_ CHAPTER VI
And so it was.
Fouchette had been thrown from the voiture in the conflict, and had been run over by the mob and trampled into the mud of the gutter. So covered with the filth of the street was she, so torn and bruised and bedraggled, that she would have been unrecognizable even to one who had seen her more often than had her present examiner.
There was something in the girl's face, however, that had left an impression on the mind of Jean Marot not easily effaced. It was too indistinct and unemotional, this impression, to inspire analysis, but it was there, so that, under the lamp, Jean had at once recognized the young woman of the carriage.
"It's murder, that's what it is," he soliloquized,--"victim of 'Vive l'armee.'"
A most careful examination showed there were no bones broken, though the young body was literally black and blue.
The face was that of a prize-fighter's after a stubborn battle.
Inspection of the clothing developed no marks of recognition. Her pocket lining showed that she had been robbed of anything she may have possessed. The coarse character and general appearance of the clothing indicated her lowly condition of charity scholar.
Although rigor mortis had not yet set in, the medical student, armed with a basin and sponge, proceeded to prepare the body for the scalpel.
"This ought to suit George Villeroy," he mused. "And George has always said I was no good except on a lark. He has always pined for a fresh subject----"
He was attracted by the quality and peculiar color of the hair, and washing the stains from the head, examined the latter attentively.
"I never saw but one woman with hair like that, and she--wonder what the devil is in Lerouge, anyhow!--I suppose--hold on here! Let us see."
He had found a terrible gash in the scalp. Hastily obtaining his instruments, he skilfully lifted a bit of crushed skull.
As he did so he fancied there was a slight tremor in the slender body. He nervously tested the heart, the nostrils, the pulse, then breathed once more.
"Dame! It is imagination. That break would have killed an ox!"
Yet he took another careful look at the wound, cutting away some of the fair hair in order to get at the fracture. Then he made another experiment.
"Pardieu! she's alive," he whispered, hoarsely. "What's to be done? They're right. Jean! Jean! you'll never be a doctor! Never be anything but a d----d fool!"
But Jean Marot, if not a doctor, was a young man of action and resources. Even as he spoke he grabbed a sheet and a blanket from a cot in the corner, snatched a hat belonging to Massard's grisette from the wall, bundled the girl's clothes around the body the best he could, and ran to the window.
As he had anticipated would be the case, the cabman had disappeared.
He was fully aware of the risk he now ran; but above his sense of personal danger rose his sympathy and anxiety for the young girl.
He realized that his first step must be to get her out of this place; next to get her under the care of a regular practitioner. French law is severe in such a contingency. Without hesitation he again shouldered his burden,--this time with infinite gentleness.
At first he had thought of depositing it in the court below until he had secured a cab in the Rue et Place de l'Ecole de Medecine; but he saw an open voiture passing along the elevated horizon of the Rue de Monsieur le Prince and gave a shrill whistle.
The cab stopped.
Jean bounded up the steps as one endowed with superhuman strength. Placing his charge within, he mounted by her side.
"Faubourg St. Honore!" he commanded. "And good speed and safe arrival is worth ten francs to you, my man!"
* * * * *
If Jean had followed his first idea and turned to the left instead of to the right he would have met some of his late revolutionary comrades returning, in boisterous spirits, to Le Petit Rouge.
"Parbleu!" exclaimed Villeroy, throwing himself into a chair, "but I believe every police agent in Paris has trodden on my corns this day!"
"For my part," said young Massard, a thin, pale, indolent young man scarcely turned twenty-one, "I don't see much fun in being hustled, shoved, kicked, pounded----"
"But, Armand," interrupted the third man, "think of the fun you have afforded the other fellow!"
This speaker was known as the double of Jean Marot, only some people could not see the slightest resemblance when the two were together,--Lerouge being taller, darker, more athletic in appearance, and more serious of temper.
"I say, Lerouge, I don't think your crowd of Dreyfusardes got much pleasure out of us to-day," put in Villeroy, dryly.
"We got some of it out of the police, it is true," said Lerouge. Henri Lerouge was half anarchist, socialist, and an extremist generally, of whom French politics presents a formidable contingent.
Armand Massard thoughtfully helped himself to a pipe of tobacco from the grim tabatiere on the table. Politics was barred at Le Petit Rouge, and Lerouge was known to be rather irritable. On the subject of the police these young fellows were unanimous. The agents were considered fair game in the Quartier Latin.
