PREPARATIONS.
The Chouette returned to the room, bringing the cigars with her.
"I don't think it rains now," said Rodolph, lighting his cigar. "Suppose
we go and fetch the coach ourselves,--it will stretch our legs."
"What! not rain!" replied the Schoolmaster; "are you blind? Do you think
I will expose Finette to the chance of catching cold, and exposing her
precious life, and spoiling her new shawl?"
"You are right, old fellow; it rains cats and dogs. Let the servant come
and we can pay him, and desire him to fetch us a coach," replied
Rodolph.
"That's the most sensible thing you have said yet, young fellow; we may
go and look about as we seek the Allée des Veuves."
The servant entered, and Rodolph gave her five francs.
"Ah, sir, it is really an imposition,--I cannot allow it," exclaimed the
Schoolmaster.
"Oh, all right; your turn next time."
"Be it so, but on condition that I shall offer you something, by and by,
in a little cabaret in the Champs Elysées,--a capital little snuggery
that I know of."
"Just as you like."
The servant paid, and they left the room.
Rodolph wished to go last, out of politeness to the Chouette, but the
Schoolmaster would not allow it, and followed close on his heels,
watching his every movement.
The master of the house kept a wine-shop also, and amongst other
drinkers, a charcoal-man, with his face blackened and his large hat
flapping over his eyes, was paying his "shot" at the bar when these
three personages appeared. In spite of the close lookout of the
Schoolmaster and the one-eyed hag, Rodolph, who walked before the
hideous pair, exchanged a rapid and unperceived glance with Murphy as he
got into the hackney-coach.
"Which way am I to go, master?" asked the driver.
Rodolph replied, in a loud voice:
"Allée des--"
"Des Acacias, in the Bois de Boulogne," cried the Schoolmaster,
interrupting him. Then he added, "And we will pay you well, coachman."
The door was shut.
"What the devil made you bawl out which way we were going before these
people?" said the Schoolmaster. "If the thing were found out to-morrow,
we might be traced and discovered. Young man,--young man, you are very
imprudent!"
The coach was already in motion. Rodolph answered:
"True; I did not think of that. But with my cigar I shall smoke you like
herrings; let us have a window open."
And, joining the action to the words, Rodolph, with much dexterity, let
fall outside the window the morsel of paper, folded very small, on which
he had hastily written a few words in pencil under his blouse. The
Schoolmaster's glance was so quick, that, in spite of the calmness of
Rodolph's features, the ruffian detected some expression of triumph,
for, putting his head out of the window, he called out to the driver:
"Whip behind! whip behind! there is some one getting up at the back of
the coach!"
The coach stopped, and the driver, standing on his seat, looked back,
and said:
"No, master, there is no one there."
"_Parbleu!_ I will look myself," replied the Schoolmaster, jumping out
into the street.
Not seeing any person or anything (for since Rodolph had dropped the
paper the coach had gone on several yards), the Schoolmaster thought he
was mistaken.
"You will laugh at me," he said, as he resumed his seat, "but I don't
know why I thought some one was following us."
The coach at this moment turned round a corner, and Murphy, who had not
lost sight of it with his eyes, and had seen Rodolph's manoeuvre, ran
and picked up the little note, which had fallen into a crevice between
two of the paving-stones.
At the end of a quarter of an hour the Schoolmaster said to the driver
of the hackney-coach:
"My man, we have changed our minds; drive to the Place de la Madelaine."
Rodolph looked at him with astonishment.
"All right, young man; from hence we may go to a thousand different
places. If they seek to track us hereafter, the deposition of the
coachman will not be of the slightest service to them."
At the moment when the coach was approaching the barrier, a tall man,
clothed in a long white riding-coat, with his hat drawn over his eyes,
and whose complexion appeared of a deep brown, passed rapidly along the
road, stooping over the neck of a high, splendid hunter, which trotted
with extraordinary speed.
"A good horse and a good rider," said Rodolph, leaning forward to the
door of the coach and following Murphy (for it was he) with his eyes.
"What a pace that stout man goes! Did you see him?"
"_Ma foi!_ he passed so very quickly," said the Schoolmaster, "that I
did not remark him."
Rodolph calmly concealed his satisfaction; Murphy had, doubtless,
deciphered the almost hieroglyphic characters of the note which he had
dropped, and which had escaped the vigilance of the Schoolmaster.
Certain that the coach was not followed, he had become more assured, and
desirous of imitating the Chouette, who slept, or rather pretended to
sleep, he said to Rodolph:
"Excuse me, young man, but the motion of the coach always produces a
singular effect on me,--it sends me off to sleep like a child."
The ruffian, under the guise of assumed sleep, thought to examine
whether the physiognomy of his companion betrayed any emotion; but
Rodolph was on his guard, and replied:
"I rose so early that I feel sleepy, and will have a nap, too."
