THE BLUE CHESTNUT
“Get along then that’s no way to treat people! What’s he want with me,
anyway, the nasty fellow?”
Nini Guinon was furious; turning sharply round, she thus apostrophized
an individual who had just signalized his presence by tickling her
ribs more roughly than agreeably. It was a Monday, and about two
o’clock in the afternoon. Nini had just issued from the Poissonnière
Gate; mounting the bank overhanging the moat of the fortifications and
turning to the left, she was making for Saint-Ouen. The young woman
stared suspiciously at the man who was following her without a word,
good, bad or indifferent, a smile of doubtful import on his face.
Presently, reassured more or less by her examination of the stranger,
Nini added:
“I thought it was the ‘cops’.”
The man shrugged his shoulders. “D’you think I belong to the police? do
I look like it?”
“No, you don’t,” Nini admitted; “but come, let’s have a peep at your
phiz; what does this here masquerading mean, eh?”
Obeying the young woman’s demand, the other turned his face towards
her; the cheeks were muffled in a great yellow silk handkerchief.
“That’s along of my dominoes,” he said; “I’ve had toothache for the
last three days.”
“Well, what then?” pursued Nini.
“Why, I’m in funds to-day, especially as how it’s Monday, and I’m going
on the spree ... suppose we make the bust together, eh?”
Superciliously, Nini looked her interlocutor up and down.
“Nothing doing to-day,” she told him, “I’ve got my man.”
“Where are you going?”
“You’re mighty curious, ain’t you? still, as the gentleman wants to
know, we’ve arranged to meet at the _Blue Chestnut_—that’s plain and
simple enough, what?”
“Why, yes,” the other agreed, “but as it happens, I’m going there, too.”
“Then, march on in front,” ordered the girl, “and I’ll stick behind; I
don’t care to look as if I were making up to chaps about these parts.”
The man was all docility and obeyed instantly; walking a few steps
ahead of the young harlot, but every now and then casting a furtive
glance over his shoulder to make sure the girl was following on the
same road as himself, he stumped off in the direction of the _Blue
Chestnut_, seeming very well pleased with the beginning he had so far
made. With a quick movement he swept the hair lower on his forehead
and pulled out his handkerchief he had wrapped round his jaws under
pretence of protecting his aching teeth against the cold.
“So much to the good,” he thought to himself; “she’s never recognized
me—and I have good hopes it’ll be the same with the others.”
Who was this mysterious person who had made bold to squeeze Mlle.
Nini’s waist as she was peaceably leaving the city by the Porte de
Poissonnière? It was no other in actual fact than Jérôme Fandor!
For some days past the young journalist had been leading an absolutely
appalling existence. Events had followed quick on each other’s heels,
each more disconcerting, more overwhelming than the other. Chance
and mischance had thrown him into adventures that grew more and more
baffling, and seemed to him to leave no loophole for escape.
First his meeting with Elisabeth Dollon, then his connection with
old Moche—a tricky scamp he felt he could not trust—then after being
unjustly accused by Elisabeth, he had been odiously victimized through
Fantômas’ vile machinations, bringing him under the strongest suspicion
of having caused the death of three policemen. And all this, just a
few hours after Parliament had acclaimed him one of the authors of the
violent attack on the Minister of Justice.
Escaped by a miracle from the clutches of the police, the journalist
had ever since the tragic night in M. Moche’s garret led an
insufferable existence, hardly daring to go out at all, and then only
at night in the most out-of-the-way districts, spending whole days
hiding in slums, concealed in rag-pickers’ hovels, in constant terror
of being caught. And now, to put the coping-stone on his misery had
come the assassination of Désiré Ferrand, a mystery still unsolved, a
crime without doubt the work of Fantômas, thought Fandor, but which
no less surely would rouse the Criminal Investigation Department to
renewed exertions, and render his continued evasion more than ever
precarious.
