On Tuesday, a little before five o’clock, as she had promised, Phillis rang at Saniel’s door, and he left his laboratory where he was at work, to let her in.
She threw herself on his neck.
“Well?” she asked, in a trembling voice.
He told her how he had played and won, without stating the exact sum; also the propositions of the Prince Mazzazoli, the meeting with Duphot, and the telegram to Jardine.
“Oh! What happiness!” she said, pressing him in her arms. “You are free!”
“No more creditors! I am my own master. You see it was a good inspiration. Justice willed it.”
Then interrupting him:
“Apropos of justice, you did not speak of Caffie the morning of your departure.”
“I was so preoccupied I had no time to think of Caffie.”
“Is it not curious, the coincidence of his death with the condemnation that we pronounced against him? Does it not prove exactly the justice of things?”
“If you choose.”
“As the money you won at Monaco proves to you that what is just will happen. Caffie is punished for all his rascalities and crimes, and you are rewarded for your sufferings.”
“Would it not have been just if Caffie had been punished sooner, and if I had suffered less?”
She remained silent.
“You see,” he said smiling, “that your philosophy is weak.”
“It is not of my philosophy that I am thinking, but of Caffie and ourselves.”
“And how can Caffie be associated with you or yours?”
“He is, or rather he may be, if this justice in which I believe in spite of your joking permits him to be.”
“You are talking in enigmas.”
“What have you heard about Caffie since you went away?”
“Nothing, or almost nothing.”
“You know it is thought that the crime was committed by a butcher.”
“The commissioner picked up the knife before me, and it is certainly a butcher’s knife. And more than that, the stroke that cut Caffie’s throat was given by a hand accustomed to butchery. I have indicated this in my report.”
“Since then, more careful investigations have discovered a trousers’ button—”
“Which might have been torn off in a struggle between Caffie and his assassin, I read in a newspaper. But as for me, I do not believe in this struggle. Caffie’s position in his chair, where he was assaulted and where he died, indicates that the old scamp was surprised. Otherwise, if he had not been, if he had struggled, he could have cried out, and, without doubt, he would have been heard.”
“If you knew how happy I am to hear you say that!” she cried.
“Happy! What difference can it make to you?” and he looked at her in surprise. “Of what importance is it to you whether Caffie was killed with or without a struggle? You condemned him; he is dead. That should satisfy you.”
“I was very wrong to pronounce this condemnation, which I did without attaching any importance to it.”
“Do you think that hastened its execution?”
“I am not so foolish as that, but I should be better pleased if I had not condemned him.”
“Do you regret it?”
“I regret that he is dead.”
“Decidedly, the enigma continues; but you know I do not understand it, and, if you wish, we will stop there. We have something better to do than to talk of Caffie.”
“On the contrary, let me talk to you of him, because we want your advice.”
Again he looked at her, trying to read her face and to divine why she insisted on speaking of Caffie, when he had just expressed a wish not to speak of him. What was there beneath this insistence?
“I will listen,” he said; “and, since you wish to ask my advice on the subject, you must tell me immediately what you mean.”
“You are right; and I should have told you before, but embarrassment and shame restrained me. And I reproach myself, for with you I should feel neither embarrassment nor reproach.”
“Assuredly.”
“But before everything else, I must tell you—you must know—that my brother Florentin is a good and honest boy; you must believe it, you must be convinced of it.”
“I am, since you tell me so. Besides, he produced the best impression on me during the short time I saw him the other day at your house.”
“Would not one see immediately that he has a good nature?”
“Certainly.”
“Frank and upright; weak, it is true, and a little effeminate also, that is, lacking energy, letting himself be carried away by goodness and tenderness. This weakness made him commit a fault before his departure for America. I have kept it from you until this moment, but you must know it now. Loving a woman who controlled him and made him do what she wished, he let himself be persuaded to-take a sum of forty-five francs that she demanded, that she insisted on having that evening, hoping to be able to replace it three days later, without his employer discovering it.”
“His employer was Caffie?”
“No; it was three months after he left Caffie, and he was with another man of business of whom I have never spoken to you, and now you understand why. The money he expected failed him; his fault was discovered, and his employer lodged a complaint against him.”
