“Have Ruffard and Godet had their spree yet?  Have they forked out any of the yellow boys?” asked Jacques Collin.

“They dare not,” replied la Pouraille.  “The wretches are waiting till I am turned off.  That is what my moll sent me word by la Biffe when she came to see le Biffon.”

“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.

“I know how sweet you are on la Biffe,” said Jacques Collin to this man.

The expression in le Biffon’s eyes was a horrible poem.

“What will she do while you are on the hulks?”

A tear sparkled in le Biffon’s fierce eyes.

“Well, suppose I were to get her lodgings in the Lorcefe des Largues” (the women’s La Force, i. e. les Madelonnettes or Saint-Lazare) “for a stretch, allowing that time for you to be sentenced and sent there, to arrive and to escape?”

“Even you cannot work such a miracle.  She took no part in the job,” replied la Biffe’s partner.

“Oh, my good Biffon,” said la Pouraille, “our boss is more powerful than God Almighty.”

“What is your password for her?” asked Jacques Collin, with the assurance of a master to whom nothing can be refused.

“Sorgue a Pantin (night in Paris).  If you say that she knows you have come from me, and if you want her to do as you bid her, show her a five-franc piece and say Tondif.”