Chapter 5: Crime

Fantine had nearly been fired, but the morning's turmoil was not over. From the opposite end of the house, she heard Madame Tholomyes scream: "My jewels! They're gone!"

The entire household rushed downstairs. Madame Tholomyes was standing near the same door where Fantine had exited the night before. She was staring at the same painting that Fantine had seen Felix examining. The painting, however, had changed. It was now tilted at an angle to reveal a hollowed-out space in the wall. "My jewels were in there," the lady sobbed. "They're priceless. Some belonged to my great-grandmother, and now someone stole them! Oh my God, Remy, get the police!"

Her husband tried to calm her down, but to no avail. "Listen, we don't need to do that yet. I'm sure they were taken by someone we know. Let's think about who it could be."

Madame Tholomyes stomped on the floor. "We don't have time for this!"

"All right, dear, then you go down to the station." When his wife was out the door, Monsieur Tholomyes whispered to Fantine that he wanted to talk to her.

"I swear, I know nothing about this!" Fantine begged when they were alone.

"Yes, you do," he countered. "You see, I think I know who stole my wife's jewelry. I don't think any of the help would do it, and no one else was at our house yesterday - except for Felix."

Fantine gasped. "You think your own brother stole from you?"

"I don't know, but I'm sure of one thing: he's not the bourgeois he says he is. It's all some kind of trick. That woman he brought along isn't some heiress - she's a waitress at a tavern we used to frequent. Did he really think I wouldn't recognize her in fancy clothes?"

"I still don't understand; why do you need my help?"

"Don't think you're fooling me, Fantine," Monsieur Tholomyes laughed. "I know all about you and Felix. He told me last night. I haven't told my wife, of course" - he glared at her - "but I will, if you don't get those jewels back, or at least get Felix back here. My brother is not going to jail!"

Fantine tried to explain that her affair with Felix had been long ago, but her employer did not seem to listen. He only promised to ask someone to watch the children, and sent her on her way.

She checked in the places she used to go with Felix, but with no luck. Felix's loft was now inhabited by an elderly couple. None of his old friends had seen him in over a year; nor had the owner of his old favorite restaurant. While wandering despondently through the streets, she had an idea. If Felix really had turned to crime, he would be spending his time with a different, shadier crowd. She knew only one person who might know who they were: the old convict, Jean Valjean.

Rue Plumet was utterly deserted. Fantine never would have noticed the shadowy alley if she hadn't been looking for it. She pushed in the front gate marked 55. The house looked deserted as well; the windows were boarded up and cobwebs hung from the posts. In fact, the dirt path beneath her feet looked as if no one had stepped on it in years. Fantine turned around, thinking she had heard the address wrong. Then she felt a familiar hand on her shoulder.

"We're lucky no one saw you," said Jean Valjean. "That entrance isn't hidden enough; the back way is better." Fantine looked around nervously. "Come in," he continued. "I live over there." He pointed to a tiny cottage, almost a shack, sunk against the high fence.

The inside of the cottage was as bare as the outside; only a bed, table and chairs occupied the single room. Fantine and Jean Valjean awkwardly made conversation for a few minutes. She told him that Cosette was turning eight soon. "It's time that you should send her to school," he said. "Knowing how to read and write opens many doors. If I'd learned as a child instead of in prison, none of my...trials...might have happened to me."

She nodded, but didn't understand him - as far as she knew, there were no free schools for poor children - before going on to her main purpose. She began with, "Where can you find the criminal types around here?"

Jean Valjean stroked his beard thoughtfully. "Almost everyone at Toulon was provincial like me, so I didn't hear much about that underworld in Paris. Still, there's one name everyone hears: Patron-Minette."

"Who is he?"

"Not a person, but a gang. Gringoire, Gudule, Brujon, and Babet. They have in a hand in almost every illegal activity that goes on here. Their home base is legendary, too - an old abandoned building on Rue Chantfleurie that they've made into their castle. Why?"

She told him about Felix, and asked how to find Patron-Minette's headquarters.

"What? Oh, Fantine, you can't go there. Trust me when I say it's too dangerous. Why did Monsieur Tholomyes force you to do this, anyway?"

She didn't want to tell him about her past affair. "I don't know, but...well, I suppose I'll be going now."

