"Very well. Let's say no more about it."

For a whole week the subject was not once
mentioned, though it was never once out of
Lacenaire's thoughts. He knew what would
happen when the screw began to pinch. Money
became scarce. The partners dwelt in an ill-
famed lodging, kept by an old woman—the
widow Duforest. Avril grew thirstier and
thirstier; the widow began to refuse wine and
brandy. Avril was thoughtful—a bad sign;
his depression increased—which was what his
horrible companion wanted. He made
allusions to Chardon's famous closet, and
directed the conversation to that individual's
circumstances. Lacenaire, observing that he was
coming round, dropped the subject, and left
Avril to his own reflections. The one, cool and
malevolent as a serpent coiled in the midst of
a thicket, was in no hurry to act, being sure of
the effects of his poison; the other, whose brain
already boiled with murder, was the tiger
spurred on by hunger, ready to spring on his
prey.

On Sunday morning, the fourteenth of
December, 1834, Lacenaire cast a cold and side-
long glance on his comrade, who, half-slumbering,
half-awake, was agitated by the hallucinations of
anticipated crime. The morning was dull and
foggy, the sky heavy and lowering. "If you
like," said Avril, stretching himself, "we will
go and see Chardon to-day. I have made up
my mind at last."

"Very well; but let us breakfast before we
go," replied Lacenaire, with the utmost
composure.

So they went and had their meal outside the
Barrière. The greasy and red-stained tablecloth
suggested jokes about the work in hand, and they drank
an extra bottle or two in earnest of the expected
devil-send. When they reached the Passage of
the Cheval Rouge, the clock of St. Nicolas-des-
Champs struck one in the afternoon. They
inquired of the porter for Chardon, the son; he
was out. Doubting the porter's veracity, they
went up-stairs and knocked at the door. No
answer. They went down again, and were going
away, when Chardon, stepping out of a register-
office in the Passage, met them.

"We were going to see you," said Lacenaire.

"Come along, then," answered Chardon.

Never was there— not even Burke's—a better
den for butchery. A dark corkscrew staircase,
with narrow muddy stairs, and a greasy rope
by way of balustrade, conducted to an isolated
apartment, where, after a few common-place
sentences, Avril seized Chardon by the throat,
Lacenaire drew out of his pocket a long packing-
needle fixed in a cork as a handle, and with it
struck him first behind and then in front. Chardon
was in his shirt-sleeves, and was, besides,
exhausted with enervating debauchery. He tried
to call for help; his voice was stifled. He
attempted to escape; impossible. He fell; and
his legs convulsively kicked against and opened
a little buffet full of plate.

Lacenaire then left them, and went into the
next room. The old mother was fast asleep.
He murdered her with the same instrument that
had slain the son. He used such violence that
the packing-needle pierced through its handle
of cork and wounded the assassin in the hand.
They covered the old woman's corpse with the
mattress and blankets, and then set to to rob.
in the widow's closet they found five hundred
francs, four or five silver forks and spoons, and
a soup-ladle. Avril took possession of the plate;
Lacenaire took the money, an ivory Virgin, and
Chardon's own cloak, which he put on with a
laugh. They left the house at last, with blood-
stained hands and linen. They first went into a
café, where they rinsed their fingers by stealth
in a glass of sugar-and-water; thence to the
Turkish baths, where they washed their clothes.
After these horrible ablutions, they proceeded
to a public-house on the Boulevard du Temple.
Thence, Avril slipped away alone, to sell the
plate to receivers of stolen goods and the cloak
to an old-clothes man. He brought back two
hundred francs, the amount of the plate, and
twenty francs, the price of the cloak. The
ivory Virgin was thrown into the Seine. The
money earned by the crime was divided the
same evening. The murderers enjoyed a hearty
dinner, drinking between them nine bottles of
wine, and finished their evening at the Variétés,
where, said Lacenaire, "they were highly
amused."

This murder did not divert the wretched
confederates from their systematic plan of murdering
bankers' clerks. Indeed, they took steps to carry
it out the very next day, December 15, 1834.
That afternoon they observed at the door of
No. 66, Rue Montorgueil, a card announcing
that a small set of rooms was to be let
immediately. It consisted of two chambers and an
ante-chamber, and being on the fourth floor, was
capitally suited for their purpose. Three days
afterwards, the first of the two rooms was
furnished with a few squalid articles; the
furniture of the second room consisted of one of
those immense hampers called a "manne"
(intended for the provisional reception of the
victim's body), and upon it a board serving for
a table, with a pen, paper, an inkstand, and a
round bag stuffed with straw to represent five-
franc pieces; a considerable quantity of straw
was also strewn in one of the corners of the
room. Lacenaire and Avril lodged six days in
this apartment. The former was employed in
forging the papers necessary for their terrible
scheme; but, before the day of the crime arrived,
Avril, yielding to his brutal instincts, got
arrested on the Boulevard for quarrelling with the
police about a dissolute woman. Here, then, we
have No. 1 of the brigands caught, never to get
loose again, and that quite irrespective of the
deed which called aloud for vengeance.

Avril being thus forced out of the partnership,
Bâton, in spite of his want of energy, offered
himself to fill the vacancy, strongly urging the
facility with which bankers' clerks might be
made their prey. Lacenaire contrived so well
that a victim was expected on the 31st.
Meanwhile, a young man named François, an old