|
THE USE MADE OF MARIUS' FIVE-FRANC PIECE
Marius decided that the moment had now arrived when he must
resume his post at his observatory.
In a twinkling, and with the agility of his age, he had reached
the hole in the partition.
He looked.
The interior of the Jondrette apartment presented a curious
aspect, and Marius found an explanation of the singular light
which he had noticed.
A candle was burning in a candlestick covered with verdigris,
but that was not what really lighted the chamber. The hovel was
completely illuminated, as it were, by the reflection from a rather
large sheet-iron brazier standing in the fireplace, and filled
with burning charcoal, the brazier prepared by the Jondrette woman
that morning.
The charcoal was glowing hot and the brazier was red; a blue
flame flickered over it, and helped him to make out the form of
the chisel purchased by Jondrette in the Rue Pierre-Lombard, where
it had been thrust into the brazier to heat.
In one corner, near the door, and as though prepared for some
definite use, two heaps were visible, which appeared to be, the
one a heap of old iron, the other a heap of ropes.
All this would have caused the mind of a person who knew nothing
of what was in preparation, to waver between a very sinister and
a very simple idea.
The lair thus lighted up more resembled a forge than a mouth
of hell, but Jondrette, in this light, had rather the air of a
demon than of a smith.
The heat of the brazier was so great, that the candle on the
table was melting on the side next the chafing-dish, and was drooping
over. An old dark-lantern of copper, worthy of Diogenes turned
Cartouche, stood on the chimney-piece.
The brazier, placed in the fireplace itself, beside the nearly
extinct brands, sent its vapors up the chimney, and gave out no
odor.
The moon, entering through the four panes of the window, cast
its whiteness into the crimson and flaming garret; and to the
poetic spirit of Marius, who was dreamy even in the moment of
action, it was like a thought of heaven mingled with the misshapen
reveries of earth.
A breath of air which made its way in through the open pane,
helped to dissipate the smell of the charcoal and to conceal the
presence of the brazier.
The Jondrette lair was, if the reader recalls what we have
said of the Gorbeau building, admirably chosen to serve as the
theatre of a violent and sombre deed, and as the envelope for
a crime. It was the most retired chamber in the most isolated
house on the most deserted boulevard in Paris.
If the system of ambush and traps had not already existed,
they would have been invented there.
The whole thickness of a house and a multitude of uninhabited
rooms separated this den from the boulevard, and the only window
that existed opened on waste lands enclosed with walls and palisades.
Jondrette had lighted his pipe, seated himself on the seatless
chair, and was engaged in smoking.
His wife was talking to him in a low tone.
If Marius had been Courfeyrac, that is to say, one of those
men who laugh on every occasion in life, he would have burst with
laughter when his gaze fell on the Jondrette woman.
She had on a black bonnet with plumes not unlike the hats
of the heralds-at-arms at the coronation of Charles X., an immense
tartan shawl over her knitted petticoat, and the man's shoes which
her daughter had scorned in the morning.
It was this toilette which had extracted from Jondrette the
exclamation:
"Good!
You have dressed up. You have done well.
You must inspire confidence!"
As for Jondrette, he had not taken off the new surtout, which
was too large for him, and which M. Leblanc had given him, and
his costume continued to present that contrast of coat and trousers
which constituted the ideal of a poet in Courfeyrac's eyes.
All at once, Jondrette lifted up his voice:--
"By the way!
Now that I think of it.
In this weather, he will come in a carriage.
Light the lantern, take it and go down stairs. You will stand
behind the lower door.
The very moment that you hear the carriage stop, you will
open the door, instantly, he will come up, you will light the
staircase and the corridor, and when he enters here, you will
go down stairs again as speedily as possible, you will pay the
coachman, and dismiss the fiacre.
"And the money?" inquired the woman.
Jondrette fumbled in his trousers pocket and handed her five
francs.
"What's this?" she exclaimed.
Jondrette replied with dignity:--
"That is the monarch which our neighbor gave us this
morning."
And he added:--
"Do you know what?
Two chairs will be needed here."
"What for?"
"To sit on."
Marius felt a cold chill pass through his limbs at hearing
this mild answer from Jondrette.
"Pardieu!
I'll go and get one of our neighbor's."
And with a rapid movement, she opened the door of the den,
and went out into the corridor.
Marius absolutely had not the time to descend from the commode,
reach his bed, and conceal himself beneath it.
"Take the candle," cried Jondrette.
"No," said she, "it would embarrass me, I have
the two chairs to carry. There is moonlight."
Marius heard Mother Jondrette's heavy hand fumbling at his
lock in the dark.
The door opened.
He remained nailed to the spot with the shock and with horror.
The Jondrette entered.
The dormer window permitted the entrance of a ray of moonlight
between two blocks of shadow.
One of these blocks of shadow entirely covered the wall against
which Marius was leaning, so that he disappeared within it.
Mother Jondrette raised her eyes, did not see Marius, took
the two chairs, the only ones which Marius possessed, and went
away, letting the door fall heavily to behind her.
She re-entered the lair.
"Here are the two chairs."
"And here is the lantern.
Go down as quick as you can."
She hastily obeyed, and Jondrette was left alone.
He placed the two chairs on opposite sides of the table, turned
the chisel in the brazier, set in front of the fireplace an old
screen which masked the chafing-dish, then went to the corner
where lay the pile of rope, and bent down as though to examine
something. Marius then recognized the fact, that what he had taken
for a shapeless mass was a very well-made rope-ladder, with wooden
rungs and two hooks with which to attach it.
This ladder, and some large tools, veritable masses of iron,
which were mingled with the old iron piled up behind the door,
had not been in the Jondrette hovel in the morning, and had evidently
been brought thither in the afternoon, during Marius' absence.
"Those are the utensils of an edge-tool maker,"
thought Marius.
Had Marius been a little more learned in this line, he would
have recognized in what he took for the engines of an edge-tool
maker, certain instruments which will force a lock or pick a lock,
and others which will cut or slice, the two families of tools
which burglars call cadets and fauchants.
The fireplace and the two chairs were exactly opposite Marius.
The brazier being concealed, the only light in the room was now
furnished by the candle; the smallest bit of crockery on the table
or on the chimney-piece cast a large shadow.
There was something indescribably calm, threatening, and hideous
about this chamber. One felt that there existed in it the anticipation
of something terrible.
Jondrette had allowed his pipe to go out, a serious sign of
preoccupation, and had again seated himself.
The candle brought out the fierce and the fine angles of his
countenance.
He indulged in scowls and in abrupt unfoldings of the right
hand, as though he were responding to the last counsels of a sombre
inward monologue.
In the course of one of these dark replies which he was making
to himself, he pulled the table drawer rapidly towards him, took
out a long kitchen knife which was concealed there, and tried
the edge of its blade on his nail.
That done, he put the knife back in the drawer and shut it.
Marius, on his side, grasped the pistol in his right pocket,
drew it out and cocked it.
The pistol emitted a sharp, clear click, as he cocked it.
Jondrette started, half rose, listened a moment, then began
to laugh and said:--
"What a fool I am!
It's the partition cracking!"
Marius kept the pistol in his hand.
|
