“Wait a moment!” she continued, “I didn’t mean to offend anyone. I am a
poor woman, but there’s no disgrace in that, and I can afford a glass of
liqueur. Eh, good gossip, you understand, don’t you? A drop of the best
for Mother Maniffret, and if my fine friend there will drink with me to
settle our difference, I will stand her a glass.”
The example set by the old hawker was contagious, and instead of filling
two little glasses only, widow Masson dispensed a bottleful.
“Come, you have done well,” cried Mother Maniffret; “my idea has brought
you luck.”
“Faith! not before it was wanted, either!”
“What! are you complaining of trade too?”
“Ah! don’t mention it; it is miserable!”
“There’s no trade at all. I scream myself hoarse all day, and choke
myself for twopence halfpenny. I don’t know what’s to come of it all.
But you seem to have a nice little custom.”
“What’s the good of that, with a whole house on one’s hands? It’s just
my luck; the old tenants go, and the new ones don’t come.”
“What’s the matter, then?”
“I think the devil’s in it. There was a nice man on the first
floor-gone; a decent family on the third, all right except that the man
beat his wife every night, and made such a row that no one could
sleep—gone also. I put up notices—no one even looks at them! A few
months ago—it was the middle of December, the day of the last
execution—”
“The 15th, then,” said the hawker. “I cried it, so I know; it’s my
trade, that.”
“Very well, then, the 15th,” resumed widow Masson. “On that day, then, I
let the cellar to a man who said he was a wine merchant, and who paid a
term in advance, seeing that I didn’t know him, and wouldn’t have lent
him a farthing on the strength of his good looks. He was a little bit of
a man, no taller than that,”—contemptuously holding out her hand,—“and
he had two round eyes which I didn’t like at, all. He certainly paid, he
did that, but we are more than half through the second term and I have
no news of my tenant.”
“And have you never seen him since?”
“Yes, once—no, twice. Let’s see—three times, I am sure. He came with a
hand-cart and a commissionaire, and had a big chest taken downstairs—a
case which he said contained wine in bottles....
“No, he came before that, with a workman I think.
“Really, I don’t know if it was before or after—doesn’t matter. Anyhow,
it was bottled wine. The third time he brought a mason, and I am sure
they quarreled. I heard their voices. He carried off the key, and I have
seen neither him nor his wine again. I have another key, and I went down
one day; perhaps the rats have drunk the wine and eaten the chest, for
there certainly is nothing there any more than there is in my hand now.
Nevertheless, I saw what I saw. A big chest, very big, quite new, and
corded all round with strong rope.”
“Now, what day was that?” asked the hawker.
“What day? Well, it was—no, I can’t remember.”
“Nor I either; I am getting stupid. Let’s have another little
glass-shall we? just to clear our memories!”
The expedient was not crowned with success, the memories failed to
recover themselves. The crowd waited, attentive, as may be supposed.
Suddenly the hawker exclaimed:
“What a fool I am! I am going to find that, if only I have still got
it.”
She felt eagerly in the pocket of her underskirt, and produced several
pieces of dirty, crumpled paper. As she unfolded one after another, she
asked:
“A big chest, wasn’t it?”
“Yes, very big.”
“And quite new?”
“Quite new.”
“And corded?”
“Yes, I can see it now.”
“So can I, good gracious! It was the day when I sold the history of
Leroi de Valines, the 1st of February.”
“Yes, it was a Saturday; the next day was Sunday.”
“That’s it, that’s it!—Saturday, February 1st. Well, I know that chest
too! I met your wine merchant on the Place du Louvre, and he wasn’t
precisely enjoying himself: one of his creditors wanted to seize the
chest, the wine, the whole kettle of fish! A little man, isn’t he?—a
scarecrow?”
“Just SO.”
“And has red hair?”
“That’s the man.”
“And looks a hypocrite?”
“You’ve hit it exactly.”
“And he is a hypocrite! enough to make one shudder! No doubt he can’t
pay his rent! A thief, my dears, a beggarly thief, who set fire to his
own cellar, and who accused me of trying to steal from him, while it was
he who cheated me, the villain, out of a piece of twenty-four sous. It’s
lucky I turned up here! Well, well, we shall have some fun! Here’s
another little business on your hands, and you will have to say where
that wine has got to, my dear gossip Derues.”
“Derues!” cried twenty voices all at once.
“What! Derues who is in Prison?”
“Why, that’s Monsieur de Lamotte’s man.”
“The man who killed Madame de Lamotte?”
“The man who made away with her son?”
“A scoundrel, my dears, who accused me of stealing, an absolute
monster!”
“It is just a little unfortunate,” said widow Masson, “that it isn’t the
man. My tenant calls himself Ducoudray. There’s his name on the
register.”
“Confound it, that doesn’t look like it at all,” said the hawker: “now
that’s a bore! Oh yes, I have a grudge against that thief, who accused
me of stealing. I told him I should sell his history some day. When that
happens, I’ll treat you all round.”
As a foretaste of the fulfilment of this promise, the company disposed
of a second bottle of liqueur, and, becoming excited, they chattered at
random for some time, but at length slowly dispersed, and the street
relapsed into the silence of night. But, a few hours later, the
inhabitants were surprised to see the two ends occupied by unknown
people, while other sinister-looking persons patrolled it all night, as
if keeping guard. The next morning a carriage escorted by police stopped
at the widow Masson’s door. An officer of police got out and entered a
neighbouring house, whence he emerged a quarter of an hour later with
Monsieur de Lamotte leaning on his arm. The officer demanded the key of
the cellar which last December had been hired from the widow Masson by a
person named Ducoudray, and went down to it with Monsieur de Lamotte and
one of his subordinates.
The carriage standing at the door, the presence of the commissioner
Mutel, the chatter of the previous evening, had naturally roused
everybody’s imagination. But this excitement had to be kept for home
use: the whole street was under arrest, and its inhabitants were
forbidden to leave their houses. The windows, crammed with anxious
faces, questioning each other, in the expectation of something
wonderful, were a curious sight; and the ignorance in which they
remained, these mysterious preparations, these orders silently executed,
doubled the curiosity, and added a sort of terror: no one could see the
persons who had accompanied the police officer; three men remained in
the carriage, one guarded by the two others. When the heavy coach turned
into the rue de la Mortellerie, this man had bent towards the closed
window and asked—
“Where are we?”