File No. 113 - Emile Gaboriau (large screen ebook reader TXT) 📗

to demand for you?”

“I had reasons which I cannot reveal,” answered Prosper with emotion.

The judge breathed freely; at last he had discovered a vulnerable point in the prisoner’s armor.

“Did Mlle. Madeleine banish you?”

Prosper was silent, and seemed agitated.

“Speak,” said M. Patrigent; “I must tell you that this circumstance is one of the most important in your case.”

“Whatever the cost may be, on this subject I am compelled to keep silence.”

“Beware of what you do; justice will not be satisfied with scruples of conscience.”

M. Patrigent waited for an answer. None came.

“You persist in your obstinacy, do you? Well, we will go on to the next question. You have, during the last year, spent fifty thousand francs. Your resources are at an end, and your credit is exhausted; to continue your mode of life was impossible. What did you intend to do?”

“I had no settled plan. I thought it might last as long as it would, and then I–-”

“And then you would draw from the safe!”

“Ah, monsieur, if I were guilty, I should not be here! I should never have been such a fool as to return to the bank; I should have fled.”

M. Patrigent could not restrain a smile of satisfaction, and exclaimed:

“Exactly the argument I expected you to use. You showed your shrewdness precisely by staying to face the storm, instead of flying the country. Several recent suits have taught dishonest cashiers that flight abroad is dangerous. Railways travel fast, but telegrams travel faster. A French thief can be arrested in London within forty-eight hours after his description has been telegraphed. Even America is no longer a refuge. You remained prudently and wisely, saying to yourself, ‘I will manage to avoid suspicion; and, even if I am found out, I shall be free again after three or five years’ seclusion, with a large fortune to enjoy.’ Many people would sacrifice five years of their lives for three hundred and fifty thousand francs.”

“But monsieur, had I calculated in the manner you describe, I should not have been content with three hundred and fifty thousand francs; I should have waited for an opportunity to steal half a million. I often have that sum in charge.”

“Oh! it is not always convenient to wait.”

Prosper was buried in deep thought for some minutes.

“Monsieur,” he finally said, “there is one detail I forgot to mention before, and it may be of importance.”

“Explain, if you please.”

“The office messenger whom I sent to the Bank of France for the money must have seen me tie up the bundle, and put it away in the safe. At any rate, he knows that I left the bank before he did.”

“Very well; the man shall be examined. Now you can return to your cell; and once more I advise you to consider the consequences of your persistent denial.”

M. Patrigent thus abruptly dismissed Prosper because he wished to immediately act upon this last piece of information.

“Sigault,” said he as soon as Prosper had left the room, “is not this Antonin the man who was excused from testifying because he sent a doctor’s certificate declaring him too ill to appear?”

“It is, monsieur.”

“Where doe he live?”

“Fanferlot says he was so ill that he was taken to the hospital—the Dubois Hospital.”

“Very well. I am going to examine him to-day, this very hour. Take your pen and paper, and send for a carriage.”

It was some distance from the Palais de Justice to the Dubois Hospital; but the cabman, urged by the promise of a large fee, made his sorry jades fly as if they were blooded horses.

Would Antonin be able to answer any questions?

The physician in charge of the hospital said that, although the man suffered horribly from a broken knee, his mind was perfectly clear.

“That being the case, monsieur,” said the judge, “I wish to examine him, and desire that no one be admitted while he makes his deposition.”

“Oh! you will not be intruded upon, monsieur; his room contains four beds, but they are just now unoccupied.”

When Antonin saw the judge enter, followed by a little weazened man in black, with a portfolio under his arm, he at once knew what he had come for.

“Ah,” he said, “monsieur comes to see me about M. Bertomy’s case?”

“Precisely.”

M. Patrigent remained standing by the sick-bed while Sigault arranged his papers on a little table.

In answer to the usual questions, the messenger swore that he was named Antonin Poche, was forty years old, born at Cadaujac (Gironde), and was unmarried.

“Now,” said the judge, “are you well enough to clearly answer any questions I may put?”

“Certainly, monsieur.”

“Did you, on the 27th of February, go to the Bank of France for the three hundred and fifty thousand francs that were stolen?”

“Yes, monsieur.”

“At what hour did you return with the money?”

“It must have been five o’clock when I got back.”

“Do you remember what M. Bertomy did when you handed him the notes? Now, do not be in a hurry; think before you answer.”

“Let me see: first he counted the notes, and made them into four packages; then he put them in the safe; and then—it seems to me—and then he locked the safe; and, yes, I am not mistaken, he went out!”

He uttered these last words so quickly, that, forgetting his knee, he half started up, but, with a cry of pain, sank back in bed.

“Are you sure of what you say?” asked the judge.

M. Patrigent’s solemn tone seemed to frighten Antonin.

“Sure?” he replied with marked hesitation, “I would bet my head on it, yet I am not sure!”

It was impossible for him to be more decided in his answers. He had been frightened. He already imagined himself in difficulty, and for a trifle would have retracted everything.

