Читать книгу Mlle. Fouchette - Charles Theodore Murray - Страница 18

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The onset was so sudden and swift, and the animal had received such a powerful impetus from his spring, that the burly robber went down with a tremendous crash.

Man and dog rolled together in the dirt, upsetting tables and chairs and raising a terrible uproar. The desperate wretch plunged his knife again and again into the body of the enraged spaniel; the latter only clinched his teeth tighter and endeavored to tear his enemy by main brute strength.

Madame Podvin, having been diverted from her original purpose by this unexpected mêlée, set up a scream that would have drowned an active calliope.

"That's our bird!" shouted the man who had been serving as Fouchette's footman.

Whereupon his partner and the two agents from the Préfecture who had been waiting within fell upon the struggling pair.

It was all over in a few seconds.

Yet within that brief period Tartar lay dead from a knife-thrust in the heart, and the robber was extended alongside of his victim, his hands securely manacled upon his back.

"Hold on, gentlemen!" broke in M. Podvin at this juncture, having found his voice for the first time, "what does this mean?"

"It means, my dear Podvin, that this amiable gentleman, who has always been so handy with his knife, is wanted at the Préfecture——"

"And that you are politely requested to accompany him," added the other Central man, tapping M. Podvin on the shoulder.

"But, que diable!"

"Come! Madame will conduct the business all right, no doubt, while her patriot husband serves the State."

"That cursed dog has finished me," growled the prostrate robber. "C'est égal! I've done for him and F—— If it had only been one of you, curse you!"

This benevolent wish was addressed to the police agent who was at that moment engaged in binding up the horrible wound in the man's throat. Both were drenched with blood, partly from the dog and partly from the man. Le Cochon had been assisted to a sitting posture, sullen, revengeful, with murder in his black heart.

All at once his inflamed eyes rested upon something in the doorway. At first it was but casually, then fixedly, while the bloated face turned ashen.

He started to rise to his feet, and would have warded off the apparition with his hands, only they were laced in steel behind him, then, with a deep groan of terror, pitched forward upon his face, senseless.

It was Fouchette.

The others turned towards the doorway to see—there was nothing there.

Cowering for a few moments in the darkest corner of the carriage, she had heard the voice of Tartar raised in anger, followed by the tumult. The latter she had anticipated with fear and trembling. She had divined at the last moment that these were agents of the police, and that the object was arrests. The noise of combat roused her fighting blood, the silence that so soon followed heated her curiosity to the boiling-point. It was intolerable. Perhaps the agents were being killed. The suspense was dreadful. She felt that she could not endure it another second.

The man had ordered her to remain in the carriage. The blinds were down; the coachman stood on the side next to the cabaret.

Come what might, she must know. So Fouchette slipped softly out on the opposite side and sneaked swiftly around the horses' heads.

The coachman on guard was for the same moment completely wrapped up in the riot that had been going on inside the Rendez-Vous pour Cochers; he saw the child just as she reached the doorway, and then he made a dash for her, grabbed her, and put her back in the carriage.

Thus, it so happened that but a single pair of eyes within had seen Fouchette, and these eyes belonged to the man who believed her to be dead.

It was for the purpose of the identification of her assailant that Fouchette had been brought to the Rendez-Vous pour Cochers. Tartar had spared her that trouble, though it was for quite another reason that le Cochon fell into the grip of the police.

The latter had experienced no difficulty in identifying Fouchette in spite of her obstinate silence. As she had come down the river from outside the barrier, it was clear that she made her living in some river suburb. A telephonic inquiry brought not only immediate confirmation from the authorities at Charenton, but had elicited the important details that brought the specials from the Préfecture down upon the suspected cabaret. In the man described as "le Cochon" the officials at once recognized a notorious escaped convict.

It was not until Fouchette was on her way back to the Préfecture that it was learned that in their prisoner, le Cochon, they also had an assassin who up to this moment had eluded arrest.

When the agent had informed her of the death of Tartar she was first overcome with grief. The sense of her utter loneliness rushed upon her. She wept convulsively. Her sorrow was bitter and profound.

"Cheer up, my child; don't give way like that."

