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

has told me enough, however, to make me think that he has already had suspicions similar to yours.”

“Of course!  Would he otherwise have questioned me on the subject of M. de Tregars?”

Mlle. Lucienne shook her head.

“And yet,” she said, “even after your explanation, it is in vain that I seek why and how I can so far disturb M. de Thaller’s security that he wishes to do away with me.”

Maxence made a gesture of superb indifference.  “I confess,” he said, “that I don’t see it either.  But what matters it?  Without being able to explain why, I feel that the Baron de Thaller is the common enemy, yours, mine, my father’s, and M. de Tregars’.  And something tells me, that, with M. de Tregars’ help, we shall triumph.  You would share my confidence, Lucienne, if you knew him.  There is a man! and my sister has made no vulgar choice.  If he has told my mother that he has the means of serving her, it is because he certainly has.”

He stopped, and, after a moment of silence, “Perhaps,” he went on, “the commissary of police might readily understand what I only dimly suspect; but, until further orders, we are forbidden to have recourse to him.  It is not my own secret that I have just told you; and, if I have confided it to you, it is because I feel that it is a great piece of good fortune for us; and there is no joy for me, that you do not share.”

Mlle. Lucienne wanted to ask many more particulars.  But, looking at his watch,

“Half-past ten!” he exclaimed, “and M. de Tregars waiting for me.”

And he started off, repeating once more to the young girl,

“I will see you to-night:  until then, good hope and good courage.”

In the court, two ill-looking men were talking with the Fortins.  But it happened often to the Fortins to talk with ill-looking men:  so he took no notice of them, ran out to the Boulevard, and jumping into a cab,

“Rue Lafitte 70,” he cried to the driver, “I pay the trip,—three francs.”

When Marius de Tregars had finally determined to compel the bold rascals who had swindled his father to disgorge, he had taken in the Rue Lafitte a small, plainly-furnished apartment on the entresol, a fit dwelling for the man of action, the tent in which he takes shelter on the eve of battle; and he had to wait upon him an old family servant, whom he had found out of place, and who had for him that unquestioning and obstinate devotion peculiar to Breton servants.

It was this excellent man who came at the first stroke of the bell to open the door.  And, as soon as Maxence had told him his name,

“Ah!” he exclaimed, “my master has been expecting you with a terrible impatience.”

It was so true, that M. de Tregars himself appeared at the same moment, and, leading Maxence into the little room which he used as a study,

“Do you know,” he said whilst shaking him cordially by the hand, “that you are almost an hour behind time?”

Maxence had, among others the detestable fault, sure indication of a weak nature, of being never willing to be in the wrong, and of having always an excuse ready.  On this occasion, the excuse was too tempting to allow it to escape; and quick he began telling how he had been detained by M. Chapelain, and how he had heard from the old lawyer what had taken place at the Mutual Credit office.

“I know the scene already,” said M. de Tregars.  And, fixing upon Maxence a look of friendly raillery,

“Only,” he added, “I attributed your want of punctuality to another reason, a very pretty one this time, a brunette.”

A purple cloud spread over Maxence’s cheeks.

“What!” he stammered, “you know?”

“I thought you must have been in haste to go and tell a person of your acquaintance why, when you saw me yesterday, you uttered an exclamation of surprise.”

This time Maxence lost all countenance.

“What,” he said, “you know too?”

M. de Tregars smiled.

“I know a great many things, my dear M. Maxence,” he replied; “and yet, as I do not wish to be suspected of witchcraft, I will tell you where all my science comes from.  At the time when your house was closed to me, after seeking for a long time some means of hearing from your sister, I discovered at last that she had for her music-teacher an old Italian, the Signor Gismondo Pulei.  I applied to him for lessons, and became his pupil.  But, in the beginning, he kept looking at me with singular persistence.  I inquired the reason; and he told me that he had once had for a neighbor, at the Batignolles, a young working-girl, who resembled me prodigiously.  I paid no attention to this circumstance, and had, in fact, completely forgotten it; when, quite lately, Gismondo told me that he had just seen his former neighbor again, and, what’s more, arm in arm with you, and that you both entered together the Hotel des Folies.  As he insisted again upon that famous resemblance, I determined to see for myself.  I watched, and I stated, de visa, that my old Italian was not quite wrong, and that I had, perhaps, just found the weapon I was looking for.”

His eyes staring, and his mouth gaping, Maxence looked like a man fallen from the clouds.

“Ah, you did watch!” he said.

M. de Tregars snapped his fingers with a gesture of indifference.

“It is certain,” he replied, “that, for a month past, I have been doing a singular business.  But it is not by remaining on my chair, preaching against the corruption of the age, that I can attain my object.  The end justifies the means.  Honest men are very silly, I think, to allow the rascals to get the better of them under the sentimental pretext that they cannot condescend to make use of their weapons.”

But an honorable scruple was tormenting Maxence.

“And you think yourself well-informed, sir?” he inquired.  “You know Lucienne?”

“Enough to know that she is not what she seems to be, and what almost any other would have been in her place; enough to be certain, that, if she shows herself two or three times a week riding around the lake, it is not for her pleasure; enough, also, to be persuaded, that, despite appearances, she is not your mistress, and that, far from having disturbed your life, and compromised your prospects, she set you back into the right road, at the moment, perhaps, when you were about to branch off into the wrong path.”

Marius de Tregars was assuming fantastic proportions in the mind of Maxence.

“How did you manage,” he stammered, “thus to find out the truth?”