The Rue St. Lazare was adorned by the palatial residences of the Jandidier brothers, two celebrated financiers, who, if deprived of the prestige of immense wealth, would still be looked up to as remarkable men. Why cannot the same be said of all men?
These two mansions, which were thought marvels at the time they were built, were entirely distinct from each other, but so planned that they could be turned into one immense house when so desired.
When MM. Jandidier gave parties, they always had the movable partitions taken away, and thus obtained the most superb salon in Paris.
Princely magnificence, lavish hospitality, and an elegant, graceful manner of receiving their guests, made these entertainments eagerly sought after by the fashionable circles of the capital.
On Saturday, the Rue St. Lazare was blocked up by a file of carriages, whose fair occupants were impatiently awaiting their turn to drive up to the door, through which they could catch the tantalizing strains of a waltz.
It was a fancy ball; and nearly all of the costumes were superb, though some were more original than elegant.
Among the latter was a clown. Everything was in perfect keeping: the insolent eye, coarse lips, high cheek-bones, and a beard so red that it seemed to emit flames in the reflection of the dazzling lights.
He wore top-boots, a dilapidated hat on the back of his head, and a shirt-ruffle trimmed with torn lace.
He carried in his left hand a canvas banner, upon which were painted six or eight pictures, coarsely designed like those found in strolling fairs. In his right he waved a little switch, with which he would every now and then strike his banner, like a quack retailing his wares.
Quite a crowd surrounded this clown, hoping to hear some witty speeches and puns; but he kept near the door, and remained silent.
About half-past ten he quitted his post.
M. and Mme. Fauvel, followed by their niece Madeleine, had just entered.
A compact group immediately formed near the door.
During the last ten days, the affair of the Rue de Provence had been the universal topic of conversation; and friends and enemies were alike glad to seize this opportunity of approaching the banker, some to tender their sympathy, and others to offer equivocal condolence, which of all things is the most exasperating and insulting.
Belonging to the battalion of grave, elderly men, M. Fauvel had not assumed a fancy costume, but merely threw over his shoulders a short silk domino.
On his arm leaned Mme. Fauvel, nee Valentine de la Verberie, bowing and gracefully greeting her numerous friends.
She had once been remarkably beautiful; and to-night the effect of the soft wax-lights, and her very becoming dress, half restored her youthful freshness and comeliness. No one would have supposed her to be forty-eight years old.
She wore a dress of the later years of Louis the Fourteenth’s reign, magnificent and severe, of embroidered satin and black velvet, without the adornment of a single jewel.
She looked so graceful and elegant in this court dress and powdered hair, that some ill-natured gossips said it was a pity to see a real La Verberie, so well fitted to adorn a queen’s drawing-room, as all her ancestors had done before her, thrown away upon a man whom she had only married for his money.
But Madeleine was the object of universal admiration, so dazzlingly beautiful and queenlike did she appear in her costume of maid of honor, which seemed to have been especially invented to set forth her beautiful figure.
Her loveliness expanded in the perfumed atmosphere and soft light of the ball-room. Never had her hair looked so black, her complexion so exquisite, or her large eyes so brilliant.
Having greeted the hosts, Madeleine took her aunt’s arm, while M. Fauvel wandered through the rooms in search of the card-table, the usual refuge of bored men, when they are enticed to the ball-room by their womankind.
The ball was now at its height.
Two orchestras, led by Strauss and one of his lieutenants, filled the two mansions with intoxicating music. The motley crowd whirled in the waltz until they presented a curious confusion of velvets, satins, laces, and diamonds. Almost every head and bosom sparkled with jewels; the palest cheeks were rosy; heavy eyes now shone like stars; and the glistening shoulders of fair women were like drifted snow in an April sun.
Forgotten by the crowd, the clown had taken refuge in the embrasure of a window, and seemed to be meditating upon the gay scene before him; at the same time, he kept his eye upon a couple not far off.
It was Madeleine, dancing with a splendidly dressed doge. The doge was the Marquis de Clameran.
He appeared to be radiant, rejuvenated, and well satisfied with the impression he was making upon his partner; at the end of a quadrille he leaned over her, and whispered compliments with the most unbounded admiration; and she seemed to listen, if not with pleasure, at least without repugnance. She now and then smiled, and coquettishly shrugged her shoulders.
“Evidently,” muttered the clown, “this noble scoundrel is paying court to the banker’s niece; so I was right yesterday. But how can Mlle. Madeleine resign herself to so graciously receive his insipid flattery? Fortunately, Prosper is not here now.”
He was interrupted by an elderly man wrapped in a Venetian mantle, who said to him:
“You remember, M. Verduret,”—this name was uttered half seriously, half banteringly—“what you promised me?”