"I've had enough of them for this once, George," yawned Massard.
"And they've had enough of us probably," suggested Villeroy.
"It is lively,--too much,--this continued dodging the police----"
"Together with one's creditors----"
A loud double rap startled them.
"Mordieu!" exclaimed that young man, leaping to his feet, "that's one now! Don't open!"
Again the peremptory raps, louder than before. There was also a clank of steel.
"Police agents or I'm a German!" said Villeroy.
Henri Lerouge, a contemptuous smile on his handsome face, arose to admit the callers.
"Wait!" whispered Massard,--"one moment! Madame la Concierge shall receive them."
This idea tickled the young men exceedingly. They had little to fear from the police, unless it was the chance identification on the Place de la Concorde. But these things are rarely pushed.
Madame la Concierge was quickly arranged, her candle lighted. Then the other light was turned down.
When the door was slowly opened four police officers, headed by the commissary of the quarter, entered.
But they stopped abruptly on the threshold. The hideous skeleton with the candle confronted them. A sepulchral voice demanded,--
"Who knocks so loudly at an honest door?"
It is no impeachment of the courage and efficiency of the Paris police to say that the men recoiled in terror from this horrible apparition. So suddenly, in fact, that the two agents in the rear were precipitated headlong down the short flight. The other two vanished scarcely less hastily. A fifth man, who had evidently been following the agents at a respectful distance, received the full impact of the falling bodies, and with one terrified yell sank almost senseless on the stair.
This man was the cabman who had brought Jean Marot to Le Petit Rouge.
The veteran commissary, however, flinched only for an instant. Having served many years in the Quartier Latin, he was no stranger to the pranks and customs of medical students. The next instant he had his foot in the doorway, to retain his advantage, and was calling his men a choice assortment of Parisian names. To emphasize this he entered and gave Madame la Concierge a kick that caused her poor old bones to rattle.
"For shame!" cried young Massard, laughingly, turning up the light. "To kick an old woman!"
"Now here, gentlemen, students,--you are a nice lot!"
"Thanks! Monsieur le Commissaire," replied Lerouge, with a polite bow.
"You are quite aware, gentlemen," continued the stern official, "that you are responsible at this moment for any injury to my men?"
"No, monsieur," retorted Lerouge in his dry fashion; "but, if any bones are broken we'll set 'em."
"Free of charge," added Villeroy.
"I want none of your impudence, monsieur! What's your name?"
"George Villeroy, 7 Rue du Pot de Fer, medical student, aged twenty-four, single, born at Tours."
Well these young roysterers knew the police formula! Armand Massard gave in his record at a nod. The veteran commissary wrote the replies down.
"And what is your name, monsieur?"
"Henri Lerouge, Monsieur le Commissaire."
"Ah! I think we have had the pleasure of meeting before this," observed the official. "A hundred francs that this is our man," he added under his breath. Then, turning to his men, who had stolen in, shamefaced, one by one,--
"Dubat!"
"Yes, monsieur." A keen-eyed agent stepped forward and saluted military fashion.
"Do you recognize one of these gentlemen as the man who crossed the Pont de Solferino this evening with something----"
"Yes, Monsieur le Commissaire,"--pointing promptly to Henri Lerouge,--"that's the man!"
"So. You may step aside, Dubat. Now where is that--oh! Monsieur Perriot?"
"Monsieur le Commissaire," responded the unhappy cabman, who had scarcely recovered from his mishap in the stairway. He limped painfully to the front.
"Now, Perriot, do you----"
"There he is, Monsieur le Commissaire," anticipated the cabman. "I'd know him among a thousand."
"Ah! And there we are. I thought so!" said the police official. "Now, Monsieur Lerouge," facing the latter with a catlike eye, "where's the body?"
The young man looked puzzled, very naturally, while his companions were speechless with astonishment.
The veteran police officer took in every detail of this and mentally admitted that it was clever, deucedly clever, acting.
"I say,
where is the body?" he repeated.
"And I say," retorted Lerouge, with a calmness of tone and steadiness of eye that almost staggered the old criminal catcher, "that I do not understand you, and am very patiently awaiting your explanation."
"Search the place!" curtly commanded the officer.
A clamorous protest arose from all three of the students. But the commissary of police waved them aside.