He shut his eyes, and very soon the hard breathing of the Schoolmaster
and the Chouette, who snored in chorus, so completely deceived Rodolph,
that, thinking his companions sound asleep, he half opened his eyes. The
Schoolmaster and the Chouette, in spite of their loud snoring, had their
eyes open, and were exchanging some mysterious signs by means of their
fingers curiously placed or bent in the palms of their hands. In an
instant this mute language ceased. The brigand no doubt perceived, by
some almost imperceptible sign, that Rodolph was not asleep, and said,
in a laughing tone:
"Ah, ah, comrade! what, you were trying your friends, were you?"
"That can't astonish you, who sleep with your eyes open."
"I, who--That's different, young man; I am a somnambulist."
The hackney-coach stopped in the Place de la Madelaine. The rain had
ceased for a moment, but the clouds, driven by the violence of the wind,
were so dark and so low, that it was almost night in appearance.
Rodolph, the Chouette, and the Schoolmaster went towards the Cours la
Reine.
"Young man, I have an idea, which is not a bad one," said the robber.
"What is it?"
"To ascertain if all that you have told us respecting the interior of
the house in the Allée des Veuves is true."
"You surely will not go there now, under any circumstances? It would
awaken suspicion."
"I am not such a flat as that, young fellow; but why have I a wife whose
name is Finette?"
The Chouette drew up her head.
"Do you see her, young man? Why, she looks like a war-horse when he
hears the blast of the trumpet!"
"You mean to send her as a lookout?"
"Precisely so."
"No. 17, Allée des Veuves, isn't it, my man?" cried the Chouette,
impatiently. "Make yourself easy: I have but one eye, but that is a good
one."
"Do you see, young man,--do you see she is all impatience to be at
work?"
"If she manages cleverly to get into the house, I do not think your idea
a bad one."
"Take the umbrella, _fourline_; in half an hour I will be here again,
and you shall see what I will do," said the Chouette.
"One moment, Finette; we are going down to the Bleeding Heart,--only two
steps from here. If the little Tortillard (cripple) is there, you had
better take him with you; he will remain outside on the watch whilst you
go inside the house."
"You are right,--little Tortillard is as cunning as a fox; he is not ten
years of age, and yet it was he who the other day--"
A signal from the Schoolmaster interrupted the Chouette.
"What does the 'Bleeding Heart' mean? It is an odd sign for a cabaret,"
asked Rodolph.
"You must complain to the landlord."
"What is his name?"
"The landlord of the Bleeding Heart?"
"Yes."
"What is that to you? He never asks the names of his customers."
"But, still--"
"Call him what you like,--Peter, Thomas, Christopher, or Barnabas,--he
will answer to any and all. But here we are, and it's time we were, for
the rain is coming down again in floods; and how the river roars! It has
almost become a torrent! Why, look at it! Two more days of such rain,
and the water will overflow the arches of the bridge."
"You say that we are _there_, but where the devil is the cabaret? I do
not see any house here."
"Certainly not, if you look round about you."
"Where should I look, then?"
"At your feet."
"At my feet?"
"Yes."
"And whereabouts?"
"Here,--look; do you see the roof? Mind, and don't step upon it."
Rodolph had not remarked one of those subterraneans which used to be
seen, some years since, in certain spots in the Champs Elysées, and
particularly near the Cours la Reine.
A flight of steps, cut out of the damp and greasy ground, led to the
bottom of this sort of deep ditch, against one end of which, cut
perpendicularly, leaned a low, mean, dilapidated hovel; its roof,
covered with moss-covered tiles, was scarcely so high as the ground on
which Rodolph was standing; two or three out-buildings, constructed of
worm-eaten planks, serving as cellar, wood-house, and rabbit-hutches,
surrounded this wretched den.
A narrow path, which extended along this ditch, led from the stairs to
the door of the hut; the rest of the ground was concealed under a mass
of trellis-work, which sheltered two rows of clumsy tables, fastened to
the ground. A worn-out iron sign swung heavily backwards and forwards on
its creaking hinges, and through the rust that covered it might still be
seen a red heart pierced with an arrow. The sign was supported by a post
erected above this cave,--this real human burrow.
A thick and moist fog was added to the rain as night approached.
"What think you of this hôtel, young fellow?" inquired the Schoolmaster.
"Why, thanks to the torrents that have fallen for the last fortnight, it
must be deliciously fresh. But come on."
"One moment,--I wish to know if the landlord is in. Hark!"
The ruffian then, thrusting his tongue forcibly against his palate,
produced a singular noise,--a sort of guttural sound, loud and
lengthened, something like P-r-r-r-r-r-r-r!!! A similar note came from
the depths of the hovel.
"He's there," said the Schoolmaster. "Pardon me, young man,--respect to
the ladies,--allow the Chouette to pass first; I follow you. Mind how
you come,--it's slippery."