Yet Fandor was full of courage; he must not give in, it was all
important he should remain at liberty, for the journalist was now
firmly convinced that he was embarked on the right track, and that it
would not be long now before he would unmask Fantômas’ accomplices,
perhaps Fantômas himself into the bargain. Luck, good luck, had in fact
brought him in touch with a crew of shady individuals, the instruments
and intermediaries of old Moche’s nefarious schemes. Now these folks
made no concealment amongst themselves of the fact that they were in
the habit of receiving orders anonymous but peremptory about the source
of which, however, they did not trouble their heads; they served and
were glad to serve as Fantômas’ lieutenants, they were in the pay of
that notorious brigand. To trace back events to their source would be
the surest way to discover the head that set all these arms in motion.
“I’m going to the _Blue Chestnut_,” Nini Guinon had told him—and
Fandor had boldly replied that at that very moment he, too, was on
his way to spend the afternoon at that notorious resort of the Paris
criminal world. In fact the discovery that Paulet’s mistress was bound
for the _Blue Chestnut_—a suburban semi-rural resort just outside the
fortifications, and a favourite _rendezvous_ with crooks and demireps
of all descriptions—to meet “her man” had given the journalist a
lively glow of satisfaction. Days ago he had come to the resolution
of shadowing the young street-walker, getting to know her comings and
goings, and so through her getting into close touch with the band of
her nefarious associates.
And lo! in a moment his hopes were to be realised. Nini was going to
the very spot where all these good, or rather bad, people would be
gathered. Decidedly Fandor’s lucky star was in the ascendant, he was to
enjoy the priceless advantage of meeting and making closer acquaintance
with that questionable character, the mysterious apache Paulet, whom
the journalist already suspected, not without good reason, perhaps, of
having murdered the bank messenger.
Moreover, he was feeling no small satisfaction at the success of his
make-up, which had proved so admirable a disguise. Nini Guinon, of
course, knew him quite well, she had seen him only a few days before,
he was one of the gang and the reputed murderer of the police officers,
if not perhaps of the Minister himself. His face and personality
_could_ not have faded from the girl’s memory. Yet for five minutes he
had been talking with her, and she had not recognized him!
“All goes well,” the journalist congratulated himself, as he made his
way into the garden of the _Blue Chestnut_. Yes, he was certainly in
luck. The place that Monday afternoon was crowded with customers, a
large number seated about the scattered tables, each of which with
its load of wine-bottles formed the nucleus of a group of laughing,
chattering men and girls.
Fandor took his seat unobtrusively at the foot of a table, endeavoring
to pass unnoticed while he consumed a modest half-pint and listened to
his neighbour’s conversation. He was just asking himself how he could
best join in the talk himself when circumstances afforded him the
opportunity.
A wave of excitement swept the garden from end to end. A gay companion,
a musician with an old guitar under his arm, had just appeared, a man
Fandor knew of old. It was one Bougille, the vagabond Bougille, the man
with the shaggy beard and merry-andrew face, Bougille the honest tramp,
the incorrigible wanderer. The old fellow was well known and well loved
at the _Blue Chestnut_, where on fête days he would often come to reap
the reward in small change of his talents as a music-maker.
“A dance, a dance! the _Sonneuse_!” the company demanded with one
voice, while all eyes turned in the direction of “The Beadle” and all
hands pointed to “Big Ernestine.”
Slowly, hands in pockets, with an affected air and a look of
satisfaction, which he tried to hide, the man addressed the crowd:
“So, it’s us you want to get at ... must have us dance it you again,
eh?... well, well, off we go.”
Cigarette stuck between his lips, cap cocked over one ear, the apache
gripped Ernestine by the nape of the neck, whirled the girl round, and
round again, to bring her facing him, then ordered her roughly:
“Go ahead, wench; give it ’em, I say!”
At this Bougille struck up the tune, and the couple began their
evolutions.
At first it was a slow waltz, with no precise rhythm, but dubious
attitudes, languishing poses, embraces suggestive of passionate
abandonment. Then, with a sudden brutality, the man hurled his partner
away from him, caught her by the shoulders, threw her to the ground,
then passing his arm under her supple waist, raised her to her feet,
then lifted her up against his breast; then, three times in succession,
while “Big Ernestine” lay passive, “The Beadle,” striking an attitude
half Hercules, half acrobat, whirled the woman about in his arms and
beat her head on the earth.
