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Book the Third: The Track of a Storm
Chapter VIII.
A Hand at Cards
Happily unconscious of the new calamity at
home, Miss Pross threaded her way along the
narrow streets and crossed the river by the
bridge of the Pont-Neuf, reckoning in her
mind the number of indispensable purchases
she had to make.
Mr. Cruncher, with the basket, walked at
her side.
They both looked to the right and to the
left into most of the shops they passed,
had a wary eye for all gregarious
assemblages of people, and turned out of
their road to avoid any very excited group
of talkers.
It was a raw evening, and the misty river,
blurred to the eye with blazing lights and
to the ear with harsh noises, showed where
the barges were stationed in which the
smiths worked, making guns for the Army of
the Republic.
Woe to the man who played tricks with
_that_ Army, or got undeserved promotion in
it!
Better for him that his beard had never
grown, for the National Razor shaved him
close.
Having purchased a few small articles of
grocery, and a measure of oil for the lamp,
Miss Pross bethought herself of the wine
they wanted.
After peeping into several wine-shops, she
stopped at the sign of the Good Republican
Brutus of Antiquity, not far from the
National Palace, once (and twice) the
Tuileries, where the aspect of things
rather took her fancy.
It had a quieter look than any other place
of the same description they had passed,
and, though red with patriotic caps, was
not so red as the rest.
Sounding Mr. Cruncher, and finding him of
her opinion, Miss Pross resorted to the
Good Republican Brutus of Antiquity,
attended by her cavalier.
Slightly observant of the smoky lights; of
the people, pipe in mouth, playing with
limp cards and yellow dominoes; of the one
bare-breasted, bare-armed, soot-begrimed
workman reading a journal aloud, and of the
others listening to him; of the weapons
worn, or laid aside to be resumed; of the
two or three customers fallen forward
asleep, who in the popular high-shouldered
shaggy black spencer looked, in that
attitude, like slumbering bears or dogs;
the two outlandish customers approached the
counter, and showed what they wanted.
As their wine was measuring out, a man
parted from another man in a corner, and
rose to depart.
In going, he had to face Miss Pross.
No sooner did he face her, than Miss Pross
uttered a scream, and clapped her hands.
In a moment, the whole company were on
their feet.
That somebody was assassinated by somebody
vindicating a difference of opinion was the
likeliest occurrence.
Everybody looked to see somebody fall, but
only saw a man and a woman standing staring
at each other; the man with all the outward
aspect of a Frenchman and a thorough
Republican; the woman, evidently English.
What was said in this disappointing anti-
climax, by the disciples of the Good
Republican Brutus of Antiquity, except that
it was something very voluble and loud,
would have been as so much Hebrew or
Chaldean to Miss Pross and her protector,
though they had been all ears.
But, they had no ears for anything in their
surprise.
For, it must be recorded, that not only was
Miss Pross lost in amazement and agitation,
but, Mr. Cruncher--though it seemed on his
own separate and individual account--was in
a state of the greatest wonder.
"What is the matter?" said the man who had
caused Miss Pross to scream; speaking in a
vexed, abrupt voice (though in a low tone),
and in English.
"Oh, Solomon, dear Solomon!" cried Miss
Pross, clapping her hands again.
"After not setting eyes upon you or hearing
of you for so long a time, do I find you
here!"
"Don't call me Solomon.
Do you want to be the death of me?" asked
the man, in a furtive, frightened way.
"Brother, brother!" cried Miss Pross,
bursting into tears.
"Have I ever been so hard with you that you
ask me such a cruel question?"
"Then hold your meddlesome tongue," said
Solomon, "and come out, if you want to
speak to me.
Pay for your wine, and come out.
Who's this man?"
Miss Pross, shaking her loving and dejected
head at her by no means affectionate
brother, said through her tears, "Mr.
"Let him come out too," said Solomon.
"Does he think me a ghost?"
Apparently, Mr. Cruncher did, to judge from
his looks.
He said not a word, however, and Miss
Pross, exploring the depths of her reticule
through her tears with great difficulty
paid for her wine.
