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+The Project Gutenberg eBook of Castles in the Air, by Baroness Emmuska Orczy
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
+most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
+whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
+of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at
+www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you
+will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before
+using this eBook.
+
+Title: Castles in the Air
+
+Author: Baroness Emmuska Orczy
+
+Release Date: May 28, 2004 [eBook #12461]
+[Most recently updated: October 5, 2022]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+Produced by: Jim Tinsley and David Widger
+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CASTLES IN THE AIR ***
+
+
+
+
+CASTLES IN THE AIR
+
+By Baroness Emmuska Orczy
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+ FOREWORD
+ CASTLES IN THE AIR
+ CHAPTER I. — A ROLAND FOR HIS OLIVER
+ CHAPTER II. — A FOOL’S PARADISE
+ CHAPTER III. — ON THE BRINK
+ CHAPTER IV. — CARISSIMO
+ CHAPTER V. — THE TOYS
+ CHAPTER VI. — HONOUR AMONG——
+ CHAPTER VII. — AN OVER-SENSITIVE HEART
+
+
+
+
+FOREWORD
+
+
+In presenting this engaging rogue to my readers, I feel that I owe
+them, if not an apology, at least an explanation for this attempt at
+enlisting sympathy in favour of a man who has little to recommend him
+save his own unconscious humour. In very truth my good friend Ratichon
+is an unblushing liar, thief, a forger—anything you will; his vanity is
+past belief, his scruples are non-existent. How he escaped a convict
+settlement it is difficult to imagine, and hard to realize that he
+died—presumably some years after the event recorded in the last chapter
+of his autobiography—a respected member of the community, honoured by
+that same society which should have raised a punitive hand against him.
+Yet this I believe to be the case. At any rate, in spite of close
+research in the police records of the period, I can find no mention of
+Hector Ratichon. “Heureux le peuple qui n’a pas d’histoire” applies,
+therefore, to him, and we must take it that Fate and his own sorely
+troubled country dealt lightly with him.
+
+Which brings me back to my attempt at an explanation. If Fate dealt
+kindly, why not we? Since time immemorial there have been worse
+scoundrels unhung than Hector Ratichon, and he has the saving grace—
+which few possess—of unruffled geniality. Buffeted by Fate, sometimes
+starving, always thirsty, he never complains; and there is all through
+his autobiography what we might call an “Ah, well!” attitude about his
+outlook on life. Because of this, and because his very fatuity makes us
+smile, I feel that he deserves forgiveness and even a certain amount of
+recognition.
+
+The fragmentary notes, which I have only very slightly modified, came
+into my hands by a happy chance one dull post-war November morning in
+Paris, when rain, sleet and the north wind drove me for shelter under
+the arcades of the Odéon, and a kindly vendor of miscellaneous printed
+matter and mouldy MSS. allowed me to rummage amongst a load of old
+papers which he was about to consign to the rubbish heap. I imagine
+that the notes were set down by the actual person to whom the genial
+Hector Ratichon recounted the most conspicuous events of his chequered
+career, and as I turned over the torn and musty pages, which hung
+together by scraps of mouldy thread, I could not help feeling the
+humour—aye! and the pathos—of that drabby side of old Paris which was
+being revealed to me through the medium of this rogue’s adventures. And
+even as, holding the fragments in my hand, I walked home that morning
+through the rain something of that same quaint personality seemed once
+more to haunt the dank and dreary streets of the once dazzling Ville
+Lumière. I seemed to see the shabby bottle-green coat, the nankeen
+pantaloons, the down-at-heel shoes of this “confidant of Kings”; I
+could hear his unctuous, self-satisfied laugh, and sensed his furtive
+footstep whene’er a gendarme came into view. I saw his ruddy, shiny
+face beaming at me through the sleet and the rain as, like a veritable
+squire of dames, he minced his steps upon the boulevard, or, like a
+reckless smuggler, affronted the grave dangers of mountain fastnesses
+upon the Juras; and I was quite glad to think that a life so full of
+unconscious humour had not been cut short upon the gallows. And I
+thought kindly of him, for he had made me smile.
+
+There is nothing fine about him, nothing romantic; nothing in his
+actions to cause a single thrill to the nerves of the most
+unsophisticated reader. Therefore, I apologize in that I have not held
+him up to a just obloquy because of his crimes, and I ask indulgence
+for his turpitudes because of the laughter which they provoke.
+
+EMMUSKA ORCZY. _Paris, 1921_.
+
+
+
+
+CASTLES IN THE AIR
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I. — A ROLAND FOR HIS OLIVER
+
+1.
+
+My name is Ratichon—Hector Ratichon, at your service, and I make so
+bold as to say that not even my worst enemy would think of minimizing
+the value of my services to the State. For twenty years now have I
+placed my powers at the disposal of my country: I have served the
+Republic, and was confidential agent to Citizen Robespierre; I have
+served the Empire, and was secret factotum to our great Napoléon; I
+have served King Louis—with a brief interval of one hundred days— for
+the past two years, and I can only repeat that no one, in the whole of
+France, has been so useful or so zealous in tracking criminals, nosing
+out conspiracies, or denouncing traitors as I have been.
+
+And yet you see me a poor man to this day: there has been a
+persistently malignant Fate which has worked against me all these
+years, and would—but for a happy circumstance of which I hope anon to
+tell you—have left me just as I was, in the matter of fortune, when I
+first came to Paris and set up in business as a volunteer police agent
+at No. 96 Rue Daunou.
+
+My apartment in those days consisted of an antechamber, an outer office
+where, if need be, a dozen clients might sit, waiting their turn to
+place their troubles, difficulties, anxieties before the acutest brain
+in France, and an inner room wherein that same acute brain—mine, my
+dear Sir—was wont to ponder and scheme. That apartment was not
+luxuriously furnished—furniture being very dear in those days—but there
+were a couple of chairs and a table in the outer office, and a cupboard
+wherein I kept the frugal repast which served me during the course of a
+long and laborious day. In the inner office there were more chairs and
+another table, littered with papers: letters and packets all tied up
+with pink tape (which cost three sous the metre), and bundles of
+letters from hundreds of clients, from the highest and the lowest in
+the land, you understand, people who wrote to me and confided in me
+to-day as kings and emperors had done in the past. In the antechamber
+there was a chair-bedstead for Theodore to sleep on when I required him
+to remain in town, and a chair on which he could sit.
+
+And, of course, there was Theodore!
+
+Ah! my dear Sir, of him I can hardly speak without feeling choked with
+the magnitude of my emotion. A noble indignation makes me dumb.
+Theodore, sir, has ever been the cruel thorn that times out of number
+hath wounded my over-sensitive heart. Think of it! I had picked him out
+of the gutter! No! no! I do not mean this figuratively! I mean that,
+actually and in the flesh, I took him up by the collar of his tattered
+coat and dragged him out of the gutter in the Rue Blanche, where he was
+grubbing for trifles out of the slime and mud. He was frozen, Sir, and
+starved—yes, starved! In the intervals of picking filth up out of the
+mud he held out a hand blue with cold to the passers-by and
+occasionally picked up a sou. When I found him in that pitiable
+condition he had exactly twenty centimes between him and absolute
+starvation.
+
+And I, Sir Hector Ratichon, the confidant of two kings, three autocrats
+and an emperor, took that man to my bosom—fed him, clothed him, housed
+him, gave him the post of secretary in my intricate, delicate,
+immensely important business—and I did this, Sir, at a salary which, in
+comparison with his twenty centimes, must have seemed a princely one to
+him.
+
+His duties were light. He was under no obligation to serve me or to be
+at his post before seven o’clock in the morning, and all that he had to
+do then was to sweep out the three rooms, fetch water from the well in
+the courtyard below, light the fire in the iron stove which stood in my
+inner office, shell the haricots for his own mess of pottage, and put
+them to boil. During the day his duties were lighter still. He had to
+run errands for me, open the door to prospective clients, show them
+into the outer office, explain to them that his master was engaged on
+affairs relating to the kingdom of France, and generally prove himself
+efficient, useful and loyal—all of which qualities he assured me, my
+dear Sir, he possessed to the fullest degree. And I believed him, Sir;
+I nurtured the scorpion in my over-sensitive bosom! I promised him ten
+per cent. on all the profits of my business, and all the remnants from
+my own humble repasts—bread, the skins of luscious sausages, the bones
+from savoury cutlets, the gravy from the tasty carrots and onions. You
+would have thought that his gratitude would become boundless, that he
+would almost worship the benefactor who had poured at his feet the full
+cornucopia of comfort and luxury. Not so! That man, Sir, was a snake in
+the grass—a serpent—a crocodile! Even now that I have entirely severed
+my connexion with that ingrate, I seem to feel the wounds, like
+dagger-thrusts, which he dealt me with so callous a hand. But I have
+done with him—done, I tell you! How could I do otherwise than to send
+him back to the gutter from whence I should never have dragged him? My
+goodness, he repaid with an ingratitude so black that you, Sir, when
+you hear the full story of his treachery, will exclaim aghast.
+
+Ah, you shall judge! His perfidy commenced less than a week after I had
+given him my third best pantaloons and three sous to get his hair cut,
+thus making a man of him. And yet, you would scarcely believe it, in
+the matter of the secret documents he behaved toward me like a
+veritable Judas!
+
+Listen, my dear Sir.
+
+I told you, I believe, that I had my office in the Rue Daunou. You
+understand that I had to receive my clients—many of whom were of
+exalted rank—-in a fashionable quarter of Paris. But I actually lodged
+in Passy—being fond of country pursuits and addicted to fresh air—in a
+humble hostelry under the sign of the “Grey Cat”; and here, too,
+Theodore had a bed. He would walk to the office a couple of hours
+before I myself started on the way, and I was wont to arrive as soon
+after ten o’clock of a morning as I could do conveniently.
+
+On this memorable occasion of which I am about to tell you—it was
+during the autumn of 1815—I had come to the office unusually early, and
+had just hung my hat and coat in the outer room, and taken my seat at
+my desk in the inner office, there to collect my thoughts in
+preparation for the grave events which the day might bring forth, when,
+suddenly, an ill-dressed, dour-looking individual entered the room
+without so much as saying, “By your leave,” and after having pushed
+Theodore—who stood by like a lout—most unceremoniously to one side.
+Before I had time to recover from my surprise at this unseemly
+intrusion, the uncouth individual thrust Theodore roughly out of the
+room, slammed the door in his face, and having satisfied himself that
+he was alone with me and that the door was too solid to allow of
+successful eavesdropping, he dragged the best chair forward—the one,
+sir, which I reserve for lady visitors.
+
+He threw his leg across it, and, sitting astride, he leaned his elbows
+over the back and glowered at me as if he meant to frighten me.
+
+“My name is Charles Saurez,” he said abruptly, “and I want your
+assistance in a matter which requires discretion, ingenuity and
+alertness. Can I have it?”
+
+I was about to make a dignified reply when he literally threw the next
+words at me: “Name your price, and I will pay it!” he said.
+
+What could I do, save to raise my shoulders in token that the matter of
+money was one of supreme indifference to me, and my eyebrows in a
+manner of doubt that M. Charles Saurez had the means wherewith to repay
+my valuable services? By way of a rejoinder he took out from the inner
+pocket of his coat a greasy letter-case, and with his exceedingly grimy
+fingers extracted therefrom some twenty banknotes, which a hasty glance
+on my part revealed as representing a couple of hundred francs.
+
+“I will give you this as a retaining fee,” he said, “if you will
+undertake the work I want you to do; and I will double the amount when
+you have carried the work out successfully.”
+
+Four hundred francs! It was not lavish, it was perhaps not altogether
+the price I would have named, but it was very good, these hard times.
+You understand? We were all very poor in France in that year 1815 of
+which I speak.
+
+I am always quite straightforward when I am dealing with a client who
+means business. I pushed aside the litter of papers in front of me,
+leaned my elbows upon my desk, rested my chin in my hands, and said
+briefly:
+
+“M. Charles Saurez, I listen!”
+
+He drew his chair a little closer and dropped his voice almost to a
+whisper.
+
+“You know the Chancellerie of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs?” he
+asked.
+
+“Perfectly,” I replied.
+
+“You know M. de Marsan’s private office? He is chief secretary to M. de
+Talleyrand.”
+
+“No,” I said, “but I can find out.”
+
+“It is on the first floor, immediately facing the service staircase,
+and at the end of the long passage which leads to the main staircase.”
+
+“Easy to find, then,” I remarked.
+
+“Quite. At this hour and until twelve o’clock, M. de Marsan will be
+occupied in copying a document which I desire to possess. At eleven
+o’clock precisely there will be a noisy disturbance in the corridor
+which leads to the main staircase. M. de Marsan, in all probability,
+will come out of his room to see what the disturbance is about. Will
+you undertake to be ready at that precise moment to make a dash from
+the service staircase into the room to seize the document, which no
+doubt will be lying on the top of the desk, and bring it to an address
+which I am about to give you?”
+
+“It is risky,” I mused.
+
+“Very,” he retorted drily, “or I’d do it myself, and not pay you four
+hundred francs for your trouble.”
+
+“Trouble!” I exclaimed, with withering sarcasm.
+
+“Trouble, you call it? If I am caught, it means penal servitude—New
+Caledonia, perhaps—”
+
+“Exactly,” he said, with the same irritating calmness; “and if you
+succeed it means four hundred francs. Take it or leave it, as you
+please, but be quick about it. I have no time to waste; it is past nine
+o’clock already, and if you won’t do the work, someone else will.”
+
+For a few seconds longer I hesitated. Schemes, both varied and wild,
+rushed through my active brain: refuse to take this risk, and denounce
+the plot to the police; refuse it, and run to warn M. de Marsan; refuse
+it, and— I had little time for reflection. My uncouth client was
+standing, as it were, with a pistol to my throat—with a pistol and four
+hundred francs! The police might perhaps give me half a louis for my
+pains, or they might possibly remember an unpleasant little incident in
+connexion with the forgery of some Treasury bonds which they have never
+succeeded in bringing home to me—one never knows! M. de Marsan might
+throw me a franc, and think himself generous at that!
+
+All things considered, then, when M. Charles Saurez suddenly said,
+“Well?” with marked impatience, I replied, “Agreed,” and within five
+minutes I had two hundred francs in my pocket, with the prospect of two
+hundred more during the next four and twenty hours. I was to have a
+free hand in conducting my own share of the business, and M. Charles
+Saurez was to call for the document at my lodgings at Passy on the
+following morning at nine o’clock.
+
+2.
+
+I flatter myself that I conducted the business with remarkable skill.
+At precisely ten minutes to eleven I rang at the Chancellerie of the
+Ministry for Foreign Affairs. I was dressed as a respectable
+commissionnaire, and I carried a letter and a small parcel addressed to
+M. de Marsan. “First floor,” said the concierge curtly, as soon as he
+had glanced at the superscription on the letter. “Door faces top of the
+service stairs.”
+
+I mounted and took my stand some ten steps below the landing, keeping
+the door of M. de Marsan’s room well in sight. Just as the bells of
+Notre Dame boomed the hour I heard what sounded like a furious
+altercation somewhere in the corridor just above me. There was much
+shouting, then one or two cries of “Murder!” followed by others of
+“What is it?” and “What in the name of ——— is all this infernal row
+about?” Doors were opened and banged, there was a general running and
+rushing along that corridor, and the next minute the door in front of
+me was opened also, and a young man came out, pen in hand, and shouting
+just like everybody else:
+
+“What the ——— is all this infernal row about?”
+
+“Murder, help!” came from the distant end of the corridor, and M. de
+Marsan—undoubtedly it was he—did what any other young man under the
+like circumstances would have done: he ran to see what was happening
+and to lend a hand in it, if need be. I saw his slim figure
+disappearing down the corridor at the very moment that I slipped into
+his room. One glance upon the desk sufficed: there lay the large
+official-looking document, with the royal signature affixed thereto,
+and close beside it the copy which M. de Marsan had only half
+finished—the ink on it was still wet. Hesitation, Sir, would have been
+fatal. I did not hesitate; not one instant. Three seconds had scarcely
+elapsed before I picked up the document, together with M. de Marsan’s
+half-finished copy of the same, and a few loose sheets of Chancellerie
+paper which I thought might be useful. Then I slipped the lot inside my
+blouse. The bogus letter and parcel I left behind me, and within two
+minutes of my entry into the room I was descending the service
+staircase quite unconcernedly, and had gone past the concierge’s lodge
+without being challenged. How thankful I was to breathe once more the
+pure air of heaven. I had spent an exceedingly agitated five minutes,
+and even now my anxiety was not altogether at rest. I dared not walk
+too fast lest I attracted attention, and yet I wanted to put the river,
+the Pont Neuf, and a half dozen streets between me and the Chancellerie
+of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. No one who has not gone through
+such an exciting adventure as I have just recorded can conceive what
+were my feelings of relief and of satisfaction when I at last found
+myself quietly mounting the stairs which led to my office on the top
+floor of No. 96 Rue Daunou.
+
+3.
+
+Now, I had not said anything to Theodore about this affair. It was
+certainly arranged between us when he entered my service as
+confidential clerk and doorkeeper that in lieu of wages, which I could
+not afford to pay him, he would share my meals with me and have a bed
+at my expense in the same house at Passy where I lodged; moreover, I
+would always give him a fair percentage on the profits which I derived
+from my business. The arrangement suited him very well. I told you that
+I picked him out of the gutter, and I heard subsequently that he had
+gone through many an unpleasant skirmish with the police in his day,
+and if I did not employ him no one else would.
+
+After all, he did earn a more or less honest living by serving me. But
+in this instance, since I had not even asked for his assistance, I felt
+that, considering the risks of New Caledonia and a convict ship which I
+had taken, a paltry four hundred francs could not by any stretch of the
+imagination rank as a “profit” in a business—and Theodore was not
+really entitled to a percentage, was he?
+
+So when I returned I crossed the ante-chamber and walked past him with
+my accustomed dignity; nor did he offer any comment on my get-up. I
+often affected a disguise in those days, even when I was not engaged in
+business, and the dress and get-up of a respectable commissionnaire was
+a favourite one with me. As soon as I had changed I sent him out to
+make purchases for our luncheon—five sous’ worth of stale bread, and
+ten sous’ worth of liver sausage, of which he was inordinately fond. He
+would take the opportunity on the way of getting moderately drunk on as
+many glasses of absinthe as he could afford. I saw him go out of the
+outer door, and then I set to work to examine the precious document.
+
+Well, one glance was sufficient for me to realize its incalculable
+value! Nothing more or less than a Treaty of Alliance between King
+Louis XVIII of France and the King of Prussia in connexion with certain
+schemes of naval construction. I did not understand the whole
+diplomatic verbiage, but it was pretty clear to my unsophisticated mind
+that this treaty had been entered into in secret by the two monarchs,
+and that it was intended to prejudice the interests both of Denmark and
+of Russia in the Baltic Sea.
+
+I also realized that both the Governments of Denmark and Russia would
+no doubt pay a very considerable sum for the merest glance at this
+document, and that my client of this morning was certainly a secret
+service agent—otherwise a spy—of one of those two countries, who did
+not choose to take the very severe risks which I had taken this
+morning, but who would, on the other hand, reap the full reward of the
+daring coup, whilst I was to be content with four hundred francs!
+
+Now, I am a man of deliberation as well as of action, and at this
+juncture—feeling that Theodore was still safely out of the way—I
+thought the whole matter over quietly, and then took what precautions I
+thought fit for the furthering of my own interests.
+
+To begin with, I set to work to make a copy of the treaty on my own
+account. I have brought the study of calligraphy to a magnificent
+degree of perfection, and the writing on the document was easy enough
+to imitate, as was also the signature of our gracious King Louis and of
+M. de Talleyrand, who had countersigned it.
+
+If you remember, I had picked up two or three loose sheets of paper off
+M. de Marsan’s desk; these bore the arms of the Chancellerie of Foreign
+Affairs stamped upon them, and were in every way identical with that on
+which the original document had been drafted. When I had finished my
+work I flattered myself that not the greatest calligraphic expert could
+have detected the slightest difference between the original and the
+copy which I had made.
+
+The work took me a long time. When at last I folded up the papers and
+slipped them once more inside my blouse it was close upon two. I
+wondered why Theodore had not returned with our luncheon, but on going
+to the little anteroom which divides my office from the outer door,
+great was my astonishment to see him lolling there on the rickety chair
+which he affectioned, and half asleep. I had some difficulty in rousing
+him. Apparently he had got rather drunk while he was out, and had then
+returned and slept some of his booze off, without thinking that I might
+be hungry and needing my luncheon.
+
+“Why didn’t you let me know you had come back?” I asked curtly, for
+indeed I was very cross with him.
+
+“I thought you were busy,” he replied, with what I thought looked like
+a leer.
+
+I have never really cared for Theodore, you understand.
+
+However, I partook of our modest luncheon with him in perfect amity and
+brotherly love, but my mind was busy all the time. I began to wonder if
+Theodore suspected something; if so, I knew that I could not trust him.
+He would try and ferret things out, and then demand a share in my
+hard-earned emoluments to which he was really not entitled. I did not
+feel safe with that bulky packet of papers on me, and I felt that
+Theodore’s bleary eyes were perpetually fixed upon the bulge in the
+left-hand side of my coat. At one moment he looked so strange that I
+thought he meant to knock me down.
+
+So my mind was quickly made up.
+
+After luncheon I would go down to my lodgings at Passy, and I knew of a
+snug little hiding-place in my room there where the precious documents
+would be quite safe until such time as I was to hand them—or one of
+them—to M. Charles Saurez.
+
+This plan I put into execution, and with remarkable ingenuity too.
+
+While Theodore was busy clearing up the debris of our luncheon, I not
+only gave him the slip, but as I went out I took the precaution of
+locking the outer door after me, and taking the key away in my pocket.
+I thus made sure that Theodore could not follow me. I then walked to
+Passy—a matter of two kilometres—and by four o’clock I had the
+satisfaction of stowing the papers safely away under one of the tiles
+in the flooring of my room, and then pulling the strip of carpet in
+front of my bed snugly over the hiding-place.
+
+Theodore’s attic, where he slept, was at the top of the house, whilst
+my room was on the ground floor, and so I felt that I could now go back
+quite comfortably to my office in the hope that more remunerative work
+and more lavish clients would come my way before nightfall.
+
+4.
+
+It was a little after five o’clock when I once more turned the key in
+the outer door of my rooms in the Rue Daunou.
+
+Theodore did not seem in the least to resent having been locked in for
+two hours. I think he must have been asleep most of the time. Certainly
+I heard a good deal of shuffling when first I reached the landing
+outside the door; but when I actually walked into the apartment with an
+air of quiet unconcern Theodore was sprawling on the chair-bedstead,
+with eyes closed, a nose the colour of beetroot, and emitting sounds
+through his thin, cracked lips which I could not, Sir, describe
+graphically in your presence.
+
+I took no notice of him, however, even though, as I walked past him, I
+saw that he opened one bleary eye and watched my every movement. I went
+straight into my private room and shut the door after me. And here, I
+assure you, my dear Sir, I literally fell into my favourite chair,
+overcome with emotion and excitement. Think what I had gone through!
+The events of the last few hours would have turned any brain less keen,
+less daring than that of Hector Ratichon. And here was I, alone at
+last, face to face with the future. What a future, my dear Sir! Fate
+was smiling on me at last. At last I was destined to reap a rich reward
+for all the skill, the energy, the devotion, which up to this hour I
+had placed at the service of my country and my King—or my Emperor, as
+the case might be—without thought of my own advantage. Here was I now
+in possession of a document—two documents—each one of which was worth
+at least a thousand francs to persons whom I could easily approach. One
+thousand francs! Was I dreaming? Five thousand would certainly be paid
+by the Government whose agent M. Charles Saurez admittedly was for one
+glance at that secret treaty which would be so prejudicial to their
+political interests; whilst M. de Marsan himself would gladly pay
+another five thousand for the satisfaction of placing the precious
+document intact before his powerful and irascible uncle.
+
+Ten thousand francs! How few were possessed of such a sum in these
+days! How much could be done with it! I would not give up business
+altogether, of course, but with my new capital I would extend it and,
+there was a certain little house, close to Chantilly, a house with a
+few acres of kitchen garden and some fruit trees, the possession of
+which would render me happier than any king. . . . I would marry! Oh,
+yes! I would certainly marry—found a family. I was still young, my dear
+Sir, and passably good looking. In fact there was a certain young
+widow, comely and amiable, who lived not far from Passy, who had on
+more than one occasion given me to understand that I was more than
+passably good looking. I had always been susceptible where the fair sex
+was concerned, and now . . . oh, now! I could pick and choose! The
+comely widow had a small fortune of her own, and there were others! . .
+.
+
+Thus I dreamed on for the better part of an hour, until, soon after six
+o’clock, there was a knock at the outer door and I heard Theodore’s
+shuffling footsteps crossing the small anteroom. There was some
+muttered conversation, and presently my door was opened and Theodore’s
+ugly face was thrust into the room.
+
+“A lady to see you,” he said curtly.
+
+Then, he dropped his voice, smacked his lips, and winked with one eye.
+“Very pretty,” he whispered, “but has a young man with her whom she
+calls Arthur. Shall I send them in?”
+
+I then and there made up my mind that I would get rid of Theodore now
+that I could afford to get a proper servant. My business would in
+future be greatly extended; it would become very important, and I was
+beginning to detest Theodore. But I said “Show the lady in!” with
+becoming dignity, and a few moments later a beautiful woman entered my
+room.
+
+I was vaguely conscious that a creature of my own sex walked in behind
+her, but of him I took no notice. I rose to greet the lady and invited
+her to sit down, but I had the annoyance of seeing the personage whom
+deliberately she called “Arthur” coming familiarly forward and leaning
+over the back of her chair.
+
+I hated him. He was short and stout and florid, with an
+impertinent-looking moustache, and hair that was very smooth and oily
+save for two tight curls, which looked like the horns of a young goat,
+on each side of the centre parting. I hated him cordially, and had to
+control my feelings not to show him the contempt which I felt for his
+fatuousness and his air of self-complacency. Fortunately the beautiful
+being was the first to address me, and thus I was able to ignore the
+very presence of the detestable man.
+
+“You are M. Ratichon, I believe,” she said in a voice that was dulcet
+and adorably tremulous, like the voice of some sweet, shy young thing
+in the presence of genius and power.
+
+“Hector Ratichon,” I replied calmly. “Entirely at your service,
+Mademoiselle.” Then I added, with gentle, encouraging kindliness,
+“Mademoiselle...?”
+
+“My name is Geoffroy,” she replied, “Madeleine Geoffroy.”
+
+She raised her eyes—such eyes, my dear Sir!—of a tender, luscious grey,
+fringed with lashes and dewy with tears. I met her glance. Something in
+my own eyes must have spoken with mute eloquence of my distress, for
+she went on quickly and with a sweet smile. “And this,” she said,
+pointing to her companion, “is my brother, Arthur Geoffroy.”
+
+An exclamation of joyful surprise broke from my lips, and I beamed and
+smiled on M. Arthur, begged him to be seated, which he refused, and
+finally I myself sat down behind my desk. I now looked with unmixed
+benevolence on both my clients, and then perceived that the lady’s
+exquisite face bore unmistakable signs of recent sorrow.
+
+“And now, Mademoiselle,” I said, as soon as I had taken up a position
+indicative of attention and of encouragement, “will you deign to tell
+me how I can have the honour to serve you?”
+
+“Monsieur,” she began in a voice that trembled with emotion, “I have
+come to you in the midst of the greatest distress that any human being
+has ever been called upon to bear. It was by the merest accident that I
+heard of you. I have been to the police; they cannot—will not—act
+without I furnish them with certain information which it is not in my
+power to give them. Then when I was half distraught with despair, a
+kindly agent there spoke to me of you. He said that you were attached
+to the police as a voluntary agent, and that they sometimes put work in
+your way which did not happen to be within their own scope. He also
+said that sometimes you were successful.”
+
+“Nearly always, Mademoiselle,” I broke in firmly and with much dignity.
+“Once more I beg of you to tell me in what way I may have the honour to
+serve you.”
+
+“It is not for herself, Monsieur,” here interposed M. Arthur, whilst a
+blush suffused Mlle. Geoffroy’s lovely face, “that my sister desires to
+consult you, but for her fiancé M. de Marsan, who is very ill indeed,
+hovering, in fact, between life and death. He could not come in person.
+The matter is one that demands the most profound secrecy.”
+
+“You may rely on my discretion, Monsieur,” I murmured, without showing,
+I flatter myself, the slightest trace of that astonishment which, at
+mention of M. de Marsan’s name, had nearly rendered me speechless.
+
+“M. de Marsan came to see me in utmost distress, Monsieur,” resumed the
+lovely creature. “He had no one in whom he could—or rather
+dared—confide. He is in the Chancellerie for Foreign Affairs. His uncle
+M. de Talleyrand thinks a great deal of him and often entrusts him with
+very delicate work. This morning he gave M. de Marsan a valuable paper
+to copy—a paper, Monsieur, the importance of which it were impossible
+to overestimate. The very safety of this country, the honour of our
+King, are involved in it. I cannot tell you its exact contents, and it
+is because I would not tell more about it to the police that they would
+not help me in any way, and referred me to you. How could they, said
+the chief Commissary to me, run after a document the contents of which
+they did not even know? But you will be satisfied with what I have told
+you, will you not, my dear M. Ratichon?” she continued, with a pathetic
+quiver in her voice and a look of appeal in her eyes which St. Anthony
+himself could not have resisted, “and help me to regain possession of
+that paper, the final loss of which would cost M. de Marsan his life.”
+
+To say that my feeling of elation of a while ago had turned to one of
+supreme beatitude would be to put it very mildly indeed. To think that
+here was this lovely being in tears before me, and that it lay in my
+power to dry those tears with a word and to bring a smile round those
+perfect lips, literally made my mouth water in anticipation—for I am
+sure that you will have guessed, just as I did in a moment, that the
+valuable document of which this adorable being was speaking, was snugly
+hidden away under the flooring of my room in Passy. I hated that
+unknown de Marsan. I hated this Arthur who leaned so familiarly over
+her chair, but I had the power to render her a service beside which
+their lesser claims on her regard would pale.
+
+However, I am not the man to act on impulse, even at a moment like
+this. I wanted to think the whole matter over first, and . . . well . .
+. I had made up my mind to demand five thousand francs when I handed
+the document over to my first client to-morrow morning. At any rate,
+for the moment I acted—if I may say so—with great circumspection and
+dignity.
+
+“I must presume, Mademoiselle,” I said in my most business-like manner,
+“that the document you speak of has been stolen.”
+
+“Stolen, Monsieur,” she assented whilst the tears once more gathered in
+her eyes, “and M. de Marsan now lies at death’s door with a terrible
+attack of brain fever, brought on by shock when he discovered the
+loss.”
+
+“How and when was it stolen?” I asked.
+
+“Some time during the morning,” she replied. “M. de Talleyrand gave the
+document to M. de Marsan at nine o’clock, telling him that he wanted
+the copy by midday. M. de Marsan set to work at once, laboured
+uninterruptedly until about eleven o’clock, when a loud altercation,
+followed by cries of ‘Murder!’ and of ‘Help!’ and proceeding from the
+corridor outside his door, caused him to run out of the room in order
+to see what was happening. The altercation turned out to be between two
+men who had pushed their way into the building by the main staircase,
+and who became very abusive to the gendarme who ordered them out. The
+men were not hurt; nevertheless they screamed as if they were being
+murdered. They took to their heels quickly enough, and I don’t know
+what has become of them, but . . .”
+
+“But,” I concluded blandly, “whilst M. de Marsan was out of the room
+the precious document was stolen.”
+
+“It was, Monsieur,” exclaimed Mlle. Geoffroy piteously. “You will find
+it for us . . . will you not?”
+
+Then she added more calmly: “My brother and I are offering ten thousand
+francs reward for the recovery of the document.”
+
+I did not fall off my chair, but I closed my eyes. The vision which the
+lovely lady’s words had conjured up dazzled me.
+
+“Mademoiselle,” I said with solemn dignity, “I pledge you my word of
+honour that I will find the document for you and lay it at your feet or
+die in your service. Give me twenty hours, during which I will move
+heaven and earth to discover the thief. I will go at once to the
+Chancellerie and collect what evidence I can. I have worked under M. de
+Robespierre, Mademoiselle, under the great Napoléon, and under the
+illustrious Fouché! I have never been known to fail, once I have set my
+mind upon a task.”
+
+“In that case you will earn your ten thousand francs, my friend,” said
+the odious Arthur drily, “and my sister and M. de Marsan will still be
+your debtors. Are there any questions you would like to ask before we
+go?”
+
+“None,” I said loftily, choosing to ignore his sneering manner. “If
+Mademoiselle deigns to present herself here to-morrow at two o’clock I
+will have news to communicate to her.”
+
+You will admit that I carried off the situation in a becoming manner.
+Both Mademoiselle and Arthur Geoffroy gave me a few more details in
+connexion with the affair. To these details I listened with well
+simulated interest. Of course, they did not know that there were no
+details in connexion with this affair that I did not know already. My
+heart was actually dancing within my bosom. The future was so
+entrancing that the present appeared like a dream; the lovely being
+before me seemed like an angel, an emissary from above come to tell me
+of the happiness which was in store for me. The house near
+Chantilly—the little widow—the kitchen garden—the magic words went on
+hammering in my brain. I longed now to be rid of my visitors, to be
+alone once more, so as to think out the epilogue of this glorious
+adventure. Ten thousand francs was the reward offered me by this
+adorable creature! Well, then, why should not M. Charles Saurez, on his
+side, pay me another ten thousand for the same document, which was
+absolutely undistinguishable from the first?
+
+Ten thousand, instead of two hundred which he had the audacity to offer
+me!
+
+Seven o’clock had struck before I finally bowed my clients out of the
+room. Theodore had gone. The lazy lout would never stay as much as five
+minutes after his appointed time, so I had to show the adorable
+creature and her fat brother out of the premises myself. But I did not
+mind that. I flatter myself that I can always carry off an awkward
+situation in a dignified manner. A brief allusion to the inefficiency
+of present-day servants, a jocose comment on my own simplicity of
+habits, and the deed was done. M. Arthur Geoffroy and Mademoiselle
+Madeleine his sister were half-way down the stairs. A quarter of an
+hour later I was once more out in the streets of Paris. It was a
+beautiful, balmy night. I had two hundred francs in my pocket and there
+was a magnificent prospect of twenty thousand francs before me! I could
+afford some slight extravagance. I had dinner at one of the fashionable
+restaurants on the quay, and I remained some time out on the terrace
+sipping my coffee and liqueur, dreaming dreams such as I had never
+dreamed before. At ten o’clock I was once more on my way to Passy.
+
+5.
+
+When I turned the corner of the street and came is sight of the squalid
+house where I lodged, I felt like a being from another world. Twenty
+thousand francs—a fortune!—was waiting for me inside those dingy walls.
+Yes, twenty thousand, for by now I had fully made up my mind. I had two
+documents concealed beneath the floor of my bedroom—one so like the
+other that none could tell them apart. One of these I would restore to
+the lovely being who had offered me ten thousand francs for it, and the
+other I would sell to my first and uncouth client for another ten
+thousand francs!
+
+Four hundred! Bah! Ten thousand shall you pay for the treaty, my friend
+of the Danish or Russian Secret Service! Ten thousand!—it is worth that
+to you!
+
+In that happy frame of mind I reached the front door of my dingy abode.
+Imagine my surprise on being confronted with two agents of police, each
+with fixed bayonet, who refused to let me pass.
+
+“But I lodge here,” I said.
+
+“Your name?” queried one of the men. “Hector Ratichon,” I replied.
+Whereupon they gave me leave to enter.
+
+It was very mysterious. My heart beat furiously. Fear for the safety of
+my precious papers held me in a death-like grip. I ran straight to my
+room, locked the door after me, and pulled the curtains together in
+front of the window. Then, with hands that trembled as if with ague, I
+pulled aside the strip of carpet which concealed the hiding-place of
+what meant a fortune to me.
+
+I nearly fainted with joy; the papers were there—quite safely. I took
+them out and replaced them inside my coat.
+
+Then I ran up to see if Theodore was in. I found him in bed. He told me
+that he had left the office whilst my visitors were still with me, as
+he felt terribly sick. He had been greatly upset when, about an hour
+ago, the maid-of-all-work had informed him that the police were in the
+house, that they would allow no one—except the persons lodging in the
+house—to enter it, and no one, once in, would be allowed to leave. How
+long these orders would hold good Theodore did not know.
+
+I left him moaning and groaning and declaring that he felt very ill,
+and I went in quest of information. The corporal in command of the
+gendarmes was exceedingly curt with me at first, but after a time he
+unbent and condescended to tell me that my landlord had been denounced
+for permitting a Bonapartiste club to hold its sittings in his house.
+So far so good. Such denunciations were very frequent these days, and
+often ended unpleasantly for those concerned, but the affair had
+obviously nothing to do with me. I felt that I could breathe again. But
+there was still the matter of the consigne. If no one, save the persons
+who lodged in the house, would be allowed to enter it, how would M.
+Charles Saurez contrive to call for the stolen document and,
+incidentally, to hand me over the ten thousand francs I was hoping for?
+And if no one, once inside the house, would be allowed to leave it, how
+could I meet Mlle. Geoffroy to-morrow at two o’clock in my office and
+receive ten thousand francs from her in exchange for the precious
+paper?
+
+Moreover the longer the police stayed in this house and poked their
+noses about in affairs that concerned hardworking citizens like
+myself—why—the greater the risk would be of the matter of the stolen
+document coming to light.
+
+It was positively maddening.
+
+I never undressed that night, but just lay down on my bed, thinking.
+The house was very still at times, but at others I could hear the tramp
+of the police agents up and down the stairs and also outside my window.
+The latter gave on a small, dilapidated back garden which had a wooden
+fence at the end of it. Beyond it were some market gardens belonging to
+a M. Lorraine. It did not take me very long to realize that that way
+lay my fortune of twenty thousand francs. But for the moment I remained
+very still. My plan was already made. At about midnight I went to the
+window and opened it cautiously. I had heard no noise from that
+direction for some time, and I bent my ear to listen.
+
+Not a sound! Either the sentry was asleep, or he had gone on his round,
+and for a few moments the way was free. Without a moment’s hesitation I
+swung my leg over the sill.
+
+Still no sound. My heart beat so fast that I could almost hear it. The
+night was very dark. A thin mist-like drizzle was falling; in fact the
+weather conditions were absolutely perfect for my purpose. With utmost
+wariness I allowed myself to drop from the window-ledge on to the soft
+ground below.
+
+If I was caught by the sentry I had my answer ready: I was going to
+meet my sweetheart at the end of the garden. It is an excuse which
+always meets with the sympathy of every true-hearted Frenchman. The
+sentry would, of course, order me back to my room, but I doubt if he
+would ill-use me; the denunciation was against the landlord, not
+against me.
+
+Still not a sound. I could have danced with joy. Five minutes more and
+I would be across the garden and over that wooden fence, and once more
+on my way to fortune. My fall from the window had been light, as my
+room was on the ground floor; but I had fallen on my knees, and now, as
+I picked myself up, I looked up, and it seemed to me as if I saw
+Theodore’s ugly face at his attic window. Certainly there was a light
+there, and I may have been mistaken as to Theodore’s face being
+visible. The very next second the light was extinguished and I was left
+in doubt.
+
+But I did not pause to think. In a moment I was across the garden, my
+hands gripped the top of the wooden fence, I hoisted myself up—with
+some difficulty, I confess—but at last I succeeded. I threw my leg over
+and gently dropped down on the other side.
+
+Then suddenly two rough arms encircled my waist, and before I could
+attempt to free myself a cloth was thrown over my head, and I was
+lifted up and carried away, half suffocated and like an insentient
+bundle.
