20 (21)
THE VICTIMS SHOULD ALWAYS BE ARRESTED FIRST
JAVERT, at nightfall, had posted his men and hid himself behind the trees on the Rue de la Barrière des Gobelins, which fronts the Gorbeau tenement on the other side of the boulevard. He commenced by opening “his pocket,” to put into it the two young girls, who were charged with watching the approaches to the den. But he only “bagged” Azelma. As for Eponine, she was not at her post; she had disappeared and he could not take her. Then Javert held off, and listened for the signal agreed upon. The going and coming of the fiacre made him very anxious. At last, he became impatient, and, sure that there was a nest there, sure of being “in good luck,” having recognised several of the bandits who had gone in, he finally decided to go up without waiting for the pistol shot.
It will be remembered that he had Marius’ pass-key.
He had come at the right time.
The frightened bandits rushed for the weapons which they had thrown down anywhere when they had attempted to escape. In less than a second, these seven men, terrible to look upon, were grouped in a posture of defence; one with his pole-axe, another with his key, a third with his club, the others with the shears, the pincers, and the hammers, Thénardier grasping his knife. The Thénardiess seized a huge paving-stone which was in the corner of the window, and which served her daughters for a stool.
Javert put on his hat again, and stepped into the room, his arms folded, his cane under his arm, his sword in its sheath.
“Halt there,” said he. “You will not pass out through the window, you will pass out through the door. It is less unwholesome. There are seven of you, fifteen of us. Don’t let us collar you like peasants. Let’s be nice.”
Bigrenaille took a pistol which he had concealed under his smock, and put it into Thénardier’s hand, whispering in his ear:
“It is Javert. I dare not fire at that man. Dare you?”
“Damn right!” answered Thénardier.
“Well, fire.”
Thénardier took the pistol, and aimed at Javert.
Javert, who was within three paces, looked at him steadily, and contented himself with saying:
“Don’t fire, now! It will flash in the pan.”
Thénardier pulled the trigger. The pistol flashed in the pan.
“I told you so!” said Javert.
Bigrenaille threw his tomahawk at Javert’s feet.
“You are the emperor of the devils! I surrender.”
“And you?” asked Javert of the other bandits.
They answered:
“We, too.”
Javert replied calmly:
“That is it, that is well, I said so, we’re being nice.”
“I only ask one thing,” said Bigrenaille, “that is, that I shan’t be refused tobacco while I am in solitary.”
“Granted,” said Javert.
And turning round and calling behind him: “Come in now!”
A squad of sergents de ville with drawn swords, and officers armed with axes and clubs, rushed in at Javert’s call. They bound the bandits. This crowd of men, dimly lighted by a candle, filled the den with shadow.
“Handcuffs on all!” cried Javert.
“Come on, then!” cried a voice which was not a man’s voice, but of which nobody could have said: “It is the voice of a woman.”
The Thénardiess had intrenched herself in one of the corners of the window, and it was she who had just uttered this roar.
The sergents de ville and officers fell back.
She had thrown off her shawl, but kept on her hat; her husband, crouched down behind her, was almost hidden beneath the fallen shawl, and she covered him with her body, holding the paving-stone with both hands above her head with the poise of a giantess who is going to hurl a rock.
“Take care!” she cried.
They all crowded back towards the hall. A wide space was left in the middle of the garret.
The Thénardiess cast a glance at the bandits who had allowed themselves to be tied, and muttered in a harsh and guttural tone:
“The cowards!”
Javert smiled, and advanced into the open space which the Thénardiess was watching with all her eyes.
“Don’t come near! get out,” cried she, “or I will crush you!”
“What a grenadier!” said Javert; “mother, you have a beard like a man, but I have claws like a woman.”
And he continued to advance.
The Thénardiess, her hair flying wildly and terrible, braced her legs, bent backwards, and threw the paving-stone wildly at Javert’s head. Javert stooped, the stone passed over him, hit the wall behind, from which it knocked down a large piece of the plastering, and returned, bounding from corner to corner across the room, luckily almost empty, finally stopping at Javert’s heels.
At that moment Javert reached the Thénardier couple. One of his huge hands fell upon the shoulder of the woman, and the other upon her husband’s head.
“The handcuffs!” cried he.
The police officers returned in a body, and in a few seconds Javert’s order was executed.
The Thénardiess, completely crushed, looked at her manacled hands and those of her husband, dropped to the floor and exclaimed, with tears in her eyes:
“My daughters!”
“They are provided for,” said Javert.
Meanwhile the officers had found the drunken fellow who was asleep behind the door, and shook him. He awoke stammering.
“Is it over, Jondrette?”
“Yes,” answered Javert.
The six manacled bandits were standing; however, they still retained their spectral appearance, three blackened, three masked.
“Keep on your masks,” said Javert.
And, passing them in review with the eye of a Frederic II at parade at Potsdam, he said to the three “chimney doctors:”
“Good day, Bigrenaille. Good day, Brujon. Good day, Deux Milliards.”
Then, turning towards the three masks, he said to the man with the pole-axe:
“Good day, Gueulemer.”
And to the man of the cudgel:
“Good day, Babet.”
And to the ventriloquist:
“Your health, Claquesous.”
Just then he perceived the prisoner of the bandits, who, since the entrance of the police, had not uttered a word, and had held his head down.
“Untie monsieur!” said Javert, “and let nobody go out.”
This said, he sat down with authority before the table, on which the candle and the writing materials still were, drew a stamped sheet from his pocket, and commenced his procès verbal.
When he had written the first lines, a part of the formula, which is always the same, he raised his eyes:
“Bring forward the gentleman whom these gentlemen had bound.”
The officers looked about them.
“Well,” asked Javert, “where is he now?”
The prisoner of the bandits, M. Leblanc, M. Urbain Fabre, the father of Ursula, or the Lark, had disappeared.
The door was guarded, but the window was not. As soon as he saw that he was unbound, and while Javert was writing, he had taken advantage of the disturbance, the tumult, the confusion, the darkness, and a moment when their attention was not fixed upon him, to leap out of the window.
An officer ran to the window, and looked out; nobody could be seen outside.
The rope ladder was still trembling.
“The devil!” said Javert, between his teeth, “that must have been the best one.”