Messengers of Evil Part 13

Fandor was just asking himself by what gymnastic feat he could regain the quay, and he was leaning over the opening of the sewer, his body bending far forward over the inky waters of the Seine. Before he had time to turn, before he could regain his balance, a brutal blow from behind half stunned him, and a vigorous thrust precipitated his body into the Seine.

V

MOTHER TOULOUCHE AND CRANAJOUR

"Come along, Cranajour! Let's have a sight of what they've given you for the frock coat and the whole outfit!"

The person thus challenged rummaged in the pockets of his old, much-patched and filthy garments, and after interminable fumblings and huntings, finished by extracting a certain number of silver pieces, which he counted over with the greatest care, finally he replied:

"Seventeen francs, Mother Toulouche."

Mother Toulouche showed her impatience:

"It's details I want! How much for the coat? How much for the whole suit? I've got to know, I tell you! I've got to write it all down, and I've got to see how much I've to hand over to each of the owners of the duds!... Try to remember, Cranajour!"

The individual who answered to this odd appellation reflected. After a silence, shrugging his shoulders, he replied:

"I don't know. I can't make myself remember--not anyhow!... And it's a long time since I sold the goods!"

Mother Toulouche shrugged in turn:

"A long time!" she grumbled. "What a wretched job! Why, it's only two hours since--barely that!... It's true," she went on, with a pitying look at the shabby, down-at-heel fellow, who had spread out his seventeen francs on the table, "it's true that you're known not to have two ha'p'orths of memory, and that at the end of an hour you have forgotten what you've done!"

"That's right enough," answered Cranajour.

"Let's have done with it, then," cried Mother Toulouche.

She held out a repulsive-looking specimen of old clothes:

"Be off with you! Go and p.a.w.n this academician's cast-off! When the comrades catch a sight of this bit of stuff to the fore, they'll understand they can come without danger!... No cops about the store on the lookout, are there?"

Mother Toulouche took the precaution to advance to the threshold of her store, cast a rapid glance around--not a suspicious person, nor a sign of one to be seen:

"A good thing," muttered she, "but I was sure of it! Those police spies are going to give us some peace for a bit!... Likely the whole lot of them are on this Dollon business! Isn't it so, Cranajour?"

As she retreated into her store again Mother Toulouche knocked against that individual, who had not budged: he had hung over his arm respectfully the miserable bit of stuff that had been styled an academician's robe:

"Well, what are you waiting for?" asked she sharply.

"Nothing...."

"What are you going to do with that?"

Cranajour seemed to reflect:

"Haven't I told you," grumbled Mother Toulouche, "to go and stick it up outside?... Don't say you've gone and forgotten already!"

"No, no!" protested Cranajour, hastening to obey orders.

"What a specimen!" thought Mother Toulouche, whilst counting over the seventeen francs.

Cranajour was a remarkably queer fish, beyond question. How had he got into connection with Mother Toulouche and her intimates? That remained a mystery. One fine day this seedy specimen of humanity was found among the "comrades" exchanging vague remarks with one and another. He stuck to them in all their shifting from this place to that: no one had been able to get out of him what his name was, nor where he came from, for he was afflicted with a memory like a sieve--he could not remember things for two hours together. A feeble-minded, poor sort of fellow, with not a halfpenny's worth of wickedness in him, always ready to do a hand's turn for anyone: to judge by his looks he might have been any age between forty and seventy, for there is nothing like privations and misery to alter the looks of a man! Faced by this queer fish, with a brain like a sieve, they had christened him "Crane a jour"--and the nickname had stuck to this anonymous individual. Besides, was not Cranajour the most complaisant of fellows, the least exacting of collaborators--always content with what was given him, always willing to do his best!

As to Mother Toulouche; she kept a little shop on the quay of the Clock.

The sign over her little store read:

"_For the Curiosity Lover._"

This alluring t.i.tle was not justified by anything to be found inside this store, which was nothing but a common pick-up-anything shop: it was a receptacle for a hideous collection of lumber, for old broken furniture, for garments past decent wear, for indescribable odds and ends, where the wreckage of human misery lay huddled cheek by jowl with the beggarly offscourings of Parisian dest.i.tution.

