Читать книгу Mlle. Fouchette - Charles Theodore Murray - Страница 17

"Take 'em away!"

"But listen, child! I——"

"Take 'em away!" she screamed.

Tartar rose with an ominous growl and looked from his mistress to the woman.

"We don't need 'em, do we, Tartar? No! Let them take their gall and honey with 'em. Yes! They make us tired. Yes!"

To all of these observations—somewhat heavily weighted with barrier billingsgate—Tartar showed his approval by wagging his tail knowingly and by covering the small face bent down to him with canine kisses.

"Better come away, madame," said an agent, in a low voice, to the stupefied woman thus assailed. He laughed at her discomfiture. "It is waste kindness and waste time. You can't do anything with that sort of riffraff. It's only a stray cat fed to scratch you. They're a bad lot."

The "bad lot" had overheard this police philosophy, and it confirmed her pre-existing opinion of the police.

Monsieur le Commissaire was a grave and burly gentleman of middle life, with iron-gray hair and moustache, and eyes that seemed to read their object through and through. He pulled this moustache thoughtfully as he listened to the report of the river police agent, all the time keeping the eyes upon the diminutive but defiant child before him. When he had learned everything—including the scene in the station—he said, abruptly—

"Come in here, my child. Don't be afraid—nobody's going to hurt you. Yes, bring the dog. Brave dog! Splendid fellow! Come! I'd like to own that dog, now—I would, indeed!" he observed, as he closed the door of his private office; "but I suppose you wouldn't part with him for the world now, would you?"

"N-no. But he isn't mine, monsieur," she replied, regretfully.

"No? What a pity! Then perhaps I could buy him, eh?"

"I—I don't know. Monsieur Podvin——"

She stopped suddenly. But the magistrate was looking abstractedly over her head and did not appear to notice her slip of the tongue. He was thinking. It gave little Fouchette time to recover.

He was something like the enthusiastic physician who sees in his patient only "a case,"—something devoid of personality. He recognized in this waif a condition of society to be treated. In his mind she was a wholly irresponsible creature. Not the whole case in question—oh, no; but a part of the case. What she had been, was now, or would be were questions that did not enter into the consideration. Nothing but the case.

Instead of putting the child through a course of questions—what she anticipated and had steeled herself against—he merely talked to her on what appeared to be topics foreign to the subject immediately in hand.

"You must be taken care of in some way," he declared. "Yes—a child like you should not be left in the streets of Paris to beg or starve—and it's against the law to beg——"

"But I never begged, monsieur," interrupted the child—"never!"

"Of course not—of course not! No; you are too proud to beg. That's right. But you couldn't make a living picking rags, and the law doesn't permit a child to pick rags in the streets of Paris."

"I never did, monsieur, never!"

"Of course not—you would be arrested. But outside the barriers the work is not lucrative. Charenton, for instance, is not as prolific of rags as it is of rascals."

At the mention of Charenton Fouchette started visibly; but her interlocutor did not seem to notice it.

"No; it does not even give as brave a child as you enough to eat—not if you work ever so hard—let alone to provide comfortably for Tar—for Tartar. Eh, my brave spaniel? We must get Tartar some breakfast. Has Tartar had any breakfast?"

"No, monsieur—oh, no! And he is so hungry!"

She was all eagerness and softness when it came to her faithful companion. Tartar began to take a lively interest in the conversation of which he knew himself the subject.

"Exactly," said the Commissaire, suddenly getting up. He had reached his conclusion. "Now, remain here a few minutes, little one, while I see about it."

He disappeared into the outer office and remained closeted in a small cabinet with a telephone. Then, calling one of his men in plain clothes aside, he gave some instructions in a rapid manner.

