A NIGHT AFFRAY
The Boulevard de Belleville at nine o’clock at night presents a grim
and forbidding aspect. Long rows of flickering gaslamps cast wan
reflections over the far-stretching pavements, on which sinister
figures—drunken men, dejected-looking street-walkers and apaches—show
momentarily in the ruddy glow from the lighted window of dram-shops of
the sort Belleville used to build or American bars of a later fashion.
Along the sidewalk, with slow steps and head bent in deep thought,
moved a young man of twenty-five or so, with a fine, intelligent face,
but so preoccupied an air he scarce seemed to know where his feet
were carrying him. The man was talking to himself; anyone overhearing
his monologue, or reading, if that could be, the thoughts that surged
within, would have been amazed, perhaps terrified.
“An odd thing, life! an odd thing and a repulsive!” he was muttering.
“Six months ago, seven months at most—God knows how I have lived
meantime—I was a King, I was greeted with a string of pompous titles;
gold jingled in my pockets ... Six months ago I was on the path to
glory, the highest glory I could conceive of; was on the road, with my
old friend Juve, after saving the Sovereign of Hesse-Weimar, to share
the honour of Fantômas’ arrest! in a word, I was in the full tide of
success. Then the luck changed, that devil Fantômas eluded us—more than
that, he contrived that Juve was nabbed in place of himself. Juve in
prison, I am myself liable to arrest as an accomplice, forced to fly,
to take to hiding. The good days are over and done for me. I, ex-King
of Hesse-Weimar as I am, find myself, this eighteenth day of May,
starving, without a penny-piece in my pocket, and in imminent danger of
being gaoled ... oh, instability of human fortune!”
The young man was Jérôme Fandor. The excellent journalist’s history to
date was summed up in the few words his despair had just wrung from his
lips. By Juve’s arrest under the guise of Fantômas, and that thanks to
the deep duplicity of the Grand Duchess Alexandra, Jérôme Fandor had
been plunged into the most alarming embarrassments.
That Juve was really Fantômas, Fandor had not, of course, for one
moment admitted. To him the thing was a sheer impossibility, a
supposition not only inconceivable, but positively insane. But alas!
the conviction he held as to his friend’s innocence, and even the hope
he entertained that Juve would soon succeed in exposing the monstrous
error whereof he was the victim, did little or nothing towards
bettering Fandor’s personal predicament.
On leaving the Gare du Nord, as they were carrying off Juve to prison,
the young man had clearly realized that he must disappear unless he
wished to be clapped in gaol, too. Now it would never do for him to be
arrested, in the first place because, if still at liberty, he could
perhaps help Juve to get out of the mess, secondly, because now Juve
was under lock and key, he, Fandor, was the only one left to fight
Fantômas and paralyse the machinations of the brigand whom he still
held to be at liberty, inasmuch as he refused to believe Juve to be
Fantômas.
At the time the journalist had some money in his possession. Without a
moment’s delay he had changed his costume, and dressed out as a “ragged
rascal,” had plunged into the underworld, the social stratum where an
artful and wary fugitive can most easily cover up his tracks. This
done, he had waited events. Day followed day, however, without bringing
him any further information. Juve was in prison, the authorities still
believing him to be Fantômas, and this evening Fandor, who had hitherto
been living by casual odd jobs, was penniless and starving; what was he
to do, he asked himself.
The young man continued to follow the Boulevard de Belleville,
hesitating between the notion of going to find a night’s lodging under
the arch of a bridge and his fear of being run in by a police-patrol,
an eventuality he was far from desiring, when his attention was
attracted to a passer-by, a woman who brushed past him, walking very
fast, and rapidly outdistanced him.
“Hello!” muttered Fandor, looking after the form of the young woman,
“doubtless a Paris workgirl; now, if I were really what I seem, an
apache, I should profit by the opportunity. A little woman of this
sort would be better in bed at this time of night than out and about
on the Boulevard de Belleville! and she carries a bag in her hand—how
imprudent! I’d wager twopence something will happen to the girl.”