The clown bowed with great respect, but not the slightest shade of humility.
“I remember,” he replied.
“But do not be imprudent, I beg you.”
“M. the Count need not be uneasy; he has my promise.”
“Very good. I know the value of it.”
The count walked off; but during this short colloquy the quadrille had ended, and M. de Clameran and Madeleine were lost to sight.
“I shall find them near Mme. Fauvel,” said the clown.
And he at once started in search of the banker’s wife.
Incommoded by the stifling heat of the room, Mme. Fauvel had sought a little fresh air in the grand picture-gallery, which, thanks to the talisman called gold, was now transformed into a fairy-like garden, filled with orange-trees, japonicas, laurel, and many rare exotics.
The clown saw her seated near a grove, not far from the door of the card-room. Upon her right was Madeleine, and near her stood Raoul de Lagors, dressed in a costume of Henri III.
“I must confess,” muttered the clown from his post of observation, “that the young scamp is a very handsome man.”
Madeleine appeared very sad. She had plucked a japonica from a tree near by, and was mechanically pulling it to pieces as she sat with her eyes downcast.
Raoul and Mme. Fauvel were engaged in earnest conversation. Their faces were composed, but the gestures of one and the trembling of the other betrayed a serious discussion.
In the card-room sat the doge, M. de Clameran, so placed as to have full view of Mme. Fauvel and Madeleine, although himself concealed by an angle of the room.
“It is the continuation of yesterday’s scene,” thought the clown. “If I could only get behind the oleander-tree, I might hear what they are saying.”
He pushed his way through the crowd, and, just as he had reached the desired spot, Madeleine arose, and, taking the arm of a bejewelled Persian, walked away.
At the same moment Raoul went into the card-room, and whispered a few words to De Clameran.
“There they go,” muttered the clown. “The two scoundrels certainly hold these poor women in their power; and they are determined to make them suffer before releasing them. What can be the secret of their power?”
His attention was attracted by a commotion in the picture-gallery; it was caused by the announcement of a wonderful minuet to be danced in the ball-room; the arrival of the Countess de Commarin as Aurora; and the presence of the Princess Korasoff, with her superb emeralds, which were reported to be the finest in the world.
In an instant the gallery became almost deserted. Only a few forlorn-looking people remained; mostly sulky husbands, and some melancholy youths looking awkward and unhappy in their gay fancy dresses.
The clown thought it a favorable opportunity for carrying out his project.
He abruptly left his corner, flourishing his switch, and beating his banner, and, crossing the gallery, seated himself in a chair between Mme. Fauvel and the door. As soon as the people had collected in a circle around him, he commenced to cough in an affected manner, like a stump orator about to make a speech.
Then he struck a comical attitude, standing up with his body twisted sideways, and his hat on one ear, and with great buffoonery and volubility made the following remarks:
“Ladies and gentlemen, this very morning I obtained a license from the authorities of this town. And what for? Why gentlemen, for the purpose of exhibiting to you a spectacle which has already won the admiration of the four quarters of the globe, and several universities besides. Inside of this booth, ladies, is about to commence the representation of a most remarkable drama, acted for the first time at Pekin, and translated into several languages by our most celebrated authors. Gentlemen, you can take your seats; the lamps are lighted, and the actors are changing their dress.”
Here he stopped speaking, and imitated to perfection the feats which mountebanks play upon horns and kettle-drums.
“Now, ladies and gentlemen,” he resumed, “you wish to know what I am doing outside, if the piece is to be performed under the tent. The fact is, gentlemen, that I wish to give you a foretaste of the agitations, sensations, emotions, palpitations, and other entertainments which you may enjoy by paying the small sum of ten sous. You see this superb picture? It represents eight of the most thrilling scenes in the drama. Ah, I see you begin to shudder already; and yet this is nothing compared to the play itself. This splendid picture gives you no more idea of the acting than a drop of water gives an idea of the sea, or a spark of fire of the sun. My picture, gentlemen, is merely to give you a foretaste of what is in the tent; as the steam oozing from a restaurant gives you a taste, or rather a smell, of what is within.”
“Do you know this clown?” asked an enormous Turk of a melancholy Punch.
“No, but he can imitate a trumpet splendidly.”
“Oh, very well indeed! But what is he driving at?”
The clown was endeavoring to attract the attention of Mme. Fauvel, who, since Raoul and Madeleine had left her, sat by herself in a mournful revery.
He succeeded in his object.
The showman’s shrill voice brought the banker’s wife back to a sense of reality; she started, and looked quickly about her, as if suddenly awakened from a troubled dream.