Fantine could not think of what might happen if she didn't find the jewels, so she resolved to face Patron-Minette despite Jean Valjean's warnings. She asked passers-by for directions until she found the Rue Chantfleurie. At first, she walked among humble middle-class houses. From there, she passed by tenements like the one where she used to live, then through dirty slums where beggars sat shivering, and finally to a yet more squalid street. Overgrown weeds and trash cluttered the path. Though it was early evening, the jumble of roofs overhead created a near-darkness. Most of the buildings looked abandoned, but voices came from beneath a sunken flight of stairs in the far corner. Shaking with apprehension, Fantine descended the stairs.

The stairs opened into a large room, where twenty or thirty rough-looking men sat around tables. Four of them, two old and grizzled and two young and wiry, seemed to be at the nucleus. Fantine sunk back against the wall, unsure of what to say. How did one speak to people like these? No one noticed her, so she listened silently. A few minutes in, someone descended the stairs and lurked in the the corner near her. In the dark, he looked vaguely threatening.

So many conversations were going on at once that it was difficult to hear any of them. The gang mostly discussed the robbery they were going to carry out that night, but occasionally she heard a name. At one point Felix Tholomyes was mentioned. "He still owe you that big pile of money?" someone asked.

"Naw, he paid up this morning," was the response.

"How did he get it all that quickly?"

"Dunno, but he must have been clever. Maybe we should give him a job here and there - with skills like that, he could go far in our kind of work." Felix must not have told them that he'd slighted his own brother.

Fantine decided this was a good time to speak up. She approached the center table, venturing, "Do any of you know where he might be now?"

Every eye in the room turned on her and every voice spoke at once. "You're not one of us!" she heard. "How the hell did you get here?" "You some spy from the police?" "Whatever she is, she knows all our plans!" "We can't just let her go rat on us!" Before she knew what was happening, rough hands had pushed her against the wall. Someone was tying her to a beam using a thick rope. As angry shouts came from every direction, one man dressed more elegantly than the others took charge. He pressed a knife to her neck and growled, "How did you find this place?"

"Um, a friend told me," Fantine chattered. "I was, uh, looking for Felix Tholomyes."

"What friend?" he boomed.

"Um, he used to be in jail, so he--"

"You're trying my patience. What--was--his--f!ing--name?"

Fantine had no choice but to whisper Jean Valjean's name. No one heard her, for at that moment Jean Valjean himself stepped out of the corner shadow. He had picked up a table and was waving it around as if it were a bar stool. Advancing on the man who was threatening Fantine, he commanded in his trademark calm voice, "Let the woman go and no one will be hurt."

He placed his arm around her sholulder comfortingly and started toward the exit. No one said a word as they walked out of the building.

Of course, Monsieur Tholomyes was furious at Fantine's failure, for it meant the police had to be called in. Of course, he told his wife all about Fantine's past, even adding some made-up details, long before the police came. Of course, Madame promptly fired Fantine and threw her and Cosette out. All of this bothered Fantine much less than she had expected. She had saved some money, and would find another job soon enough. Even if she didn't, destitiution seemed insignificant when she'd almost lost her life and almost betrayed Jean Valjean.

Weeks passed. Fantine took a sewing job. The work paid a pittance, but she was experienced in living frugally. She found a tiny garret room and learned the cheapest places to buy food. Summer was coming on, so she and Cosette got on without a fire.

Cosette herself seemed happy. The gloomy apartment might have made her sad, but she didn't spend much time there. Instead, she went to school. Fantine was shocked when she saw a sign for a free school posted on a church door, just like Valjean had talked about. She was even more surprised when she first saw Cosette writing familiar-looking shapes - letters - in the dust.

If nothing else, Fantine's piece-work job allowed her to visit Jean Valjean often. He shared his food, which was a bit better than Fantine's, and told stories of his life before prison. They no longer used the formal "Monsieur" and "Mademoiselle." He called her Fantine or sometimes 'Tine; she called him Ultime, for he insisted that Ultime Fauchelevent was his only identity. Jean Valjean was a name he wanted to bury.

Sometimes Fantine brought Cosette, who held his hand and chattered away to him unashamedly. In fact, Cosette whined every time Fantine said they had to leave. It was amazing - the two of them must have truly bonded when he'd rescued her from the Thenardiers.

Cosette noticed everything about Jean Valjean's cottage, from the deserted street to the bare-bones interior. He answered her questions in a way that, though untrue, would satisfy an eight-year-old's curiosity. The little girl often noticed things that Fantine did not, such as a certain old man who sometimes passed them on the street. "Look, Maman, he's still there," Cosette would whisper. "He's always going the same way as us. I think he's following us." After enough of these observations, Fantine began to think she might be right. Could someone be watching them?