บทที่ บทที่ 331 · THE “SPUN” MAN

This justice must be rendered to the police of that period, that even

in the most serious public junctures, it imperturbably fulfilled its

duties connected with the sewers and surveillance. A revolt was, in its

eyes, no pretext for allowing malefactors to take the bit in their own

mouths, and for neglecting society for the reason that the government

was in peril. The ordinary service was performed correctly in company

with the extraordinary service, and was not troubled by the latter. In

the midst of an incalculable political event already begun, under the

pressure of a possible revolution, a police agent, “spun” a thief

without allowing himself to be distracted by insurrection and

barricades.

It was something precisely parallel which took place on the afternoon

of the 6th of June on the banks of the Seine, on the slope of the right

shore, a little beyond the Pont des Invalides.

There is no longer any bank there now. The aspect of the locality has

changed.

On that bank, two men, separated by a certain distance, seemed to be

watching each other while mutually avoiding each other. The one who was

in advance was trying to get away, the one in the rear was trying to

overtake the other.

It was like a game of checkers played at a distance and in silence.

Neither seemed to be in any hurry, and both walked slowly, as though

each of them feared by too much haste to make his partner redouble his

pace.

One would have said that it was an appetite following its prey, and

purposely without wearing the air of doing so. The prey was crafty and

on its guard.

The proper relations between the hunted pole-cat and the hunting dog

were observed. The one who was seeking to escape had an insignificant

mien and not an impressive appearance; the one who was seeking to seize

him was rude of aspect, and must have been rude to encounter.

The first, conscious that he was the more feeble, avoided the second;

but he avoided him in a manner which was deeply furious; any one who

could have observed him would have discerned in his eyes the sombre

hostility of flight, and all the menace that fear contains.

The shore was deserted; there were no passers-by; not even a boatman

nor a lighter-man was in the skiffs which were moored here and there.

It was not easy to see these two men, except from the quay opposite,

and to any person who had scrutinized them at that distance, the man

who was in advance would have appeared like a bristling, tattered, and

equivocal being, who was uneasy and trembling beneath a ragged blouse,

and the other like a classic and official personage, wearing the

frock-coat of authority buttoned to the chin.

Perchance the reader might recognize these two men, if he were to see

them closer at hand.

What was the object of the second man?

Probably to succeed in clothing the first more warmly.

When a man clothed by the state pursues a man in rags, it is in order

to make of him a man who is also clothed by the state. Only, the whole

question lies in the color. To be dressed in blue is glorious; to be

dressed in red is disagreeable.

There is a purple from below.

It is probably some unpleasantness and some purple of this sort which

the first man is desirous of shirking.

If the other allowed him to walk on, and had not seized him as yet, it

was, judging from all appearances, in the hope of seeing him lead up to

some significant meeting-place and to some group worth catching. This

delicate operation is called “spinning.”

What renders this conjecture entirely probable is that the buttoned-up

man, on catching sight from the shore of a hackney-coach on the quay as

it was passing along empty, made a sign to the driver; the driver

understood, evidently recognized the person with whom he had to deal,

turned about and began to follow the two men at the top of the quay, at

a foot-pace. This was not observed by the slouching and tattered

personage who was in advance.

The hackney-coach rolled along the trees of the Champs-Élysées. The

bust of the driver, whip in hand, could be seen moving along above the

parapet.

One of the secret instructions of the police authorities to their

agents contains this article: “Always have on hand a hackney-coach, in

case of emergency.”

While these two men were manœuvring, each on his own side, with

irreproachable strategy, they approached an inclined plane on the quay

which descended to the shore, and which permitted cab-drivers arriving

from Passy to come to the river and water their horses. This inclined

plane was suppressed later on, for the sake of symmetry; horses may die

of thirst, but the eye is gratified.

It is probable that the man in the blouse had intended to ascend this

inclined plane, with a view to making his escape into the

Champs-Élysées, a place ornamented with trees, but, in return, much

infested with policemen, and where the other could easily exercise

violence.

This point on the quay is not very far distant from the house brought

to Paris from Moret in 1824, by Colonel Brack, and designated as “the

house of François I.” A guard house is situated close at hand.

To the great surprise of his watcher, the man who was being tracked did

not mount by the inclined plane for watering. He continued to advance

along the quay on the shore.

His position was visibly becoming critical.

What was he intending to do, if not to throw himself into the Seine?

Henceforth, there existed no means of ascending to the quay; there was

no other inclined plane, no staircase; and they were near the spot,

marked by the bend in the Seine towards the Pont de Jéna, where the

bank, growing constantly narrower, ended in a slender tongue, and was

lost in the water. There he would inevitably find himself blocked

between the perpendicular wall on his right, the river on his left and

in front of him, and the authorities on his heels.

It is true that this termination of the shore was hidden from sight by

a heap of rubbish six or seven feet in height, produced by some

demolition or other. But did this man hope to conceal himself

effectually behind that heap of rubbish, which one need but skirt? The

expedient would have been puerile. He certainly was not dreaming of

such a thing. The innocence of thieves does not extend to that point.

The pile of rubbish formed a sort of projection at the water’s edge,

which was prolonged in a promontory as far as the wall of the quay.

The man who was being followed arrived at this little mound and went

round it, so that he ceased to be seen by the other.

The latter, as he did not see, could not be seen; he took advantage of

this fact to abandon all dissimulation and to walk very rapidly. In a

few moments, he had reached the rubbish heap and passed round it. There

he halted in sheer amazement. The man whom he had been pursuing was no

longer there.

Total eclipse of the man in the blouse.

The shore, beginning with the rubbish heap, was only about thirty paces

long, then it plunged into the water which beat against the wall of the

quay. The fugitive could not have thrown himself into the Seine without

being seen by the man who was following him. What had become of him?

The man in the buttoned-up coat walked to the extremity of the shore,

and remained there in thought for a moment, his fists clenched, his

eyes searching. All at once he smote his brow. He had just perceived,

at the point where the land came to an end and the water began, a large

iron grating, low, arched, garnished with a heavy lock and with three

massive hinges. This grating, a sort of door pierced at the base of the

quay, opened on the river as well as on the shore. A blackish stream

passed under it. This stream discharged into the Seine.

Beyond the heavy, rusty iron bars, a sort of dark and vaulted corridor

could be descried. The man folded his arms and stared at the grating

with an air of reproach.

As this gaze did not suffice, he tried to thrust it aside; he shook it,

it resisted solidly. It is probable that it had just been opened,

although no sound had been heard, a singular circumstance in so rusty a

grating; but it is certain that it had been closed again. This

indicated that the man before whom that door had just opened had not a

hook but a key.

This evidence suddenly burst upon the mind of the man who was trying to

move the grating, and evoked from him this indignant ejaculation:

“That is too much! A government key!”

Then, immediately regaining his composure, he expressed a whole world

of interior ideas by this outburst of monosyllables accented almost

ironically: “Come! Come! Come! Come!”

That said, and in the hope of something or other, either that he should

see the man emerge or other men enter, he posted himself on the watch

behind a heap of rubbish, with the patient rage of a pointer.

The hackney-coach, which regulated all its movements on his, had, in

its turn, halted on the quay above him, close to the parapet. The

coachman, foreseeing a prolonged wait, encased his horses’ muzzles in

the bag of oats which is damp at the bottom, and which is so familiar

to Parisians, to whom, be it said in parenthesis, the Government

sometimes applies it. The rare passers-by on the Pont de Jéna turned

their heads, before they pursued their way, to take a momentary glance

at these two motionless items in the landscape, the man on the shore,

the carriage on the quay.