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

the woman he loved, and now you would deprive him of his honor! I will have nothing to do with so base a crime.”

She spoke so loud and angrily that Raoul was alarmed. He knew that the errand-boy slept in a room close by, and might be in bed listening to her, although it was early in the evening.

“Come upstairs!” he said, seizing Mme. Fauvel’s arm.

But she clung to a table and refused to move a step.

“I have been cowardly enough to sacrifice Madeleine,” she said, “but I will not ruin Prosper.”

Raoul had an argument in reserve which he knew would make Mme. Fauvel submit to his will.

“Now, really,” he said with a cynical laugh, “do you pretend that you do not know Prosper and I arranged this little affair together, and that he is to have half the booty?”

“Impossible! I never will believe such a thing of Prosper!”

“Why, how do you suppose I discovered the secret word? Who do you suppose disobeyed orders, and left the money in the safe?”

“Prosper is honest.”

“Of course he is, and so am I too. The only thing is, that we both need money.”

“You are telling a falsehood, Raoul!”

“Upon my soul, I am not. Madeleine rejected Prosper, and the poor fellow has to console himself for her cruelty; and these sorts of consolations are expensive, my good mother.”

He took up the candle, and gently but firmly led Mme. Fauvel toward the staircase.

She mechanically suffered herself to be led along, more bewildered by what she had just heard than she was at the opening of the safe-door.

“What!” she gasped, “can Prosper be a thief?”

She began to think herself the victim of a terrible nightmare, and that, when she waked, her mind would be relieved of this intolerable torture. She helplessly clung to Raoul’s arm as he helped her up the narrow little staircase.

“You must put the key back in the secretary,” said Raoul, as soon as they were in the chamber again.

But she did not seem to hear him; so he went and replaced the safe-key in the place from which he had seen her take it.

He then led, or rather carried, Mme. Fauvel into the little sitting-room, and placed her in an easy-chair.

The set, expressionless look of the wretched woman’s eyes, and her dazed manner, frightened Raoul, who thought that she had lost her mind, that her reason had finally given way beneath this last terrible shock.

“Come, cheer up, my dear mother,” he said in coaxing tones as he rubbed her icy hands; “you have saved my life, and rendered an immense service to Prosper. Don’t be alarmed; everything will come out right in the end. Prosper will be accused, perhaps arrested; he expects that, and is prepared for it; he will deny his culpability; and, as there is no proof against him, he will be set at liberty immediately.”

But these falsehoods were wasted on Mme. Fauvel, who was incapable of understanding anything said to her.

“Raoul,” she moaned in a broken-hearted tone, “Raoul, my son, you have killed me.”

Her gentle voice, kind even in its despairing accents, touched the very bottom of Raoul’s perverted heart, and once more his soul was wrung by remorse; so that he felt inclined to put back the stolen money, and comfort the despairing woman whose life and reason he was destroying. The thought of Clameran restrained him.

Finding his efforts to restore Mme. Fauvel fruitless, that, in spite of all his affectionate regrets and promises, she still sat silent, motionless, and death-like; and fearing that M. Fauvel or Madeleine might enter at any moment, and demand an explanation, he hastily pressed a kiss upon his mother’s brow, and hurried from the house.

At the restaurant, in the room where they had dined, Clameran, tortured by anxiety, awaited his accomplice.

He wondered if at the last moment, when he was not near to sustain him, Raoul would prove a coward, and retreat; if any unforeseen trifle had prevented his finding the key; if any visitors were there; and, if so, would they depart before M. Fauvel’s return from the dinner-party?

He had worked himself into such a state of excitement, that, when Raoul returned, he flew to him with ashy face and trembling all over, and could scarcely gasp out:

“Well?”

“The deed is done, uncle, thanks to you; and I am now the most miserable, abject villain on the face of the earth.”

He unbuttoned his vest, and, pulling out the four bundles of bank-notes, angrily dashed them upon the table, saying, in a tone of scorn and disgust:

“Now I hope you are satisfied. This is the price of the happiness, honor, and perhaps the life of three people.”

Clameran paid no attention to these angry words. With feverish eagerness he seized the notes, and rattled them in his hand as if to convince himself of the reality of success.

“Now Madeleine is mine!” he cried excitedly.

Raoul looked at Clameran in silent disgust. This exhibition of joy was a shocking contrast to the scene in which he had just been an actor. He was humiliated at being the tool of such a heartless scoundrel as he now knew Clameran to be.

