top arrested them, slipped handcuffs on them, and
sent them off in couples to the station. When the sergeant assumed that
every one had come out, he went down into the supper room, just to make
sure that nobody was still hiding there. But the room was not quite
empty. One unfortunate man was lying on the floor, bathed in his own
blood. It was the man with the guitar, and a knife had been driven
through his breast!
* * * * *
The couple consisting of the green man and the young man with the
budding beard, of whom his companion had never once let go since
identifying him during the fight in the supper room, were taken to the
station. The clerk, who was taking down the names of the prisoners, with
difficulty repressed an exclamation of surprise when the green man
produced an identification card, and whispered a few words in his ear.
"Release that gentleman at once," said the clerk. "With regard to the
other----"
"With regard to the other," the green man broke in, "kindly release him
too. I want to keep him with me."
The clerk bowed in consent, and both men were immediately released from
their handcuffs. The young man stared in astonishment at the individual
who a minute before had been his companion in bonds, and was about to
thank him, but the other grasped him firmly by the wrist, as though to
warn him of the impossibility of flight, and led him out of the police
station. In the street they met the sergeant with a gendarme bringing in
the unfortunate man with the guitar, who was just breathing, and in whom
the officials had recognised a detective-inspector. Without letting go
of the youth, the green man bent forward to the sergeant and had a brief
but animated conversation with him.
"Yes, sir, that's all," the sergeant said respectfully; "I haven't
anyone else."
The green man stamped his foot in wrath.
"Good Lord! Gurn has got away!"
* * * * *
Towards the rue Montmartre the green man rapidly dragged his companion,
who was trembling in every limb, and utterly at a loss to guess what the
future held in store for him. Suddenly the green man halted, just under
the light of a street lamp outside the church of Saint-Eustache. He
stood squarely in front of his prisoner and looked him full in the
eyes.
"I am Juve," he said, "the detective!" and as the young man stared at
him in silent dismay, Juve went on, emphasising each of his words, and
with a sardonic smile flickering over his face. "And you, Mademoiselle
Jeanne--you are Charles Rambert!"