“We made him withdraw his complaint, never mind how, and Florentin went to America to seek his fortune. And since you have seen him, you admit that he might be capable of the fault that he committed, without being capable-of becoming an assassin.”
He was about to reply, but she closed his lips with a quick gesture.
“You will see why I speak of this, and you will understand why I do not drop the subject of Caffie, and of this button, on which the police count to find the criminal. This button belonged to Florentin.”
“To your brother?”
“Yes, to Florentin, who, the day of the crime, had been to see Caffie.”
“That is true; the concierge told the commissioner of police that he called about three o’clock.”
Phillis gave a cry of despair.
“They know he was there? Then it is more serious than we imagined or believed.”
“In answering a question as to whom Caffie had received that day, the concierge named your brother. But as this visit took place between three and half-past, and the crime was certainly committed between five and half-past, no one can accuse your brother of being the assassin, since he left before Caffie lighted his lamp. As this lamp could not light itself, it proves that he could not have butchered a man who was living an hour after the concierge saw your brother and talked with him.”
“What you say is a great relief; if you could know how alarmed we have been!”
“You were too hasty to alarm yourself.”
“Too hasty? But when Florentin read the account to us and came to the button, he exclaimed, ‘This button is mine!’ and we experienced a shock that made us lose our heads. We saw the police falling on us, questioning Florentin, reproaching him with the past, which would be retailed in all the newspapers, and you must understand how we felt.”
“But cannot your brother explain how he lost this button at Caffie’s?”
“Certainly, and in the most natural way. He went to see Caffie, to ask him for a letter of recommendation, saying that he had been his clerk for several years. Caffie gave it to him, and then, in the course of conversation, Caffie spoke of a bundle of papers that he could not find. Florentin had had charge of these papers, and had placed them on a high shelf in the closet. As Caffie could not find them, and wanted them, Florentin brought a small ladder, and, mounting it, found them. He was about to descend the ladder, when he made a misstep, and in trying to save himself, one of the buttons of his trousers was pulled off.”
“And he did not pick it up?”
“He did not even notice it at first. But later, in the street, seeing one leg of his trousers longer than the other, he thought of the ladder, and found that he had lost a button. He would not return to Caffie’s to look for it, of course.”
“Of course.”
“How could he foresee that Caffie would be assassinated? That the crime would be so skilfully planned and executed that the criminal would escape? That two days later the police would find a button on which they would build a story that would make him the criminal? Florentin had not thought of all that.”
“That is understood.”
“The same evening he replaced the button by another, and it was only on reading the newspaper that he felt there might be something serious in this apparently insignificant fact. And we shared his alarm.”
“Have you spoken to any one of this button?”
“Certainly not; we know too much. I tell you of it because I tell you everything; and if we are menaced, we have no help to expect, except from you. Florentin is a good boy, but he is weak and foolish. Mamma is like him in more than one respect, and as for me, although I am more resistant, I confess that, in the face of the law and the police, I should easily lose my head, like children who begin to scream when they are left in the dark. Is not the law, when you know nothing of it, a night of trouble, full of horrors, and peopled with phantoms?”
“I do not believe there is the danger that you imagined in the first moment of alarm.”
“It was natural.”
“Very natural, I admit, but reflection must show how little foundation there is for it. The button has not the name of the tailor who furnished it?”
“No, but it has the initials and the mark of the manufacturer; an A and a P, with a crown and a cock.”
“Well! Among two or three thousand tailors in Paris, how is it possible for the police to find those who use these buttons? And when the tailors are found, how could they designate the owner of this button, this one exactly, and not another? It is looking for a needle in a bundle of hay. Where did your brother have these trousers made? Did he bring them from America?”
“The poor boy brought nothing from America but wretchedly shabby clothes, and we had to clothe him from head to foot. We were obliged to economize, and a little tailor in the Avenue de Clichy, called Valerius, made this suit.”
“It seems to me scarcely probable that the police will find this little tailor. But if they do, would he recognize the button as coming from his stock? And, if they get as far as your brother, they must prove that there was a struggle; that the button was torn off in this struggle; that your brother was in the Rue Sainte-Anne between five and six o’clock; in which case, without doubt, he will find it easy to prove where he was at that moment.”
