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

“Bad luck!” he growled.  “I would have liked that house myself.”

“Oh, I dare say you would!”

“And there is no way to get in?”

“Can’t tell.  It will be well to see the others, those who have bought.  But I mistrust them:  they look too stupid not to be mean.”

Listening intently to the conversation of these two men, it was mechanically and at random that M. de Tregars and Maxence threw their cards on the table, and uttered the common terms of the game of piquet,

“Five cards!  Tierce, major!  Three aces.”

Meantime the old man was going on,

“Who knows but what M. Vincent may come back?”

“No danger of that!”

“Why?”

The other looked carefully around, and, seeing only two players absorbed in their game,

“Because,” he replied, “M.  Vincent is completely ruined, it seems.  He spent all his money, and a good deal of other people’s money besides.  Amanda, the chambermaid, told me; and I guess she knows.”

“You thought he was so rich!”

“He was.  But no matter how big a bag is:  if you keep taking out of it, you must get to the bottom.”

“Then he spent a great deal?”

“It’s incredible!  I have been in extravagant houses; but nowhere have I ever seen money fly as it has during the five months that I have been in that house.  A regular pillage!  Everybody helped themselves; and what was not in the house, they could get from the tradespeople, have it charged on the bill; and it was all paid without a word.”

“Then, yes, indeed, the money must have gone pretty lively,” said the old one in a convinced tone.

“Well,” replied the other, “that was nothing yet.  Amanda the chambermaid who has been in the house fifteen years, told us some stories that would make you jump.  She was not much for spending, Zelie; but some of the others, it seems . . .”

It required the greatest effort on the part of Maxence and M. de Tregars not to play, but only to pretend to play, and to continue to count imaginary points,—“One, two, three, four.”

Fortunately the coachman with the red nose seemed much interested.

“What others?” he asked.

“That I don’t know any thing about,” replied the younger valet.  “But you may imagine that there must have been more than one in that little house during the many years that M. Vincent owned it,—a man who hadn’t his equal for women, and who was worth millions.”

“And what was his business?”

“Don’t know that, either.”

“What! there were ten of you in the house, and you didn’t know the profession of the man who paid you all?”

“We were all new.”

“The chambermaid, Amanda, must have known.”

“When she was asked, she said that he was a merchant.  One thing is sure, he was a queer old chap.”

So interested was the old coachman, that, seeing the punch-bowl empty, he called for another.  His comrade could not fail to show his appreciation of such politeness.

“Ah, yes!” he went on, “old Vincent was an eccentric fellow; and never, to see him, could you have suspected that he cut up such capers, and that he threw money away by the handful.”

“Indeed!”

“Imagine a man about fifty years old, stiff as a post, with a face about as pleasant as a prison-gate.  That’s the boss!  Summer and winter, he wore laced shoes, blue stockings, gray pantaloons that were too short, a cotton necktie, and a frock-coat that came down to his ankles.  In the street, you would have taken him for a hosier who had retired before his fortune was made.”

“You don’t say so!”

“No, never have I seen a man look so much like an old miser.  You think, perhaps, that he came in a carriage.  Not a bit of it!  He came in the omnibus, my boy, and outside too, for three sous; and when it rained he opened his umbrella.  But the moment he had crossed the threshold of the house, presto, pass! complete change of scene.  The miser became pacha.  He took off his old duds, put on a blue velvet robe; and then there was nothing handsome enough, nothing good enough, nothing expensive enough for him.  And, when he had acted the my lord to his heart’s content, he put on his old traps again, resumed his prison-gate face, climbed up on top of the omnibus, and went off as he came.”

“And you were not surprised, all of you, at such a life?”

“Very much so.”

“And you did not think that these singular whims must conceal something?”

“Oh, but we did!”

“And you didn’t try to find out what that something was?”

“How could we?”

“Was it very difficult to follow your boss, and ascertain where he went, after leaving the house?”

“Certainly not; but what then?”

“Why,” he replied, “you would have found out his secret in the end; and then you would have gone to him and told him, ‘Give me so much, or I peach.’”

V

This story of M. Vincent, as told by these two honest companions, was something like the vulgar legend of other people’s money, so eagerly craved, and so madly dissipated.  Easily-gotten wealth is easily gotten rid of.  Stolen money has fatal tendencies, and turns irresistibly to gambling, horse-jockeys, fast women, all the ruinous fancies, all the unwholesome gratifications.

They are rare indeed, among the daring cut-throats of speculation, those to whom their ill-gotten gain proves of real service,—so rare, that they are pointed out, and are as easily numbered as the girls who leap some night from the street to a ten-thousand-franc apartment, and manage to remain there.

Seized with the intoxication of sudden wealth, they lose all measure and all prudence.  Whether they believe their luck inexhaustible, or fear a sudden turn of fortune, they make haste to enjoy themselves, and they fill the noted restaurants, the leading Cafés, the theatres, the clubs, the race-courses, with their impudent personality, the clash of their voice, the extravagance of their mistresses, the noise of their expenses, and the absurdity of their vanity.  And they go on and on, lavishing other people’s money, until the fatal hour of one of those disastrous liquidations which terrify the courts and the exchange, and cause