A thunder of applause broke out on every side. For sure there was not
another pair to match “The Beadle” and “Big Ernestine” at dancing the
_Sonneuse_. And what a dance it was, where the cavalier had to mimic
the act of breaking his partner’s skull against the ground as apaches
beat to death peaceable citizens against the curb of the sidewalk.
It was fine, it was magnificent, the crowd was thrilled, electrified,
and a young blackguard, “Beauty Boy” by nickname, caught by the wave
of hot enthusiasm that stirred the passions of them all, seized the
opportunity to give a bite at the nape of Nini’s neck, who cuffed him
soundly for his pains.
“Look where you’re going, you idiot!” roared a furious voice as “Beauty
Boy” fell foul of a shabby individual in his flight to escape the
offended Nini’s vengeance. It was no other than M. Moche. What could
the old fellow be doing there? He was dirtier, shabbier, and more bent
than ever; at sight of him, Fandor was filled with alarm, but at the
same time it struck him that Moche’s presence might prove useful to
him. Yes, undoubtedly, it was a piece of good luck to find the old man
had come to the _Blue Chestnut_. Assuredly, under pretext of dancing
and amusing themselves, the band must have gathered there to receive
their secret instructions from the chief, who doubtless was no other
than Fantômas. The moment Fandor set eyes on Père Moche, he told
himself: “Ha, ha! ’twon’t be long now before a something fresh turns
up!”
Meantime the journalist took good care not to show himself to the
dubious individual in whose service he had been engaged for twenty-four
hours. He had far from pleasant recollections of his stay at Moche’s,
and it might well be the latter was equally out of conceit with him;
quite possibly the old advocate believed it was he had killed the
police officers, very possibly again, by way of ingratiating himself
with the force, he might not hesitate to deliver up the supposed
murderer into their clutches, should opportunity offer.
At the same time the young man slipped surreptitiously behind Moche,
while the latter was in talk with the “Beauty Boy.” He overheard all
they said:
“Lend me a yellow boy,” the young apache was asking his companion;
“it’s not just for larks, I tell you, it’s for biz.”
“Why, what are you up to, eh?” the other asked in his turn.
“Beauty Boy” explained: “To-morrow’s Monday, ain’t it? Well, Tuesday’s
the day the swell Trans-Atlantic reaches Hâvre with all the rich
American travellers aboard; so I’m going to make my little collection,
as usual—you know my game, eh, M. Moche?”
“Gad! no, not over well,” declared the old scamp, doubtless with the
idea of extracting a more definite account of the other’s plans.
“But it’s as plain as plain,” retorted the apache. “Day before the boat
comes in, I hook it to Hâvre, dressed up to the nines; then I slip into
the special train where the swagger dames are, then on the journey up
I get to work; it’s mostly purses I do, now and then a ring, a bit
of jewelry, or pocket-book. All that lot, when they step ashore, are
upset, bewildered, sick, tired, _they_ never care to kick up a dust if
they happen to find their pockets have been gone through.”
Père Moche nodded approvingly.
“Not bad,” he laughed, “not bad! You’re a cute chap, my boy, for all
your silly looks and dandified airs.”
“Only,” pursued the apache, “one must anyway have one’s return ticket,
and as it happens, I’m cleaned out just now.”
“Whew!” muttered the old miser.
But “Beauty Boy” returned to his charge:
“Come now, don’t be a mean cuss, hand me over four bulls, won’t you?”
At last Père Moche so far yielded to the other’s eager importunities
and forked out. But, like a good business man, he struck a bargain with
the borrower that the latter, on his return, that is to say on the next
day but one, should pay him back thirty francs.
The cash once in his pocket, the apache vanished.
Fandor had overheard it all, besides catching other scraps of
conversation from one and another of the band, from which he gathered
only one thing clearly, and that was that at bottom everyone of them
was upset about the arrival of the redoubtable and mysterious Tom
Bob, whose coming was announced with such a flourish of trumpets and
noisy advertisement—a proceeding by-the-by he, Fandor, deemed highly
injudicious.