As she did so, Solomon turned to the
followers of the Good Republican Brutus of
Antiquity, and offered a few words of
explanation in the French language, which
caused them all to relapse into their
former places and pursuits.
"Now," said Solomon, stopping at the dark
street corner, "what do you want?"
"How dreadfully unkind in a brother nothing
has ever turned my love away from!" cried
Miss Pross, "to give me such a greeting,
and show me no affection."
"There.
Confound it!
There," said Solomon, making a dab at Miss
Pross's lips with his own.
"Now are you content?"
Miss Pross only shook her head and wept in
silence.
"If you expect me to be surprised," said
her brother Solomon, "I am not surprised; I
knew you were here; I know of most people
who are here.
If you really don't want to endanger my
existence--which I half believe you do--go
your ways as soon as possible, and let me
go mine.
I am busy.
I am an official."
"My English brother Solomon," mourned Miss
Pross, casting up her tear-fraught eyes,
"that had the makings in him of one of the
best and greatest of men in his native
country, an official among foreigners, and
such foreigners!
I would almost sooner have seen the dear
boy lying in his--"
"I said so!" cried her brother,
interrupting.
"I knew it.
You want to be the death of me.
I shall be rendered Suspected, by my own
sister.
Just as I am getting on!"
"The gracious and merciful Heavens forbid!"
cried Miss Pross.
"Far rather would I never see you again,
dear Solomon, though I have ever loved you
truly, and ever shall.
Say but one affectionate word to me, and
tell me there is nothing angry or estranged
between us, and I will detain you no
longer."
Good Miss Pross!
As if the estrangement between them had
come of any culpability of hers.
As if Mr. Lorry had not known it for a
fact, years ago, in the quiet corner in
Soho, that this precious brother had spent
her money and left her!
He was saying the affectionate word,
however, with a far more grudging
condescension and patronage than he could
have shown if their relative merits and
positions had been reversed (which is
invariably the case, all the world over),
when Mr. Cruncher, touching him on the
shoulder, hoarsely and unexpectedly
interposed with the following singular
question:
"I say!
Might I ask the favour?
As to whether your name is John Solomon, or
Solomon John?"
The official turned towards him with sudden
distrust.
He had not previously uttered a word.
"Come!" said Mr. Cruncher.
"Speak out, you know."
(Which, by the way, was more than he could
do himself.)
"John Solomon, or Solomon John?
She calls you Solomon, and she must know,
being your sister.
And _I_ know you're John, you know.
Which of the two goes first?
And regarding that name of Pross, likewise.
That warn't your name over the water."
"What do you mean?"
"Well, I don't know all I mean, for I can't
call to mind what your name was, over the
water."
"No. But I'll swear it was a name of two
syllables."
"Indeed?"
"Yes. T'other one's was one syllable.
I know you.
You was a spy--witness at the Bailey.
What, in the name of the Father of Lies,
own father to yourself, was you called at
that time?"
"Barsad," said another voice, striking in.
"That's the name for a thousand pound!"
cried Jerry.
The speaker who struck in, was Sydney
Carton.
He had his hands behind him under the
skirts of his riding-coat, and he stood at
Mr. Cruncher's elbow as negligently as he
might have stood at the Old Bailey itself.
"Don't be alarmed, my dear Miss Pross.
I arrived at Mr. Lorry's, to his surprise,
yesterday evening; we agreed that I would
not present myself elsewhere until all was
well, or unless I could be useful; I
present myself here, to beg a little talk
with your brother.
I wish you had a better employed brother
than Mr. Barsad.
I wish for your sake Mr. Barsad was not a
Sheep of the Prisons."
Sheep was a cant word of the time for a
spy, under the gaolers.
The spy, who was pale, turned paler, and
asked him how he dared--
"I'll tell you," said Sydney.
"I lighted on you, Mr. Barsad, coming out
of the prison of the Conciergerie while I
was contemplating the walls, an hour or
more ago.
You have a face to be remembered, and I
remember faces well.
Made curious by seeing you in that
connection, and having a reason, to which
you are no stranger, for associating you
with the misfortunes of a friend now very
unfortunate, I walked in your direction.