Behind the store, whose little front faced the edge of the quay and looked over the Seine, was a sordid back-shop: here the pallet of Mother Toulouche, a kitchen stove out of order, and the overflow of the goods which were crowded out of the store were jumbled up in ill-smelling disorder. This back-shop communicated with the rue de Harlay by a narrow dark pa.s.sage; thus the lair of old Mother Toulouche had two outlets, nor were they superfluous; in fact, they were indispensable for such as she--ever on the alert to escape the inquisitive attentions of the police, ever receiving visitors of doubtful morals and thoroughly bad reputation.

Mother Toulouche's quarters comprised not only the two stores, but a cellar both large and deep, to which one obtained access by a staircase pitch dark, crooked, and everlastingly covered with moisture, owing to the proximity of the river. The floor of the cellar was a kind of noisome cesspool: one slipped on the greasy mud--floundered about in it: for all that, this cellar was almost entirely filled with cases of all kinds, with queer-looking bundles, with objects of various shapes and sizes. Evidently the jumble store of Mother Toulouche did not confine itself to the rough-and-ready shop in the front; and, into the bargain, this bas.e.m.e.nt might be used as a safe hiding-place in an emergency, a precious refuge for whoever might feel it necessary to cover his tracks, and thus escape the investigations of the police, for instance!

Mother Toulouche, as a matter of fact, needed such premises as hers: if she took ceaseless precautions it was because she had a reason for her uneasy watchfulness.

Mother Toulouche had already come into involuntary contact with the police; and her last and most serious encounter with them went as far back as those days of renown when the band of Numbers had as their chief the mysterious hooligan Loupart, also known under the name of Dr.

Chaleck.[4] She had been arrested for complicity in a bank-note robbery, had been tried, and had been sentenced to twenty-two months'

imprisonment.

[Footnote 4: See _The Exploits of Juve_.]

Not turned in the slightest degree from the error of her ways, and possessing some money, which she had kept carefully hidden, Mother Toulouche had decided to set up shop close to the Palais de Justice, that Great House where those gentlemen of the robe judged and condemned poor folk! She would say:

"Being so close to the red-robed I shall end by making the acquaintance of one or two of them, and that may turn out a good job for me one of these days!"

But this was merely a blind, for other considerations had led to Mother Toulouche renting this shop on the Isle of the City, in opening on the quay of the Clock, a quay but little frequented, her wretched jumble store of odds and ends. She had kept in touch with the band of Numbers, which had gradually come together again as soon as the various numbers of it had finished serving their time.

For a while they had lived unmolested, but lately misfortunes had laid a heavy hand on the group. Still, as the band began to break up, other members came to replace those who had disappeared, either temporarily or for good and all.

At any rate, they could safely count on the a.s.sistance of an individual more valuable to them than anyone; this was a man named Nibet, who although he intervened but seldom, could, thanks to his influence, save the band many annoyances. This Nibet held an honourable official position; he was a warder at the Depot.

Whilst Mother Toulouche, from the back of her store, was watching with a derisive air the good-natured Cranajour fasten up the Academician's robe in a prominent position on the front of her nondescript emporium, someone stepped inside, and warmly greeted Mother Toulouche with a:

"Good day, old lady!"

It was big Ernestine,[5] who explained volubly that for a good half hour she had been prowling about near the statue of Henry IV, keeping the store well in view, but not daring to approach until the usual signal had been displayed. Those who frequented the place knew that when the store was under police observation and Mother Toulouche feared a raid she took care to hang out any kind of old clothes; but if the way was clear, if no lurking police were on the lookout, then the rallying flag would be hoisted, the flag being the old, patched, rusty, musty Academician's robe.

[Footnote 5: See _The Exploits of Juve_.]

Ernestine had arrived looking thoroughly upset:

"Have you heard the latest?" she cried, "the bad news?"