+
+When the cloth was removed from my face I was half sitting, half lying,
+in an arm-chair in a strange room which was lighted by an oil lamp that
+hung from the ceiling above. In front of me stood M. Arthur Geoffroy
+and that beast Theodore.
+
+M. Arthur Geoffroy was coolly folding up the two valuable papers for
+the possession of which I had risked a convict ship and New Caledonia,
+and which would have meant affluence for me for many days to come.
+
+It was Theodore who had removed the cloth from my face. As soon as I
+had recovered my breath I made a rush for him, for I wanted to strangle
+him. But M. Arthur Geoffroy was too quick and too strong for me. He
+pushed me back into the chair.
+
+“Easy, easy, M. Ratichon,” he said pleasantly; “do not vent your wrath
+upon this good fellow. Believe me, though his actions may have deprived
+you of a few thousand francs, they have also saved you from lasting and
+biting remorse. This document, which you stole from M. de Marsan and so
+ingeniously duplicated, involved the honour of our King and our
+country, as well as the life of an innocent man. My sister’s fiancé
+would never have survived the loss of the document which had been
+entrusted to his honour.”
+
+“I would have returned it to Mademoiselle to-morrow,” I murmured.
+
+“Only one copy of it, I think,” he retorted; “the other you would have
+sold to whichever spy of the Danish or Russian Governments happened to
+have employed you in this discreditable business.”
+
+“How did you know?” I said involuntarily.
+
+“Through a very simple process of reasoning, my good M. Ratichon,” he
+replied blandly. “You are a very clever man, no doubt, but the
+cleverest of us is at times apt to make a mistake. You made two, and I
+profited by them. Firstly, after my sister and I left you this
+afternoon, you never made the slightest pretence of making inquiries or
+collecting information about the mysterious theft of the document. I
+kept an eye on you throughout the evening. You left your office and
+strolled for a while on the quays; you had an excellent dinner at the
+Restaurant des Anglais; then you settled down to your coffee and
+liqueur. Well, my good M. Ratichon, obviously you would have been more
+active in the matter if you had not known exactly where and when and
+how to lay your hands upon the document, for the recovery of which my
+sister had offered you ten thousand francs.”
+
+I groaned. I had not been quite so circumspect as I ought to have been,
+but who would have thought—
+
+“I have had something to do with police work in my day,” continued M.
+Geoffroy blandly, “though not of late years; but my knowledge of their
+methods is not altogether rusty and my powers of observation are not
+yet dulled. During my sister’s visit to you this afternoon I noticed
+the blouse and cap of a commissionnaire lying in a bundle in a corner
+of your room. Now, though M. de Marsan has been in a burning fever
+since he discovered his loss, he kept just sufficient presence of mind
+at the moment to say nothing about that loss to any of the Chancellerie
+officials, but to go straight home to his apartments in the Rue Royale
+and to send for my sister and for me. When we came to him he was
+already partly delirious, but he pointed to a parcel and a letter which
+he had brought away from his office. The parcel proved to be an empty
+box and the letter a blank sheet of paper; but the most casual inquiry
+of the concierge at the Chancellerie elicited the fact that a
+commissionaire had brought these things in the course of the morning.
+That was your second mistake, my good M. Ratichon; not a very grave
+one, perhaps, but I have been in the police, and somehow, the moment I
+caught sight of that blouse and cap in your office, I could not help
+connecting it with the commissionnaire who had brought a bogus parcel
+and letter to my future brother-in-law a few minutes before that
+mysterious and unexplained altercation took place in the corridor.”
+
+Again I groaned. I felt as a child in the hands of that horrid creature
+who seemed to be dissecting all the thoughts which had run riot through
+my mind these past twenty hours.
+
+“It was all very simple, my good M. Ratichon,” now concluded my
+tormentor still quite amiably. “Another time you will have to be more
+careful, will you not? You will also have to bestow more confidence
+upon your partner or servant. Directly I had seen that
+commissionnaire’s blouse and cap, I set to work to make friends with M.
+Theodore. When my sister and I left your office in the Rue Daunou, we
+found him waiting for us at the bottom of the stairs. Five francs
+loosened his tongue: he suspected that you were up to some game in
+which you did not mean him to have a share; he also told us that you
+had spent two hours in laborious writing, and that you and he both
+lodged at a dilapidated little inn, called the ‘Grey Cat,’ in Passy. I
+think he was rather disappointed that we did not shower more questions,
+and therefore more emoluments, upon him. Well, after I had denounced
+this house to the police as a Bonapartiste club, and saw it put under
+the usual consigne, I bribed the corporal of the gendarmerie in charge
+of it to let me have Theodore’s company for the little job I had in
+hand, and also to clear the back garden of sentries so as to give you a
+chance and the desire to escape. All the rest you know. Money will do
+many things, my good M. Ratichon, and you see how simple it all was. It
+would have been still more simple if the stolen document had not been
+such an important one that the very existence of it must be kept a
+secret even from the police. So I could not have you shadowed and
+arrested as a thief in the usual manner! However, I have the document
+and its ingenious copy, which is all that matters. Would to God,” he
+added with a suppressed curse, “that I could get hold equally easily of
+the Secret Service agent to whom you, a Frenchman, were going to sell
+the honour of your country!”
+
+Then it was that—though broken in spirit and burning with thoughts of
+the punishment I would mete out to Theodore—my full faculties returned
+to me, and I queried abruptly:
+
+“What would you give to get him?”
+
+“Five hundred francs,” he replied without hesitation. “Can you find
+him?”
+
+“Make it a thousand,” I retorted, “and you shall have him.”
+
+“How?”
+
+“Will you give me five hundred francs now,” I insisted, “and another
+five hundred when you have the man, and I will tell you?”
+
+“Agreed,” he said impatiently.
+
+But I was not to be played with by him again. I waited in silence until
+he had taken a pocket-book from the inside of his coat and counted out
+five hundred francs, which he kept in his hand.
+
+“Now—” he commanded.
+
+“The man,” I then announced calmly, “will call on me for the document
+at my lodgings at the hostelry of the ‘Grey Cat’ to-morrow morning at
+nine o’clock.”
+
+“Good,” rejoined M. Geoffroy. “We shall be there.”
+
+He made no demur about giving me the five hundred francs, but half my
+pleasure in receiving them vanished when I saw Theodore’s bleary eyes
+fixed ravenously upon them.
+
+“Another five hundred francs,” M. Geoffroy went on quietly, “will be
+yours as soon as the spy is in our hands.”
+
+I did get that further five hundred of course, for M. Charles Saurez
+was punctual to the minute, and M. Geoffroy was there with the police
+to apprehend him. But to think that I might have had twenty thousand—!
+
+And I had to give Theodore fifty francs on the transaction, as he
+threatened me with the police when I talked of giving him the sack.
+
+But we were quite good friends again after that until— But you shall
+judge.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II. — A FOOL’S PARADISE
+
+1.
+
+Ah! my dear Sir, I cannot tell you how poor we all were in France in
+that year of grace 1816—so poor, indeed, that a dish of roast pork was
+looked upon as a feast, and a new gown for the wife an unheard-of
+luxury.
+
+The war had ruined everyone. Twenty-two years! and hopeless humiliation
+and defeat at the end of it. The Emperor handed over to the English; a
+Bourbon sitting on the throne of France; crowds of foreign soldiers
+still lording it all over the country—until the country had paid its
+debts to her foreign invaders, and thousands of our own men still
+straggling home through Germany and Belgium—the remnants of Napoléon’s
+Grand Army—ex-prisoners of war, or scattered units who had found their
+weary way home at last, shoeless, coatless, half starved and perished
+from cold and privations, unfit for housework, for agriculture, or for
+industry, fit only to follow their fallen hero, as they had done
+through a quarter of a century, to victory and to death.
+
+With me, Sir, business in Paris was almost at a standstill. I, who had
+been the confidential agent of two kings, three democrats and one
+emperor; I, who had held diplomatic threads in my hands which had
+caused thrones to totter and tyrants to quake, and who had brought more
+criminals and intriguers to book than any other man alive—I now sat in
+my office in the Rue Daunou day after day with never a client to darken
+my doors, even whilst crime and political intrigue were more rife in
+Paris than they had been in the most corrupt days of the Revolution and
+the Consulate.
+
+I told you, I think, that I had forgiven Theodore his abominable
+treachery in connexion with the secret naval treaty, and we were the
+best of friends—that is, outwardly, of course. Within my inmost heart I
+felt, Sir, that I could never again trust that shameless traitor—that I
+had in very truth nurtured a serpent in my bosom. But I am proverbially
+tender-hearted. You will believe me or not, I simply could not turn
+that vermin out into the street. He deserved it! Oh, even he would have
+admitted when he was quite sober, which was not often, that I had every
+right to give him the sack, to send him back to the gutter whence he
+had come, there to grub once more for scraps of filth and to stretch a
+half-frozen hand to the charity of the passers by.
+
+But I did not do it, Sir. No, I did not do it. I kept him on at the
+office as my confidential servant; I gave him all the crumbs that fell
+from mine own table, and he helped himself to the rest. I made as
+little difference as I could in my intercourse with him. I continued to
+treat him almost as an equal. The only difference I did make in our
+mode of life was that I no longer gave him bed and board at the
+hostelry where I lodged in Passy, but placed the chair-bedstead in the
+anteroom of the office permanently at his disposal, and allowed him
+five sous a day for his breakfast.
+
+But owing to the scarcity of business that now came my way, Theodore
+had little or nothing to do, and he was in very truth eating his head
+off, and with that, grumble, grumble all the time, threatening to leave
+me, if you please, to leave my service for more remunerative
+occupation. As if anyone else would dream of employing such an
+out-at-elbows mudlark—a jail-bird, Sir, if you’ll believe me.
+
+Thus the Spring of 1816 came along. Spring, Sir, with its beauty and
+its promises, and the thoughts of love which come eternally in the
+minds of those who have not yet wholly done with youth. Love, Sir! I
+dreamed of it on those long, weary afternoons in April, after I had
+consumed my scanty repast, and whilst Theodore in the anteroom was
+snoring like a hog. At even, when tired out and thirsty, I would sit
+for a while outside a humble café on the outer boulevards, I watched
+the amorous couples wander past me on their way to happiness. At night
+I could not sleep, and bitter were my thoughts, my revilings against a
+cruel fate that had condemned me—a man with so sensitive a heart and so
+generous a nature—to the sorrows of perpetual solitude.
+
+That, Sir, was my mood, when on a never-to-be-forgotten afternoon
+toward the end of April, I sat mooning disconsolately in my private
+room and a timid rat-tat at the outer door of the apartment roused
+Theodore from his brutish slumbers. I heard him shuffling up to the
+door, and I hurriedly put my necktie straight and smoothed my hair,
+which had become disordered despite the fact that I had only indulged
+in a very abstemious déjeuner.
+
+When I said that the knock at my door was in the nature of a timid
+rat-rat I did not perhaps describe it quite accurately. It was timid,
+if you will understand me, and yet bold, as coming from one who might
+hesitate to enter and nevertheless feels assured of welcome. Obviously
+a client, I thought.
+
+Effectively, Sir, the next moment my eyes were gladdened by the sight
+of a lovely woman, beautifully dressed, young, charming, smiling but to
+hide her anxiety, trustful, and certainly wealthy.
+
+The moment she stepped into the room I knew that she was wealthy; there
+was an air of assurance about her which only those are able to assume
+who are not pestered with creditors. She wore two beautiful diamond
+rings upon her hands outside her perfectly fitting glove, and her
+bonnet was adorned with flowers so exquisitely fashioned that a
+butterfly would have been deceived and would have perched on it with
+delight.
+
+Her shoes were of the finest kid, shiny at the toes like tiny mirrors,
+whilst her dainty ankles were framed in the filmy lace frills of her
+pantalets.
+
+Within the wide brim of her bonnet her exquisite face appeared like a
+rosebud nestling in a basket. She smiled when I rose to greet her, gave
+me a look that sent my susceptible heart a-flutter and caused me to
+wish that I had not taken that bottle-green coat of mine to the Mont de
+Piété only last week. I offered her a seat, which she took, arranging
+her skirts about her with inimitable grace.
+
+“One moment,” I added, as soon as she was seated, “and I am entirely at
+your service.”
+
+I took up pen and paper—an unfinished letter which I always keep handy
+for the purpose—and wrote rapidly. It always looks well for a lawyer or
+an _agent confidentiel_ to keep a client waiting for a moment or two
+while he attends to the enormous pressure of correspondence which, if
+allowed to accumulate for five minutes, would immediately overwhelm
+him. I signed and folded the letter, threw it with a nonchalant air
+into a basket filled to the brim with others of equal importance,
+buried my face in my hands for a few seconds as if to collect my
+thoughts, and finally said:
+
+“And now, Mademoiselle, will you deign to tell me what procures me the
+honour of your visit?”
+
+The lovely creature had watched my movements with obvious impatience, a
+frown upon her exquisite brow. But now she plunged straightway into her
+story.
+
+“Monsieur,” she said with that pretty, determined air which became her
+so well, “my name is Estelle Bachelier. I am an orphan, an heiress, and
+have need of help and advice. I did not know to whom to apply. Until
+three months ago I was poor and had to earn my living by working in a
+milliner’s shop in the Rue St. Honoré. The concierge in the house where
+I used to lodge is my only friend, but she cannot help me for reasons
+which will presently be made clear to you. She told me, however, that
+she had a nephew named Theodore, who was clerk to M. Ratichon, advocate
+and confidential agent. She gave me your address; and as I knew no one
+else I determined to come and consult you.”
+
+I flatter myself, that though my countenance is exceptionally mobile, I
+possess marvellous powers for keeping it impassive when necessity
+arises. In this instance, at mention of Theodore’s name, I showed
+neither surprise nor indignation. Yet you will readily understand that
+I felt both. Here was that man, once more revealed as a traitor.
+Theodore had an aunt of whom he had never as much as breathed a word.
+He had an aunt, and that aunt a concierge—_ipso facto_, if I may so
+express it, a woman of some substance, who, no doubt, would often have
+been only too pleased to extend hospitality to the man who had so
+signally befriended her nephew; a woman, Sir, who was undoubtedly
+possessed of savings which both reason and gratitude would cause her to
+invest in an old-established and substantial business run by a
+trustworthy and capable man, such, for instance, as the bureau of a
+confidential agent in a good quarter of Paris, which, with the help of
+a little capital, could be rendered highly lucrative and beneficial to
+all those, concerned.
+
+I determined then and there to give Theodore a piece of my mind and to
+insist upon an introduction to his aunt. After which I begged the
+beautiful creature to proceed.
+
+“My father, Monsieur,” she continued, “died three months ago, in
+England, whither he had emigrated when I was a mere child, leaving my
+poor mother to struggle along for a livelihood as best she could. My
+mother died last year, Monsieur, and I have had a hard life; and now it
+seems that my father made a fortune in England and left it all to me.”
+
+I was greatly interested in her story.
+
+“The first intimation I had of it, Monsieur, was three months ago, when
+I had a letter from an English lawyer in London telling me that my
+father, Jean Paul Bachelier—that was his name, Monsieur—had died out
+there and made a will leaving all his money, about one hundred thousand
+francs, to me.”
+
+“Yes, yes!” I murmured, for my throat felt parched and my eyes dim.
+
+Hundred thousand francs! Ye gods!
+
+“It seems,” she proceeded demurely, “that my father put it in his will
+that the English lawyers were to pay me the interest on the money until
+I married or reached the age of twenty-one. Then the whole of the money
+was to be handed over to me.”
+
+I had to steady myself against the table or I would have fallen over
+backwards! This godlike creature, to whom the sum of one hundred
+thousand francs was to be paid over when she married, had come to me
+for help and advice! The thought sent my brain reeling! I am so
+imaginative!
+
+“Proceed, Mademoiselle, I pray you,” I contrived to say with dignified
+calm.
+
+“Well, Monsieur, as I don’t know a word of English, I took the letter
+to Mr. Farewell, who is the English traveller for Madame Cécile, the
+milliner for whom I worked. He is a kind, affable gentleman and was
+most helpful to me. He was, as a matter of fact, just going over to
+England the very next day. He offered to go and see the English lawyers
+for me, and to bring me back all particulars of my dear father’s death
+and of my unexpected fortune.”
+
+“And,” said I, for she had paused a moment, “did Mr. Farewell go to
+England on your behalf?”
+
+“Yes, Monsieur. He went and returned about a fortnight later. He had
+seen the English lawyers, who confirmed all the good news which was
+contained in their letter. They took, it seems, a great fancy to Mr.
+Farewell, and told him that since I was obviously too young to live
+alone and needed a guardian to look after my interests, they would
+appoint him my guardian, and suggested that I should make my home with
+him until I was married or had attained the age of twenty-one. Mr.
+Farewell told me that though this arrangement might be somewhat
+inconvenient in his bachelor establishment, he had been unable to
+resist the entreaties of the English lawyers, who felt that no one was
+more fitted for such onerous duties than himself, seeing that he was
+English and so obviously my friend.”
+
+“The scoundrel! The blackguard!” I exclaimed in an unguarded outburst
+of fury. . . .
+
+“Your pardon, Mademoiselle,” I added more calmly, seeing that the
+lovely creature was gazing at me with eyes full of astonishment not
+unmixed with distrust, “I am anticipating. Am I to understand, then,
+that you have made your home with this Mr. Farewell?”
+
+“Yes, Monsieur, at number sixty-five Rue des Pyramides.”
+
+“Is he a married man?” I asked casually.
+
+“He is a widower, Monsieur.”
+
+“Middle-aged?”
+
+“Quite elderly, Monsieur.”
+
+I could have screamed with joy. I was not yet forty myself.
+
+“Why!” she added gaily, “he is thinking of retiring from business—he
+is, as I said, a commercial traveller—in favour of his nephew, M.
+Adrien Cazalès.”
+
+Once more I had to steady myself against the table. The room swam round
+me. One hundred thousand francs!—a lovely creature!—an unscrupulous
+widower!—an equally dangerous young nephew. I rose and tottered to the
+window. I flung it wide open—a thing I never do save at moments of
+acute crises.
+
+The breath of fresh air did me good. I returned to my desk, and was
+able once more to assume my habitual dignity and presence of mind.
+
+“In all this, Mademoiselle,” I said in my best professional manner, “I
+do not gather how I can be of service to you.”
+
+“I am coming to that, Monsieur,” she resumed after a slight moment of
+hesitation, even as an exquisite blush suffused her damask cheeks. “You
+must know that at first I was very happy in the house of my new
+guardian. He was exceedingly kind to me, though there were times
+already when I fancied . . .”
+
+She hesitated—more markedly this time—and the blush became deeper on
+her cheeks. I groaned aloud.
+
+“Surely he is too old,” I suggested.
+
+“Much too old,” she assented emphatically.
+
+Once more I would have screamed with joy had not a sharp pang, like a
+dagger-thrust, shot through my heart.
+
+“But the nephew, eh?” I said as jocosely, as indifferently as I could.
+“Young M. Cazalès? What?”
+
+“Oh!” she replied with perfect indifference. “I hardly ever see him.”
+
+Unfortunately it were not seemly for an avocat and the _agent
+confidentiel_ of half the Courts of Europe to execute the measures of a
+polka in the presence of a client, or I would indeed have jumped up and
+danced with glee. The happy thoughts were hammering away in my mind:
+“The old one is much too old—the young one she never sees!” and I could
+have knelt down and kissed the hem of her gown for the exquisite
+indifference with which she had uttered those magic words: “Oh! I
+hardly ever see him!”—words which converted my brightest hopes into
+glowing possibilities.
+
+But, as it was, I held my emotions marvellously in check, and with
+perfect sang-froid once more asked the beauteous creature how I could
+be of service to her in her need.
+
+“Of late, Monsieur,” she said, as she raised a pair of limpid, candid
+blue eyes to mine, “my position in Mr. Farewell’s house has become
+intolerable. He pursues me with his attentions, and he has become
+insanely jealous. He will not allow me to speak to anyone, and has even
+forbidden M. Cazalès, his own nephew, the house. Not that I care about
+that,” she added with an expressive shrug of the shoulders.
+
+“He has forbidden M. Cazalès the house,” rang like a paean in my ear.
+“Not that she cares about that! Tra la, la, la, la, la!” What I
+actually contrived to say with a measured and judicial air was:
+
+“If you deign to entrust me with the conduct of your affairs, I would
+at once communicate with the English lawyers in your name and suggest
+to them the advisability of appointing another guardian. . . . I would
+suggest, for instance . . . er . . . that I . . .”
+
+“How can you do that, Monsieur?” she broke in somewhat impatiently,
+“seeing that I cannot possibly tell you who these lawyers are?”
+
+“Eh?” I queried, gasping.
+
+“I neither know their names nor their residence in England.”
+
+Once more I gasped. “Will you explain?” I murmured.
+
+“It seems, Monsieur, that while my dear mother lived she always refused
+to take a single sou from my father, who had so basely deserted her. Of
+course, she did not know that he was making a fortune over in England,
+nor that he was making diligent inquiries as to her whereabouts when he
+felt that he was going to die. Thus, he discovered that she had died
+the previous year and that I was working in the atelier of Madame
+Cécile, the well-known milliner. When the English lawyers wrote to me
+at that address they, of course, said that they would require all my
+papers of identification before they paid any money over to me, and so,
+when Mr. Farewell went over to England, he took all my papers with him
+and . . .”
+
+She burst into tears and exclaimed piteously:
+
+“Oh! I have nothing now, Monsieur—nothing to prove who I am! Mr.
+Farewell took everything, even the original letter which the English
+lawyers wrote to me.”
+
+“Farewell,” I urged, “can be forced by the law to give all your papers
+up to you.”
+
+“Oh! I have nothing now, Monsieur—he threatened to destroy all my
+papers unless I promised to become his wife! And I haven’t the least
+idea how and where to find the English lawyers. I don’t remember either
+their name or their address; and if I did, how could I prove my
+identity to their satisfaction? I don’t know a soul in Paris save a few
+irresponsible millinery apprentices and Madame Cécile, who, no doubt,
+is hand in glove with Mr. Farewell. I am all alone in the world and
+friendless. . . . I have come to you, Monsieur, in my distress . . .
+and you will help me, will you not?”
+
+She looked more adorable in grief than she had ever done before.
+
+To tell you that at this moment visions floated in my mind, before
+which Dante’s visions of Paradise would seem pale and tame, were but to
+put it mildly. I was literally soaring in heaven. For you see I am a
+man of intellect and of action. No sooner do I see possibilities before
+me than my brain soars in an empyrean whilst conceiving daring plans
+for my body’s permanent abode in elysium. At this present moment, for
+instance—to name but a few of the beatific visions which literally
+dazzled me with their radiance—I could see my fair client as a lovely
+and blushing bride by my side, even whilst Messieurs X. and X., the two
+still unknown English lawyers, handed me a heavy bag which bore the
+legend “One hundred thousand francs.” I could see . . . But I had not
+the time now to dwell on these ravishing dreams. The beauteous creature
+was waiting for my decision. She had placed her fate in my hands; I
+placed my hand on my heart.
+
+“Mademoiselle,” I said solemnly, “I will be your adviser and your
+friend. Give me but a few days’ grace, every hour, every minute of
+which I will spend in your service. At the end of that time I will not
+only have learned the name and address of the English lawyers, but I
+will have communicated with them on your behalf, and all your papers
+proving your identity will be in your hands. Then we can come to a
+decision with regard to a happier and more comfortable home for you. In
+the meanwhile I entreat you to do nothing that may precipitate Mr.
+Farewell’s actions. Do not encourage his advances, but do not repulse
+them, and above all keep me well informed of everything that goes on in
+his house.”
+
+She spoke a few words of touching gratitude, then she rose, and with a
+gesture of exquisite grace she extracted a hundred-franc note from her
+reticule and placed it upon my desk.
+
+“Mademoiselle,” I protested with splendid dignity, “I have done nothing
+as yet.”
+
+“Ah! but you will, Monsieur,” she entreated in accents that completed
+my subjugation to her charms. “Besides, you do not know me! How could I
+expect you to work for me and not to know if, in the end, I should
+repay you for all your trouble? I pray you to take this small sum
+without demur. Mr. Farewell keeps me well supplied with pocket money.
+There will be another hundred for you when you place the papers in my
+hands.”
+
+I bowed to her, and, having once more assured her of my unswerving
+loyalty to her interests, I accompanied her to the door, and anon saw
+her graceful figure slowly descend the stairs and then disappear along
+the corridor.
+
+Then I went back to my room, and was only just in time to catch
+Theodore calmly pocketing the hundred-franc note which my fair client
+had left on the table. I secured the note and I didn’t give him a black
+eye, for it was no use putting him in a bad temper when there was so
+much to do.
+
+2.
+
+That very same evening I interviewed the concierge at No. 65 Rue des
+Pyramides. From him I learned that Mr. Farewell lived on a very small
+income on the top floor of the house, that his household consisted of a
+housekeeper who cooked and did the work of the apartment for him, and
+an odd-job man who came every morning to clean boots, knives, draw
+water and carry up fuel from below. I also learned that there was a
+good deal of gossip in the house anent the presence in Mr. Farewell’s
+bachelor establishment of a young and beautiful girl, whom he tried to
+keep a virtual prisoner under his eye.
+
+The next morning, dressed in a shabby blouse, alpaca cap, and trousers
+frayed out round the ankles, I—Hector Ratichon, the confidant of
+kings—was lounging under the porte-cochere of No. 65 Rue des Pyramides.
+I was watching the movements of a man, similarly attired to myself, as
+he crossed and recrossed the courtyard to draw water from the well or
+to fetch wood from one of the sheds, and then disappeared up the main
+staircase.
+
+A casual, tactful inquiry of the concierge assured me that that man was
+indeed in the employ of Mr. Farewell.
+
+I waited as patiently and inconspicuously as I could, and at ten
+o’clock I saw that my man had obviously finished his work for the
+morning and had finally come down the stairs ready to go home. I
+followed him.
+
+I will not speak of the long halt in the cabaret du Chien Noir, where
+he spent an hour and a half in the company of his friends, playing
+dominoes and drinking eau-de-vie whilst I had perforce to cool my heels
+outside. Suffice it to say that I did follow him to his house just
+behind the fish-market, and that half an hour later, tired out but
+triumphant, having knocked at his door, I was admitted into the squalid
+room which he occupied.
+
+He surveyed me with obvious mistrust, but I soon reassured him.
+
+“My friend Mr. Farewell has recommended you to me,” I said with my
+usual affability. “I was telling him just awhile ago that I needed a
+man to look after my office in the Rue Daunou of a morning, and he told
+me that in you I would find just the man I wanted.”
+
+“Hm!” grunted the fellow, very sullenly I thought. “I work for Farewell
+in the mornings. Why should he recommend me to you? Am I not giving
+satisfaction?”
+
+“Perfect satisfaction,” I rejoined urbanely; “that is just the point.
+Mr. Farewell desires to do you a good turn seeing that I offered to pay
+you twenty sous for your morning’s work instead of the ten which you
+are getting from him.”
+
+I saw his eyes glisten at mention of the twenty sous.
+
+“I’d best go and tell him then that I am taking on your work,” he said;
+and his tone was no longer sullen now.
+
+“Quite unnecessary,” I rejoined. “I arranged everything with Mr.
+Farewell before I came to you. He has already found someone else to do
+his work, and I shall want you to be at my office by seven o’clock
+to-morrow morning. And,” I added, for I am always cautious and
+judicious, and I now placed a piece of silver in his hand, “here are
+the first twenty sous on account.”
+
+He took the money and promptly became very civil, even obsequious. He
+not only accompanied me to the door, but all the way down the stairs,
+and assured me all the time that he would do his best to give me entire
+satisfaction.
+
+I left my address with him, and sure enough, he turned up at the office
+the next morning at seven o’clock precisely.
+
+Theodore had had my orders to direct him in his work, and I was left
+free to enact the second scene of the moving drama in which I was
+determined to play the hero and to ring down the curtain to the sound
+of the wedding bells.
+
+3.
+
+I took on the work of odd-job man at 65 Rue des Pyramides. Yes, I! Even
+I, who had sat in the private room of an emperor discussing the
+destinies of Europe.
+
+But with a beautiful bride and one hundred thousand francs as my goal I
+would have worked in a coal mine or on the galleys for such a guerdon.
+
+The task, I must tell you, was terribly irksome to a man of my
+sensibilities, endowed with an active mind and a vivid imagination. The
+dreary monotony of fetching water and fuel from below and polishing the
+boots of that arch-scoundrel Farewell would have made a less stout
+spirit quail. I had, of course, seen through the scoundrel’s game at
+once. He had rendered Estelle quite helpless by keeping all her papers
+of identification and by withholding from her all the letters which, no
+doubt, the English lawyers wrote to her from time to time. Thus she was
+entirely in his power. But, thank heaven! only momentarily, for I,
+Hector Ratichon, argus-eyed, was on the watch. Now and then the
+monotony of my existence and the hardship of my task were relieved by a
+brief glimpse of Estelle or a smile of understanding from her lips; now
+and then she would contrive to murmur as she brushed past me while I
+was polishing the scoundrel’s study floor, “Any luck yet?” And this
+quiet understanding between us gave me courage to go on with my task.
+
+After three days I had conclusively made up my mind that Mr. Farewell
+kept his valuable papers in the drawer of the bureau in the study.
+After that I always kept a lump of wax ready for use in my pocket. On
+the fifth day I was very nearly caught trying to take an impression of
+the lock of the bureau drawer. On the seventh I succeeded, and took the
+impression over to a locksmith I knew of, and gave him an order to have
+a key made to fit it immediately. On the ninth day I had the key.
+
+Then commenced a series of disappointments and of unprofitable days
+which would have daunted one less bold and less determined. I don’t
+think that Farewell ever suspected me, but it is a fact that never once
+did he leave me alone in his study whilst I was at work there polishing
+the oak floor. And in the meanwhile I could see how he was pursuing my
+beautiful Estelle with his unwelcome attentions. At times I feared that
+he meant to abduct her; his was a powerful personality and she seemed
+like a little bird fighting against the fascination of a serpent.
+Latterly, too, an air of discouragement seemed to dwell upon her lovely
+face. I was half distraught with anxiety, and once or twice, whilst I
+knelt upon the hard floor, scrubbing and polishing as if my life
+depended on it, whilst he—the unscrupulous scoundrel—sat calmly at his
+desk, reading or writing, I used to feel as if the next moment I must
+attack him with my scrubbing-brush and knock him down senseless whilst
+I ransacked his drawers. My horror of anything approaching violence
+saved me from so foolish a step.
+
+Then it was that in the hour of my blackest despair a flash of genius
+pierced through the darkness of my misery. For some days now Madame
+Dupont, Farewell’s housekeeper, had been exceedingly affable to me.
+Every morning now, when I came to work, there was a cup of hot coffee
+waiting for me, and, when I left, a small parcel of something
+appetizing for me to take away.
+
+“Hallo!” I said to myself one day, when, over a cup of coffee, I caught
+sight of her small, piggy eyes leering at me with an unmistakable
+expression of admiration. “Does salvation lie where I least expected
+it?”
+
+For the moment I did nothing more than wink at the fat old thing, but
+the next morning I had my arm round her waist—a metre and a quarter,
+Sir, where it was tied in the middle—and had imprinted a kiss upon her
+glossy cheek. What that love-making cost me I cannot attempt to
+describe. Once Estelle came into the kitchen when I was staggering
+under a load of a hundred kilos sitting on my knee. The reproachful
+glance which she cast at me filled my soul with unspeakable sorrow.
+
+But I was working for her dear sake; working that I might win her in
+the end.
+
+A week later Mr. Farewell was absent from home for the evening. Estelle
+had retired to her room, and I was a welcome visitor in the kitchen,
+where Madame Dupont had laid out a regular feast for me. I had brought
+a couple of bottles of champagne with me and, what with the
+unaccustomed drink and the ogling and love-making to which I treated
+her, a hundred kilos of foolish womanhood was soon hopelessly addled
+and incapable. I managed to drag her to the sofa, where she remained
+quite still, with a beatific smile upon her podgy face, her eyes
+swimming in happy tears.
+
+I had not a moment to lose. The very next minute I was in the study and
+with a steady hand was opening the drawers of the bureau and turning
+over the letters and papers which I found therein.
+
+Suddenly an exclamation of triumph escaped my lips.
+
+I held a packet in my hand on which was written in a clear hand: “The
+papers of Mlle. Estelle Bachelier.” A brief examination of the packet
+sufficed. It consisted of a number of letters written in English, which
+language I only partially understand, but they all bore the same
+signature, “John Pike and Sons, solicitors,” and the address was at the
+top, “168 Cornhill, London.” It also contained my Estelle’s birth
+certificate, her mother’s marriage certificate, and her police
+registration card.
+
+I was rapt in the contemplation of my own ingenuity in having thus
+brilliantly attained my goal, when a stealthy noise in the next room
+roused me from my trance and brought up vividly to my mind the awful
+risks which I was running at this moment. I turned like an animal at
+bay to see Estelle’s beautiful face peeping at me through the half-open
+door.
+
+“Hist!” she whispered. “Have you got the papers?”
+
+I waved the packet triumphantly. She, excited and adorable, stepped
+briskly into the room.
+
+“Let me see,” she murmured excitedly.
+
+But I, emboldened by success, cried gaily:
+
+“Not till I have received compensation for all that I have done and
+endured.”
+
+“Compensation?”
+
+“In the shape of a kiss.”
+
+Oh! I won’t say that she threw herself in my arms then and there. No,
+no! She demurred. All young girls, it seems, demur under the
+circumstances; but she was adorable, coy and tender in turns, pouting
+and coaxing, and playing like a kitten till she had taken the papers
+from me and, with a woman’s natural curiosity, had turned the English
+letters over and over, even though she could not read a word of them.
+
+Then, Sir, in the midst of her innocent frolic and at the very moment
+when I was on the point of snatching the kiss which she had so
+tantalizingly denied me, we heard the opening and closing of the front
+door.
+
+Mr. Farewell had come home, and there was no other egress from the
+study save the sitting-room, which in its turn had no other egress but
+the door leading into the very passage where even now Mr. Farewell was
+standing, hanging up his hat and cloak on the rack.
+
+4.
+
+We stood hand in hand—Estelle and I—fronting the door through which Mr.
+Farewell would presently appear.
+
+“To-night we fly together,” I declared.
+
+“Where to?” she whispered.
+
+“Can you go to the woman at your former lodgings?”
+
+“Yes!”
+
+“Then I will take you there to-night. To-morrow we will be married
+before the Procureur du Roi; in the evening we leave for England.”
+
+“Yes, yes!” she murmured.
+
+“When he comes in I’ll engage him in conversation,” I continued
+hurriedly. “You make a dash for the door and run downstairs as fast as
+you can. I’ll follow as quickly as may be and meet you under the
+porte-cochere.”
+
+She had only just time to nod assent when the door which gave on the
+sitting-room was pushed open, and Farewell, unconscious at first of our
+presence, stepped quietly into the room.
+
+“Estelle,” he cried, more puzzled than angry when he suddenly caught
+sight of us both, “what are you doing here with that lout?”
+
+I was trembling with excitement—not fear, of course, though Farewell
+was a powerful-looking man, a head taller than I was. I stepped boldly
+forward, covering the adored one with my body.
+
+“The lout,” I said with calm dignity, “has frustrated the machinations
+of a knave. To-morrow I go to England in order to place Mademoiselle
+Estelle Bachelier under the protection of her legal guardians,
+Messieurs Pike and Sons, solicitors, of London.”
+
+He gave a cry of rage, and before I could retire to some safe
+entrenchment behind the table or the sofa, he was upon me like a mad
+dog. He had me by the throat, and I had rolled backwards down on to the
+floor, with him on the top of me, squeezing the breath out of me till I
+verily thought that my last hour had come. Estelle had run out of the
+room like a startled hare. This, of course, was in accordance with my
+instructions to her, but I could not help wishing then that she had
+been less obedient and somewhat more helpful.
+
+As it was, I was beginning to feel a mere worm in the grip of that
+savage scoundrel, whose face I could perceive just above me, distorted
+with passion, whilst hoarse ejaculations escaped his trembling lips:
+
+“You meddlesome fool! You oaf! You toad! This for your interference!”
+he added as he gave me a vigorous punch on the head.
+
+I felt my senses reeling. My head was swimming, my eyes no longer could
+see distinctly. It seemed as if an unbearable pressure upon my chest
+would finally squeeze the last breath out of my body.
+
+I was trying to remember the prayers I used to murmur at my mother’s
+knee, for verily I thought that I was dying, when suddenly, through my
+fading senses, came the sound of a long, hoarse cry, whilst the floor
+was shaken as with an earthquake. The next moment the pressure on my
+chest seemed to relax. I could hear Farewell’s voice uttering language
+such as it would be impossible for me to put on record; and through it
+all hoarse and convulsive cries of: “You shan’t hurt him—you limb of
+Satan, you!”
+
+Gradually strength returned to me. I could see as well as hear, and
+what I saw filled me with wonder and with pride. Wonder at Ma’ame
+Dupont’s pluck! Pride in that her love for me had given such power to
+her mighty arms! Aroused from her slumbers by the sound of the scuffle,
+she had run to the study, only to find me in deadly peril of my life.
+Without a second’s hesitation she had rushed on Farewell, seized him by
+the collar, pulled him away from me, and then thrown the whole weight
+of her hundred kilos upon him, rendering him helpless.
+
+Ah, woman! lovely, selfless woman! My heart a prey to remorse, in that
+I could not remain in order to thank my plucky deliverer, I
+nevertheless finally struggled to my feet and fled from the apartment
+and down the stairs, never drawing breath till I felt Estelle’s hand
+resting confidingly upon my arm.
+
+5.
+
+I took her to the house where she used to lodge, and placed her under
+the care of the kind concierge who was Theodore’s aunt. Then I, too,
+went home, determined to get a good night’s rest. The morning would be
+a busy one for me. There would be the special licence to get, the cure
+of St. Jacques to interview, the religious ceremony to arrange for, and
+the places to book on the stagecoach for Boulogne _en route_ for
+England—and fortune.
+
+I was supremely happy and slept the sleep of the just. I was up betimes
+and started on my round of business at eight o’clock the next morning.
+I was a little troubled about money, because when I had paid for the
+licence and given to the cure the required fee for the religious
+service and ceremony, I had only five francs left out of the hundred
+which the adored one had given me. However, I booked the seats on the
+stage-coach and determined to trust to luck. Once Estelle was my wife,
+all money care would be at an end, since no power on earth could stand
+between me and the hundred thousand francs, the happy goal for which I
+had so ably striven.
+
+The marriage ceremony was fixed for eleven o’clock, and it was just
+upon ten when, at last, with a light heart and springy step, I ran up
+the dingy staircase which led to the adored one’s apartments. I knocked
+at the door. It was opened by a young man, who with a smile courteously
+bade me enter. I felt a little bewildered—and slightly annoyed. My
+Estelle should not receive visits from young men at this hour. I pushed
+past the intruder in the passage and walked boldly into the room
+beyond.
+
+Estelle was sitting upon the sofa, her eyes bright, her mouth smiling,
+a dimple in each cheek. I approached her with outstretched arms, but
+she paid no heed to me, and turned to the young man, who had followed
+me into the room.
+
+“Adrien,” she said, “this is kind M. Ratichon, who at risk of his life
+obtained for us all my papers of identification and also the valuable
+name and address of the English lawyers.”
+
+“Monsieur,” added the young man as he extended his hand to me, “Estelle
+and I will remain eternally your debtors.”
+
+I struck at the hand which he had so impudently held out to me and
+turned to Estelle with my usual dignified calm, but with wrath
+expressed in every line of my face.
+
+“Estelle,” I said, “what is the meaning of this?”
+
+“Oh,” she retorted with one of her provoking smiles, “you must not call
+me Estelle, you know, or Adrien will smack your face. We are indeed
+grateful to you, my good M. Ratichon,” she continued more seriously,
+“and though I only promised you another hundred francs when your work
+for me was completed, my husband and I have decided to give you a
+thousand francs in view of the risks which you ran on our behalf.”
