"The raid," he warned in a low tone.
His customers, glad to feel themselves in safety, followed the vicissitudes of what to them was almost a daily occurrence.
First came the frenzied rush of the "street walkers," deserted by their sinister protectors and fleeing madly in search of shelter in terror of the lock-up. Behind the shrieking herd the constables, in close ranks, swept and cleared the street, leaving no corner, no court, no door that remained ajar unsearched. Then the whirl swept away, the noise died down, and the street resumed its normal aspect: drab, weird and alarming.
Father Korn laughed. "All they've bagged is Bonzville!" he cried, and the customers responded to his merriment. The police had been fooled again. Bonzville was a harmless old tramp, who got himself "jugged" every winter on purpose to lay up for repairs.
The passage of the "driver" had caused enough stir in the tap-room to distract attention from the entry at the back of a stoutly built man with a bestial face, known by the title of "The Cooper."
Swiftly he passed to the Beard's table, and, taking the latter aside, began:
"The big job is fixed for the end of the week. On my way back from the station I saw Josephine palavering with the swell customer...."
Suddenly the Beard stopped him short.
The general attention had become fixed on the street entrance to the tap-room. The door had opened with a bang and Loupart, alias "The Square," the popular lover of the pretty Josephine, came on the scene, his eyes gleaming, his lips smiling under his upturned moustache.
Then there broke out cries of stupefaction. Loupart was between two policemen, who had stopped short in the doorway.