-smelling
disorder. This back-shop communicated with the rue de Harlay by a narrow
dark passage; thus the lair of old Mother Toulouche had two outlets, nor
were they superfluous; in fact, they were indispensable for such as
she--ever on the alert to escape the inquisitive attentions of the
police, ever receiving visitors of doubtful morals and thoroughly bad
reputation.

Mother Toulouche's quarters comprised not only the two stores, but a
cellar both large and deep, to which one obtained access by a staircase
pitch dark, crooked, and everlastingly covered with moisture, owing to
the proximity of the river. The floor of the cellar was a kind of
noisome cesspool: one slipped on the greasy mud--floundered about in it:
for all that, this cellar was almost entirely filled with cases of all
kinds, with queer-looking bundles, with objects of various shapes and
sizes. Evidently the jumble store of Mother Toulouche did not confine
itself to the rough-and-ready shop in the front; and, into the bargain,
this basement might be used as a safe hiding-place in an emergency, a
precious refuge for whoever might feel it necessary to cover his tracks,
and thus escape the investigations of the police, for instance!

Mother Toulouche, as a matter of fact, needed such premises as hers: if
she took ceaseless precautions it was because she had a reason for her
uneasy watchfulness.

Mother Toulouche had already come into involuntary contact with the
police; and her last and most serious encounter with them went as far
back as those days of renown when the band of Numbers had as their chief
the mysterious hooligan Loupart, also known under the name of Dr.
Chaleck.[4] She had been arrested for complicity in a bank-note robbery,
had been tried, and had been sentenced to twenty-two months'
imprisonment.

[Footnote 4: See _The Exploits of Juve_.]

Not turned in the slightest degree from the error of her ways, and
possessing some money, which she had kept carefully hidden, Mother
Toulouche had decided to set up shop close to the Palais de Justice,
that Great House where those gentlemen of the robe judged and condemned
poor folk! She would say:

"Being so close to the red-robed I shall end by making the acquaintance
of one or two of them, and that may turn out a good job for me one of
these days!"

But this was merely a blind, for other considerations had led to Mother
Toulouche renting this shop on the Isle of the City, in opening on the
qu