+
+“Your husband!” I stammered.
+
+“I was married to M. Adrien Cazalès a month ago,” she said, “but we had
+perforce to keep our marriage a secret, because Mr. Farewell once vowed
+to me that unless I became his wife he would destroy all my papers of
+identification, and then—even if I ever succeeded in discovering who
+were the English lawyers who had charge of my father’s money—I could
+never prove it to them that I and no one else was entitled to it. But
+for you, dear M. Ratichon,” added the cruel and shameless one, “I
+should indeed never have succeeded.”
+
+In the midst of this overwhelming cataclysm I am proud to say that I
+retained mastery over my rage and contrived to say with perfect calm:
+
+“But why have deceived me, Mademoiselle? Why have kept your marriage a
+secret from me? Was I not toiling and working and risking my life for
+you?”
+
+“And would you have worked quite so enthusiastically for me,” queried
+the false one archly, “if I had told you everything?”
+
+I groaned. Perhaps she was right. I don’t know.
+
+I took the thousand francs and never saw M. and Mme. Cazalès again.
+
+But I met Ma’ame Dupont by accident soon after. She has left Mr.
+Farewell’s service.
+
+She still weighs one hundred kilos.
+
+I often call on her of an evening.
+
+Ah, well!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III. — ON THE BRINK
+
+1.
+
+You would have thought that after the shameful way in which Theodore
+treated me in the matter of the secret treaty that I would then and
+there have turned him out of doors, sent him back to grub for scraps
+out of the gutter, and hardened my heart once and for all against that
+snake in the grass whom I had nurtured in my bosom.
+
+But, as no doubt you have remarked ere this, I have been burdened by
+Nature with an over-sensitive heart. It is a burden, my dear Sir, and
+though I have suffered inexpressibly under it, I nevertheless agree
+with the English poet, George Crabbe, whose works I have read with a
+great deal of pleasure and profit in the original tongue, and who avers
+in one of his inimitable “Tales” that it is “better to love amiss than
+nothing to have loved.”
+
+Not that I loved Theodore, you understand? But he and I had shared so
+many ups and downs together of late that I was loath to think of him as
+reduced to begging his bread in the streets. Then I kept him by me, for
+I thought that he might at times be useful to me in my business.
+
+I kept him to my hurt, as you will presently see.
+
+In those days—I am now speaking of the time immediately following the
+Restoration of our beloved King Louis XVIII to the throne of his
+forbears—Parisian society was, as it were, divided into two distinct
+categories: those who had become impoverished by the revolution and the
+wars of the Empire, and those who had made their fortunes thereby.
+Among the former was M. le Marquis de Firmin-Latour, a handsome young
+officer of cavalry; and among the latter was one Mauruss Mosenstein, a
+usurer of the Jewish persuasion, whose wealth was reputed in millions,
+and who had a handsome daughter biblically named Rachel, who a year ago
+had become Madame la Marquise de Firmin-Latour.
+
+From the first moment that this brilliant young couple appeared upon
+the firmament of Parisian society I took a keen interest in all their
+doings. In those days, you understand, it was in the essence of my
+business to know as much as possible of the private affairs of people
+in their position, and instinct had at once told me that in the case of
+M. le Marquis de Firmin-Latour such knowledge might prove very
+remunerative.
+
+Thus I very soon found out that M. le Marquis had not a single louis of
+his own to bless himself with, and that it was Papa Mosenstein’s
+millions that kept up the young people’s magnificent establishment in
+the Rue de Grammont.
+
+I also found out that Mme. la Marquise was some dozen years older than
+Monsieur, and that she had been a widow when she married him. There
+were rumours that her first marriage had not been a happy one. The
+husband, M. le Compte de Naquet, had been a gambler and a spendthrift,
+and had dissipated as much of his wife’s fortune as he could lay his
+hands on, until one day he went off on a voyage to America, or goodness
+knows where, and was never heard of again. Mme. la Comtesse, as she
+then was, did not grieve over her loss; indeed, she returned to the
+bosom of her family, and her father—a shrewd usurer, who had amassed an
+enormous fortune during the wars—succeeded, with the aid of his
+apparently bottomless moneybags, in having his first son-in-law
+declared deceased by Royal decree, so as to enable the beautiful Rachel
+to contract another, yet more brilliant alliance, as far as name and
+lineage were concerned, with the Marquis de Firmin-Latour.
+
+Indeed, I learned that the worthy Israelite’s one passion was the
+social advancement of his daughter, whom he worshipped. So, as soon as
+the marriage was consummated and the young people were home from their
+honeymoon, he fitted up for their use the most extravagantly sumptuous
+apartment Paris had ever seen. Nothing seemed too good or too luxurious
+for Mme. la Marquise de Firmin-Latour. He desired her to cut a
+brilliant figure in Paris society—nay, to be the Ville Lumiere’s
+brightest and most particular star. After the town house he bought a
+chateau in the country, horses and carriages, which he placed at the
+disposal of the young couple; he kept up an army of servants for them,
+and replenished their cellars with the choicest wines. He threw money
+about for diamonds and pearls which his daughter wore, and paid all his
+son-in-law’s tailors’ and shirt-makers’ bills. But always the money was
+his, you understand? The house in Paris was his, so was the chateau on
+the Loire; he lent them to his daughter. He lent her the diamonds, and
+the carriages, and the boxes at the opera and the Français. But here
+his generosity ended. He had been deceived in his daughter’s first
+husband; some of the money which he had given her had gone to pay the
+gambling debts of an unscrupulous spendthrift. He was determined that
+this should not occur again. A man might spend his wife’s money—indeed,
+the law placed most of it at his disposal in those days—but he could
+not touch or mortgage one sou that belonged to his father-in-law. And,
+strangely enough, Mme. la Marquise de Firmin-Latour acquiesced and
+aided her father in his determination. Whether it was the Jewish blood
+in her, or merely obedience to old Mosenstein’s whim, it were
+impossible to say. Certain it is that out of the lavish pin-money which
+her father gave her as a free gift from time to time, she only doled
+out a meagre allowance to her husband, and although she had everything
+she wanted, M. le Marquis on his side had often less than twenty francs
+in his pocket.
+
+A very humiliating position, you will admit, Sir, for a dashing young
+cavalry officer. Often have I seen him gnawing his finger-nails with
+rage when, at the end of a copious dinner in one of the fashionable
+restaurants—where I myself was engaged in a business capacity to keep
+an eye on possibly light-fingered customers—it would be Mme. la
+Marquise who paid the bill, even gave the pourboire to the waiter. At
+such times my heart would be filled with pity for his misfortunes, and,
+in my own proud and lofty independence, I felt that I did not envy him
+his wife’s millions.
+
+Of course, he borrowed from every usurer in the city for as long as
+they would lend him any money; but now he was up to his eyes in debt,
+and there was not a Jew inside France who would have lent him one
+hundred francs.
+
+You see, his precarious position was as well known as were his
+extravagant tastes and the obstinate parsimoniousness of M. Mosenstein.
+
+But such men as M. le Marquis de Firmin-Latour, you understand, Sir,
+are destined by Nature first and by fortuitous circumstances afterwards
+to become the clients of men of ability like myself. I knew that sooner
+or later the elegant young soldier would be forced to seek the advice
+of someone wiser than himself, for indeed his present situation could
+not last much longer. It would soon be “sink” with him, for he could no
+longer “swim.”
+
+And I was determined that when that time came he should turn to me as
+the drowning man turns to the straw.
+
+So where M. le Marquis went in public I went, when possible. I was
+biding my time, and wisely too, as you will judge.
+
+2.
+
+Then one day our eyes met: not in a fashionable restaurant, I may tell
+you, but in a discreet one situated on the slopes of Montmartre. I was
+there alone, sipping a cup of coffee after a frugal dinner. I had
+drifted in there chiefly because I had quite accidentally caught sight
+of M. le Marquis de Firmin-Latour walking arm-in-arm up the Rue Lepic
+with a lady who was both youthful and charming—a well-known dancer at
+the opera. Presently I saw him turn into that discreet little
+restaurant, where, in very truth, it was not likely that Mme. la
+Marquise would follow him. But I did. What made me do it, I cannot say;
+but for some time now it had been my wish to make the personal
+acquaintance of M. de Firmin-Latour, and I lost no opportunity which
+might help me to attain this desire.
+
+Somehow the man interested me. His social and financial position was
+peculiar, you will admit, and here, methought, was the beginning of an
+adventure which might prove the turning-point in his career and . . .
+my opportunity. I was not wrong, as you will presently see. Whilst
+silently eating my simple dinner, I watched M. de Firmin-Latour.
+
+He had started the evening by being very gay; he had ordered champagne
+and a succulent meal, and chatted light-heartedly with his companion,
+until presently three young women, flashily dressed, made noisy
+irruption into the restaurant.
+
+M. de Firmin-Latour’s friend hailed them, introduced them to him, and
+soon he was host, not to one lady, but to four, and instead of two
+dinners he had to order five, and more champagne, and then
+dessert—peaches, strawberries, bonbons, liqueurs, flowers, and what
+not, until I could see that the bill which presently he would be called
+upon to pay would amount to far more than his quarterly allowance from
+Mme. la Marquise, far more, presumably, than he had in his pocket at
+the present moment.
+
+My brain works with marvellous rapidity, as you know. Already I had
+made up my mind to see the little comedy through to the end, and I
+watched with a good deal of interest and some pity the clouds of
+anxiety gathering over M. de Firmin-Latour’s brow.
+
+The dinner party lasted some considerable time; then the inevitable
+cataclysm occurred. The ladies were busy chattering and rouging their
+lips when the bill was presented. They affected to see and hear
+nothing: it is a way ladies have when dinner has to be paid for; but I
+saw and heard everything. The waiter stood by, silent and obsequious at
+first, whilst M. le Marquis hunted through all his pockets. Then there
+was some whispered colloquy, and the waiter’s attitude lost something
+of its correct dignity. After that the proprietor was called, and the
+whispered colloquy degenerated into altercation, whilst the ladies—not
+at all unaware of the situation—giggled amongst themselves. Finally, M.
+le Marquis offered a promissory note, which was refused.
+
+Then it was that our eyes met. M. de Firmin-Latour had flushed to the
+roots of his hair. His situation was indeed desperate, and my
+opportunity had come. With consummate sang-froid, I advanced towards
+the agitated group composed of M. le Marquis, the proprietor, and the
+head waiter. I glanced at the bill, the cause of all this turmoil,
+which reposed on a metal salver in the head waiter’s hand, and with a
+brief:
+
+“If M. le Marquis will allow me . . .” I produced my pocket-book.
+
+The bill was for nine hundred francs.
+
+At first M. le Marquis thought that I was about to pay it—and so did
+the proprietor of the establishment, who made a movement as if he would
+lie down on the floor and lick my boots. But not so. To begin with, I
+did not happen to possess nine hundred francs, and if I did, I should
+not have been fool enough to lend them to this young scapegrace. No!
+What I did was to extract from my notebook a card, one of a series
+which I always keep by me in case of an emergency like the present one.
+It bore the legend: “Comte Hercule de Montjoie, secrétaire particulier
+de M. le Duc d’Otrante,” and below it the address, “Palais du
+Commissariat de Police, 12 Quai d’Orsay.” This card I presented with a
+graceful flourish of the arm to the proprietor of the establishment,
+whilst I said with that lofty self-assurance which is one of my finest
+attributes and which I have never seen equalled:
+
+“M. le Marquis is my friend. I will be guarantee for this trifling
+amount.”
+
+The proprietor and head waiter stammered excuses. Private secretary of
+M. le Duc d’Otrante! Think of it! It is not often that such personages
+deign to frequent the restaurants of Montmartre. M. le Marquis, on the
+other hand, looked completely bewildered, whilst I, taking advantage of
+the situation, seized him familiarly by the arm, and leading him toward
+the door, I said with condescending urbanity:
+
+“One word with you, my dear Marquis. It is so long since we have met.”
+
+I bowed to the ladies.
+
+“Mesdames,” I said, and was gratified to see that they followed my
+dramatic exit with eyes of appreciation and of wonder. The proprietor
+himself offered me my hat, and a moment or two later M. de
+Firmin-Latour and I were out together in the Rue Lepic.
+
+“My dear Comte,” he said as soon as he had recovered his breath, “how
+can I think you? . . .”
+
+“Not now, Monsieur, not now,” I replied. “You have only just time to
+make your way as quickly as you can back to your palace in the Rue de
+Grammont before our friend the proprietor discovers the several
+mistakes which he has made in the past few minutes and vents his wrath
+upon your fair guests.”
+
+“You are right,” he rejoined lightly. “But I will have the pleasure to
+call on you to-morrow at the Palais du Commissariat.”
+
+“Do no such thing, Monsieur le Marquis,” I retorted with a pleasant
+laugh. “You would not find me there.”
+
+“But—” he stammered.
+
+“But,” I broke in with my wonted business-like and persuasive manner,
+“if you think that I have conducted this delicate affair for you with
+tact and discretion, then, in your own interest I should advise you to
+call on me at my private office, No. 96 Rue Daunou. Hector Ratichon, at
+your service.”
+
+He appeared more bewildered than ever.
+
+“Rue Daunou,” he murmured. “Ratichon!”
+
+“Private inquiry and confidential agent,” I rejoined. “My brains are at
+your service should you desire to extricate yourself from the
+humiliating financial position in which it has been my good luck to
+find you, and yours to meet with me.”
+
+With that I left him, Sir, to walk away or stay as he pleased. As for
+me, I went quickly down the street. I felt that the situation was
+absolutely perfect; to have spoken another word might have spoilt it.
+Moreover, there was no knowing how soon the proprietor of that humble
+hostelry would begin to have doubts as to the identity of the private
+secretary of M. le Duc d’Otrante. So I was best out of the way.
+
+3.
+
+The very next day M. le Marquis de Firmin-Latour called upon me at my
+office in the Rue Daunou. Theodore let him in, and the first thing that
+struck me about him was his curt, haughty manner and the look of
+disdain wherewith he regarded the humble appointments of my business
+premises. He himself was magnificently dressed, I may tell you. His
+bottle-green coat was of the finest cloth and the most perfect cut I
+had ever seen. His kerseymere pantaloons fitted him without a wrinkle.
+He wore gloves, he carried a muff of priceless zibeline, and in his
+cravat there was a diamond the size of a broad bean.
+
+He also carried a malacca cane, which he deposited upon my desk, and a
+gold-rimmed spy-glass which, with a gesture of supreme affectation, he
+raised to his eye.
+
+“Now, M. Hector Ratichon,” he said abruptly, “perhaps you will be good
+enough to explain.”
+
+I had risen when he entered. But now I sat down again and coolly
+pointed to the best chair in the room.
+
+“Will you give yourself the trouble to sit down, M. le Marquis?” I
+riposted blandly.
+
+He called me names—rude names! but I took no notice of that . . . and
+he sat down.
+
+“Now!” he said once more.
+
+“What is it you desire to know, M. le Marquis?” I queried.
+
+“Why you interfered in my affairs last night?”
+
+“Do you complain?” I asked.
+
+“No,” he admitted reluctantly, “but I don’t understand your object.”
+
+“My object was to serve you then,” I rejoined quietly, “and later.”
+
+“What do you mean by ‘later’?”
+
+“To-day,” I replied, “to-morrow; whenever your present position becomes
+absolutely unendurable.”
+
+“It is that now,” he said with a savage oath.
+
+“I thought as much,” was my curt comment.
+
+“And do you mean to assert,” he went on more earnestly, “that you can
+find a way out of it?”
+
+“If you desire it—yes!” I said.
+
+“How?”
+
+He drew his chair nearer to my desk, and I leaned forward, with my
+elbows on the table, the finger-tips of one hand in contact with those
+of the other.
+
+“Let us begin by reviewing the situation, shall we, Monsieur?” I began.
+
+“If you wish,” he said curtly.
+
+“You are a gentleman of refined, not to say luxurious tastes, who finds
+himself absolutely without means to gratify them. Is that so?”
+
+He nodded.
+
+“You have a wife and a father-in-law who, whilst lavishing costly
+treasures upon you, leave you in a humiliating dependence on them for
+actual money.”
+
+Again he nodded approvingly.
+
+“Human nature,” I continued with gentle indulgence, “being what it is,
+you pine after what you do not possess—namely, money. Houses,
+equipages, servants, even good food and wine, are nothing to you beside
+that earnest desire for money that you can call your own, and which, if
+only you had it, you could spend at your pleasure.”
+
+“To the point, man, to the point!” he broke in impatiently.
+
+“One moment, M. le Marquis, and I have done. But first of all, with
+your permission, shall we also review the assets in your life which we
+will have to use in order to arrive at the gratification of your
+earnest wish?”
+
+“Assets? What do you mean?”
+
+“The means to our end. You want money; we must find the means to get it
+for you.”
+
+“I begin to understand,” he said, and drew his chair another inch or
+two closer to me.
+
+“Firstly, M. le Marquis,” I resumed, and now my voice had become
+earnest and incisive, “firstly you have a wife, then you have a
+father-in-law whose wealth is beyond the dreams of humble people like
+myself, and whose one great passion in life is the social position of
+the daughter whom he worships. Now,” I added, and with the tip of my
+little finger I touched the sleeve of my aristocratic client, “here at
+once is your first asset. Get at the money-bags of papa by threatening
+the social position of his daughter.”
+
+Whereupon my young gentleman jumped to his feet and swore and abused me
+for a mudlark and a muckworm and I don’t know what. He seized his
+malacca cane and threatened me with it, and asked me how the devil I
+dared thus to speak of Mme. la Marquise de Firmin-Latour. He cursed,
+and he stormed and he raved of his sixteen quarterings and of my
+loutishness. He did everything in fact except walk out of the room.
+
+I let him go on quite quietly. It was part of his programme, and we had
+to go through the performance. As soon as he gave me the chance of
+putting in a word edgeways I rejoined quietly:
+
+“We are not going to hurt Madame la Marquise, Monsieur; and if you do
+not want the money, let us say no more about it.”
+
+Whereupon he calmed down; after a while he sat down again, this time
+with his cane between his knees and its ivory knob between his teeth.
+
+“Go on,” he said curtly.
+
+Nor did he interrupt me again whilst I expounded my scheme to him—one
+that, mind you, I had evolved during the night, knowing well that I
+should receive his visit during the day; and I flatter myself that no
+finer scheme for the bleeding of a parsimonious usurer was ever devised
+by any man.
+
+If it succeeded—and there was no reason why it should not—M. de
+Firmin-Latour would pocket a cool half-million, whilst I, sir, the
+brain that had devised the whole scheme, pronounced myself satisfied
+with the paltry emolument of one hundred thousand francs, out of which,
+remember, I should have to give Theodore a considerable sum.
+
+We talked it all over, M. le Marquis and I, the whole afternoon. I may
+tell you at once that he was positively delighted with the plan, and
+then and there gave me one hundred francs out of his own meagre purse
+for my preliminary expenses.
+
+The next morning we began work.
+
+I had begged M. le Marquis to find the means of bringing me a few
+scraps of the late M. le Comte de Naquet’s—Madame la Marquise’s first
+husband—handwriting. This, fortunately, he was able to do. They were a
+few valueless notes penned at different times by the deceased gentleman
+and which, luckily for us all, Madame had not thought it worth while to
+keep under lock and key.
+
+I think I told you before, did I not? what a marvellous expert I am in
+every kind of calligraphy, and soon I had a letter ready which was to
+represent the first fire in the exciting war which we were about to
+wage against an obstinate lady and a parsimonious usurer.
+
+My identity securely hidden under the disguise of a commissionnaire, I
+took that letter to Mme. la Marquise de Firmin-Latour’s sumptuous abode
+in the Rue de Grammont.
+
+M. le Marquis, you understand, had in the meanwhile been thoroughly
+primed in the rôle which he was to play; as for Theodore, I thought it
+best for the moment to dispense with his aid.
+
+The success of our first skirmish surpassed our expectations.
+
+Ten minutes after the letter had been taken upstairs to Mme. la
+Marquise, one of the maids, on going past her mistress’s door, was
+startled to hear cries and moans proceeding from Madame’s room. She
+entered and found Madame lying on the sofa, her face buried in the
+cushions, and sobbing and screaming in a truly terrifying manner. The
+maid applied the usual restoratives, and after a while Madame became
+more calm and at once very curtly ordered the maid out of the room.
+
+M. le Marquis, on being apprised of this mysterious happening, was much
+distressed; he hurried to his wife’s apartments, and was as gentle and
+loving with her as he had been in the early days of their honeymoon.
+But throughout the whole of that evening, and, indeed, for the next two
+days, all the explanation that he could get from Madame herself was
+that she had a headache and that the letter which she had received that
+afternoon was of no consequence and had nothing to do with her
+migraine.
+
+But clearly the beautiful Rachel was extraordinarily agitated. At night
+she did not sleep, but would pace up and down her apartments in a state
+bordering on frenzy, which of course caused M. le Marquis a great deal
+of anxiety and of sorrow.
+
+Finally, on the Friday morning it seemed as if Madame could contain
+herself no longer. She threw herself into her husband’s arms and
+blurted out the whole truth. M. le Comte de Naquet, her first husband,
+who had been declared drowned at sea, and therefore officially deceased
+by Royal decree, was not dead at all. Madame had received a letter from
+him wherein he told her that he had indeed suffered shipwreck, then
+untold misery on a desert island for three years, until he had been
+rescued by a passing vessel, and finally been able, since he was
+destitute, to work his way back to France and to Paris. Here he had
+lived for the past few months as best he could, trying to collect
+together a little money so as to render himself presentable before his
+wife, whom he had never ceased to love.
+
+Inquiries discreetly conducted had revealed the terrible truth, that
+Madame had been faithless to him, had light-heartedly assumed the death
+of her husband, and had contracted what was nothing less than a
+bigamous marriage. Now he, M. de Naquet, standing on his rights as
+Rachel Mosenstein’s only lawful husband, demanded that she should
+return to him, and as a prelude to a permanent and amicable
+understanding, she was to call at three o’clock precisely on the
+following Friday at No. 96 Rue Daunou, where their reconciliation and
+reunion was to take place.
+
+The letter announcing this terrible news and making this preposterous
+demand she now placed in the hands of M. le Marquis, who at first was
+horrified and thunderstruck, and appeared quite unable to deal with the
+situation or to tender advice. For Madame it meant complete social
+ruin, of course, and she herself declared that she would never survive
+such a scandal. Her tears and her misery made the loving heart of M. le
+Marquis bleed in sympathy. He did all he could to console and comfort
+the lady, whom, alas! he could no longer look upon as his wife. Then,
+gradually, both he and she became more composed. It was necessary above
+all things to make sure that Madame was not being victimized by an
+impostor, and for this purpose M. le Marquis generously offered himself
+as a disinterested friend and adviser. He offered to go himself to the
+Rue Daunou at the hour appointed and to do his best to induce M. le
+Comte de Naquet—if indeed he existed—to forgo his rights on the lady
+who had so innocently taken on the name and hand of M. le Marquis de
+Firmin-Latour. Somewhat more calm, but still unconsoled, the beautiful
+Rachel accepted this generous offer. I believe that she even found five
+thousand francs in her privy purse which was to be offered to M. de
+Naquet in exchange for a promise never to worry Mme. la Marquise again
+with his presence. But this I have never been able to ascertain with
+any finality. Certain it is that when at three o’clock on that same
+afternoon M. de Firmin-Latour presented himself at my office, he did
+not offer me a share in any five thousand francs, though he spoke to me
+about the money, adding that he thought it would look well if he were
+to give it back to Madame, and to tell her that M. de Naquet had
+rejected so paltry a sum with disdain.
+
+I thought such a move unnecessary, and we argued about it rather
+warmly, and in the end he went away, as I say, without offering me any
+share in the emolument. Whether he did put his project into execution
+or not I never knew. He told me that he did. After that there followed
+for me, Sir, many days, nay, weeks, of anxiety and of strenuous work.
+Mme. la Marquise received several more letters from the supposititious
+M. de Naquet, any one of which would have landed me, Sir, in a vessel
+bound for New Caledonia. The discarded husband became more and more
+insistent as time went on, and finally sent an ultimatum to Madame
+saying that he was tired of perpetual interviews with M. le Marquis de
+Firmin-Latour, whose right to interfere in the matter he now wholly
+denied, and that he was quite determined to claim his lawful wife
+before the whole world.
+
+Madame la Marquise, in the meanwhile, had passed from one fit of
+hysterics into another. She denied her door to everyone and lived in
+the strictest seclusion in her beautiful apartment of the Rue de
+Grammont. Fortunately this all occurred in the early autumn, when the
+absence of such a society star from fashionable gatherings was not as
+noticeable as it otherwise would have been. But clearly we were working
+up for the climax, which occurred in the way I am about to relate.
+
+4.
+
+Ah, my dear Sir, when after all these years I think of my adventure
+with that abominable Marquis, righteous and noble indignation almost
+strikes me dumb. To think that with my own hands and brains I literally
+put half a million into that man’s pocket, and that he repaid me with
+the basest ingratitude, almost makes me lose my faith in human nature.
+Theodore, of course, I could punish, and did so adequately; and where
+my chastisement failed, Fate herself put the finishing touch.
+
+But M. de Firmin-Latour . . .!
+
+However, you shall judge for yourself.
+
+As I told you, we now made ready for the climax; and that climax, Sir,
+I can only describe as positively gorgeous. We began by presuming that
+Mme. la Marquise had now grown tired of incessant demands for
+interviews and small doles of money, and that she would be willing to
+offer a considerable sum to her first and only lawful husband in
+exchange for a firm guarantee that he would never trouble her again as
+long as she lived.
+
+We fixed the sum at half a million francs, and the guarantee was to
+take the form of a deed duly executed by a notary of repute and signed
+by the supposititious Comte de Naquet. A letter embodying the demand
+and offering the guarantee was thereupon duly sent to Mme. la Marquise,
+and she, after the usual attack of hysterics, duly confided the matter
+to M. de Firmin-Latour.
+
+The consultation between husband and wife on the deplorable subject was
+touching in the extreme; and I will give that abominable Marquis credit
+for playing his rôle in a masterly manner. At first he declared to his
+dear Rachel that he did not know what to suggest, for in truth she had
+nothing like half a million on which she could lay her hands. To speak
+of this awful pending scandal to Papa Mosenstein was not to be thought
+of. He was capable of repudiating the daughter altogether who was
+bringing such obloquy upon herself and would henceforth be of no use to
+him as a society star.
+
+As for himself in this terrible emergency, he, of course, had less than
+nothing, or his entire fortune would be placed—if he had one—at the
+feet of his beloved Rachel. To think that he was on the point of losing
+her was more than he could bear, and the idea that she would soon
+become the talk of every gossip-monger in society, and mayhap be put in
+prison for bigamy, wellnigh drove him crazy.
+
+What could be done in this awful perplexity he for one could not think,
+unless indeed his dear Rachel were willing to part with some of her
+jewellery; but no! he could not think of allowing her to make such a
+sacrifice.
+
+Whereupon Madame, like a drowning man, or rather woman, catching at a
+straw, bethought her of her emeralds. They were historic gems, once the
+property of the Empress Marie-Thérèse, and had been given to her on her
+second marriage by her adoring father. No, no! she would never miss
+them; she seldom wore them, for they were heavy and more valuable than
+elegant, and she was quite sure that at the Mont de Piété they would
+lend her five hundred thousand francs on them. Then gradually they
+could be redeemed before papa had become aware of their temporary
+disappearance. Madame would save the money out of the liberal allowance
+she received from him for pin-money. Anything, anything was preferable
+to this awful doom which hung over her head.
+
+But even so M. le Marquis demurred. The thought of his proud and
+fashionable Rachel going to the Mont de Piété to pawn her own jewels
+was not to be thought of. She would be seen, recognized, and the
+scandal would be as bad and worse than anything that loomed on the
+black horizon of her fate at this hour.
+
+What was to be done? What was to be done?
+
+Then M. le Marquis had a brilliant idea. He knew of a man, a very
+reliable, trustworthy man, attorney-at-law by profession, and therefore
+a man of repute, who was often obliged in the exercise of his
+profession to don various disguises when tracking criminals in the
+outlying quarters of Paris. M. le Marquis, putting all pride and
+dignity nobly aside in the interests of his adored Rachel, would borrow
+one of these disguises and himself go to the Mont de Piété with the
+emeralds, obtain the five hundred thousand francs, and remit them to
+the man whom he hated most in all the world, in exchange for the
+aforementioned guarantee.
+
+Madame la Marquise, overcome with gratitude, threw herself, in the
+midst of a flood of tears, into the arms of the man whom she no longer
+dared to call her husband, and so the matter was settled for the
+moment. M. le Marquis undertook to have the deed of guarantee drafted
+by the same notary of repute whom he knew, and, if Madame approved of
+it, the emeralds would then be converted into money, and the interview
+with M. le Comte de Naquet fixed for Wednesday, October 10th, at some
+convenient place, subsequently to be determined on—in all probability
+at the bureau of that same ubiquitous attorney-at-law, M. Hector
+Ratichon, at 96 Rue Daunon.
+
+All was going on excellently well, as you observe. I duly drafted the
+deed, and M. de Firmin-Latour showed it to Madame for her approval. It
+was so simply and so comprehensively worded that she expressed herself
+thoroughly satisfied with it, whereupon M. le Marquis asked her to
+write to her shameful persecutor in order to fix the date and hour for
+the exchange of the money against the deed duly signed and witnessed.
+M. le Marquis had always been the intermediary for her letters, you
+understand, and for the small sums of money which she had sent from
+time to time to the factitious M. de Naquet; now he was to be entrusted
+with the final negotiations which, though at a heavy cost, would bring
+security and happiness once more in the sumptuous palace of the Rue de
+Grammont.
+
+Then it was that the first little hitch occurred. Mme. la
+Marquise—whether prompted thereto by a faint breath of suspicion, or
+merely by natural curiosity—altered her mind about the appointment. She
+decided that M. le Marquis, having pledged the emeralds, should bring
+the money to her, and she herself would go to the bureau of M. Hector
+Ratichon in the Rue Daunou, there to meet M. de Naquet, whom she had
+not seen for seven years, but who had once been very dear to her, and
+herself fling in his face the five hundred thousand francs, the price
+of his silence and of her peace of mind.
+
+At once, as you perceive, the situation became delicate. To have
+demurred, or uttered more than a casual word of objection, would in the
+case of M. le Marquis have been highly impolitic. He felt that at once,
+the moment he raised his voice in protest: and when Madame declared
+herself determined he immediately gave up arguing the point.
+
+The trouble was that we had so very little time wherein to formulate
+new plans. Monsieur was to go the very next morning to the Mont de
+Piété to negotiate the emeralds, and the interview with the fabulous M.
+de Naquet was to take place a couple of hours later; and it was now
+three o’clock in the afternoon.
+
+As soon as M. de Firmin-Latour was able to leave his wife, he came
+round to my office. He appeared completely at his wits’ end, not
+knowing what to do.
+
+“If my wife,” he said, “insists on a personal interview with de Naquet,
+who does not exist, our entire scheme falls to the ground. Nay, worse!
+for I shall be driven to concoct some impossible explanation for the
+non-appearance of that worthy, and heaven only knows if I shall succeed
+in wholly allaying my wife’s suspicions.
+
+“Ah!” he added with a sigh, “it is doubly hard to have seen fortune so
+near one’s reach and then to see it dashed away at one fell swoop by
+the relentless hand of Fate.”
+
+Not one word, you observe, of gratitude to me or of recognition of the
+subtle mind that had planned and devised the whole scheme.
+
+But, Sir, it is at the hour of supreme crises like the present one that
+Hector Ratichon’s genius soars up to the empyrean. It became great,
+Sir; nothing short of great; and even the marvellous schemes of the
+Italian Macchiavelli paled before the ingenuity which I now displayed.
+
+Half an hour’s reflection had sufficed. I had made my plans, and I had
+measured the full length of the terrible risks which I ran. Among these
+New Caledonia was the least. But I chose to take the risks, Sir; my
+genius could not stoop to measuring the costs of its flight. While M.
+de Firmin-Latour alternately raved and lamented I had already planned
+and contrived. As I say, we had very little time: a few hours wherein
+to render ourselves worthy of Fortune’s smiles. And this is what I
+planned.
+
+You tell me that you were not in Paris during the year 1816 of which I
+speak. If you had been, you would surely recollect the sensation caused
+throughout the entire city by the disappearance of M. le Marquis de
+Firmin-Latour, one of the most dashing young officers in society and
+one of its acknowledged leaders. It was the 10th day of October. M. le
+Marquis had breakfasted in the company of Madame at nine o’clock. A
+couple of hours later he went out, saying he would be home for
+déjeuner. Madame clearly expected him, for his place was laid, and she
+ordered the déjeuner to be kept back over an hour in anticipation of
+his return. But he did not come. The afternoon wore on and he did not
+come. Madame sat down at two o’clock to déjeuner alone. She told the
+major-domo that M. le Marquis was detained in town and might not be
+home for some time. But the major-domo declared that Madame’s voice, as
+she told him this, sounded tearful and forced, and that she ate
+practically nothing, refusing one succulent dish after another.
+
+The staff of servants was thus kept on tenterhooks all day, and when
+the shadows of evening began to draw in, the theory was started in the
+kitchen that M. le Marquis had either met with an accident or been
+foully murdered. No one, however, dared speak of this to Madame la
+Marquise, who had locked herself up in her room in the early part of
+the afternoon, and since then had refused to see anyone. The major-domo
+was now at his wits’ end. He felt that in a measure the responsibility
+of the household rested upon his shoulders. Indeed he would have taken
+it upon himself to apprise M. Mauruss Mosenstein of the terrible
+happenings, only that the worthy gentleman was absent from Paris just
+then.
+
+Mme. la Marquise remained shut up in her room until past eight o’clock.
+Then she ordered dinner to be served and made pretence of sitting down
+to it; but again the major-domo declared that she ate nothing, whilst
+subsequently the confidential maid who had undressed her vowed that
+Madame had spent the whole night walking up and down the room.
+
+Thus two agonizing days went by; agonizing they were to everybody.
+Madame la Marquise became more and more agitated, more and more
+hysterical as time went on, and the servants could not help but notice
+this, even though she made light of the whole affair, and desperate
+efforts to control herself. The heads of her household, the major-domo,
+the confidential maid, the chef de cuisine, did venture to drop a hint
+or two as to the possibility of an accident or of foul play, and the
+desirability of consulting the police; but Madame would not hear a word
+of it; she became very angry at the suggestion, and declared that she
+was perfectly well aware of M. le Marquis’s whereabouts, that he was
+well and would return home almost immediately.
+
+As was only natural, tongues presently began to wag. Soon it was common
+talk in Paris that M. le Marquis de Firmin-Latour had disappeared from
+his home and that Madame was trying to put a bold face upon the
+occurrence. There were surmises and there was gossip— oh! interminable
+and long-winded gossip! Minute circumstances in connexion with M. le
+Marquis’s private life and Mme. la Marquise’s affairs were freely
+discussed in the cafés, the clubs and restaurants, and as no one knew
+the facts of the case, surmises soon became very wild.
+
+On the third day of M. le Marquis’s disappearance Papa Mosenstein
+returned to Paris from Vichy, where he had just completed his annual
+cure. He arrived at Rue de Grammont at three o’clock in the afternoon,
+demanded to see Mme. la Marquise at once, and then remained closeted
+with her in her apartment for over an hour. After which he sent for the
+inspector of police of the section, with the result that that very same
+evening M. le Marquis de Firmin-Latour was found locked up in an humble
+apartment on the top floor of a house in the Rue Daunou, not ten
+minutes’ walk from his own house. When the police—acting on information
+supplied to them by M. Mauruss Mosenstein—forced their way into that
+apartment, they were horrified to find M. le Marquis de Firmin-Latour
+there, tied hand and foot with cords to a chair, his likely calls for
+help smothered by a woollen shawl wound loosely round the lower part of
+his face.
+
+He was half dead with inanition, and was conveyed speechless and
+helpless to his home in the Rue de Grammont, there, presumably, to be
+nursed back to health by Madame his wife.
+
+5.
+
+Now in all this matter, I ask you, Sir, who ran the greatest risk? Why,
+I—Hector Ratichon, of course—Hector Ratichon, in whose apartment M. de
+Firmin-Latour was discovered in a position bordering on absolute
+inanition. And the proof of this is, that that selfsame night I was
+arrested at my lodgings at Passy, and charged with robbery and
+attempted murder.
+
+It was a terrible predicament for a respectable citizen, a man of
+integrity and reputation, in which to find himself; but Papa Mosenstein
+was both tenacious and vindictive. His daughter, driven to desperation
+at last, and terrified that M. le Marquis had indeed been foully
+murdered by M. de Naquet, had made a clean breast of the whole affair
+to her father, and he in his turn had put the minions of the law in
+full possession of all the facts; and since M. le Comte de Naquet had
+vanished, leaving no manner of trace or clue of his person behind him,
+the police, needing a victim, fell back on an innocent man.
+Fortunately, Sir, that innocence clear as crystal soon shines through
+every calumny. But this was not before I had suffered terrible
+indignities and all the tortures which base ingratitude can inflict
+upon a sensitive heart.
+
+Such ingratitude as I am about to relate to you has never been equalled
+on this earth, and even after all these years, Sir, you see me overcome
+with emotion at the remembrance of it all. I was under arrest,
+remember, on a terribly serious charge, but, conscious of mine own
+innocence and of my unanswerable system of defence, I bore the
+preliminary examination by the juge d’instruction with exemplary
+dignity and patience. I knew, you see, that at my very first
+confrontation with my supposed victim the latter would at once say:
+
+“Ah! but no! This is not the man who assaulted me.”
+
+Our plan, which so far had been overwhelmingly successful, had been
+this.
+
+On the morning of the tenth, M. de Firmin-Latour having pawned the
+emeralds, and obtained the money for them, was to deposit that money in
+his own name at the bank of Raynal Frères and then at once go to the
+office in the Rue Daunou.
+
+There he would be met by Theodore, who would bind him comfortably but
+securely to a chair, put a shawl around his mouth and finally lock the
+door on him. Theodore would then go to his mother’s and there remain
+quietly until I needed his services again.
+
+It had been thought inadvisable for me to be seen that morning anywhere
+in the neighbourhood of the Rue Daunou, but that perfidious reptile
+Theodore ran no risks in doing what he was told. To begin with he is a
+past master in the art of worming himself in and out of a house without
+being seen, and in this case it was his business to exercise a double
+measure of caution. And secondly, if by some unlucky chance the police
+did subsequently connect him with the crime, there was I, his employer,
+a man of integrity and repute, prepared to swear that the man had been
+in my company at the other end of Paris all the while that M. le
+Marquis de Firmin-Latour was, by special arrangement, making use of my
+office in the Rue Daunou, which I had lent him for purposes of
+business.
+
+Finally it was agreed between us that when M. le Marquis would
+presently be questioned by the police as to the appearance of the man
+who had assaulted and robbed him, he would describe him as tall and
+blond, almost like an Angliche in countenance. Now I possess—as you
+see, Sir—all the finest characteristics of the Latin race, whilst
+Theodore looks like nothing on earth, save perhaps a cross between a
+rat and a monkey.
+
+I wish you to realize, therefore, that no one ran any risks in this
+affair excepting myself. I, as the proprietor of the apartment where
+the assault was actually supposed to have taken place, did run a very
+grave risk, because I could never have proved an alibi. Theodore was
+such a disreputable mudlark that his testimony on my behalf would have
+been valueless. But with sublime sacrifice I accepted these risks, and
+you will presently see, Sir, how I was repaid for my selflessness. I
+pined in a lonely prison-cell while these two limbs of Satan concocted
+a plot to rob me of my share in our mutual undertaking.