“Now, ladies, we are in China. The first picture on my canvas, here, in the left corner”—here he touched the top daub—“represents the celebrated Mandarin Li-Fo, in the bosom of his family. This pretty woman leaning over him is his wife; and these children playing on the carpet are the bonds of love between this happy pair. Do you not inhale the odor of sanctity and happiness emanating from this speaking picture, gentlemen?
“Mme. Li-Fo is the most virtuous of women, adoring her husband and idolizing her children. Being virtuous she is happy; for the wise Confucius says, ‘The ways of virtue are more pleasant than the ways of vice.’”
Mme. Fauvel had left her seat, and approached nearer to the clown.
“Do you see anything on the banner like what he is describing?” asked the melancholy Punch of his neighbor.
“No, not a thing. Do you?”
The fact is, that the daubs of paint on the canvas represented one thing as well as another, and the clown could call them whatever he pleased.
“Picture No. 2!” he cried, after a flourish of music. “This old lady, seated before a mirror tearing out her hair—especially the gray ones—you have seen before; do you recognize her? No, you do not. She is the fair mandarine of the first picture. I see the tears in your eyes, ladies and gentlemen. Ah! you have cause to weep; for she is no longer virtuous, and her happiness has departed with her virtue. Alas, it is a sad tale! One fatal day she met, on the streets of Pekin, a young ruffian, fiendish, but beautiful as an angel, and she loved him—the unfortunate woman loved him!”
The last words were uttered in the most tragic tone as he raised his clasped hands to heaven.
During this tirade he had whirled around, so that he found himself facing the banker’s wife, whose countenance he closely watched while he was speaking.
“You are surprised, gentlemen,” he continued; “I am not. The great Bilboquet has proved to us that the heart never grows old, and that the most vigorous wall-flowers flourish on old ruins. This unhappy woman is nearly fifty years old—fifty years old, and in love with a youth! Hence this heart-rending scene which should serve as a warning to us all.”
“Really!” grumbled a cook dressed in white satin, who had passed the evening in carrying around bills of fare, which no one read, “I thought he was going to amuse us.”
“But,” continued the clown, “you must go inside of the booth to witness the effects of the mandarine’s folly. At times a ray of reason penetrates her diseased brain, and then the sight of her anguish would soften a heart of stone. Enter, and for the small sum of ten sous you shall hear sobs such as the Odeon never echoed in its halcyon days. The unhappy woman has waked up to the absurdity and inanity of her blind passion; she confesses to herself that she is madly pursuing a phantom. She knows but too well that he, in the vigor and beauty of youth, cannot love a faded old woman like herself, who vainly makes pitiable efforts to retain the last remains of her once entrancing beauty. She feels that the sweet words he once whispered in her charmed ear were deceitful falsehoods. She knows that the day is near when she will be left alone, with nothing save his mantle in her hand.”
As the clown addressed this voluble description to the crowd before him, he narrowly watched the countenance of the banker’s wife.
But nothing he had said seemed to affect her. She leaned back in her arm-chair perfectly calm, and occasionally smiled at the tragic manner of the showman.
“Good heavens!” muttered the clown uneasily, “can I be on the wrong track?”
He saw that his circle of listeners was increased by the presence of the doge, M. de Clameran.
“The third picture,” he said, after a roll of drums, “depicts the old mandarine after she has dismissed that most annoying of guests—remorse—from her bosom. She promises herself that interest shall supply the place of love in chaining the too seductive youth to her side. It is with this object that she invests him with false honors and dignity, and introduces him to the chief mandarins of the capital of the Celestial Empire; then, since so handsome a youth must cut a fine figure in society, and as a fine figure cannot be cut without money, the lady must needs to sacrifice all of her possessions for his sake. Necklaces, rings, bracelets, diamonds, and pearls, all are surrendered. The monster carries all these jewels to the pawnbrokers on Tien-Tsi Street, and then has the cruelty to refuse her the tickets, so that she may have a chance of redeeming her treasures.”
The clown thought that at last he had hit the mark. Mme. Fauvel began to betray signs of agitation.
Once she made an attempt to rise from her chair; but it seemed as if her strength failed her, and she sank back, forced to listen to the end.
“Finally, ladies and gentlemen,” continued the clown, “the richly stored jewel-cases became empty. The day came when the mandarine had nothing more to give. It was then that the young scoundrel conceived the project of carrying off the jasper button belonging to the Mandarin Li-Fo—a splendid jewel of incalculable value, which, being the badge of his dignity, was kept in a granite chest, and guarded by three soldiers night and day. Ah! the mandarine resisted a long time! She knew the innocent soldiers would be accused and crucified, as is the custom in Pekin; and this thought restrained her. But her lover besought her so tenderly, that she finally yielded to his entreaties; and—the jasper button was stolen. The fourth picture represents the guilty couple stealthily creeping down the private stairway: see their frightened look—see—”
He abruptly stopped. Three or four of his auditors rushed to the assistance of Mme. Fauvel, who seemed about to faint; and at the same time he felt his arm roughly seized by someone behind him.
