"No, mademoiselle; the one I know is very good-looking too, but she lives on Rue Saint-Jacques; she lost her mother long ago."
"I know whom you mean!" cried Bahuchet; "you mean Ambroisine, whom they call La Belle Baigneuse. Ah! she"s a very handsome girl--tall and well built! She is Master Hugonnet"s daughter, whose baths are very popular.--Oh! I know her; I know all Paris, I do! But she isn"t the one in question, for my friend Plumard--his name ought to be _Plume_ [plucked], for before long he will not have three hairs on his scalp---- But, no matter; Plumard told me about the daughter of his neighbor, the bath keeper on Rue Dauphine. His name is Landry; he is an old soldier, who will not look on it as a joke if he learns that a gallant is making love to his daughter, whatever the gallant"s name and rank may be!"
"And--was it long ago, monsieur, that you had this conversation at your friend"s window on Rue Dauphine?"
"About six weeks, mademoiselle."
"Have you seen your friend again since? Has he told you anything more concerning Monsieur Leodgard de Marvejols"s love affairs?"
"I have seen Plumard very often since. We sometimes dine together at the cook shop. A few days, or rather a few nights ago, I escorted my comrade home; it was very late, almost midnight; we had been singing and playing cards and drinking a long, long while, and Plumard, who is not over brave, was afraid to go home alone. He was in dread of falling in with Giovanni the robber--the famous Italian brigand whom our archers, our arquebusiers, our watch, in fact, all our soldiery, have not succeeded in catching. They are not shrewd. To secure that villain"s arrest, I shall have to take a hand in it. But I will show them how to catch him.
I know how they must go to work to do it, and----"
"You will have Giovanni arrested?" cried Miretta, whose face had turned deathly pale.
"Well, well! what has happened to you, child?" said Valentine, almost alarmed by her maid"s abrupt exclamation. "Mon Dieu! how excited you are!"
"I beg pardon, mademoiselle; excuse me; but monsieur said that he knew how they could arrest this Italian--this Giovanni."
"How does that concern you? You do not seem to be afraid of him, for you never go out except at night, and you come home quite late, so Beatrix tells me."
"That is true, mademoiselle; but, for all that, I would like to know----"
"But I wish to know what concerns Monsieur Leodgard. I am not at all interested in this famous robber.--For heaven"s sake, Monsieur Bahuchet, go on. You were taking your friend Plumard home, to Rue Dauphine."
"Yes, mademoiselle; we were walking quietly along, arm in arm, talking together, and he was a.s.suring me that he had discovered three more hairs on his head since the night before, and he attributed that capillary recrudescence to some grease made from a man who had been hanged, which an old woman had presented to him."
"Ah! monsieur, you abuse my patience!"
"A thousand pardons, mademoiselle! I continue.--About a hundred yards from the bath keeper"s house, Plumard stopped and squeezed my arm.
""What is it?" I asked, without wincing. "I am not afraid of anything; I am as brave as a lion. What did you see, Plumard?"
""What I saw," he replied, "was a man climbing into a window on the first floor of yonder house."
"And he pointed to Master Landry"s house.
""Let us hurry," said I; "we must make sure of the fact."
"And I pulled Plumard along by the arm; but he did not go any more quickly for that. When we drew near the window in question, at which there is a balcony, we thought that we saw a rope, or a rope ladder, which someone hastily drew up. When we were in front of the house, we saw nothing.--Was it a lover? was it a thief?--I recalled Comte Leodgard"s watches in front of the bathing establishment, and I said to Plumard:
""This must be the sequel of what we saw from your window."
"But Plumard, who sees thieves everywhere, did not agree with me; he wanted to call the watch and the neighbors; but, happening to glance at my feet, directly beneath the balcony, I saw something white on the ground. I stooped, and picked up a beautiful white plume, like those with which our young seigneurs adorn their hats. Then I remembered that Comte Leodgard had one of them on his hat, and I said to my friend, showing him the plume:
""Look! here is something that our climber lost on the way. Thieves don"t wear such plumes as this on their nocturnal expeditions; so this is some lovers" affair. Let us leave them in peace; go home to bed and stop trembling."
"Thereupon I left Plumard at his door and went home."
"And the plume that you found?"
"I carried it home with me, and I still have it; it"s a very fine one!
too fine for me to wear it, with my modest clothes. But no one knows; if I should have a handsome cloak and rich doublet some day, and a velvet cap, why, the plume would go very well with all those things!"
Valentine seemed to reflect; she glanced at her aunt, who was sound asleep, then continued, taking care to speak in a low tone:
"Is that all you know concerning Monsieur Leodgard?"
"No, indeed! Oh! I have not emptied my bag yet, as my employer says.