+
+Well, Sir, the day came when I was taken from my prison-cell for the
+purpose of being confronted with the man whom I was accused of having
+assaulted. As you will imagine, I was perfectly calm. According to our
+plan the confrontation would be the means of setting me free at once. I
+was conveyed to the house in the Rue de Grammont, and here I was kept
+waiting for some little time while the juge d’instruction went in to
+prepare M. le Marquis, who was still far from well. Then I was
+introduced into the sick-room. I looked about me with the perfect
+composure of an innocent man about to be vindicated, and calmly gazed
+on the face of the sick man who was sitting up in his magnificent bed,
+propped up with pillows.
+
+I met his glance firmly whilst M. le Juge d’instruction placed the
+question to him in a solemn and earnest tone:
+
+“M. le Marquis de Firmin-Latour, will you look at the prisoner before
+you and tell us whether you recognize in him the man who assaulted
+you?”
+
+And that perfidious Marquis, Sir, raised his eyes and looked me
+squarely—yes! squarely—in the face and said with incredible assurance:
+
+“Yes, Monsieur le Juge, that is the man! I recognize him.”
+
+To me it seemed then as if a thunderbolt had crashed through the
+ceiling and exploded at my feet. I was like one stunned and dazed; the
+black ingratitude, the abominable treachery, completely deprived me of
+speech. I felt choked, as if some poisonous effluvia—the poison, Sir,
+of that man’s infamy—had got into my throat. That state of inertia
+lasted, I believe, less than a second; the next I had uttered a hoarse
+cry of noble indignation.
+
+“You vampire, you!” I exclaimed. “You viper! You . . .”
+
+I would have thrown myself on him and strangled him with glee, but that
+the minions of the law had me by the arms and dragged me away out of
+the hateful presence of that traitor, despite my objurgations and my
+protestations of innocence. Imagine my feelings when I found myself
+once more in a prison-cell, my heart filled with unspeakable bitterness
+against that perfidious Judas. Can you wonder that it took me some time
+before I could collect my thoughts sufficiently to review my situation,
+which no doubt to the villain himself who had just played me this
+abominable trick must have seemed desperate indeed? Ah! I could see it
+all, of course! He wanted to see me sent to New Caledonia, whilst he
+enjoyed the fruits of his unpardonable backsliding. In order to retain
+the miserable hundred thousand francs which he had promised me he did
+not hesitate to plunge up to the neck in this heinous conspiracy.
+
+Yes, conspiracy! for the very next day, when I was once more hailed
+before the juge d’instruction, another confrontation awaited me: this
+time with that scurvy rogue Theodore. He had been suborned by M. le
+Marquis to turn against the hand that fed him. What price he was paid
+for this Judas trick I shall never know, and all that I do know is that
+he actually swore before the juge d’instruction that M. le Marquis de
+Firmin-Latour called at my office in the late forenoon of the tenth of
+October; that I then ordered him—Theodore—to go out to get his dinner
+first, and then to go all the way over to Neuilly with a message to
+someone who turned out to be non-existent. He went on to assert that
+when he returned at six o’clock in the afternoon he found the office
+door locked, and I—his employer—presumably gone. This at first greatly
+upset him, because he was supposed to sleep on the premises, but seeing
+that there was nothing for it but to accept the inevitable, he went
+round to his mother’s rooms at the back of the fish-market and remained
+there ever since, waiting to hear from me.
+
+That, Sir, was the tissue of lies which that jailbird had concocted for
+my undoing, knowing well that I could not disprove them because it had
+been my task on that eventful morning to keep an eye on M. le Marquis
+whilst he went to the Mont de Piété first, and then to MM. Raynal
+Frères, the bankers where he deposited the money. For this purpose I
+had been obliged to don a disguise, which I had not discarded till
+later in the day, and thus was unable to disprove satisfactorily the
+monstrous lies told by that perjurer.
+
+Ah! I can see that sympathy for my unmerited misfortunes has filled
+your eyes with tears. No doubt in your heart you feel that my situation
+at that hour was indeed desperate, and that I—Hector Ratichon, the
+confidant of kings, the benefactor of the oppressed—did spend the next
+few years of my life in a penal settlement, where those
+arch-malefactors themselves should have been. But no, Sir! Fate may be
+a fickle jade, rogues may appear triumphant, but not for long, Sir, not
+for long! It is brains that conquer in the end . . . brains backed by
+righteousness and by justice.
+
+Whether I had actually foreseen the treachery of those two
+rattlesnakes, or whether my habitual caution and acumen alone prompted
+me to take those measures of precaution of which I am about to tell
+you, I cannot truthfully remember. Certain it is that I did take those
+precautions which ultimately proved to be the means of compensating me
+for most that I had suffered.
+
+It had been a part of the original plan that, on the day immediately
+following the tenth of October, I, in my own capacity as Hector
+Ratichon, who had been absent from my office for twenty-four hours,
+would arrive there in the morning, find the place locked, force an
+entrance into the apartment, and there find M. le Marquis in his
+pitiable plight. After which I would, of course, immediately notify the
+police of the mysterious occurrence.
+
+That had been the rôle which I had intended to play. M. le Marquis
+approved of it and had professed himself quite willing to endure a
+twenty-four-hours’ martyrdom for the sake of half a million francs.
+But, as I have just had the honour to tell you, something which I will
+not attempt to explain prompted me at the last moment to modify my plan
+in one little respect. I thought it too soon to go back to the Rue
+Daunou within twenty-four hours of our well-contrived coup, and I did
+not altogether care for the idea of going myself to the police in order
+to explain to them that I had found a man gagged and bound in my
+office. The less one has to do with these minions of the law the
+better. Mind you, I had envisaged the possibility of being accused of
+assault and robbery, but I did not wish to take, as it were, the very
+first steps myself in that direction. You might call this a matter of
+sentiment or of prudence, as you wish.
+
+So I waited until the evening of the second day before I got the key
+from Theodore. Then before the concierge at 96 Rue Daunou had closed
+the porte-cochere for the night, I slipped into the house unobserved,
+ran up the stairs to my office and entered the apartment. I struck a
+light and made my way to the inner room where the wretched Marquis hung
+in the chair like a bundle of rags. I called to him, but he made no
+movement. As I had anticipated, he had fainted for want of food. Of
+course, I was very sorry for him, for his plight was pitiable, but he
+was playing for high stakes, and a little starvation does no man any
+harm. In his case there was half a million at the end of his brief
+martyrdom, which could, at worst, only last another twenty-four hours.
+I reckoned that Mme. la Marquise could not keep the secret of her
+husband’s possible whereabouts longer than that, and in any event I was
+determined that, despite all risks, I would go myself to the police on
+the following day.
+
+In the meanwhile, since I was here and since M. le Marquis was
+unconscious, I proceeded then and there to take the precaution which
+prudence had dictated, and without which, seeing this man’s treachery
+and Theodore’s villainy, I should undoubtedly have ended my days as a
+convict. What I did was to search M. le Marquis’s pockets for anything
+that might subsequently prove useful to me.
+
+I had no definite idea in the matter, you understand; but I had vague
+notions of finding the bankers’ receipt for the half-million francs.
+
+Well, I did not find that, but I did find the receipt from the Mont de
+Piété for a parure of emeralds on which half a million francs had been
+lent. This I carefully put away in my waistcoat pocket, but as there
+was nothing else I wished to do just then I extinguished the light and
+made my way cautiously out of the apartment and out of the house. No
+one had seen me enter or go out, and M. le Marquis had not stirred
+while I went through his pockets.
+
+6.
+
+That, Sir, was the precaution which I had taken in order to safeguard
+myself against the machinations of traitors. And see how right I was;
+see how hopeless would have been my plight at this hour when Theodore,
+too, turned against me like the veritable viper that he was. I never
+really knew when and under what conditions the infamous bargain was
+struck which was intended to deprive me of my honour and of my liberty,
+nor do I know what emolument Theodore was to receive for his treachery.
+Presumably the two miscreants arranged it all some time during that
+memorable morning of the tenth even whilst I was risking my life in
+their service.
+
+As for M. de Firmin-Latour, that worker of iniquity who, in order to
+save a paltry hundred thousand francs from the hoard which I had helped
+him to acquire, did not hesitate to commit such an abominable crime, he
+did not long remain in the enjoyment of his wealth or of his peace of
+mind.
+
+The very next day I made certain statements before M. le Juge
+d’instruction with regard to M. Mauruss Mosenstein, which caused the
+former to summon the worthy Israelite to his bureau, there to be
+confronted with me. I had nothing more to lose, since those execrable
+rogues had already, as it were, tightened the rope about my neck, but I
+had a great deal to gain—revenge above all, and perhaps the gratitude
+of M. Mosenstein for opening his eyes to the rascality of his
+son-in-law.
+
+In a stream of eloquent words which could not fail to carry conviction,
+I gave then and there in the bureau of the juge d’instruction my
+version of the events of the past few weeks, from the moment when M. le
+Marquis de Firmin-Latour came to consult me on the subject of his
+wife’s first husband, until the hour when he tried to fasten an
+abominable crime upon me. I told how I had been deceived by my own
+employé, Theodore, a man whom I had rescued out of the gutter and
+loaded with gifts, how by dint of a clever disguise which would have
+deceived his own mother he had assumed the appearance and personality
+of M. le Comte de Naquet, first and only lawful lord of the beautiful
+Rachel Mosenstein. I told of the interviews in my office, my earnest
+desire to put an end to this abominable blackmailing by informing the
+police of the whole affair. I told of the false M. de Naquet’s threats
+to create a gigantic scandal which would forever ruin the social
+position of the so-called Marquis de Firmin-Latour. I told of M. le
+Marquis’s agonized entreaties, his prayers, supplications, that I would
+do nothing in the matter for the sake of an innocent lady who had
+already grievously suffered. I spoke of my doubts, my scruples, my
+desire to do what was just and what was right.
+
+A noble expose of the situation, Sir, you will admit. It left me hot
+and breathless. I mopped my head with a handkerchief and sank back,
+gasping, in the arms of the minions of the law. The juge d’instruction
+ordered my removal, not back to my prison-cell but into his own
+ante-room, where I presently collapsed upon a very uncomfortable bench
+and endured the additional humiliation of having a glass of water held
+to my lips. Water! when I had asked for a drink of wine as my throat
+felt parched after that lengthy effort at oratory.
+
+However, there I sat and waited patiently whilst, no doubt, M. le Juge
+d’Instruction and the noble Israelite were comparing notes as to their
+impression of my marvellous speech. I had not long to wait. Less than
+ten minutes later I was once more summoned into the presence of M. le
+Juge; and this time the minions of the law were ordered to remain in
+the antechamber. I thought this was of good augury; and I waited to
+hear M. le Juge give forth the order that would at once set me free.
+But it was M. Mosenstein who first addressed me, and in very truth
+surprise rendered me momentarily dumb when he did it thus:
+
+“Now then, you consummate rascal, when you have given up the receipt of
+the Mont de Piété which you stole out of M. le Marquis’s pocket you may
+go and carry on your rogueries elsewhere and call yourself mightily
+lucky to have escaped so lightly.”
+
+I assure you, Sir, that a feather would have knocked me down. The
+coarse insult, the wanton injustice, had deprived me of the use of my
+limbs and of my speech. Then the juge d’instruction proceeded dryly:
+
+“Now then, Ratichon, you have heard what M. Mauruss Mosenstein has been
+good enough to say to you. He did it with my approval and consent. I am
+prepared to give an _ordonnance de non-lieu_ in your favour which will
+have the effect of at once setting you free if you will restore to this
+gentleman here the Mont de Piété receipt which you appear to have
+stolen.”
+
+“Sir,” I said with consummate dignity in the face of this reiterated
+taunt, “I have stolen nothing—”
+
+M. le Juge’s hand was already on the bell-pull.
+
+“Then,” he said coolly, “I can ring for the gendarmes to take you back
+to the cells, and you will stand your trial for blackmail, theft,
+assault and robbery.”
+
+I put up my hand with an elegant and perfectly calm gesture.
+
+“Your pardon, M. le Juge,” I said with the gentle resignation of
+undeserved martyrdom, “I was about to say that when I re-visited my
+rooms in the Rue Daunou after a three days’ absence, and found the
+police in possession, I picked up on the floor of my private room a
+white paper which on subsequent examination proved to be a receipt from
+the Mont de Piété for some valuable gems, and made out in the name of
+M. le Marquis de Firmin-Latour.”
+
+“What have you done with it, you abominable knave?” the irascible old
+usurer rejoined roughly, and I regret to say that he grasped his
+malacca cane with ominous violence.
+
+But I was not to be thus easily intimidated.
+
+“Ah! voilà, M. le Juge,” I said with a shrug of the shoulders. “I have
+mislaid it. I do not know where it is.”
+
+“If you do not find it,” Mosenstein went on savagely, “you will find
+yourself on a convict ship before long.”
+
+“In which case, no doubt,” I retorted with suave urbanity, “the police
+will search my rooms where I lodge, and they will find the receipt from
+the Mont de Piété, which I had mislaid. And then the gossip will be all
+over Paris that Mme. la Marquise de Firmin-Latour had to pawn her
+jewels in order to satisfy the exigencies of her first and only lawful
+husband who has since mysteriously disappeared; and some people will
+vow that he never came back from the Antipodes, whilst others—by far
+the most numerous—will shrug their shoulders and sigh: ‘One never
+knows!’ which will be exceedingly unpleasant for Mme. la Marquise.”
+
+Both M. Mauruss Mosenstein and the juge d’instruction said a great deal
+more that afternoon. I may say that their attitude towards me and the
+language that they used were positively scandalous. But I had become
+now the master of the situation and I could afford to ignore their
+insults. In the end everything was settled quite amicably. I agreed to
+dispose of the receipt from the Mont de Piété to M. Mauruss Mosenstein
+for the sum of two hundred francs, and for another hundred I would
+indicate to him the banking house where his precious son-in-law had
+deposited the half-million francs obtained for the emeralds. This
+latter information I would indeed have offered him gratuitously had he
+but known with what immense pleasure I thus put a spoke in that knavish
+Marquis’s wheel of fortune.
+
+The worthy Israelite further agreed to pay me an annuity of two hundred
+francs so long as I kept silent upon the entire subject of Mme. la
+Marquise’s first husband and of M. le Marquis’s rôle in the mysterious
+affair of the Rue Daunou. For thus was the affair classed amongst the
+police records. No one outside the chief actors of the drama and M. le
+Juge d’Instruction ever knew the true history of how a dashing young
+cavalry officer came to be assaulted and left to starve for three days
+in the humble apartment of an attorney-at-law of undisputed repute. And
+no one outside the private bureau of M. le Juge d’Instruction ever knew
+what it cost the wealthy M. Mosenstein to have the whole affair
+“classed” and hushed up.
+
+As for me, I had three hundred francs as payment for work which I had
+risked my neck and my reputation to accomplish. Three hundred instead
+of the hundred thousand which I had so richly deserved: that, and a
+paltry two hundred francs a year, which was to cease the moment that as
+much as a rumour of the whole affair was breathed in public. As if I
+could help people talking!
+
+But M. le Marquis did not enjoy the fruits of his villainy, and I had
+again the satisfaction of seeing him gnaw his finger-nails with rage
+whenever the lovely Rachel paid for his dinner at fashionable
+restaurants. Indeed Papa Mosenstein tightened the strings of his
+money-bags even more securely than he had done in the past. Under
+threats of prosecution for theft and I know not what, he forced his
+son-in-law to disgorge that half-million which he had so pleasantly
+tucked away in the banking house of Raynal Frères, and I was indeed
+thankful that prudence had, on that memorable morning, suggested to me
+the advisability of dogging the Marquis’s footsteps. I doubt not but
+what he knew whence had come the thunderbolt which had crushed his last
+hopes of an independent fortune, and no doubt too he does not cherish
+feelings of good will towards me.
+
+But this eventuality leaves me cold. He has only himself to thank for
+his misfortune. Everything would have gone well but for his treachery.
+We would have become affluent, he and I and Theodore. Theodore has gone
+to live with his mother, who has a fish-stall in the Halles; she gives
+him three sous a day for washing down the stall and selling the fish
+when it has become too odorous for the ordinary customers.
+
+And he might have had five hundred francs for himself and remained my
+confidential clerk.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV. — CARISSIMO
+
+1.
+
+You must not think for a moment, my dear Sir, that I was ever actually
+deceived in Theodore. Was it likely that I, who am by temperament and
+habit accustomed to read human visages like a book, was it likely, I
+say, that I would fail to see craftiness in those pale, shifty eyes,
+deceit in the weak, slobbering mouth, intemperance in the whole aspect
+of the shrunken, slouchy figure which I had, for my subsequent sorrow,
+so generously rescued from starvation?
+
+Generous? I was more than generous to him. They say that the poor are
+the friends of the poor, and I told you how poor we were in those days!
+Ah! but poor! my dear Sir, you have no conception! Meat in Paris in the
+autumn of 1816 was 24 francs the kilo, and milk 1 franc the quarter
+litre, not to mention eggs and butter, which were delicacies far beyond
+the reach of cultured, well-born people like myself.
+
+And yet throughout that trying year I fed Theodore—yes, I fed him. He
+used to share onion pie with me whenever I partook of it, and he had
+haricot soup every day, into which I allowed him to boil the skins of
+all the sausages and the luscious bones of all the cutlets of which I
+happened to partake. Then think what he cost me in drink! Never could I
+leave a half or quarter bottle of wine but he would finish it; his
+impudent fingers made light of every lock and key. I dared not allow as
+much as a sou to rest in the pocket of my coat but he would ferret it
+out the moment I hung the coat up in the outer room and my back was
+turned for a few seconds. After a while I was forced—yes, I, Sir, who
+have spoken on terms of equality with kings—I was forced to go out and
+make my own purchases in the neighbouring provision shops. And why?
+Because if I sent Theodore and gave him a few sous wherewith to make
+these purchases, he would spend the money at the nearest cabaret in
+getting drunk on absinthe.
+
+He robbed me, Sir, shamefully, despite the fact that he had ten per
+cent, commission on all the profits of the firm. I gave him twenty
+francs out of the money which I had earned at the sweat of my brow in
+the service of Estelle Bachelier. Twenty francs, Sir! Reckoning two
+hundred francs as business profit on the affair, a generous provision
+you will admit! And yet he taunted me with having received a thousand.
+This was mere guesswork, of course, and I took no notice of his taunts:
+did the brains that conceived the business deserve no payment? Was my
+labour to be counted as dross?—the humiliation, the blows which I had
+to endure while he sat in hoggish content, eating and sleeping without
+thought for the morrow? After which he calmly pocketed the twenty
+francs to earn which he had not raised one finger, and then demanded
+more.
+
+No, no, my dear Sir, you will believe me or not, that man could not go
+straight. Times out of count he would try and deceive me, despite the
+fact that, once or twice, he very nearly came hopelessly to grief in
+the attempt.
+
+Now, just to give you an instance. About this time Paris was in the
+grip of a gang of dog-thieves as unscrupulous and heartless as they
+were daring. Can you wonder at it? with that awful penury about and a
+number of expensive “tou-tous” running about the streets under the very
+noses of the indigent proletariat? The ladies of the aristocracy and of
+the wealthy bourgeoisie had imbibed this craze for lap-dogs during
+their sojourn in England at the time of the emigration, and being women
+of the Latin race and of undisciplined temperament, they were just then
+carrying their craze to excess.
+
+As I was saying, this indulgence led to wholesale thieving. Tou-tous
+were abstracted from their adoring mistresses with marvellous
+adroitness; whereupon two or three days would elapse while the adoring
+mistress wept buckets full of tears and set the police of M. Fouché,
+Duc d’Otrante, by the ears in search of her pet. The next act in the
+tragi-comedy would be an anonymous demand for money—varying in amount
+in accordance with the known or supposed wealth of the lady—and an
+equally anonymous threat of dire vengeance upon the tou-tou if the
+police were put upon the track of the thieves.
+
+You will ask me, no doubt, what all this had to do with Theodore. Well!
+I will tell you.
+
+You must know that of late he had become extraordinarily haughty and
+independent. I could not keep him to his work. His duties were to sweep
+the office—he did not do it; to light the fires—I had to light them
+myself every morning; to remain in the anteroom and show clients in—he
+was never at his post. In fact he was never there when I did want him:
+morning, noon and night he was out—gadding about and coming home, Sir,
+only to eat and sleep. I was seriously thinking of giving him the sack.
+And then one day he disappeared! Yes, Sir, disappeared completely as if
+the earth had swallowed him up. One morning—it was in the beginning of
+December and the cold was biting—I arrived at the office and found that
+his chair-bed which stood in the antechamber had not been slept in; in
+fact that it had not been made up overnight. In the cupboard I found
+the remnants of an onion pie, half a sausage, and a quarter of a litre
+of wine, which proved conclusively that he had not been in to supper.
+
+At first I was not greatly disturbed in my mind. I had found out quite
+recently that Theodore had some sort of a squalid home of his own
+somewhere behind the fish-market, together with an old and wholly
+disreputable mother who plied him with drink whenever he spent an
+evening with her and either he or she had a franc in their pocket.
+Still, after these bouts spent in the bosom of his family he usually
+returned to sleep them off at my expense in my office.
+
+I had unfortunately very little to do that day, so in the late
+afternoon, not having seen anything of Theodore all day, I turned my
+steps toward the house behind the fish-market where lived the mother of
+that ungrateful wretch.
+
+The woman’s surprise when I inquired after her precious son was
+undoubtedly genuine. Her lamentations and crocodile tears certainly
+were not. She reeked of alcohol, and the one room which she inhabited
+was indescribably filthy. I offered her half a franc if she gave me
+authentic news of Theodore, knowing well that for that sum she would
+have sold him to the devil. But very obviously she knew nothing of his
+whereabouts, and I soon made haste to shake the dirt of her abode from
+my heels.
+
+I had become vaguely anxious.
+
+I wondered if he had been murdered somewhere down a back street, and if
+I should miss him very much.
+
+I did not think that I would.
+
+Moreover, no one could have any object in murdering Theodore. In his
+own stupid way he was harmless enough, and he certainly was not
+possessed of anything worth stealing. I myself was not over-fond of the
+man—but I should not have bothered to murder him.
+
+Still, I was undoubtedly anxious, and slept but little that night
+thinking of the wretch. When the following morning I arrived at my
+office and still could see no trace of him, I had serious thoughts of
+putting the law in motion on his behalf.
+
+Just then, however, an incident occurred which drove all thoughts of
+such an insignificant personage as Theodore from my mind.
+
+I had just finished tidying up the office when there came a peremptory
+ring at the outer door, repeated at intervals of twenty seconds or so.
+It meant giving a hasty glance all round to see that no fragments of
+onion pie or of cheap claret lingered in unsuspected places, and it
+meant my going, myself, to open the door to my impatient visitor.
+
+I did it, Sir, and then at the door I stood transfixed. I had seen many
+beautiful women in my day—great ladies of the Court, brilliant ladies
+of the Consulate, the Directorate and the Empire—but never in my life
+had I seen such an exquisite and resplendent apparition as the one
+which now sailed through the antechamber of my humble abode.
+
+Sir, Hector Ratichon’s heart has ever been susceptible to the charms of
+beauty in distress. This lovely being, Sir, who now at my invitation
+entered my office and sank with perfect grace into the arm-chair, was
+in obvious distress. Tears hung on the fringe of her dark lashes, and
+the gossamer-like handkerchief which she held in her dainty hand was
+nothing but a wet rag. She gave herself exactly two minutes wherein to
+compose herself, after which she dried her eyes and turned the full
+artillery of her bewitching glance upon me.
+
+“Monsieur Ratichon,” she began, even before I had taken my accustomed
+place at my desk and assumed that engaging smile which inspires
+confidence even in the most timorous; “Monsieur Ratichon, they tell me
+that you are so clever, and—oh! I am in such trouble.”
+
+“Madame,” I rejoined with noble simplicity, “you may trust me to do the
+impossible in order to be of service to you.”
+
+Admirably put, you will admit. I have always been counted a master of
+appropriate diction, and I had been quick enough to note the plain band
+of gold which encircled the third finger of her dainty left hand,
+flanked though it was by a multiplicity of diamond, pearl and other
+jewelled rings.
+
+“You are kind, Monsieur Ratichon,” resumed the beauteous creature more
+calmly. “But indeed you will require all the ingenuity of your
+resourceful brain in order to help me in this matter. I am struggling
+in the grip of a relentless fate which, if you do not help me, will
+leave me broken-hearted.”
+
+“Command me, Madame,” I riposted quietly.
+
+From out the daintiest of reticules the fair lady now extracted a very
+greasy and very dirty bit of paper, and handed it to me with the brief
+request: “Read this, I pray you, my good M. Ratichon.” I took the
+paper. It was a clumsily worded, ill-written, ill-spelt demand for five
+thousand francs, failing which sum the thing which Madame had lost
+would forthwith be destroyed.
+
+I looked up, puzzled, at my fair client.
+
+“My darling Carissimo, my dear M. Ratichon,” she said in reply to my
+mute query.
+
+“Carissimo?” I stammered, yet further intrigued.
+
+“My darling pet, a valuable creature, the companion of my lonely
+hours,” she rejoined, once more bursting into tears. “If I lose him, my
+heart will inevitably break.”
+
+I understood at last.
+
+“Madame has lost her dog?” I asked.
+
+She nodded.
+
+“It has been stolen by one of those expert dog thieves, who then levy
+blackmail on the unfortunate owner?”
+
+Again she nodded in assent.
+
+I read the dirty, almost illegible scrawl through more carefully this
+time. It was a clumsy notification addressed to Mme. la Comtesse de
+Nolé de St. Pris to the effect that her tou-tou was for the moment
+safe, and would be restored to the arms of his fond mistress provided
+the sum of five thousand francs was deposited in the hands of the
+bearer of the missive.
+
+Minute directions were then given as to where and how the money was to
+be deposited. Mme. la Comtesse de Nolé was, on the third day from this
+at six o’clock in the evening precisely, to go in person and alone to
+the angle of the Rue Guénégaud and the Rue Mazarine, at the rear of the
+Institut.
+
+There two men would meet her, one of whom would have Carissimo in his
+arms; to the other she must hand over the money, whereupon the pet
+would at once be handed back to her. But if she failed to keep this
+appointment, or if in the meanwhile she made the slightest attempt to
+trace the writer of the missive or to lay a trap for his capture by the
+police, Carissimo would at once meet with a summary death.
+
+These were the usual tactics of experienced dog thieves, only that in
+this case the demand was certainly exorbitant. Five thousand francs!
+But even so . . . I cast a rapid and comprehensive glance on the
+brilliant apparition before me—the jewelled rings, the diamonds in the
+shell-like ears, the priceless fur coat—and with an expressive shrug of
+the shoulders I handed the dirty scrap of paper back to its fair
+recipient.
+
+“Alas, Madame,” I said, taking care that she should not guess how much
+it cost me to give her such advice, “I am afraid that in such cases
+there is nothing to be done. If you wish to save your pet you will have
+to pay. . .”
+
+“Ah! but, Monsieur,” she exclaimed tearfully, “you don’t understand.
+Carissimo is all the world to me, and this is not the first time, nor
+yet the second, that he has been stolen from me. Three times, my good
+M. Ratichon, three times has he been stolen, and three times have I
+received such peremptory demands for money for his safe return; and
+every time the demand has been more and more exorbitant. Less than a
+month ago M. le Comte paid three thousand francs for his recovery.”
+
+“Monsieur le Comte?” I queried.
+
+“My husband, Sir,” she replied, with an exquisite air of hauteur. “M.
+le Comte de Nolé de St. Pris.”
+
+“Ah, then,” I continued calmly, “I fear me that Monsieur de Nolé de St.
+Pris will have to pay again.”
+
+“But he won’t!” she now cried out in a voice broken with sobs, and
+incontinently once more saturated her gossamer handkerchief with her
+tears.
+
+“Then I see nothing for it, Madame,” I rejoined, much against my will
+with a slight touch of impatience, “I see nothing for it but that
+yourself . . .”
+
+“Ah! but, Monsieur,” she retorted, with a sigh that would have melted a
+heart of stone, “that is just my difficulty. I cannot pay . . .”
+
+“Madame,” I protested.
+
+“Oh! if I had money of my own,” she continued, with an adorable gesture
+of impatience, “I would not worry. Mais voilà: I have not a silver
+franc of my own to bless myself with. M. le Comte is over generous. He
+pays all my bills without a murmur—he pays my dressmaker, my furrier;
+he loads me with gifts and dispenses charity on a lavish scale in my
+name. I have horses, carriages, servants—everything I can possibly want
+and more, but I never have more than a few hundred francs to dispose
+of. Up to now I have never for a moment felt the want of money. To-day,
+when Carissimo is being lost to me, I feel the entire horror of my
+position.”
+
+“But surely, Madame,” I urged, “M. le Comte . . .”
+
+“No, Monsieur,” she replied. “M. le Comte has flatly refused this time
+to pay these abominable thieves for the recovery of Carissimo. He
+upbraids himself for having yielded to their demands on the three
+previous occasions. He calls these demands blackmailing, and vows that
+to give them money again is to encourage them in their nefarious
+practices. Oh! he has been cruel to me, cruel!—for the first time in my
+life, Monsieur, my husband has made me unhappy, and if I lose my
+darling now I shall indeed be broken-hearted.”
+
+I was silent for a moment or two. I was beginning to wonder what part I
+should be expected to play in the tragedy which was being unfolded
+before me by this lovely and impecunious creature.
+
+“Madame la Comtesse,” I suggested tentatively, after a while, “your
+jewellery . . . you must have a vast number which you seldom wear . . .
+five thousand francs is soon made up. . . .”
+
+You see, Sir, my hopes of a really good remunerative business had by
+now dwindled down to vanishing point. All that was left of them was a
+vague idea that the beautiful Comtesse would perhaps employ me as an
+intermediary for the sale of some of her jewellery, in which case . . .
+But already her next words disillusioned me even on that point.
+
+“No, Monsieur,” she said; “what would be the use? Through one of the
+usual perverse tricks of fate, M. le Comte would be sure to inquire
+after the very piece of jewellery of which I had so disposed, and
+moreover . . .”
+
+“Moreover—yes, Mme. la Comtesse?”
+
+“Moreover, my husband is right,” she concluded decisively. “If I give
+in to those thieves to-day and pay them five thousand francs, they
+would only set to work to steal Carissimo again and demand ten thousand
+francs from me another time.”
+
+I was silent. What could I say? Her argument was indeed unanswerable.
+
+“No, my good M. Ratichon,” she said very determinedly after a while. “I
+have quite decided that you must confound those thieves. They have
+given me three days’ grace, as you see in their abominable letter. If
+after three days the money is not forthcoming, and if in the meanwhile
+I dare to set a trap for them or in any way communicate with the
+police, my darling Carissimo will be killed and my heart be broken.”
+
+“Madame la Comtesse,” I entreated, for of a truth I could not bear to
+see her cry again.
+
+“You must bring Carissimo back to me, M. Ratichon,” she continued
+peremptorily, “before those awful three days have elapsed.”
+
+“I swear that I will,” I rejoined solemnly; but I must admit that I did
+it entirely on the spur of the moment, for of a truth I saw no prospect
+whatever of being able to accomplish what she desired.
+
+“Without my paying a single louis to those execrable thieves,” the
+exquisite creature went on peremptorily,
+
+“It shall be done, Madame la Comtesse.”
+
+“And let me tell you,” she now added, with the sweetest and archest of
+smiles, “that if you succeed in this, M. le Comte de Nolé de St. Pris
+will gladly pay you the five thousand francs which he refuses to give
+to those miscreants.”
+
+Five thousand francs! A mist swam before my eyes,
+
+“Mais, Madame la Comtesse . . .” I stammered.
+
+“Oh!” she added, with an adorable uptilting of her little chin, “I am
+not promising what I cannot fulfil. M. le Comte de Nolé only said this
+morning, apropos of dog thieves, that he would gladly give ten thousand
+francs to anyone who succeeded in ridding society of such pests.”
+
+I could have knelt down on the hard floor, Sir, and . . .
+
+“Well then, Madame,” was my ready rejoinder, “why not ten thousand
+francs to me?”
+
+She bit her coral lips . . . but she also smiled. I could see that my
+personality and my manners had greatly impressed her.
+
+“I will only be responsible for the first five thousand,” she said
+lightly. “But, for the rest, I can confidently assure you that you will
+not find a miser in M. le Comte de Nolé de St. Pris.”
+
+I could have knelt down on the hard floor, Sir, and kissed her
+exquisitely shod feet. Five thousand francs certain! Perhaps ten! A
+fortune, Sir, in those days! One that would keep me in comfort—nay,
+affluence, until something else turned up. I was swimming in the
+empyrean and only came rudely to earth when I recollected that I should
+have to give Theodore something for his share of the business. Ah!
+fortunately that for the moment he was comfortably out of the way!
+Thoughts that perhaps he had been murdered after all once more coursed
+through my brain: not unpleasantly, I’ll admit. I would not have raised
+a finger to hurt the fellow, even though he had treated me with the
+basest ingratitude and treachery; but if someone else took the trouble
+to remove him, why indeed should I quarrel with fate?
+
+Back I came swiftly to the happy present. The lovely creature was
+showing me a beautifully painted miniature of Carissimo, a King Charles
+spaniel of no common type. This she suggested that I should keep by me
+for the present for purposes of identification. After this we had to go
+into the details of the circumstances under which she had lost her pet.
+She had been for a walk with him, it seems, along the Quai Voltaire,
+and was returning home by the side of the river, when suddenly a number
+of workmen in blouses and peaked caps came trooping out of a side
+street and obstructed her progress. She had Carissimo on the lead, and
+she at once admitted to me that at first she never thought of
+connecting this pushing and jostling rabble with any possible theft.
+She held her ground for awhile, facing the crowd: for a few moments she
+was right in the midst of it, and just then she felt the dog straining
+at the lead. She turned round at once with the intention of picking him
+up, when to her horror she saw that there was only a bundle of
+something weighty at the end of the lead, and that the dog had
+disappeared.
+
+The whole incident occurred, the lovely creature declared, within the
+space of thirty seconds; the next instant the crowd had scattered in
+several directions, the men running and laughing as they went. Mme. la
+Comtesse was left standing alone on the quay. Not a passer-by in sight,
+and the only gendarme visible, a long way down the Quai, had his back
+turned toward her. Nevertheless she ran and hied him, and presently he
+turned and, realizing that something was amiss, he too ran to meet her.
+He listened to her story, swore lustily, but shrugged his shoulders in
+token that the tale did not surprise him and that but little could be
+done. Nevertheless he at once summoned those of his colleagues who were
+on duty in the neighbourhood, and one of them went off immediately to
+notify the theft at the nearest commissariat of police. After which
+they all proceeded to a comprehensive scouring of the many tortuous
+sidestreets of the quartier; but, needless to say, there was no sign of
+Carissimo or of his abductors.
+
+That night my lovely client went home distracted.
+
+The following evening, when, broken-hearted, she wandered down the
+quays living over again the agonizing moments during which she lost her
+pet, a workman in a blue blouse, with a peaked cap pulled well over his
+eyes, lurched up against her and thrust into her hand the missive which
+she had just shown me. He then disappeared into the night, and she had
+only the vaguest possible recollection of his appearance.
+
+That, Sir, was the substance of the story which the lovely creature
+told me in a voice oft choked with tears. I questioned her very closely
+and in my most impressive professional manner as to the identity of any
+one man among the crowd who might have attracted her attention, but all
+that she could tell me was that she had a vague impression of a wizened
+hunchback with evil face, shaggy red beard and hair, and a black patch
+covering the left eye.
+
+2.
+
+Not much data to go on, you will, I think, admit, and I can assure you,
+Sir, that had I not possessed that unbounded belief in myself which is
+the true hall-mark of genius, I would at the outset have felt
+profoundly discouraged.
+
+As it was, I found just the right words of consolation and of hope
+wherewith to bow my brilliant client out of my humble apartments, and
+then to settle down to deep and considered meditation. Nothing, Sir, is
+so conducive to thought as a long, brisk walk through the crowded
+streets of Paris. So I brushed my coat, put on my hat at a becoming
+angle, and started on my way.
+
+I walked as far as Suresnes, and I thought. After that, feeling
+fatigued, I sat on the terrace of the Café Bourbon, overlooking the
+river. There I sipped my coffee and thought. I walked back into Paris
+in the evening, and still thought, and thought, and thought. After that
+I had some dinner, washed down by an agreeable bottle of wine—did I
+mention that the lovely creature had given me a hundred francs on
+account?—then I went for a stroll along the Quai Voltaire, and I may
+safely say that there is not a single side and tortuous street in its
+vicinity that I did not explore from end to end during the course of
+that never to be forgotten evening.
+
+But still my mind remained in a chaotic condition. I had not succeeded
+in forming any plan. What a quandary, Sir! Oh! what a quandary! Here
+was I, Hector Ratichon, the confidant of kings, the right hand of two
+emperors, set to the task of stealing a dog—for that is what I should
+have to do—from an unscrupulous gang of thieves whose identity, abode
+and methods were alike unknown to me. Truly, Sir, you will own that
+this was a herculean task.
+
+Vaguely my thoughts reverted to Theodore. He might have been of good
+counsel, for he knew more about thieves than I did, but the ungrateful
+wretch was out of the way on the one occasion when he might have been
+of use to me who had done so much for him. Indeed, my reason told me
+that I need not trouble my head about Theodore. He had vanished; that
+he would come back presently was, of course, an indubitable fact;
+people like Theodore never vanish completely. He would come back and
+demand I know not what, his share, perhaps, in a business which was so
+promising even if it was still so vague.
+
+Five thousand francs! A round sum! If I gave Theodore five hundred the
+sum would at once appear meagre, unimportant. Four thousand five
+hundred francs!—it did not even _sound_ well to my mind.
+
+So I took care that Theodore vanished from my mental vision as
+completely as he had done for the last two days from my ken, and as
+there was nothing more that could be done that evening, I turned my
+weary footsteps toward my lodgings at Passy.
+
+All that night, Sir, I lay wakeful and tossing in my bed, alternately
+fuming and rejecting plans for the attainment of that golden goal—the
+recovery of Mme. de Nolé’s pet dog. And the whole of the next day I
+spent in vain quest. I visited every haunt of ill-fame known to me
+within the city. I walked about with a pistol in my belt, a hunk of
+bread and cheese in my pocket, and slowly growing despair in my heart.
+
+In the evening Mme. la Comtesse de Nolé called for news of Carissimo,
+and I could give her none. She cried, Sir, and implored, and her tears
+and entreaties got on to my nerves until I felt ready to fall into
+hysterics. One more day and all my chances of a bright and wealthy
+future would have vanished. Unless the money was forthcoming on the
+morrow, the dog would be destroyed, and with him my every hope of that
+five thousand francs. And though she still irradiated charm and luxury
+from her entire lovely person, I begged her not to come to the office
+again, and promised that as soon as I had any news to impart I would at
+once present myself at her house in the Faubourg St. Germain.
+
+That night I never slept one wink. Think of it, Sir! The next few hours
+were destined to see me either a prosperous man for many days to come,
+or a miserable, helpless, disappointed wretch. At eight o’clock I was
+at my office. Still no news of Theodore. I could now no longer dismiss
+him from my mind. Something had happened to him, I could have no doubt.
+This anxiety, added to the other more serious one, drove me to a state
+bordering on frenzy. I hardly knew what I was doing. I wandered all day
+up and down the Quai Voltaire, and the Quai des Grands Augustins, and
+in and around the tortuous streets till I was dog-tired, distracted,
+half crazy.
+
+I went to the Morgue, thinking to find there Theodore’s dead body, and
+found myself vaguely looking for the mutilated corpse of Carissimo.