He turned around and faced De Clameran and Lagors, both of whom were pale with anger.
“What do you want, gentlemen?” he inquired politely.
“To speak to you,” they both answered.
“I am at your service.”
And he followed them to the end of the picture-gallery, near a window opening on a balcony.
Here they were unobserved except by the man in the Venetian cloak, whom the clown had so respectfully addressed as “M. the Count.”
The minuet having ended, the orchestras were resting, and the crowd began to rapidly fill the gallery.
The sudden faintness of Mme. Fauvel had passed off unnoticed save by a few, who attributed it to the heat of the room. M. Fauvel had been sent for; but when he came hurrying in, and found his wife composedly talking to Madeleine, his alarm was dissipated, and he returned to the card-tables.
Not having as much control over his temper as Raoul, M. de Clameran angrily said:
“In the first place, monsieur, I would like to know who you are.”
The clown determined to answer as if he thought the question were a jest, replied in the bantering tone of a buffoon:
“You want my passport, do you, my lord doge? I left it in the hands of the city authorities; it contains my name, age, profession, domicile, and every detail—”
With an angry gesture, M. de Clameran interrupted him.
“You have just committed a gross insult!”
“I, my lord doge?”
“Yes, you! What do you mean by telling this abominable story in this house?”
“Abominable! You may call it abominable; but I, who composed it, have a different opinion of it.”
“Enough, monsieur; you will at least have the courage to acknowledge that your performance was a vile insinuation against Mme. Fauvel?”
The clown stood with his head thrown back, and mouth wide open, as if astounded at what he heard.
But anyone who knew him would have seen his bright black eyes sparkling with malicious satisfaction.
“Bless my heart!” he cried, as if speaking to himself. “This is the strangest thing I ever heard of! How can my drama of the Mandarine Li-Fo have any reference to Mme. Fauvel, whom I don’t know from Adam or Eve? I can’t think how the resemblance——unless——but no, that is impossible.”
“Do you pretend,” said M. de Clameran, “to be ignorant of M. Fauvel’s misfortune?”
The clown looked very innocent, and asked:
“What misfortune?”
“The robbery of which M. Fauvel was the victim. It has been in everyone’s mouth, and you must have heard of it.”
“Ah, yes, yes; I remember. His cashier ran off with three hundred and fifty thousand francs. Pardieu! It is a thing that almost daily happens. But, as to discovering any connection between this robbery and my play, that is another matter.”
M. de Clameran made no reply. A nudge from Lagors had calmed him as if by enchantment.
He looked quietly at the clown, and seemed to regret having uttered the significant words forced from him by angry excitement.
“Very well,” he finally said in his usual haughty tone; “I must have been mistaken. I accept your explanation.”
But the clown, hitherto so humble and silly-looking, seemed to take offence at the word, and, assuming a defiant attitude, said:
“I have not made, nor do I intend making, any explanation.”
“Monsieur,” began De Clameran.
“Allow me to finish, if you please. If, unintentionally, I have offended the wife of a man whom I highly esteem, it is his business to seek redress, and not yours. Perhaps you will tell me he is too old to demand satisfaction: if so, let him send one of his sons. I saw one of them in the ball-room to-night; let him come. You asked me who I am; in return I ask you who are you—you who undertake to act as Mme. Fauvel’s champion? Are you her relative, friend, or ally? What right have you to insult her by pretending to discover an allusion to her in a play invented for amusement?”
There was nothing to be said in reply to this. M. de Clameran sought a means of escape.
“I am a friend of M. Fauvel,” he said, “and this title gives me the right to be as jealous of his reputation as if it were my own. If this is not a sufficient reason for my interference, I must inform you that his family will shortly be mine: I regard myself as his nephew.”
“Ah!”
“Next week, monsieur, my marriage with Madeleine will be publicly announced.”
This news was so unexpected, so startling that for a moment the clown was dumb; and now his surprise was genuine.
But he soon recovered himself, and, bowing with deference, said, with covert irony:
“Permit me to offer my congratulations, monsieur. Besides being the belle to-night, Mlle. Madeleine is worth, I hear, half a million.”
Raoul de Lagors had anxiously been watching the people near them, to see if they overheard this conversation.
“We have had enough of this gossip,” he said, in a disdainful tone; “I will only say one thing more, master clown, and that is, that your tongue is too long.”
“Perhaps it is, my pretty youth, perhaps it is; but my arm is still longer.”
