_Wherein the Widow Snacheur comes into her Fortune_
The chill murk that swept up the narrow cobbled street in the pitchy
night, swishing long wreathes of fog across the rare lamp-light, told
that the river lay close at hand.
It was a bitter night; and the winds buffeted out of unseen blacknesses
and squealed in a riot of unkindnesses, smiting the face of things and
falling away sullenly to smite again; the dingy alley creaked with the
complainings of shutters and lamps that strained and jolted in their
rusty hinges and grumbled in their iron sockets.
A group of ill-looking fellows that whispered on the kerb under a
wall-lamp showed shadowy dark and nearly as intangible and dim in the
murky gloom as the ghostly shadows that the few flickering lamps sent
stealthily creeping across the narrow cobbled way to join other shadows
where lurked the vindictive gusts about the edges of the moaning
blackness.
A lilt of song and the clack of brisk footsteps came down the alley.
The muttering group under the lamp turned towards the sound; their
anxious ears caught the refrain of one of Aristide Bruant’s obscene
prison songs; relief showed on the coarse faces.
“Here comes Gavroche,” said one.
And Gavroche came.
He glanced sharply at them all.
His was the master spirit; yet none of these men were easily given to
obedience.
He laughed:
“It is as I thought,” said he. “Comrade Hiéne is pale--his hand
perspires--hold out your hand, Hiéne.”
The sullen young giant put out his great hand, palm upwards, and it
smoked in the keen air of the night.
They all turned and stared at the tall lank youth, and his sullen face
had an ugly look, though it was of the pallor of death.
“I have drawn the lot to strike,” he said, scowling. “I have never
killed--and I do not like it----”
Gavroche laughed:
“Afraid to kill--even an old woman!” he sneered.
A dark look came to Hiéne’s sombre eyes:
“And yet not afraid,” said he. “But ashamed--to kill an old woman....
There is a scoundrel I know that I am not afraid to kill.”
Gavroche shrugged his shoulders:
“And this for an Overman!... Tshah!” He turned to the others: “I had
foreseen this,” he said. “I will do the masterwork.” And he added with
contempt: “He shall stand at the door where the girl sleeps--for the
old fool locks up the girl at night--but the moment we leave, this
fellow that fears to kill a woman must unlock the door. Suspicion will
fall on the girl.” He turned again to the scowling Hiéne. “Hast thou
the courage to throw suspicion, comrade?” he sneered.
The sullen young workman made no sign.
One of the others moved uneasily:
“Good comrades must not quarrel,” said he.
Gavroche laughed:
“We must forestall danger,” he said.
Gavroche turned to the pale young giant:
“Mark you, comrade,” said he--“if the girl rouse, thou must into the
room and--kill.”... He smiled evilly. “It is all we ask of thee.”
Suddenly he stepped close up to him:
“By thunder!” said he--“I think this fellow is too weak a fool for
men’s work. We had best leave him out.”
The huge young fellow met his regard unflinching, with pale set face:
“Where Gavroche goes to-night I go,” said he--“if he and I hang for it.
But I do no killing.”
There was a long silence between the two men.
Gavroche shrugged his shoulders; turned on his heels: “We need have no
fear, comrades; the Republic will slit his neck otherwise,” said he.
“Come.”
The widow Snacheur rose from her chair, looked stealthily about her,
lit a second candle-end, and went a-tiptoe to the door of the girl’s
room. She listened, cautiously turned the handle of the door to see
that the lock held, and returned to her table.
She changed her seat so that she could see, from where she sat, the
door into the maid’s room.
She brought out a bag of loose silver from a pocket in her petticoat,
poured the contents upon a piece of felt to prevent its making a noise,
and counting it into tens she made the money up into rolls with some
scraps of newspaper.
There was a strange look upon her withered wizened features in the
doing--it might once have been a smile, it was now something between
suspicion and greed and satisfaction. The gaunt fingers counted the
rolls.
Thou poor fool! what avails thee now, or has ever availed, or shall
ever avail to thy life’s enrichment, this avid culture of thy sordid
isolated self? Hast thou found life in gathering gold, or in thy
wilful cruelties to the weak, or in hate as a carpet to thy mean
wayfaring, or in the lip’s protruded contempt upon thee in thy walks
abroad? God! to spend thy nine and seventy years upon _this_ journey
and upon _this_ travail!
Hearest thou no stealthy fumblings at the locks of thy outer door?
Thy gold then hath not kept thee the alert hearing in thy ears, nor
won thee the willing service of the hearing of others! And that poor
half-famished slave-girl of thine, with her fifteen years crying out
for bread, she, whom thou didst sting with thy bitter coward tongue but
this morning--she sleeps in her chill room, heavy with the fatigue of
thy overtaxings put upon a frail ill-nourished body; she lies mute with
the numbing weariness of hunger--how shall _she_ serve thee with the
watch-dog ear of affection to guard thee from harm?
There is a stealthy hand at thy door, and the latchet turns slowly
within the wards of thy locks.
A messenger stands without, and his summons none may question--thou
must needs make thy further journeyings without thy dingy hoard,
without purse or scrip, by thy lank lean shivering self--alone.
Ay, at last thy ears warn!
For a moment the old woman turned, and gazed with eyes of terror at
the coming of sudden death--and her tongue went dry in her mouth--no
sound. At the next there fell the weighted sand-bag swung by Gavroche’s
skilled hand of villainy, aimed by his murderous eyes, and struck the
ancient skull, sending the old woman’s life jigging into the shabby
room and out into the void; and at the stroke the body, half-risen from
the chair, fell across the table amongst her moneys, sprawled ungainly
midst the coins before it further fell, and sideways lurched in a dead
huddle upon the floor.
To the door of the sleeping girl stepped Hiéne, and stood, tall,
slouching, pallid of countenance. And he so stood whilst they all
searched stealthily every nook and cranny of the room.
Gavroche rose from his stooping survey of the fallen woman, and glanced
at a little mirror he held in his hand. There was no damp of breath
upon it.
“That is the end of _her_ romance,” said he.
He laughed low. He was a man that loved his joke.
He signed to the others to bring their plunder; and as they came
empty-handed except for papers, he uttered a harsh dog’s laugh that
showed embarrassment.
Save for the silver that lay about, the rest was the scrip of the
widow’s investments! Of considerable value, but--useless--dangerous to
them.
“Curse it!” said Gavroche. “She had a banking account.”
There was a low whistle from the fellow who barred the entrance at the
outer door.
“Quick!” said Gavroche. “Pocket what there is of money, and we will
divide later.”
He turned to Hiéne, where he stood before the door of the sleeping girl:
“And you,” said he--“unlock that door, carefully.”
Hiéne scowled sullenly, standing pale in the candle’s guttering light;
and they saw that he held a revolver in his hand:
“Comrades,” said he--“I am the last to go--and this door remains
locked.”
Gavroche shrugged his shoulders:
“It does not matter overmuch,” he said.
Hiéne smiled grimly.
Gavroche moved towards the open door:
“Come, comrades,” he said airily, putting aside a scowl that had
threatened--“we must be going. That jabbering moralist over the water
must be nearing the end of his garrulous harangue. We had better all be
seen there.”
When they had all gone, Hiéne let himself out of the door into the
courtyard, and stealthily closed the gate into the street.
The door into the girl’s room remained locked....
And it was so found in the early morning when the police broke into the
place, led by the curious concierge, and roused the sleeping girl.