I walked into the wine-shop here, close
after you, and sat near you.
I had no difficulty in deducing from your
unreserved conversation, and the rumour
openly going about among your admirers, the
nature of your calling.
And gradually, what I had done at random,
seemed to shape itself into a purpose, Mr.
Barsad."
"What purpose?" the spy asked.
"It would be troublesome, and might be
dangerous, to explain in the street.
Could you favour me, in confidence, with
some minutes of your company--at the office
of Tellson's Bank, for instance?"
"Under a threat?"
"Oh! Did I say that?"
"Then, why should I go there?"
"Really, Mr. Barsad, I can't say, if you
can't."
"Do you mean that you won't say, sir?" the
spy irresolutely asked.
"You apprehend me very clearly, Mr. Barsad.
I won't."
Carton's negligent recklessness of manner
came powerfully in aid of his quickness and
skill, in such a business as he had in his
secret mind, and with such a man as he had
to do with.
His practised eye saw it, and made the most
of it.
"Now, I told you so," said the spy, casting
a reproachful look at his sister; "if any
trouble comes of this, it's your doing."
"Come, come, Mr. Barsad!" exclaimed Sydney.
"Don't be ungrateful.
But for my great respect for your sister, I
might not have led up so pleasantly to a
little proposal that I wish to make for our
mutual satisfaction.
Do you go with me to the Bank?"
"I'll hear what you have got to say.
Yes, I'll go with you."
"I propose that we first conduct your
sister safely to the corner of her own
street.
Let me take your arm, Miss Pross.
This is not a good city, at this time, for
you to be out in, unprotected; and as your
escort knows Mr. Barsad, I will invite him
to Mr. Lorry's with us.
Are we ready?
Come then!"
Miss Pross recalled soon afterwards, and to
the end of her life remembered, that as she
pressed her hands on Sydney's arm and
looked up in his face, imploring him to do
no hurt to Solomon, there was a braced
purpose in the arm and a kind of
inspiration in the eyes, which not only
contradicted his light manner, but changed
and raised the man.
She was too much occupied then with fears
for the brother who so little deserved her
affection, and with Sydney's friendly
reassurances, adequately to heed what she
observed.
They left her at the corner of the street,
and Carton led the way to Mr. Lorry's,
which was within a few minutes' walk.
John Barsad, or Solomon Pross, walked at
his side.
Mr. Lorry had just finished his dinner, and
was sitting before a cheery little log or
two of fire--perhaps looking into their
blaze for the picture of that younger
elderly gentleman from Tellson's, who had
looked into the red coals at the Royal
George at Dover, now a good many years ago.
He turned his head as they entered, and
showed the surprise with which he saw a
stranger.
"Miss Pross's brother, sir," said Sydney.
"Mr. Barsad."
"Barsad?" repeated the old gentleman,
"Barsad?
I have an association with the name--and
with the face."
"I told you you had a remarkable face, Mr.
Barsad," observed Carton, coolly.
"Pray sit down."
As he took a chair himself, he supplied the
link that Mr. Lorry wanted, by saying to
him with a frown, "Witness at that trial."
Mr. Lorry immediately remembered, and
regarded his new visitor with an
undisguised look of abhorrence.
"Mr. Barsad has been recognised by Miss
Pross as the affectionate brother you have
heard of," said Sydney, "and has
acknowledged the relationship.
I pass to worse news.
Darnay has been arrested again."
Struck with consternation, the old
gentleman exclaimed, "What do you tell me!
I left him safe and free within these two
hours, and am about to return to him!"
"Arrested for all that.
When was it done, Mr. Barsad?"
"Just now, if at all."
"Mr. Barsad is the best authority possible,
sir," said Sydney, "and I have it from Mr.
Barsad's communication to a friend and
brother Sheep over a bottle of wine, that
the arrest has taken place.
He left the messengers at the gate, and saw
them admitted by the porter.
There is no earthly doubt that he is
retaken."
Mr. Lorry's business eye read in the
speaker's face that it was loss of time to
dwell upon the point.
