Chapter 5

"If Dollon had been alive," reflected Fandor, "it is evident that, once on the roofs, he had a choice of three ways to escape: he could do what I have just done, but the other way about; he could break a skylight, jump into a garret, and lie hidden under the tiles, awaiting the propitious moment when he could gain the corridors below and, mingling with the crowd, slip unobserved into the street; or, he could hide among the roofs, and stay there; or, he could search for an opening--one of those air holes which put the cellars and drains in communication with the exterior.... But I have come to the conclusion that Dollon is dead! Then his corpse could only remain up here; or, it has been put down into some place where nobody goes. The garrets of the Palais are so incessantly visited by the clerks and registrars that no corpse could remain undiscovered in any of them. Therefore, either Jacques Dollon's corpse is somewhere on the roofs of the Palais, or there is some sort of communication between the roofs and the drains--it is obvious!"

Evidently the next step was to search every hole and corner of these same roofs. Armed with revolver and lantern, Fandor started on his tour of investigation; but prudently, for he was now almost certain that there were a number of accomplices involved in this Dollon affair.

To go carefully over the enormous roof of the Palais de Justice was no light task! One has only to consider the immensity of this monumental pile, its complicated architecture, the numberless little courts enclosed within its vast confines, to understand the difficulties with which our intrepid journalist had to contend. But Jerome Fandor was not the man to be discouraged in the face of difficulties: he was determined to brave them--conquer them! He examined, minutely, the entire roofing of the Palais; he did not leave a corner or a morsel of shadow unexplored; there was not a gutter which he had not searched from end to end. When, after two hours of strenuous exertion, he returned to his starting-point, the chimney of Marie Antoinette, he was fain to confess that if Jacques Dollon had mounted to the roof of the Palais de Justice he certainly had not remained there.

Fandor unfolded his plan once more. It fluttered in the night breeze, as he carefully numbered all the chimneys opening on to this roof; then, one by one, he identified them with the real chimneys before his eyes. He exclaimed joyfully:

"There, now! It's just what I suspected!"

He had discovered there was one chimney not down on the plan: "Whither did it lead?" At all costs he must find out--make sure. He hastened to this extra chimney. Its orifice was large enough to allow of the passage of a man; also, here again, stones had been recently loosened, and a rope had rubbed against them:

"What the deuce is this chimney?" thought Fandor. "Another mystery! This chimney is not a chimney; there is not a trace of soot on it, even old soot!"

After a moment's reflection, he added:

"Can it be for ventilation only? But a ventilation hole could only communicate with one of the apartments in the Palais itself, and how the deuce could they drop a corpse down there? It would have been in the highest degree imprudent to attempt it! No, it is not by that road they have carried off Dollon's body! But then by what way?"

He glued his ear to the chimney. After a while, Fandor could make out a vague, intermittent sound--could catch a little, far-away, plashing sound.

"Can the chimney communicate with the Seine?" he asked himself. "No, we are too far off it. Why this opening, then?... Ah, I have it! It is a drain, a sewer, it communicates with!"

To verify that, there was nothing for it but to descend this chimney, which was no chimney! So be it!... Fandor took off his coat, and uncovered the long, fine cord, rolled round and round his middle. Weighting the cord with a flint, he let it slide down the chimney, testing the straightness of the descent by the balanced oscillations of the stone, and so ascertaining the even size of the opening, as far as the line would go. This was the work of a few minutes.

Fandor did not hesitate: he was eager to embark on the descent.

"After all," he murmured, "though I may find myself face to face with a band of assassins--what of it? It is all in the night's risks!"

He fastened the end of the cord to one of the neighbouring chimneys--fastened it firmly; then, his revolver handily stuck in his belt, Fandor seized the cord, twisted it round his legs, and let himself slowly down through the narrow opening.

It was a perilous descent! Fandor did not know whether his cord was long enough, and, lost in the darkness, with only the gleam of light from his lantern to guide him, he was naturally afraid of reaching the end of his rope unawares, and of falling into the black void beneath. But what he observed in the course of his descent excited him so much that he almost forgot the danger he was running. To those at all practised in police detective work, it was clear as daylight that men had passed this way, and recently.

"Here is a dislodged stone," muttered Fandor. "And here are scrapes and scratches--fresh ... and ... that mark looks like blood!"

Pushing his knees and his shoulders against the wall to support himself and stay his movements, he examined the mark. There was no doubt possible: Fandor's sharp eyes and the lantern's light had picked out a little red patch, which sullied one of the projecting stones in the chimney walls:

"This," reflected our amateur detective, "only confirms Dollon's death: if the wound which caused this mark had been made by a living body, the mark would have been larger, and there would have been others, for it must come from an abrasion of the skin made during the descent. But this blood mark has resulted from a dead body knocking against the stones of the wall: it is not a mark make by flowing blood, but by blood crushed out."

He descended a few yards further:

"Here's a find!" he cried. He had just perceived some hairs sticking to the rough surface of the stones. Again, with arched shoulders and bent knees, he supported himself against the wall, examined his discovery, left half the hairs where they were, took the rest, and carefully placed them in his pocket-book:

"The police must not be able to say that I have arranged this for their benefit," Fandor remarked. "Cost what it may, if I do not come across Dollon's corpse below, I must find out to-morrow whether these hairs resemble his."

Fandor went on descending, and first in one place, then in another, he saw on the walls of this chimney whitish patches such as might have been caused by the passage of a heavy mass or body, hanging at the end of a rope, and striking against the walls on its way down. Whilst he still believed himself to be some distance off the end of his downward journey, he felt a point of resistance beneath his feet. At first he mistook it for firm ground, much to his surprise. He was about to leave go of his cord when a remnant of prudence restrained him:

"How do I know there is not an abyss depths upon depths below me--down into the very bowels of the earth! I had better take care!"

