Baron Trigault's Vengeance by Emile Gaboriau (you can read anyone txt) 📕

The old legend of Achilles’s heel will be eternally true. A man may be humble or powerful, feeble or strong, but there are none of us without some weak spot in our armor, a spot vulnerable beyond all others, a certain place where wounds prove most dangerous and painful. M. Isidore Fortunat’s weak place was his cash-box. To attack him there was to endanger his life—to wound him at a point where all his sensibility centred. For it was in this cash-box and not in his breast that his heart really throbbed. His safe made him happy or dejected. Happy when it was filled to overflowing by some brilliant operation, and dejected when he saw it become empty as some imprudent transaction failed.

This then explains his frenzy on that ill-fated Sunday, when, after being brutally dismissed by M. Wilkie, he returned to his rooms in the company of his clerk, Victor Chupin. This explains, too, the intensity of the hatred he now felt for the Marquis de Valorsay and the Viscount de Coralth. The former, the marquis, had defrauded him of forty thousand francs in glittering gold. The other, the viscount, had suddenly sprung up out of the ground, and carried off from under his very nose that magnificent prize, the Chalusse inheritance, which he had considered as good as won. And he had not only been defrauded and swindled—such were his own expressions—but he had been tricked, deceived, duped, and outwitted, and by whom? By people who did not make it their profession to be shrewd, like he did himself. Just fancy, his business was to outwit others, and a couple of mere amateurs had outgeneraled him. He had not only suffered in pocket, he had been humiliated as well, and so he indulged in threats of such terrible import.

However, at the very moment when he was dreaming of wreaking vengeance on the Marquis de Valorsay and the Viscount de Coralth, his housekeeper, austere Madame Dodelin, handed him Mademoiselle Marguerite’s letter. He read it with intense astonishment, rubbing his eyes as if to assure himself that he were really awake. “Tuesday,” he repeated, “the day after to-morrow—at your house—between three and four o’clock—I must speak with you.”

His manner was so strange, and his usually impassive face so disturbed by conflicting feelings, that Madame Dodelin’s curiosity overcame her prudence, and she remained standing in front of him with open mouth, staring with all her eyes and listening with all her ears. He perceived this, and angrily exclaimed: “What are you doing here? You are watching me, I do believe. Get back to your kitchen, or——”

She fled in alarm, and he then entered his private office. His heart was leaping with joy, and he laughed wickedly at the hope of a speedy revenge. “She’s on the scent,” he muttered; “and she has luck in her favor. She has chanced to apply to me on the very day that I had resolved to defend and rehabilitate her lover, the honest fool who allowed himself to be dishonored by those unscrupulous blackguards. Just as I was thinking of going in search of her, she comes to me. As I was about to write to her, she writes to me. Who can deny the existence of Providence after this?” Like many other people, M. Fortunat piously believed in Providence when things went to his liking, but it is sad to add that in the contrary case he denied its existence. “If she has any courage,” he resumed, “and she seems to have plenty of it, Valorsay and Coralth will be in a tight place soon. And if it takes ten thousand francs to put them there, and if neither Mademoiselle Marguerite nor M. Ferailleur has the amount—ah, well! I’ll advance—well, at least five thousand—without charging them any commission. I’ll even pay the expenses out of my own pocket, if necessary. Ah, my fine fellows, you’ve laughed too soon. In a week’s time we’ll see who laughs last.”

He paused, for Victor Chupin, who had lingered behind to pay the driver, had just entered the room. “You gave me twenty francs, m’sieur,” he remarked to his employer. “I paid the driver four francs and five sous, here’s the change.”

“Keep it yourself, Victor,” said M. Fortunat.

What! keep fifteen francs and fifteen sous? Under any other circumstances such unusual generosity would have drawn a grimace of satisfaction from young Chupin. But to-day he did not even smile; he slipped the money carelessly into his pocket, and scarcely deigned to say “thanks,” in the coldest possible tone.

Absorbed in thought, M. Fortunat did not remark this little circumstance. “We have them, Victor,” he resumed. “I told you that Valorsay and Coralth should pay me for their treason. Vengeance is near. Read this letter.” Victor read it slowly, and as soon as he had finished his employer ejaculated, “Well?”

But Chupin was not a person to give advice lightly. “Excuse me, m’sieur,” said he, “but in order to answer you, I must have some knowledge of the affair. I only know what you’ve told me—which is little enough—and what I’ve guessed. In fact, I know nothing at all.”

M. Fortunat reflected for a moment. “You are right, Victor,” he said, at last. “So far the explanation I gave you was all that was necessary; but now that I expect more important services from you, I ought to tell you the whole truth, or at least all I know about the affair. This will prove my great confidence in you.” Whereupon, he acquainted Chupin with everything he knew concerning the history of M. de Chalusse, the Marquis de Valorsay, and Mademoiselle Marguerite.

However, if he expected these disclosures to elevate him in his subordinate’s estimation he was greatly mistaken. Chupin had sufficient experience and common sense to read his master’s character and discern his motives. He saw plainly enough that this honest impulse on M. Fortunat’s part came from disappointed avarice and wounded vanity, and that the agent would have allowed the Marquis de Valorsay to carry out his infamous scheme without any compunctions of conscience, providing he, himself, had not been injured by it. Still, the young fellow did not allow his real feelings to appear on his face. First, it was not his business to tell M. Fortunat his opinion of him; and in the second place, he did not deem it an opportune moment for a declaration of his sentiments. So, when his employer paused, he exclaimed: “Well, we must outwit these scoundrels—for I’ll join you, m’sieur; and I flatter myself that I can be very useful to you. Do you want the particulars of the viscount’s past life? If so, I can furnish them. I know the brigand. He’s married, as I told you before, and I’ll find his wife for you in a few days. I don’t know exactly where she lives, but she keeps a tobacco store, somewhere, and that’s enough. She’ll tell you how much he’s a viscount. Ha! ha! Viscount just as much as I am—and no more. I can tell you the scrapes he has been in.”

“No doubt; but the most important thing is to know how he’s living now, and on what!”

“Not by honest work, I can tell you. But give me a little time, and I’ll find out for sure. As soon as I can go home, change my clothes, and disguise myself, I’ll start after him; and may I be hung, if I don’t return with a complete report before Tuesday.”

A smile of satisfaction appeared on M. Fortunat’s face. “Good, Victor!” he said, approvingly, “very good! I see that you will serve me