Confused, but sensible that something might
depend on his presence of mind, he
commanded himself, and was silently
attentive.
"Now, I trust," said Sydney to him, "that
the name and influence of Doctor Manette
may stand him in as good stead to-morrow--
you said he would be before the Tribunal
again to-morrow, Mr. Barsad?--"
"Yes; I believe so."
"--In as good stead to-morrow as to-day.
But it may not be so.
I own to you, I am shaken, Mr. Lorry, by
Doctor Manette's not having had the power
to prevent this arrest."
"He may not have known of it beforehand,"
said Mr. Lorry.
"But that very circumstance would be
alarming, when we remember how identified
he is with his son-in-law."
"That's true," Mr. Lorry acknowledged, with
his troubled hand at his chin, and his
troubled eyes on Carton.
"In short," said Sydney, "this is a
desperate time, when desperate games are
played for desperate stakes.
Let the Doctor play the winning game; I
will play the losing one.
No man's life here is worth purchase.
Any one carried home by the people to-day,
may be condemned tomorrow.
Now, the stake I have resolved to play for,
in case of the worst, is a friend in the
Conciergerie.
And the friend I purpose to myself to win,
is Mr. Barsad."
"You need have good cards, sir," said the
spy.
"I'll run them over.
I'll see what I hold,--Mr. Lorry, you know
what a brute I am; I wish you'd give me a
little brandy."
It was put before him, and he drank off a
glassful--drank off another glassful--
pushed the bottle thoughtfully away.
"Mr. Barsad," he went on, in the tone of
one who really was looking over a hand at
cards: "Sheep of the prisons, emissary of
Republican committees, now turnkey, now
prisoner, always spy and secret informer,
so much the more valuable here for being
English that an Englishman is less open to
suspicion of subornation in those
characters than a Frenchman, represents
himself to his employers under a false
name.
That's a very good card.
Mr. Barsad, now in the employ of the
republican French government, was formerly
in the employ of the aristocratic English
government, the enemy of France and
freedom.
That's an excellent card.
Inference clear as day in this region of
suspicion, that Mr. Barsad, still in the
pay of the aristocratic English government,
is the spy of Pitt, the treacherous foe of
the Republic crouching in its ***, the
English traitor and agent of all mischief
so much spoken of and so difficult to find.
That's a card not to be beaten.
Have you followed my hand, Mr. Barsad?"
"Not to understand your play," returned the
spy, somewhat uneasily.
"I play my Ace, Denunciation of Mr. Barsad
to the nearest Section Committee.
Look over your hand, Mr. Barsad, and see
what you have.
Don't hurry."
He drew the bottle near, poured out another
glassful of brandy, and drank it off.
He saw that the spy was fearful of his
drinking himself into a fit state for the
immediate denunciation of him.
Seeing it, he poured out and drank another
glassful.
"Look over your hand carefully, Mr. Barsad.
Take time."
It was a poorer hand than he suspected.
Mr. Barsad saw losing cards in it that
Sydney Carton knew nothing of.
Thrown out of his honourable employment in
England, through too much unsuccessful hard
swearing there--not because he was not
wanted there; our English reasons for
vaunting our superiority to secrecy and
spies are of very modern date--he knew that
he had crossed the Channel, and accepted
service in France: first, as a tempter and
an eavesdropper among his own countrymen
there: gradually, as a tempter and an
eavesdropper among the natives.
He knew that under the overthrown
government he had been a spy upon Saint
Antoine and Defarge's wine-shop; had
received from the watchful police such
heads of information concerning Doctor
Manette's imprisonment, release, and
history, as should serve him for an
introduction to familiar conversation with
the Defarges; and tried them on Madame
Defarge, and had broken down with them
signally.
He always remembered with fear and
trembling, that that terrible woman had
knitted when he talked with her, and had
looked ominously at him as her fingers
moved.
He had since seen her, in the Section of
Saint Antoine, over and over again produce
her knitted registers, and denounce people
whose lives the guillotine then surely
swallowed up.
