“Very well; we will have their whack of money in twenty-four hours,” said Jacques Collin. “Then the blackguards cannot pay up, as you will; you will come out as white as snow, and they will be red with all that blood! By my kind offices you will seem a good sort of fellow led away by them. I shall have money enough of yours to prove alibis on the other counts, and when you are back on the hulks—for you are bound to go there—you must see about escaping. It is a dog’s life, still it is life!”
La Pouraille’s eyes glittered with suppressed delirium.
“With seven hundred thousand francs you can get a good many drinks,” said Jacques Collin, making his pal quite drunk with hope.
“Ay, ay, boss!”
“I can bamboozle the Minister of Justice.—Ah, ha! Ruffard will shell out to do for a reeler. Bibi-Lupin is fairly gulled!”
“Very good, it is a bargain,” said la Pouraille with savage glee. “You order, and I obey.”
And he hugged Jacques Collin in his arms, while tears of joy stood in his eyes, so hopeful did he feel of saving his head.
“That is not all,” said Jacques Collin; “the public prosecutor does not swallow everything, you know, especially when a new count is entered against you. The next thing is to bring a moll into the case by blowing the gaff.”
“But how, and what for?”
“Do as I bid you; you will see.” And Trompe-la-Mort briefly told the secret of the Nanterre murders, showing him how necessary it was to find a woman who would pretend to be Ginetta. Then he and la Pouraille, now in good spirits, went across to le Biffon.