Part 29

The child asleep again, he laid it on its bed, and then sat far into the night thinking barrenly. At last one of his sudden gleams of inspiration illuminated his mind. It was the only way. He took out his watch. It was four o'clock. What had to be done must be done swiftly.

In the travelling-basket, which had been sent from the garage, he placed a pillow, and on to the pillow he transferred with breathless care the sleeping Jean, and wrapped him up snug and warm in bedclothes. Then he folded the tiny day-garments that lay on a chair, collected the little odds and ends belonging to the child, took from his valise the rest of Jean's little wardrobe, and laid them at the foot of the basket. The most miserable man in France then counted up his money, divided it into two parts, and wrote a hasty letter, which, with the bundle of notes, he enclosed in an envelope.

"My little Jean," said he, laying the envelope on the child's breast. "Here is a little more than half my fortune. Half is for yourself and the little more to pay your wretched father's hotel bill. Good-bye, my little Jean. Je t'aime bien, tu sais--and don't reproach me."

* * * * *

About an hour afterwards Miss Anne awoke and listened, and in a moment or two Miss Janet awoke also.

"Janet, do you hear that?"

"It's a child crying. It's just outside the door."

"It sounds like Jean."

"Nonsense, my dear!"

But Anne switched on the light and went to see for herself; and there, in the tiny anteroom that separated the bedroom from the corridor, she found the basket--a new Pharoah's daughter before a new little Moses in the bulrushes. In bewilderment she brought the ark into the room, and read the letter addressed to Janet and herself. She burst into tears. All she said was:--

"Oh, Janet, why couldn't he have told us?"

And then she fell to hugging the child to her bosom.

Meanwhile Aristide Pujol, clad in his goat-skin cap and coat, valise in hand, was plodding through the rain in search of the elusive phantom, Fortune; gloriously certain that he had assured Jean's future, yet with such a heartache as he had never had in his life before.

THE ADVENTURE OF THE PIG'S HEAD

Once upon a time Aristide Pujol found himself standing outside his Paris residence, No. 213 bis, Rue Saint Honoré, without a penny in the world. His last sou had gone to Madame Bidoux, who kept a small green grocer's shop at No. 213 bis and rented a ridiculously small back room for a ridiculously small weekly sum to Aristide whenever he honoured the French capital with his presence. During his absence she forwarded him such letters as might arrive for him; and as this was his only permanent address, and as he let Madame Bidoux know his whereabouts only at vague intervals of time, the transaction of business with Aristide Pujol, "Agent, No. 213 bis, Rue Saint Honoré, Paris," by correspondence was peculiarly difficult.

He had made Madame Bidoux's acquaintance in the dim past; and he had made it in his usual direct and electric manner. Happening to walk down the Rue Saint Honoré, he had come upon tragedy. Madame Bidoux, fat, red of face, tearful of eye and strident of voice, held in her arms a little mongrel dog--her own precious possession--which had just been run over in the street, and the two of them filled the air with wailings and vociferation. Aristide uncovered his head, as though he were about to address a duchess, and smiled at her engagingly.

"Madame," said he, "I perceive that your little dog has a broken leg. As I know all about dogs, I will, with your permission, set the limb, put it into splints and guarantee a perfect cure. Needless to say, I make no charge for my services."

Snatching the dog from the arms of the fascinated woman, he darted in his dragon-fly fashion into the shop, gave a hundred orders to a stupefied assistant, and--to cut short a story which Aristide told me with great wealth of detail--mended the precious dog and gained Madame Bidoux's eternal gratitude. For Madame Bidoux the world held no more remarkable man than Aristide Pujol; and for Aristide the world held no more devoted friend than Madame Bidoux. Many a succulent meal, at the widow's expense--never more enjoyable than in summer time when she set a little iron table and a couple of iron chairs on the pavement outside the shop--had saved him from starvation; and many a gewgaw sent from London or Marseilles or other such remote latitudes filled her heart with pride. Since my acquaintance with Aristide I myself have called on this excellent woman, and I hope I have won her esteem, though I have never had the honour of eating pig's trotters and chou-croûte with her on the pavement of the Rue Saint Honoré. It is an honour from which, being an unassuming man, I shrink.

Unfortunately Madame Bidoux has nothing further to do with the story I am about to relate, save in one respect:--

There came a day--it was a bleak day in November, when Madame Bidoux's temporary financial difficulties happened to coincide with Aristide's. To him, unsuspicious of coincidence, she confided her troubles. He emptied the meagre contents of his purse into her hand.

"Madame Bidoux," said he with a flourish, and the air of a prince, "why didn't you tell me before?" and without waiting for her blessing he went out penniless into the street.

Aristide was never happier than when he had not a penny piece in the world. He believed, I fancy, in a dim sort of way, in God and the Virgin and Holy Water and the Pope; but the faith that thrilled him to exaltation was his faith in the inevitable happening of the unexpected. He marched to meet it with the throbbing pulses of a soldier rushing to victory or a saint to martyrdom. He walked up the Rue Saint Honoré, the Rue de la Paix, along the Grands Boulevards, smiling on a world which teemed with unexpectednesses, until he reached a café on the Boulevard des Bonnes Filles de Calvaire. Here he was arrested by Fate, in the form of a battered man in black, who, springing from the solitary frostiness of the terrace, threw his arms about him and kissed him on both cheeks.

"Mais, c'est toi, Pujol!"

"C'est toi, Roulard!"

Roulard dragged Aristide to his frosty table and ordered drinks. Roulard had played the trumpet in the regimental band in which Aristide had played the kettle drum. During their military service they had been inseparables. Since those happy and ear-splitting days they had not met. They looked at each other and laughed and thumped each other's shoulders.

"Ce vieux Roulard!"

"Ce sacré Pujol."

"And what are you doing?" asked Aristide, after the first explosions of astonishment and reminiscence.