What Fandor had taken for firm ground was nothing but an iron staple projecting from the wall. Fandor seized it, stopped for a minute or two's breathing space, ascertained, by drawing it up, that of his cord there were only a few yards remaining; but he also perceived, and with what relief, that from where he was resting, downwards the chimney was, as far as he could see by his lantern's light, marked off into regular spaces by these iron staples which are sometimes placed there for the use of chimney cleaners and masons. Fandor found them a most convenient kind of ladder. The descent now became easy, and in a short time our adventurous journalist reached the bottom of the chimney. At first he could not understand where he had got to. In the thick gloom around him his lantern's gleam of light showed him a kind of vaulted wall of massive masonry. He advanced a step or two with noiseless tread, listening, on the alert. Not a sound could he hear: he decided to expose the full light of his lantern.

The brighter light showed him that the chimney from which he was now standing some yards away ended in a kind of sewer, evidently no longer in use; and the plashing sound he had heard on the far up heights of the Palais roofs proceeded from a thin and muddy stream of water flowing in the middle of the sewer channel in the direction of the Seine. Kneeling at the foot of the chimney Fandor could distinguish marks of steps made by human feet; much deeper and very different indentations were visible also:

"Not only have men passed this way but a short while ago," he murmured, "but they were carrying a heavy burden: there are two kinds of footmarks, made by two kinds of shoes, and the heels have made much deeper marks in the soil than have the tips--yes, these men bore a heavy burden!"

Fandor was so pleased that he mentally rubbed his hands over this discovery. His quest was a success so far: he was on the track of Dollon's body! And what copy for _La Capitale_! Then a sad thought came to dim his delight:

"Poor, poor Elizabeth Dollon! I swore to her I would get at the truth--and a lamentable truth it is! Her brother is dead: he died in the Depot: he was done to death--it was no suicide!"

Whilst talking to himself Fandor was scrutinising every inch of the ground as he moved forward: there might be fresh clues:

"It's a queer kind of sewer," he went on. "This streamlet is as much mud as water, is almost stagnant. Evidently this underground sewer way is no longer used--has been abandoned!"

A horrid spectacle struck him motionless. His lantern made visible a struggling, heaving mass of rats, fighting tooth and claw, enormous rats devouring some hidden thing!

Fandor's stomach rose at the sight.

Oh, horror! Could it be Jacques Dollon's body?

Fandor snatched up a stone and flung it furiously among the unclean beasts. They fled. On the ground he could distinguish a mass, a red, formless mass, saturated with congealed blood:

"Assuredly, if the corpse has disappeared, it is there the assassins must have cut it in pieces, that they might carry it more easily, and those vile creatures are in the thick of feasting on the poor victim's remains!... Pouah!"

Fandor moved on, only to discover another pool of blood almost as large, also besieged by rats:

"Evidently I shall find nothing else," thought Fandor: "the corpse no longer exists!"

He continued his advance, determined to find out what this underground way ended in. His lantern was flickering to a finish when he arrived at the end of the sewer and found, as he had foreseen, that its opening had been cut in the steep bank of the Seine:

"That's a bit of luck! I can get out this way instead of having to climb back the way I came, up to the Palais roof and down again!"

It was still night; darkness reigned save on the far horizon, where a faint, whitish line indicated the early dawn of an April day.

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 pawn 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 title 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 destitution.

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 passage; 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 basement 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 assistance 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?"

"What news? Whose news?" questioned Mother Toulouche.

"Why, that poor Emilet has come down a regular cropper!"

"The poor fellow!... He isn't smashed up, is he?" Mother Toulouche lifted her hands.

"I haven't heard anything more than what I've told you!"

Consternation was on the faces of the two women.

Their good Mimile! He who knew how to take care of himself without leaving a comrade in the lurch, who stuck to them, working for the common good.

A few years previous to this Mimile, having refused to conform to military law, had been arrested in the tavern of a certain Father Korn during a particularly drastic police raid, and the defaulting youth had been straightway put under the penal military discipline administered to such as he. Instead of making himself notorious by his execrable conduct as those in his position generally did, he behaved like a little saint. Having thus made a reputation to trade on, he was twice able to steal the money from the regimental chest without a shadow of suspicion falling on him, and, what was worse, two of his innocent comrades had been accused of the crime, had been condemned and shot in his stead! Owing to his good conduct Mimile had been transferred to a regiment stationed in Algiers, and having a considerable amount of spare time on his hands, he got into close touch with the aeroplane mechanics.

He was very much at home in this branch of work: could not Mimile demolish a lock as easily as one rolls a cigarette? He was daring to a degree, and, as soon as his time in the army was up, he began to earn his living as an aviator, and rightly, for he had become an able airman. Nevertheless, Mimile become Emilet, had aspired to greater things: a humdrum honest livelihood was not to his taste!

He had come to the conclusion that provided he went warily nothing could be easier than to carry on a lucrative smuggling trade by aeroplane: he could fly from country to country under the pretext that he was out to make records in flying. Custom-house officials and police inspectors in the interior would never think of examining the tubes of a flying machine, to see whether or no they were packed with lace; nor would it occur to them to overhaul certain cells fore and aft to discover whether things of value had been secreted in them, such as thousands of matches or false coin.

So, from time to time, Mimile would announce that he was off on a trial trip to Brussels from Paris, from London to Calais, and so on.

For mechanics Mimile had two brokendown sharpers, who served as connecting links between the aviator and the band of smugglers and false coiners who gathered at the lair of Mother Toulouche under the seal of secrecy. This was why big Ernestine was so anxious when she heard of Mimile's accident. Had the aeroplane been totally wrecked? Would the very considerable prize of Malines lace they were expecting reach its destination safe and sound?