The Mysteries of Paris, Volume 1 of 6

Lank, mean-looking, and feeble, this man might be fifty years of age. His countenance resembled both the weasel and the rat; his peaked nose, his receding chin, his high cheek-bones, his small eyes, black, restless, and keen, gave his features an indescribable expression of malice, cunning, and sagacity. An old brown wig, or, rather, as yellow as his bilious complexion, perched on the top of his head, showed the nape of the old fellow's withered neck. He had on a round jacket, and one of those long black aprons worn by the waiters at the wine shops.

Our three acquaintances had hardly descended the last step of the staircase when a child of about ten years of age, rickety, lame, and somewhat misshapen, came to rejoin Bras Rouge, whom he resembled in so striking a manner that there was no mistaking them for father and son. There was the same quick and cunning look, joined to that impudent, hardened, and knavish air, which is peculiar to the scamp (voyou) of Paris, – that fearful type of precocious depravity, that real 'hemp-seed' (graine de bagne), as they style it, in the horrible slang of the gaol. The forehead of the brat was half lost beneath a thatch of yellowish locks, as harsh and stiff as horse-hair. Reddish-coloured trousers and a gray blouse, confined by a leather girdle, completed Tortillard's costume, whose nickname was derived from his infirmity. He stood close to his father, standing on his sound leg like a heron by the side of a marsh.

"Ah, here is the darling one (môme)!" said the Schoolmaster. "Finette, night is coming on, and time is pressing; we must profit by the daylight which is left to us."

"You are right, my man; I will ask the father to spare his darling."

"Good day, old friend," said Bras Rouge, addressing the Schoolmaster, in a voice which was cracked, sharp, and shrill. "What can I do for you?"

"Why, if you could spare your 'small boy' to my mistress for a quarter of an hour, she has lost something which he could help her to look for."

Bras Rouge winked his eye and made a sign to the Schoolmaster, and then said to the child:

"Tortillard, go with madame."

The hideous brat hopped forward and took hold of the "one-eyed's" hand.

"Love of a bright boy, come along! There is a child!" said Finette. "And how like his father! He is not like Pegriotte, who always pretended to have a pain in her side when she came near me, – a little baggage!"

"Come, come away! – be off, Finette! Keep your weather-eye open, and bright lookout. I await you here."

"I won't be long. Go first, Tortillard."

The one-eyed hag and the little cripple went up the slippery steps.

"Finette, take the umbrella," the brigand called out.

"It would be in the way, my man," said the old woman, who quickly disappeared with Tortillard in the midst of the fog, which thickened with the twilight, and the hollow murmur of the wind as it moaned through the thick and leafless branches of the tall elms in the Champs Elysées.

"Let us go in," said Rodolph.

It was requisite to stoop in passing in at the door of the cabaret, which was divided into two apartments. In one was a bar and a broken-down billiard-table; in the other, tables and garden chairs, which had once been painted green. Two narrow windows, with their cracked panes festooned with spiders' webs, cast a dim but not religious light on the damp walls.

Rodolph was alone for one moment only, during which Bras Rouge and the Schoolmaster had time to exchange some words, rapidly uttered, and some mysterious signs.

"You'll take a glass of beer, – or brandy, perhaps, – whilst we wait for Finette?" said the Schoolmaster.

"No; I am not thirsty."

"Do as you like, – I am for a 'drain' of brandy," said the ruffian; and he seated himself on one of the little green tables in the second apartment.

Darkness came on to this den so completely, that it was impossible to see in one of the angles of this inner apartment the open mouth of one of those cellars which are entered by a door in two divisions, one of which was constantly kept open for the convenience of access. The table at which the Schoolmaster sat was close upon this dark and deep hole, and he turned his back upon it, so that it was entirely concealed from Rodolph's view.

He was looking through the window, in order to command his countenance and conceal the workings of his thoughts. The sight of Murphy speeding through the Allée des Veuves did not quite assure him; he was afraid that the worthy squire had not quite understood the full meaning of his note, necessarily so laconic, and containing only these words:

"This evening – ten o'clock. Be on your guard."

Resolved not to go to the Allée des Veuves before that moment, nor to lose sight of the Schoolmaster for an instant, he yet trembled at the idea of losing the only opportunity that might ever be afforded him of obtaining that secret which he was so excessively anxious to possess. Although he was powerful and well armed, yet he had to deal with an unscrupulous assassin, capable of any and every thing. Not desiring, however, that his thoughts should be detected, he seated himself at the table with the Schoolmaster, and, by way of seeming at his ease, called for a glass of something. Bras Rouge having exchanged a few words, in a low tone, with the brigand, looked at Rodolph with an air in which curiosity, distrust, and contempt were mingled.

"It is my advice, young man," said the Schoolmaster, "that if my wife informs us that the persons we wish to see are within, we had better make our call about eight o'clock."

"That will be two hours too soon," said Rodolph; "and that will spoil all."

"Do you think so?"

"I am sure of it."

"Bah! amongst friends there should be no ceremony."

"I know them well, and I tell you that we must not think of going before ten o'clock."

"Are you out of your senses, young man?"

"I give you my opinion, and devil fetch me if I stir from here before ten o'clock."

"Don't disturb yourself, – I never close my establishment before midnight," said Bras Rouge, in his falsetto voice; "it is the time when my best customers drop in; and my neighbours never complain of the noise which is made in my house."

"I must agree to all you wish, young man," continued the Schoolmaster. "Be it so, then; we will not set out on our visit until ten o'clock."

"Here is the Chouette!" said Bras Rouge, hearing and replying to a warning cry similar to that which the Schoolmaster had uttered before he descended to the subterraneous abode.

A minute afterwards the Chouette entered the billiard-room alone.

"It is all right, my man, – I've done the trick!" cried the one-eyed hag, as she entered.

Bras Rouge discreetly withdrew, without asking a word about Tortillard, whom, perhaps, he did not expect to see return. The beldam sat with her face towards Rodolph and the brigand.

"Well?" said the Schoolmaster.

"The young fellow has told us all true, so far."

"Ah! you see I was right," exclaimed Rodolph.

"Let the Chouette tell her tale, young man. Come, tell us all about it, Finette."

"I went straight to No. 17, leaving Tortillard on the lookout and concealed in a corner. It was still daylight, and I rung at a side door which opens outwards, and here's about two inches of space between it and the sill; nothing else to notice. I rang; the porter opened. Before I pulled the bell I had put my bonnet in my pocket, that I might look like a neighbour. As soon as I saw the porter I pretended to cry violently, saying that I had lost a pet parrot, Cocotte, – a little darling that I adored. I told him I lived in the Rue Marboeuf, and that I had pursued Cocotte from garden to garden, and entreated him to allow me to enter and try and find the bird."

"Ah!" said the Schoolmaster, with an air of proud satisfaction, pointing to Finette, "what a woman!"

"Very clever," said Rodolph. "And what then?"

"The porter allowed me to look for the creature, and I went trotting all around the garden, calling 'Cocotte! Cocotte!' and looked about me in every direction to scrutinise every thing. Inside the walls," continued the horrid old hag, going on with her description of the premises, "inside the walls, trellis-work all around, – a perfect staircase; at the left-hand corner of the wall a fir-tree, just like a ladder, – a lying-in woman might descend by it. The house has six windows on the ground floor, and has no upper story, – six small windows without any fastening. The windows of the ground floor close with shutters, having hooks below and staples in the upper part: press in the bottom, use your steel file – "

"A push," said the Schoolmaster, "and it is open."

The Chouette continued:

"The entrance has a glass door, two Venetian blinds outside – "