Her companion tried now and then to comfort her in his rough way.

"Ah, monsieur! but he was the only friend I had in the world!" she sobbed.

"There, there!" he said, soothingly; "you'll have more friends. You'll be taken care of all right."

"I don't care what becomes of me, now poor Tartar's gone! He loved me! Nobody will ever love me like he did—never!"

But when she had recovered from this tempest of tears it was to succumb to a tempest of wrath.

"That wretch! I'll see him under the razor!" she exclaimed, meaning the guillotine. "He tried to drown me, the assassin! Yes, I know him for an assassin—a murderer! It was he who pushed me into the river!"

"Oho!"

"It is true! That man is a fiend—an assassin! I am ready to tell everything, monsieur! Everything!"

Not for love of truth—not for fear of law—but for the love of a dog.

In this mood she was encouraged by all the wiles and insinuating ways known to the professional student of human nature. So that, when Fouchette reached the Préfecture, she had not only imparted valuable information, she had astounded her official auditor. Not altogether by what she had revealed, but quite as much by her precocious cleverness and judgment.

She was taken at once before Inspector Loup, of the Secret Service.

Fouchette was not in the least intimidated when she found herself closeted alone with this mighty personage. For she did not know the extraordinary power wielded by Inspector Loup, and was in equal ignorance of the stenographer behind the screen. She was thinking only of her revenge. She had sworn, mentally, to have the head of le Cochon. She would see him writhing under the guillotine. Not because he had tried to drown her—she would never have betrayed him for that—but because he had murdered her dog. She would have vengeance. She would have overlooked his cowardly butchery of a stranger in the wood of Vincennes; but for the killing of Tartar she was ready and eager to see the head of le Cochon fall in the Place de la Roquette.

Therefore Fouchette confronted Inspector Loup intent upon her own wrongs, and with a face which might have been deemed impudent but for its premature hardness.

Inspector Loup was a tall, thin man, with small, keen, fishy eyes—so small they seemed like beads, all pupil, so keen they glistened like diamonds, so fishy they appeared to swim round in two heavily fringed ponds. And they were always swimming—indolently, as if it were not really worth while, but still leaving the vague and sometimes uncomfortable impression that they were on you, under you, around you, through you; that they were weighing you, analyzing you, and knew what was in your mind and stomach, as well as the contents of your inside pockets.

It was the habit of Inspector Loup to turn these peculiar orbs upon whoever came under his personal jurisdiction for a minute or two without uttering a word, though usually before that time had expired the individual had succumbed to their mysterious influence and was ready to make a clean breast of it.

Their awful influence upon the wrongdoer was intensified by the softness of his insinuating voice, that seemed to pry down into human secrets as a sort of intellectual jimmy, delicate but powerful, and by the noiselessness of his tread, which had the effect of creeping upon his victim preparatory to the final spring.

In other words, Inspector Loup accomplished by moral force what others believed possible only to physical intimidation. Yet those law-breakers who had presumed too much upon his gentleness had invariably come to grief, and Inspector Loup had reached his present confidential position through thrilling experiences that had left his lank body covered with honorable scars.

Inspector Loup was practically chief of the Secret System—or, rather, was director of that system under the eye of the Minister of the Interior. He had served a dozen ministries. He had adopted the great Fouché as a standard, and no government could change quicker than Inspector Loup could. If he had been of the Napoleonic period he might have rivalled his distinguished model. As it was, he did as well as was possible with the weak governing material with which France was afflicted.

The word "spy" being obnoxious in all languages and at all times and in all places, the myriad smaller particles of the Secret System were called "Agents."

The Paris "agent" of this class has, happily, no counterpart in the American government. Our "detectives," or "plain clothes men," are limited to legitimate police duties in the discovery of crime and prosecution of criminals. They are known, are borne on pay-rolls, usually have good character and some official standing.

The Paris "agent" is a widely different individual, speaking of that branch not in uniform and not regularly employed on routine work. This class is formed of government employés, all persons holding government licenses of any kind, all keepers of public-houses and places of public resort subject to government inspection, returned convicts under police surveillance, criminals under suspension of sentence, all persons under the eye of the police subject to arrest for one thing or another, or who may be intimidated.