But the effect was already produced; and when they retired M. Patrigent said to Sigault:

“This is a very important piece of evidence.”

VI

The Archangel Hotel, Mme. Gypsy’s asylum, was the most elegant building on the Quai St. Michel.

A person who pays her fortnight’s board in advance is treated with consideration at this hotel.

Mme. Alexandre, who had been a handsome woman, was now stout, laced till she could scarcely breathe, always over-dressed, and fond of wearing a number of flashy gold chains around her fat neck.

She had bright eyes and white teeth; but, alas, a red nose. Of all her weaknesses, and Heaven knows she had indulged in every variety, only one remained; she loved a good dinner, washed down with plenty of good wine.

She also loved her husband; and, about the time M. Patrigent was leaving the hospital, she began to be worried that her “little man” had not returned to dinner. She was about to sit down without him, when the hotel-boy cried out:

“Here is monsieur.”

And Fanferlot appeared in person.

Three years before, Fanferlot had kept a little office of secret intelligence; Mme. Alexandre was a trader without a license in perfumery and toilet articles, and, finding it necessary to watch some of her suspicious customers, engaged Fanferlot’s services; this was the origin of their acquaintance.

If they went through the marriage ceremony for the good of the mayoralty and the church, it was because they imagined it would, like a baptism, wash out the sins of the past.

Upon this momentous day, Fanferlot gave up his secret intelligence office, and entered the police, where he had already been occasionally employed, and Mme. Alexandre retired from trade.

Uniting their savings, they hired and furnished the “Archangel,” which they were now carrying on prosperously well, esteemed by their neighbors, who were ignorant of Fanferlot’s connection with the police force.

“Why, how late you are, my little man!” she exclaimed, as she dropped her knife and fork, and rushed forward to embrace him.

He received her caresses with an air of abstraction.

“My back is broken,” he said. “I have been the whole day playing billiards with Evariste, M. Fauvel’s valet, and allowed him to win as often as he wished, a man who does not know what ‘the pool’ is! I became acquainted with him yesterday, and now I am his best friend. If I wish to enter M. Fauvel’s service in Antonin’s place, I can rely upon M. Evariste’s good word.”

“What, you be an office messenger? you?”

“Of course I would. How else am I to get an opportunity of studying my characters, if I am not on the spot to watch them all the time?”

“Then the valet gave you no news?”

“He gave me none that I could make use of, and yet I turned him inside out, like a glove. This banker is a remarkable man; you don’t often meet with one of his sort nowadays. Evariste says he has not a single vice, not even a little defect by which his valet could gain ten sous. He neither smokes, drinks, nor plays; in fact, he is a saint. He is worth millions, and lives as respectably and quietly as a grocer. He is devoted to his wife, adores his children, is lavishly hospitable, and seldom goes into society.”

“Then his wife is young?”

“She must be about fifty.”

Mme. Alexandre reflected a minute, then asked:

“Did you inquire about the other members of the family?”

“Certainly. The younger son is in the army. The elder son, Lucien, lives with his parents, and is as proper as a young lady; so good, indeed, that he is stupid.”

“And what about the niece?”

“Evariste could tell me nothing about her.”

Mme. Alexandre shrugged her fat shoulders.

“If you have discovered nothing, it is because there is nothing to be discovered. Still, do you know what I would do, if I were you?”

“Tell me.”

“I would consult with M. Lecoq.”

Fanferlot jumped up as if he had been shot.

“Now, that’s pretty advice! Do you want me to lose my place? M. Lecoq does not suspect that I have anything to do with the case, except to obey his orders.”

“Nobody told you to let him know you were investigating it on your own account. You can consult him with an air of indifference, as if you were not at all interested; and, after you have got his opinion, you can take advantage of it.”

The detective weighed his wife’s words, and then said:

“Perhaps you are right; yet M. Lecoq is so devilishly shrewd, that he might see through me.”

“Shrewd!” echoed Mme. Alexandre, “shrewd! All of you at the police office say that so often, that he has gained his reputation by it: you are just as sharp as he is.”

“Well, we will see. I will think the matter over; but, in the meantime, what does the girl say?”

The “girl” was Mme. Nina Gypsy.

In taking up her abode at the Archangel, the poor girl thought she was following good advice; and, as Fanferlot had never appeared in her presence since, she was still under the impression that she had obeyed a friend of Prosper’s. When she received her summons from M. Patrigent, she admired the wonderful skill of the police in discovering her hiding-place; for she had established herself at the hotel under a false, or rather her true name, Palmyre Chocareille.

Artfully questioned by her inquisitive landlady, she had, without any mistrust, confided her history to her.

Thus Fanferlot was able to impress the judge with the idea of his being a skilful detective, when he pretended to have discovered all this information from a variety of sources.

“She is still upstairs,” answered Mme. Alexandre. “She suspects nothing; but to keep her in her present ignorance becomes daily more difficult. I don’t know what the