Jérôme Fandor possessed something of that extraordinary instinct to be
found in some veteran detectives. He seemed to have a presentiment of
crime, to divine beforehand the possibility of acts of violence; and
being a man of courage, he never failed to forestall and try to prevent
the mischief. Mechanically, Fandor followed the young woman, keeping
some distance behind, and as he went, took stock of her appearance.
Small black toque, black jacket, a flowing veil, a slim umbrella, small
shoes, a quite simple frock.
“A workgirl, a respectable workgirl, on her way home after doing a bit
of overtime ... Good!—but, well, one may be mistaken!”
The young woman Jérôme Fandor was following had just been accosted by
a street-walker, a little dark-haired creature with a touzled head,
outrageously powdered and painted, clad in the typical spotted corsage
of her class, the swaying skirts, the apron with scarlet bib, its
pockets bulging, stuffed full of silk handkerchiefs.
“Hello! hello!” thought Fandor, “so here’s my workgirl in very odd
company!—oh! dear, oh! dear.”
Next moment the young fellow darted forward at a run. From the shadow
two men had just sprung out on the women; seizing them roughly by the
arms, they were hustling and dragging them away.
The street-walker put her head down, fighting hard, but without
uttering a sound; the workwoman gave a piercing shriek for help.
To fly to the rescue, to save the woman in this perilous strait, Jérôme
Fandor’s mind was made up in an instant.
Someone else came hurrying up behind him at the same moment. A voice
shouted:
“Have at ’em, mate!”
“A gallant working man,” thought Fandor, as he caught a glimpse of a
young man running across the road dressed in a blue jacket, the sort
plumbers wear; “there’s still honest folk left who won’t let women be
molested.”
But the time for action was come; he was level by now with the two
women, who were still struggling, and cried in a peremptory voice to
the assailants:
“Let the women go!—or I strike.”
At this the two bullies, finding it was their turn to be attacked,
suddenly loosed hold of their victims and wheeling round to face Fandor
and his companion, stood on the defensive.
In an instant Jérôme Fandor realized the state of affairs; one of the
fellows was putting a hand in his pocket—his purpose was manifest.
“By God!” yelled the young man, “none of your tricks here!—or you’ll
make me angry.”
Fandor was wrestling savagely, locked in a close embrace with the
fellow who had first laid hands on the workgirl; behind him he could
hear the laboured breath and fierce cries and oaths of the working man
who had hurried to the rescue, and knew that the same battle was raging
between him and the second ruffian.
A few seconds, and all was over.
At the very moment Fandor, with a masterly trip, stretched his
adversary on the ground, where he held him down by main force, he heard
the workman give an exultant shout of victory:
“Ah, ha! I’ve got you, you hound!”
Jérôme Fandor looked round.
“Bravo, mate!” he cried, “so you’ve downed your man, too?”
A thick, hoarse, common, ignoble voice replied:
“Downed him, have I ... yes, by gosh! and what’s more I’m busy fixing
the bloke up workmanlike, I am!”
“_Workmanlike_, eh?”—and Fandor looked, and could scarcely believe his
eyes. In the calmest way possible, but with surprising dexterity, the
man he had taken for a working man had whipped a coil of rope from his
pocket and tied up the victim of his prowess.
“And now for your man!” he cried, pointing to the wretch Fandor held
captive under his knee, and who had now ceased to offer the slightest
resistance.
“Must truss him up, too—but I think we’d best not do ’em in ...”
“Well and good!” thought Fandor, “why, by Gad! this beats
cock-fighting; it’s just the finest scoop I’ve ever been in!”
The other went on: “It’s the street officers, look’ee—the swine! I just
love it when I can spoil their little game. And it’s all to the good
for our gals, eh?”
“For sure it is,” Fandor agreed, and getting to his feet, for his
companion had by this time roped up his man, too, and rolled him into
the gutter, not without planting a shrewd kick or two on his carcass,
the journalist proceeded to scrutinize his companion.
He was not a working man at all! True, he wore a plumber’s short blue
jacket, but it only needed to note his flat cap, his brown muffler, to
say nothing of the broad red sash round his waist, his velvet Zouave
breeches, his elegant, down-at-heel shoes, the whole vicious cut of the
fellow, to guess his vile trade.
“A fancy-man!” thought Fandor, “it was a fancy-man, a bully, was his
ally! ... and the two we’ve just planted on the sidewalk are purely and
simply a couple of police officers!”
But once more the other broke in on his reflections.
“’Pon my soul!” he burst out, drawing Fandor away with a friendly grip
on his shoulder, “it’s a rum business, this here! ... all the same
let’s pad the hoof, mate, the boulevard ain’t a healthy place for us
just now, if more cops should come up.”
So Fandor and his companion raced down the street at tip-top speed and
dodged in and out of a maze of dark alleys ... In five minutes the
apache called a halt.
“Easy does it now,” he panted, “they’ll never nab us here.”
And then, suddenly confidential: “You know, don’t you, why my donna
stopped the wench?”
Fandor, without showing a trace of surprise, replied emphatically in
the negative.
“Why, look’ee, old chap, I’d told Nini—Nini my doxy’s called—I’d told
her when I saw your girl go by, ‘Look, sure as my name’s Paulet, there
goes a wench who is bound to have a bit of money in her bag! ... you
go and talk to her, pitch her a tale, tell her you have a sick brat
at home, some jeremy diddler or other, eh? and entice her down a dark
street—and you and I’ll deal with the baggage.’”
Spitting on the ground to give more weight to his words, the apache
Paulet—for Paulet it was—added: “I take my oath I never dreamt she was
a night-bird, I took her for a workgirl by her duds.”
Fandor was far from liking the state of affairs, as he realized more
and more clearly the nature of the mistake made.
His companion, Paulet, evidently the “bully” of the street-walker
Nini who had accosted the young workwoman, took him, Fandor, for the
latter’s protector, while the two men, whom he had supposed to be
apaches, were just simply guardians of the peace wanting to arrest the
two women ...
To tell truth, Jérôme Fandor was half sorry he had rescued the two
unfortunates, but, for all his philosophy, he was still more amazed to
have involuntarily become the antagonist of the officers of the law and
the accomplice of a Belleville “ponce.”
“What’s dead certain,” Paulet summed up the matter, “it’s another
evening wasted, old son; our two wenches took their hook during the
fight, and I’ll wager they’ll say they’re too much knocked out of time
to put in another stroke of business to-night—above all as Nini’s none
too fond of work at the best of times. And so, hang it all! we’ll just
go drink a glass and have a snack, eh?”
This last proposal was eminently agreeable to Fandor; it was six and
thirty hours since he had broken his fast, and a supper, be it in
company of an apache or no, was so much to the good.
“The fact is,” he put in, however, for he had no desire for a quarrel
with Paulet after their liquor, “the fact is, for the moment I’m
stony-broke, cleaned out, not a brass farthing to my name.”
But Paulet was in a generous mood. “Right O!” he cried, “I’ve got the
dibs; it’s my turn this time ... to Korn’s, is it?”
For a bite of bread the unhappy young man would have gone anywhere
whatsoever. “That’s the ticket,” he agreed, at once, adding by way of
acting up to his rôle: “Maybe, we shall meet some of the boys there?”
* * * * *
At the _Rendez-vous des Aminches_, the famous tavern kept by old man
Korn, the two portals of which opened respectively on the Boulevard de
la Chapelle and the Rue de la Charbonnière, Fandor did not at first
notice any of the “boys”—or rather he made a pretence of knowing nobody.
