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

judge told her, but she came home quite beside herself with anger. She wanted to go and make a fuss at M. Fauvel’s; then she wrote a letter which she told Jean to post for her; but I kept it to show you.”

“What!” interrupted Fanferlot, “you have a letter, and did not tell me before? Perhaps it contains the clew to the mystery. Give it to me, quick.”

Obeying her husband, Mme. Alexandre opened a little cupboard, and took out a letter which she handed to him.

“Here, take it,” she said, “and be satisfied.”

Considering that she used to be a chambermaid, Palmyre Chocareille, since become Mme. Gypsy, wrote a good letter.

It bore the following address, written in a free, flowing hand:

 

FOR M. L. DE CLAMERAN, Forge-Master, Hotel du Louvre.

To be handed to M. Raoul de Lagors. (In great haste.)

 

“Oh, ho!” said Fanferlot, accompanying his exclamation with a little whistle, as was his habit when he thought he had made a grand discovery. “Oh, ho!”

“Do you intend to open it?” questioned Mme. Alexandre.

“A little bit,” said Fanferlot, as he dexterously opened the envelope.

Mme. Alexandre leaned over her husband’s shoulder, and they both read the following letter:

 

“MONSIEUR RAOUL—Prosper is in prison, accused of a robbery which he never committed. I wrote to you three days ago.”

 

“What!” interrupted Fanferlot, “this silly girl wrote, and I never saw the letter?”

“But, little man, she must have posted it herself, the day she went to the Palais de Justice.”

“Very likely,” said Fanferlot propitiated. He continued reading:

 

“I wrote to you three days ago, and have no reply. Who will help Prosper if his best friends desert him? If you don’t answer this letter, I shall consider myself released from a certain promise, and without scruple will tell Prosper of the conversation I overheard between you and M. de Clameran. But I can count on you, can I not? I shall expect you at the Archangel day after to-morrow, between twelve and four.

“NINA GYPSY”

 

The letter read, Fanferlot at once proceeded to copy it.

“Well!” said Mme. Alexandre, “what do you think?”

Fanferlot was delicately resealing the letter when the door of the hotel office was abruptly opened, and the boy twice whispered, “Pst! Pst!”

Fanferlot rapidly disappeared into a dark closet. He had barely time to close the door before Mme. Gypsy entered the room.

The poor girl was sadly changed. She was pale and hollow-cheeked, and her eyes were red with weeping.

On seeing her, Mme. Alexandre could not conceal her surprise.

“Why, my child, you are not going out?”

“I am obliged to do so, madame; and I come to ask you to tell anyone that may call during my absence to wait until I return.”

“But where in the world are you going at this hour, sick as you are?”

For a moment Mme. Gypsy hesitated.

“Oh,” she said, “you are so kind that I am tempted to confide in you; read this note which a messenger just now brought to me.”

“What!” cried Mme. Alexandre perfectly aghast: “a messenger enter my house, and go up to your room!”

“Is there anything surprising in that?”

“Oh, oh, no! nothing surprising.”

And in a tone loud enough to be heard in the closet she read the note:

 

“A friend of Prosper who can neither receive you, nor present himself at your house, is very anxious to speak to you. Be in the stage-office opposite the Saint Jacques tower, to-night at nine precisely, and the writer will approach, and tell you what he has to say.

“I have appointed this public place for the rendezvous so as to relieve your mind of all fear.”

 

“And you are going to this rendezvous?”

“Certainly, madame.”

“But it is imprudent, foolish; it is a snare to entrap you.”

“It makes no difference,” interrupted Gypsy. “I am so unfortunate already that I have nothing more to dread. Any change would be a relief.”

And, without waiting to hear any more, she went out. The door had scarcely closed upon Mme. Gypsy, before Fanferlot bounced out of the closet.

The mild detective was white with rage, and swore violently.

“What is the meaning of this?” he cried. “Am I to stand by and have people walking over the Archangel, as if it were a public street?”

Mme. Alexandre stood trembling, and dared not speak.

“Was ever such impudence heard of before!” he continued. “A messenger comes into my house, and goes upstairs without being seen by anybody! I will look into this. And the idea of you, Mme. Alexandre, you, a sensible woman, being idiotic enough to persuade that little viper not to keep the appointment!”

“But, my dear—”

“Had you not sense enough to know that I would follow her, and discover what she is attempting to conceal? Come, make haste, and help me, so that she won’t recognize me.”

In a few minutes Fanferlot was completely disguised by a thick beard, a wig, and one of those long linen blouses worn by dishonest workmen, who go about seeking labor, and, at the same time, hoping they may not find any.

“Have you your handcuffs?” asked the solicitous Mme. Alexandre.

“Yes, yes: make haste and put that letter to M. de Clameran in the post-office, and—and keep good watch.”

And without waiting for his wife’s reply, who cried out, “Good luck!” Fanferlot darted into the street.

Mme. Gypsy had ten minutes’ start of him; but he ran up the street he knew she must have taken, and overtook her near the Change Bridge.