When he re-entered the private office he knew that a rascal named Podvin kept a disreputable cabaret near the Porte de Charenton, and that a small, thin child called Fouchette lived with the Podvins, who also kept a dog, liver-colored, with dark-brown splotches, named Tartar, but that the child was not yet missed, probably owing to the fact that it was her customary hour in the streets of Charenton. In the same time he had notified the Préfecture that a murderous attempt had been made on a child, probably by some one of the gang that infested the Rendez-Vous pour Cochers, and had been directed to co-operate with two skilled Central men in an investigation.

"All right, petite," said the Commissaire, rubbing his hands and assuming his most oily tone. "First we are going to have some dry clothes and some shoes and stockings and——"

"I only—I never wore shoes and stockings," interrupted Fouchette, somewhat embarrassed by this flood of finery. "I don't need 'em, monsieur. It is only Tartar's——"

"Oh, we'll attend to Tartar also—don't be afraid."

"Monsieur is very kind."

"It is nothing. Come along, now. You're going to ride in a nice carriage, too—for the crowd might follow you in the street, you know—and I'll send a man with you to take good care of you."

"But Tartar——"

"You can take him in the carriage with you if you wish—yes, it is better, perhaps. He might get run over or lost."

"Oh!"

And thus Fouchette rode in state, and in wet rags at the same time, down past the great Jardin des Plantes, the Halle aux Vins, and along the Boulevard St. Germain to Rue St. Jacques, where they turned down across the Petit Pont and stopped in the court-yard of an immense building across the plaza from Notre Dame. Tartar was somewhat uneasy, as well as his little mistress, at this novelty of locomotion, but as long as they were together it seemed to be all right. So they looked out of the carriage windows at the sights that were as strange to their eyes as if they had never before been in the city of Paris. Meanwhile, to divert the child, the man at her side had gayly pointed out the objects of interest.

"Ah! and there is grand old Notre Dame," said he.

"What's that?"

"Notre Dame."

"It's a big house."

"Yes; but you've seen it, of course."

"Never."

"What!" he exclaimed, in astonishment; "you, a little Parisienne, and never saw Notre Dame?"

"You—you, monsieur, you have then seen everything in Paris?"

There was a vein of cold irony in the small voice.

"Er—w-well, not quite. Not quite, perhaps," he smilingly answered.

"No, nor I," she said.

"But Notre Dame——"

"What's Notre Dame to me? Nothing!"

A slight gesture of impatience.

"But——"

"What's it for?"

"Why, it's a church, petite."

"A church! And what's that to me?"

"Well, truly, I don't know, child. Nothing, I suppose."

"Nothing!"

She snapped her fingers contemptuously.

"Here is the Préfecture."

It was the Préfecture de Police and not Notre Dame that had to do with little Fouchette and her kind. She knew what the Préfecture was, though she now saw it for the first time. And she shivered in her wet rags as the carriage turned into the great court-yard surrounded by the immense stone quadrangle that fronts upon the quai.

A troop of the Garde de Paris was drilling at the upper end of the court. Sentinels with gay uniforms and fixed bayonets solemnly paraded at the three gate-ways.

"Come, petite," said the man, flinging open the carriage doors and lifting the child in his arms to the ground. The dog leaped out after her and looked uneasily up and down.

Half an hour later when Fouchette emerged with her conductor she had undergone a transformation that would have rendered her unrecognizable in Charenton. She had not only been washed and combed and rubbed down, but had been arrayed in a frock of grayish material, a chip hat with flowers in it, and shoes and stockings. She was so excited over the grandeur of her personal appearance that she had completely lost her bearings. It is true the hat was too old for a child of her years, and the coarse new costume was several sizes too large for her bony little frame, and the shoes were very embarrassing, but to Fouchette they seemed the outfit of a "real lady."

She had entered the Préfecture sullenly, desperately, half expecting to be sent to a lonely cell and perhaps loaded with chains—she had heard tell of such things—and, instead, had been treated with kindness by a gentle matron, her body washed and clothed, her stomach made glad with rich soup and bread and milk, while Tartar was amply provided for before her own eyes.

