to what was in preparation, and in the horror with which the Jondrettes had inspired him, he experienced a sort of joy at the idea that it might be granted to him perhaps to render a service to the one whom he loved.

But how was it to be done? How warn the persons threatened? He did not know their address. They had reappeared for an instant before his eyes, and had then plunged back again into the immense depths of Paris. Should he wait for M. Leblanc at the door that evening at six o’clock, at the moment of his arrival, and warn him of the trap? But Jondrette and his men would see him on the watch, the spot was lonely, they were stronger than he, they would devise means to seize him or to get him away, and the man whom Marius was anxious to save would be lost. One o’clock had just struck, the trap was to be sprung at six. Marius had five hours before him.

There was but one thing to be done.

He put on his decent coat, knotted a silk handkerchief round his neck, took his hat, and went out, without making any more noise than if he had been treading on moss with bare feet.

Moreover, the Jondrette woman continued to rummage among her old iron.

Once outside of the house, he made for the Rue du Petit-Banquier.

He had almost reached the middle of this street, near a very low wall which a man can easily step over at certain points, and which abuts on a waste space, and was walking slowly, in consequence of his preoccupied condition, and the snow deadened the sound of his steps; all at once he heard voices talking very close by. He turned his head, the street was deserted, there was not a soul in it, it was broad daylight, and yet he distinctly heard voices.

It occurred to him to glance over the wall which he was skirting.

There, in fact, sat two men, flat on the snow, with their backs against the wall, talking together in subdued tones.

These two persons were strangers to him; one was a bearded man in a blouse, and the other a long-haired individual in rags. The bearded man had on a fez, the other’s head was bare, and the snow had lodged in his hair.

By thrusting his head over the wall, Marius could hear their remarks.

The hairy one jogged the other man’s elbow and said:⁠—

“⁠—With the assistance of Patron-Minette, it can’t fail.”

“Do you think so?” said the bearded man.

And the long-haired one began again:⁠—

“It’s as good as a warrant for each one, of five hundred balls, and the worst that can happen is five years, six years, ten years at the most!”

The other replied with some hesitation, and shivering beneath his fez:⁠—

“That’s a real thing. You can’t go against such things.”

“I tell you that the affair can’t go wrong,” resumed the long-haired man. “Father What’s-his-name’s team will be already harnessed.”

Then they began to discuss a melodrama that they had seen on the preceding evening at the Gaîté Theatre.

Marius went his way.

It seemed to him that the mysterious words of these men, so strangely hidden behind that wall, and crouching in the snow, could not but bear some relation to Jondrette’s abominable projects. That must be “the affair.”

He directed his course towards the faubourg Saint-Marceau and asked at the first shop he came to where he could find a commissary of police.

He was directed to Rue de Pontoise, No. 14.

Thither Marius betook himself.

As he passed a baker’s shop, he bought a twopenny roll, and ate it, foreseeing that he should not dine.

On the way, he rendered justice to Providence. He reflected that had he not given his five francs to the Jondrette girl in the morning, he would have followed M. Leblanc’s fiacre, and consequently have remained ignorant of everything, and that there would have been no obstacle to the trap of the Jondrettes and that M. Leblanc would have been lost, and his daughter with him, no doubt.

XIV

In Which a Police Agent Bestows Two Fistfuls on a Lawyer

On arriving at No. 14, Rue de Pontoise, he ascended to the first floor and inquired for the commissary of police.

“The commissary of police is not here,” said a clerk; “but there is an inspector who takes his place. Would you like to speak to him? Are you in haste?”

“Yes,” said Marius.

The clerk introduced him into the commissary’s office. There stood a tall man behind a grating, leaning against a stove, and holding up with both hands the tails of a vast topcoat, with three collars. His face was square, with a thin, firm mouth, thick, gray, and very ferocious whiskers, and a look that was enough to turn your pockets inside out. Of that glance it might have been well said, not that it penetrated, but that it searched.

This man’s air was not much less ferocious nor less terrible than Jondrette’s; the dog is, at times, no less terrible to meet than the wolf.

“What do you want?” he said to Marius, without adding “monsieur.”

“Is this Monsieur le Commissaire de Police?”

“He is absent. I am here in his stead.”

“The matter is very private.”

“Then speak.”

“And great haste is required.”

“Then speak quick.”

This calm, abrupt man was both terrifying and reassuring at one and the same time. He inspired fear and confidence. Marius related the adventure to him: That a person with whom he was not acquainted otherwise than by sight, was to be inveigled into a trap that very evening; that, as he occupied the room adjoining the den, he, Marius Pontmercy, a lawyer, had heard the whole plot through the partition; that the wretch who had planned the trap was a certain Jondrette; that there would be accomplices, probably some prowlers of the barriers, among others a certain Panchaud, alias Printanier, alias Bigrenaille; that Jondrette’s daughters were to lie in wait; that there was no way of warning the threatened man, since he did not even