File No. 113 by Émile Gaboriau (summer beach reads .txt) 📕

“What are you afraid of?” asked Clameran.

“Everything,” replied Raoul. “Where am I to obtain justice, if you deceive me? From this pretty little poniard? No, thank you. I would be made to pay as dear for your hide, as for that of an honest man.”

Finally, after long debate and much recrimination, the matter was arranged, and they shook hands before separating.

Alas! Mme. Fauvel and her niece soon felt the evil effects of the understanding between the villains.

Everything happened as Louis had arranged.

Once more, when Mme. Fauvel had begun to breathe freely, and to hope that her troubles were over, Raoul’s conduct suddenly changed; he became more extravagant and dissipated than ever.

Formerly, Mme. Fauvel would have said, “I wonder what he does with all the money I give him?” Now she saw where it went.

Raoul was reckless in his wickedness; he was intimate with actresses, openly lavishing money and jewelry upon them; he drove about with four horses, and bet heavily on every race. Never had he been so exacting and exorbitant in his demands for money; Mme. Fauvel had the greatest difficulty in supplying his wants.

He no longer made excuses and apologies for spending so much; instead of coaxingly entreating, he demanded money as a right, threatening to betray Mme. Fauvel to her husband if she refused him.

At this rate, all the possessions of Mme. Fauvel and Madeleine soon disappeared. In one month, all their money had been squandered. Then they were compelled to resort to the most shameful expedients in the household expenses. They economized in every possible way, making purchases on credit, and making tradesmen wait; then they changed figures in the bills, and even invented accounts of things never bought.

These imaginary costly whims increased so rapidly, that M. Fauvel one day said, as he signed a large check, “Upon my word, ladies, you will buy out all the stores, if you keep on this way. But nothing pleases me better than to see you gratify every wish.”

Poor women! For months they had bought nothing, but had lived upon the remains of their former splendor, having all their old dresses made over, to keep up appearances in society.

More clear-sighted than her aunt, Madeleine saw plainly that the day would soon come when everything would have to be explained.

Although she knew that the sacrifices of the present would avail nothing in the future, that all this money was being thrown away without securing her aunt’s peace of mind, yet she was silent. A high-minded delicacy made her conceal her apprehensions beneath an assumed calmness.

The fact of her sacrificing herself made her refrain from uttering anything like a complaint or censure. She seemed to forget herself entirely in her efforts to comfort her aunt.

“As soon as Raoul sees we have nothing more to give,” she would say, “he will come to his senses, and stop all this extravagance.”

The day came when Mme. Fauvel and Madeleine found it impossible to give another franc.

The evening previous, Mme. Fauvel had a dinner-party, and with difficulty scraped together enough money to defray the expenses.

Raoul appeared, and said that he was in the greatest need of money, being forced to pay a debt of two thousand francs at once.

In vain they implored him to wait a few days, until they could with propriety ask M. Fauvel for money. He declared that he must have it now, and that he would not leave the house without it.

“But I have no way of getting it for you,” said Mme. Fauvel desperately; “you have taken everything from me. I have nothing left but my diamonds: do you want them? If they can be of use, take them.”

Hardened as the young villain was, he blushed at these words.

He felt pity for this unfortunate woman, who had always been so kind and indulgent to him, who had so often lavished upon him her maternal caresses. He felt for the noble girl who was the innocent victim of a vile plot.

But he was bound by an oath; he knew that a powerful hand would save these women at the brink of the precipice. More than this, he saw an immense fortune at the end of his road of crime, and quieted his conscience by saying that he would redeem his present cruelty by honest kindness in the future. Once out of the clutches of Clameran, he would be a better man, and try to return some of the kind affection shown him by these poor women.

Stifling his better impulses, he said harshly to Mme. Fauvel, “Give me the jewels; I will take them to the pawnbroker’s.” Mme. Fauvel handed him a box containing a set of diamonds. It was a present from her husband the day he became worth a million.

And so pressing was the want of these women who were surrounded by princely luxury, with their ten servants, beautiful blooded horses, and jewels which were the admiration of Paris, that they implored him to bring them some of the money which he would procure on the diamonds, to meet their daily wants.

He promised, and kept his word.

But they had revealed a new source, a mine to be worked; he took advantage of it.

One by one, all Mme. Fauvel’s jewels followed the way of the diamonds; and, when hers were all gone, those of Madeleine were given up.

A recent lawsuit, which showed how a young and beautiful woman had been kept in a state of terror and almost poverty, by a rascal who had possession of her letters, a sad case which no honest man could read without blushing for his sex, has revealed to what depths human infamy can descend.

And such abominable crimes are not so rare as people suppose.

How many men are supported entirely by stolen secrets, from the coachman who claims ten louis every month of the foolish girl whom he drove to a rendezvous, to the elegant dandy in light kids, who discovered a financial swindle, and makes the parties interested buy his silence, cannot be known.

This is called the extortion of hush-money, the most cowardly and infamous of