The barrow was still there. Paulet buckled to again and towed it slowly up the slope of the Rue de Crimée, while Père Moche, keeping to the sidewalk, stumped along in a line with the working mason.
The two confederates, who forty-eight hours earlier had come near slaughtering each other over the tragic murder of the bank messenger, presently reached the top of the incline and stopped a moment to take breath behind the Parc des Buttes-Chaumont at the opening of the Rue Botzaris. The place was admirably chosen for people wishing to talk without fear of eavesdroppers. The street was empty and in the park even not a soul could be seen afoot.
Père Moche, pointing to a bench set against the palisade surrounding a piece of waste ground—the very same where some months before a woman’s body had been found hacked to pieces—was saying to his companion:
“Sit down there, my boy, we’ve got to talk.”
Paulet was not sorry to rest a while, for his barrow was heavy; he gladly obeyed, and the two men faced each other.
“Paulet,” began M. Moche, “I told you the day before yesterday we were going to make a mighty fine thing of it, unless you proved a funk.”
The apache lifted his right hand as if to take an oath. “Never,” he asseverated, “I’ve never had cold feet, and you saw yourself how I downed the bank man with a crack on the noddle; he was dead and done for quicker than it takes to tell.”
Père Moche smiled, and resumed:
“Very true, my lad, you know your job. But as you are so clever, d’you think you could run a man in trying the epileptic fake, eh?”
“What’s that?” demanded Paulet, “what’s that mean?”