In the low-ceiled, smoky room, where seated in state, old Korn, his
shirt sleeves rolled up to the elbows, his bald head shining in the
gaslight, was rinsing out glasses stained with the lees of red wine
in a basinful of greasy water, Fandor had recognized, with a surprise
that bordered on stupefaction, a whole gang of people whom he knew
very well. While Paulet was pushing him along towards a little table,
where sat an extraordinary-looking individual, head like a broken-down
tipstaff surmounted by a well-worn wig, nose decorated with an enormous
pair of spectacles, frowsy mutton-chop whiskers framing the face, whom
the apache greeted with a “Good-day, Moche, old cock!” Fandor had been
taking stock of the other customers.
Later on, when Paulet, after ordering a litre of “Red Seal,” bread
and cheese and Bologna sausage, was describing the late encounter
to old Moche and his meeting with the “new chum,” Fandor seized the
opportunity to scrutinize the group of persons gathered at the further
end of the boozing-ken.
So, the old gang was come together again? again the same lot haunted
Père Korn’s tavern? Fandor was dumbfounded to meet once more at the
_Rendez-vous des Aminches_ the very same ill-omened crowd of apaches
that had over and over again been mixed up in the crimes and wild
adventures of Fantômas; he could only just contrive to play up to his
assumed character and pay decent attention to what Paulet was saying,
who meantime was praising him up to the skies to M. Moche.
“Certain sure,” Paulet was asseverating, “_you’ll_ pay for drinks,
M. Moche ... yes, yes, your Honour, never say no!... But look’ee here,
that chap yonder—I don’t so much as know his blessed name—well, there’d
be something to be made out of him, eh?... There’s no flies on that
bloke, you bet. Why in two twos and a couple of shakes, crack! he’d
downed his gentleman, let me tell you that, sir. Two constables, sir,
and we chucked ’em both in the gutter. Cost me a bit of good rope, it
did—but there, I don’t care.”
M. Moche, sipping an extraordinary mixture of brandy and absinthe,
applauded Paulet’s narrative, and then turning to Fandor, asked:
“So, young sir, things going well with you, eh?” The question roused
Fandor from a deep fit of abstraction. The old fellow repeated his
remark.
“H’m, no!” Fandor confessed, “by no manner of means!... cleaned out!”
“And you can write?”
With the utmost seriousness the journalist declared he could—“and none
so badly either,” he added, “I write quite a good hand.”
For some seconds the old man sat lost in thought; then he brought out
his proposal: “Now, what would you say if I asked you to come and work
with me? I am a business agent, yes, a business agent—in _every_ kind
of business, you must understand.... In one word, if you care to sleep
to-night at my place, why, there’s a pile of papers in the garret,
where you’d be comfortable enough ... say, does that suit your book, my
lad?”
For the moment Fandor hesitated. He asked himself who and what was
this dreadful person, and for what shady work was he engaging him—on
Paulet’s recommendation, Paulet a common “bully,” and that after he
had just heard how he had been an active participator in an assault on
officers of the law.
But Paulet gave him a nudge: “Go on,” urged the young blackguard;
“you’re cleaned out, ain’t you? so you risk nothing, and you’ll rake in
the rhino scratching paper at the old put’s—he’s rolling in money, you
ask any of the blokes here.”
So it seemed old Moche, who frequented Korn’s tavern, knew all the crew
that met there.
Jérôme Fandor’s mind was made up. No matter what adventures might
befall him if he agreed to “work” for M. Moche, he ought by no means to
neglect the opportunity thus offered for renewing his observation of
the machinations of this amiable confraternity.
“M’sieur Moche,” he gave his answer, purposely exaggerating his vulgar
trick of speech, “as you might say, sir, your offer does me proud—and
for that there sleeping in your garret, I won’t say no; for all it’s
May time, it’s none too cosy, it ain’t, dossing under the stars.”
M. Moche, who wore an enormous great ring on his finger hammered
noisily on the zinc-topped table.
“Korn,” he commanded, “another go of the same all round; it’s my treat,
I’ve just enlisted a new clerk.”