CHAPTER I
THE PRESENTATION
A few days after the murder of Madame Séraphin, the death of the Chouette, and the arrest of the gang of desperadoes taken by surprise at Bras-Rouge's house, Rodolph paid another visit to the house in the Rue du Temple.
We have already observed that, with the view of practising artifice for artifice with Jacques Ferrand, discovering his hidden crimes, obliging him to repair them, and inflicting condign punishment should the guilty wretch, either by skill or hypocrisy, continue to evade the just punishment of the laws, Rodolph had sent to fetch from one of the prisons in Germany a young and beautiful creole, the unworthy wife of the negro David. This female, lovely in person as depraved in mind, as fascinating as dangerous, had reached Paris the preceding evening, and had received the most minute instructions from Baron de Graün.
The reader will recollect that in the last interview between Rodolph and Madame Pipelet, the latter having very cleverly managed to propose Cecily to Madame Séraphin, as a servant to the notary in place of Louise Morel, her proposition had been so well received that the femme de charge had promised to speak to Jacques Ferrand on the subject; and this she had done, in terms most flattering to Cecily, the very morning of the day on which she (Madame Séraphin) had been drowned at the Isle du Ravageur.
The motive for Rodolph's visit was, therefore, to inquire the result of Cecily's introduction. To his great astonishment, he found, on entering the lodge, that although eleven o'clock in the morning had struck by all the neighbouring dials, Pipelet had not yet risen, while Anastasie was standing beside his bed, offering him some sort of drink.
As Alfred, whose forehead and eyes were entirely concealed beneath his huge cotton nightcap, did not reply to his wife's inquiries, she concluded he slept, and therefore closed the curtains of his bed. Turning around, she perceived Rodolph, and, as usual, gave him a military salute, by lifting the back of her left hand up to her wig.
"Ah, my king of lodgers! Service to you! How are you? As for me, I'm upset – bewildered – stupefied. Pretty doings have there been in the house since you was here. And my poor Alfred, – obliged to keep his bed ever since yesterday!"
"Why, what has happened?"
"Positively, don't you guess? Still going on in the old way with that monster of a painter, who is more bitter than ever against Alfred. He has quite muddled his brains, till I declare I don't know what to do with him."
"Cabrion again?"
"Oh, he'll never leave off."
"He must be the very devil!"
"Really, M. Rodolph, I shall very soon think so; for he always knows the very instant I quit the house. Scarcely is my back turned, than there he is, in the twinkling of an eye, worrying and tormenting my poor old dear of a husband, who is as helpless and frightened as a babby. Only last night, when I had just stepped out as far as M. Ferrand's the notary's – Ah, there's pretty work there, too!"
"But Cecily?" said Rodolph, with some little impatience. "I called to know – "
"Hold hard, my king of lodgers! Don't be in such a hurry, or you'll put me out. And I've such a deal to tell you, I don't know when I shall have done; and if once I'm interrupted in a story, I never know when to begin again."
"There now, go on as fast as you can; I'm listening."
"Well, then, first and foremost, what do you think has happened in the house? Ah, you'll never guess, so I'll tell you. Only imagine, old Mother Burette's being taken up!"
"What, the female pawnbroker?"
"Oh, Lord, she seems to have had a curious mixture of trades: for besides being a money-lender, she was a receiver of stolen goods, a melter of gold and silver, a fortune-teller, a cheat, a dealer in second-hand clothes, and any sort of contraband articles. The worst of the story is that M. Bras-Rouge, her old sweetheart and our principal lodger, is also arrested. I tell you the house is thoroughly upset with these strange doings."
"Arrested! Bras-Rouge arrested?"
"That he was, I can promise you. Why, even his mischievous little imp of a son – the lame boy we call Tortillard – has also been locked up. They say that lots of murders have been planned and managed at his house, which was the well-known resort of a gang of ruffians; that the Chouette, one of Mother Burette's most particular friends, has been strangled; and that, if assistance had not arrived in time, Mother Mathieu, the dealer in precious stones for whom Morel worked, would also have been murdered. Come, I think there's a pretty penn'orth of news for you, – and cheap, too, at the price!"
"Bras-Rouge arrested and the Chouette dead!" murmured Rodolph to himself, in deep astonishment at the tidings. "Well, the vile old hag deserved her fate, and poor Fleur-de-Marie is at least avenged!"
"So that is the state of things here," continued Anastasie. "As for M. Cabrion and his devil's tricks, I'll tell you all about it. Oh, you never knew such a bold howdacious willin as he is! But you shall hear, – I'll go straight on with my story. But there never, – no, there never was his feller for inperence! So when Mother Burette was took up, and we heard how that M. Bras-Rouge, our principal lodger, was quodded also, I says to my old boy, 'Alfred, darling,' says I, 'you must toddle off to the landlord and let him know as M. Bras-Rouge is in the stone jug.' Well, Alfred goes; but in about two hours' time back he comes – in such a state! – such a state! White as a sheet and puffing like an ox!"
"Why, what was the matter?"
"I'm a-going to tell you. I suppose, M. Rodolph, you recollect the high wall about ten steps from here? Well, my poor, dear, darling husband was going along thinking of nothing, when, quite by chance, he just looked upon this wall. And what do you think he saw written in great staring letters with a piece of charcoal? – why, 'Pipelet and Cabrion!' – the two names joined together by a sort of true-lover's knot. (Ah, it is that true-lover's knot which sticks so tight in the gizzard of my poor old chick!) That sight rather upset him; but still he tried to act like a man and not mind it. So on he went. But hardly had he proceeded ten steps farther when, on the principal entrance to the Temple, there again were the same hateful words, 'Pipelet and Cabrion,' united as before! Still he walked on; but at every turn he saw the same detestable writing on the walls, doors, and even shutters of houses! Everywhere Pipelet and Cabrion danced before his eyes, for ever bound in the same tender tie of love or friendship! My poor dear Alfred's head began to turn around, and his eyes to grow dizzy; all sorts of horrid objects seemed to meet him and laugh him to scorn. He fancied the very people in the streets were laughing at him. So, quite confused and ashamed, he pulled his hat over his face, and took the road towards the Boulevards, believing that the scamp Cabrion would have confined his abominations to the Rue du Temple. But no – not he! All along the Boulevards, wherever a blank spot remained or a place could be found to hold the words, had he written 'Pipelet and Cabrion!' – sometimes adding, 'till death!' At last my poor dear man arrived at the house of the landlord, but so bewildered and stupefied that, after hammering and stammering and bodgering about without being able to utter a clear sentence, the landlord, having tried for nearly half an hour to bring him sufficiently to his senses to say what had made him come to his house, got quite in a passion, and called him a stupid old fool, and told him to go home and send his wife or somebody who could speak common sense. Well, poor dear Alfred left as he was ordered, thinking, at any rate, he would return by a different road, so as to escape those dreadful words that had so overcome him going. Do you believe he could get rid of them, though? No; there they were, large as life, scrawled upon every place, and united by the lover's band as before."
"What, Pipelet and Cabrion still written along the walls?"
"Precisely so, my king of lodgers. The end of it was that my poor darling came home to me regularly brain-struck, talked in the wildest and most desperate way of leaving France, exiling himself for ever, and no one knows what. Well, I persuaded him to tell me all that had happened; then I did my best to quiet him, and persuade him not to worry himself about such a beggar as that Cabrion; and when I found he had grown a little calmer, I left him, and went to take Cecily to the notary's, before I proceeded on to the landlord to finish poor Alfred's message. Now, perhaps, you think I've done? But I haven't, though. No;