+Indeed, after a while Theodore and Carissimo became so inextricably
+mixed up in my mind that I could not have told you if I was seeking for
+the one or for the other and if Mme. la Comtesse de Nolé was now
+waiting to clasp her pet dog or my man-of-all-work to her exquisite
+bosom.
+
+She in the meanwhile had received a second, yet more peremptory,
+missive through the same channel as the previous one. A grimy deformed
+man, with ginger-coloured hair, and wearing a black patch over one eye,
+had been seen by one of the servants lolling down the street where
+Madame lived, and subsequently the concierge discovered that an
+exceedingly dirty scrap of paper had been thrust under the door of his
+lodge. The writer of the epistle demanded that Mme. la Comtesse should
+stand in person at six o’clock that same evening at the corner of the
+Rue Guénégaud, behind the Institut de France. Two men, each wearing a
+blue blouse and peaked cap, would meet her there. She must hand over
+the money to one of them, whilst the other would have Carissimo in his
+arms. The missive closed with the usual threats that if the police were
+mixed up in the affair, or the money not forthcoming, Carissimo would
+be destroyed.
+
+Six o’clock was the hour fixed by these abominable thieves for the
+final doom of Carissimo. It was now close on five. In a little more
+than an hour my last hope of five or ten thousand francs and a smile of
+gratitude from a pair of lovely lips would have gone, never again to
+return. A great access of righteous rage seized upon me. I determined
+that those miserable thieves, whoever they were, should suffer for the
+disappointment which I was now enduring. If I was to lose five thousand
+francs, they at least should not be left free to pursue their evil
+ways. I would communicate with the police; the police should meet the
+miscreants at the corner of the Rue Guénégaud. Carissimo would die; his
+lovely mistress would be brokenhearted. I would be left to mourn yet
+another illusion of a possible fortune, but they would suffer in gaol
+or in New Caledonia the consequences of all their misdeeds.
+
+Fortified by this resolution, I turned my weary footsteps in the
+direction of the gendarmerie where I intended to lodge my denunciation
+of those abominable thieves and blackmailers. The night was dark, the
+streets ill-lighted, the air bitterly cold. A thin drizzle, half rain,
+half snow, was descending, chilling me to the bone.
+
+I was walking rapidly along the river bank with my coat collar pulled
+up to my ears, and still instinctively peering up every narrow street
+which debouches on the quay. Then suddenly I spied Theodore. He was
+coming down the Rue Beaune, slouching along with head bent in his usual
+way. He appeared to be carrying something, not exactly heavy, but
+cumbersome, under his left arm. Within the next few minutes he would
+have been face to face with me, for I had come to a halt at the angle
+of the street, determined to have it out with the rascal then and there
+in spite of the cold and in spite of my anxiety about Carissimo.
+
+All of a sudden he raised his head and saw me, and in a second he
+turned on his heel and began to run up the street in the direction
+whence he had come. At once I gave chase. I ran after him—and then,
+Sir, he came for a second within the circle of light projected by a
+street lanthorn. But in that one second I had seen that which turned my
+frozen blood into liquid lava—a tail, Sir!—a dog’s tail, fluffy and
+curly, projecting from beneath that recreant’s left arm.
+
+A dog, Sir! a dog! Carissimo! the darling of Mme. la Comtesse de Nolé’s
+heart! Carissimo, the recovery of whom would mean five thousand francs
+into my pocket! Carissimo! I knew it! For me there existed but one dog
+in all the world; one dog and one spawn of the devil, one arch-traitor,
+one limb of Satan! Theodore!
+
+How he had come by Carissimo I had not time to conjecture. I called to
+him. I called his accursed name, using appellations which fell far
+short of those which he deserved. But the louder I called the faster he
+ran, and I, breathless, panting, ran after him, determined to run him
+to earth, fearful lest I should lose him in the darkness of the night.
+All down the Rue Beaune we ran, and already I could hear behind me the
+heavy and more leisured tramp of a couple of gendarmes who in their
+turn had started to give chase.
+
+I tell you, Sir, the sound lent wings to my feet. A chance—a last
+chance—was being offered me by a benevolent Fate to earn that five
+thousand francs, the keystone to my future fortune. If I had the
+strength to seize and hold Theodore until the gendarmes came up, and
+before he had time to do away with the dog, the five thousand francs
+could still be mine.
+
+So I ran, Sir, as I had never run before; the beads of perspiration
+poured down from my forehead; the breath came stertorous and hot from
+my heaving breast.
+
+Then suddenly Theodore disappeared!
+
+Disappeared, Sir, as if the earth had swallowed him up! A second ago I
+had seen him dimly, yet distinctly through the veil of snow and rain
+ahead of me, running with that unmistakable shuffling gait of his,
+hugging the dog closely under his arm. I had seen him—another effort
+and I might have touched him!—now the long and deserted street lay dark
+and mysterious before me, and behind me I could hear the measured tramp
+of the gendarmes and their peremptory call of “Halt, in the name of the
+King!”
+
+But not in vain, Sir, am I called Hector Ratichon; not in vain have
+kings and emperors reposed confidence in my valour and my presence of
+mind. In less time than it takes to relate I had already marked with my
+eye the very spot—down the street—where I had last seen Theodore. I
+hurried forward and saw at once that my surmise had been correct. At
+that very spot, Sir, there was a low doorway which gave on a dark and
+dank passage. The door itself was open. I did not hesitate. My life
+stood in the balance but I did not falter. I might be affronting within
+the next second or two a gang of desperate thieves, but I did not
+quake.
+
+I turned into that doorway, Sir; the next moment I felt a stunning blow
+between my eyes. I just remember calling out with all the strength of
+my lungs: “Police! Gendarmes! A moi!” Then nothing more.
+
+3.
+
+I woke with the consciousness of violent wordy warfare carried on
+around me. I was lying on the ground, and the first things I saw were
+three or four pairs of feet standing close together. Gradually out of
+the confused hubbub a few sentences struck my reawakened senses.
+
+“The man is drunk.”
+
+“I won’t have him inside the house.”
+
+“I tell you this is a respectable house.” This from a shrill feminine
+voice. “We’ve never had the law inside our doors before.”
+
+By this time I had succeeded in raising myself on my elbow, and, by the
+dim light of a hanging lamp somewhere down the passage, I was pretty
+well able to take stock of my surroundings.
+
+The half-dozen bedroom candlesticks on a table up against the wall, the
+row of keys hanging on hooks fixed to a board above, the glass
+partition with the words “Concierge” and “Réception” painted across it,
+all told me that this was one of those small, mostly squalid and
+disreputable lodging houses or hotels in which this quarter of Paris
+still abounds.
+
+The two gendarmes who had been running after me were arguing the matter
+of my presence here with the proprietor of the place and with the
+concierge.
+
+I struggled to my feet. Whereupon for the space of a solid two minutes
+I had to bear as calmly as I could the abuse and vituperation which the
+feminine proprietor of this “respectable house” chose to hurl at my
+unfortunate head. After which I obtained a hearing from the bewildered
+minions of the law. To them I gave as brief and succinct a narrative as
+I could of the events of the past three days. The theft of
+Carissimo—the disappearance of Theodore—my meeting him a while ago,
+with the dog under his arm—his second disappearance, this time within
+the doorway of this “respectable abode,” and finally the blow which
+alone had prevented me from running the abominable thief to earth.
+
+The gendarmes at first were incredulous. I could see that they were
+still under the belief that my excitement was due to over-indulgence in
+alcoholic liquor, whilst Madame the proprietress called me an
+abominable liar for daring to suggest that she harboured thieves within
+her doors. Then suddenly, as if in vindication of my character, there
+came from a floor above the sound of a loud, shrill bark.
+
+“Carissimo!” I cried triumphantly. Then I added in a rapid whisper,
+“Mme. la Comtesse de Nolé is rich. She spoke of a big reward for the
+recovery of her pet.”
+
+These happy words had the effect of stimulating the zeal of the
+gendarmes. Madame the proprietress grew somewhat confused and
+incoherent, and finally blurted it out that one of her lodgers—a highly
+respectable gentleman—did keep a dog, but that there was no crime in
+that surely.
+
+“One of your lodgers?” queried the representative of the law. “When did
+he come?”
+
+“About three days ago,” she replied sullenly.
+
+“What room does he occupy?”
+
+“Number twenty-five on the third floor.”
+
+“He came with his dog?” I interposed quickly, “a spaniel?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“And your lodger, is he an ugly, slouchy creature—with hooked nose,
+bleary eyes and shaggy yellow hair?”
+
+But to this she vouchsafed no reply.
+
+Already the matter had passed out of my hands. One of the gendarmes
+prepared to go upstairs and bade me follow him, whilst he ordered his
+comrade to remain below and on no account to allow anyone to enter or
+leave the house. The proprietress and concierge were warned that if
+they interfered with the due execution of the law they would be
+severely dealt with; after which we went upstairs.
+
+For a while, as we ascended, we could hear the dog barking furiously,
+then, presently, just as we reached the upper landing, we heard a loud
+curse, a scramble, and then a piteous whine quickly smothered.
+
+My very heart stood still. The next moment, however, the gendarme had
+kicked open the door of No. 25, and I followed him into the room. The
+place looked dirty and squalid in the extreme—just the sort of place I
+should have expected Theodore to haunt. It was almost bare save for a
+table in the centre, a couple of rickety chairs, a broken-down bedstead
+and an iron stove in the corner. On the table a tallow candle was
+spluttering and throwing a very feeble circle of light around.
+
+At first glance I thought that the room was empty, then suddenly I
+heard another violent expletive and became aware of a man sitting close
+beside the iron stove. He turned to stare at us as we entered, but to
+my surprise it was not Theodore’s ugly face which confronted us. The
+man sitting there alone in the room where I had expected to see
+Theodore and Carissimo had a shaggy beard of an undoubted ginger hue.
+He had on a blue blouse and a peaked cap; beneath his cap his lank hair
+protruded more decided in colour even than his beard. His head was sunk
+between his shoulders, and right across his face, from the left eyebrow
+over the cheek and as far as his ear, he had a hideous crimson scar,
+which told up vividly against the ghastly pallor of his face.
+
+But there was no sign of Theodore!
+
+At first my friend the gendarme was quite urbane. He asked very
+politely to see Monsieur’s pet dog. Monsieur denied all knowledge of a
+dog, which denial only tended to establish his own guilt and the
+veracity of mine own narrative. The gendarme thereupon became more
+peremptory and the man promptly lost his temper.
+
+I, in the meanwhile, was glancing round the room and soon spied a wall
+cupboard which had obviously been deliberately screened by the
+bedstead. While my companion was bringing the whole majesty of the law
+to bear upon the miscreant’s denegations I calmly dragged the bedstead
+aside and opened the cupboard door.
+
+An ejaculation from my quivering throat brought the gendarme to my
+side. Crouching in the dark recess of the wall cupboard was
+Carissimo—not dead, thank goodness! but literally shaking with terror.
+I pulled him out as gently as I could, for he was so frightened that he
+growled and snapped viciously at me. I handed him to the gendarme, for
+by the side of Carissimo I had seen something which literally froze my
+blood within my veins. It was Theodore’s hat and coat, which he had
+been wearing when I chased him to this house of mystery and of
+ill-fame, and wrapped together with it was a rag all smeared with
+blood, whilst the same hideous stains were now distinctly visible on
+the door of the cupboard itself.
+
+I turned to the gendarme, who at once confronted the abominable
+malefactor with the obvious proofs of a horrible crime. But the
+depraved wretch stood by, Sir, perfectly calm and with a cynicism in
+his whole bearing which I had never before seen equalled!
+
+“I know nothing about that coat,” he asserted with a shrug of the
+shoulders, “nor about the dog.”
+
+The gendarme by this time was purple with fury.
+
+“Not know anything about the dog?” he exclaimed in a voice choked with
+righteous indignation. “Why, he . . . he barked!”
+
+But this indisputable fact in no way disconcerted the miscreant.
+
+“I heard a dog yapping,” he said with consummate impudence, “but I
+thought he was in the next room. No wonder,” he added coolly, “since he
+was in a wall cupboard.”
+
+“A wall cupboard,” the gendarme rejoined triumphantly, “situated in the
+very room which you occupy at this moment.”
+
+“That is a mistake, my friend,” the cynical wretch retorted, undaunted.
+“I do not occupy this room. I do not lodge in this hotel at all.”
+
+“Then how came you to be here?”
+
+“I came on a visit to a friend who happened to be out when I arrived. I
+found a pleasant fire here, and I sat down to warm myself. Your noisy
+and unwarranted irruption into this room has so bewildered me that I no
+longer know whether I am standing on my head or on my heels.”
+
+“We’ll show you soon enough what you are standing on, my fine fellow,”
+the gendarme riposted with breezy, cheerfulness. “Allons!”
+
+I must say that the pampered minion of the law arose splendidly to the
+occasion. He seized the miscreant by the arm and took him downstairs,
+there to confront him with the proprietress of the establishment, while
+I—with marvellous presence of mind—took possession of Carissimo and hid
+him as best I could beneath my coat.
+
+In the hall below a surprise and a disappointment were in store for me.
+I had reached the bottom of the stairs when the shrill feminine accents
+of Mme. the proprietress struck unpleasantly on my ear.
+
+“No! no! I tell you!” she was saying. “This man is not my lodger. He
+never came here with a dog. There,” she added volubly, and pointing an
+unwashed finger at Carissimo who was struggling and growling in my
+arms, “there is the dog. A gentleman brought him with him last
+Wednesday, when he inquired if he could have a room here for a few
+nights. Number twenty-five happened to be vacant, and I have no
+objection to dogs. I let the gentleman have the room, and he paid me
+twenty sous in advance when he took possession and told me he would
+keep the room three nights.”
+
+“The gentleman? What gentleman?” the gendarme queried, rather inanely I
+thought.
+
+“My lodger,” the woman replied. “He is out for the moment, but he will
+be back presently I make no doubt. The dog is his. . . .”
+
+“What is he like?” the minion of the law queried abruptly.
+
+“Who? the dog?” she retorted impudently.
+
+“No, no! Your lodger.”
+
+Once more the unwashed finger went up and pointed straight at me.
+
+“He described him well enough just now; thin and slouchy in his ways.
+He has lank, yellow hair, a nose perpetually crimson—with the cold no
+doubt—and pale, watery eyes. . . .”
+
+“Theodore,” I exclaimed mentally.
+
+Bewildered, the gendarme pointed to his prisoner.
+
+“But this man . . . ?” he queried.
+
+“Why,” the proprietress replied. “I have seen Monsieur twice, or was it
+three times? He would visit number twenty-five now and then.”
+
+I will not weary you with further accounts of the close examination to
+which the representative of the law subjected the personnel of the
+squalid hotel. The concierge and the man of all work did indeed confirm
+what the proprietress said, and whilst my friend the gendarme —puzzled
+and floundering—was scratching his head in complete bewilderment, I
+thought that the opportunity had come for me to slip quietly out by the
+still open door and make my way as fast as I could to the sumptuous
+abode in the Faubourg St. Germain, where the gratitude of Mme. de Nolé,
+together with five thousand francs, were even now awaiting me.
+
+After Madame the proprietress had identified Carissimo, I had once more
+carefully concealed him under my coat. I was ready to seize my
+opportunity, after which I would be free to deal with the matter of
+Theodore’s amazing disappearance. Unfortunately just at this moment the
+little brute gave a yap, and the minion of the law at once interposed
+and took possession of him.
+
+“The dog belongs to the police now, Sir,” he said sternly.
+
+The fatuous jobbernowl wanted his share of the reward, you see.
+
+4.
+
+Having been forced thus to give up Carissimo, and with him all my hopes
+of a really substantial fortune, I was determined to make the
+red-polled miscreant suffer for my disappointment, and the minions of
+the law sweat in the exercise of their duty.
+
+I demanded Theodore! My friend, my comrade, my right hand! I had seen
+him not ten minutes ago, carrying in his arms this very dog, whom I had
+subsequently found inside a wall cupboard beside a blood-stained coat.
+Where was Theodore? Pointing an avenging finger at the red-headed
+reprobate, I boldly accused him of having murdered my friend with a
+view to robbing him of the reward offered for the recovery of the dog.
+
+This brought a new train of thought into the wooden pates of the
+gendarmes. A quartet of them had by this time assembled within the
+respectable precincts of the Hôtel des Cadets. One of them—senior to
+the others—at once dispatched a younger comrade to the nearest
+commissary of police for advice and assistance.
+
+Then he ordered us all into the room pompously labelled “Réception,”
+and there proceeded once more to interrogate us all, making copious
+notes in his leather-bound book all the time, whilst I, moaning and
+lamenting the loss of my faithful friend and man of all work, loudly
+demanded the punishment of his assassin.
+
+Theodore’s coat, his hat, the blood-stained rag, had all been brought
+down from No. 25 and laid out upon the table ready for the inspection
+of M. the Commissary of Police.
+
+That gentleman arrived with two private agents, armed with full powers
+and wrapped in the magnificent imperturbability of the law. The
+gendarme had already put him _au fait_ of the events, and as soon as he
+was seated behind the table upon which reposed the “pièces de
+conviction,” he in his turn proceeded to interrogate the ginger-pated
+miscreant.
+
+But strive how he might, M. the Commissary elicited no further
+information from him than that which we all already possessed. The man
+gave his name as Aristide Nicolet. He had no fixed abode. He had come
+to visit his friend who lodged in No. 25 in the Hôtel des Cadets. Not
+finding him at home he had sat by the fire and had waited for him. He
+knew absolutely nothing of the dog and absolutely nothing of the
+whereabouts of Theodore.
+
+“We’ll soon see about that!” asserted M. the Commissary.
+
+He ordered a perquisition of every room and every corner of the hotel,
+Madame the proprietress loudly lamenting that she and her respectable
+house would henceforth be disgraced for ever. But the thieves—whoever
+they were—were clever. Not a trace of any illicit practice was found on
+the premises—and not a trace of Theodore.
+
+Had he indeed been murdered? The thought now had taken root in my mind.
+For the moment I had even forgotten Carissimo and my vanished five
+thousand francs.
+
+Well, Sir! Aristide Nicolet was marched off to the depot—still
+protesting his innocence. The next day he was confronted with Mme. la
+Comtesse de Nolé, who could not say more than that he might have formed
+part of the gang who had jostled her on the Quai Voltaire, whilst the
+servant who had taken the missive from him failed to recognize him.
+
+Carissimo was restored to the arms of his loving mistress, but the
+reward for his recovery had to be shared between the police and myself:
+three thousand francs going to the police who apprehended the thief,
+and two thousand to me who had put them on the track.
+
+It was not a fortune, Sir, but I had to be satisfied. But in the
+meanwhile the disappearance of Theodore had remained an unfathomable
+mystery. No amount of questionings and cross-questionings, no amount of
+confrontations and perquisitions, had brought any new matter to light.
+Aristide Nicolet persisted in his statements, as did the proprietress
+and the concierge of the Hôtel des Cadets in theirs. Theodore had
+undoubtedly occupied room No. 25 in the hotel during the three days
+while I was racking my brain as to what had become of him. I equally
+undoubtedly saw him for a few moments running up the Rue Beaune with
+Carissimo’s tail projecting beneath his coat. Then he entered the open
+doorway of the hotel, and henceforth his whereabouts remained a
+baffling mystery.
+
+Beyond his coat and hat, the stained rag and the dog himself, there was
+not the faintest indication of what became of him after that. The
+concierge vowed that he did not enter the hotel—Aristide Nicolet vowed
+that he did not enter No. 25. But then the dog was in the cupboard, and
+so were the hat and coat; and even the police were bound to admit that
+in the short space of time between my last glimpse of Theodore and the
+gendarme’s entry into room 25 it would be impossible for the most
+experienced criminal on earth to murder a man, conceal every trace of
+the crime, and so to dispose of the body as to baffle the most minute
+inquiry and the most exhaustive search.
+
+Sometimes when I thought the whole matter out I felt that I was growing
+crazy.
+
+5.
+
+Thus about a week or ten days went by and I had just come reluctantly
+to the conclusion that there must be some truth in the old mediaeval
+legends which tell us that the devil runs away with his elect from time
+to time, when I received a summons from M. the Commissary of Police to
+present myself at his bureau.
+
+He was pleasant and urbane as usual, but to my anxious query after
+Theodore he only gave me the old reply: “No trace of him can be found.”
+
+Then he added: “We must therefore take it for granted, my good M.
+Ratichon, that your man of all work is—of his own free will—keeping out
+of the way. The murder theory is untenable; we have had to abandon it.
+The total disappearance of the body is an unanswerable argument against
+it. Would you care to offer a reward for information leading to the
+recovery of your missing friend?”
+
+I hesitated. I certainly was not prepared to pay anyone for finding
+Theodore.
+
+“Think it over, my good M. Ratichon,” rejoined M. le Commissaire
+pleasantly. “But in the meanwhile I must tell you that we have decided
+to set Aristide Nicolet free. There is not a particle of evidence
+against him either in the matter of the dog or of that of your friend.
+Mme. de Nolé’s servants cannot swear to his identity, whilst you have
+sworn that you last saw the dog in your man’s arms. That being so, I
+feel that we have no right to detain an innocent man.”
+
+Well, Sir, what could I say? I knew well enough that there was not a
+tittle of solid evidence against the man Nicolet, nor had I the power
+to move the police of His Majesty the King from their decision. In my
+heart of hearts I had the firm conviction that the ginger-polled
+ruffian knew all about Carissimo and all about the present whereabouts
+of that rascal Theodore. But what could I say, Sir? What could I do?
+
+I went home that night to my lodgings at Passy more perplexed than ever
+I had been in my life before.
+
+The next morning I arrived at my office soon after nine. The problem
+had presented itself to me during the night of finding a new man of all
+work who would serve me on the same terms as that ungrateful wretch
+Theodore.
+
+I mounted the stairs with a heavy step and opened the outer door of my
+apartment with my private key; and then, Sir, I assure you that for one
+brief moment I felt that my knees were giving way under me and that I
+should presently measure my full length on the floor.
+
+There, sitting at the table in my private room, was Theodore. He had
+donned one of the many suits of clothes which I always kept at the
+office for purposes of my business, and he was calmly consuming a
+luscious sausage which was to have been part of my dinner today, and
+finishing a half-bottle of my best Bordeaux.
+
+He appeared wholly unconscious of his enormities, and when I taxed him
+with his villainies and plied him with peremptory questions he met me
+with a dogged silence and a sulky attitude which I have never seen
+equalled in all my life. He flatly denied that he had ever walked the
+streets of Paris with a dog under his arm, or that I had ever chased
+him up the Rue Beaune. He denied ever having lodged in the Hôtel des
+Cadets, or been acquainted with its proprietress, or with a red-polled,
+hunchback miscreant named Aristide Nicolet. He denied that the coat and
+hat found in room No. 25 were his; in fact, he denied everything, and
+with an impudence, Sir, which was past belief.
+
+But he put the crown to his insolence when he finally demanded two
+hundred francs from me: his share in the sum paid to me by Mme. de Nolé
+for the recovery of her dog. He demanded this, Sir, in the name of
+justice and of equity, and even brandished our partnership contract in
+my face.
+
+I was so irate at his audacity, so disgusted that presently I felt that
+I could not bear the sight of him any longer. I turned my back on him
+and walked out of my own private room, leaving him there still munching
+my sausage and drinking my Bordeaux.
+
+I was going through the antechamber with a view to going out into the
+street for a little fresh air when something in the aspect of the
+chair-bedstead on which that abominable brute Theodore had apparently
+spent the night attracted my attention. I turned over one of the
+cushions, and with a cry of rage which I took no pains to suppress I
+seized upon what I found lying beneath: a blue linen blouse, Sir, a
+peaked cap, a ginger-coloured wig and beard!
+
+The villain! The abominable mountebank! The wretch! The . . . I was
+wellnigh choking with wrath.
+
+With the damning pieces of conviction in my hand, I rushed back into
+the inner room. Already my cry of indignation had aroused the vampire
+from his orgy. He stood before me sheepish, grinning, and taunted me,
+Sir—taunted me for my blindness in not recognizing him under the
+disguise of the so-called Aristide Nicolet.
+
+It was a disguise which he had kept by him in case of an emergency when
+first he decided to start business as a dog thief. Carissimo had been
+his first serious venture and but for my interference it would have
+been a wholly successful one. He had worked the whole thing out with
+marvellous cleverness, being greatly assisted by Madame Sand, the
+proprietress of the Hôtel des Cadets, who was a friend of his mother’s.
+The lady, it seems, carried on a lucrative business of the same sort
+herself, and she undertook to furnish him with the necessary
+confederates for the carrying out of his plan. The proceeds of the
+affair were to be shared equally between himself and Madame; the
+confederates, who helped to jostle Mme. de Nolé whilst her dog was
+being stolen, were to receive five francs each for their trouble.
+
+When he met me at the corner of the Rue Beaune he was on his way to the
+Rue Guénégaud, hoping to exchange Carissimo for five thousand francs.
+When he met me, however, he felt that the best thing to do for the
+moment was to seek safety in flight. He had only just time to run back
+to the hotel to warn Mme. Sand of my approach and beg her to detain me
+at any cost. Then he flew up the stairs, changed into his disguise,
+Carissimo barking all the time furiously. Whilst he was trying to
+pacify the dog, the latter bit him severely in the arm, drawing a good
+deal of blood—the crimson scar across his face was a last happy
+inspiration which put the finishing touch to his disguise and to the
+hoodwinking of the police and of me. He had only just time to staunch
+the blood from his arm and to thrust his own clothes and Carissimo into
+the wall cupboard when the gendarme and I burst in upon him.
+
+I could only gasp. For one brief moment the thought rushed through my
+mind that I would denounce him to the police for . . . for . . .
+
+But that was just the trouble. Of what could I accuse him? Of murdering
+himself or of stealing Mme. de Nolé’s dog? The commissary would hardly
+listen to such a tale . . . and it would make me seem ridiculous. . . .
+
+So I gave Theodore the soundest thrashing he ever had in his life, and
+fifty francs to keep his mouth shut.
+
+But did I not tell you that he was a monster of ingratitude?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V. — THE TOYS
+
+1.
+
+You are right, Sir, I very seldom speak of my halcyon days—those days
+when the greatest monarch the world has ever known honoured me with his
+intimacy and confidence. I had my office in the Rue St. Roch then, at
+the top of a house just by the church, and not a stone’s throw from the
+palace, and I can tell you, Sir, that in those days ministers of state,
+foreign ambassadors, aye! and members of His Majesty’s household, were
+up and down my staircase at all hours of the day. I had not yet met
+Theodore then, and fate was wont to smile on me.
+
+As for M. le Duc d’Otrante, Minister of Police, he would send to me or
+for me whenever an intricate case required special acumen,
+resourcefulness and secrecy. Thus in the matter of the English
+files—have I told you of it before? No? Well, then, you shall hear.
+
+Those were the days, Sir, when the Emperor’s Berlin Decrees were going
+to sweep the world clear of English commerce and of English enterprise.
+It was not a case of paying heavy duty on English goods, or a still
+heavier fine if you smuggled; it was total prohibition, and hanging if
+you were caught bringing so much as a metre of Bradford cloth or half a
+dozen Sheffield files into the country. But you know how it is, Sir:
+the more strict the law the more ready are certain lawless human
+creatures to break it. Never was smuggling so rife as it was in those
+days—I am speaking now of 1810 or 11—never was it so daring or
+smugglers so reckless.
+
+M. le Duc d’Otrante had his hands full, I can tell you. It had become a
+matter for the secret police; the coastguard or customs officials were
+no longer able to deal with it.
+
+Then one day Hypolite Leroux came to see me. I knew the man well—a keen
+sleuthhound if ever there was one—and well did he deserve his name, for
+he was as red as a fox.
+
+“Ratichon,” he said to me, without preamble, as soon as he had seated
+himself opposite to me, and I had placed half a bottle of good Bordeaux
+and a couple of glasses on the table. “I want your help in the matter
+of these English files. We have done all that we can in our department.
+M. le Duc has doubled the customs personnel on the Swiss frontier, the
+coastguard is both keen and efficient, and yet we know that at the
+present moment there are thousands of English files used in this
+country, even inside His Majesty’s own armament works. M. le Duc
+d’Otrante is determined to put an end to the scandal. He has offered a
+big reward for information which will lead to the conviction of one or
+more of the chief culprits, and I am determined to get that reward—with
+your help, if you will give it.”
+
+“What is the reward?” I asked simply.
+
+“Five thousand francs,” he replied. “Your knowledge of English and
+Italian is what caused me to offer you a share in this splendid
+enterprise—”
+
+“It’s no good lying to me, Leroux,” I broke in quietly, “if we are
+going to work amicably together.”
+
+He swore.
+
+“The reward is ten thousand francs.” I made the shot at a venture,
+knowing my man well.
+
+“I swear that it is not,” he asserted hotly.
+
+“Swear again,” I retorted, “for I’ll not deal with you for less than
+five thousand.”
+
+He did swear again and protested loudly. But I was firm.
+
+“Have another glass of wine,” I said.
+
+After which he gave in.
+
+The affair was bound to be risky. Smugglers of English goods were
+determined and desperate men who were playing for high stakes and
+risking their necks on the board. In all matters of smuggling a
+knowledge of foreign languages was an invaluable asset. I spoke Italian
+well and knew some English. I knew my worth. We both drank a glass of
+cognac and sealed our bond then and there.
+
+After which Leroux drew his chair closer to my desk.
+
+“Listen, then,” he said. “You know the firm of Fournier Frères, in the
+Rue Colbert?”
+
+“By name, of course. Cutlers and surgical instrument makers by
+appointment to His Majesty. What about them?”
+
+“M. le Duc has had his eyes on them for some time.”
+
+“Fournier Frères!” I ejaculated. “Impossible! A more reputable firm
+does not exist in France.”
+
+“I know, I know,” he rejoined impatiently. “And yet it is a curious
+fact that M. Aristide Fournier, the junior partner, has lately bought
+for himself a house at St. Claude.”
+
+“At St. Claude?” I ejaculated.
+
+“Yes,” he responded dryly. “Very near to Gex, what?”
+
+I shrugged my shoulders, for indeed the circumstances did appear
+somewhat strange.
+
+Do you know Gex, my dear Sir? Ah, it is a curious and romantic spot. It
+has possibilities, both natural and political, which appear to have
+been expressly devised for the benefit of the smuggling fraternity.
+Nestling in the midst of the Jura mountains, it is outside the customs
+zone of the Empire. So you see the possibilities, do you not? Gex soon
+became the picturesque warehouse of every conceivable kind of
+contraband goods. On one side of it there was the Swiss frontier, and
+the Swiss Government was always willing to close one eye in the matter
+of customs provided its palm was sufficiently greased by the
+light-fingered gentry. No difficulty, therefore, as you see, in getting
+contraband goods—even English ones—as far as Gex.
+
+Here they could be kept hidden until a fitting opportunity occurred for
+smuggling them into France, opportunities for which the Jura, with
+their narrow defiles and difficult mountain paths, afforded magnificent
+scope. St. Claude, of which Leroux had just spoken as the place where
+M. Aristide Fournier had recently bought himself a house, is in France,
+only a few kilometres from the neutral zone of Gex. It seemed a strange
+spot to choose for a wealthy and fashionable member of Parisian
+bourgeois society, I was bound to admit.
+
+“But,” I mused, “one cannot go to Gex without a permit from the
+police.”
+
+“Not by road,” Leroux assented. “But you will own that there are means
+available to men who are young and vigorous like M. Fournier, who
+moreover, I understand, is an accomplished mountaineer. You know Gex,
+of course?”
+
+I had crossed the Jura once, in my youth, but was not very intimately
+familiar with the district. Leroux had a carefully drawn-out map of it
+in his pocket; this he laid out before me.
+
+“These two roads,” he began, tracing the windings of a couple of thin
+red lines on the map with the point of his finger, “are the only two
+made ones that lead in and out of the district. Here is the Valserine,”
+he went on, pointing to a blue line, “which flows from north to south,
+and both the roads wind over bridges that span the river close to our
+frontier. The French customs stations are on our side of those bridges.
+But, besides those two roads, the frontier can, of course, be crossed
+by one or other of the innumerable mountain tracks which are only
+accessible to pedestrians or mules. That is where our customs officials
+are powerless, for the tracks are precipitous and offer unlimited cover
+to those who know every inch of the ground. Several of them lead
+directly into St. Claude, at some considerable distance from the
+customs stations, and it is these tracks which are being used by M.
+Aristide Fournier for the felonious purpose of trading with the
+enemy—on this I would stake my life. But I mean to be even with him,
+and if I get the help which I require from you, I am convinced that I
+can lay him by the heels.”
+
+“I am your man,” I concluded simply.
+
+“Very well,” he resumed. “Are you prepared to journey with me to Gex?”
+
+“When do you start?”
+
+“To-day.”
+
+“I shall be ready.”
+
+He gave a deep sigh of satisfaction.
+
+“Then listen to my plan,” he said. “We’ll journey together as far as
+St. Claude; from there you will push on to Gex, and take up your abode
+in the city, styling yourself an interpreter. This will give you the
+opportunity of mixing with some of the smuggling fraternity, and it
+will be your duty to keep both your eyes and ears open. I, on the other
+hand, will take up my quarters at Mijoux, the French customs station,
+which is on the frontier, about half a dozen kilometres from Gex. Every
+day I’ll arrange to meet you, either at the latter place or somewhere
+half-way, and hear what news you may have to tell me. And mind,
+Ratichon,” he added sternly, “it means running straight, or the reward
+will slip through our fingers.”
+
+I chose to ignore the coarse insinuation, and only riposted quietly:
+
+“I must have money on account. I am a poor man, and will be out of
+pocket by the transaction from the hour I start for Gex to that when
+you pay me my fair share of the reward.”
+
+By way of a reply he took out a case from his pocket. I saw that it was
+bulging over with banknotes, which confirmed me in my conviction both
+that he was actually an emissary of the Minister of Police and that I
+could have demanded an additional thousand francs without fear of
+losing the business.
+
+“I’ll give you five hundred on account,” he said as he licked his ugly
+thumb preparatory to counting out the money before me.
+
+“Make it a thousand,” I retorted; “and call it ‘additional,’ not ‘on
+account.’”
+
+He tried to argue.
+
+“I am not keen on the business,” I said with calm dignity, “so if you
+think that I am asking too much—there are others, no doubt, who would
+do the work for less.”
+
+It was a bold move. But it succeeded. Leroux laughed and shrugged his
+shoulders. Then he counted out ten hundred-franc notes and laid them
+out upon the desk. But before I could touch them he laid his large bony
+hands over the lot and, looking me straight between the eyes, he said
+with earnest significance:
+
+“English files are worth as much as twenty francs apiece in the
+market.”
+
+“I know.”
+
+“Fournier Frères would not take the risks which they are doing for a
+consignment of less than ten thousand.”
+
+“I doubt if they would,” I rejoined blandly.
+
+“It will be your business to find out how and when the smugglers
+propose to get their next consignment over the frontier.”
+
+“Exactly.”
+
+“And to communicate any information you may have obtained to me.”
+
+“And to keep an eye on the valuable cargo, of course?” I concluded.
+
+“Yes,” he said roughly, “an eye. But hands off, understand, my good
+Ratichon, or there’ll be trouble.”
+
+He did not wait to hear my indignant protest. He had risen to his feet,
+and had already turned to go. Now he stretched his great coarse hand
+out to me.
+
+“All in good part, eh?”
+
+I took his hand. He meant no harm, did old Leroux. He was just a
+common, vulgar fellow who did not know a gentleman when he saw one.
+
+And we parted the best of friends.
+
+2.
+
+A week later I was at Gex. At St. Claude I had parted from Leroux, and
+then hired a chaise to take me to my destination. It was a matter of
+fifteen kilometres by road over the frontier of the customs zone and
+through the most superb scenery I had ever seen in my life. We drove
+through narrow gorges, on each side of which the mountain heights rose
+rugged and precipitous to incalculable altitudes above. From time to
+time only did I get peeps of almost imperceptible tracks along the
+declivities, tracks on which it seemed as if goats alone could obtain a
+footing. Once—hundreds of feet above me—I spied a couple of mules
+descending what seemed like a sheer perpendicular path down the
+mountain side. The animals appeared to be heavily laden, and I
+marvelled what forbidden goods lay hidden within their packs and
+whether in the days that were to come I too should be called upon to
+risk my life on those declivities following in the footsteps of the
+reckless and desperate criminals whom it was my duty to pursue.
+
+I confess that at the thought, and with those pictures of grim nature
+before me, I felt an unpleasant shiver coursing down my spine.
+
+Nothing of importance occurred during the first fortnight of my sojourn
+at Gex. I was installed in moderately comfortable, furnished rooms in
+the heart of the city, close to the church and market square. In one of
+my front windows, situated on the ground floor, I had placed a card
+bearing the inscription: “Aristide Barrot, Interpreter,” and below,
+“Anglais, Allemand, Italien.” I had even had a few
+clients—conversations between the local police and some poor wretches
+caught in the act of smuggling a few yards of Swiss silk or a couple of
+cream cheeses over the French frontier, and sent back to Gex to be
+dealt with by the local authorities.
+
+Leroux had found lodgings at Mijoux, and twice daily he walked over to
+Gex to consult with me. We met, mornings and evenings, at the café
+restaurant of the Crâne Chauve, an obscure little tavern situated on
+the outskirts of the city. He was waxing impatient at what he called my
+supineness, for indeed so far I had had nothing to report.
+
+There was no sign of M. Aristide Fournier. No one in Gex appeared to
+know anything about him, though the proprietor of the principal hotel
+in the town did recollect having had a visitor of that name once or
+twice during the past year. But, of course, during this early stage of
+my stay in the town it was impossible for me to believe anything that I
+was told. I had not yet succeeded in winning the confidence of the
+inhabitants, and it was soon pretty evident to me that the whole
+countryside was engaged in the perilous industry of smuggling. Everyone
+from the mayor downwards did a bit of a deal now and again in
+contraband goods. In ordinary cases it only meant fines if one was
+caught, or perhaps imprisonment for repeated offenses.
+
+But four or five days after my arrival at Gex I saw three fellows
+handed over to the police of the department. They had been caught in
+the act of trying to ford the Valserine with half a dozen pack-mules
+laden with English cloth. They were hanged at St. Claude two days
+later.
+
+I can assure you, Sir, that the news of this summary administration of
+justice sent another cold shiver down my spine, and I marvelled if
+indeed Leroux’s surmises were correct and if a respectable tradesman
+like Aristide Fournier would take such terrible risks even for the sake
+of heavy gains.
+
+I had been in Gex just a fortnight when the weather, which hitherto had
+been splendid, turned to squalls and storms. We were then in the second
+week of September. A torrential rain had fallen the whole of one day,
+during which I had only been out in order to meet Leroux, as usual, at
+the Café du Crâne Chauve. I had just come home from our evening
+meeting—it was then ten o’clock—and I was preparing to go comfortably
+to bed, when I was startled by a violent ring at the front-door bell.
+
+I had only just time to wonder if this belated visitor desired to see
+me or my worthy landlady, Mme. Bournon, when her heavy footsteps
+resounded along the passage. The next moment I heard my name spoken
+peremptorily by a harsh voice, and Mme. Bournon’s reply that M.
+Aristide Barrot was indeed within. A few seconds later she ushered my
+nocturnal visitor into my room.
+
+He was wrapped in a dark mantle from head to foot, and he wore a
+wide-brimmed hat pulled right over his eyes. He did not remove either
+as he addressed me without further preamble.
+
+“You are an interpreter, Sir?” he queried, speaking very rapidly and in
+sharp commanding tones.
+
+“At your service,” I replied.
+
+“My name is Ernest Berty. I want you to come with me at once to my
+house. I require your services as intermediary between myself and some
+men who have come to see me on business. These men whom I wish you to
+see are Russians,” he added, I fancied as an afterthought, “but they
+speak English fluently.”
