Caught in the Net by Emile Gaboriau (the ebook reader .txt) 📕

Suddenly Beaumarchef, evidently much excited, appeared upon the threshold.

“What, you here again!” cried Mascarin, angrily; “am I to have no peace to-day?”

“Sir, the young man is here.”

“What young man? Paul Violaine?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Why, I told him not to come until twelve; something must have gone wrong.” He broke off his speech, for at the half-open door stood Paul. He was very pale, and his eyes had the expression of some hunted creature. His attire was in disorder and betokened a night spent in aimless wanderings to and fro.

“Ah, sir!” said he, as he caught sight of Mascarin.

“Leave us, Beaumarchef,” said the latter, with an imperious wave of his hand; “and now, my dear boy, what is it?”

Paul sank into a chair.

“My life is ended,” said he; “I am lost, dishonored for ever.”

Mascarin put on a face of the most utter bewilderment, though he well knew the cause of Paul’s utter prostration; but it was with the air of a ready sympathizer that he drew his chair nearer to that of Paul, and said,—

“Come, tell me all about it; what can possibly have happened to affect you thus?”

In deeply tragic tones, Paul replied,—

“Rose has deserted me.”

Mascarin raised his hands to heaven.

“And is this the reason that you say you are dishonored? Do you not see that the future is full of promise?”

“I loved Rose,” returned Paul, and his voice was so full of pathos that Mascarin could hardly repress a smile. “But this is not all,” continued the unhappy boy, making a vain effort to restrain his tears; “I am accused of theft.”

“Impossible!” exclaimed Mascarin.

“Yes, sir; and you who know everything are the only person in the world who can save me. You were so kind to me yesterday that I ventured to come here before the time appointed, in order to entreat your help.”

“But what do you think I can do?”

“Everything, sir; but let me tell you the whole hideous complication.”

Mascarin’s face assumed an air of the deepest interest, as he answered, “Go on.”

“After our interview,” began Paul, “I went back to the Hotel de Perou, and on the mantelpiece in my garret found this note from Rose.”

He held it out as he spoke, but Mascarin made no effort to take it.

“In it,” resumed Paul, “Rose tells me she no longer loves me, and begs me not to seek to see her again; and also that, wearied out of poverty, she has accepted the offer of unlimited supplies of money, a carriage, and diamonds.”

“Are you surprised at this?” asked Mascarin, with a sneer.

“How could I anticipate such an infidelity, when only the evening before she swore by all she held most sacred that she loved me only? Why did she lie to me? Did she write to make the blow fall heavier? When I ascended the staircase, I was picturing to myself her joy when I told her of your kind promises to me. For more than an hour I remained in my garret, overwhelmed with the terrible thought that I should never see her again.”

Mascarin watched Paul attentively, and came to the conclusion that his words were too fine for his grief to be sincere.

“But what about the accusation of theft?”

“I am coming to that,” returned the young man. “I then determined to obey your injunctions and leave the Hotel de Perou, with which I was more than ever disgusted. I went downstairs to settle with Madame Loupins, when ah! hideous disgrace! As I handed her the two weeks’ rent, she asked me with a contemptuous sneer, where I had stolen the money from?”

Mascarin secretly chuckled over the success of his plans thus announced by Paul.

“What did you say?” asked he.

“Nothing, sir; I was too horror-stricken; the man Loupins came up, and both he and his wife scowled at me threateningly. After a short pause, they asserted that they were perfectly sure that Rose and I had robbed M. Tantaine.”

“But did you not deny this monstrous charge?”

“I was utterly bewildered, for I saw that every circumstance was against me. The evening before, Rose, in reply to Madame Loupin’s importunities, had told her that she had no money, and did not know where to get any. But, as you perceive, on the very next day I appeared in a suit of new clothes, and was prepared to pay my debts, while Rose had left the house some hours before. Does not all this form a chain of strange coincidences? Rose changed the five hundred franc note that Tantaine had lent me at the shop of a grocer, named Melusin, and this suspicious fool was the first to raise a cry against us, and dared to assert that a detective had been ordered to watch us.”

Mascarin knew all this story better than Paul, but here he interrupted his young friend.

“I do not understand you,” said he, “nor whether your grief arises from indignation or remorse. Has there been a robbery?”

“How can I tell? I have never seen M. Tantaine from that day. There is a rumor that he has been plundered and important papers taken from him, and that he has consequently been arrested.”

“Why did you not explain the facts?”

“It would have been of no use. It would clearly prove that Tantaine was no friend of mine, not even an acquaintance, and they would have laughed me to scorn had I declared that the evening before he came into my room and made me a present of five hundred francs.”

“I think that I can solve the riddle,” remarked Mascarin. “I know the old fellow so well.”

Paul listened with breathless eagerness.

“Tantaine,” resumed Mascarin, “is the best and kindest fellow in the world, but he is not quite right in the upper story. He was a wealthy man once, but his liberality was his ruin. He is as poor as a church-mouse now, but he is as anxious as ever to be charitable. Unfortunately in the place I procured for him he had a certain amount of petty cash at his disposal, and moved to pity at the sight of your sufferings, he gave you the money that really belonged to others. Then he sent in his accounts, and the deficiency was discovered. He lost his head, and declared that he had been robbed. You lived in the next room; you were known to be in abject poverty on the one day and in ample funds on the next; hence these suspicions.”