The journalist noted the “Beauty Boy’s” departure, and he could not
help thinking that it would be greatly to _his_ advantage, too, if
only he could get to Hâvre. But alas! he had not a sou and could not
borrow from Père Moche, as the apache had done, inasmuch as he could
not very well urge the same reasons to justify the loan. Still the idea
tormented him that he _must_ go to Hâvre. It was all important for
him to get to know Tom Bob at the earliest possible moment, so to say
before everybody else. He was still cudgelling his brains to discover
some way of realizing his project when suddenly he shuddered to hear a
hoarse, angry voice growling in his ear:
“Scoundrel, brigand, murderer, aren’t you ashamed to show your face?
why don’t I have you run in on the spot? will you rid me of the sight
of you, now, this instant, you hell-hound of calamity!”
Fandor wheeled round in consternation, dumbfounded by this avalanche of
abuse, this maelstrom of words. His eyes opened wide in amazement; it
was old Moche who was addressing him in these furious terms—Moche, his
face working with passion, unable to contain himself for anger.
The old scoundrel went on with a hypocritical assumption of righteous
indignation.
“When I think how I befriended you, how I saved you in your extremity,
and then you came and murdered people in my house and committed
atrocious crimes, I don’t know, I really do not know, you villain, what
hinders me ...”
Fandor looked his man calmly in the face. For one moment he had
entertained the notion of seizing his accuser by the throat and choking
him, for instinctively his gorge rose at the outrageous charge brought
against him. But he quickly realized that, to begin with, old Moche’s
indignation was only pretence, and then, that the least display of
violence on his part could only have consequences disastrous to his
plans. The journalist had gathered the firm conviction in the course of
the two hours he had spent among the dubious frequenters of the _Blue
Chestnut_ that Père Moche was possessed of a strange, but indubitable
authority over these sinister personages. There was no question that,
for some purpose or another, he was in the habit of aiding and abetting
them, lending them money at need, or that he possessed an astuteness
that made him master of the rest of his associates—and was perhaps
the mysterious intermediary who transmitted to them the orders of the
elusive autocrat Fantômas.
Postponing all thought of reprisals for the present, Fandor obeyed
the old ruffian’s orders and sneaked away; a few moments more and he
quitted the _Blue Chestnut_ without his departure being remarked by
anyone whatsoever, not even by the landlord, who troubled himself very
little about his customer going away, as he invariably observed the
excellent custom of making everybody pay in advance.
* * * * *
“That’s it, that must be the train!” Issuing from the Saint-Lazare
terminus, an engine, heralded by the glare of its two head-lights,
plunged beneath the dark arch of the Batignolles tunnel. Enveloped
in a dense cloud of smoke, the locomotive rolled slowly on, with a
rhythmical roar and rattle, towing behind it a long line of passenger
coaches.
His feet in the thick mud, his back against the clammy stonework,
Fandor stood motionless half way through the tunnel waiting till the
train reached him.
The journalist, on leaving the _Blue Chestnut_, left alone with his
thoughts, and now firmly convinced he had at last come upon the gang
among whom he must look to find not only the murderer of the bank
collector, but likewise the authors of the attack on the Minister
of Justice, and to boot, in all likelihood, the assassin of Désiré
Ferrand, told himself it was above all things incumbent on him from
this time on to dare any and every risk to secure a collaborator in
his task. His mind was made up; it was Tom Bob must be his ally and
fellow-worker.
Who and what was this Tom Bob? he did not rightly know. Two or three
times at most he had heard his friend Juve speak of the man. Juve,
this much was certain, admired the American—albeit they were not
personally known to one another—as a clever, capable officer, full of
modern ideas. Fandor pictured Tom Bob as being in fact a sort of Juve
of the New World—with this difference, that the one seemed as fond of
self-advertisement and popular applause as the other was an admirer of
modesty and reticence.
Summing up the situation Fandor told himself:
“It is impossible, at the present moment, to show myself at the
headquarters of the Criminal Department; in their stupid way they would
simply arrest me without listening to my story, or even arrest me after
they had heard it, if only by way of throwing a sop to public opinion.
