The door of the garret opened abruptly. Three men in blue linen blouses, masked with black paper, stood there: one with an iron-tipped cudgel, one with a butcher's pole-axe, one with an enormous key stolen from a prison door. Their arrival was what Jondrette had been waiting for. A carriage, a team, two good horses: everything ready. Leblanc was very pale. He improvised a barrier of the table, and the kindly old man became a sort of athlete, his robust fist on the back of his chair. Marius felt proud of that unknown man. The father of a woman whom we love is never a stranger. Then Jondrette leaned across the candle, his angular jaw close to the calm face, and said his name was not Fabantou and not Jondrette. His name was Thénardier. He was the inn-keeper of Montfermeil. Leblanc looked him full in the face and said no more than before. Marius did not hear the reply. At that name he trembled in every limb and leaned against the wall as though he felt the cold of a steel blade through his heart. His right arm, ready to fire the signal, dropped slowly. That name he had worn on his heart, inscribed in his father's testament: a certain Thénardier saved my life; if my son encounters him, he will do him all the good that lies in his power. He had found him at last, and how? His father's saviour was a ruffian. The man to whose service Marius was burning to devote himself was on the point of a crime that resembled an assassination. Destiny cried to him: This is Thénardier. He could repay the life saved amid grape-shot at Waterloo with the scaffold. He felt that he was going mad. Thénardier, whom we shall henceforth call by no other name, paced in a sort of frenzy. Done for. Smoked brown. Cooked. He had found again the giver of dolls, the man who had carried off Fantine's child, the Lark, on Christmas eve eight years before. For fifteen hundred francs he had lost a girl who might have kept him for life. Today he held the trumps. He wanted money, a deal of money, or he would exterminate him. He had been at Waterloo. He had saved a general whose name he had not caught. The picture on the wall was that feat, painted as he said by David. Marius listened. The last possibility of doubt vanished. It certainly was the Thénardier of the will.
As Thénardier ceased to stand in the way, Marius could examine the daub. He recognised a battle, a background of smoke, and a man carrying another man. It was the group of Pontmercy and Thénardier. The picture restored his father to life. A tomb had yawned. Then the old man seized the moment when Thénardier's back was turned, overturned chair and table, and with one bound reached the window. He was half out when six fists dragged him back. Marius's finger sought the trigger. Forgive me, he thought, to his father. The shot was on the point of being discharged when Thénardier shouted: Don't harm him. The urgency disappeared. Marius saw no inconvenience in waiting a while longer. Who knows whether some chance would not deliver him from the horrible alternative of allowing Ursule's father to perish, or of destroying the colonel's saviour? They bound Leblanc to the leg of the bed. Thénardier's face passed from unbridled violence to tranquil and cunning sweetness. Marius found it difficult to recognise, in that polished smile, the mouth that had been foaming a moment before. It was as if a tiger had been converted into a lawyer. Thénardier had noticed that the prisoner had not uttered the faintest cry. A man who shouts brings the police, and after the police, justice. He had not made an outcry, which meant he had some interest in hiding something. On their side they had the same interest. So they could come to an understanding. He unmasked the brazier. The chisel was white-hot. He wanted two hundred thousand francs, and one thing: that the gentleman write what he was about to dictate. They untied the right arm. My dear daughter. Come instantly. The person who will deliver this note is instructed to conduct thee to me. Thénardier would not name the girl. He said the Lark, the little one. The prisoner said he did not know what that meant, then signed as Urbain Fabre. The two letters on the handkerchief matched. He wrote an address near Saint-Jacques. The wife set out with the letter in her bosom.
Marius waited, nailed to the hole. Was the little one his Ursule? The two letters were explained, and she was no longer named Ursule. Nearly half an hour passed. Thénardier explained the second trap: outside the barrier another team would take the girl; if the old man had him arrested, his comrade would give a turn of his thumb to the Lark. Then the door opened. False address. Nobody there. That old fellow has duped you. Thénardier stared at the brazier. What did you expect to gain by that? To gain time, cried the prisoner, and at the same instant he shook off his bonds. They were cut. Before the seven men could dash forward, he had bent to the fireplace and risen again with the red-hot chisel brandished above his head. A large sou, worked in the galleys as a box for a watch-spring, had sawn the cords. He still held by one leg. See here, he said, and he laid the glowing iron on his bare left arm. The crackling of burning flesh became audible. Hardly a muscle of his face contracted. Wretches, have no more fear of me than I have for you. He hurled the chisel through the open window into the snow. Do what you please with me. There is only one thing left to do, the husband and wife said below the partition. Cut his throat. Thénardier took the kitchen knife from the drawer. Marius cast a wild glance about him. At his feet the moon pointed out a sheet of paper written that morning by the eldest girl: THE BOBBIES ARE HERE. He wrapped it round a bit of plaster and tossed it through the crevice. It was high time. Leave the bacon in the mousetrap and decamp. They fastened the rope-ladder to the sill. Then they quarrelled over who should go down first. Draw lots. Thrown into a hat. Would you like my hat? cried a voice on the threshold. All wheeled round. It was Javert. He had his hat in his hand, and was holding it out to them with a smile.
