MONSIEUR LEBAS.
Mr. Longcluse leaned still with folded arms, and his shoulder to the
wall. The stranger, smiling and fussy, was making his way to him. There
is nothing in this man's appearance to associate him with tragic
incident or emotion of any kind. He is plainly a foreigner. He is short,
fat, middle-aged, with a round fat face, radiant with good humour and
good-natured enjoyment. His dress is cut in the somewhat grotesque style
of a low French tailor. It is not very new, and has some spots of grease
upon it. Mr. Longcluse perceives that he is now making his way towards
him. Longcluse for a moment thought of making his escape by the door,
which was close to him; but he reflected, "He is about the most innocent
and good-natured soul on earth, and why should I seem to avoid him?
Better, if he's looking for me, to let him find me, and say his say." So
Longcluse looked another way, his arms still folded, and his shoulders
against the wall as before.
"Ah, ha! Monsieur is thinking profoundly," said a gay voice in French.
"Ah, ha, ha, ha! you are surprised, Sir, to see me here. So am I, my
faith! I saw you. I never forget a face."
"Nor a friend, Lebas. Who could have imagined anything to bring you to
London?" answered Longcluse, in the same language, shaking him warmly by
the hand, and smiling down on the little man. "I shall never forget your
kindness. I think I should have died in that _illness_ but for you. How
can I ever thank you half enough?"
"And the grand secret--the political difficulty--Monsieur found it well
evaded," he said, mysteriously touching his upper lip with two fingers.
"Not all quiet yet. I suppose you thought I was in Vienna?"
"Eh? well, yes--so I did," answered Lebas, with a shrug. "But perhaps
you think this place safer."
"Hush! You'll come to me to-morrow. I'll tell you where to find me
before we part, and you'll bring your portmanteau and stay with me while
you remain in London, and the longer the better."
"Monsieur is too kind, a great deal; but I am staying for my visit to
London with my brother-in-law, Gabriel Laroque, the watchmaker. He lives
on the Hill of Ludgate, and he would be offended if I were to reside
anywhere but in his house while I stay. But if Monsieur would be so good
as to permit me to call----"
"You must come and dine with me to-morrow; I have a box for the opera.
You love music, or you are not the Pierre Lebas whom I remember sitting
with his violin at an open window. So come early, come before six; I
have ever so much to ask you. And what has brought you to London?"
"A very little business and a great deal of pleasure; but all in a
week," said the little man, with a shrug and a hearty laugh. "I have
come over here about some little things like that." He smiled archly as
he produced from his waistcoat pocket a little flat box with a glass
top, and shook something in it. "Commerce, you see. I have to see two or
three more of the London people, and then my business will have
terminated, and nothing remain for the rest of the week but
pleasure--ha, ha!"
"You left all at home well, I hope--children?" He was going to say
"Madame," but a good many years had passed.
"I have seven children. Monsieur will remember two. Three are by my
first marriage, four by my second, and all enjoy the very best health.
Three are very young--three, two, one year old; and they say a fourth is
not impossible very soon," he added archly.
Longcluse laughed kindly, and laid his hand upon his shoulder.
"You must take charge of a little present for each from me, and one for
Madame. And the old business still flourishes?"
"A thousand thanks! yes, the business is the same--the file, the chisel,
and knife." And he made a corresponding movement of his hand as he
mentioned each instrument.
"_Hush!_" said Longcluse, smiling, so that no one who did not hear him
would have supposed there was so much cautious emphasis in the word. "My
good friend, remember there are details we talk of, you and I together,
that are not to be mentioned so suitably in a place like this," and he
pressed his hand on his wrist, and shook it gently.
"A thousand pardons! I am, I know, too careless, and let my tongue too
often run before my caution. My wife, she says, 'You can't wash your
shirt but you must tell the world.' It is my weakness truly. She is a
woman of extraordinary penetration."
Mr. Longcluse glanced from the corners of his eyes about the room.
Perhaps he wished to ascertain whether his talk with this man, whom you
would have taken to be little above the level of a French mechanic, had
excited anyone's attention. But there was nothing to make him think so.
"Now, Pierre, my friend, you must win some money upon this match--do you
see? And you won't deny me the pleasure of putting down your stake for
you; and, if you win, you shall buy something pretty for Madame--and,
win or lose, I shall think it friendly of you after so many years, and
like you the better."
"Monsieur is too good," he said with effusion.
"Now look. Do you see that fat Jew over there on the front bench--you
can't mistake him--with the velvet waistcoat all in wrinkles, and the
enormous lips, who talks to every second person who passes?"