"It means that this man, Henri Lerouge, between six and seven o'clock this evening, carried a dead body from the Rue St. Honore----"
"Faubourg St. Honore, Monsieur le Commissaire," interrupted the cabman, feebly.
"----Faubourg St. Honore, crossed the Pont de Solferino, where he was seen by Agent Dubat, and was brought here in a voiture of place, No. 37,420, driven by Jacques Perriot. That, arriving in front of this building, the said Lerouge paid the cabman and dismissed----"
"Pardon, Monsieur le Commissaire," again put in the coachman,--who was evidently trying to do his duty under unfavorable circumstances,--"pardon, monsieur, but he told me to wait."
"Oh, he told you to wait, did he? And why didn't you say that at the Commissariat, you stupid brute?" The officer was furious. "But he paid you, then?"
"Yes, monsieur."
"He paid you five francs and expected you to wait!" sarcastically.
"Yes, monsieur."
"Why?"
"He said he might want me, monsieur."
"Might want you. And why didn't you wait, you old fool?"
"Here? In the Rue Antoine Dubois, after dark, monsieur? And for a--a--'stiff'? Not for a hundred francs!"
The students roared with laughter. As the agents had returned a report meanwhile to the effect that there were no signs of any "subject" immediately in hand, the commissary was deeply chagrined.
"Now, gentlemen," he began, in a fatherly tone, "it is evident that a body has been taken from the street and brought here instead of being turned over to the police for the morgue and usual forms of identification. That body is possibly unimportant in itself, and would probably fall to your admirable institution eventually. But the law prescribes the proper course in such cases. We have traced that body to this place and to one of your number. Far be it from me to find fault with the desire of young gentlemen seeking to perfect their knowledge of anatomy for the benefit of humanity; but we must know where that body went from here."
The last very emphatically, with a stern gaze at Henri Lerouge.
"And on our part," answered the latter, with ill-subdued passion, "we say there is no body here, that none has been brought here to-night, that we have been together all day, and that we had but just arrived here before this unwarrantable intrusion; in short, that your petits mouchards there have lied!"
It was impossible not to believe him. Yet the evidence of the cabman, corroborated circumstantially in part by Agent Dubat, seemed equally positive and irresistible.
The commissary was nonplussed for a minute. He looked sternly at Monsieur Perriot. The latter was nervously fumbling his glazed hat. Somebody had lied. The commissary decided that it was the unlucky cabman.
"Monsieur Perriot?"
"Y-yes, Monsieur le Commissaire."
"Have you got a five-franc piece about you?"
"Y--n--no--er----"
"Let me see it."
Now, the poor cabman had lost no time fortifying himself with an absinthe or two upon leaving his fare in the terrible Rue Antoine Dubois. He had changed the piece given him by Jean Marot.
"I haven't got----"
"You said this man gave you a five-franc piece, didn't you? Now, did you, or did you not? Answer!"
"Yes, Monsieur le----"
"Where is it? You said you came straight to the Commissariat,--you haven't had time to get drunk. Show me the piece! Come!"
"I drove to--I----"
"Come! Out with it!"
"But, Monsieur le Commissaire----"
"You haven't got a five-franc piece. Come, now; say!"
"No, monsieur. I----"
"Lie No. 2."
"But, monsieur, I stopped at the wine-shop of----"
"Then you didn't drive straight to the Commissariat?"
"I went----"
"Did you, or did you not? Yes or no!"
"No, monsieur."
"So! Lie No. 3."
The commissary got up full of wrath, and grasping the unfortunate cabby by the shoulder, spun him around with such force as to make the man's head swim.
"Dubat!"
"Monsieur?"
"Take this idiot to the post. I'll enter a complaint against him before the Correctionnelle in the morning. He shall forfeit his license for this amusement. Gentlemen, pardon me for this unnecessary intrusion. Either this fool Perriot has lied or has led us to the wrong number. I'll give him time to decide which. Allons!"
Led by the irate official the squad departed, Monsieur Perriot being hustled unceremoniously between two agents.
The young men left behind looked at each other for a minute without speaking, then broke into a chorus of laughter.
It was such a good one on the police.
"Ah!" exclaimed Villeroy, "if we only had that stiff here for a fact!"
"This joke on the agents must be got into the newspapers," said Lerouge. "It's too good to keep all to ourselves."
"Fact!" cried Massard, who had thrown himself on the cot.