Add to these the regular service men and women, then bear in mind that the names of all "agents" are secure from public knowledge, even of a military court, that they can stab in the dark and never be held accountable by their victims, and that appropriations are made in bulk for this service without an accounting, and you will then understand the full strength and appreciate the unique infamy of the French Secret System.

"Eh, bien?"

Inspector Loup had finished his inspection of the childish figure before him and was compelled to break the ice.

"Eh, bien, monsieur; it is me."

An obstinate silence ensued.

"Well, what do you want?" finally inquired the inspector, in a tone that clearly implied that, whatever it was, she would not get it.

"Nothing," she replied.

"Then what are you here for?"

"Because I was brought."

"Oh!"

"Yes, monsieur."

"Well, now you are here——"

"Yes?"

"What have you got to say?"

"Nothing."

"Que diable! child, no fencing!"

Another awkward silence, during which each coolly surveyed the other.

"Why don't you speak?"

"About what?"

"Yourself."

"Of what good is it to speak?" she asked, simply—"monsieur knows."

"Indeed!"

This child was breaking the record. Inspector Loup contemplated her petite personality once more. Here was a rare diplomate.

"You are called Fouchette?" he said.

"Yes, mon——"

"You come from Nantes. No; you don't remember. You were picked up in the streets by the Podvins and have been living with them ever since. Fouchette is the name they gave you. It is not your real name. You are ostensibly a ragpicker, but are the consort and associate of thieves and robbers and assassins, who have used you as well as abused you. You are suspected to be a regular go-between for these and the receivers of stolen goods."

"M-monsieur!"

Truly, Monsieur l'Inspecteur knew more of her than she did.

"And I know that it is true. You would have been arrested in the act the next trip. This ruffian, so-called le Cochon, threw you in the river with the intention of drowning you. You were rescued through the sagacity and devotion of a dog. Both this man le Cochon and Podvin have been arrested. There are others——"

"There are others," repeated Fouchette.

"Which you——"

"I know."

"Well?"

"The dead man of the wood of Vincennes—last year. Did they ever find the one who did that?"

"No."

"Le Cochon!"

"Ah!"

"Very sure."

"You saw it?"

"Oh, no. I heard them talking."

"Who?"

"Monsieur Podvin and le Cochon."

"Go on, mon enfant; you grow interesting at last."

"Monsieur Podvin was very angry because of it. They quarrelled. I heard them from my bed in the cellar. The man had resisted—over a few sous, think! And Monsieur Podvin said it was not worth while, for so little, to bring the police down on the neighborhood. It spoiled business. For the twelve sous Monsieur Podvin said he'd lose a thousand francs."

"M. Podvin was undoubtedly right."

"Yes; but le Cochon said it was worth a thousand francs to hear the man squeal."

"So!"

"Yes. And then Monsieur Podvin wanted to take it out of his share."

"So?"

"Yes; and so they quarrelled dreadfully."

"And Madame Podvin—she heard this?"

"Madame is not deaf, monsieur."

"Ah!"

"She was at the zinc."

"Truly, Madame Podvin may become of value," muttered Inspector Loup.

"Monsieur?"

"Oh! And so you've kept this to your little self all this time. Why?"

"I was afraid; then——"

"I understand. But you got bravely over all this as soon as this miscreant undertook to put you out of the way, eh?"

"It was not that, monsieur, for what I would be avenged."

"So you confess to the motive?"

"I would surely be revenged, monsieur," she avowed, frankly.

"A mighty small woman, but still a woman, and sure Française," observed the inspector.

"He killed my only friend, monsieur."

"What! Another murder? Le Cochon?"

"Yes."

"Très bien! Go on, mon enfant; you grow more and more interesting!"

"It was only this morning, monsieur," said the child, again reminded of her irreparable loss.

"This morning, eh? The report is not yet in.—There, now, don't blubber, little one.—Another murder for le Cochon! Pardieu! we shall have his head!"

"Truly?" Fouchette brightened up immediately at this prospect.

"The infamous wretch!"

"Yes; go on, monsieur. You grow more interesting!"