He knew, as every one employed as he was
did, that he was never safe; that flight
was impossible; that he was tied fast under
the shadow of the axe; and that in spite of
his utmost tergiversation and treachery in
furtherance of the reigning terror, a word
might bring it down upon him.
Once denounced, and on such grave grounds
as had just now been suggested to his mind,
he foresaw that the dreadful woman of whose
unrelenting character he had seen many
proofs, would produce against him that
fatal register, and would quash his last
chance of life.
Besides that all secret men are men soon
terrified, here were surely cards enough of
one black suit, to justify the holder in
growing rather livid as he turned them
over.
"You scarcely seem to like your hand," said
Sydney, with the greatest composure.
"Do you play?"
"I think, sir," said the spy, in the
meanest manner, as he turned to Mr. Lorry,
"I may appeal to a gentleman of your years
and benevolence, to put it to this other
gentleman, so much your junior, whether he
can under any circumstances reconcile it to
his station to play that Ace of which he
has spoken.
I admit that _I_ am a spy, and that it is
considered a discreditable station--though
it must be filled by somebody; but this
gentleman is no spy, and why should he so
demean himself as to make himself one?"
"I play my Ace, Mr. Barsad," said Carton,
taking the answer on himself, and looking
at his watch, "without any scruple, in a
very few minutes."
"I should have hoped, gentlemen both," said
the spy, always striving to hook Mr. Lorry
into the discussion, "that your respect for
my sister--"
"I could not better testify my respect for
your sister than by finally relieving her
of her brother," said Sydney Carton.
"You think not, sir?"
"I have thoroughly made up my mind about
it."
The smooth manner of the spy, curiously in
dissonance with his ostentatiously rough
dress, and probably with his usual
demeanour, received such a check from the
inscrutability of Carton,--who was a
mystery to wiser and honester men than he,-
-that it faltered here and failed him.
While he was at a loss, Carton said,
resuming his former air of contemplating
cards:
"And indeed, now I think again, I have a
strong impression that I have another good
card here, not yet enumerated.
That friend and fellow-Sheep, who spoke of
himself as pasturing in the country
prisons; who was he?"
"French.
You don't know him," said the spy, quickly.
"French, eh?" repeated Carton, musing, and
not appearing to notice him at all, though
he echoed his word.
"Well; he may be."
"Is, I assure you," said the spy; "though
it's not important."
"Though it's not important," repeated
Carton, in the same mechanical way--"though
it's not important--No, it's not important.
No. Yet I know the face."
"I think not.
I am sure not.
It can't be," said the spy.
"It-can't-be," muttered Sydney Carton,
retrospectively, and idling his glass
(which fortunately was a small one) again.
"Can't-be.
Spoke good French.
Yet like a foreigner, I thought?"
"Provincial," said the spy.
"No. Foreign!" cried Carton, striking his
open hand on the table, as a light broke
clearly on his mind.
"Cly! Disguised, but the same man.
We had that man before us at the Old
Bailey."
"Now, there you are hasty, sir," said
Barsad, with a smile that gave his aquiline
nose an extra inclination to one side;
"there you really give me an advantage over
Cly (who I will unreservedly admit, at this
distance of time, was a partner of mine)
has been dead several years.
I attended him in his last illness.
He was buried in London, at the church of
Saint Pancras-in-the-Fields.
His unpopularity with the blackguard
multitude at the moment prevented my
following his remains, but I helped to lay
him in his coffin."
Here, Mr. Lorry became aware, from where he
sat, of a most remarkable goblin shadow on
the wall.
Tracing it to its source, he discovered it
to be caused by a sudden extraordinary
rising and stiffening of all the risen and
stiff hair on Mr. Cruncher's head.
"Let us be reasonable," said the spy, "and
let us be fair.
To show you how mistaken you are, and what
an unfounded assumption yours is, I will
lay before you a certificate of Cly's
burial, which I happened to have carried in
my pocket-book," with a hurried hand he
produced and opened it, "ever since.
There it is.
Oh, look at it, look at it!
You may take it in your hand; it's no
forgery."