"The joke is on Monsieur Perriot, I think," observed Villeroy.
"Whoever it is on," put in young Massard, "it is a better joke than you fellows imagine." And Massard went off into a paroxysm of laughter by himself.
"Que diable?"
"Oh! oh! oh!" roared Massard.
He had discovered the missing sheet and blanket and the grisette's hat. His companions regarded him attentively. But the young man merely went into fresh convulsions of merriment.
Lerouge suddenly raised his hand for silence. There was a low, half-timid rap at the door. It created the impression of some woman of the street.
"Come in!" cried Villeroy.
"Let her in," said Lerouge.
By which time the door had been opened and a tall, thin gentleman entered and immediately closed the door behind him.
"In-Inspector Loup!" ejaculated Lerouge.
"What! more police?" inquired Villeroy, sarcastically. "We are too much honored to-night."
"Excuse me, young gentlemen," observed the official, somewhat stiffly, but with a polite inclination of his lank body, "but I must be permitted to make an examination here--yes, I know; but Monsieur le Commissaire is rather--rather--you know--they will wait until I see for myself where the error is. Yes, error, I'm sure."
During this introduction the keen little fishy eyes searched the table, the floor, the walls, the cot in the corner whereon Massard now sat seriously erect, and, incidentally, every person in the room. They wound up this lightning tour of inspection by resting with the last equivocal sentence upon some object on the floor under the table.
"Pardon me," he added, stepping briskly forward and grasping the lamp.
He brought the light to bear upon the object which had appeared to fascinate him, the wondering eyes of the three students becoming riveted to the same spot.
It was a wisp of light flaxen hair just tinted with gold.
The inspector replaced the lamp upon the dissecting-table and examined the lock of hair. It was still moist, and there were distinct traces of blood where it had been cut off from the head.
"Ah!"
The world of satisfaction in that ejaculation was not communicated to the students, who were speechless with astonishment.
"Yes," said the inspector, as if he were continuing an unimportant conversation, "Monsieur le Commissaire is rather--rather--show me the rest of the place, please," and without waiting for formal permission proceeded, lamp in hand, on his own account.
"So! One sleeps here?"
"Occasionally, monsieur."
He looked under the cot.
"Then you must have the rest of the bed; where is it?"
His quick eye had discovered the inconsistency of the mattress,--as, indeed, Massard himself had already done,--and his fertile brain jumped at once from cause to effect.
"Probably to wrap the body in. Where's the sink?"
In the little antechamber, redolent with the peculiar and indescribable odor of human flesh and its preservatives, was a long ice-chest, a big iron sink, an old-fashioned range, pots, pans, shelves with bottles, etc.
Massard hurriedly opened the chest, as if half expecting to see a human body there.
But Inspector Loup scarcely glanced at this receptacle for "subjects." His eyes sought and found the metal basin such as doctors use during operations.
The basin was still wet, and minute spots of red appeared upon its rim. A sponge lay near. It had recently been soaked. The inspector squeezed the sponge over the basin and obtained water stained with red.
"Blood," said he.
"Blood!" echoed the alarmed students.
"She's alive," said the inspector, more to himself than to his dumfounded auditors,--"alive, probably, else whoever brought her here would have kept her here."
He returned abruptly to the other room, and depositing the lamp, turned to Lerouge,--
"Were you expecting anybody else here to-night, monsieur?"
"Why, yes; Jean Marot----"
The possibility flashed upon the three young men at once, but it seemed too preposterous. The inspector had turned to the window and blown a shrill whistle.
"Pardon me, young gentlemen, but I'll not disturb you any longer than I can help. What is Jean Marot's address? Good! I will leave you company. You will not mind? Dubat will entertain you. It is better than resting in the station-house, eh?"
With this pleasantry Inspector Loup hurried away, snatched a cab, and was driven rapidly to the address in the Faubourg St. Honore.
* * * * *
Jean Marot was the son of a rich silk manufacturer of Lyon, and therefore lived in more comfortable quarters than most students, in a fashionable neighborhood on the right bank of the Seine. He had reached his lodgings scarcely three-quarters of an hour before Inspector Loup. But in that time he had stampeded the venerable concierge, got his still unconscious burden to bed and fetched a surgeon. The concierge had protested against turning the house into a hospital for vagrant women; but Jean was of an impetuous nature, and wilful besides, and when he was told that the last vacant chamber had been taken that day, he boldly carried the girl to his own rooms and placed her in his own bed. And when the concierge had reported this fact to Madame Goutran, that excellent lady, who had officiated as Jean's landlady for the past four years, shrugged her shoulders in such an equivocal way that the concierge concluded that her best interests lay in assisting the young man as much as possible.