De Clameran here interrupted them by saying:
“It is impossible for one to seek an explanation from a man who conceals his identity under the guise of a fool.”
“You are at liberty, my lord doge, to ask the master of the house who I am—if you dare.”
“You are,” cried Clameran, “you are—”
A warning look from Raoul checked the forge-master from using an epithet which would have led to an affray, or at least a scandalous scene.
The clown stood by with a sardonic smile, and, after a moment’s silence, stared M. de Clameran steadily in the face, and in measured tones said:
“I was the best friend, monsieur, that your brother Gaston ever had. I was his adviser, and the confidant of his last wishes.”
These few words fell like a clap of thunder upon De Clameran.
He turned deadly pale, and stared back with his hands stretched out before him, as if shrinking from a phantom.
He tried to answer, to protest against this assertion, but the words froze on his lips. His fright was pitiable.
“Come, let us go,” said Lagors, who was perfectly cool.
And he dragged Clameran away, half supporting him, for he staggered like a drunken man, and clung to every object he passed, to prevent falling.
“Oh,” exclaimed the clown, in three different tones, “oh, oh!”
He himself was almost as much astonished as the forge-master, and remained rooted to the spot, watching the latter as he slowly left the room.
It was with no decided object in view that he had ventured to use the last mysteriously threatening words, but he had been inspired to do so by his wonderful instinct, which with him was like the scent of a blood-hound.
“What can this mean?” he murmured. “Why was he so frightened? What terrible memory have I awakened in his base soul? I need not boast of my penetration, or the subtlety of my plans. There is a great master, who, without any effort, in an instant destroys all my chimeras; he is called ‘Chance.’”
His mind had wandered far from the present scene, when he was brought back to his situation by someone touching him on the shoulder. It was the man in the Venetian cloak.
“Are you very satisfied, M. Verduret?” he inquired.
“Yes, and no, M. the Count. No, because I have not completely achieved the object I had in view when I asked you for an invitation here to-night; yes, because these two rascals behaved in a manner which dispels all doubt.”
“And yet you complain—”
“I do not complain, M. the Count: on the contrary, I bless chance, or rather Providence, which has just revealed to me the existence of a secret that I did not before even suspect.”
Five or six people approached the count, and he went off with them after giving the clown a friendly nod.
The latter instantly threw aside his banner, and started in pursuit of Mme. Fauvel. He found her sitting on a sofa in the large salon, engaged in an animated conversation with Madeleine.
“Of course they are talking over the scene; but what has become of Lagors and De Clameran?”
He soon saw them wandering among the groups scattered about the room, and eagerly asking questions.
“I will bet my head these honorable gentlemen are trying to find out who I am. Keep it up, my friends, ask everybody in the room; I wish you success!”
They soon gave it up, but were so preoccupied, and anxious to be alone in order to reflect and deliberate, that, without waiting for supper, they took leave of Mme. Fauvel and her niece, saying they were going home.
The clown saw them go up to the dressing-room for their cloaks, and in a few minutes leave the house.
“I have nothing more to do here,” he murmured; “I might as well go too.”
He completely covered his dress with a domino, and started for home, thinking the cold frosty air would cool his confused brain.
He lit a cigar, and, walking up the Rue St. Lazare, crossed the Rue Notre Dame de Lorette, and struck into the Faubourg Montmartre.
A man suddenly started out from some place of concealment, and rushed upon him with a dagger.
Fortunately the clown had a cat-like instinct, which enabled him to protect himself against immediate danger, and detect any which threatened.
He saw, or rather divined, the man crouching in the dark shadow of a house, and had the presence of mind to strike an attitude which enabled him to ward off the assassin by spreading out his arms before him.
This movement certainly saved his life; for he received in his arm a furious stab, which would have instantly killed him had it penetrated his breast.
Anger, more than pain, made him cry out:
“Ah, you villain!”
And recoiling a few feet, he put himself on the defensive.
But the precaution was useless.
Seeing his blow miss, the assassin did not return to the attack, but made rapidly off.
“That was certainly Lagors,” said the clown, “and Clameran must be somewhere near. While I walked around one side of the church, they must have gone the other and lain in wait for me.”
His wound began to pain him; he stood under a gas-lamp to examine it.
It did not appear to be dangerous, but the arm was cut through to the bone.
He tore his handkerchief into four bands, and tied his arm up with the dexterity of a surgeon.
“I must be on the track of some great crime, since these fellows are resolved upon murder. When such cunning rogues are only in danger of the police court, they do not gratuitously risk the chance of being tried for murder.”
He thought by enduring a great deal of pain he might still use his arm; so he started in pursuit of his enemy, taking care to keep in the middle of the road, and avoid all dark corners.
