Beauty and The Beast by Bayard Taylor (sci fi books to read TXT) 📕

The more light I seemed to obtain, the more inexplicable the circumstances became. The diploma and the note of salary were grounds for supposing that “Otto” occupied the position of tutor in a noble Polish family. There was the receipt for a box addressed to Count Ladislas Kasincsky, and I temporarily added his family name to the writer of the French letter, assuming her to be his wife. “Jean” appeared to be a servant, and “Henri” I set down as the son whom Otto was instructing in the castle or family seat in the country, while the parents were in warsaw. Plausible, so far; but the letter was not such a one as a countess would have written to her son’s tutor, under similar circumstances. It was addressed to a social equal, apparently to a man younger than herself, and for whom—supposing him to have been a tutor, secretary, or something of the kind—she must have felt a special sympathy. Her mention of “the papers” and “your secret” must refer to circumstances which would explain the mystery. “So long as you choose to WEAR it,” she had written: then it was certainly a secret connected with his personal history.

Further, it appeared that “Jean” was sent to him with “an order.” What could this be, but one of the nine orders for money which lay before my eyes? I examined the dates of the latter, and lo! there was one written upon the same day as the lady’s letter. The sums drawn by these orders amounted in all to four thousand two hundred rubles. But how should a tutor or secretary be in possession of his employer’s money? Still, this might be accounted for; it would imply great trust on the part of the latter, but no more than one man frequently reposes in another. Yet, if it were so, one of the memoranda confronted me with a conflicting fact: “Dinner with Jean, 58 rubles.” The unusual amount—nearly fifty dollars—indicated an act of the most reckless dissipation, and in company with a servant, if “Jean,” as I could scarcely doubt, acted in that character. I finally decided to assume both these conjectures as true, and apply them to the remaining testimony.

I first took up the leaf which had been torn out of a small journal or pocket note-book, as was manifested by the red edge on three sides. It was scribbled over with brief notes in pencil, written at different times. Many of them were merely mnemonic signs; but the recurrence of the letters J and Y seemed to point to transactions with “Jean,” and the drawer of the various sums of money. The letter Y reminded me that I had been too hasty in giving the name of Kasincsky to the noble family; indeed, the name upon the post-office receipt might have no connection with the matter I was trying to investigate.

Suddenly I noticed a “Ky” among the mnemonic signs, and the suspicion flashed across my mind that Count Kasincsky had signed the order with the last letter of his family name! To assume this, however, suggested a secret reason for doing so; and I began to think that I had already secrets enough on hand.

The leaf was much rubbed and worn, and it was not without considerable trouble that I deciphered the following (omitting the unintelligible signs):

“Oct. 30 (Nov. 12)—talk with Y; 20—Jean. Consider.

“Nov. 15—with J—H—hope.

“Dec. 1—Told the C. No knowledge of S—therefore safe. Uncertain of–- C to Warsaw. Met J. as agreed. Further and further.

“Dec. 27—All for naught! All for naught!

“Jan. 19, ‘63—Sick. What is to be the end? Threats. No tidings of Y. Walked the streets all day. At night as usual.

“March 1—News. The C. and H. left yesterday. No more to hope. Let it come, then!”

These broken words warmed my imagination powerfully. Looking at them in the light of my conjecture, I was satisfied that “Otto” was involved in some crime, or dangerous secret, of which “Jean” was either the instigator or the accomplice. “Y.,” or Count Kasincsky,—and I was more than ever inclined to connect the two,— -also had his mystery, which might, or might not, be identical with the first. By comparing dates, I found that the entry made December 27 was three days later than the date of the letter of “Amelie de–-“; and the exclamation “All for naught!” certainly referred to the disappointment it contained. I now guessed the “H.” in the second entry to mean “Helmine.” The two last suggested a removal to Warsaw from the country. Here was a little more ground to stand on; but how should I ever get at the secret?

I took up the torn half of a note, which, after the first inspection, I had laid aside as a hopeless puzzle. A closer examination revealed several things which failed to impress me at the outset. It was written in a strong and rather awkward masculine hand; several words were underscored, two misspelled, and I felt—I scarcely knew why—that it was written in a spirit of mingled contempt and defiance. Let me give the fragment just as it lay before me:

“ARON!

