SHADY SCHEMES
Elbows resting on the hand-rail of the bridge, a man stood gazing down
pensively at the flowing water.
It was M. Moche. The old man was even dirtier than usual, his hat
crammed down over his ears—a huge topper, all dinted and dulled; his
brow was wrinkled in deep and serious thought. It was eleven in the
forenoon when the usurer of the Rue Saint-Fargeau had taken up his
position on the foot-bridge thrown across the narrow sluice-gates
separating the basin of La Villette from the Canal de l’Ourcq and
connecting the two sections of the Rue de Crimée. Heedless of anything
passing about him, M. Moche looked down at the current, in which the
man’s common, cunning features were reflected as in a mirror. But at
the same time he kept ever and anon casting furtive glances towards the
bottom of the street.
At last the old fellow shook off his lethargy. From the far end of the
Rue de Crimée he had caught sight of a man dressed in a long white
blouse who was pushing before him a wheel-barrow loaded up with a
workman’s tools. The barrow bumped up and down over the uneven pavement
as the man advanced slowly along the road, for the load seemed a heavy
one. Still, in course of time the modest vehicle reached the bridge.
The workman let go the handles, mopped his brow—it was a blazing hot
day—and then, after a glance round, he saw M. Moche and stepped up to
him.
It was plain enough the two had met by appointment, for they seemed
in no way surprised at the _rencontre_. The pair began talking in low
tones:
“You were waiting for me, M. Moche?”
“Why, yes, I was waiting for you, waiting without much hoping you’d
come; still I waited.”
The workman mopped his forehead again, muttering in a weary voice:
“I’ve had the devil’s own job of it this morning, I can tell you!”
“Poor fellow!” observed Moche, a note of ironical commiseration in his
voice. Then the old business man went on: “It’s uncommon seldom, all
the same, one sees you sweating yourself; when a man has a ‘bee in his
bonnet’ like you ...”
The workman laughed:
“Say a hiveful of ’em, Père Moche, and you’ll be nearer truth. God! I
can’t deny it, hard work’s not my strong point.”
But old Moche, suddenly putting on an air of sternness and anxiety,
questioned:
“Tell me, Paulet, how goes the work in question?”
The young apache, who for the nonce, bore the stamp of the most
respectable of working men, replied eagerly:
“The work’s done, M. Moche. Oh! I give you my word I’ve put in a
desperate hard four hours over the job; I’ve never in all my life done
such a day’s work for the masters. True,” added the pale-faced young
loafer, “it was no ordinary job I had on.... Just you think ...”
But Moche interrupted him:
“That’s all right, that’s all right, Paulet; no need to go gassing here
about matters that concern only you and me. You shall tell me the whole
story by-and-by if things have gone well. Come along and have a glass
with me.”
“And my barrow?” queried Paulet.
“Bah! leave it on the sidewalk; no fear anybody’ll come and pinch it.
And besides, if they did make off with it, I guess you’d never care;
for you strike me as the very image of a workman out-of-work.”
A good quarter of an hour later the two men were coming out of the
dram-shop, looking at once well satisfied and mysterious.
The barrow was still there. Paulet buckled to again and towed it slowly
up the slope of the Rue de Crimée, while Père Moche, keeping to the
sidewalk, stumped along in a line with the working mason.
The two confederates, who forty-eight hours earlier had come near
slaughtering each other over the tragic murder of the bank messenger,
presently reached the top of the incline and stopped a moment to take
breath behind the Parc des Buttes-Chaumont at the opening of the Rue
Botzaris. The place was admirably chosen for people wishing to talk
without fear of eavesdroppers. The street was empty and in the park
even not a soul could be seen afoot.
Père Moche, pointing to a bench set against the palisade surrounding a
piece of waste ground—the very same where some months before a woman’s
body had been found hacked to pieces—was saying to his companion:
“Sit down there, my boy, we’ve got to talk.”
Paulet was not sorry to rest a while, for his barrow was heavy; he
gladly obeyed, and the two men faced each other.
“Paulet,” began M. Moche, “I told you the day before yesterday we were
going to make a mighty fine thing of it, unless you proved a funk.”
The apache lifted his right hand as if to take an oath. “Never,” he
asseverated, “I’ve never had cold feet, and you saw yourself how I
downed the bank man with a crack on the noddle; he was dead and done
for quicker than it takes to tell.”