"What an infernally impudent child!" observed the inspector to himself, yet aloud.

"Monsieur?"

"What—how about this morning's murder?"

"Le Cochon's dreadful knife! Oh! I would love to see him strapped to the plank and his head in the basket! Yes, ten thousand curses on——"

"Là! là! là! Mon Dieu! will you never get on? Who was le Cochon's victim this time?"

"Tartar, monsieur—yes! Ah! Oh!"

"Tartar? Tartar? Why, that's the name of——"

"Yes, monsieur, the dog! Poor Tartar!"

"So le Cochon killed your dog, eh?"

"Yes, monsieur," sobbed Fouchette.

Monsieur l'Inspecteur was silent for a while, thoughtfully regarding the grieving child with his fishy eyes.

"After all, it was murder," he said. "Had this man committed no other crime, he deserves death for having killed such a noble beast."

"Ah! thank you, monsieur! Thank you very much!"

Having established this happy entente, Inspector Loup and Fouchette entered into a long and interesting conversation—interesting especially to the chief of the Secret System.

When the interview was over Fouchette was led away almost quite happy. Happier, at least, than she had ever been—far happier than she had ever hoped to be. First, she had been promised her revenge; second, she was neither to go back to the Rendez-Vous pour Cochers nor to be turned into the street; third, she was to be sent to a beautiful retreat outside of Paris, where she would be taught to read and write and be brought up as a lady.

It seemed to the child that this was too good to be true. The country, in her imagination, was the source and foundation of all real happiness. There was nothing in cities—nothing but dust and crowds, and human selfishness and universal hardness of heart, and toil and misery.

In the country was freedom and independence. She had tasted it in her furtive morning excursions in the wood of Vincennes. Tartar had loved the country. The woods, the fields, and the flowers—to range among them daily, openly and without fear, would be heaven!

To the Parisian all outside of Paris is country.

And to learn to read and to write and understand the newspapers and what was in books!

Yes, it seemed really too much, all at once. For of all other things coveted in this world, Fouchette deemed such a knowledge most desirable. Up to this moment it had been beyond the ordinary flight of her youthful imagination. It was one of the impossibilities—like flying and finding a million of money. But now it had come to her. She might know something she had never seen, or of which she had never heard.

To accomplish all of this and to be in the country at the same time, what more could anybody wish?

Yet she was to have more. The inspector—what was this wonderful man, anyhow, who knew everything and could do anything?—he, the inspector, had promised it. She was to have human kindness and love!

The inspector was a nice gentleman. And the agents—it was all a lie about the agents de police. They were all nice men. She had hated and dreaded them; and had they not been good to her? Had they not taken her from the river and fed her and clothed her and visited with swift punishment those who had cruelly abused her?

Fouchette was learning rapidly. The change was so confusing, and events had chased one another so unceremoniously, that she must be pardoned if she grasped new ideas with more tenacity than accuracy. It is what all of us are doing day by day.

It was a long distance by rail.

Fouchette had never dreamed that a railroad could be so long and that the woods and fields with which her mind had been recently filled could become so monotonous and tedious. Even the towns and villages—of which she had never heard—that were interesting at first, soon became stupid and tiresome. She had long ceased to notice them particularly, her mind being naturally filled with thoughts of the place to which she was going, and where her whole future seemed to lay yet undeveloped. She finally fell into a sound sleep.

The next thing she knew was that she was roughly shaken by the shoulder, and a voice cried, somewhat impatiently—

"Come, come! What a little sleepyhead!"

It was that of a "religieuse," or member of a religious order, and its possessor was a stout, ruddy-faced woman of middle life, garbed in solemn black, against which sombre background the white wings of her homely headpiece and the white apron, over which dangled a cross, looked still more white and glaring than they were.

Another woman in the same glaring uniform, though less robust and quite colorless as to face, stood near by on the station platform.

"Bring her things, sister—if she has anything."

Following these instructions, the red-faced woman rummaged in the netting overhead with one hand while she pulled Fouchette from her corner with the other.

"Come, petite! Is this all you've got, child?"

"Yes, madame," replied the child, respectfully, but with a sinking heart.