“He was with us—with mamma.”
“You see, then, you need not feel alarmed.”
Phillis hurried to return to the Rue des Moines, to share with her mother and brother the confidence that Saniel caused her to feel.
She pulled the bell with a trembling hand, for the time was past when in this quiet house, where all the lodgers knew each other, the key was left in the door, and one had only to knock before entering. Since the newspapers had spoken of the button, all was changed; the feeling of liberty and security had disappeared; the door was always closed, and when the bell rang they looked at each other in fear and with trembling.
When Florentin opened the door, the table was set for dinner.
“I was afraid something had happened to you,” Madame Cormier said.
“I was detained.”
She took off her hat and cloak hastily.
“You have learned nothing?” the mother asked, bringing in the soup.
“No.”
“They spoke to you of nothing?” Florentin continued in a low voice.
“They spoke to me of nothing else; or I heard only that when I was not addressed directly.”
“What was said?”
“No one believes that the investigations of the police bear on the button.”
“You see, Florentin,” Madame Cormier interrupted, smiling at her son.
But he shook his head.
“However, the opinion of all has a value,” Phillis cried.
“Speak lower,” Florentin said.
“It is thought that it is impossible for the police to find, among the two or three thousand tailors in Paris, all those who use the buttons marked A. P. And if they did find them, they could not designate all their customers to whom they have furnished these buttons. It is really looking for a needle in a bundle of hay.”
“When one takes plenty of time, one finds a needle in a bundle of hay,” Florentin said.
“You ask me what I heard, and I tell you. But I do not depend entirely on that. As I passed near the Rue Louis-le-Grand, I went to Doctor Saniel’s; it being his office hour I hoped to find him.”
“You told him the situation?” Florentin exclaimed.
In any other circumstances she would have replied frankly, explaining that she had perfect confidence in Saniel; but when she saw her brother’s agitation, she could not exasperate him by this avowal, above all, because she could not at the same time give her reasons for her faith in him. She must reassure him before everything.
“No,” she said, “but I spoke of Caffie to Doctor Saniel without his being surprised. As he made the first deposition, was it not natural that my curiosity should wish to learn a little more than the newspapers tell?”
“Never mind, the act must appear strange.”
“I think not. But, anyhow, the interest that we have to learn all made me overlook this; and I think, when I have told you the doctor’s opinion, you will not regret my visit.”
“And this opinion?” Madame Cormier asked.
“His opinion is, that there was no struggle between Caffie and the assassin, whereas the position of Caffie in the chair where he was attacked proves that he was surprised. Therefore, if there was no struggle, there was no button torn off, and all the scaffolding of the police falls to the ground.”
Madame Cormier breathed a profound sigh of deliverance.
“You see,” she said to her son.
“And the doctor’s opinion is not the opinion of the first-comer, it is not even that of an ordinary physician. It is that of the physician who has certified to the death, and who, more than any one, has power, has authority, to say how it was given—by surprise, without struggle, without a button being pulled off.”
“It is not Doctor Saniel who directs the search of the police, or who inspires it,” replied Florentin. “His opinion does not produce a criminal, while the button can—at least for those who believe in the struggle; and between the two the police will not hesitate.
“Already the newspapers laugh at them for not having discovered the assassin, who has rejoined all the others they have let escape. They must follow the track they have started on, and this track—”
He lowered his voice:
“It will lead them here.”
“To do that they must pass by the Avenue de Clichy, and that seems unlikely.”
“It is the possible that torments me, and not the unlikely, and you cannot but recognize that what I fear is possible. I was at Caffies the day of the crime. I lost there a button torn off by violence. This button picked up by the police proves, according to them, the criminality of the one who lost it. They will find that I am the one—”
“They will not find you.”
“Let us admit that they do find me. How should I defend myself?”
“By proving that you were not in the Rue Sainte-Anne between five and six o’clock, since you were here.”
“And what witnesses will prove this alibi? I have only one—mamma. What is the testimony of a mother worth in favor of her son in such circumstances?”
“You will have that of the doctor, affirming that there was no struggle, and consequently no button torn off.”