It is quite time be done. Who knows is not his home by this CONCERN FOR THE that they are well off, sian officers are cide at once, my risau, or I must t TEN DAYS DELAY money can be divi-tier, and you may ever you please. untess goes, and she will know who you time, unless you carry friend or not decide, ann Helm.” Here, I felt sure, was the clue to much of the mystery. The first thing that struck me was the appearance of a new name. I looked at it again, ran through in my mind all possible German names, and found that it could only be “Johann,”—and in the same instant I recalled the frequent habit of the Prussian and Polish nobility of calling their German valets by French names. This, then, was “Jean!” The address was certainly “Baron,” and why thrice underscored, unless in contemptuous satire? Light began to break upon the matter at last. “Otto” had been playing the part, perhaps assuming the name, of a nobleman, seduced to the deception by his passion for the Countess’ sister, Helmine. This explained the reference to “the papers,” and “the secret,” and would account for the respectful and sympathetic tone of the Countess’ letter. But behind this there was certainly another secret, in which “Y.” (whoever he might be) was concerned, and which related to money. The close of the note, which I filled out to read, “Your friend or not, as you may decide,” conveyed a threat, and, to judge from the halves of lines immediately preceding it, the threat referred to the money, as well as to the betrayal of an assumed character.

Here, just as the story began to appear in faint outline, my discoveries stopped for a while. I ascertained the breadth of the original note by a part of the middle-crease which remained, filled out the torn part with blank paper, completed the divided words in the same character of manuscript) and endeavored to guess the remainder, but no clairvoyant power of divination came to my aid. I turned over the letters again, remarking the neatness with which the addresses had been cut off, and wondering why the man had not destroyed the letters and other memoranda entirely, if he wished to hide a possible crime. The fact that they were not destroyed showed the hold which his past life had had upon him even to his dying hour. Weak and vain, as I had already suspected him to be,—wanting in all manly fibre, and of the very material which a keen, energetic villain would mould to his needs,—I felt that his love for his sister and for “Helmine,” and other associations connected with his life in Germany and Poland, had made him cling to these worn records.

I know not what gave me the suspicion that he had not even found the heart to destroy the exscinded names; perhaps the care with which they had been removed; perhaps, in two instances, the circumstance of their taking words out of the body of the letters with them. But the suspicion came, and led to a re-examination of the leathern wallets. I could scarcely believe my eyes, when feeling something rustle faintly as I pressed the thin lining of an inner pocket, I drew forth three or four small pellets of paper, and unrolling them, found the lost addresses! I fitted them to the vacant places, and found that the first letters of the sister in Breslau had been forwarded to “Otto Lindenschmidt,” while the letter to Poland was addressed “Otto von Herisau.”

I warmed with this success, which exactly tallied with the previous discoveries, and returned again to the Polish memoranda The words “[Rus]sian officers” in “Jean’s” note led me to notice that it had been written towards the close of the last insurrection in Poland— a circumstance which I immediately coupled with some things in the note and on the leaf of the journal. “No tidings of Y” might indicate that Count Kasincsky had been concerned in the rebellion, and had fled, or been taken prisoner. Had he left a large amount of funds in the hands of the supposed Otto von Herisau, which were drawn from time to time by orders, the form of which had been previously agreed upon? Then, when he had disappeared, might it not have been the remaining funds which Jean urged Otto to divide with him, while the latter, misled and entangled in deception rather than naturally dishonest, held back from such a step? I could hardly doubt so much, and it now required but a slight effort of the imagination to complete the torn note.

The next letter of the sister was addressed to Bremen. After having established so many particulars, I found it easily intelligible. “I have done what I can,” she wrote. “I put it in this letter; it is all I have. But do not ask me for money again; mother is ailing most of the time, and I have not yet dared to tell her all. I shall suffer great anxiety until I hear that the vessel has sailed. My mistress is very good; she has given me an advance on my wages, or I could not have sent thee any thing. Mother thinks thou art still in Leipzig: why didst thou stay there so long? but no difference; thy money would have gone anyhow.”

It was nevertheless singular that Otto should be without money, so soon after the appropriation of Count Kasincsky’s funds. If the “20” in the first memorandum on the leaf meant “twenty thousand rubles,” as I conjectured, and but four thousand two hundred were drawn by the Count previous to his flight or imprisonment, Otto’s half of the remainder would amount to nearly eight thousand rubles; and it was, therefore, not easy to account for his delay in Leipzig, and his destitute condition.

Before examining the fragments relating to the American phase of his life,—which illustrated his previous history only by occasional revelations of his moods and feelings,—I made one more effort to guess the cause of his having assumed the name of “Von Herisau.” The initials signed to the order for