+
+I suppose that I looked just as I felt—somewhat dubious owing to the
+lateness of the hour and the darkness of the night, not to speak of the
+abominable weather, for he continued with marked impatience:
+
+“It is imperative that you should come at once. Though my house is at
+some little distance from here, I have a chaise outside which will also
+bring you back, and,” he added significantly, “I will pay you whatever
+you demand.”
+
+“It is very late,” I demurred, “the weather—”
+
+“Your fee, man!” he broke in roughly, “and let’s get on!”
+
+“Five hundred francs,” I said at a venture.
+
+“Come!” was his curt reply. “I will give you the money as we drive
+along.”
+
+I wished I had made it a thousand; apparently my services were worth a
+great deal to him. However, I picked up my mantle and my hat, and
+within a few seconds was ready to go. I shouted up to Mme. Bournon that
+I would not be home for a couple of hours, but that as I had my key I
+need not disturb her when I returned.
+
+Once outside the door I almost regretted my ready acquiescence in this
+nocturnal adventure. The rain was beating down unmercifully, and at
+first I saw no sign of a vehicle; but in answer to my visitor’s sharp
+command I followed him down the street as far as the market square, at
+the corner of which I spied the dim outline of a carriage and a couple
+of horses.
+
+Without wasting too many words, M. Ernest Berty bundled me into the
+carriage, and very soon we were on the way. The night was impenetrably
+dark and the chaise more than ordinarily rickety. I had but little
+opportunity to ascertain which way we were going. A small lanthorn
+fixed opposite to me in the interior of the carriage, and flickering
+incessantly before my eyes, made it still more impossible for me to see
+anything outside the narrow window. My companion sat beside me, silent
+and absorbed. After a while I ventured to ask him which way we were
+driving.
+
+“Through the town,” he replied curtly. “My house is just outside
+Divonne.”
+
+Now, Divonne is, as I knew, quite close to the Swiss frontier. It is a
+matter of seven or eight kilometres—an hour’s drive at the very least
+in this supremely uncomfortable vehicle. I tried to induce further
+conversation, but made no headway against my companion’s taciturnity.
+However, I had little cause for complaint in another direction. After
+the first quarter of an hour, and when we had left the cobblestones of
+the city behind us, he drew a bundle of notes from his pocket, and by
+the flickering light of the lanthorn he counted out ten fifty-franc
+notes and handed them without another word to me.
+
+The drive was unspeakably wearisome; but after a while I suppose that
+the monotonous rumbling of the wheels and the incessant patter of the
+rain against the window-panes lulled me into a kind of torpor. Certain
+it is that presently—much sooner than I had anticipated—the chaise drew
+up with a jerk, and I was roused to full consciousness by hearing M.
+Berty’s voice saying curtly:
+
+“Here we are! Come with me!”
+
+I was stiff, Sir, and I was shivering—not so much with cold as with
+excitement. You will readily understand that all my faculties were now
+on the qui vive. Somehow or other during the wearisome drive by the
+side of my close-tongued companion my mind had fastened on the
+certitude that my adventure of this night bore a close connexion to the
+firm of Fournier Frères and to the English files which were causing so
+many sleepless nights to M. le Duc d’Otrante, Minister of Police.
+
+But nothing in my manner, as I stepped out of the carriage under the
+porch of the house which loomed dark and massive out of the surrounding
+gloom, betrayed anything of what I felt. Outwardly I was just a worthy
+bourgeois, an interpreter by profession, and delighted at the
+remunerative work so opportunely put in my way.
+
+The house itself appeared lonely as well as dark. M. Berty led the way
+across a narrow passage, at the end of which there was a door which he
+pushed open, saying in his usual abrupt manner: “Go in there and wait.
+I’ll send for you directly.”
+
+Then he closed the door on me, and I heard his footsteps recrossing the
+corridor and presently ascending some stairs. I was left alone in a
+small, sparsely furnished room, dimly lighted by an oil lamp which hung
+down from the ceiling. There was a table in the middle of the room, a
+square of carpet on the floor, and a couple of chairs beside a small
+iron stove. I noticed that the single window was closely shuttered and
+barred. I sat down and waited. At first the silence around me was only
+broken by the pattering of the rain against the shutters and the
+soughing of the wind down the iron chimney pipe, but after a little
+while my senses, which by this time had become super-acute, were
+conscious of various noises within the house itself: footsteps
+overhead, a confused murmur of voices, and anon the unmistakable sound
+of a female voice raised as if in entreaty or in complaint.
+
+Somehow a vague feeling of alarm possessed itself of my nervous system.
+I began to realise my position—alone, a stranger in a house as to whose
+situation I had not the remotest idea, and among a set of men who, if
+my surmises were correct, were nothing less than a gang of determined
+and dangerous criminals. The voices, especially the female one, were
+now sounding more clear. I tiptoed to the door, and very gently opened
+it. There was indeed no mistaking the tone of desperate pleading which
+came from some room above and through & woman’s lips. I even caught the
+words: “Oh, don’t! Oh, don’t! Not again!” repeated at intervals with
+pitiable insistence.
+
+Mastering my not unnatural anxiety, I opened the door a little farther
+and slipped out into the passage, all my instincts of chivalry towards
+beauty in distress aroused by those piteous cries. Forgetful of every
+possible danger and of all prudence, I had already darted down the
+corridor, determined to do my duty as a gentleman as soon as I had
+ascertained whence had come those cries of anguish, when I heard the
+frou-frou of skirts and a rapid patter of small feet down the stairs.
+The next moment a radiant vision, all white muslin, fair curls and the
+scent of violets, descended on me from above, a soft hand closed over
+mine and drew me, unresisting, back into the room from whence I had
+just come.
+
+Bewildered, I gazed on the winsome apparition before me, and beheld a
+young girl, slender as a lily, dressed in a soft, clinging gown which
+made her appear more slender still, her fair hair arranged in a tangle
+of unruly curls round the dainty oval of her face.
+
+She was exquisite, Sir! And the slenderness of her! You cannot imagine
+it! She looked like a young sapling bending to the gale. But what cut
+me to the heart was the look of terror and of misery in her face. She
+clasped her hands together and the tears gathered in her eyes.
+
+“Go, Sir, go at once!” she murmured under her breath, speaking very
+rapidly. “Do not waste a minute, I beg of you! As you value your life,
+go before it is too late!”
+
+“But, Mademoiselle,” I stammered; for indeed her words and appearance
+had roused all my worst fears, but also all my instincts of the
+sleuth-hound scenting his quarry.
+
+“Don’t argue, I beg of you,” continued the lovely creature, who indeed
+seemed the prey of overwhelming emotions—fear, horror, pity. “When he
+comes back do not let him find you here. I’ll explain, I’ll know what
+to say, only I entreat you—go!”
+
+Sir, I have many faults, but cowardice does not happen to be one of
+them, and the more the angel pleaded the more determined was I to see
+this business through. I was, of course, quite convinced by now that I
+was on the track of M. Aristide Fournier and the English files, and I
+was not going to let five thousand francs and the gratitude of the
+Minister of Police slip through my fingers so easily.
+
+“Mademoiselle,” I rejoined as calmly as I could, “let me assure you
+that though your anxiety for me is like manna to a starving man, I have
+no fears for my own safety. I have come here in the capacity of a
+humble interpreter; I certainly am not worth putting out of the way.
+Moreover, I have been paid for my services, and these I will render to
+my employer to the best of my capabilities.”
+
+“Ah, but you don’t know,” she retorted, not departing one jot from her
+attitude of terror and of entreaty, “you don’t understand. This house,
+Monsieur,” she added in a hoarse whisper, “is nothing but a den of
+criminals wherein no honest man or woman is safe.”
+
+“Pardon, Mademoiselle,” I riposted as lightly and as gallantly as I
+could, “I see before me the living proof that angels, at any rate,
+dwell therein.”
+
+“Alas! Sir,” she rejoined, with a heart-rending sigh, “if you mean me,
+I am only to be pitied. My dear mother and I are naught but slaves to
+the will of my brother, who uses us as tools for his nefarious ends.”
+
+“But . . .” I stammered, horrified beyond speech at the vista of
+villainy which her words had opened up before me.
+
+“My mother, Sir,” she said simply, “is old and ailing; she is dying of
+anguish at sight of her son’s misdeeds. I would not, could not leave
+her, yet I would give my life to see her free from that miscreant’s
+clutches!”
+
+My whole soul was stirred to its depths by the intensity of passion
+which rang through this delicate creature’s words. What weird and
+awesome mystery of iniquity and of crime lay hid, I wondered, between
+these walls? In what tragedy had I thus accidentally become involved
+while fulfilling my prosaic duty in the interest of His Majesty’s
+exchequer? As in a flash it suddenly came to me that perhaps I could
+serve both this lovely creature and the Emperor better by going out of
+the house now, and lying hidden all the night through somewhere in its
+vicinity until in daylight I could locate its exact situation. Then I
+could communicate with Leroux at once and procure the apprehension of
+this Berty—or Fournier—who apparently was a desperate criminal. Already
+a bold plan was taking shape in my brain, and with my mind’s eye I had
+measured the distance which separated me from the front door and safety
+when, in the distance, I heard heavy footsteps slowly descending the
+stairs. I looked at my lovely companion, and saw her eyes gradually
+dilating with increased horror. She gave a smothered cry, pressed her
+handkerchief to her lips, then she murmured hoarsely, “Too late!” and
+fled precipitately from the room, leaving me a prey to mingled emotions
+such as I had never experienced before.
+
+3.
+
+A moment or two later M. Ernest Berty, or whatever his real name may
+have been, entered the room. Whether he had encountered his exquisite
+sister on the corridor or the stairs, I could not tell; his face, in
+the dim light of the hanging lamp, looked impenetrable and sinister.
+
+“This way, M. Barrot,” he said curtly.
+
+Just for one brief moment the thought occurred to me to throw myself
+upon him with my whole weight—which was considerable—and make a wild
+dash for the front door. But it was more than probable that I should be
+intercepted and brought back, after which no doubt I would be an object
+of suspicion to these rascals and my life would not be worth an hour’s
+purchase. With the young girl’s warnings ringing in my ears, I felt
+that my one chance of safety and of circumventing these criminals lay
+in my seeming ingenuousness and complete guileless-ness.
+
+I assumed a perfect professional manner and followed my companion up
+the stairs. He ushered me into a room just above the one where I had
+been waiting up to now. Three men dressed in rough clothes were sitting
+at a table on which stood a couple of tankards and four empty pewter
+mugs. My employer offered me a glass of ale, which I declined. Then we
+got to work.
+
+At the first words which M. Berty uttered I knew that all my surmises
+had been correct. Whether he himself was M. Aristide Fournier, or
+another partner of that firm, or some other rascal engaged in nefarious
+doings, I could not know; certain it was that through the medium of
+cipher words and phrases which he thought were unintelligible to me,
+and which he ordered me to interpret into English, he was giving
+directions to the three men with regard to the convoying of contraband
+cargo over the frontier.
+
+There was much talk of “toys” and “babies”—the latter were to take a
+walk in the mountains and to avoid the “thorns”; the “toys” were to be
+securely fastened and well protected against water. It was obviously a
+case of mules and of the goods, the “thorns” being the customs
+officials. By the time that we had finished I was absolutely convinced
+in my mind that the cargo was one of English files or razors, for it
+was evidently extraordinarily valuable and not at all bulky, seeing
+that two “babies” were to carry all the “toys” for a considerable
+distance. The men, too, were obviously English. I tried the few words
+of Russian that I knew on them, and their faces remained perfectly
+blank.
+
+Yes, indeed, I was on the track of M. Aristide Fournier, and of one of
+the most important hauls of enemy goods which had ever been made in
+France. Not only that. I had also before me one of the most brutish
+criminals it had ever been my misfortune to come across. A bully, a
+fiend of cruelty. In very truth my fertile brain was seething with
+plans for eventually laying that abominable ruffian by the heels:
+hanging would be a merciful punishment for such a miscreant. Yes,
+indeed, five thousand francs—a goodly sum in those days, Sir—was
+practically assured me. But over and above mere lucre there was the
+certainty that in a few days’ time I should see the light of gratitude
+shining out of a pair of lustrous blue eyes, and a winning smile
+chasing away the look of fear and of sorrow from the sweetest face I
+had seen for many a day.
+
+Despite the turmoil that was raging in my brain, however, I flatter
+myself that my manner with the rascals remained consistently calm,
+businesslike, indifferent to all save to the work in hand. The
+soi-disant Ernest Berty spoke invariably in French, either dictating
+his orders or seeking information, and I made verbal translation into
+English of all that he said. The séance lasted close upon an hour, and
+presently I gathered that the affair was terminated and that I could
+consider myself dismissed.
+
+I was about to take my leave, having apparently completed my work, when
+M. Ernest Berty called me back with a curt command.
+
+“One moment, M. Barrot,” he said.
+
+“At Monsieur’s service,” I responded blandly.
+
+“As you see,” he continued, “these fellows do not know a word of
+French. All along the way which they will have to traverse they will
+meet friendly outposts, who will report to them on the condition of the
+roads and warn them of any danger that might be ahead. Their ignorance
+of our language may be a source of infinite peril to them. They need an
+interpreter to accompany them over the mountains.”
+
+He paused for a moment or two, then added abruptly:
+
+“Would you care to go? The matter is important,” he went on quietly,
+“and I am willing to pay you. It means a couple of nights’ journey—a
+halt in the mountains during the day—and there will be ten thousand
+francs for you if the ‘toys’ reach St. Claude safely.”
+
+I suppose that something in my face betrayed the eagerness which I
+felt. Here was indeed the finger of Providence pointing to the best
+means of undoing this abominable criminal. Not that I intended to risk
+my neck for any ten thousand francs he chose to offer me, but as the
+trusted guide of his ingenuous “babies” I could convoy them—not to St.
+Claude, as he blandly believed, but straight into the arms of Leroux
+and the customs officials.
+
+“Then that is understood,” he said in his usual dictatorial manner,
+taking my consent for granted. “Ten thousand francs. And you will
+accompany these gentlemen and their ‘babies’ as far as St. Claude?”
+
+“I am a poor man, Sir,” I responded meekly.
+
+“Of course you are,” he broke in roughly.
+
+Then from a number of papers which lay upon the table, he selected one
+which he held out to me.
+
+“Do you know St. Cergues?” he asked.
+
+“Yes,” I replied. “It is a short walk from Gex.”
+
+“This,” he added, pointing to a paper which I had taken from him, “is a
+plan of the village and of the Pass of Cergues close by. Study it
+carefully. At some point some way up the pass, which I have marked with
+a cross, I and my men with the ‘babies’ will be waiting for you
+to-morrow evening at eight o’clock. You cannot possibly fail to find
+the spot, for the plan is very accurate and very minute, and it is less
+than five hundred metres from the last house at the entrance of the
+pass. I shall escort the men until then, and hand them over into your
+charge for the mountain journey. Is that clear?”
+
+“Perfectly.”
+
+“Very well, then; you may go. The carriage is outside the door. You
+know your way.”
+
+He dismissed me with a curt nod, and the next two minutes saw me
+outside this house of mystery and installed inside the ramshackle
+vehicle on my way back to my lodgings.
+
+I was worn out with fatigue and excitement, and I imagine that I slept
+most of the way. Certain it is that the journey home was not nearly so
+long as the outward one had been. The rain was still coming down
+heavily, but I cared nothing about the weather, nothing about fatigue.
+My path to fame and fortune had been made easier for me than in my
+wildest dreams I would have dared to hope. In the morning I would see
+Leroux and make final arrangements for the capture of those impudent
+smugglers, and I thought the best way would be for him to meet me and
+the “babies” and the “toys” at the very outset of our journey, as I did
+not greatly relish the idea of crossing lonely and dangerous mountain
+paths in the company of these ruffians.
+
+I reached home without adventure. The vehicle drew up just outside my
+lodgings, and I was about to alight when my eyes were attracted by
+something white which lay on the front seat of the carriage,
+conspicuously placed so that the light from the inside lanthorn fell
+full upon it. I had been too tired and too dazed, I suppose, to notice
+the thing before, but now, on closer inspection, I saw that it was a
+note, and that it was addressed to me: “M. Aristide Barrot,
+Interpreter,” and below my name were the words: “Very urgent.”
+
+I took the note feeling a thrill of excitement running through my veins
+at its touch. I alighted, and the vehicle immediately disappeared into
+the night. I had only caught one glimpse of the horses, and none at all
+of the coachman. Then I went straight into my room, and by the light of
+the table lamp I unfolded and read the mysterious note. It bore no
+signature, but at the first words I knew that the writer was none other
+than the lovely young creature who had appeared to me like an angel of
+innocence in the midst of that den of thieves.
+
+
+“Monsieur,” she had written in a hand which had clearly been trembling
+with agitation, “you are good, you are kind; I entreat you to be
+merciful. My dear mother, whom I worship, is sick with terror and
+misery. She will die if she remains any longer under the sway of that
+inhuman monster who, alas! is my own brother. And if I lose her I shall
+die, too, for I should no longer have anyone to stand between me and
+his cruelties.
+
+“My dear mother has some relations living at St. Claude. She would have
+gone to them before now, but my brother keeps us both virtual prisoners
+here, and we have no means of arranging for such a perilous journey for
+ourselves. Now, by the most extraordinary stroke of good fortune, my
+brother will be absent all day to-morrow and the following night. My
+dear mother and I feel that God Himself is showing us the way to our
+release.
+
+“Will you, can you help us, dear M. Barrot? Mother and I will be at Gex
+to-morrow at one hour after sundown. We will lie perdu in the little
+Taverne du Roi de Rome, where, if you come to us, you will find us
+waiting anxiously. If you can do nothing to help us, we must return
+broken-hearted to our hated prison; but something in my heart tells me
+that you can help us. All that we want is a vehicle of some sort and
+the escort of a brave man like yourself as far as St. Claude, where our
+relatives will thank you on their knees for your kindness and
+generosity to two helpless, miserable, unprotected women, and I will
+kiss your hands in unbounded gratitude and devotion.”
+
+
+It were impossible, Monsieur, to tell you of the varied emotions which
+filled my heart when I had perused that heart-rending appeal. All my
+instincts of chivalry were aroused. I was determined to do my duty to
+these helpless ladies as a man and as a gallant knight. Even before I
+finally went to bed I had settled in my mind what I meant to do.
+Fortunately it was quite possible for me to reconcile my duties to my
+Emperor and those which I owed to myself in the matter of the reward
+for the apprehension of the smugglers, with my burning desire to be the
+saviour and protector of the lovely creature whose beauty had inflamed
+my impressionable heart, and to have my hands kissed by her in
+gratitude and devotion.
+
+The next morning Leroux and I were deep in our plans, whilst we sipped
+our coffee outside the Crâne Chauve. He was beside himself with joy and
+excitement at the prospective haul, which would, of course, redound
+enormously to his credit, even though the success of the whole
+undertaking would be due to my acumen, my resourcefulness and my pluck.
+Fortunately I found him not only ready but eager to render me what
+assistance he could in the matter of the two ladies who had thrown
+themselves so entirely on my protection.
+
+“We might get valuable information out of them,” he remarked. “In the
+excess of their gratitude they may betray many more secrets and
+nefarious doings of the firm of Fournier Frères.”
+
+“Which further proves,” I remarked, “how deeply you and Monsieur le
+Ministre of Police are indebted to me over this affair.”
+
+He did not argue the point. Indeed, we were both of us far too much
+excited to waste words in useless bickerings. Our plans for the evening
+were fairly simple. We both pored over the map which Fournier-Berty had
+given me, until we felt that we could reach blindfolded the spot which
+had been marked with a cross. We then arranged that Leroux should
+betake himself thither with a strong posse of gendarmes during the day,
+and lie hidden in the vicinity until such time as I myself appeared
+upon the scene, identified my friends of the night before, parleyed
+with them for a minute or two, and finally retired, leaving the law in
+all its majesty, as represented by Leroux, to deal with the rascals.
+
+In the meantime I also mapped out for myself my own share in this
+night’s adventurous work. I had hired a vehicle to take me as far as
+St. Cergues; here I intended to leave it at the local inn, and then
+proceed on foot up the mountain pass to the appointed spot. As soon as
+I had seen the smugglers safely in the hands of Leroux and the
+gendarmes, I would make my way back to St. Cergues as rapidly as I
+could, step into my vehicle, drive like the wind back to Gex, and place
+myself at the disposal of my fair angel and her afflicted mother.
+
+Leroux promised me that at the customs station on the French frontier
+the officials would look after me and the ladies, and that a pair of
+fresh horses would be ready to take us straight on to St. Claude,
+which, if all was well, we could then reach by daybreak.
+
+Having settled all these matters we parted company, he to arrange his
+own affairs with the Commissary of Police and the customs officials,
+and I to await with as much patience as I could the hour when I could
+start for St. Cergues.
+
+4.
+
+The night—just as I anticipated—promised to be very dark. A thin
+drizzle, which wetted the unfortunate pedestrian to the marrow, had
+replaced the torrential rain of the previous day.
+
+Twilight was closing in very fast. In the late autumn afternoon I drove
+to St. Cergues, after which I left the chaise in the village and boldly
+started to walk up the mountain pass. I had studied the map so
+carefully that I was quite sure of my way, but though my appointment
+with the rascals was for eight o’clock, I wished to reach the appointed
+spot before the last flicker of grey light had disappeared from the
+sky.
+
+Soon I had left the last house well behind me. Boldly I plunged into
+the narrow path. The loneliness of the place was indescribable. Every
+step which I took on the stony track seemed to rouse the echoes of the
+grim heights which rose precipitously on either side of me, and in my
+mind I felt aghast at the extraordinary courage of those men who—like
+Aristide Fournier and his gang—chose to affront such obvious and
+manifold dangers as these frowning mountain regions held for them for
+the sake of paltry lucre.
+
+I had walked, according to my reckoning, just upon five hundred metres
+through the gorge, when on ahead I perceived the flicker of lights
+which appeared to be moving to and fro. The silence and loneliness no
+longer seemed to be absolute. A few metres from where I was men were
+living and breathing, plotting and planning, unconscious of the net
+which the unerring hand of a skilful fowler had drawn round them and
+their misdeeds.
+
+The next moment I was challenged by a peremptory “Halt!” Recognition
+followed. M. Ernest Berty, or Aristide Fournier, whichever he was,
+acknowledged with a few words my punctuality, whilst through the gloom
+I took rapid stock of his little party. I saw the vague outline of
+three men and a couple of mules which appeared to be heavily laden.
+They were assembled on a flat piece of ground which appeared like a
+roofless cavern carved out of the mountain side. The walls of rock
+around them afforded them both cover and refuge. They seemed in no
+hurry to start. They had the long night before them, so one of them
+remarked in English.
+
+However, presently M. Fournier-Berty gave the signal for the start to
+be made, he himself preparing to take leave of his men. Just at that
+moment my ears caught the welcome sound of the tramping of feet, and
+before any of the rascals there could realise what was happening, their
+way was barred by Leroux and his gendarmes, who loudly gave the order,
+“Hands up, in the name of the Emperor!”
+
+I was only conscious of a confused murmur of voices, of the click of
+firearms, of words of command passing to and fro, and of several
+violent oaths uttered in the not unfamiliar voice of M. Aristide
+Fournier. But already I had spied Leroux. I only exchanged a few words
+with him, for indeed my share of the evening’s work was done as far as
+he was concerned, and I made haste to retrace my steps through the
+darkness and the rain along the lonely mountain path toward the goal
+where chivalry and manly ardour beckoned to me from afar.
+
+I found my vehicle waiting for me at St. Cergues, and by the promise of
+an additional pourboire, I succeeded in making the driver whip up his
+horses to some purpose. Less than an hour later we drew up at Gex
+outside the little inn, pretentiously called Le Roi de Rome. On
+alighting I was met by the proprietress who, in answer to my inquiry
+after two ladies who had arrived that afternoon, at once conducted me
+upstairs.
+
+Already my mind was busy conjuring up visions of the fair lady of
+yester-eve. The landlady threw open a door and ushered me into a small
+room which reeked of stale food and damp clothes. I stepped in and
+found myself face to face with a large and exceedingly ugly old woman
+who rose with difficulty from the sofa as I entered.
+
+“M. Aristide Barrot,” she said as soon as the landlady had closed the
+door behind me.
+
+“At your service, Madame,” I stammered. “But—”
+
+I was indeed almost aghast. Never in my life had I seen anything so
+grotesque as this woman. To begin with she was more than ordinarily
+stout and unwieldy—indeed, she appeared like a veritable mountain of
+flesh; but what was so disturbing to my mind was that she was nothing
+but a hideous caricature of her lovely daughter, whose dainty features
+she grotesquely recalled. Her face was seamed and wrinkled, her white
+hair was plastered down above her yellow forehead. She wore an
+old-fashioned bonnet tied under her chin, and her huge bulk was draped
+in a large-patterned cashmere shawl.
+
+“You expected to see my dear daughter beside me, my good M. Barrot,”
+she said after a while speaking with remarkable gentleness and dignity.
+
+“I confess, Madame—” I murmured.
+
+“Ah! the darling has sacrificed herself for my sake. We found to-day
+that though my son was out of the way, he had set his abominable
+servants to watch over us. Soon we realized that we could not both get
+away. It meant one of us staying behind to act the part of unconcern
+and to throw dust in the eyes of our jailers. My daughter—ah! she is an
+angel, Monsieur—feared that the disappointment and my son’s cruelty,
+when he returned on the morrow and found that he had been tricked,
+would seriously endanger my life. She decided that I must go and that
+she would remain.”
+
+“But, Madame—” I protested.
+
+“I know, Monsieur,” she rejoined with the same calm dignity which
+already had commanded my respect, “I know that you think me a selfish
+old woman; but my Angèle—she is an angel, of a truth!—made all the
+arrangements, and I could not help but obey her. But have no fears for
+her safety, Monsieur. My son would not dare lay hands on her as often
+as he has done on me. Angèle will be brave, and our relations at St.
+Claude will, directly we arrive, make arrangements to go and fetch her
+and bring her back to me. My brother is an influential man; he would
+never have allowed my son to martyrize me and Angèle had he known what
+we have had to endure.”
+
+Of course I could not then tell her that all her fears for herself and
+the lovely Angèle could now be laid to rest. Her ruffianly son was even
+now being conveyed by Leroux and his gendarmes to the frontier, where
+the law would take its course. I was indeed not sorry for him. I was
+not sorry to think that he would end his evil life upon the guillotine
+or the gallows. I was only grieved for Angèle who would spend a night
+and a day, perhaps more, in agonized suspense, knowing nothing of the
+events which at one great swoop would free her and her beloved mother
+from the tyranny of a hated brother and send him to expiate his crimes.
+Not only did I grieve, Sir, for the tender victim of that man’s
+brutality, but I trembled for her safety. I did not know what minions
+or confederates Fournier-Berty had left in the lonely house yonder, or
+under what orders they were in case he did not return from his
+nocturnal expedition.
+
+Indeed for the moment I felt so agitated at thought of that beautiful
+angel’s peril that I looked down with anger and scorn at the fat old
+woman who ought to have remained beside her daughter to comfort and to
+shield her.
+
+I was on the point of telling her everything, and dragging her back to
+her post of duty which she should never have relinquished. Fortunately
+my sense of what I owed to my own professional dignity prevented my
+taking such a step. It was clearly not for me to argue. My first duty
+was to stand by this helpless woman in distress, who had been committed
+to my charge, and to convey her safely to St. Claude. After which I
+could see to it that Mademoiselle Angèle was brought along too as
+quickly as influential relatives could contrive.
+
+In the meanwhile I derived some consolation from the thought that at
+any rate for the next four and twenty hours the lovely creature would
+be safe. No news of the arrest of Aristide Fournier could possibly
+reach the lonely house until I myself could return thither and take her
+under my protection.
+
+So I said nothing; but with perfect gallantry, just as if fat Mme.
+Fournier had been a young and beautiful woman, I begged her to give
+herself the trouble of mounting into the carriage which was waiting for
+her.
+
+It took time and trouble, Sir, to hoist that mass of solid flesh into
+the vehicle, and the driver grumbled not a little at the unexpected
+weight. However, his horses were powerful, wiry, mountain ponies, and
+we made headway through the darkness and along the smooth, departmental
+road at moderate speed. I may say that it was a miserably uncomfortable
+journey for me, sitting, as I was forced to do, on the narrow front
+seat of the carriage, without support for my head or room for my legs.
+But Madame’s bulk filled the whole of the back seat, and it never
+seemed to enter her head that I too might like the use of a cushion.
+However, even the worst moments and the weariest journeys must come to
+an end, and we reached the frontier in the small hours of the morning.
+Here we found the customs officials ready to render us any service we
+might require. Leroux had not failed to order the fresh relay of
+horses, and whilst these were being put to, the polite officers of the
+station gave Madame and myself some excellent coffee. Beyond the
+formal: “Madame has nothing to declare for His Majesty’s customs?” and
+my companion’s equally formal: “Nothing, Monsieur, except my personal
+belongings,” they did not ply us with questions, and after half an
+hour’s halt we again proceeded on our way.
+
+We reached St. Claude at daybreak, and following Madame’s directions,
+the driver pulled up in front of a large house in the Avenue du Jura.
+Again there was the same difficulty in hoisting the unwieldy lady out
+of the vehicle, but this time, in response to my vigorous pull at the
+outside bell, the concierge and another man came out of the house, and
+very respectfully they approached Madame and conveyed her into the
+house.
+
+While they did so she apparently gave them some directions about
+myself, for anon the concierge returned, and with extreme politeness
+told me that Madame Fournier greatly hoped that I would stay in St.
+Claude a day or two as she had the desire to see me again very soon.
+She also honoured me with an invitation to dine with her that same
+evening at seven of the clock. This was the first time, I noticed, that
+the name Fournier was actually used in connexion with any of the people
+with whom I had become so dramatically involved. Not that I had ever
+doubted the identity of the ruffianly Ernest Berty; still it was very
+satisfactory to have my surmises confirmed. I concluded that the fine
+house in the Avenue du Jura belonged to Mme. Fournier’s brother, and I
+vaguely wondered who he was. The invitation to dinner had certainly
+been given in her name, and the servants had received her with a show
+of respect which suggested that she was more than a guest in her
+brother’s house.
+
+Be that as it may, I betook myself for the nonce to the Hôtel des
+Moines in the centre of the town and killed time for the rest of the
+day as best I could. For one thing I needed rest after the emotions and
+the fatigue of the past forty-eight hours. Remember, Sir, I had not
+slept for two nights and had spent the last eight hours on the narrow
+front seat of a jolting chaise. So I had a good rest in the afternoon,
+and at seven o’clock I presented myself once more at the house in the
+Avenue du Jura.
+
+My intention was to retire early to bed after spending an agreeable
+evening with the family, who would no doubt overwhelm me with their
+gratitude, and at daybreak I would drive back to Gex after I had heard
+all the latest news from Leroux.
+
+I confess that it was with a pardonable feeling of agitation that I
+tugged at the wrought-iron bell-pull on the perron of the magnificent
+mansion in the Avenue du Jura. To begin with I felt somewhat rueful at
+having to appear before ladies at this hour in my travelling clothes,
+and then, you will admit, Sir, that it was a somewhat awkward
+predicament for a man of highly sensitive temperament to meet on terms
+of equality a refined if stout lady whose son he had just helped to
+send to the gallows. Fortunately there was no likelihood of Mme.
+Fournier being as yet aware of this unpleasant fact: even if she did
+know at this hour that her son’s illicit adventure had come to grief,
+she could not possibly in her mind connect me with his ill-fortune. So
+I allowed the sumptuous valet to take my hat and coat and I followed
+him with as calm a demeanour as I could assume up the richly carpeted
+stairs. Obviously the relatives of Mme. Fournier were more than well to
+do. Everything in the house showed evidences of luxury, not to say
+wealth. I was ushered into an elegant salon wherein every corner showed
+traces of dainty feminine hands. There were embroidered silk cushions
+upon the sofa, lace covers upon the tables, whilst a work basket,
+filled with a riot of many coloured silks, stood invitingly open. And
+through the apartment, Sir, a scent of violets lingered and caressed my
+nostrils, reminding me of a beauteous creature in distress whom it had
+been my good fortune to succour.
+
+I had waited less than five minutes when I heard a swift, elastic step
+approaching through the next room, and a second or so later, before I
+had time to take up an appropriate posture, the door was thrown open
+and the exquisite vision of my waking dreams—the beautiful Angèle—
+stood smiling before me.
+
+“Mademoiselle,” I stammered somewhat clumsily, for of a truth I was
+hardly able to recover my breath, and surprise had well nigh robbed me
+of speech, “how comes it that you are here?”
+
+She only smiled in reply, the most adorable smile I had ever seen on
+any human face, so full of joy, of mischief—aye, of triumph, was it. I
+asked after Madame. Again she smiled, and said Madame was in her room,
+resting from the fatigues of her journey. I had scarce recovered from
+my initial surprise when another—more complete still—confronted me.
+This was the appearance of Monsieur Aristide Fournier, whom I had
+fondly imagined already expiating his crimes in a frontier prison, but
+who now entered, also smiling, also extremely pleasant, who greeted me
+as if we were lifelong friends, and who then—I scarce could believe my
+eyes—placed his arm affectionately round his sister’s waist, while she
+turned her sweet face up to his and gave him a fond—nay, a loving look.
+A loving look to him who was a brute and a bully and a miscreant
+amenable to the gallows! True his appearance was completely changed:
+his eyes were bright and kindly, his mouth continued to smile, his
+manner was urbane in the extreme when he finally introduced himself to
+me as: “Aristide Fournier, my dear Monsieur Ratichon, at your service.”
+
+He knew my name, he knew who I was! whilst I . . . I had to pass my
+hand once or twice over my forehead and to close and reopen my eyes
+several times, for, of a truth, it all seemed like a dream. I tried to
+stammer out a question or two, but I could only gasp, and the lovely
+Angèle appeared highly amused at my distress.
+
+“Let us dine,” she said gaily, “after which you may ask as many
+questions as you like.”
+
+In very truth I was in no mood for dinner. Puzzlement and anxiety
+appeared to grip me by the throat and to choke me. It was all very well
+for the beautiful creature to laugh and to make merry. She had cruelly
+deceived me, played upon the chords of my sensitive heart for purposes
+which no doubt would presently be made clear, but in the meanwhile
+since the smuggling of the English files had been successful—as it
+apparently was—what had become of Leroux and his gendarmes?
+
+What tragedy had been enacted in the narrow gorge of St. Cergues, and
+what, oh! what had become of my hopes of that five thousand francs for
+the apprehension of the smugglers, promised me by Leroux? Can you
+wonder that for the moment the very thought of dinner was abhorrent to
+me? But only for the moment. The next a sumptuous valet had thrown open
+the folding-doors, and down the vista of the stately apartment I
+perceived a table richly laden with china and glass and silver, whilst
+a distinctly savoury odour was wafted to my nostrils.
+
+“We will not answer a single question,” the fair Angèle reiterated with
+adorable determination, “until after we have dined.”
+
+What, Sir, would you have done in my place? I believe that never until
+this hour had Hector Ratichon reached to such a sublimity of manner. I
+bowed with perfect dignity in token of obedience to the fair creature,
+Sir; then without a word I offered her my arm. She placed her hand upon
+it, and I conducted her to the dining-room, whilst Aristide Fournier,
+who at this hour should have been on a fair way to being hanged,
+followed in our wake.
+
+Ah! it seemed indeed a lovely dream: one that lasted through an
+excellent and copious dinner, and which turned to delightful reality
+when, over a final glass of succulent Madeira, Monsieur Aristide
+Fournier slowly counted out one hundred notes, worth one hundred francs
+each, and presented these to me with a gracious nod.
+
+“Your fee, Monsieur,” he said, “and allow me to say that never have I
+paid out so large a sum with such a willing hand.”
+
+“But I have done nothing,” I murmured from out the depths of my
+bewilderment.
+
+Mademoiselle Angèle and Monsieur Fournier looked at one another, and,
+no doubt, I presented a very comical spectacle; for both of them burst
+into an uncontrollable fit of laughter.
+
+“Indeed, Monsieur,” quoth Monsieur Fournier as soon as he could speak
+coherently, “you have done everything that you set out to do and done
+it with perfect chivalry. You conveyed ‘the toys’ safely over the
+frontier as far as St. Claude.”
+
+“But how?” I stammered, “how?”
+
+Again Mademoiselle Angèle laughed, and through the ripples of her
+laughter came her merry words:
+
+“Maman was very fat, was she not, my good Monsieur Ratichon? Did you
+not think she was extraordinarily like me?”
+
+I caught the glance in her eyes, and they were literally glowing with
+mischief. Then all of a sudden I understood. She had impersonated a fat
+mother, covered her lovely face with lines, worn a disfiguring wig and
+an antiquated bonnet, and round her slender figure she had tucked away
+thousands of packages of English files. I could only gasp.
+Astonishment, not to say admiration, at her pluck literally took my
+breath away.
+
+“But, Monsieur Berty?” I murmured, my mind in a turmoil, my thoughts
+running riot through my brain. “The Englishmen, the mules, the packs?”
+
+“Monsieur Berty, as you see, stands before you now in the person of
+Monsieur Fournier,” she replied. “The Englishmen were three faithful
+servants who threw dust not only in your eyes, my dear M. Ratichon, but
+in those of the customs officials, while the packs contained harmless
+personal luggage which was taken by your friend and his gendarmes to
+the customs station at Mijoux, and there, after much swearing, equally
+solemnly released with many apologies to M. Fournier, who was allowed
+to proceed unmolested on his way, and who arrived here safely this
+afternoon, whilst Maman divested herself of her fat and once more
+became the slender Mme. Aristide Fournier, at your service.”
+
+She bobbed me a dainty curtsy, and I could only try and hide the pain
+which this last cruel stab had inflicted on my heart. So she was not
+“Mademoiselle” after all, and henceforth it would even be wrong to
+indulge in dreams of her.
+
+But the ten thousand francs crackled pleasantly in my breast pocket,
+and when I finally took leave of Monsieur Aristide Fournier and his
+charming wife, I was an exceedingly happy man.
+
+But Leroux never forgave me. Of what he suspected me I do not know, or
+if he suspected me at all. He certainly must have known about fat Maman
+from the customs officials who had given us coffee at Mijoux.
+
+But he never mentioned the subject to me at all, nor has he spoken to
+me since that memorable night. To one of his colleagues he once said
+that no words in his vocabulary could possibly be adequate to express
+his feelings.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI. — HONOUR AMONG ———
+
+1.
+
+Ah, my dear Sir, it is easy enough to despise our profession, but
+believe me that all the finer qualities—those of loyalty and of
+truth—are essential, not only to us, but to our subordinates, if we are
+to succeed in making even a small competence out of it.
+
+Now let me give you an instance. Here was I, Hector Ratichon, settled
+in Paris in that eventful year 1816 which saw the new order of things
+finally swept aside and the old order resume its triumphant sway, which
+saw us all, including our God-given King Louis XVIII, as poor as the
+proverbial church mice and as eager for a bit of comfort and luxury as
+a hungry dog is for a bone; the year which saw the army disbanded and
+hordes of unemployed and unemployable men wandering disconsolate and
+half starved through the country seeking in vain for some means of
+livelihood, while the Allied troops, well fed and well clothed, stalked
+about as if the sacred soil of France was so much dirt under their
+feet; the year, my dear Sir, during which more intrigues were hatched
+and more plots concocted than in any previous century in the whole
+history of France. We were all trying to make money, since there was so
+precious little of it about. Those of us who had brains succeeded, and
+then not always.
+
+Now, I had brains—I do not boast of them; they are a gift from
+Heaven—but I had them, and good looks, too, and a general air of
+strength, coupled with refinement, which was bound to appeal to anyone
+needing help and advice, and willing to pay for both, and yet—but you
+shall judge.
