Two men were seated in the snow with their backs to the wall, talking in undertones. Both were unknown to him. One was a bearded man in a smock and the other a long-haired man in tattered garments. The bearded man wore a Greek cap, the other was bareheaded and snowflakes glistened in his hair. By leaning over the wall above them Marius could hear what they were saying.
The long-haired man nudged the other in the ribs and said:
‘With Patron-Minette it can’t fail.’
‘Think so?’ said the bearded man.
‘Sure as I’m sitting here. A carve-up of five hundred jimmys each, and the worst that can happen is a stretch of five or six years, ten at the outside.’
The other scratched his head under the Greek cap and said after reflection:
‘Well, that’s real money, no getting away from it.’
‘I tell you, it can’t miss,’ said the hairy man. ‘We’ll have old Mister Whatsit properly sewn up.’
Then they went on to talk about a melodrama they had seen the night before at the Gaîté theatre, and Marius continued on his way.
It seemed to him that the words he had overheard, spoken by two men so strangely seated in the snow with their backs against a wall, might well have some connection with Jondrette’s project. This, surely, must be the business they had been discussing.
Making for the Faubourg Saint-Marceau, he entered the first shop he came to and inquired the address of the nearest police-post. It was Number 14, Rue de Pontoise. He set out for it, and, foreseeing that he would have no dinner, stopped at a bakery on the way and bought a two-sou loaf of bread which he ate as he walked.
He reflected also that Providence must have its due. Had he not given the Jondrette girl his last five francs he would have followed Monsieur Leblanc’s fiacre and thus would have known nothing of the plot being hatched by Jondrette, to which the old gentleman would have fallen a victim and probably his daughter as well.
XIV
A pair of punches
Arrived at Number 14, Rue de Pontoise, Marius went up to the first floor and asked to see the Superintendent of Police.
‘The superintendent isn’t here,’ said the desk-clerk. ‘There’s an inspector sitting in for him. Is it urgent?’
‘Yes,’ said Marius.
He was shown into the superintendent’s office. A tall man in a big greatcoat with a triple cape was standing on the other side of a metal grille with his back to a large stove and his coat-tails raised. He had a broad face, a thin, tight mouth, very bushy grey side-whiskers and keen eyes that seemed not merely to pierce but to explore. Indeed, he appeared little less ferocious and formidable than Jondrette; the hound can at times be as awkward a customer as the wolf.
‘What do you want?’ he asked with no attempt at civility.
‘Are you the Commissaire de Police?’
‘He’s away. I’m acting for him.’
‘This is a highly confidential matter.’
‘Well, tell me about it.’
‘And very urgent.’
“Then talk fast.’
His cool terseness was at once disconcerting and reassuring; he inspired both awe and confidence. Marius accordingly told his story in full, beginning with the statement that he was Marius Pontmercy, lawyer. A gentleman whom he knew only by sight was to be lured that evening into a trap. He had heard about the business because the man planning it occupied the room next to his own in the house where he lived. The villain in question was a man named Jondrette, but he would have accomplices, probably gateway prowlers, among them a certain Panchaud, also known as Printanier and as Bigrenaille. Jondrette’s wife and two daughters were also involved. He, Marius, had no means of warning the victim because he did not even know his name. The trap was to be sprung at six o’clock that evening in a house in the most deserted part of the Boulevard de l’Hôpital, No. 50–52.
The mention of this number caused the inspector to look up sharply.
‘Would it be the room at the end of the corridor?’
‘Yes,’ said Marius in surprise. ‘Do you know the house?’
The inspector was silent for a moment, staring thoughtfully at the floor. ‘It seems I do,’ he said. And he went on, mumbling in his cravat and talking less to Marius than to himself. ‘Looks like Patron-Minette’s mixed up in it.’
The words struck Marius.
‘Patron-Minette! I heard that name only a little while ago.’
He went on to repeat the conversation he had overheard in the Rue du Petit-Banquier. The inspector grunted.
