File No. 113 by Emile Gaboriau (classic literature books TXT) 📕

He took the precaution to send Lucien on a message so as to be alone in the house.

After the lapse of half an hour, he heard the carriage roll away with his wife and niece.

Hurrying into Mme. Fauvel’s room, he opened the drawer of the chiffonnier, where she kept her jewels.

The last dozen or more leather and velvet boxes, containing superb sets of jewelry which he had presented to her, were gone!

Twelve boxes remained. He nervously opened them.

They were all empty!

The anonymous letter had told the truth.

“Oh, it cannot be!” he gasped in broken tones. “Oh, no, no!”

He wildly pulled open every drawer in the vain hope of finding them packed away. Perhaps she kept them elsewhere.

He tried to hope that she had sent them to be reset; but no, they were all superbly set in the latest fashion; and, moreover, she never would have sent them all at once. He looked again.

Nothing! not one jewel could he find.

He remembered that he had asked his wife at the Jandidier ball why she did not wear her diamonds; and she had replied with a smile:

“Oh! what is the use? Everybody knows them so well; and, besides, they don’t suit my costume.”

Yes, she had made the answer without blushing, without showing the slightest sign of agitation or shame.

What hardened impudence! What base hypocrisy concealed beneath an innocent, confiding manner!

And she had been thus deceiving him for twenty years! But suddenly a gleam of hope penetrated his confused mind—slight, barely possible; still a straw to cling to:

“Perhaps Valentine has put her diamonds in Madeleine’s room.”

Without stopping to consider the indelicacy of what he was about to do, he hurried into the young girl’s room, and pulled open one drawer after another. What did he find?

Not Mme. Fauvel’s diamonds; but Madeleine’s seven or eight boxes also empty.

Great heavens! Was this gentle girl, whom he had treated as a daughter, an accomplice in this deed of shame? Had she contributed her jewelry to add to the disgrace of the roof that sheltered her?

This last blow was almost too much for the miserable man. He sank almost lifeless into a chair, and wringing his hands, groaned over the wreck of his happiness. Was this the happy future to which he had looked forward? Was the fabric of his honor, well-being, and domestic bliss, to be dashed to the earth and forever lost in a day? Were his twenty years’ labor and high-standing to end thus in shame and sorrow?

Apparently nothing was changed in his existence; he was not materially injured; he could not reach forth his hand, and heal or revenge the smarting wound; the objects around him were unchanged; everything went on in the outside world just as it had gone on during the last twenty years; and yet what a horrible change had taken place in his own heart! While the world envied his prosperity and happiness, here he sat, more heartsore and wearied of life than the worst criminal that ever stood before the inquisition.

What! Valentine, the pure young girl whom he had loved and married in spite of her poverty, in spite of her cold offering of calm affection in return for his passionate devotion; Valentine, the tender, loving wife, who, before a year of married life had rolled by, so often assured him that her affection had grown into a deep, confiding love, that her devotion had grown stronger every day, and that her only prayer was that God would take them both together, since life would be a burden without her noble husband to shield and cherish her—could she have been acting a lie for twenty years?

She, the darling wife, the mother of his sons!

His sons? Good God! Were they his sons?

If she could deceive him now when she was silver-haired, had she not deceived him when she was young?

Not only did he suffer in the present, but the uncertainty of the past tortured his soul.

He was like a man who is told that the exquisite wine he has drank contains poison.

Confidence is never half-way: it is, or it is not. His confidence was gone. His faith was dead.

The wretched banker had rested his every hope and happiness on the love of his wife. Believing that she had proved faithless, that she had played him false, and was unworthy of trust, he admitted no possibility of peaceful joy, and felt tempted to seek consolation from self-destruction. What had he to live for now, save to mourn over the ashes of the past?

But this dejection did not last long. Indignant anger, and thirst for vengeance, made him start up and swear that he would lose no time in vain regrets.

M. Fauvel well knew that the fact of the diamonds being stolen was not sufficient ground upon which to bring an accusation against any of the accomplices.

He must possess overwhelming proofs before taking any active steps. Success depended upon present secrecy.

He began by calling his valet, and ordering him to bring to him every letter that should come to the house.

He then wrote to a notary at St. Remy, for minute and authentic information about the Lagors family, and especially about Raoul.

Finally, following the advice of the anonymous letter, he went to the Prefecture of Police, hoping to obtain a biography of Clameran.

But the police, fortunately for many people, are as discreetly silent as the grave. They guard their secrets as a miser his treasure.

Nothing but an order from the chief judge could open those formidable green boxes, and reveal their secrets.

M. Fauvel was politely asked what motives urged him to inquire into the past life of a French citizen; and, as he declined to state his reasons, the chief of police told him he had better apply to the Procureur for the desired information.

This advice he could not follow. He had sworn that the secret of his wrongs should be confined to the three persons interested. He chose to avenge his own injuries, to be alone the judge and executioner.

He returned home more angry than ever; there he found the despatch answering the one which he had sent to St. Remy. It was as follows:

“The Lagors are very poor, and there has never been any member of the family named Raoul. Mme. Lagors had no son, only two daughters.”

This information dashed his last hope.

The banker thought, when he discovered his wife’s infamy, that she had sinned as deeply as a woman could sin; but