"I see perfectly, Monsieur."
"He is betting three to one upon Markham. You must take his offer, and
back Hood. I'm told _he'll_ win. Here are ten pounds, you may as well
make them thirty. Don't say a word. Our English custom is to _tip_, as
we say, our friend's sons at school, and to make presents to everybody,
as often as we like. Now there--not a word." He quietly slipped into his
hand a little rouleau of ten pounds in gold. "If you say one word you
wound me," he continued. "But, good Heaven! my dear friend, haven't you
a breast-pocket?"
"No, Monsieur; but this is quite safe. I was paid, only five minutes
before I came here, fifteen pounds in gold, a cheque of forty-four
pounds, and----"
"Be silent. You may be overheard. Speak here in a very low tone, as I
do. And do you mean to tell me that you carry all that money in your
coat pocket?"
"But in a pocket-book, Monsieur."
"All the more convenient for the _chevalier d'industrie_," said
Longcluse. "Stop. Pray don't produce it; your fate is, perhaps, sealed
if you do. There are gentlemen in this room who would hustle and rob you
in the crowd as you get out; or, failing that, who, seeing that you are
a stranger, would follow and murder you in the streets, for the sake of
a twentieth part of that sum."
"Gabriel thought there would be none here but men distinguished," said
Lebas, in some consternation.
"Distinguished by the special attention of the police, some of them,"
said Longcluse.
"Hé! that is very true," said Monsieur Lebas--"very true, I am sure of
it. See you that man there, Monsieur? Regard him for a moment. The tall
man, who leans with his shoulder to the metal pillar of the gallery. My
faith! he has observed my steps and followed me. I thought he was a spy.
But my friend he says 'No, that is a man of bad character, dismissed for
bad practices from the police.' Aha! he has watched me sideways, with
the corner of his eye. I will watch him with the corner of mine--ha,
ha!"
"It proves, at all events, Lebas, that there are people here other than
gentlemen and men of honest lives," said Longcluse.
"But," said Lebas, brightening a little, "I have this weapon," producing
a dagger from the same pocket.
"Put it back this instant. Worse and worse, my good friend. Don't you
know that just now there is a police activity respecting foreigners, and
that two have been arrested only yesterday on no charge but that of
having weapons about their persons? I don't know what the devil you had
best do."
"I can return to the Hill of Ludgate--eh?"
"Pity to lose the game; they won't let you back again," said Longcluse.
"What shall I do?" said Lebas, keeping his hand now in his pocket on his
treasure.
Longcluse rubbed the tip of his finger a little over his eyebrow,
thinking.
"Listen to me," said Longcluse, suddenly. "Is your brother-in-law here?"
"No, Monsieur."
"Well, you have some London friend in the room, haven't you?"
"One--yes."
"Only be sure he is one whom you can trust, and who has a safe pocket."
"Oh, yes, Monsieur, entirely! and I saw him place his purse so," he
said, touching his coat, over his heart, with his fingers.
"Well, now, you can't manage it here, under the gaze of the people;
but--_where_ is best? Yes--you see those two doors at opposite sides in
the wall, at the far end of the room? They open into two parallel
corridors leading to the hall, and a little way down there is a cross
passage, in the middle of which is a door opening into a smoking-room.
That room will be deserted now, and there, unseen, you can place your
money and dagger in his charge."
"Ah, thank you a hundred thousand times, Monsieur!" answered Lebas. "I
shall be writing to the Baron van Boeren to-morrow, and I will tell him
I have met Monsieur."
"Don't mind; how is the baron?" asked Longcluse.
"Very well. Beginning to be not so young, you know, and thinking of
retiring. I will tell him his work has succeeded. If he demolishes, he
also secures. If he sometimes sheds blood----"
"_Hush!_" whispered Longcluse, sternly.
"There is no one," murmured little Lebas, looking round, but dropping
his voice to a whisper. "He also saves a neck sometimes from the blade
of the guillotine."
Longcluse frowned, a little embarrassed. Lebas smiled archly. In a
moment Longcluse's impatient frown broke into a mysterious smile that
responded.
"May I say one word more, and make one request of Monsieur, which I hope
he will not think very impertinent?" asked Monsieur Lebas, who had just
been on the point of taking his leave.
"It mayn't be in my power to grant it; but you can't be what you say--I
am too much obliged to you--so speak quite freely," said Longcluse.
So they talked a little more and parted, and Monsieur Lebas went on his
way.