‘The hairy one was probably Brujon, and the one with the beard would be Demi-Liard, also known as Deux-Milliards. As for the injured party, I fancy … Damn, I’ve singed my coat. They always make these infernal stoves too hot … Number 50–52 – used to belong to Gorbeau.’ He looked up at Marius. ‘You only saw those two, the man with a beard and the hairy one?’
‘And Panchaud, in the street, talking to Jondrette.’
‘You haven’t seen anything of a dressed-up youth, a sort of backstreet fop?’
‘No.’
‘Or a great hulk of a man who looks like the elephant in the Jardin des Plantes?’
‘No.’
‘Or a little crafty weasel of a man, who looks as though he might be an ex-convict?’
‘No.’
‘No, well – as for the fourth, it’s not surprising you haven’t seen him. Nobody ever does, not even his associates.’
‘But who are all these people?’ asked Marius.
‘Besides,’ said the inspector, ignoring the question, ‘they don’t go about in daylight.’
He was silent again, and then muttered:
‘I know the place all right, number 50–52. Nowhere in it to hide, without those beauties spotting us, and then they’d call the show off. They’re shy, you see; don’t like an audience. We can’t have that. I want to hear ’em sing and make ’em dance.’
Having concluded this monologue he looked hard at Marius.
‘Would you be scared?’
‘What of?’
‘These men.’
‘No more than you,’ said Marius coolly. He was beginning to notice that this policeman never addressed him as sir.
The inspector continued to study him, and then said with a sort of sententious gravity:
‘You talk like a brave man and an honest one. Courage does not fear crime, and honesty has no need to fear authority.’
Marius cut him short.
‘All right. But what are you proposing?’
‘The people living in that house have door-keys to let them in at night. I take it you have one?’
‘Yes.’
‘Have you got it with you?’
‘Yes.’
‘Then let me have it.’
Marius got out the key and handed it to him, saying as he did so:
‘If you’ll take my advice you won’t go alone.’
The inspector bestowed on him the sort of glance Voltaire might have bestowed on a provincial academic who ventured to lecture him on poetry. Plunging with a single movement his two enormous hands into the capacious pockets of his greatcoat, he brought out two very small pistols of the kind known as coups de poing, or, ‘punches’.
‘Take these,’ he said briskly. ‘They’re both loaded, two balls in each. Go back home and hide in your room so that they think you’re out. Keep watch through that hole you spoke of. When they arrive, let them start their business, and when you think it’s gone far enough fire a shot. Then I’ll take charge. A single shot into the ceiling or anywhere. But not too soon, understand. They’ve got to start, there’s got to be evidence. You’re a lawyer. You know what I mean.’
Marius took the pistols and put them in a side-pocket of his jacket.
“They make a bulge like that, they show,’ the inspector said. ‘Better put them in your waist band.’
Marius did as he was told.
‘And now there’s no time to be lost. What time is it? Half past two. T
he party’s at seven, you said?’
‘Six,’ said Marius.
‘Well, that still gives me time, but only just. Don’t forget what I told you. One pistol-shot.’
‘I’ll do it,’ said Marius and turned to leave the room.
‘One other thing,’ the inspector said. ‘If you should need me before then you’d better come here or send someone. The name’s Javert.’
XV
Jondrette does his shopping
Shortly after this, at about three o’clock, Courfeyrac happened to walk along the Rue Mouffetard in company with Bossuet. The snow was falling more heavily than ever, and Bossuet was saying:
‘To see all these snowflakes you’d think we were afflicted with a plague of white butterflies.’ He broke off at the sight of a figure striding in a rather odd manner up the street in the direction of the barrier. ‘Why, there’s Marius!’
‘So I see,’ said Courfeyrac. ‘Better not speak to him.’
‘Why not?’
‘Can’t you see he’s busy?’
‘But what is he doing?’
‘From the look of him, he’s following someone.’
‘It does look like that,’ said Bossuet. ‘But who?’