"So this is Fouchette, eh?" said the white-faced woman, as her companion joined her with the child and her little bundle.

"Yes, madame," faltered Fouchette.

But for the eyes, which were large and dark and luminous, and which seemed to grasp the object upon which they rested and to hold it in physical embrace, the face might have been that of the dead, so ghastly and rigid and unnatural it was.

"She's not much, very sure," observed the other, turning Fouchette around by the slender shoulder.

"She'll never earn her salt," said the pale-faced sister.

Fouchette noticed that her lips were apparently bloodless and that she scarcely moved them as she spoke.

"Not for long, anyhow," responded the other, with a significance Fouchette did not then understand.

Without other preliminary they led Fouchette down the platform.

"Where's your ticket?" asked the white-faced woman, coldly.

Fouchette nervously searched the bosom of her dress. In France the railway ticket is surrendered at the point where the journey ceases, as the traveller leaves the station platform.

"Sainte Marie!" exclaimed the ruddy-faced sister—"lost it, I'll wager!"

"Where on earth did you put it, child?"

"Here, madame," said the latter, still fumbling and not a little frightened at the possible consequences of losing the bit of cardboard. "Ah! here—no, it isn't. Mon Dieu!"

"Fouchette!"

The voice of the pale religieuse was stern, though her face rested perfectly immobile, no matter what she said.

"Let me see——"

"Search, Sister Agnes."

The ruddy-faced woman obeyed by plunging her fat hand down the front of the child's dress, where she fished around vigorously but unsuccessfully.

"Nothing but bones!" she ejaculated.

Meanwhile, everybody else had left the platform, and the gatekeeper was growing impatient.

Sister Agnes was a practical woman. She wound up her fruitless search by shaking the child, as if the latter were a plum-tree and might yield over-ripe railway tickets from its branches.

It did. The ticket dropped to the platform from beneath the loose-fitting dress.

"There it is!" cried the gatekeeper.

"Stupid little beast!"

And Sister Agnes shook her again, although, as there were no more tickets, the act seemed quite superfluous.

Outside the station waited a sort of carryall, or van, drawn by a single horse, which turned his aged head to view the new-comer, as did also the driver.

"Oh! so you're coming, eh?" said the latter.

"Yes—long enough!" grumbled Sister Agnes.

They had driven some distance through the streets of a big town without a word, when the last speaker addressed her companion in a low voice.

"You noted the ticket?"

"Yes."

Another silence.

"I don't see what they sent her to us for, do you?"

"That is for the Supérieure."

A still longer silence.

"It's a pity," continued Sister Agnes.

"Yes, they ought to go to the House of Correction."

"These Parisian police——"

"Chut!"

But they need not have taken even this little precaution before Fouchette. She had long been lost in the profound depths of her own gloomy thoughts. In her isolation she required but a single, simple thing to render her happy—a thing which costs nothing—something of which there is an abundance and to spare in the world, thank God!—and that was a little show of kindness.

The child was not very sensitive to bad treatment. To that she was inured; but she had tasted the sweets of kindness, and it had inspired hopes that already began to wither, encouraged dreams that had already vanished.

Fouchette was fast falling into her habitual state of childish cynicism. The police had tricked her, no doubt. She was more than suspicious of this as she noted their approach towards a pile of buildings surrounded by a high wall, which reminded her of La Roquette. This wall had great iron spikes and broken glass bottles set in cement on top, and seemed to stretch away out of sight in the growing shadows of evening. Once proceeding parallel with the wall, the buildings beyond were no longer visible to those outside.

They stopped in front of an immense arched gateway, apparently of the mediæval period, with a porter's lodge on one side, slightly recessed. The gates were of stout oak thickly studded with big-headed nails and bolts. In the heavy oaken door of the lodge was set a brass "judas," a small grille closed by an inner slide, and which might be operated by an unseen hand within so as to betray the identity of any person outside without unbarring the door—a not uncommon arrangement in French gates and outside doors.

If Fouchette had not been restricted by the sides and top of the van, she might have seen the words "Le Bon Pasteur" carved in the ancient stone above the great gateway. But, inasmuch as she could not have read the inscription, and would not have been able to understand it in any case, it was no great matter.

