“With being the leader of the train robbers in the express case.”
“Have you seen him since this morning?”
“Yes. Just now, when they were taking his measurements. They’re taking them still.”
“Thanks, Phillipe, that’s what I wanted to know. Good-by.”
He hung up the receivers and cried: “Well, my pretty Aurelie, you know where your savior is! In prison! Jailed!”
“I knew it,” she said. [[208]]
He burst out laughing.
“She knew it! And she went on expecting him just the same! That’s really funny. He has the whole of the police and the weight of the law on the top of him—he’s a rag, a tatter, a straw in the wind, a soap-bubble, and she’s expecting him! The walls of his prison are going to fall down! The warders are going to offer him a car! He’s here! He’s going to come down the chimney or through the ceiling!”
Beside himself, he shook the young girl impassive and heedless of him, by the shoulder.
“There’s nothing to be done, Aurelie! There’s no more hope! Your savior’s done for! The Baron’s under lock and key! And in an hour it will be your turn, pretty one! Cropped hair! Saint Lazare! The court! I’ve wept often enough for your beautiful eyes, you little crook; and it is to them——”