+
+You know my office in the Rue Daunou, you have been in it—plainly
+furnished; but, as I said, these were not days of luxury. There was an
+antechamber, too, where that traitor, blackmailer and thief, Theodore,
+my confidential clerk in those days, lodged at my expense and kept
+importunate clients at bay for what was undoubtedly a liberal
+salary—ten per cent, on all the profits of the business—and yet he was
+always complaining, the ungrateful, avaricious brute!
+
+Well, Sir, on that day in September—it was the tenth, I remember—1816,
+I must confess that I was feeling exceedingly dejected. Not one client
+for the last three weeks, half a franc in my pocket, and nothing but a
+small quarter of Strasburg patty in the larder. Theodore had eaten most
+of it, and I had just sent him out to buy two sous’ worth of stale
+bread wherewith to finish the remainder. But after that? You will
+admit, Sir, that a less buoyant spirit would not have remained so long
+undaunted.
+
+I was just cursing that lout Theodore inwardly, for he had been gone
+half an hour, and I strongly suspected him of having spent my two sous
+on a glass of absinthe, when there was a ring at the door, and I,
+Hector Ratichon, the confidant of kings and intimate counsellor of half
+the aristocracy in the kingdom, was forced to go and open the door just
+like a common lackey.
+
+But here the sight which greeted my eyes fully compensated me for the
+temporary humiliation, for on the threshold stood a gentleman who had
+wealth written plainly upon his fine clothes, upon the dainty linen at
+his throat and wrists, upon the quality of his rich satin necktie and
+the perfect set of his fine cloth pantaloons, which were of an
+exquisite shade of dove-grey. When, then, the apparition spoke,
+inquiring with just a sufficiency of aristocratic hauteur whether M.
+Hector Ratichon were in, you cannot be surprised, my dear Sir, that my
+dejection fell from me like a cast-off mantle and that all my usual
+urbanity of manner returned to me as I informed the elegant gentleman
+that M. Ratichon was even now standing before him, and begged him to
+take the trouble to pass through into my office.
+
+This he did, and I placed a chair in position for him. He sat down,
+having previously dusted the chair with a graceful sweep of his
+lace-edged handkerchief. Then he raised a gold-rimmed eyeglass to his
+right eye with a superlatively elegant gesture, and surveyed me
+critically for a moment or two ere he said:
+
+“I am told, my good M. Ratichon, that you are a trustworthy fellow, and
+one who is willing to undertake a delicate piece of business for a
+moderate honorarium.”
+
+Except for the fact that I did not like the word “moderate,” I was
+enchanted with him.
+
+“Rumour for once has not lied, Monsieur,” I replied in my most
+attractive manner.
+
+“Well,” he rejoined—I won’t say curtly, but with businesslike brevity,
+“for all purposes connected with the affair which I desire to treat
+with you my name, as far as you are concerned, shall be Jean Duval.
+Understand?”
+
+“Perfectly, Monsieur le Marquis,” I replied with a bland smile.
+
+It was a wild guess, but I don’t think that I underestimated my new
+client’s rank, for he did not wince.
+
+“You know Mlle. Mars?” he queried.
+
+“The actress?” I replied. “Perfectly.”
+
+“She is playing in _Le Rêve_ at the Theatre Royal just now.”
+
+“She is.”
+
+“In the first and third acts of the play she wears a gold bracelet set
+with large green stones.”
+
+“I noticed it the other night. I had a seat in the parterre, I may
+say.”
+
+“I want that bracelet,” broke in the soi-disant Jean Duval
+unceremoniously. “The stones are false, the gold strass. I admire Mlle.
+Mars immensely. I dislike seeing her wearing false jewellery. I wish to
+have the bracelet copied in real stones, and to present it to her as a
+surprise on the occasion of the twenty-fifth performance of _Le Rêve_.
+It will cost me a king’s ransom, and her, for the time being, an
+infinite amount of anxiety. She sets great store by the valueless
+trinket solely because of the merit of its design, and I want its
+disappearance to have every semblance of a theft. All the greater will
+be the lovely creature’s pleasure when, at my hands, she will receive
+an infinitely precious jewel the exact counterpart in all save its
+intrinsic value of the trifle which she had thought lost.”
+
+It all sounded deliciously romantic. A flavour of the past
+century—before the endless war and abysmal poverty had killed all
+chivalry in us—clung to this proposed transaction. There was nothing of
+the roturier, nothing of a Jean Duval, in this polished man of the
+world who had thought out this subtle scheme for ingratiating himself
+in the eyes of his lady fair.
+
+I murmured an appropriate phrase, placing my services entirely at M. le
+Marquis’s disposal, and once more he broke in on my polished diction
+with that brusquerie which betrayed the man accustomed to be silently
+obeyed.
+
+“Mlle. Mars wears the bracelet,” he said, “during the third act of _Le
+Rêve_. At the end of the act she enters her dressing-room, and her maid
+helps her to change her dress. During this entr’acte Mademoiselle with
+her own hands puts by all the jewellery which she has to wear during
+the more gorgeous scenes of the play. In the last act—the finale of the
+tragedy—she appears in a plain stuff gown, whilst all her jewellery
+reposes in the small iron safe in her dressing-room. It is while
+Mademoiselle is on the stage during the last act that I want you to
+enter her dressing-room and to extract the bracelet out of the safe for
+me.”
+
+“I, M. le Marquis?” I stammered. “I, to steal a—”
+
+“Firstly, M.—er—er—Ratichon, or whatever your confounded name may be,”
+interposed my client with inimitable hauteur, “understand that my name
+is Jean Duval, and if you forget this again I shall be under the
+necessity of laying my cane across your shoulders and incidentally to
+take my business elsewhere. Secondly, let me tell you that your
+affectations of outraged probity are lost on me, seeing that I know all
+about the stolen treaty which—”
+
+“Enough, M. Jean Duval,” I said with a dignity equal, if not greater,
+than his own; “do not, I pray you, misunderstand me. I am ready to do
+you service. But if you will deign to explain how I am to break open an
+iron safe inside a crowded building and extract therefrom a trinket,
+without being caught in the act and locked up for house-breaking and
+theft, I shall be eternally your debtor.”
+
+“The extracting of the trinket is your affair,” he rejoined dryly. “I
+will give you five hundred francs if you bring the bracelet to me
+within fourteen days.”
+
+“But—” I stammered again.
+
+“Your task will not be such a difficult one after all. I will give you
+the duplicate key of the safe.”
+
+He dived into the breast pocket of his coat, and drew from it a
+somewhat large and clumsy key, which he placed upon my desk.
+
+“I managed to get that easily enough,” he said nonchalantly, “a couple
+of nights ago, when I had the honour of visiting Mademoiselle in her
+dressing-room. A piece of wax in my hand, Mademoiselle’s momentary
+absorption in her reflection while her maid was doing her hair, and the
+impression of the original key was in my possession. But between taking
+a model of the key and the actual theft of the bracelet out of the safe
+there is a wide gulf which a gentleman cannot bridge over. Therefore, I
+choose to employ you, M.—er—er—Ratichon, to complete the transaction
+for me.”
+
+“For five hundred francs?” I queried blandly.
+
+“It is a fair sum,” he argued.
+
+“Make it a thousand,” I rejoined firmly, “and you shall have the
+bracelet within fourteen days.”
+
+He paused a moment in order to reflect; his steel-grey eyes, cool and
+disdainful, were fixed searchingly on my face. I pride myself on the
+way that I bear that kind of scrutiny, so even now I looked bland and
+withal purposeful and capable.
+
+“Very well,” he said, after a few moments, and he rose from his chair
+as he spoke; “it shall be a thousand francs, M.—er—er—Ratichon, and I
+will hand over the money to you in exchange for the bracelet—but it
+must be done within fourteen days, remember.”
+
+I tried to induce him to give me a small sum on account. I was about to
+take terrible risks, remember; housebreaking, larceny, theft—call it
+what you will, it meant the _police correctionelle_ and a couple of
+years in New Orleans for sure. He finally gave me fifty francs, and
+once more threatened to take his business elsewhere, so I had to accept
+and to look as urbane and dignified as I could.
+
+He was out of the office and about to descend the stairs when a thought
+struck me.
+
+“Where and how can I communicate with M. Jean Duval,” I asked, “when my
+work is done?”
+
+“I will call here,” he replied, “at ten o’clock of every morning that
+follows a performance of _Le Rêve_. We can complete our transaction
+then across your office desk.”
+
+The next moment he was gone. Theodore passed him on the stairs and
+asked me, with one of his impertinent leers, whether we had a new
+client and what we might expect from him. I shrugged my shoulders. “A
+new client!” I said disdainfully. “Bah! Vague promises of a couple of
+louis for finding out if Madame his wife sees more of a certain captain
+of the guards than Monsieur the husband cares about.”
+
+Theodore sniffed. He always sniffs when financial matters are on the
+tapis.
+
+“Anything on account?” he queried.
+
+“A paltry ten francs,” I replied, “and I may as well give you your
+share of it now.”
+
+I tossed a franc to him across the desk. By the terms of my contract
+with him, you understand, he was entitled to ten per cent, of every
+profit accruing from the business in lieu of wages, but in this
+instance do you not think that I was justified in looking on one franc
+now, and perhaps twenty when the transaction was completed, as a more
+than just honorarium for his share in it? Was I not taking all the
+risks in this delicate business? Would it be fair for me to give him a
+hundred francs for sitting quietly in the office or sipping absinthe at
+a neighbouring bar whilst I risked New Orleans—not to speak of the
+gallows?
+
+He gave me a strange look as he picked up the silver franc, spat on it
+for luck, bit it with his great yellow teeth to ascertain if it were
+counterfeit or genuine, and finally slipped it into his pocket, and
+shuffled out of the office whistling through his teeth.
+
+An abominably low, deceitful creature, that Theodore, you will see
+anon. But I won’t anticipate.
+
+2.
+
+The next performance of _Le Rêve_ was announced for the following
+evening, and I started on my campaign. As you may imagine, it did not
+prove an easy matter. To obtain access through the stage-door to the
+back of the theatre was one thing—a franc to the doorkeeper had done
+the trick—to mingle with the scene-shifters, to talk with the supers,
+to take off my hat with every form of deep respect to the principals
+had been equally simple.
+
+I had even succeeded in placing a bouquet on the dressing-table of the
+great tragedienne on my second visit to the theatre. Her dressing-room
+door had been left ajar during that memorable fourth act which was to
+see the consummation of my labours. I had the bouquet in my hand,
+having brought it expressly for that purpose. I pushed open the door,
+and found myself face to face with a young though somewhat forbidding
+damsel, who peremptorily demanded what my business might be.
+
+In order to minimise the risk of subsequent trouble, I had assumed the
+disguise of a middle-aged Angliche—red side-whiskers, florid
+complexion, a ginger-coloured wig plastered rigidly over the ears
+towards the temples, high stock collar, nankeen pantaloons, a patch
+over one eye and an eyeglass fixed in the other. My own sainted mother
+would never have known me.
+
+With becoming diffidence I explained in broken French that my deep
+though respectful admiration of Mlle. Mars had prompted me to lay a
+floral tribute at her feet. I desired nothing more.
+
+The damsel eyed me coldly, though at the moment I was looking quite my
+best, diffident yet courteous, a perfect gentleman of the old regime.
+Then she took the bouquet from me and put it down on the
+dressing-table.
+
+I fancied that she smiled, not unkindly, and I ventured to pass the
+time of day. She replied not altogether disapprovingly. She sat down by
+the dressing-table and took up some needlework which she had obviously
+thrown aside on my arrival. Close by, on the floor, was a solid iron
+chest with huge ornamental hinges and a large escutcheon over the lock.
+It stood about a foot high and perhaps a couple of feet long.
+
+There was nothing else in the room that suggested a receptacle for
+jewellery; this, therefore, was obviously the safe which contained the
+bracelet. At the self-same second my eyes alighted on a large and
+clumsy-looking key which lay upon the dressing-table, and my hand at
+once wandered instinctively to the pocket of my coat and closed
+convulsively on the duplicate one which the soi-disant Jean Duval had
+given me.
+
+I talked eloquently for a while. The damsel answered in monosyllables,
+but she sat unmoved at needlework, and after ten minutes or so I was
+forced to beat a retreat.
+
+I returned to the charge at the next performance of _Le Rêve_, this
+time with a box of bonbons for the maid instead of the bouquet for the
+mistress. The damsel was quite amenable to a little conversation, quite
+willing that I should dally in her company. She munched the bonbons and
+coquetted a little with me. But she went on stolidly with her
+needlework, and I could see that nothing would move her out of that
+room, where she had obviously been left in charge.
+
+Then I bethought me of Theodore. I realised that I could not carry this
+affair through successfully without his help. So I gave him a further
+five francs—as I said to him it was out of my own savings—and I assured
+him that a certain M. Jean Duval had promised me a couple of hundred
+francs when the business which he had entrusted to me was
+satisfactorily concluded. It was for this business—so I explained—that
+I required his help, and he seemed quite satisfied.
+
+His task was, of course, a very easy one. What a contrast to the risk I
+was about to run! Twenty-five francs, my dear Sir, just for knocking at
+the door of Mlle. Mars’ dressing-room during the fourth act, whilst I
+was engaged in conversation with the attractive guardian of the iron
+safe, and to say in well-assumed, breathless tones:
+
+“Mademoiselle Mars has been taken suddenly unwell on the stage. Will
+her maid go to her at once?”
+
+It was some little distance from the dressing-room to the wings—down a
+flight of ill-lighted stone stairs which demanded cautious ascent and
+descent. Theodore had orders to obstruct the maid during her progress
+as much as he could without rousing her suspicions.
+
+I reckoned that she would be fully three minutes going, questioning,
+finding out that the whole thing was a hoax, and running back to the
+dressing-room—three minutes in which to open the chest, extract the
+bracelet and, incidentally, anything else of value there might be close
+to my hand. Well, I had thought of that eventuality, too; one must
+think of everything, you know—that is where genius comes in. Then, if
+possible, relock the safe, so that the maid, on her return, would find
+everything apparently in order and would not, perhaps, raise the alarm
+until I was safely out of the theatre.
+
+It could be done—oh, yes, it could be done—with a minute to spare! And
+to-morrow at ten o’clock M. Jean Duval would appear, and I would not
+part with the bracelet until a thousand francs had passed from his
+pocket into mine. I must get Theodore out of the house, by the way,
+before the arrival of M. Duval.
+
+A thousand francs! I had not seen a thousand francs all at once for
+years. What a dinner I would have tomorrow! There was a certain little
+restaurant in the Rue des Pipots where they concocted a cassolette of
+goose liver and pork chops with haricot beans which . . . ! I only tell
+you that.
+
+How I got through the rest of that day I cannot tell you. The evening
+found me—quite an habitué now—behind the stage of the Theatre Royal,
+nodding to one or two acquaintances, most of the people looking on me
+with grave respect and talking of me as the eccentric milor. I was
+supposed to be pining for an introduction to the great tragedienne,
+who, very exclusive as usual, had so far given me the cold shoulder.
+
+Ten minutes after the rise of the curtain on the fourth act I was in
+the dressing-room, presenting the maid with a gold locket which I had
+bought from a cheapjack’s barrow for five and twenty francs—almost the
+last of the fifty which I had received from M. Duval on account. The
+damsel was eyeing the locket somewhat disdainfully and giving me
+grudging thanks for it when there came a hurried knock at the door. The
+next moment Theodore poked his ugly face into the room. He, too, had
+taken the precaution of assuming an excellent disguise—peaked cap set
+aslant over one eye, grimy face, the blouse of a scene-shifter.
+
+“Mlle. Mars,” he gasped breathlessly; “she has been taken ill—on the
+stage—very suddenly. She is in the wings—asking for her maid. They
+think she will faint.”
+
+The damsel rose, visibly frightened.
+
+“I’ll come at once,” she said, and without the slightest flurry she
+picked up the key of the safe and slipped it into her pocket. I fancied
+that she gave me a look as she did this. Oh, she was a pearl among
+Abigails! Then she pointed unceremoniously to the door.
+
+“Milor!” was all she said, but of course I understood. I had no idea
+that English milors could be thus treated by pert maidens. But what
+cared I for social amenities just then? My hand had closed over the
+duplicate key of the safe, and I walked out of the room in the wake of
+the damsel. Theodore had disappeared.
+
+Once in the passage, the girl started to run. A second or two later I
+heard the patter of her high-heeled shoes down the stone stairs. I had
+not a moment to lose.
+
+To slip back into the dressing-room was but an instant’s work. The next
+I was kneeling in front of the chest. The key fitted the lock
+accurately; one turn, and the lid flew open.
+
+The chest was filled with a miscellaneous collection of theatrical
+properties all lying loose—showy necklaces, chains, pendants, all of
+them obviously false; but lying beneath them, and partially hidden by
+the meretricious ornaments, were one or two boxes covered with velvet
+such as jewellers use. My keen eyes noted these at once. I was indeed
+in luck! For the moment, however, my hand fastened on a leather case
+which reposed on the top in one corner, and which very obviously, from
+its shape, contained a bracelet. My hands did not tremble, though I was
+quivering with excitement. I opened the case. There, indeed, was the
+bracelet—the large green stones, the magnificent gold setting, the
+whole jewel dazzlingly beautiful. If it were real—the thought flashed
+through my mind—it would be indeed priceless. I closed the case and put
+it on the dressing-table beside me. I had at least another minute to
+spare—sixty seconds wherein to dive for those velvet-covered boxes
+which— My hand was on one of them when a slight noise caused me
+suddenly to turn and to look behind me. It all happened as quickly as a
+flash of lightning. I just saw a man disappearing through the door. One
+glance at the dressing-table showed me the whole extent of my
+misfortune. The case containing the bracelet had gone, and at that
+precise moment I heard a commotion from the direction of the stairs and
+a woman screaming at the top of her voice: “Thief! Stop thief!”
+
+Then, Sir, I brought upon the perilous situation that presence of mind
+for which the name of Hector Ratichon will for ever remain famous.
+Without a single flurried movement, I slipped one of the velvet-covered
+cases which I still had in my hand into the breast pocket of my coat, I
+closed down the lid of the iron chest and locked it with the duplicate
+key, and I went out of the room, closing the door behind me.
+
+The passage was dark. The damsel was running up the stairs with a
+couple of stage hands behind her. She was explaining to them volubly,
+and to the accompaniment of sundry half-hysterical little cries, the
+infamous hoax to which she had fallen a victim. You might think, Sir,
+that here was I caught like a rat in a trap, and with that
+velvet-covered case in my breast pocket by way of damning evidence
+against me!
+
+Not at all, Sir! Not at all! Not so is Hector Ratichon, the keenest
+secret agent France has ever known, the confidant of kings, brought to
+earth by an untoward move of fate. Even before the damsel and the stage
+hands had reached the top of the stairs and turned into the corridor,
+which was on my left, I had slipped round noiselessly to my right and
+found shelter in a narrow doorway, where I was screened by the
+surrounding darkness and by a projection of the frame. While the three
+of them made straight for Mademoiselle’s dressing-room, and spent some
+considerable time there in uttering varied ejaculations when they found
+the place and the chest to all appearances untouched, I slipped out of
+my hiding-place, sped rapidly along the corridor, and was soon half-way
+down the stairs.
+
+Here my habitual composure in the face of danger stood me in good
+stead. It enabled me to walk composedly and not too hurriedly through
+the crowd behind the scenes—supers, scene-shifters, principals, none of
+whom seemed to be aware as yet of the hoax practised on Mademoiselle
+Mars’ maid; and I reckon that I was out of the stage door exactly five
+minutes after Theodore had called the damsel away.
+
+But I was minus the bracelet, and in my mind there was the firm
+conviction that that traitor Theodore had played me one of his
+abominable tricks. As I said, the whole thing had occurred as quickly
+as a flash of lightning, but even so my keen, experienced eyes had
+retained the impression of a peaked cap and the corner of a blue blouse
+as they disappeared through the dressing-room door.
+
+3.
+
+Tact, wariness and strength were all required, you must admit, in order
+to deal with the present delicate situation. I was speeding along the
+Rue de Richelieu on my way to my office. My intention was to spend the
+night there, where I had a chair-bedstead on which I had oft before
+slept soundly after a day’s hard work, and anyhow it was too late to go
+to my lodgings at Passy at this hour.
+
+Moreover, Theodore slept in the antechamber of the office, and I was
+more firmly convinced than ever that it was he who had stolen the
+bracelet. “Blackleg! Thief! Traitor!” I mused. “But thou hast not done
+with Hector Ratichon yet.”
+
+In the meanwhile I bethought me of the velvet-covered box in my breast
+pocket, and of the ginger-coloured hair and whiskers that I was still
+wearing, and which might prove an unpleasant “piece de conviction” in
+case the police were after the stolen bracelet.
+
+With a view to examining the one and getting rid of the other, I turned
+into the Square Louvois, which, as usual, was very dark and wholly
+deserted. Here I took off my wig and whiskers and threw them over the
+railings into the garden. Then I drew the velvet-covered box from my
+pocket, opened it, and groped for its contents. Imagine my feelings, my
+dear Sir, when I realised that the case was empty! Fate was indeed
+against me that night. I had been fooled and cheated by a traitor, and
+had risked New Orleans and worse for an empty box.
+
+For a moment I must confess that I lost that imperturbable sang-froid
+which is the admiration of all my friends, and with a genuine oath I
+flung the case over the railings in the wake of the milor’s hair and
+whiskers. Then I hurried home.
+
+Theodore had not returned. He did not come in until the small hours of
+the morning, and then he was in a state that I can only describe, with
+your permission, as hoggish. He could hardly speak. I had him at my
+mercy. Neither tact nor wariness was required for the moment. I
+stripped him to his skin; he only laughed like an imbecile. His eyes
+had a horrid squint in them; he was hideous. I found five francs in one
+of his pockets, but neither in his clothes nor on his person did I find
+the bracelet.
+
+“What have you done with it?” I cried, for by this time I was maddened
+with rage.
+
+“I don’t know what you are talking about!” he stammered thickly, as he
+tottered towards his bed. “Give me back my five francs, you thief!” the
+brutish creature finally blurted out ere he fell into a hog-like sleep.
+
+4.
+
+Desperate evils need desperate remedies. I spent the rest of the night
+thinking hard. By the time that dawn was breaking my mind was made up.
+Theodore’s stertorous breathing assured me that he was still
+insentient. I was muscular in those days, and he a meagre, attenuated,
+drink-sodden creature. I lifted him out of his bed in the antechamber
+and carried him into mine in the office. I found a coil of rope, and
+strapped him tightly in the chair-bedstead so that he could not move. I
+tied a scarf round his mouth so that he could not scream. Then, at six
+o’clock, when the humbler eating-houses begin to take down their
+shutters, I went out.
+
+I had Theodore’s five francs in my pocket, and I was desperately
+hungry. I spent ten sous on a cup of coffee and a plate of fried onions
+and haricot beans, and three francs on a savoury pie, highly flavoured
+with garlic, and a quarter-bottle of excellent cognac. I drank the
+coffee and ate the onions and the beans, and I took the pie and cognac
+home.
+
+I placed a table close to the chair-bedstead and on it I disposed the
+pie and the cognac in such a manner that the moment Theodore woke his
+eyes were bound to alight on them. Then I waited. I absolutely ached to
+have a taste of that pie myself, it smelt so good, but I waited.
+
+Theodore woke at nine o’clock. He struggled like a fool, but he still
+appeared half dazed. No doubt he thought that he was dreaming. Then I
+sat down on the edge of the bed and cut myself off a large piece of the
+pie. I ate it with marked relish in front of Theodore, whose eyes
+nearly started out of their sockets. Then I brewed myself a cup of
+coffee. The mingled odour of coffee and garlic filled the room. It was
+delicious. I thought that Theodore would have a fit. The veins stood
+out on his forehead and a kind of gurgle came from behind the scarf
+round his mouth. Then I told him he could partake of the pie and coffee
+if he told me what he had done with the bracelet. He shook his head
+furiously, and I left the pie, the cognac and the coffee on the table
+before him and went into the antechamber, closing the office door
+behind me, and leaving him to meditate on his treachery.
+
+What I wanted to avoid above everything was the traitor meeting M. Jean
+Duval. He had the bracelet—of that I was as convinced as that I was
+alive. But what could he do with a piece of false jewellery? He could
+not dispose of it, save to a vendor of theatrical properties, who no
+doubt was well acquainted with the trinket and would not give more than
+a couple of francs for what was obviously stolen property. After all, I
+had promised Theodore twenty francs; he would not be such a fool as to
+sell that birthright for a mess of pottage and the sole pleasure of
+doing me a bad turn.
+
+There was no doubt in my mind that he had put the thing away somewhere
+in what he considered a safe place pending a reward being offered by
+Mlle. Mars for the recovery of the bracelet. The more I thought of this
+the more convinced I was that that was, indeed, his proposed plan of
+action—oh, how I loathed the blackleg!—and mine henceforth would be to
+dog his every footstep and never let him out of my sight until I forced
+him to disgorge his ill-gotten booty.
+
+At ten o’clock M. Jean Duval arrived, as was his wont, supercilious and
+brusque as usual. I was just explaining to him that I hoped to have
+excellent news for him after the next performance of _Le Rêve_ when
+there was a peremptory ring at the bell. I went to open the door, and
+there stood a police inspector in uniform with a sheaf of papers in his
+hand.
+
+Now, I am not over-fond of our Paris police; they poke their noses in
+where they are least wanted. Their incompetence favours the
+machinations of rogues and frustrates the innocent ambitions of the
+just. However, in this instance the inspector looked amiable enough,
+though his manner, I must say, was, as usual, unpleasantly curt.
+
+“Here, Ratichon,” he said, “there has been an impudent theft of a
+valuable bracelet out of Mademoiselle Mars’ dressing-room at the
+Theatre Royal last night. You and your mate frequent all sorts of
+places of ill-fame; you may hear something of the affair.”
+
+I chose to ignore the insult, and the inspector detached a paper from
+the sheaf which he held and threw it across the table to me.
+
+“There is a reward of two thousand five hundred francs,” he said, “for
+the recovery of the bracelet. You will find on that paper an accurate
+description of the jewel. It contains the celebrated Maroni emerald,
+presented to the ex-Emperor by the Sultan, and given by him to Mlle.
+Mars.”
+
+Whereupon he turned unceremoniously on his heel and went, leaving me
+face to face with the man who had so shamefully tried to swindle me. I
+turned, and resting my elbow on the table and my chin in my hand, I
+looked mutely on the soi-disant Jean Duval and equally mutely pointed
+with an accusing finger to the description of the famous bracelet which
+he had declared to me was merely strass and base metal.
+
+But he had the impudence to turn on me before I could utter a syllable.
+
+“Where is the bracelet?” he demanded. “You consummate liar, you! Where
+is it? You stole it last night! What have you done with it?”
+
+“I extracted, at your request,” I replied with as much dignity as I
+could command, “a piece of theatrical jewellery, which you stated to me
+to be worthless, out of an iron chest, the key of which you placed in
+my hands. I . . .”
+
+“Enough of this rubbish!” he broke in roughly. “You have the bracelet.
+Give it me now, or . . .”
+
+He broke off and looked somewhat alarmed in the direction of the office
+door, from the other side of which there had just come a loud crash,
+followed by loud, if unintelligible, vituperation. What had happened I
+could not guess; all that I could do was to carry off the situation as
+boldly as I dared.
+
+“You shall have the bracelet, Sir,” I said in my most suave manner.
+“You shall have it, but not unless you will pay me three thousand
+francs for it. I can get two thousand five hundred by taking it
+straight to Mlle. Mars.”
+
+“And be taken up by the police for stealing it,” he retorted. “How will
+you explain its being in your possession?”
+
+I did not blanch.
+
+“That is my affair,” I replied. “Will you give me three thousand francs
+for it? It is worth sixty thousand francs to a clever thief like you.”
+
+“You hound!” he cried, livid with rage, and raised his cane as if he
+would strike me.
+
+“Aye, it was cleverly done, M. Jean Duval, whoever you may be. I know
+that the gentleman-thief is a modern product of the old regime, but I
+did not know that the fraternity could show such a fine specimen as
+yourself. Pay Hector Ratichon a thousand francs for stealing a bracelet
+for you worth sixty! Indeed, M. Jean Duval, you deserved to succeed!”
+
+Again he shook his cane at me.
+
+“If you touch me,” I declared boldly, “I shall take the bracelet at
+once to Mlle. Mars.”
+
+He bit his lip and made a great effort to pull himself together.
+
+“I haven’t three thousand francs by me,” he said.
+
+“Go, fetch the money,” I retorted, “and I’ll fetch the bracelet.”
+
+He demurred for a while, but I was firm, and after he had threatened to
+thrash me, to knock me down, and to denounce me to the police, he gave
+in and went to fetch the money.
+
+5.
+
+When I remembered Theodore—Theodore, whom only a thin partition wall
+had separated from the full knowledge of the value of his ill-gotten
+treasure!—I could have torn my hair out by the roots with the magnitude
+of my rage. He, the traitor, the blackleg, was about to triumph, where
+I, Hector Ratichon, had failed! He had but to take the bracelet to
+Mlle. Mars himself and obtain the munificent reward whilst I, after I
+had taken so many risks and used all the brains and tact wherewith
+Nature had endowed me, would be left with the meagre remnants of the
+fifty francs which M. Jean Duval had so grudgingly thrown to me.
+Twenty-five francs for a gold locket, ten francs for a bouquet, another
+ten for bonbons, and five for gratuities to the stage-doorkeeper! Make
+the calculation, my good Sir, and see what I had left. If it had not
+been for the five francs which I had found in Theodore’s pocket last
+night, I would at this moment not only have been breakfastless, but
+also absolutely penniless.
+
+As it was, my final hope—and that a meagre one—was to arouse one spark
+of honesty in the breast of the arch-traitor, and either by cajolery or
+threats, to induce him to share his ill-gotten spoils with me.
+
+I had left him snoring and strapped to the chair-bedstead, and when I
+opened the office door I was marvelling in my mind whether I could
+really bear to see him dying slowly of starvation with that savoury pie
+tantalizingly under his nose. The crash which I had heard a few minutes
+ago prepared me for a change of scene. Even so, I confess that the
+sight which I beheld glued me to the threshold. There sat Theodore at
+the table, finishing the last morsel of pie, whilst the chair-bedstead
+lay in a tangled heap upon the floor.
+
+I cannot tell you how nasty he was to me about the whole thing,
+although I showed myself at once ready to forgive him all his lies and
+his treachery, and was at great pains to explain to him how I had given
+up my own bed and strapped him into it solely for the benefit of his
+health, seeing that at the moment he was threatened with delirium
+tremens.
+
+He would not listen to reason or to the most elementary dictates of
+friendship. Having poured the vials of his bilious temper over my
+devoted head, he became as perverse and as obstinate as a mule. With
+the most consummate impudence I ever beheld in any human being, he
+flatly denied all knowledge of the bracelet.
+
+Whilst I talked he stalked past me into the ante-chamber, where he at
+once busied himself in collecting all his goods and chattels. These he
+stuffed into his pockets until he appeared to be bulging all over his
+ugly-body; then he went to the door ready to go out. On the threshold
+he turned and gave me a supercilious glance over his shoulder.
+
+“Take note, my good Ratichon,” he said, “that our partnership is
+dissolved as from to-morrow, the twentieth day of September.”
+
+“As from this moment, you infernal scoundrel!” I cried.
+
+But he did not pause to listen, and slammed the door in my face.
+
+For two or three minutes I remained quite still, whilst I heard the
+shuffling footsteps slowly descending the corridor. Then I followed
+him, quietly, surreptitiously, as a fox will follow its prey. He never
+turned round once, but obviously he knew that he was being followed.
+
+I will not weary you, my dear Sir, with the details of the dance which
+he led me in and about Paris during the whole of that memorable day.
+Never a morsel passed my lips from breakfast to long after sundown. He
+tried every trick known to the profession to throw me off the scent.
+But I stuck to him like a leech. When he sauntered I sauntered; when he
+ran I ran; when he glued his nose to the window of an eating house I
+halted under a doorway close by; when he went to sleep on a bench in
+the Luxembourg Gardens I watched over him as a mother over a babe.
+
+Towards evening—it was an hour after sunset and the street-lamps were
+just being lighted—he must have thought that he had at last got rid of
+me; for, after looking carefully behind him, he suddenly started to
+walk much faster and with an amount of determination which he had
+lacked hitherto. I marvelled if he was not making for the Rue Daunou,
+where was situated the squalid tavern of ill-fame which he was wont to
+frequent. I was not mistaken.
+
+I tracked the traitor to the corner of the street, and saw him
+disappear beneath the doorway of the Taverne des Trois Tigres. I
+resolved to follow. I had money in my pocket—about twenty-five sous—and
+I was mightily thirsty. I started to run down the street, when suddenly
+Theodore came rushing back out of the tavern, hatless and breathless,
+and before I succeeded in dodging him he fell into my arms.
+
+“My money!” he said hoarsely. “I must have my money at once! You thief!
+You . . .”
+
+Once again my presence of mind stood me in good stead.
+
+“Pull yourself together, Theodore,” I said with much dignity, “and do
+not make a scene in the open street.”
+
+But Theodore was not at all prepared to pull himself together. He was
+livid with rage.
+
+“I had five francs in my pocket last night!” he cried. “You have stolen
+them, you abominable rascal!”
+
+“And you stole from me a bracelet worth three thousand francs to the
+firm,” I retorted. “Give me that bracelet and you shall have your money
+back.”
+
+“I can’t,” he blurted out desperately.
+
+“How do you mean, you can’t?” I exclaimed, whilst a horrible fear like
+an icy claw suddenly gripped at my heart. “You haven’t lost it, have
+you?”
+
+“Worse!” he cried, and fell up against me in semi-unconsciousness.
+
+I shook him violently. I bellowed in his ear, and suddenly, after that
+one moment of apparent unconsciousness, he became, not only wide awake,
+but as strong as a lion and as furious as a bull. We closed in on one
+another. He hammered at me with his fists, calling me every kind of
+injurious name he could think of, and I had need of all my strength to
+ward off his attacks.
+
+For a few moments no one took much notice of us. Fracas and quarrels
+outside the drinking-houses in the mean streets of Paris were so
+frequent these days that the police did not trouble much about them.
+But after a while Theodore became so violent that I was forced to call
+vigorously for help. I thought he meant to murder me. People came
+rushing out of the tavern, and someone very officiously started
+whistling for the gendarmes. This had the effect of bringing Theodore
+to his senses. He calmed down visibly, and before the crowd had had
+time to collect round us we had both sauntered off, walking in apparent
+amity side by side down the street.
+
+But at the first corner Theodore halted, and this time he confined
+himself to gripping me by the arm with one hand whilst with the other
+he grasped one of the buttons of my coat.
+
+“That five francs,” he said in a hoarse, half-choked voice. “I must
+have that five francs! Can’t you see that I can’t have that bracelet
+till I have my five francs wherewith to redeem it?”
+
+“To redeem it!” I gasped. I was indeed glad then that he held me by the
+arm, for it seemed to me as if I was falling down a yawning abyss which
+had opened at my feet.
+
+“Yes,” said Theodore, and his voice sounded as if it came from a great
+distance and through cotton-wool,
+
+“I knew that you would be after that bracelet like a famished hyena
+after a bone, so I tied it securely inside the pocket of the blouse I
+was wearing, and left this with Legros, the landlord of the Trois
+Tigres. It was a good blouse; he lent me five francs on it. Of course,
+he knew nothing about the bracelet then. But he only lends money to
+clients in this manner on the condition that it is repaid within
+twenty-four hours. I have got to pay him back before eight o’clock this
+evening or he will dispose of the blouse as he thinks best. It is close
+on eight o’clock now. Give me back my five francs, you confounded
+thief, before Legros has time to discover the bracelet! We’ll share the
+reward, I promise you. Faith of an honest man. You liar, you cheat,
+you—”
+
+What was the use of talking? I had not got five francs. I had spent ten
+sous in getting myself some breakfast, and three francs in a savoury
+pie flavoured with garlic and in a quarter of a bottle of cognac. I
+groaned aloud. I had exactly twenty-five sous left.
+
+We went back to the tavern hoping against hope that Legros had not yet
+turned out the pockets of the blouse, and that we might induce him, by
+threat or cajolery or the usurious interest of twenty-five sous, to
+grant his client a further twenty-four hours wherein to redeem the
+pledge.
+
+One glance at the interior of the tavern, however, told us that all our
+hopes were in vain. Legros, the landlord, was even then turning the
+blouse over and over, whilst his hideous hag of a wife was talking to
+the police inspector, who was showing her the paper that announced the
+offer of two thousand five hundred francs for the recovery of a
+valuable bracelet, the property of Mlle. Mars, the distinguished
+tragedienne.
+
+We only waited one minute with our noses glued against the windows of
+the Trois Tigres, just long enough to see Legros extracting the leather
+case from the pocket of the blouse, just long enough to hear the police
+inspector saying peremptorily:
+
+“You, Legros, ought to be able to let the police know who stole the
+bracelet. You must know who left that blouse with you last night.”
+
+Then we both fled incontinently down the street.
+
+Now, Sir, was I not right when I said that honour and loyalty are the
+essential qualities in our profession? If Theodore had not been such a
+liar and such a traitor, he and I, between us, would have been richer
+by three thousand francs that day.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII. — AN OVER-SENSITIVE HEART
+
+1.
+
+No doubt, Sir, that you have noticed during the course of our
+conversations that Nature has endowed me with an over-sensitive heart.
+I feel keenly, Sir, very keenly. Blows dealt me by Fate, or, as has
+been more often the case, by the cruel and treacherous hand of man,
+touch me on the raw. I suffer acutely. I am highly strung. I am one of
+those rare beings whom Nature pre-ordained for love and for happiness.
+I am an ideal family man.
+
+What? You did not know that I was married? Indeed, Sir, I am. And
+though Madame Ratichon does not perhaps fulfil all my ideals of
+exquisite womanhood, nevertheless she has been an able and willing
+helpmate during these last years of comparative prosperity. Yes, you
+see me fairly prosperous now. My industry, my genius—if I may so
+express myself—found their reward at last. You will be the first to
+acknowledge—you, the confidant of my life’s history—that that reward
+was fully deserved. I worked for it, toiled and thought and struggled,
+up to the last; and had Fate been just, rather than grudging, I should
+have attained that ideal which would have filled my cup of happiness to
+the brim.
+
+But, anyway, the episode connected with my marriage did mark the close
+of my professional career, and is therefore worthy of record. Since
+that day, Sir—a happy one for me, a blissful one for Mme. Ratichon—I
+have been able, thanks to the foresight of an all-wise Providence, to
+gratify my bucolic tastes. I live now, Sir, amidst my flowers, with my
+dog and my canary and Mme. Ratichon, smiling with kindly indulgence on
+the struggles and the blunders of my younger colleagues, oft consulted
+by them in matters that require special tact and discretion. I sit and
+dream now beneath the shade of a vine-clad arbour of those glorious
+days of long ago, when kings and emperors placed the destiny of their
+inheritance in my hands, when autocrats and dictators came to me for
+assistance and advice, and the name of Hector Ratichon stood for
+everything that was most astute and most discreet. And if at times a
+gentle sigh of regret escapes my lips, Mme. Ratichon—whose thinness is
+ever my despair, for I admire comeliness, Sir, as being more
+womanly—Mme. Ratichon, I say, comes to me with the gladsome news that
+dinner is served; and though she is not all that I could wish in the
+matter of the culinary arts, yet she can fry a cutlet passably, and one
+of her brothers is a wholesale wine merchant of excellent reputation.
+
+It was soon after my connexion with that abominable Marquis de
+Firmin-Latour that I first made the acquaintance of the present Mme.
+Ratichon, under somewhat peculiar circumstances.
+
+I remember it was on the first day of April in the year 1817 that M.