Although he saw no one, he was convinced that he was being pursued.
He was not mistaken. When he reached the Boulevard Montmartre, he crossed the street, and, as he did so, distinguished two shadows which he recognized. They crossed the same street a little higher up.
“I have to deal with desperate men,” he muttered. “They do not even take pains to conceal their pursuit of me. They seem to be accustomed to this kind of adventure, and the carriage trick which fooled Fanferlot would never succeed with them. Besides, my light hat is a perfect beacon to lead them on in the night.” He continued his way up the boulevard, and, without turning his head, was sure that his enemies were thirty feet behind him.
“I must get rid of them somehow,” he said to himself. “I can neither return home nor to the Archangel with these devils at my heels. They are following me to find out where I live, and who I am. If they discover that the clown is M. Verduret, and that M. Verduret is M. Lecoq, my plans will be ruined. They will escape abroad with the money, and I shall be left to console myself with a wounded arm. A pleasant ending to all my exertions!”
The idea of Raoul and Clameran escaping him so exasperated him that for an instant he thought of having them arrested at once.
This was easy; for he had only to rush upon them, scream for help, and they would all three be arrested, carried to the watch-house, and consigned to the commissary of police.
The police often resort to this ingenious and simple means of arresting a malefactor for whom they are on the lookout, and whom they cannot seize without a warrant.
The next day there is a general explanation, and the parties, if innocent, are dismissed.
The clown had sufficient proof to sustain him in the arrest of Lagors. He could show the letter and the mutilated prayer-book, he could reveal the existence of the pawnbroker’s tickets in the house at Vesinet, he could display his wounded arm. He could force Raoul to confess how and why he had assumed the name of Lagors, and what his motive was in passing himself off for a relative of M. Fauvel.
On the other hand, in acting thus hastily, he was insuring the safety of the principal plotter, De Clameran. What proofs had he against him? Not one. He had strong suspicions, but no well-grounded charge to produce against him.
On reflection the clown decided that he would act alone, as he had thus far done, and that alone and unaided he would discover the truth of all his suspicions.
Having reached this decision, the first step to be taken was to put his followers on the wrong scent.
He walked rapidly up the Rue Sebastopol, and, reaching the square of the Arts et Metiers, he abruptly stopped, and asked some insignificant questions of two constables who were standing talking together.
The manoeuvre had the result he expected; Raoul and Clameran stood perfectly still about twenty steps off, not daring to advance.
Twenty steps! That was as much start as the clown wanted. While talking with the constables, he had pulled the bell of the door before which they were standing, and its hollow sound apprised him that the door was open. He bowed, and entered the house.
A minute later the constables had passed on, and Lagors and Clameran in their turn rang the bell. When the concierge appeared, they asked who it was that had just gone in disguised as a clown.
They were told that no such person had entered, and that none of the lodgers had gone out disguised that night. “However,” added the concierge, “I am not very sure, for this house has a back door which opens on the Rue St. Denis.”
“We are tricked,” interrupted Lagors, “and will never know who the clown is.”
“Unless we learn it too soon for our own good,” said Clameran musingly.
While Lagors and Clameran were anxiously trying to devise some means of discovering the clown’s identity, Verduret hurried up the back street, and reached the Archangel as the clock struck three.
Prosper, who was watching from his window, saw him in the distance, and ran down to open the door for him.
“What have you learned?” he said; “what did you find out? Did you see Madeleine? Were Raoul and Clameran at the ball?”
But M. Verduret was not in the habit of discussing private affairs where he might be overheard.
“First of all, let us go into your room, and get some water to wash this cut, which burns like fire.”
“Heavens! Are you wounded?”
“Yes, it is a little souvenir of your friend Raoul. Ah, I will soon teach him the danger of chopping up a man’s arm!”
Prosper was surprised at the look of merciless rage on his friend’s face, as he calmly washed and dressed his arm.
“Now, Prosper, we will talk as much as you please. Our enemies are on the alert, and we must crush them instantly, or not at all. I have made a mistake. I have been on the wrong track; it is an accident liable to happen to any man, no matter how intelligent he may be. I took the effect for the cause. The day I was convinced that culpable relations existed between Raoul and Mme. Fauvel, I thought I held the end of the thread that must lead us to the truth. I should have been more mistrustful; this solution was too simple, too natural.”
“Do you suppose Mme. Fauvel to be innocent?”
“Certainly not. But her guilt is not such as I first supposed. I imagined that, infatuated with a seductive young adventurer, Mme. Fauvel had first bestowed upon him the name of one of her relatives, and then introduced him as her nephew. This was an adroit stratagem to gain him admission to her husband’s house.