‘Probably some poppet he’s taken a fancy to.’
‘I don’t see any poppets anywhere,’ said Bossuet. ‘There isn’t a wench in sight.’
Courfeyrac was staring.
‘He’s following a man!’ he exclaimed.
It was a man in a cap, about twenty paces ahead of Marius. Although his back was turned to them they had a glimpse of a grey beard. The man was wearing a new overcoat very much too large for him and a pair of extremely ragged trousers spattered with mud.
Bossuet laughed. ‘Who the devil would he be?’
‘He must be a poet,’ said Courfeyrac. ‘Only a poet would go about in a tramp’s trousers and a coat fit for a lord.’
‘Let’s follow the two of them and see where they go.’
‘My dear Bossuet, Eagle of Words,’ said Courfeyrac, ‘what a great fathead you are! To follow a man who’s following a man!’
They turned and went the other way.
Marius had seen Jondrette in the Rue Mouffetard and was following to see what he was up to. Jondrette hurried on unsuspecting. He turned out of the Rue Mouffetard, and Marius saw him go into one of the most ramshackle hovels in the Rue Gracieuse. He was there for about a quarter of an hour and then, returning to the Rue Mouffetard, he visited the ironmongery which at that time stood on the corner of the Rue Pierre-Lombard. A few minutes later he came out holding a large cold-chisel with a wooden handle which he proceeded to hide under his new coat. He turned left into the Rue du Petit-Gentilly and made rapidly for the Rue du Petit-Banquier. Marius did not follow him along this street, which was deserted as usual, but kept cautious watch from the corner. In this he was wise, because Jondrette, when he came to the low wall where Marius had heard the two men talking, looked round to make sure he was unobserved and then scrambled over the wall and disappeared.
The patch of wasteland beyond this wall adjoined the back yard of a former dealer in hired conveyances, a man of unsavoury reputation who had been sold up but still kept a few old vehicles in his shed.
Marius decided that he had better take advantage of Jondrette’s absence to get back to the tenement. It was growing late, and Ma’am Bougon, when she went off to her work as a cleaning-woman, was in the habit of locking the front door behind her. Since he had given the inspector his key, he must be in before this happened.
Darkness was rapidly falling, and only a single gleam of light in the black immensity of the heavens reflected the rays of the sun. It was the moon rising red beyond the low cupola of the Salpêtrière.
Marius made all speed back to No. 50–52, and found the door still open. He climbed the stairs on tip-toe and, keeping close to the wall, crept along the corridor to his room. This corridor, it will be remembered, was flanked on either side by attics, all of them at that moment empty and to let. Ma’am Bougon was in the habit of leaving their doors open. As he passed one of the supposedly empty cells Marius had an impression of four motionless men’s heads silhouetted for an instant against the faint light filtering through the small window. He made no attempt to see more, not wishing to be seen himself, and succeeded in reaching his room without being either seen or heard. And just in time. A moment later he heard Ma’am Bougon depart and the key turn in the lock of the front door.
XVI
A snatch of song
Marius sat down on his bed. The time was about half past five – only half an hour to go. He could hear the blood pounding in his veins like the ticking of a clock in darkness. He thought of the forces mustering in the shadows, the march of crime on the one side and of justice on the other. He was not afraid, but he could not think without a tremor of what was so soon to happen. As with all persons plunged suddenly in an unforeseen adventure, the day’s events had for him a dreamlike quality, and he needed to finger the cold metal of the pistols in his waistband to assure himself that he was not in the grip of a nightmare.
It had stopped snowing. The moon, growing steadily brighter, had now risen above the mist, and its rays, mingled with the white reflection of the fallen snow, flooded his room with a cavernous light. A light was burning in the Jondrettes’ lair. Marius could see through the hole in the partition a ruddy glow which looked to him like a blood-red eye. Certainly it did not look like the light of a candle. Otherwise nothing stirred in that room. No one moved or spoke or even breathed. It was locked in an icy silence so profound that, except for the light, one might have thought oneself beside a tomb.
