To his profound surprise he found the newcomer was not the elegantly dressed gentleman he expected to see, but a little woman in a flowered peignoir, her hair down her back and her feet crammed into an old pair of sandals. It was Nini Guinon, who had come down from the floor above to pay a neighbourly visit to Père Moche.
“Halloa!” cried the child, who, without waiting for an invitation, had slipped into M. Moche’s office behind the barred partition, “why, you’re a regular bird of passage! never at home, always out! Every time I pass your door, I knock, I ring a peal, I stand there waiting—nothing! nobody! the bird’s flown, the old fox is not in his earth.”
Nini was both angry and excited, as she stood before the old man, passing a feverish hand over her pale brow and ruffling her black locks, while the other looked at her without moving a muscle or saying a word.
“I’m in a hole,” went on the young baggage, “and I’ve got to get out of it, Père Moche; I’m fed up with the whole business, I am! Anyway, here’s straight talking—if you don’t go the way I want, I’ll just be off and blow the gaff to the police mugs.”
“You’ll never do that, Nini,” the old man expostulated in cajoling tones, “you’re much too nice a girl.”
But Nini declined to be softened by compliments: “I shall do what I say,” she asseverated.
“But come, out with it! what’s it all about?” Moche demanded.
“What’s it all about, eh?” returned the girl, “why, it’s as clear as mud. I’m in a tight place, and other folks are going to be there too if things go on as they are. To begin with, I’ve had enough of living with Paulet; he frightens me, the man frightens me! Ever since I saw him do in the bank chap, I’m terrified all the time he’ll do my business for me, too. He’s no spunk at all; it’s not blood he has in his veins, it’s water; I sleep with him and I know what I’m talking about; every night he lies and sweats; it’s fear, that’s what it is! He dreams of the police, he dreams about the dead man, he yells out in his sleep. The man’s all broke to pieces, he’ll come to a bad end; if ever the ’tecs come questioning him a bit close, he’ll never have gumption enough to put ’em off with blarney, and then, by God! we’ll all be in the soup!”
“Alas! my dear child,” murmured the old fellow hypocritically, “what do you want me to do; all that business has nothing to do with me. You have killed a man, the stolen money has disappeared, you understand, disappeared, nobody can say where it is. Now suppose they accused me, the thing wouldn’t hold water for a moment; for why? because I’m well known as an honest, respectable business man. So get out of your own difficulties!”
As a matter of fact Nini had from the first understood perfectly well what attitude old Moche would adopt under the circumstances. Not a doubt of it, if things turned out badly, the old business agent was clever enough to pull his iron safely out of the fire, and certainly cynical enough to leave his confederates in the lurch. But Nini had no notion of things going like that; she strode up to M. Moche, and shaking her little fist in the old man’s wrinkled face: