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

“‘Where do you want to go?’  Amanda asked me.
‘Why, to Mabille, to dance a quadrille, or two.’
‘Impossible!’
‘Why?’
‘Because M. Vincent does not wish you to go out at night.’
‘We’ll see about that!’

“The next day, I tell all this to M. Vincent; and he says that Amanda is right; that it is not proper for a woman in my position to frequent balls; and that, if I want to go out at night, I can stay.  Get out!  I tell you what, if it hadn’t been for the fine carriage, and all that, I would have cleared out that minute.  Any way, I became disgusted from that moment, and have been more and more ever since; and, if M. Vincent had not himself left, I certainly would.”

“To go where?”

“Anywhere.  Look here, now! do you suppose I need a man to support me!  No, thank Heaven!  Little Zelie, here present, has only to apply to any dressmaker, and she’ll be glad to give her four francs a day to run the machine.  And she’ll be free, at least; and she can laugh and dance as much as she likes.”

M. de Tregars had made a mistake:  he had just discovered it.

Mme. Zelie Cadelle was certainly not particularly virtuous; but she was far from being the woman he expected to meet.

“At any rate,” he said, “you did well to wait patiently.”

“I do not regret it.”

“If you can keep this house—”

She interrupted him with a great burst of laughter.

“This house!” she exclaimed.  “Why, it was sold long ago, with every thing in it,—furniture, horses, carriages, every thing except me.  A young gentleman, very well dressed, bought it for a tall girl, who looks like a goose, and has far over a thousand francs of red hair on her head.”

“Are you sure of that?”

“Sure as I live, having seen with my own eyes the young swell and his red-headed friend counting heaps of bank-notes to M. Vincent.  They are to move in day after to-morrow; and they have invited me to the house-warming.  But no more of it for me, I thank you!  I am sick and tired of all these people.  And the proof of it is, I am busy packing my things; and lots of them I have too,—dresses, underclothes, jewelry.  He was a good-natured fellow, old Vincent was, anyhow.  He gave me money enough to buy some furniture.  I have hired a small apartment; and I am going to set up dress-making on my own hook.  And won’t we laugh then! and won’t we have some fun to make up for lost time!  Come, my children, take your places for a quadrille.  Forward two!”

And, bouncing out of her chair, she began sketching out one of those bold cancan steps which astound the policemen on duty in the ball-rooms.

“Bravo!” said M. de Tregars, forcing himself to smile,—“bravo!”

He saw clearly now what sort of woman was Mme. Zelie Cadelle; how he should speak to her, and what cords he might yet cause to vibrate within her.  He recognized the true daughter of Paris, wayward and nervous, who in the midst of her disorders preserves an instinctive pride; who places her independence far above all the money in the world; who gives, rather than sells, herself; who knows no law but her caprice, no morality but the policeman, no religion but pleasure.

As soon as she had returned to her seat,

“There you are dancing gayly,” he said, “and poor Vincent is doubtless groaning at this moment over his separation from you.”

“Ah!  I’d pity him if I had time,” she said.

“He was fond of you?”

“Don’t speak of it.”

“If he had not been fond of you, he would not have put you here.”

Mme. Zelie made a little face of equivocal meaning.

“What proof is that?” she murmured.

“He would not have spent so much money for you.”

“For me!” she interrupted,—“for me!  What have I cost him of any consequence?  Is it for me that he bought, furnished, and fitted out this house?  No, no!  He had the cage; and he put in the bird, —the first he happened to find.  He brought me here as he might have brought any other woman, young or old, pretty or ugly, blonde or brunette.  As to what I spent here, it was a mere bagatelle compared with what the other did,—the one before me.  Amanda kept telling me all the time I was a fool.  You may believe me, then, when I tell you that M. Vincent will not wet many handkerchiefs with the tears he’ll shed over me.”

“But do you know what became of the one before you, as you call her, —whether she is alive or dead, and owing to what circumstances the cage became empty?”

But, instead of answering, Mme. Zelie was fixing upon Marius de Tregars a suspicious glance.  And, after a moment only,

“Why do you ask me that?” she said.

“I would like to know.”

She did not permit him to proceed.  Rising from her seat, and stepping briskly up to him,

“Do you belong to the police, by chance?” she asked in a tone of mistrust.

If she was anxious, it was evidently because she had motives of anxiety which she had concealed.  If, two or three times she had interrupted herself, it was because, manifestly, she had a secret to keep.  If the idea of police had come into her mind, it is because, very probably, they had recommended her to be on her guard.

M. de Tregars understood all this, and, also, that he had tried to go too fast.

“Do I look like a secret police-agent?” he asked.

She was examining him with all her power of penetration.

“Not at all, I confess,” she replied.  “But, if you are not one, how is it that you come to my house, without knowing me from this side of sole leather, to ask me a whole lot of questions, which I am fool enough to answer?”

“I told you I was a friend of M. Favoral.”

“Who’s that Favoral?”

“That’s M. Vincent’s real name, madame.”

She opened her eyes wide.

“You must be mistaken.  I never heard him called any thing but Vincent.”

“It is because he had especial motives for concealing his personality.  The money he spent here did not belong to him:  he took it, he stole it, from the Mutual Credit Company where he was cashier, and where he left a deficit of twelve millions.”

Mme. Zelie stepped back as though she