Page 148 - down-and-out-in-paris-and-london

old man was half frantic between greed and fear. His bowels
yearned at the thought of getting, perhaps, fifty thousand
francs’ profit, and yet he could not bring himself to risk
the money. He used to sit in a comer with his head in his
hands, groaning and sometimes yelling out in agony, and
often he would kneel down (he was very pious) and pray for
strength, but still he couldn’t do it. But at last, more from
exhaustion than anything else, he gave in quite suddenly;
he slit open the mattress where his money was concealed
and handed over six thousand francs to the Jew.
The Jew delivered the cocaine the same day, and prompt-
ly vanished. And meanwhile, as was not surprising after the
fuss Roucolle had made, the affair had been noised all over
the quarter. The very next morning the hotel was raided and
searched by the police.
Roucolle and the Pole were in agonies. The police were
downstairs, working their way up and searching every
room in turn, and there was the great packet of cocaine on
the table, with no place to hide it and no chance of escap-
ing down the stairs. The Pole was for throwing the stuff out
of the window, but Roucolle would not hear of it. Charlie
told me that he had been present at the scene. He said that
when they tried to take the packet from Roucolle he clasped
it to his breast and struggled like a madman, although he
was seventy-four years old. He was wild with fright, but he
would go to prison rather than throw his money away.
At last, when the police were searching only one floor be-
low, somebody had an idea. A man on Roucolle’s floor had a
dozen tins of face-powder which he was selling on commis-

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