It was Fouchette.
The others turned towards the doorway to see,—there was nothing there.
Cowering for a few moments in the darkest corner of the carriage, she had heard the voice of Tartar raised in anger, followed by the tumult. The latter she had anticipated with fear and trembling. She had divined at the last moment that these were agents of the police, and that the object was arrests. The noise of combat roused her fighting blood, the silence that so soon followed heated her curiosity to the boiling-point. It was intolerable. Perhaps the agents were being killed. The suspense was dreadful. She felt that she could not endure it another second.
The man had ordered her to remain in the carriage. The blinds were down; the coachman stood on the side next to the cabaret.
Come what might, she must know. So Fouchette slipped softly out on the opposite side and sneaked swiftly around the horses' heads.
The coachman on guard was for the same moment completely wrapped up in the riot that had been going on inside the Rendez-Vous pour Cochers; he saw the child just as she reached the doorway, and then he made a dash for her, grabbed her, and put her back in the carriage.
Thus, it so happened that but a single pair of eyes within had seen Fouchette, and these eyes belonged to the man who believed her to be dead.
It was for the purpose of the identification of her assailant that Fouchette had been brought to the Rendez-Vous pour Cochers. Tartar had spared her that trouble, though it was for quite another reason that le Cochon fell into the grip of the police.
The latter had experienced no difficulty in identifying Fouchette in spite of her obstinate silence. As she had come down the river from outside the barrier, it was clear that she made her living in some river suburb. A telephonic inquiry brought not only immediate confirmation from the authorities at Charenton, but had elicited the important details that brought the specials from the Préfecture down upon the suspected cabaret. In the man described as "le Cochon" the officials at once recognized a notorious escaped convict.
It was not until Fouchette was on her way back to the Préfecture that it was learned that in their prisoner, le Cochon, they also had an assassin who up to this moment had eluded arrest.