Juve himself is in gaol; the unfortunate man can do nothing to help
me. Rather is it for me to save him, and to have the power I must be
free. It may be Tom Bob will not be sorry to have me as a discreet and
anonymous fellow-worker. Let us go find Tom Bob!”
This decision taken, the question was to carry it into effect. Now
Fandor, at eight o’clock in the evening, had still less money in his
possession than at four o’clock of the afternoon. But the journalist,
having noted the time of the last train that would take him to Hâvre
before the arrival of the American packet, viz., the nine forty-five
slow train, had thought to himself that, if it was impossible for him
to travel without a ticket, it was perhaps easy enough to jump the
train as it went by, and so be carried to his destination—on condition,
of course, of not attracting attention by entering a compartment, but
instead riding unobtrusively on a step, or on some buffer or other, or
else lying at full length on the roof of a carriage.
He had explored the neighbourhood of the station and made out that
by way of the Rue de Rome and utilizing a scaffolding erected by the
workmen engaged in enlarging the tunnel, he could easily in the evening
dusk climb down the scaffold poles on to the line. But on second
thought Fandor had conceived a much simpler plan. At nine twenty for
four sous he purchased a ticket for Batignolles and made his way on to
the platform, then seizing his opportunity when nobody was looking, he
stepped on to the permanent way and so, keeping along the confining
walls, reached the entrance of the tunnel and waited there for the
passing of the Hâvre train.
He had set his watch by the station clock, and the train being due to
start at forty-three minutes past the hour, he was at his post in the
tunnel at half a minute before that time. He arched his back against
the wall, and in spite of the blinding smoke, watched the line of
vehicles as they moved slowly past him.
“Engine, luggage van, another van, several third class coaches, a
corridor carriage, a first, a second ... now’s my time!”
The young man sprang on the next coach that came opposite him, it was
a risky job, a false step and he would be thrown on to the rails,
under the wheels, but the journalist had audacity and fearlessness on
his side, and dexterity into the bargain, and he landed safely. In a
few seconds, by help of the hand-holds running along the sides and
the mouldings of the woodwork, which luckily projected outwards, he
succeeded in first hoisting himself between two carriages and then
climbing on to the roof of one of them. He stretched himself flat on
his face and threw his arms round the projecting top of a lamp, then
with legs wide to help maintain his equilibrium, he lay perfectly still.
Hardly was he in position before the train quickened its pace and
emerged from the tunnel. The journalist breathed the purer air with
infinite gusto. But his satisfaction was of short duration; the engine
now began to emit showers of sparks and clouds of greasy, blinding
smoke. He could only shut his eyes tight and wait in stoical patience.
“Pooh!” the young fellow said to himself, “it’s merely a bad night
to get through! I shall be a bit cold perhaps, and a bit dirty, but
the great point is, I shall get there. Hâvre is not so far away as
they make out; I think we must already be getting near the bridge of
Asnières, for the train, I see, is beginning to slow down, as they
always do.”
But next moment he let fly a big oath. The train, contrary to all
precedent, was taking a big curve, the rails were steeply inclined
inwards and the carriages tilted over in the same direction, so that
Fandor, who was not expecting it, very nearly slipped off his perch. He
would infallibly have tumbled off if he had not made a wild clutch at
the top of his lamp. The brakes were applied sharply and a jar ran from
carriage to carriage; then the train stopped dead.
Fandor opened his eyes and looked about him. He was in the middle of a
vast shed; on either side he saw the roofs of carriages stretching away
into infinity. For a moment he was at a loss what to think, then the
truth burst upon him.
“Damnation!” he cried, “was it worth my while to lay my plans so
carefully, and make such a monstrous mistake after all!”
Instead of taking the train for Hâvre, he had got on to a line of empty
coaches which a yard-engine was simply hauling out to its siding for
the night.
Even as he realized the fact, in the distance, full steam ahead and
brilliantly lighted up, he saw a main line train go by—the Hâvre train
without a doubt!