She was walking with the uncertain gait of a person who, impatient to be at a rendezvous, has started too soon, and is obliged to occupy the intervening time; she would walk very rapidly, then retrace her footsteps, and proceed slowly.

On Chatelet Place she strolled up and down several times, read the theatre-bills, and finally took a seat on a bench. One minute before a quarter of nine, she entered the stage-office, and sat down.

A moment after, Fanferlot entered; but, as he feared that Mme. Gypsy might recognize him in spite of his heavy beard, he took a seat at the opposite end of the room, in a dark corner.

“Singular place for a conversation,” he thought, as he watched the young woman. “Who in the world could have made this appointment in a stage-office? Judging from her evident curiosity and uneasiness, I could swear she has not the faintest idea for whom she is waiting.”

Meanwhile, the office was gradually filling with people. Every minute a man would shriek out the destination of an omnibus which had just arrived, and the bewildered passengers would rush in to get tickets, and inquire when the omnibus would leave.

As each newcomer entered, Gypsy would tremble, and Fanferlot would say, “This is he!”

Finally, as the Hotel-de-Ville clock was striking nine, a man entered, and, without going to the ticket-window, walked directly up to Gypsy, bowed, and took a seat beside her.

He was a medium-sized man, rather stout, with a crimson face, and fiery-red whiskers. His dress was that of a well-to-do merchant, and there was nothing in his manner or appearance to excite attention.

Fanferlot watched him eagerly.

“Well, my friend,” he said to himself, “in future I shall recognize you, no matter where we meet; and this very evening I will find out who you are.”

Despite his intent listening, he could not hear a word spoken by the stranger or Gypsy. All he could do was to judge by their pantomime and countenances, what the subject of their conversation might be.

When the stout man bowed and spoke to her, the girl looked so surprised that it was evident she had never seen him before. When he sat down by her, and said a few words, she jumped up with a frightened look, as if seeking to escape. A single word and look made her resume her seat. Then, as the stout man went on talking, Gypsy’s attitude betrayed great apprehension. She positively refused to do something; then suddenly she seemed to consent, when he stated a good reason for her so doing. At one moment she appeared ready to weep, and the next her pretty face was illumined by a bright smile. Finally, she shook hands with him, as if she was confirming a promise.

“What can all that mean?” said Fanferlot to himself, as he sat in his dark corner, biting his nails. “What an idiot I am to have stationed myself so far off!”

He was thinking how he could manage to approach nearer without arousing their suspicions, when the fat man arose, offered his arm to Mme. Gypsy, who accepted it without hesitation, and together they walked toward the door.

They were so engrossed with each other, that Fanferlot thought he could, without risk, follow them; and it was well he did; for the crowd was dense outside, and he would soon have lost them.

Reaching the door, he saw the stout man and Gypsy cross the pavement, approach a hackney-coach, and enter it.

“Very good,” muttered Fanferlot, “I’ve got them now. There is no use of hurrying any more.”

While the coachman was gathering up his reins, Fanferlot prepared his legs; and, when the coach started, he followed in a brisk trot, determined upon following it to the end of the earth.

The cab went up the Boulevard Sebastopol. It went pretty fast; but it was not for nothing that Fanferlot had won the name of “Squirrel.” With his elbows glued to his sides, and holding his breath, he ran on.

By the time he had reached the Boulevard St. Denis, he began to get breathless, and stiff from a pain in his side. The cabman abruptly turned into the Rue Faubourg St. Martin.

But Fanferlot, who, at eight years of age, had been familiar with every street in Paris, was not to be baffled: he was a man of resources. He seized the springs of the coach, raised himself up by the strength of his wrists, and hung on behind, with his legs resting on the axle-tree of the back wheels. He was not quite comfortable, but then, he no longer ran the risk of being distanced.

“Now,” he chuckled, behind his false beard, “you may drive as fast as you please, M. Cabby.”

The man whipped up his horses, and drove furiously along the hilly street of the Faubourg St. Martin.

Finally the cab stopped in front of a wine-store, and the driver jumped down from his seat, and went in.

The detective also left his uncomfortable post, and crouching in a doorway, waited for Gypsy and her companion to get out, with the intention of following closely upon their heels.

Five minutes passed, and still there were no signs of them.

“What can they be doing all this time?” grumbled the detective.

With great precautions, he approached the cab, and peeped in.

Oh, cruel deception! it was empty!

Fanferlot felt as if someone had thrown a bucket of ice-water over him; he remained rooted to the spot with his mouth stretched, the picture of blank bewilderment.

He soon recovered his wits sufficiently to burst forth in a volley of oaths, loud enough to rattle all the window-panes in the neighborhood.

“Tricked!” he said, “fooled! Ah! but won’t I make them pay for this!”

In a moment his quick mind had run over the gamut of possibilities, probable and improbable.

“Evidently,” he muttered, “this fellow and Gypsy entered one door, and got out of the other; the trick is simple enough. If they resorted to it, ‘tis because they feared being watched. If they feared being watched, they have uneasy consciences: therefore—”

He suddenly interrupted his