Marius quietly took off his boots and thrust them under his bed. Several minutes passed. Then he heard the creaking of the street door. Heavy footsteps ascended the stairs and passed rapidly along the corridor, and the latch of the door next to his was noisily lifted. Jondrette had returned.
Voices were instantly raised. It seemed that they were all there but had kept quiet in the absence of the master, like wolf-cubs in the absence of the wolf.
‘Here I am,’ Jondrette said.
‘Good evening, daddykins!’ giggled the two girls.
‘Well?’ said his wife.
‘Everything’s fine,’ said Jondrette, ‘but my feet are frozen. I see you’ve got dressed. Good. You’ve got to look respectable.’
‘I’m all ready to go out.’
‘You won’t forget what I told you? You’ll do it right?’
‘Don’t worry.’
‘You see –’ began Jondrette, but he did not finish the sentence. Marius heard him drop some heavy object on the table, probably the chisel he had bought. ‘Hello! Have you had something to eat?’
‘Yes,’ said the woman. ‘I had three big potatoes and some salt. Seeing we had a fire, I baked them.’
‘Good,’ said Jondrette. ‘Tomorrow I’ll take you all out to dinner – roast duck and everything that goes with it. You’ll dine like the king himself. Everything’s fine.’ He added in a lower voice, ‘The trap’s baited and the cats are waiting.’ He then said, lower still: ‘Put that in the fire.’
Marius heard the rasping sound of tongs or some other metal instrument being thrust into the charcoal.
‘Did you grease the door-hinges so that they don’t squeak?’ asked Jondrette.
‘Yes,’ said the woman.
‘What’s the time?’
‘Getting on for six. The half hour has struck at Saint-Médard.’
‘Time for the girls to go on watch,’ said Jondrette. ‘Listen to me, you two.’ A sound of whispering followed. Then he raised his voice again. ‘Has Ma’am Bougon gone?’
‘Yes,’ said the woman.
‘And you’re sure he’s not in next door?’
‘He hasn’t been in all day, and you know this is his dinnertime.’
‘You’re positive?’
‘Quite.’
‘All the same,’ said Jondrette, ‘no harm in having
a look. You, girl – take the candle.’
Marius went down on hands and knees and slid silently under the bed. He had scarcely done so when light showed through the cracks in his door.
‘He’s out,’ a voice called, and he recognized it as that of the older girl.
‘Have you looked?’ Jondrette asked.
‘No, but his key’s in the door, and that means he’s out.’
‘Go in all the same.’
The door opened and the girl entered carrying a candle. She looked much as she had done that morning, but even more garish in that light. She moved towards the bed, and Marius had a moment of acute alarm; but there was a mirror suspended on the wall near the bed, and this was what she was making for. She stood on tip-toe studying herself. A sudden clatter of metal against metal came from the next room.
She stood smoothing her hair with one hand while she smiled at herself in the glass and sang in her croaking voice:
Our love was all too swiftly over,
Happiness so soon is past.
For one short week to have a lover!
But true love should forever last,
For ever, ever, ever last!
Marius lay trembling under the bed, thinking that she must surely hear the sound of his breathing.
She went over to the window and looked out, talking aloud to herself in the half-crazed way that was characteristic of her.
‘How ugly Paris looks in a white shirt!’
She came back to the mirror and posed in front of it, examining herself front and three-quarter face. Her father’s voice called:
‘What are you doing?’
‘I’m looking under the bed and the furniture,’ she replied, still arranging her hair. ‘There is no one here.’
‘Then come back, for God’s sake! Don’t waste any more time.’
‘All right, all right, I’m coming. There’s never time for anything in this hole.’
She sang:
You leave me to take the road to glory,
But my heart will follow you all the way.
With a final glance at the mirror she went out, closing the door behind her. A moment later Marius heard the bare feet of the two girls going along the corridor while their father shouted after them:
Les Miserables (Movie Tie-in) (9781101612774) Page 79
