Chương Chương 222 · ONE SHOULD ALWAYS BEGIN BY ARRESTING THE VICTIMS

At nightfall, Javert had posted his men and had gone into ambush

himself between the trees of the Rue de la Barrière-des-Gobelins which

faced the Gorbeau house, on the other side of the boulevard. He had

begun operations by opening “his pockets,” and dropping into it the two

young girls who were charged with keeping a watch on the approaches to

the den. But he had only “caged” Azelma. As for Éponine, she was not at

her post, she had disappeared, and he had not been able to seize her.

Then Javert had made a point and had bent his ear to waiting for the

signal agreed upon. The comings and goings of the fiacres had greatly

agitated him. At last, he had grown impatient, and, _sure that there

was a nest there_, sure of being in “luck,” having recognized many of

the ruffians who had entered, he had finally decided to go upstairs

without waiting for the pistol-shot.

It will be remembered that he had Marius’ pass-key.

He had arrived just in the nick of time.

The terrified ruffians flung themselves on the arms which they had

abandoned in all the corners at the moment of flight. In less than a

second, these seven men, horrible to behold, had grouped themselves in

an attitude of defence, one with his meat-axe, another with his key,

another with his bludgeon, the rest with shears, pincers, and hammers.

Thénardier had his knife in his fist. The Thénardier woman snatched up

an enormous paving-stone which lay in the angle of the window and

served her daughters as an ottoman.

[Illustration: Snatched up a Paving Stone]

Javert put on his hat again, and advanced a couple of paces into the

room, with arms folded, his cane under one arm, his sword in its

sheath.

“Halt there,” said he. “You shall not go out by the window, you shall

go through the door. It’s less unhealthy. There are seven of you, there

are fifteen of us. Don’t let’s fall to collaring each other like men of

Auvergne.”

Bigrenaille drew out a pistol which he had kept concealed under his

blouse, and put it in Thénardier’s hand, whispering in the latter’s

ear:—

“It’s Javert. I don’t dare fire at that man. Do you dare?”

“Parbleu!” replied Thénardier.

“Well, then, fire.”

Thénardier took the pistol and aimed at Javert.

Javert, who was only three paces from him, stared intently at him and

contented himself with saying:—

“Come now, don’t fire. You’ll miss fire.”

Thénardier pulled the trigger. The pistol missed fire.

“Didn’t I tell you so!” ejaculated Javert.

Bigrenaille flung his bludgeon at Javert’s feet.

“You’re the emperor of the fiends! I surrender.”

“And you?” Javert asked the rest of the ruffians.

They replied:—

“So do we.”

Javert began again calmly:—

“That’s right, that’s good, I said so, you are nice fellows.”

“I only ask one thing,” said Bigrenaille, “and that is, that I may not

be denied tobacco while I am in confinement.”

“Granted,” said Javert.

And turning round and calling behind him:—

“Come in now!”

A squad of policemen, sword in hand, and agents armed with bludgeons

and cudgels, rushed in at Javert’s summons. They pinioned the ruffians.

This throng of men, sparely lighted by the single candle, filled the

den with shadows.

“Handcuff them all!” shouted Javert.

“Come on!” cried a voice which was not the voice of a man, but of which

no one would ever have said: “It is a woman’s voice.”

The Thénardier woman had entrenched herself in one of the angles of the

window, and it was she who had just given vent to this roar.

The policemen and agents recoiled.

She had thrown off her shawl, but retained her bonnet; her husband, who

was crouching behind her, was almost hidden under the discarded shawl,

and she was shielding him with her body, as she elevated the

paving-stone above her head with the gesture of a giantess on the point

of hurling a rock.

“Beware!” she shouted.

All crowded back towards the corridor. A broad open space was cleared

in the middle of the garret.

The Thénardier woman cast a glance at the ruffians who had allowed

themselves to be pinioned, and muttered in hoarse and guttural

accents:—

“The cowards!”

Javert smiled, and advanced across the open space which the Thénardier

was devouring with her eyes.

“Don’t come near me,” she cried, “or I’ll crush you.”

“What a grenadier!” ejaculated Javert; “you’ve got a beard like a man,

mother, but I have claws like a woman.”

And he continued to advance.

The Thénardier, dishevelled and terrible, set her feet far apart, threw

herself backwards, and hurled the paving-stone at Javert’s head. Javert

ducked, the stone passed over him, struck the wall behind, knocked off

a huge piece of plastering, and, rebounding from angle to angle across

the hovel, now luckily almost empty, rested at Javert’s feet.

At the same moment, Javert reached the Thénardier couple. One of his

big hands descended on the woman’s shoulder; the other on the husband’s

head.

“The handcuffs!” he shouted.

The policemen trooped in in force, and in a few seconds Javert’s order

had been executed.

The Thénardier female, overwhelmed, stared at her pinioned hands, and

at those of her husband, who had dropped to the floor, and exclaimed,

weeping:—

“My daughters!”

“They are in the jug,” said Javert.

In the meanwhile, the agents had caught sight of the drunken man asleep

behind the door, and were shaking him:—

He awoke, stammering:—

“Is it all over, Jondrette?”

“Yes,” replied Javert.

The six pinioned ruffians were standing, and still preserved their

spectral mien; all three besmeared with black, all three masked.

“Keep on your masks,” said Javert.

And passing them in review with a glance of a Frederick II. at a

Potsdam parade, he said to the three “chimney-builders”:—

“Good day, Bigrenaille! good day, Brujon! good day, Deuxmilliards!”

Then turning to the three masked men, he said to the man with the

meat-axe:—

“Good day, Gueulemer!”

And to the man with the cudgel:—

“Good day, Babet!”

And to the ventriloquist:—

“Your health, Claquesous.”

At that moment, he caught sight of the ruffians’ prisoner, who, ever

since the entrance of the police, had not uttered a word, and had held

his head down.

“Untie the gentleman!” said Javert, “and let no one go out!”

That said, he seated himself with sovereign dignity before the table,

where the candle and the writing-materials still remained, drew a

stamped paper from his pocket, and began to prepare his report.

When he had written the first lines, which are formulas that never

vary, he raised his eyes:—

“Let the gentleman whom these gentlemen bound step forward.”

The policemen glanced round them.

“Well,” said Javert, “where is he?”

The prisoner of the ruffians, M. Leblanc, M. Urbain Fabre, the father

of Ursule or the Lark, had disappeared.

The door was guarded, but the window was not. As soon as he had found

himself released from his bonds, and while Javert was drawing up his

report, he had taken advantage of confusion, the crowd, the darkness,

and of a moment when the general attention was diverted from him, to

dash out of the window.

An agent sprang to the opening and looked out. He saw no one outside.

The rope ladder was still shaking.

“The devil!” ejaculated Javert between his teeth, “he must have been

the most valuable of the lot.”