“She began by giving him all the money she could could dispose of; later she let him take her jewels to the pawnbrokers; when she had nothing more to give, she allowed him to steal the money from her husband’s safe. That is what I first thought.”
“And in this way everything was explained?”
“No, this did not explain everything, as I well knew at the time, and should, consequently, have studied my characters more thoroughly. How is Clameran’s position to be accounted for, if my first idea was the correct one?”
“Clameran is Lagors’s accomplice of course.”
“Ah, there is the mistake! I for a long time believed Lagors to be the principal person, when, in fact, he is not. Yesterday, in a dispute between them, the forge-master said to his dear friend, ‘And, above all things, my friend, I would advise you not to resist me, for if you do I will crush you to atoms.’ That explains all. The elegant Lagors is not the lover of Mme. Fauvel, but the tool of Clameran. Besides, did our first suppositions account for the resigned obedience of Madeleine? It is Clameran, and not Lagors, whom Madeleine obeys.”
Prosper began to remonstrate.
M. Verduret shrugged his shoulders. To convince Prosper he had only to utter one word: to tell him that three hours ago Clameran had announced his intended marriage with Madeleine; but he did not.
“Clameran,” he continued, “Clameran alone has Mme. Fauvel in his power. Now, the question is, what is the secret of this terrible influence he has gained over her? I have positive proof that they have not met since their early youth until fifteen months ago; and, as Mme. Fauvel’s reputation has always been above the reach of slander, we must seek in the past for the cause of her resigned obedience to his will.”
“We can never discover it,” said Prosper mournfully.
“We can discover it as soon as we know Clameran’s past life. Ah, to-night he turned as white as a sheet when I mentioned his brother Gaston’s name. And then I remembered that Gaston died suddenly, while his brother Louis was making a visit.”
“Do you think he was murdered?”
“I think the men who tried to assassinate me would do anything. The robbery, my friend, has now become a secondary detail. It is quite easily explained, and, if that were all to be accounted for, I would say to you, My task is done, let us go ask the judge of instruction for a warrant of arrest.”
Prosper started up with sparkling eyes.
“Ah, you know—is it possible?”
“Yes, I know who gave the key, and I know who told the secret word.”
“The key might have been M. Fauvel’s. But the word——”
“The word you were foolish enough to give. You have forgotten, I suppose. But fortunately Gypsy remembered. You know that, two days before the robbery, you took Lagors and two other friends to sup with Mme. Gypsy? Nina was sad, and reproached you for not being more devoted to her.”
“Yes, I remember that.”
“But do you remember what you replied to her?”
“No, I do not,” said Prosper after thinking a moment.
“Well, I will tell you: ‘Nina, you are unjust in reproaching me with not thinking constantly of you; for at this very moment your dear name guards M. Fauvel’s safe.’”
The truth suddenly burst upon Prosper like a thunderclap. He wrung his hands despairingly, and cried:
“Yes, oh, yes! I remember now.”
“Then you can easily understand the rest. One of the scoundrels went to Mme. Fauvel, and compelled her to give up her husband’s key; then, at a venture, placed the movable buttons on the name of Gypsy, opened the safe, and took the three hundred and fifty thousand francs. And Mme. Fauvel must have been terribly frightened before she yielded. The day after the robbery the poor woman was near dying; and it was she who at the greatest risk sent you the ten thousand francs.”
“But which was the thief, Raoul or Clameran? What enables them to thus tyrannize over Mme. Fauvel? And how does Madeleine come to be mixed up in the affair?”
“These questions, my dear Prosper, I cannot yet answer; therefore I postpone seeing the judge. I only ask you to wait ten days; and, if I cannot in that time discover the solution of this mystery, I will return and go with you to report to M. Patrigent all that we know.”
“Are you going to leave the city?”
“In an hour I shall be on the road to Beaucaire. It was from that neighborhood that Clameran came, as well as Mme. Fauvel, who was a Mlle. de la Verberie before marriage.”
“Yes, I knew both families.”
“I must go there to study them. Neither Raoul nor Clameran can escape during my absence. The police are watching them. But you, Prosper, must be prudent. Promise me to remain a prisoner here during my trip.”
All that M. Verduret asked, Prosper willingly promised. But he did not wish to be left in complete ignorance of his projects for the future, or of his motives in the past.
“Will you not tell me, monsieur, who you are, and what reasons you had for coming to my rescue?”
The extraordinary man smiled sadly, and said:
“I tell, in the presence of Nina, on the day before your marriage with Madeleine.”
Once left to his own reflections, Prosper began to appreciate the powerful assistance rendered by his friend.
Recalling the field of investigation gone over by his mysterious protector, he was amazed at its extent.
