Other People's Money by Emile Gaboriau (ebook smartphone txt) 📕

This time the hurrahs and the bravos drowned the voice.

M. de Thaller received them like a man who deserves them, and, more slowly,

“Honor commanded it,” he continued.  “I confess it, gentlemen, the wretch who has so basely deceived us had my entire confidence.  You will understand my apparent blindness when you know with what infernal skill he managed.”

Loud imprecations burst on all sides against Vincent Favoral.  But the president of the Mutual Credit proceeded,

“For the present, all I have to ask of you is to keep cool, and continue to give me your confidence.”

“Yes, yes!”

“The panic of night before last was but a stock-gambling manoeuvre, organized by rival establishments, who were in hopes of taking our clients away from us.  They will be disappointed, gentlemen.  We will triumphantly demonstrate our soundness; and we shall come out of this trial more powerful than ever.”

It was all over.  M. de Thaller understood his business.  They offered him a vote of thanks.  A smile was beaming upon the same faces that were a moment before contracted with rage.

One stockholder alone did not seem to share the general enthusiasm:  he was no other than our old friend, M. Chapelain, the ex-lawyer.

“That fellow, Thaller, is just capable of getting himself out of the scrape,” he grumbled.  “I must tell Maxence.”

We have every species of courage in France, and to a superior degree, except that of braving public opinion.  Few men would have dared, like Marius de Tregars, to offer their name to the daughter of a wretch charged with embezzlement and forgery, and that at the very moment when the scandal of the crime was at its height.  But, when Marius judged a thing good and just, he did it without troubling himself in the least about what others would think.  And so his mere presence in the Rue.  St. Gilles had brought back hope to its inmates.  Of his designs he had said but a word,—“I have the means of helping you:  I mean, by marrying Gilberte, to acquire the right of doing so.”

But that word had been enough.  Mme. Favoral and Maxence had understood that the man who spoke thus was one of those cool and resolute men whom nothing disconcerts or discourages, and who knows how to make the best of the most perilous situations.

And, when he had retired with the Count de Villegre,

“I don’t know what he will do,” said Mlle. Gilberte to her mother and her brother:  “but he will certainly do something; and, if it is humanly possible to succeed, he will succeed.”

And how proudly she spoke thus!  The assistance of Marius was the justification of her conduct.  She trembled with joy at the thought that it would, perhaps, be to the man whom she had alone and boldly selected, that her family would owe their salvation.  Shaking his head, and making allusion to events of which he kept the secret,

“I really believe,” approved Maxence, “that, to reach the enemies of our father, M. de Tregars possesses some powerful means; and what they are we will doubtless soon know, since I have an appointment with him for to-morrow morning.”

It came at last, that morrow, which he had awaited with an impatience that neither his mother nor his sister could suspect.  And towards half-past nine he was ready to go out, when M. Chapelain came in.  Still irritated by the scenes he had just witnessed at the Mutual Credit office, the old lawyer had a most lugubrious countenance.

“I bring bad news,” he began.  “I have just seen the Baron de Thaller.”

He had said so much the day before about having nothing more to do with it, that Maxence could not repress a gesture of surprise.

“Oh! it isn’t alone that I saw him,” added M. Chapelain, “but together with at least a hundred stockholders of the Mutual Credit.”

“They are going to do something, then?”

“No:  they only came near doing something.  You should have seen them this morning!  They were furious; they threatened to break every thing; they wanted M. de Thaller’s blood.  It was terrible.  But M. de Thaller condescended to receive them; and they became at once as meek as lambs.  It is perfectly simple.  What do you suppose stockholders can do, no matter how exasperated they may be, when their manager tells them?

“‘Well, yes, it’s a fact you have been robbed, and your money is in great jeopardy; but if you make any fuss, if you complain thus, all is sure to be lost.’  Of course, the stockholders keep quiet.  It is a well-known fact that a business which has to be liquidated through the courts is gone; and swindled stockholders fear the law almost as much as the swindling manager.  A single fact will make the situation clearer to you.  Less than an hour ago, M. de Thaller’s stockholders, offered him money to make up the loss.”

And, after a moment of silence,

“But this is not all.  Justice has interfered; and M. de Thaller spent the morning with an examining-magistrate.”

“Well?”

“Well, I have enough experience to affirm that you must not rely any more upon justice than upon the stockholders.  Unless there are proofs so evident that they are not likely to exist, M. de Thaller will not be disturbed.”

“Oh!”

“Why?  Because, my dear, in all those big financial operations, justice, as much as possible, remains blind.  Not through corruption or any guilty connivance, but through considerations of public interest.  If the manager was prosecuted he would be condemned to a few years’ imprisonment; but his stockholders would at the same time be condemned to lose what they have left; so that the victims would be more severely punished than the swindler.  And so, powerless, justice does not interfere.  And that’s what accounts for the impudence and impunity of all these high-flown rascals who go about with their heads high, their pockets filled with other people’s money, and half a dozen decorations at their button-hole.”

“And what then?” asked Maxence.

“Then it is evident that your father is lost.  Whether or not he did have accomplices, he will be alone sacrificed.  A scapegoat is needed to be slaughtered on the altar of credit.  Well, they will give that much satisfaction to the swindled stockholders.  The twelve millions will be lost; but the shares of the Mutual Credit will go up, and public morality will be safe.”

Somewhat moved by the old lawyer’s tone,

“What do you advise me to do, then?” inquired Maxence.

“The very reverse of what, on the first impulse, I advised you to do.  That’s why I have come.  I told you yesterday, ‘Make a row, act, scream.  It is impossible that your father be alone guilty; attack M. de Thaller.’  To-day, after mature