CHAPTER LXXXI
Wherein the Widow Snacheur comes into her Fortune
Thechill murk that swept up the narrow cobbled street in the pitchy night, swishing long wreathes of fog across the rare lamp-light, told that the river lay close at hand.
It was a bitter night; and the winds buffeted out of unseen blacknesses and squealed in a riot of unkindnesses, smiting the face of things and falling away sullenly to smite again; the dingy alley creaked with the complainings of shutters and lamps that strained and jolted in their rusty hinges and grumbled in their iron sockets.
A group of ill-looking fellows that whispered on the kerb under a wall-lamp showed shadowy dark and nearly as intangible and dim in the murky gloom as the ghostly shadows that the few flickering lamps sent stealthily creeping across the narrow cobbled way to join other shadows where lurked the vindictive gusts about the edges of the moaning blackness.
A lilt of song and the clack of brisk footsteps came down the alley.
The muttering group under the lamp turned towards the sound; their anxious ears caught the refrain of one of Aristide Bruant’s obscene prison songs; relief showed on the coarse faces.
“Here comes Gavroche,” said one.
And Gavroche came.
He glanced sharply at them all.
His was the master spirit; yet none of these men were easily given to obedience.
He laughed:
“It is as I thought,” said he. “Comrade Hiéne is pale—his hand perspires—hold out your hand, Hiéne.”
The sullen young giant put out his great hand, palm upwards, and it smoked in the keen air of the night.
They all turned and stared at the tall lank youth, and his sullen face had an ugly look, though it was of the pallor of death.
“I have drawn the lot to strike,” he said, scowling. “I have never killed—and I do not like it——”
Gavroche laughed:
“Afraid to kill—even an old woman!” he sneered.
A dark look came to Hiéne’s sombre eyes:
“And yet not afraid,” said he. “But ashamed—to kill an old woman.... There is a scoundrel I know that I am not afraid to kill.”
Gavroche shrugged his shoulders:
“And this for an Overman!... Tshah!” He turned to the others: “I had foreseen this,” he said. “I will do the masterwork.” And he added with contempt: “He shall stand at the door where the girl sleeps—for the old fool locks up the girl at night—but the moment we leave, this fellow that fears to kill a woman must unlock the door. Suspicion will fall on the girl.” He turned again to the scowling Hiéne. “Hast thou the courage to throw suspicion, comrade?” he sneered.
The sullen young workman made no sign.
One of the others moved uneasily:
“Good comrades must not quarrel,” said he.
Gavroche laughed:
“We must forestall danger,” he said.
Gavroche turned to the pale young giant:
“Mark you, comrade,” said he—“if the girl rouse, thou must into the room and—kill.”... He smiled evilly. “It is all we ask of thee.”
Suddenly he stepped close up to him:
“By thunder!” said he—“I think this fellow is too weak a fool for men’s work. We had best leave him out.”
The huge young fellow met his regard unflinching, with pale set face:
“Where Gavroche goes to-night I go,” said he—“if he and I hang for it. But I do no killing.”
There was a long silence between the two men.
Gavroche shrugged his shoulders; turned on his heels: “We need have no fear, comrades; the Republic will slit his neck otherwise,” said he. “Come.”
The widow Snacheur rose from her chair, looked stealthily about her, lit a second candle-end, and went a-tiptoe to the door of the girl’s room. She listened, cautiously turned the handle of the door to see that the lock held, and returned to her table.
She changed her seat so that she could see, from where she sat, the door into the maid’s room.
She brought out a bag of loose silver from a pocket in her petticoat, poured the contents upon a piece of felt to prevent its making a noise, and counting it into tens she made the money up into rolls with some scraps of newspaper.
There was a strange look upon her withered wizened features in the doing—it might once have been a smile, it was now something between suspicion and greed and satisfaction. The gaunt fingers counted the rolls.
Thou poor fool! what avails thee now, or has ever availed, or shall ever avail to thy life’s enrichment, this avid culture of thy sordid isolated self? Hast thou found life in gathering gold, orin thy wilful cruelties to the weak, or in hate as a carpet to thy mean wayfaring, or in the lip’s protruded contempt upon thee in thy walks abroad? God! to spend thy nine and seventy years uponthisjourney and uponthistravail!
Hearest thou no stealthy fumblings at the locks of thy outer door? Thy gold then hath not kept thee the alert hearing in thy ears, nor won thee the willing service of the hearing of others! And that poor half-famished slave-girl of thine, with her fifteen years crying out for bread, she, whom thou didst sting with thy bitter coward tongue but this morning—she sleeps in her chill room, heavy with the fatigue of thy overtaxings put upon a frail ill-nourished body; she lies mute with the numbing weariness of hunger—how shallsheserve thee with the watch-dog ear of affection to guard thee from harm?
There is a stealthy hand at thy door, and the latchet turns slowly within the wards of thy locks.
A messenger stands without, and his summons none may question—thou must needs make thy further journeyings without thy dingy hoard, without purse or scrip, by thy lank lean shivering self—alone.
Ay, at last thy ears warn!
For a moment the old woman turned, and gazed with eyes of terror at the coming of sudden death—and her tongue went dry in her mouth—no sound. At the next there fell the weighted sand-bag swung by Gavroche’s skilled hand of villainy, aimed by his murderous eyes, and struck the ancient skull, sending the old woman’s life jigging into the shabby room and out into the void; and at the stroke the body, half-risen from the chair, fell across the table amongst her moneys, sprawled ungainly midst the coins before it further fell, and sideways lurched in a dead huddle upon the floor.
To the door of the sleeping girl stepped Hiéne, and stood, tall, slouching, pallid of countenance. And he so stood whilst they all searched stealthily every nook and cranny of the room.
Gavroche rose from his stooping survey of the fallen woman, and glanced at a little mirror he held in his hand. There was no damp of breath upon it.
“That is the end ofherromance,” said he.
He laughed low. He was a man that loved his joke.
He signed to the others to bring their plunder; and as they came empty-handed except for papers, he uttered a harsh dog’s laugh that showed embarrassment.
Save for the silver that lay about, the rest was the scrip of the widow’s investments! Of considerable value, but—useless—dangerous to them.
“Curse it!” said Gavroche. “She had a banking account.”
There was a low whistle from the fellow who barred the entrance at the outer door.
“Quick!” said Gavroche. “Pocket what there is of money, and we will divide later.”
He turned to Hiéne, where he stood before the door of the sleeping girl:
“And you,” said he—“unlock that door, carefully.”
Hiéne scowled sullenly, standing pale in the candle’s guttering light; and they saw that he held a revolver in his hand:
“Comrades,” said he—“I am the last to go—and this door remains locked.”
Gavroche shrugged his shoulders:
“It does not matter overmuch,” he said.
Hiéne smiled grimly.
Gavroche moved towards the open door:
“Come, comrades,” he said airily, putting aside a scowl that had threatened—“we must be going. That jabbering moralist over the water must be nearing the end of his garrulous harangue. We had better all be seen there.”
When they had all gone, Hiéne let himself out of the door into the courtyard, and stealthily closed the gate into the street.
The door into the girl’s room remained locked....
And it was so found in the early morning when the police broke into the place, led by the curious concierge, and roused the sleeping girl.