Père Moche smiled, and resumed:
“Very true, my lad, you know your job. But as you are so clever, d’you
think you could run a man in trying the epileptic fake, eh?”
“What’s that?” demanded Paulet, “what’s that mean?”
“That means,” went on M. Moche, “you’ve got to upset your client, tie
him up to rights, and pop him in a wheeler before he has the time to
say ‘knife’.”
“It’s nothing so very formidable,” remarked Paulet.
But the old man proceeded.
“That depends on the place where the thing’s done. Don’t you go and
suppose I’m proposing to do the job in a far-away corner at night
when there’s nobody by—that’d be elementary. My dear fellow, the man
we’re to pack away—for you may be sure I’ve got an idea at the back of
my head—we’re out to do his business in broad daylight, in the open
street, in the middle of Paris!”
“That’s a bit more difficult—but not impossible,” Paulet declared.
Père Moche nodded approvingly.
“For sure, you’ve got the guts, my lad, and I begin to think you’ll do
finely for yourself yet. But just tell me how you’d set about it?”
Paulet, who in his braggart way had declared the problem old Moche set
him as simple as A B C, seemed a trifle nonplussed. He scratched his
nose, fingered his chin and growled out some unintelligible remarks,
then finally admitted:
“Well, to tell the whole truth, M. Moche, I have the best will in the
world, but I shouldn’t know just how to tackle it.”
Père Moche had expected the avowal: “No matter for that, my lad. Now
listen carefully to what I’m going to say, for the little scheme I’m
talking about must be carried through this very afternoon. Now look
here—we’re going to stage the fine old play of the _epileptic seizure_.
Presently, after feeding time, we shall come along, nicely dressed up
to look like honest bourgeois, into the high-life streets, say the
grand boulevards or the Tuileries—I can’t tell yet exactly where. We
must shadow the individual I shall point out to you. We’ll both walk
behind him without any concealment, so that he’ll notice us and forget
to pay attention to two other crooks who’ll be stumping along before
us. At a given moment I’ll give a signal, and one of the two in front
will turn sharp round and come into collision with our man, then beg
his pardon civilly for his blunder. That’s the time, Paulet, for
you—you’ll be behind, you know—to play up. A neat trip, and you’ll roll
your gentleman in the mud. Then, like t’other chap, you must pretend
to beg pardon, and meantime, when the guy’s got his head down and his
heels in the air along of the sudden tumble, you’ll shove a stopper in
his mouth.”
“A stopper, say you? but I don’t understand.”
“You’re going to understand,” went on Père Moche, and adding ocular
demonstration to description, he drew from his pocket for his
accomplice’s inspection a sort of small india-rubber ball the size of a
walnut. Paulet examined the contrivance with interest.
The old man proceeded: “Soon as the client’s got this chestnut in his
chops, he won’t be able to say bo! to a goose, for look’ee, Paulet,
it’s made of elastic rubber you can swell out as you choose.” So
saying, he pressed a spring, while Paulet stood gazing in wonder and
admiration at the extraordinary implement of torture—nothing more nor
less than an ordinary chokepear or elastic gag.
M. Moche continued his explanations: “You can fancy, when he’s got that
between his jaws, how the beggar will kick and dance like a cat on hot
bricks; but he won’t be able to articulate one word, and to make the
fake more lifelike still, we’ll take care to soap the rubber ball a bit
beforehand. Coming in contact with the saliva, the soap will lather,
and I bet you a pint of red our friend, what with his wild contortions
and the froth all over his snout, will look for all the world like a
man in a fit. The cleverest doctor would be deceived. It’ll only be
left then to get him packed into a cab, and as it so happens, the cab
we shall pop him into will belong to one of our pals ... While I’m busy
about him, you, Paulet must be telling the crowd helping us to get him
in—you may be sure the crowd will help us—how grieved you are at the
occurrence. You must cry in a big voice: ‘Oh! my poor dear friend ...
what a calamity ... such a nice fellow, too ... to think he’s always
having these attacks ... well, we’ll soon get him home now’—and so on
and so forth. You’d never need worry, my boy; you may rest assured the
cutest won’t suspect a thing!... I told you before, and I say so again,
I’ve a sort of notion in my head that’s getting clearer and clearer ...
We’re going to do great, great things, never you fear!”