“Affirming, but carrying no proof to support his theory; the opinion of one doctor, which the opinion of another doctor may refute and destroy. And then, to prove that there was no struggle; Doctor Saniel will say that Caffie was surprised. Who could surprise Caffie? To open Caffies door when the clerk was away, it was necessary to ring first, and then to knock three times in a peculiar way. No stranger could know that, and who could know it better than I?”
Step by step Phillis defended the ground against her brother; but little by little the confidence which at first sustained her weakened. With Saniel she was brave. Between her brother and mother, in this room that had witnessed their fears, not daring to speak loud, she was downcast, and let herself be overcome by their anxieties.
“Truly,” she said, “it seems as if we were guilty and not innocent.”
“And while we are tormenting ourselves, the criminal, probably, in perfect safety laughs at the police investigations; he had not thought of this button; chance throws it in his way. Luck is for him, and against us—once more.”
This was the plaint that was often on Florentin’s lips. Although he had never been a gambler—and for sufficient reason—in his eyes everything was decided by luck. There are those who are born under a lucky star, others under an unlucky one. There are those who, in the battle of life, receive knocks without being discouraged, because they expect something the next day, as there are those who become discouraged because they expect nothing, and know by experience that tomorrow will be for them what today is, what yesterday was. And Florentin was one of these.
“Why did I not stay in America?” he said.
“Because you were too unhappy, my poor boy!” Madame Cormier said, whose maternal heart was moved by this cry.
“Am I happier here, or shall I be to-morrow? What does this to-morrow, full of uncertainty and dangers, hold for us?”
“Why do you insist that it has only dangers?” Phillis asked, in a conciliating and caressing tone.
“You always expect the good.”
“At least I hope for it, and do not admit deliberately that it is impossible. I do not say that life is always rose-colored, but neither is it always black. I believe it is like the seasons. After winter, which is vile, I confess, come the spring, summer, and autumn.”
“Well, if I had the money necessary for the voyage, I would go and pass the end of the winter in a country where it would be less disagreeable than here, and, above all, less dangerous for my constitution.”
“You do not say that seriously, I hope?” cried Madame Cormier.
“On the contrary, very seriously.”
“We are hardly reunited, and you think of a separation,” she said, sadly.
“It is not of a separation that Florentin thinks,” cried Phillis, “but of a flight.”
“And why not?”
“Because only the guilty fly.”
“It is exactly the contrary. The intelligent criminals stay, and, as generally they are resolute men, they know beforehand that they are able to face the danger; while the innocent, timid like myself, or the unlucky, lose their heads and fly, because they know beforehand, also, that if a danger threatens them, it will crush them. That is why I would return to America if I could pay my passage; at least I should feel easy there.”
There was a moment of silence, during which each one seemed to have no thought but to finish dinner.
“Granting that this project is not likely,” Florentin said, “I have another idea.”
“Why do you have ideas?” Phillis asked.
“I wish you were in my place; we should see if you would not have them.”
“I assure you that I am in your place, and that your trouble is mine, only it does not betray itself in the same manner. But what is your idea?”
“It is to find Valerius and tell him all.”
“And who will answer to us for Valerius’s discretion?” asked Madame Cormier. “Would it not be the greatest imprudence that you could commit? One cannot play with a secret of this importance.”
“Valerius is an honest man.”
“It is because he cannot work when political, or rather patriotic, affairs go wrong, that you say this.”
“And why not? With a poor man who lives in a small way by his work, are not this care and pride in his country marks of an honorable heart?”
“I grant the honorable heart, but it is another reason for being prudent with him,” Phillis said. “Precisely because he may be what you think, reserve is necessary. You tell him what is passed. If he accepts it and your innocence, it is well; he will not betray your secret voluntarily nor by stupidity. But he will not accept it; he will look beyond. He will suppose that you wish to deceive him, and he will suspect you. In that case, would he not go and tell all to the police commissioner of our quarter? As for me, I think it is a danger that it would be foolish to risk.”
“And, according to you, what is to be done?”
“Nothing; that is, wait, since there are a thousand chances against one for our uneasiness, and we exaggerate those that may never be realized.”
“Well, let us wait,” he said. “Moreover, I like that; at the least, I have no responsibilities. What can happen will happen.”
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