Here, Mr. Lorry perceived the reflection on
the wall to elongate, and Mr. Cruncher rose
and stepped forward.
His hair could not have been more violently
on end, if it had been that moment dressed
by the Cow with the crumpled horn in the
house that Jack built.
Unseen by the spy, Mr. Cruncher stood at
his side, and touched him on the shoulder
like a ghostly bailiff.
"That there Roger Cly, master," said Mr.
Cruncher, with a taciturn and iron-bound
visage.
"So _you_ put him in his coffin?"
"I did."
"Who took him out of it?"
Barsad leaned back in his chair, and
stammered, "What do you mean?"
"I mean," said Mr. Cruncher, "that he
warn't never in it.
No! Not he!
I'll have my head took off, if he was ever
in it."
The spy looked round at the two gentlemen;
they both looked in unspeakable
astonishment at Jerry.
"I tell you," said Jerry, "that you buried
paving-stones and earth in that there
coffin.
Don't go and tell me that you buried Cly.
It was a take in.
Me and two more knows it."
"How do you know it?"
"What's that to you?
Ecod!" growled Mr. Cruncher, "it's you I
have got a old grudge again, is it, with
your shameful impositions upon tradesmen!
I'd catch hold of your throat and choke you
for half a guinea."
Sydney Carton, who, with Mr. Lorry, had
been lost in amazement at this turn of the
business, here requested Mr. Cruncher to
moderate and explain himself.
"At another time, sir," he returned,
evasively, "the present time is ill-
conwenient for explainin'.
What I stand to, is, that he knows well wot
that there Cly was never in that there
coffin.
Let him say he was, in so much as a word of
one syllable, and I'll either catch hold of
his throat and choke him for half a
guinea;" Mr. Cruncher dwelt upon this as
quite a liberal offer; "or I'll out and
announce him."
"Humph!
I see one thing," said Carton.
"I hold another card, Mr. Barsad.
Impossible, here in raging Paris, with
Suspicion filling the air, for you to
outlive denunciation, when you are in
communication with another aristocratic spy
of the same antecedents as yourself, who,
moreover, has the mystery about him of
having feigned death and come to life
again!
A plot in the prisons, of the foreigner
against the Republic.
A strong card--a certain Guillotine card!
Do you play?"
"No!" returned the spy.
"I throw up.
I confess that we were so unpopular with
the outrageous mob, that I only got away
from England at the risk of being ducked to
death, and that Cly was so ferreted up and
down, that he never would have got away at
all but for that sham.
Though how this man knows it was a sham, is
a wonder of wonders to me."
"Never you trouble your head about this
man," retorted the contentious Mr.
Cruncher; "you'll have trouble enough with
giving your attention to that gentleman.
And look here!
Once more!"--Mr. Cruncher could not be
restrained from making rather an
ostentatious parade of his liberality--"I'd
catch hold of your throat and choke you for
half a guinea."
The Sheep of the prisons turned from him to
Sydney Carton, and said, with more
decision, "It has come to a point.
I go on duty soon, and can't overstay my
time.
You told me you had a proposal; what is it?
Now, it is of no use asking too much of me.
Ask me to do anything in my office, putting
my head in great extra danger, and I had
better trust my life to the chances of a
refusal than the chances of consent.
In short, I should make that choice.
You talk of desperation.
We are all desperate here.
Remember!
I may denounce you if I think proper, and I
can swear my way through stone walls, and
so can others.
Now, what do you want with me?"
"Not very much.
You are a turnkey at the Conciergerie?"
"I tell you once for all, there is no such
thing as an escape possible," said the spy,
firmly.
"Why need you tell me what I have not
asked?
You are a turnkey at the Conciergerie?"
"I am sometimes."
"You can be when you choose?"
"I can pass in and out when I choose."
Sydney Carton filled another glass with
brandy, poured it slowly out upon the
hearth, and watched it as it dropped.
It being all spent, he said, rising:
"So far, we have spoken before these two,
because it was as well that the merits of
the cards should not rest solely between
you and me.
Come into the dark room here, and let us
have one final word alone."