How many facts had been discovered in a week, and with what precision, although he had pretended to be on the wrong track! Verduret had grouped his evidence, and reached a result which Prosper felt he never could have hoped to attain by his own exertions.
He was conscious that he possessed neither Verduret’s penetration nor his subtlety. He did not possess this art of compelling obedience, of creating friends at every step, and the science of making men and circumstances unite in the attainment of a common result.
He began to regret the absence of his friend, who had risen up in the hour of adversity. He missed the sometimes rough but always kindly voice, which had encouraged and consoled him.
He felt wofully lost and helpless, not daring to act or think for himself, more timid than a child when deserted by his nurse.
He had the good sense to follow the recommendations of his mentor. He remained shut up in the Archangel, not even appearing at the windows.
Twice he had news of M. Verduret. The first time he received a letter in which this friend said he had seen his father, and had had a long talk with him. Afterward, Dubois, M. de Clameran’s valet, came to tell him that his “patron” reported everything as progressing finely.
On the ninth day of his voluntary seclusion, Prosper began to feel restless, and at ten o’clock at night set forth to take a walk, thinking the fresh air would relieve the headache which had kept him awake the previous night.
Mme. Alexandre, who seemed to have some knowledge of M. Verduret’s affairs, begged Prosper to remain at home.
“What can I risk by taking a walk at this time, in a quiet part of the city?” he asked. “I can certainly stroll as far as the Jardin des Plantes without meeting anyone.”
Unfortunately he did not strictly follow this programme; for, having reached the Orleans railway station, he went into a cafe near by, and called for a glass of ale.
As he sat sipping his glass, he picked up a daily paper, The Sun, and under the head of “Fashionable Gossip,” signed Jacques Durand, read the following:
“We understand that the niece of one of our most prominent bankers, M. Andre Fauvel, will shortly be married to M. le Marquis Louis de Clameran. The engagement has been announced.”
This news, coming upon him so unexpectedly, proved to Prosper the justness of M. Verduret’s calculations.
Alas! why did not this certainty inspire him with absolute faith? why did it not give him courage to wait, the strength of mind to refrain from acting on his own responsibility?
Frenzied by distress of mind, he already saw Madeleine indissolubly united to this villain, and, thinking that M. Verduret would perhaps arrive too late to be of use, determined at all risks to throw an obstacle in the way of the marriage.
He called for pen and paper, and forgetting that no situation can excuse the mean cowardice of an anonymous letter, wrote in a disguised hand the following lines to M. Fauvel:
“DEAR SIR—You consigned your cashier to prison; you acted prudently, since you were convinced of his dishonesty and faithlessness.
“But, even if he stole three hundred and fifty thousand francs from your safe, does it follow that he also stole Mme. Fauvel’s diamonds, and pawned them at the Mont-de-Piete, where they now are?
“Warned as you are, if I were you, I would not be the subject of public scandal. I would watch my wife, and would be distrustful of handsome cousins.
“Moreover, I would, before signing the marriage contract of Mlle. Madeleine, inquire at the Prefecture of Police, and obtain some information concerning the noble Marquis de Clameran.
“A FRIEND.”
Prosper hastened off to post his letter. Fearing that it would not reach M. Fauvel in time, he walked up to the Rue Cardinal Lemoine, and put it in the main letter-box, so as to be certain of its speedy delivery.
Until now he had not doubted the propriety of his action.
But now when too late, when he heard the sound of his letter falling into the box, a thousand scruples filled his mind. Was it not wrong to act thus hurriedly? Would not this letter interfere with M. Verduret’s plans? Upon reaching the hotel, his doubts were changed into bitter regrets.
Joseph Dubois was waiting for him; he had received a despatch from his patron, saying that his business was finished, and that he would return the next evening at nine o’clock.
Prosper was wretched. He would have given all he had to recover the anonymous letter.
And he had cause for regret.
At that very hour M. Verduret was taking his seat in the cars at Tarascon, meditating upon the most advantageous plan to be adopted in pursuance of his discoveries.
For he had discovered everything, and now must bring matters to a crisis.
Adding to what he already knew, the story of an old nurse of Mlle. de la Verberie, the affidavit of an old servant who had always lived in the Clameran family, and the depositions of the Vesinet husband and wife who attended M. Lagors at his country house, the latter having been sent to him by Dubois (Fanferlot), with a good deal of information obtained from the prefecture of police, he had worked up a complete case, and could now act upon a chain of evidence without a missing link.
As he had predicted, he had been compelled to search into the distant past for the first causes of the crime of which Prosper had been the victim.
The following is the drama, as he wrote it out for the benefit of the judge of instruction, knowing that it would contain grounds for an indictment against the malefactors.
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