Mademoiselle must know that I have a relation who lives near Vincennes; he is a simple farmer; he has a little cottage with a sizable piece of land, where he grows vegetables and fruit, which he brings to Paris to sell. Thomas"s cottage--Thomas is my kinsman"s name--is in a very lonely spot, just this side of the village and chateau of Vincennes. Ah! how frightened Plumard would be there! so when I suggest to him to go to Thomas"s with me, he always refuses; and yet, my relative has a very nice little wine.--But to come to my story: when you leave our quarter of the Cite, you have to cross Pont Saint-Louis, otherwise called the Pont-aux-Choux. And that is a very dangerous place, especially at this time, for it is the favorite resort of Giovanni, the robber whom I mentioned just now. I am confident that he has his lair in the neighborhood. About five days ago, no more, Thomas"s a.s.s was stolen on the Pont-aux-Choux; he did not see the robber, therefore it was Giovanni. Also, an old peasant woman of Vincennes was found murdered within fifty yards of that infernal bridge; that too was done by that d.a.m.ned brigand!"
"No, monsieur, no; that is not true!" cried Miretta. "Giovanni did not murder that woman! it is impossible!"
"And why is it impossible, I pray to know, young lady"s-maid?" demanded Bahuchet, staring at the girl in amazement.
Miretta tried to dissemble her emotion as she replied:
"Why, because I have been a.s.sured--I have heard everybody say that Giovanni never sheds blood, that no one had ever been injured by him!"
"Really, my pretty child! And why do they not also say that when he pillages travellers, the brigand gives them sweetmeats and preserves to make up to them for the money he steals? What an absurd idea--that a man who attacks with arms in his hand does not use his arms when he is resisted! But there are people who delight to tell such foolish tales, and who pretend to know everything better than anybody else.--I would just like to have a hundred men, well armed; I would lie in ambush under the Pont-aux-Choux, and within a week I would have captured, hanged, or shot the famous Giovanni!"
"Ah! so that is how you expect to capture him?" muttered Miretta in a trembling voice, gazing at the little man with eyes that flashed fire.
"It seems to me to be very easy; when you know almost the spot where a bird has its nest, you can find it. But I beg pardon, mademoiselle; I see that you consider me too talkative.--I was saying that Thomas"s cottage is isolated; but within about three gunshots of it, toward Paris, there is a very pretty place, a very elegant sort of pavilion, which belongs now, I believe, to the Baron de Montrevert, but which formerly belonged to Comte Leodgard, who lost it at cards. This pavilion is what our seigneurs of the court call a _pet.i.te maison_, a place to which they go to enjoy themselves in secret, to which they take their mistresses or courtesans; and the young count----"
"Enough, monsieur, enough!" said Valentine, with a glance at the young man which cut him short. "This does not interest me. That the Comte de Marvejols should ruin himself like a gentleman, that he should commit a thousand follies--fight, drink too much, run in debt--all that I can understand! But that he should fall in love with a bath keeper"s daughter, that that pa.s.sion should keep him away from the world--that is what seems inconceivable to me!--But this plume that you found--are you willing to give it to me?"
Bahuchet rubbed his chin, a.s.sumed his mocking expression, and said at last:
"Give it to you, mademoiselle?--You are most worthy of it, certainly, but I have tried it on my hood, and it was not unbecoming to me; on the word of a Basochian, it made me quite the dandy! Ha! ha!"
"Not so loud, monsieur; you will wake my aunt!"
"Ah! to be sure; the honorable and venerable lady is taking a nap."
"When I ask you for this plume, which is of some value doubtless, I do not mean to suggest, monsieur, that you should make me a present of it; and I will beg you to accept this purse in exchange, not as the price of what I ask of you, but as a souvenir of me."
The little clerk hastily cast a furtive glance at the pretty velvet purse, which was not unlike an alms purse, and from which issued a sound very pleasant to his ear. He bowed to the floor before the n.o.ble maiden, and, almost kneeling, took the purse from her hand.
"I accept this in obedience to you, mademoiselle," he said; "to-morrow you shall have the plume. I am too happy to be able to do anything that is agreeable to you!"
"Very well, monsieur; now, leave us."
Bahuchet bowed once more, then smiled at Miretta, who answered his smile by a wrathful glance. But the little clerk hurried from the room and the house, paying no heed to the young lady"s-maid"s threatening expression.
He was no sooner in the street than he opened the purse and found four gold pieces inside.
Thereupon he shouted for joy, tossed his cap in the air, b.u.mped against the pa.s.sers-by, and finally ran off at full speed, crying:
"O Plumard! I say, Plumard! where are you? I have got enough to buy you a wig! but I won"t buy it!"