Dr. Cardiac was not only one of the best surgeon-professors of the Ecole de Medecine but Jean's father's personal friend. The young man felt that he could turn to the great surgeon in this emergency, though the latter was an expert not in regular practice.
The appearance of Inspector Loup threw the Goutran establishment into a fever of excitement. The wrinkled old concierge who had declined to admit the stranger was ready to fall upon her knees before the director of the Secret Service. Madame Goutran hastened to explain why she had not reported the affair to the police department as the law required. She had not had time. It was so short a time ago that the case had been brought into her house,--in a few minutes she would have sent in the facts,--then, they expected every moment to ascertain the name of the young woman, which would be necessary to make the report complete.
Madame Goutran hoped that it would not involve her lodger, Monsieur Jean Marot, who was an excellent young man, though impulsive. He should have had the girl sent to the hospital. It was so absurd to bring her there, where she might die, and in any case would involve everybody in no end of difficulties, anyhow.
To a flood of such excuses and running observations Inspector Loup listened with immobile face, tightly closed lips, and wandering fishy eyes, standing in the corridor of the concierge lodge. He had not uttered a word, nor had he hurried the good landlady in her explanations and excuses. It was Inspector Loup's custom. He assumed the attitude of a professional listener. Seldom any one had ever resisted the subtle power of that silent interrogation. Even the most stubborn and recalcitrant were compelled to yield after a time; and those who had sullenly withstood the most searching and brutal interrogatories had broken down under the calm, patient, philosophical, crushing contemplation. Questions too often merely serve to put people on their guard,--to furnish a cue to what should be withheld.
"And your lodger, madame?" he inquired, after Madame Goutran had run down, "can I see him?"
"Certainly, Monsieur l'Inspecteur. Pardon! I have detained you too long."
"Not at all, madame. One does not think of time in the presence of a charming conversationalist."
"Oh, thank you, monsieur! This way, Monsieur l'Inspecteur."
Inspector Loup gained the apartment of Jean Marot shortly after the united efforts of Dr. Cardiac and his amateur assistants had succeeded in producing decided signs of returning consciousness. The patient was breathing irregularly.
The police official entered the chamber, and, after a silent recognition of those present, looked long and steadily at the slight figure on the bed.
He then retired, beckoning Jean to follow him. Once in the petit salon, the inspector motioned the young man to a chair and looked him over for about half a minute. Whereupon Jean made a clean breast of what his listener practically already knew, and what he did not know had guessed.
"Bring me her clothing," said the inspector, when Jean had finished.
The young man brought the torn and soiled garments which had been removed from the girl.
Inspector Loup examined them in a perfunctory way, but apparently discovered nothing beyond the fact that they were typical charity clothes, which Jean had already decided for himself.
"Be good enough to ask Monsieur le Docteur to step in here a few moments at his leisure," he finally said.
As soon as Jean had his back turned the inspector whipped out a knife, slit the lining of the bosom of the little dress, and taking therefrom the letter addressed to himself, noted at a glance that the seal was intact, tore it open, saw its contents and as quickly transferred the missive to his pocket.
"Well, doctor," he gravely inquired, "how about your young patient?"
"Uncertain, monsieur, but hopeful."
"She will recover, then?"
"I think so, but it will be some time. She must be removed to a hospital."
"Yes, of course,--of course. But you will report to me where she is taken from here, Monsieur le Docteur?"
"Oh, yes,--certainly. Though perhaps the girl's friends----"
"She has no friends," said the inspector.
"What! You know her, then?"
"It is Mademoiselle Fouchette."
"A nobody's child, eh?" asked the doctor.
"Mademoiselle Fouchette is the child of the police," said Inspector Loup.
He slowly retired down-stairs, through the court and passage-way, reaching the street. Then as he walked away he drew from his pocket the letter he had extracted from the little dress.
"So! Sister Agnes is prompt and to the point. These Jesuitical associations are hotbeds of treason and intrigue! They are inconsistent with civil and religious liberty. We'll see!" _