+Rochez—Fernand Rochez was his exact name—came to see me at my office in
+the Rue Daunou, and the date proved propitious, as you will presently
+see. How M. Rochez came to know of my gifts and powers, I cannot tell
+you. He never would say. He had heard of me through a friend, was all
+that he vouchsafed to say.
+
+Theodore had shown him in. Ah! have I not mentioned the fact that I had
+forgiven Theodore his lies and his treachery, and taken him back to my
+bosom and to my board? My sensitive heart had again got the better of
+my prudence, and Theodore was installed once more in the antechamber of
+my apartments in the Rue Daunou, and was, as heretofore, sharing with
+me all the good things that I could afford. So there he was on duty on
+that fateful first of April which was destined to be the turning-point
+of my destiny. And he showed M. de Rochez in.
+
+At once I knew my man—the type, I mean. Immaculately dressed, scented
+and befrilled, haughty of manner and nonchalant of speech, M. Rochez
+had the word “adventurer” writ all over his well-groomed person. He was
+young, good-looking, his nails were beautifully polished, his
+pantaloons fitted him without a wrinkle. These were of a soft putty
+shade; his coat was bottle-green, and his hat of the latest modish
+shape. A perfect exquisite, in fact.
+
+And he came to the point without much preamble.
+
+“M.—er—Ratichon,” he said, “I have heard of you through a friend, who
+tells me that you are the most unscrupulous scoundrel he has ever come
+across.”
+
+“Sir—!” I began, rising from my seat in indignant protest at the coarse
+insult. But with an authoritative gesture he checked the flow of my
+indignation.
+
+“No comedy, I pray you, Sir,” he said. “We are not at the Theatre
+Molière, but, I presume, in an office where business is transacted both
+briefly and with discretion.”
+
+“At your service, Monsieur,” I replied.
+
+“Then listen, will you?” he went on curtly, “and pray do not interrupt.
+Only speak in answer to a question from me.”
+
+I bowed my head in silence. Thus must the proud suffer when they happen
+to be sparsely endowed with riches.
+
+“You have no doubt heard of Mlle. Goldberg,” M. Rochez continued after
+a moment’s pause, “the lovely daughter of the rich usurer in the Rue
+des Médecins.”
+
+I had heard of Mlle. Goldberg. Her beauty and her father’s wealth were
+reported to be fabulous. I indicated my knowledge of the beautiful lady
+by a mute inclination of the head.
+
+“I love Mlle. Goldberg,” my client resumed, “and I have reason for the
+belief that I am not altogether indifferent to her. Glances, you
+understand, from eyes as expressive as those of the exquisite Jewess
+speak more eloquently than words.”
+
+He had forbidden me to speak, so I could only express concurrence in
+the sentiments which he expressed by a slight elevation of my left
+eyebrow.
+
+“I am determined to win the affections of Mlle. Goldberg,” M. Rochez
+went on glibly, “and equally am I determined to make her my wife.”
+
+“A very natural determination,” I remarked involuntarily.
+
+“My only trouble with regard to pressing my court is the fact that my
+lovely Leah is never allowed outside her father’s house, save in his
+company or that of his sister—an old maid of dour mien and sour
+disposition, who acts the part of a duenna with dog-like tenacity. Over
+and over again have I tried to approach the lady of my heart, only to
+be repelled or roughly rebuked for my insolence by her irascible old
+aunt.”
+
+“You are not the first lover, Sir,” I remarked drily, “who hath seen
+obstacles thus thrown in his way, and—”
+
+“One moment, M.—er—Ratichon,” he broke in sharply. “I have not
+finished. I will not attempt to describe my feelings to you. I have
+been writhing—yes, writhing!—in face of those obstacles of which you
+speak so lightly, and for a long time I have been cudgelling my brains
+as to the possible means whereby I might approach my divinity
+unchecked. Then one day I bethought me of you—”
+
+“Of me, Sir?” I ejaculated, sorely puzzled. “Why of me?”
+
+“None of my friends,” he replied nonchalantly, “would care to undertake
+so scrubby a task as I would assign to you.”
+
+“I pray you to be more explicit,” I retorted with unimpaired dignity.
+
+Once more he paused. Obviously he was a born mountebank, and he
+calculated all his effects to a nicety.
+
+“You, M.—er—Ratichon,” he said curtly at last, “will have to take the
+duenna off my hands.”
+
+I was beginning to understand. So I let him prattle on the while my
+busy brain was already at work evolving the means to render this man
+service, which in its turn I expected to be amply repaid. Thus I cannot
+repeat exactly all that he said, for I was only listening with half an
+ear. But the substance of it all was this: I was to pose as the friend
+of M. Fernand Rochez, and engage the attention of Mlle. Goldberg senior
+the while he paid his court to the lovely Leah. It was not a repellent
+task altogether, because M. Rochez’s suggestion opened a vista of
+pleasant parties at open-air cafés, with foaming tankards of beer, on
+warm afternoons the while the young people sipped sirops and fed on
+love. My newly found friend was pleased to admit that my personality
+and appearance would render my courtship of the elderly duenna a
+comparatively easy one. She would soon, he declared, fall a victim to
+my charms.
+
+After which the question of remuneration came in, and over this we did
+not altogether agree. Ultimately I decided to accept an advance of two
+hundred francs and a new suit of clothes, which I at once declared was
+indispensable under the circumstances, seeing that in my well-worn coat
+I might have the appearance of a fortune-hunter in the eyes of the
+suspicious old dame.
+
+Within my mind I envisaged the possibility of touching M. Rochez for a
+further two hundred francs if and when opportunity arose.
+
+2.
+
+The formal introduction took place on the boulevards one fine afternoon
+shortly after that. Mlle. Leah was walking under the trees with her
+duenna when we—M. Rochez and I—came face to face with them. My friend
+raised his hat, and I did likewise. Mademoiselle Leah blushed and the
+ogre frowned. Sir, she was an ogre!—bony and angular and hook-nosed,
+with thin lips that closed with a snap, and cold grey eyes that sent a
+shiver down your spine! Rochez introduced me to her, and I made myself
+exceedingly agreeable to her, while my friend succeeded in exchanging
+two or three whispered words with his inamorata.
+
+But we did not get very far that day. Mlle. Goldberg senior soon
+marched her lovely charge away.
+
+Ah, Sir, she was lovely indeed! And in my heart I not only envied
+Rochez his good fortune but I also felt how entirely unworthy he was of
+it. Nor did the beautiful Leah give me the impression of being quite so
+deeply struck with his charms as he would have had me believe. Indeed,
+it struck me during those few minutes that I stood dutifully talking to
+her duenna that the fair young Jewess cast more than one approving
+glance in my direction.
+
+Be that as it may, the progress of our respective courtships, now that
+the ice was broken, took on a more decided turn. At first it only
+amounted to meetings on the boulevards and a cursory greeting, but soon
+Mlle. Goldberg senior, delighted with my conversation, would
+deliberately turn to walk with me under the trees the while Fernand
+Rochez followed by the side of his adored. A week later the ladies
+accepted my friend’s offer to sit under the awning of the Café Bourbon
+and to sip sirops, whilst we indulged in tankards of foaming “blondes.”
+
+Within a fortnight, Sir—I may say it without boasting—I had Mlle.
+Goldberg senior in the hollow of my hand. On the boulevards, as soon as
+she caught sight of me, her dour face would be wreathed in smiles, a
+row of large yellow teeth would appear between her thin lips, and her
+cold, grey eyes would soften with a glance of welcome which more than
+ever sent a cold shudder down my spine. While we four were together,
+either promenading or sitting at open-air cafés in the cool of the
+evening, the old duenna had eyes and ears only for me, and if my friend
+Rochez did not get on with his own courtship as fast as he would have
+wished the fault rested entirely with him.
+
+For he did _not_ get on with his courtship, and that was a fact. The
+fair Leah was very sweet, very coy, greatly amused, I fancy, at her
+aunt’s obvious infatuation for me, and not a little flattered at the
+handsome M. Rochez’s attentions to herself. But there it all ended. And
+whenever I questioned Rochez on the subject, he flew into a temper and
+consigned all middle-aged Jewesses to perdition, and all the lovely and
+young ones to a comfortable kind of Hades to which he alone amongst the
+male sex would have access. From which I gathered that I was not wrong
+in my surmises, that the fair Leah had been smitten by my personality
+and my appearance rather than by those of my friend, and that he was
+suffering the pangs of an insane jealousy.
+
+This, of course, he never would admit. All that he told me one day was
+that Leah, with the characteristic timidity of her race, refused to
+marry him unless she could obtain her father’s consent to the union.
+Old Goldberg, duly approached on the matter, flatly forbade his
+daughter to have anything further to do with that fortune-hunter, that
+parasite, that beggarly pick-thank—such, Sir, were but a few
+complimentary epithets which he hurled with great volubility at his
+daughter’s absent suitor.
+
+It was from Mlle. Goldberg, senior, that my friend and I had the
+details of that stormy interview between father and daughter; after
+which, she declared that interviews between the lovers would
+necessarily become very difficult of arrangement. From which you will
+gather that the worthy soul, though she was as ugly as sin, was by this
+time on the side of the angels. Indeed, she was more than that. She
+professed herself willing to aid and abet them in every way she could.
+This Rochez confided to me, together with his assurance that he was
+determined to take his Fate into his own hands and, since the beautiful
+Leah would not come to him of her own accord, to carry her off by
+force.
+
+Ah, my dear Sir, those were romantic days, you must remember! Days when
+men placed the possession of the woman they loved above every treasure,
+every consideration upon earth. Ah, romance! Romance, Sir, was the
+breath of our nostrils, the blood in our veins! Imagine how readily we
+all fell in with my friend’s plans. I, of course, was the moving spirit
+in it all; mine was the genius which was destined to turn gilded
+romance into grim reality. Yes, grim! For you shall see! . . .
+
+Mlle. Goldberg, senior, who appropriately enough was named Sarah, gave
+us the clue how to proceed, after which my genius worked alone.
+
+You must know that old Goldberg’s house in the Rue des Médecins—a large
+apartment house in which he occupied a few rooms on the ground floor
+behind his shop—backed on to a small uncultivated garden which ended in
+a tall brick wall, the meeting-place of all the felines in the
+neighbourhood, and in which there was a small postern gate, now
+disused. This gate gave on a narrow cul-de-sac—grandiloquently named
+Passage Corneille—which was flanked on the opposite side by the tall
+boundary wall of an adjacent convent.
+
+That cul-de-sac was marked out from the very first in my mind as our
+objective. Around and about it, as it were, did I build the edifice of
+my schemes, aided by the ever-willing Sarah. The old maid threw herself
+into the affair with zest, planning and contriving like a veritable
+strategist; and I must admit that she was full of resource and
+invention. We were now in mid-May and enjoying a spell of hot summer
+weather. This gave the inventive Sarah the excuse for using the back
+garden as a place wherein to sit in the cool of the evening in the
+company of her niece.
+
+Ah, you see the whole thing now at a glance, do you not? The postern
+gate, the murky night, the daring lover, the struggling maiden, the
+willing accomplices. The actors were all there, ready for the curtain
+to be rung up on the palpitating drama.
+
+Then it was that a brilliant idea came into my brain. It was born on
+the very day that I realized with indisputable certainty that the
+lovely Leah was not in reality in love with Rochez. He fatuously
+believed that she was ready to fall into his arms, that only maidenly
+timidity held her back, and that the moment she had been snatched from
+her father’s house and found herself in the arms of her adoring lover,
+she would turn to him in the very fullness of love and confidence.
+
+But I knew better. I had caught a look now and again—an undefinable
+glance, which told me the whole pitiable tale. She did not love Rochez;
+and in the drama which we were preparing to enact the curtain would
+fall on his rapture and her unhappiness.
+
+Ah, Sir! imagine what my feelings were when I realized this! This fair
+girl, against whom we were all conspiring like so many traitors, was
+still ignorant of the fatal brink on which she stood. She chatted and
+coquetted and smiled, little dreaming that in a very few days her
+happiness would be wrecked and she would be linked for life to a man
+whom she could never love. Rochez’s idea, of course, was primarily to
+get hold of her fortune. I had already ascertained for him, through the
+ever-willing Sarah, that this fortune came from Leah’s grandfather, who
+had left a sum of two hundred thousand francs on trust for her
+children, she to enjoy the income for her life. There certainly was a
+clause in the will whereby the girl would forfeit that fortune if she
+married without her father’s consent; but according to Rochez’s plans
+this could scarcely be withheld once she had been taken forcibly away
+from home, held in durance, and with her reputation hopelessly
+compromised. She could then pose as an injured victim, throw herself at
+her father’s feet, and beg him to give that consent without which she
+would for ever remain an outcast of society, a pariah amongst her kind.
+
+A pretty piece of villainous combination, you will own! And I, Sir, was
+to lend a hand in this abomination!—nay, I was to be the chief villain
+in the drama! It was I who, even now, was spending the hours of the
+night, when I might have been dreaming sentimental dreams, in oiling
+the lock of the postern gate which was to give us access into papa
+Goldberg’s garden. It was I who, under cover of darkness and guided by
+that old jade Sarah, was to sneak into that garden on the appointed
+night and forcibly seize the unsuspecting maiden and carry her to the
+carriage which Rochez would have in readiness for her.
+
+You see what a coward he was! It was a criminal offence in those days,
+punishable with deportation to New Caledonia, to abduct a young lady
+from her parents’ house; and Rochez left me the dirty work to do in
+case the girl screamed and attracted the police. Now you will tell me
+if I was not justified in doing what I did, and I will abide by your
+judgment.
+
+I was to take all the risks, remember!—New Caledonia, the police, the
+odium attached to so foul a deed; and do you know for what? For a
+paltry thousand francs, which with much difficulty I had induced
+Rochez—nay, forced him!—to hand over to me in anticipation of what I
+was about to accomplish for his sake. A thousand francs! Did this
+miserliness not characterize the man? Was it to such a scrubby knave
+that I, at risk of my life and of my honour, would hand over that jewel
+amongst women, that pearl above price?—a lady with a personal fortune
+amounting to two hundred thousand francs?
+
+No, Sir; I would not! Then and there I vowed that I would not! Mine
+were to be all the risks; then mine should be the reward! What Rochez
+meant to do, that I could too, and with far greater reason. The lovely
+Leah did at times frown on Fernand; but she invariably smiled on me.
+She would fall into my arms far more readily than into his, and papa
+Goldberg would be equally forced to give his consent to her marriage
+with me as with that self-seeking carpet-knight whom he abhorred.
+
+Needless to say, I kept my own counsel, and did not speak of my project
+even to Sarah. To all appearances I was to be the mere tool in this
+affair, the unfortunate cat employed to snatch the roast chestnuts out
+of the fire for the gratification of a mealy-mouthed monkey.
+
+3.
+
+The appointed day and hour were at hand. Fernand Rochez had engaged a
+barouche which was to take him and his lovely victim to a little house
+at Auteuil, which he had rented for the purpose. There the lovers were
+to lie perdu until such time as papa Goldberg had relented and the
+marriage could be duly solemnized in the synagogue of the Rue des
+Halles. Sarah had offered in the meanwhile to do all that in her power
+lay to soften the old man’s heart and to bring about the happy
+conclusion of the romantic adventure.
+
+For the latter we had chosen the night of May 23rd. It was a moonless
+night, and the Passage Corneille, from whence I was to operate, was
+most usefully dark. Sarah Goldberg had, according to convention, left
+the postern gate on the latch, and at ten o’clock precisely I made my
+way up the cul-de-sac and cautiously turned the handle of the door. I
+confess that my heart beat somewhat uncomfortably in my bosom.
+
+I had left Rochez and his barouche in the Rue des Pipots, about a
+hundred metres from the angle of the Passage Corneille, and it was
+along those hundred metres of a not altogether unfrequented street that
+he expected me presently to carry a possibly screaming and struggling
+burden in the very teeth of a gendarmerie always on the look-out for
+exciting captures.
+
+No, Sir; that was not to be! And it was with a resolute if beating
+heart that I presently felt the postern gate yielding to the pressure
+of my hand. The neighbouring church clock of St. Sulpice had just
+finished striking ten. I pushed open the gate and tip-toed across the
+threshold.
+
+In the garden the boughs of a dilapidated old ash tree were soughing in
+the wind above my head, whilst from the top of the boundary wall the
+yarring and yowling of beasts of the feline species grated unpleasantly
+on my ear. I could not see my hand before my eyes, and had just
+stretched it out in order to guide my footsteps when it was seized with
+a kindly yet firm pressure, whilst a voice murmured softly:
+
+“Hush!”
+
+“Who is it?” I whispered in response.
+
+“It is I—Sarah!” the voice replied. “Everything is all right, but Leah
+is unsuspecting. I am sure that if she suspected anything she would not
+set foot outside the door.”
+
+“What shall we do?” I asked.
+
+“Wait here a moment quietly,” Sarah rejoined, speaking in a rapid
+whisper, “under cover of this wall. Within the next few minutes Leah
+will come out of the house. I have left my knitting upon a garden
+chair, and I will ask her to run out and fetch it. That will be your
+opportunity. The chair is in the angle of the wall, there,” she added,
+pointing to her right, “not three paces from where you are standing
+now. Leah has a white dress on. She will have to stoop in order to pick
+up the knitting. I have taken the precaution to entangle the wool in
+the leg of the chair, so she will be some few seconds entirely at your
+mercy. Have you a shawl?”
+
+I had, of course, provided myself with one. A shawl is always a
+necessary adjunct to such adventures. Breathlessly, silently, I
+intimated to my kind accomplice that I would obey her behests and that
+I was prepared for every eventuality. The next moment her hold upon my
+hand relaxed, she gave another quickly-whispered “Hush!” and
+disappeared into the night.
+
+For a second or two after that my ear caught the soft sound of her
+retreating footsteps, then nothing more. To say that I felt anxious and
+ill at ease was but to put it mildly. I was face to face with an
+adventure which might cost me at least five years’ acute discomfort in
+New Caledonia, but which might also bring me as rich a reward as could
+befall any man of modest ambitions: a lovely wife and a comfortable
+fortune. My whole life seemed to be hanging on a thread, and my
+overwrought senses seemed almost to catch the sound of the
+spinning-wheel of Fate weaving the web of my destiny.
+
+A moment or two later I again caught the distinct sound of a gentle
+footfall upon the soft earth. My eyes by now were somewhat accustomed
+to the gloom. It was very dark, you understand; but through the
+darkness I saw something white moving slowly toward me. Then my heart
+thumped more furiously than ever before. I dared not breathe. I saw the
+lovely Leah approaching, or, rather, I felt her approach, for it was
+too dark to see. She moved in the direction which Sarah had indicated
+to me as being the place where stood the garden chair with the knitting
+upon it. I grasped the shawl. I was ready.
+
+Another few seconds of agonising suspense went by. The fair Leah had
+ceased to move. Undoubtedly she was engaged in disentangling the wool
+from the leg of the chair. That was my opportunity. More stealthy than
+any cat, I tiptoed toward the chair—and, indeed, at that moment I
+blessed the sudden yowl set up by some feline in its wrath which rent
+the still night air and effectually drowned any sound which I might
+make.
+
+There, not three paces away from me, was the dim outline of the young
+girl’s form vaguely discernible in the gloom—a white mass, almost
+motionless, against a background of inky blackness. With a quick
+intaking of my breath I sprang forward, the shawl outspread in my hand,
+and with a quick dexterous gesture I threw it over her head, and the
+next second had her, faintly struggling, in my arms. She was as light
+as a feather, and I was as strong as a giant. Think of it, Sir! There
+was I, alone in the darkness, holding in my arms, together with a
+lovely form, a fortune of two hundred thousand francs!
+
+Of that fool Fernand Rochez I did not trouble to think. He had a
+barouche waiting _up_ the Rue des Pipots, a hundred metres from the
+corner of the Passage Corneille, but I had a chaise and pair of horses
+waiting _down_ that same street, and that now was my objective. Yes,
+Sir! I had arranged the whole thing! But I had done it for mine own
+advantage, not for that of the miserly friend who had been too great a
+coward to risk his own skin for the sake of his beloved.
+
+The guerdon was mine, and I was determined this time that no traitor or
+ingrate should filch from me the reward of my labours. With the
+thousand francs which Rochez had given me for my services I had engaged
+the chaise and horses, paid the coachman lavishly, and secured a cosy
+little apartment for my future wife in a pleasant hostelry I knew of at
+Suresnes.
+
+I had taken the precaution to leave the wicket-gate on the latch. With
+my foot I pushed it open, and, keeping well under the cover of the tall
+convent wall, I ran swiftly to the corner of the Rue des Pipots. Here I
+paused a moment. Through the silence of the night my ear caught the
+faint sound of horses snorting and harness jingling in the distance,
+both sides from where I stood; but of gendarmes or passers-by there was
+no sign. Gathering up the full measure of my courage and holding my
+precious burden closer to my heart, I ran quickly down the street.
+
+Within the next few seconds I had the seemingly inanimate maiden safely
+deposited in the inside of the barouche and myself sitting by her side.
+The driver cracked his whip, and whilst I, happy but exhausted, was
+mopping my streaming forehead the chaise rattled gaily along the uneven
+pavements of the great city in the direction of Suresnes.
+
+What that fool Rochez was doing I could not definitely ascertain. I
+looked through the vasistas of the coach, but could see nothing in
+pursuit of us. Then I turned my full attention to my lovely companion.
+It was pitch dark inside the carriage, you understand; only from time
+to time, as we drove past an overhanging street lanthorn, I caught a
+glimpse of that priceless bundle beside me, which lay there so still
+and so snug, still wrapped up in the shawl.
+
+With cautious, loving fingers I undid its folds. Under cover of the
+darkness the sweet and modest creature, released of her bonds, turned
+for an instant to me, and for a few, very few, happy seconds I held her
+in my arms.
+
+“Have no fear, fair one,” I murmured in her ear. “It is I, Hector
+Ratichon, who adores you and who cannot live without you! Forgive me
+for this seeming violence, which was prompted by an undying passion,
+and remember that to me you are as sacred as a divinity until the happy
+hour when I can proclaim you to the world as my beloved wife!”
+
+I pressed her against my heart, and my lips imprinted a delicate kiss
+upon her forehead. After which, with chaste decorum, she once more
+turned away from me, covered her face and head with the shawl, and drew
+back into the remote corner of the carriage, where she remained, silent
+and absorbed, no doubt, in the contemplation of her happiness.
+
+I respected her silence, and I, too, fell to meditating upon my good
+fortune. Here was I, Sir, within sight of a haven wherein I could live
+through the twilight of my days in comfort and in peace, a beautiful
+young wife, a modest fortune! I had never in my wildest dreams
+envisaged a Fate more fair. The little house at Chantilly which I
+coveted, the plot of garden, the espalier peaches—all, all would be
+mine now! It seemed indeed too good to be true!
+
+The very next moment I was rudely awakened from those golden dreams by
+a loud clatter, and stern voices shouting the ominous word, “Halt!” The
+carriage drew up with such a jerk that I was flung off my seat against
+the front window and my nose seriously bruised. A faint cry of terror
+came from the precious bundle beside me.
+
+“Have no fear, my beloved,” I whispered hurriedly. “Your own Hector
+will protect you!”
+
+Already the door of the carriage had been violently torn open; the next
+moment a gruff voice called out peremptorily:
+
+“By order of the Chief Commissary of Police!”
+
+I was dumbfounded. In what manner had the Chief Commissary of Police
+been already apprised of this affair? The whole thing was, of course, a
+swift and vengeful blow dealt to me by that cowardly Rochez. But how,
+in the name of thunder, had he got to work so quickly? But, of course,
+there was no time now for reflection. The gruff voice was going on more
+peremptorily and more insistently:
+
+“Is Hector Ratichon here?”
+
+I was dumb. My throat had closed up, and I could not have uttered a
+sound to save my life. The police had even got my name quite straight!
+
+“Now then, Ratichon,” that same irascible voice continued, “get out of
+there! In the name of the law I charge you with the abduction of a
+defenceless female, and my orders are to bring you forthwith before the
+Chief Commissary of Police.”
+
+Then it was, Sir, that bliss once more re-entered my soul. I had just
+felt a small hand pressing something crisp into mine, whilst a soft
+voice whispered in my ear:
+
+“Give him this, and tell him to let you go in peace. Say that I am
+Mademoiselle Goldberg, your promised wife.”
+
+The feel of that crackling note in my hand at once restored my courage.
+Covering the lovely creature beside me with a protecting arm, I replied
+boldly to the minion of the law.
+
+“This lady,” I said, “is my affianced wife. You, Sir Gendarme, are
+overstepping your powers. I demand that you let us proceed in peace.”
+
+“My orders are—” the gendarme resumed; but already my sensitive ear had
+detected a faint wavering in the gruffness of his voice. The hectoring
+tone had gone out of it. I could not see him, of course, but somehow I
+felt that his attitude had become less arrogant and his glance more
+shifty.
+
+“This gentleman has spoken the truth,” now came in soft, dulcet tones
+from under the shawl that wrapped the head of my beloved. “I am Mlle.
+Goldberg, M. le Gendarme, and I am travelling with M. Hector Ratichon
+entirely of my own free will, since I have promised him that I would be
+his wife.”
+
+“Ah!” the gendarme ejaculated, obviously mollified.
+
+“If Mademoiselle is the fiancée of Monsieur, and is acting of her own
+free will—”
+
+“It is not for you to interfere, eh, my friend?” I broke in jocosely.
+“You will now let us proceed in peace, and for your trouble you will no
+doubt accept this token of my consideration.” And, groping in the
+darkness, I found the rough hand of the gendarme, and speedily pressed
+into it the crisp note which my adored one had given to me.
+
+“Ah!” he said, with very obvious gratification. “If Monsieur Ratichon
+will assure me that Mademoiselle here is indeed his affianced wife,
+then indeed it is not a case of abduction, and—”
+
+“Abduction!” I retorted, flaring up in righteous indignation. “Who
+dares to use the word in connexion with this lovely lady? Mademoiselle
+Goldberg, I swear, will be Madame Ratichon within the next four and
+twenty hours. And the sooner you, Sir Gendarme, allow us to proceed on
+our way the less pain will you cause to this distressed and virtuous
+damsel.”
+
+This settled the whole affair quite comfortably. The gendarme shut the
+carriage door with a bang, and at my request gave the order to the
+driver to proceed. The latter once again cracked his whip, and once
+again the cumbrous vehicle, after an awkward lurch, rattled on its way
+along the cobblestones of the sleeping city.
+
+Once more I was alone with the priceless treasure by my side—alone and
+happy—more happy, I might say, than I had been before. Had not my
+adored one openly acknowledged her love for me and her desire to stand
+with me at the hymeneal altar? To put it vulgarly—though vulgarity in
+every form is repellent to me—she had burnt her boats. She had allowed
+her name to be coupled with mine in the presence of the minions of the
+law. What, after that, could her father do but give his consent to a
+union which alone would save his only child’s reputation from the
+cruelty of waggish tongues?
+
+No doubt, Sir, that I was happy. True, that when the uncouth gendarme
+finally slammed to the door of our carriage and we restarted on our
+way, my ears had been unpleasantly tickled by the sound of prolonged
+and ribald laughter—laughter which sounded strangely and unpleasantly
+familiar. But after a few seconds’ serious reflection I dismissed the
+matter from my thoughts. If, as indeed I gravely suspected, it was
+Fernand Rochez who had striven thus to put a spoke in the wheel of my
+good fortune, he would certainly not have laughed when I drove
+triumphantly away with my conquered bride by my side. And, of course,
+my ears _must_ have deceived me when they caught the sound of a girl’s
+merry laugh mingling with the more ribald one of the man.
+
+4.
+
+I have paused purposely, Sir, ere I embark upon the narration of the
+final stage of this, my life’s adventure.
+
+The chaise was bowling along the banks of the river toward Suresnes.
+Presently the driver struck to his right and plunged into the
+fastnesses of the Bois de Boulogne. For a while, therefore, we were in
+utter darkness. My lovely companion neither moved nor spoke. Somewhere
+in the far distance a church clock struck eleven. One whole hour had
+gone by since first I had embarked on this great undertaking.
+
+I was excited, feverish. The beautiful Leah’s silence and tranquillity
+grated upon my nerves. I could not understand how she could remain
+there so placid when her whole life’s happiness had so suddenly, so
+unexpectedly, been assured. I became more and more fidgety as time went
+on. Soon I felt that I could no longer hold myself in proper control.
+Being of an impulsive disposition, this tranquil acceptance of so great
+a joy became presently intolerable, and, unable to restrain my ardour
+any longer, I seized that passive bundle of loveliness in my arms.
+
+“Have no fear,” I murmured once again, as I pressed her to my heart.
+
+But my admonition was obviously unnecessary. The beautiful Leah showed
+not the slightest sign of fear. She rested her head against my shoulder
+and put one arm around my neck. I was in raptures.
+
+Just then the vehicle swung out of the Bois and once more rattled upon
+the cobblestones. This time we were nearing Suresnes. A vague light,
+emanating from the lanthorns at the bridge-head, was already faintly
+visible ahead of us. Soon it grew brighter. The next moment we passed
+immediately beneath the lanthorns. The interior of the carriage was
+flooded with light . . . and, Sir, I gave a gasp of unadulterated
+dismay! The being whom I held in my arms, whose face was even at that
+moment raised up to my own, was not the lovely Leah! It was Sarah, Sir!
+Sarah Goldberg, the dour, angular aunt, whose yellow teeth gleamed for
+one brief moment through her thin lips as she threw me one of those
+glances of amorous welcome which invariably sent a cold shiver down my
+spine. Sarah Goldberg! I scarce could believe my eyes, and for a moment
+did indeed think that the elusive, swiftly-vanished light of the
+bridge-head lanthorns had played my excited senses a weird and cruel
+trick. But no! The very next second proved my disillusionment. Sarah
+spoke to me!
+
+She spoke to me and laughed! Ah, she was happy, Sir! Happy in that she
+had completely and irrevocably tricked me! That traitor Fernand Rochez
+was up to the neck in the plot which had saddled me for ever with an
+ugly, elderly wife of dour mien and no fortune, while he and the lovely
+Leah were spinning the threads of perfect love at the other end of
+Paris and laughing their fill at my discomfiture. Think, Sir, what I
+suffered during those few brief minutes while the coach lurched through
+the narrow streets of Suresnes, and I had perforce to listen to the
+protestations of undying love from this unprepossessing female!
+
+That love, she vowed, was her excuse, and everything, she asserted, was
+fair in love and war. She knew that after Rochez had attained his
+heart’s desire and carried off the lady of his choice—which he had
+successfully done half an hour before I myself made my way up the
+Passage Corneille—I would pass out of her life for ever. This she could
+not endure. Life at once would become intolerable. And, aided and
+abetted by Rochez and Leah, she had planned and contrived my
+mystification and won me by foul means, since she could not do so by
+fair; and it seemed as if her volubility then was the forecast of what
+my life with her would be in the future. Talk! Talk! Talk! She never
+ceased!
+
+She told me the whole story of the abominable conspiracy against my
+liberty. Her brother, M. Goldberg, she explained, had determined upon
+remarriage. She, Sarah, felt that henceforth she would be in the way of
+everybody; she would have no home. Leah married to Rochez; a new and
+young Mme. Goldberg ruling in the old house of the Rue des Médecins!
+Ah, it was unthinkable!
+
+And I, Sir—I, Hector Ratichon—had, it appears, by my polite manners and
+prepossessing ways, induced this dour old maid to believe that she was
+not altogether indifferent to me. Ah, how I cursed my own charms, when
+I realised whither they had led me! It seems that it was that fickle
+jade Leah who first imagined the whole execrable plot. Rochez was to
+entrust me with the task of carrying off his beloved, and thus I would
+be tricked in the darkness into abducting Mlle. Goldberg senior from
+her home. Then some friends of Rochez arranged to play the comedy of
+false gendarmes, and again I was tricked into acknowledging Sarah as my
+affianced wife before independent witnesses. After that I could no
+longer repudiate mine honourable intentions, for if I did, then I
+should be arraigned before the law on a criminal charge of abduction.
+In this comedy of false gendarmes Rochez himself and the heartless Leah
+had joined with zest and laughed over my discomfiture, whilst the
+friends who played their rôles to such perfection had a paltry hundred
+francs each as the price of this infamous trick. Now my doom was
+sealed, and all that was left for me to do was to think disconsolately
+over my future.
+
+I did bitterly reproach Sarah for her treachery and tried to still her
+protestations of love by pointing out to her that I had absolutely no
+fortune, and could only offer her a life of squalor, not to say of
+what. But this she knew, and vowed that penury by my side would make
+her happier than luxury beside any other man. Ah, Sir, ‘tis given to
+few men to arouse such selfless passion in a woman’s heart, and it hath
+oft been my dream in the past one day thus to be adored for myself
+alone!
+
+But for the moment I was too deeply angered to listen placidly to
+Sarah’s vows of undying affection. My nerves were irritated by her
+fulsome adulation; indeed, I could not bear the sight of her nor yet
+the sound of her voice. You may imagine how thankful I was when the
+chaise came at last to a halt outside the humble little hostelry where
+I had engaged the room which I had so fondly hoped would have been
+occupied by the lovely and fickle Leah.
+
+I bundled Mlle. Goldberg senior into the house, and here again I had to
+endure galling mortification in the shape of sidelong glances cast at
+me and my future bride by the landlord of the hostelry and his ill-bred
+daughter. When I engaged the room I had very foolishly told them that
+it would be occupied by a lovely lady who had consented to be my wife,
+and that she would remain here in happy seclusion until such time as
+all arrangements for our wedding were complete. The humiliation of
+these vulgar people’s irony seemed like the last straw which
+overweighed my forbearance. The room and pension I had already paid two
+days in advance, so I had nothing more to say either to the ribald
+landlord or to Mlle. Goldberg senior. I was bitterly angered against
+her, and refused her the solace of a kindly look or of an encouraging
+pressure from my hand, even though she waited for both with the
+pathetic patience of an old spaniel.
+
+I re-entered the coach, which was to take me back to mine own humble
+lodgings in Passy. Here at least I was alone—alone with my gloomy
+thoughts. My heart was full of wrath against the woman who had so
+basely tricked me, and I viewed with dismay amounting almost to despair
+the prospect of spending the rest of my life in her company. That night
+I slept but little, nor yet the following night, or the night after
+that. Those days I spent in seclusion, thankful for my solitude.
+
+Twice each day did Mlle. Goldberg come to my lodgings. In the foolish
+past I had somewhat injudiciously acquainted her of where I lived. Now
+she came and asked to be allowed to see me, but invariably did I refuse
+thus to gratify her. I felt that time alone would perhaps soften my
+feelings a little towards her. In the meanwhile I must commend her
+discretion and delicacy of procedure. She did not in any way attempt to
+molest me. When she was told by Theodore—whom I employed during the day
+to guard me against unwelcome visitors—that I refused to see her, she
+invariably went away without demur, nor did she refer in any way,
+either with adjurations or threats, to the impending wedding. Indeed,
+Sir, she was a lady of vast discretion.
+
+On the third day, however, I received a visit from M. Goldberg himself.
+I could not refuse to see him. Indeed, he would not be denied, but
+roughly pushed Theodore aside, who tried to hinder him. He had come
+armed with a riding-whip, and nothing but mine own innate dignity saved
+me from outrage. He came, Sir, with a marriage licence for his sister
+and me in one pocket and with a denunciation to the police against me
+for abduction in another. He gave me the choice. What could I do, Sir?
+I was like a helpless babe in the hands of unscrupulous brigands!
+
+The marriage licence was for the following day—at the mairie of the
+eighth arrondissement first, and in the synagogue of the Rue des Halles
+afterwards. I chose the marriage licence. What could I do, Sir? I was
+helpless!
+
+Of my wedding day I have but a dim recollection. It was all hustle and
+bustle; from the mairie to the synagogue, and thence to the house of M.
+Goldberg in the Rue des Médecins. I must say that the old usurer
+received me and my bride with marked amiability. He was, I gathered,
+genuinely pleased that his sister had found happiness and a home by the
+side of an honourable man, seeing that he himself was on the point of
+contracting a fresh alliance with a Jewish lady of unsurpassed
+loveliness.
+
+Of Rochez and Leah we saw nothing that day, and from one or two words
+which M. Goldberg let fall I concluded that he was greatly angered
+against his daughter because of her marriage with a fortune-hunting
+adventurer, who, he weirdly hinted, had already found quick and
+exemplary punishment for his crime. I was sincerely glad to hear this,
+even though I could not get M. Goldberg to explain in what that
+exemplary punishment consisted.
+
+The climax came at six o’clock of that eventful afternoon, at the hour
+when I, with the newly-enthroned Mme. Ratichon on my arm, was about to
+take leave of M. Goldberg. I must admit that at that moment my heart
+was overflowing with bitterness. I had been led like a lamb to the
+slaughter; I had been made to look foolish and absurd in the midst of
+this Israelite community which I despised; I was saddled for the rest
+of my life with an unprepossessing elderly wife, who could do naught
+for me but share the penury, the hard crusts, the onion pies with me
+and Theodore. The only advantage I might ever derive from her was that
+she would darn my stockings, sew the buttons on my vests, and goffer
+the frills of my shirts!
+
+Was this not enough to turn any man’s naturally sweet disposition to
+gall? No doubt my mobile face betrayed something of the bitterness of
+my thoughts, for M. Goldberg at one moment slapped me vigorously on the
+back and bade me be of good cheer, as things were not so bad as I
+imagined. I was on the point of asking him what he meant when I saw
+another gentleman advancing toward me. His face, which was sallow and
+oily, bore a kind of obsequious smile; his clothes were of rusty black,
+and his features were markedly Jewish in character. He had some law
+papers under his arm, and he was perpetually rubbing his thin, bony
+hands together as if he were for ever washing them.
+
+“Monsieur Hector Ratichon,” he said unctuously, “it is with much
+gratification that I bring you the joyful news.”
+
+Joyful news!—to me! Ah, Sir, the words struck at first with cruel irony
+upon mine ear. But not so a second later, for the Jewish gentleman went
+on speaking, and what he said appeared to my reeling senses like songs
+of angels from paradise.
+
+At first I could not grasp his full meaning. A moment ago I had been in
+the depths of despair, and now—now—a whole vista of beatitude opened
+out before me! What the worthy Israelite said was that, by the terms of
+Grandpapa Goldberg’s will, if Leah married without her father’s
+consent, one-half of the fortune destined for her would revert to her
+aunt, Sarah Goldberg, now Madame Hector Ratichon.
+
+Can you wonder that I could scarce believe my ears? One-half that
+fortune meant that a hundred thousand francs would now become mine! M.
+Goldberg had already made it very clear to his daughter and to Rochez
+that he would never give his consent to their marriage, and, as this
+was now consummated, they had already forfeited one-half of the
+grandfather’s fortune in favour of my Sarah. That was the exemplary
+punishment which they were to suffer for their folly.
+
+But their folly—aye! and their treachery—had become my joy. In this
+moment of heavenly rapture I was speechless, but I turned to Sarah with
+loving arms outstretched, and the next instant she nestled against my
+heart like a joyful if elderly bird.
+
+What is said of a people, Sir, is also true of the individual. Happy he
+who hath no history. Since that never-to-be-forgotten hour my life has
+run its simple, uneventful course here in this quiet corner of our
+beautiful France, with my pony and my dog and my chickens, and Mme.
+Ratichon to minister to my creature comforts.
+
+I bought this little property, Sir, soon after my marriage, and my
+office in the Rue Daunou knows me no more. You like the house, Sir? Ah,
+yes! And the garden? . . . After déjeuner you must see my prize
+chickens. Theodore will show them to you. You did not know Theodore was
+here? Well, yes! He lives with us. Madame Ratichon finds him useful
+about the house, and, not being used to luxuries, he is on the whole
+pleasantly contented.
+
+Ah, here comes Madame Ratichon to tell us that the déjeuner is served!
+This way, Sir, under the porch. . . . After you!
+
+THE END
+
+
+
+
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