Fouchette was still in a daze when she found herself again in the closed carriage, with Tartar at her feet, being whirled away at a pace that seemed to threaten the lives of everybody in the streets. The same man sat beside her, and an extra man had, at the last moment, clambered up by the side of the driver.

This furious speed was continued for a long time, until Fouchette began to wonder more and more where they were going. She could not recognize anything en route, and the man was now serious and taciturn.

All at once she saw that they were approaching the barrier. Things looked differently from a carriage window, and yet there was a familiar air about the surroundings.

The man noticed her uneasiness and pulled down the blinds.

A terrible fear now seized her. Were they going to take her back to the Podvins?

This fear increased as the speed of the vehicle lessened and as Tartar began to move about impatiently. He was trying to get his nose under the curtain.

"Hold him down!" said the man in a low voice. He was afraid to touch the dog himself.

"Oh, monsieur!" she finally exclaimed, "we are not going to—to——"

"The Rendez-Vous pour Cochers, my little Fouchette," he put in, with a smile.

"Oh, mon Dieu! Please, monsieur! Take me anywhere else—back to the Préfecture—to prison—anywhere but to this place! They'll kill me! Oh, they'll kill me, monsieur!"

"Bah! No, they won't, little one. We'll take care of that."

"But——"

"Besides," he continued, reassuringly, "we're not going to leave you there, so don't be afraid. Maybe you won't have to get out, or be seen even, if you do as I tell you. Have no fear."

"Mon Dieu! monsieur does not know. They'll kill you, too!"

"No, they won't. And I know all about them, my child. There are four of us, and—— Keep the dog down till I open the door."

The carriage had stopped.

"Stay right where you are," he whispered. "Let the dog out."

Tartar could not have been held in by both of them. He jumped to the ground with joyous barks of recognition.

It was now ten o'clock, and the usual odors of a Parisian second breakfast permeated the atmosphere of the cabaret.

Four or five rough-looking men were lounging about, gossiping over their absinthe or apératif. Monsieur Podvin was already, at this early hour in the day, on his second bottle of ordinaire. Opposite, as usual, sat le Cochon.

Madame Podvin was busily burnishing up the zinc bar, and the vigorous and spiteful way in which she did this betrayed the fact that she was in bad temper. She was reserving an extra force of pent-up wrath against the moment when that "lazy little beast Fouchette" should put in an appearance.

Monsieur Podvin was also irritated, but not because of Fouchette's prolonged absence. He was concerned about Tartar.

Le Cochon sympathized with both of them.

Among the various theories offered for these disappearances madame thought that Fouchette was simply playing truant. The dog did not bother her calculation, as he would not share the punishment.

Monsieur was certain that the girl had enticed the dog away from home; though why she had taken her basket and hook if she were not coming back he could not say.

Le Cochon took a gloomy view of it. He was afraid some accident had befallen her—she might have got run over by a fiacre, or have fallen into the river.

"Nonsense!" protested M. Podvin. "The dog would come home. He wouldn't get run over too, and you couldn't drown a spaniel."

It was precisely at this moment that the loud barking of Tartar broke upon their ears, confirming his master's judgment and sending a thrill through everybody in the room. This sensation, however, was by no means the same.

The brute master alone rejoiced for pure love of the dog and for the dog's sake.

Madame Podvin went in search of a certain stout strap used upon Fouchette on special occasions of ceremonial penological procedure.

Two strange men seated at some distance from each other, and who up to that moment had ignored each other's existence, exchanged looks of intelligence and rose as if to leave the place.

Le Cochon alone seemed disconcerted. His beetle brows clouded, and his right hand involuntarily sought the handle of his knife.

The instincts of the robber were this time unerring. For Tartar had scarcely licked the dirty hand of his master, when his eyes fell upon the would-be murderer of his beloved mistress. The sight appeared to startle the animal at first. But only for a second. Then, with a growl of rage that began low and ominously, like the first notes of a thunder-storm, and swelled into a howl, the spaniel sprang upon the villain and fastened his fangs in his fleshy throat.