The driver of the van got down and let fall the old-fashioned iron knocker. The judas showed a glistening eye for a second, then closed. This was immediately followed by a slipping of bolts and a clanging of iron bars, and then the big gates swung inward. They appeared to do this without human aid, and shut again in the same mysterious way when the vehicle had passed.

"Supper, thank goodness!" said Sister Agnes, with a sigh.

"You're always hungry——"

"Pretty nearly."

"Always thinking of something to eat," continued the other, reprovingly. "It is not a good example to the young, sister. The carnal appetite, it is a sin, my sister, to flatter it!"

"Dame! As if one could possibly be open to such a charge here!" retorted the ruddy-faced Agnes.

"We are taught to restrain—mortify—pluck out—cut off the offending member. It is——"

"But what are we going to do with this child, Sister Angélique?" interrupted Sister Agnes, and abruptly shutting off the religious enthusiast. "She must be hungry. And the Supérieure——"

"Cannot be disturbed at this hour. In the morning is time enough for an unpleasant subject. Take her to No. 17—it is prepared—in the right lower corridor."

"Sainte Marie!" cried Sister Agnes, crossing herself, "as if I didn't know! Why, I was taken to that cell myself when I came here forty years ago!"

"Perhaps, and have never had reason to regret it, quite surely. But take this child there. Let her begin her new life with fasting and prayer, as you doubtless did, sister. It will serve to fit her to come before the Supérieure in the morning with the humble spirit of one who is to receive so much and who, evidently, can give so little."

Fouchette was so bewildered with her surroundings that she paid little attention to what was being said. The great irregular piles of buildings, the going and coming of the ghostly figures, the silence, impressed her vividly. Of the nearest building, she could see that the windows were grated with iron bars; her ears registered the word "cell." Fouchette did not understand what was meant by the expression "fasting and prayer," but she had a definite idea of a "cell" in a house with grated windows within a high wall.

"Come! hurry up, my child; I want my supper. Yes, and I'll see that they treat you better than they did me. Come this way! Yes—mon Dieu! Mortify the flesh! Flatter the carnal appetite!"

She muttered continuously, as she led Fouchette along a dark corridor with which her feet were familiar.

"Forty years! Ah! Mother of God! Pluck it out! Cut it off! Blessed Sainte Agnes, give me patience! Forty years! Holy Mother, pardon me! Forty years! Yes! Reason to regret? May the good God forgive me!—Here we are, my child."

She suddenly stopped and turned a key, opened a door, thrust the child within, and paused to look around, as if pursuing her reminiscences, oblivious of everything else.

It was a plain cell, such as was used by the early monks when this building was a monastery, possibly nine by six feet, with a high, small, grated hole for the only light and air. A narrow iron cot, a combination stand, and a low stool constituted the sole furniture. A rusty iron crucifix in the middle of the wall opposite the bed was the only decoration. The rest was blank stone, staring white with crumbling whitewash.

Stone floor, stone walls, stone ceiling—cold, clammy, cheerless.

The floor was worn into a smooth, shallow furrow lengthwise, showing where countless weary inmates had paced up and down, up and down, during the long hours. And beneath the crucifix were scooped out two round hollows in the solid rock, where countless knees had bent in recognition of the Christ.

The religieuse seemed to forget the presence of Fouchette, for she dropped upon her own knees in the little hollows in the cold stone floor beneath the rusty iron crucifix on the wall.

"Oh, pardon, my child!" she exclaimed, coming back to the present as she arose from prayer, "I forgot. Forty years ago—it comes upon me here."

She gently removed the little hat with its cheap flowers, then bent over and kissed the thin cheeks, promising to return soon with something to eat.

Fouchette heard the door close, the key grate harshly in the lock.

The moisture of the lips and eyes remained upon her cheeks. She felt it still warm, and involuntarily put up both hands, as if to further convince herself that the kisses were real and to hold them there.

The Christ was to her a myth, the crucifix a vague superstition, prayer a mere unmeaning mummery. But the kisses were tangible and easily understood.

But oh! the country!—the woods! the fields! the flowers!—freedom!

She threw herself on the iron cot and wept passionately.