Louis misinterpreted this silence, and said gayly:

“Did you have much difficulty?”

“I forbid you ever to allude to this evening’s work,” cried Raoul fiercely. “Do you hear me? I wish to forget it.”

Clameran shrugged his shoulders at this outburst of anger, and said in a bantering tone:

“Just as you please, my handsome nephew: I rather think you will want to remember it though, when I offer you these three hundred and fifty thousand francs. You will not, I am sure, refuse to accept them as a slight souvenir. Take them: they are yours.”

This generosity seemed neither to surprise nor satisfy Raoul.

“According to our agreement,” he said sullenly, “I was to have more than this.”

“Of course: this is only part of your share.”

“And when am I to have the rest, if you please?”

“The day I marry Madeleine, and not before, my boy. You are too valuable an assistant to lose at present; and you know that, though I don’t mistrust you, I am not altogether sure of your sincere affection for me.”

Raoul reflected that to commit a crime, and not profit by it, would be the height of absurdity. He had come with the intention of breaking off all connection with Clameran; but he now determined that he would not abandon his accomplice until he had been well paid for his services.

“Very well,” he said, “I accept this on account; but remember, I will never do another piece of work like this to-night. You can do what you please; I shall flatly refuse.”

Clameran burst into a loud laugh, and said:

“That is sensible: now that you are rich, you can afford to be honest. Set your conscience at rest, for I promise you I will require nothing more of you save a few trifling services. You can retire behind the scenes now, while I appear upon the stage; my role begins.”

XXI

For more than an hour after Raoul’s departure, Mme. Fauvel remained in a state of stupor bordering upon unconsciousness.

Gradually, however, she recovered her senses sufficiently to comprehend the horrors of her present situation; and, with the faculty of thought, that of suffering returned.

The dreadful scene in which she had taken part was still before her affrighted vision; all the attending circumstances, unnoticed at the time, now struck her forcibly.

She saw that she had been the dupe of a shameful conspiracy: that Raoul had tortured her with cold-blooded cruelty, had taken advantage of her tenderness, and had speculated upon her fright.

But had Prosper anything to do with the robbery? This Mme. Fauvel had no way of finding out. Ah, Raoul knew how the blow would strike when he accused Prosper. He knew that Mme. Fauvel would end by believing in the cashier’s complicity.

The unhappy woman sat and thought over every possible way in which Raoul could find out the secret word without Prosper’s knowledge. She rejected with horror the idea that the cashier was the instigator of the crime; but, in spite of herself, it constantly recurred. And finally she felt convinced that what Raoul said must be true; for who but Prosper could have betrayed the word? And who but Prosper could have left so large an amount of money in the safe, which, by order of the banker, was to be always left empty at night?

Knowing that Prosper was leading a life of extravagance and dissipation, she thought it very likely that he had, from sheer desperation, resorted to this bold step to pay his debts; her blind affection, moreover, made her anxious to attribute the crime to anyone, rather than to her darling son.

She had heard that Prosper was supporting one of those worthless creatures whose extravagance impoverishes men, and whose evil influence perverts their natures. When a young man is thus degraded, will he stop at any sin or crime? Alas! Mme. Fauvel knew, from her own sad experience, to what depths even one fault can lead. Although she believed Prosper guilty, she did not blame him, but considered herself responsible for his sins.

Had she not herself banished the poor young man from the fireside which he had begun to regard as his own? Had she not destroyed his hopes of happiness, by crushing his pure love for a noble girl, whom he looked upon as his future wife, and thus driven him into a life of dissipation and sin?

She was undecided whether to confide in Madeleine, or bury the secret in her own breast.

Fatally inspired, she decided to keep silent.

When Madeleine returned home at eleven o’clock, Mme. Fauvel not only was silent as to what had occurred, but even succeeded in so concealing all traces of her agitation, that she escaped any questions from her niece.

Her calmness never left her when M. Fauvel and Lucien returned, although she was in terror lest her husband should go down to the cash-room to see that everything was safely locked up. It was not his habit to open the money-safe at night, but he sometimes did.

As fate would have it, the banker, as soon as he entered the room, began to speak of Prosper, saying how distressing it was that so interesting a young man should be thus throwing himself away, and wondering what could have happened to make him suddenly cease his visits at the house, and resort to bad company.

If M. Fauvel had looked at the faces of his wife and niece while he harshly blamed the cashier, he would have been puzzled at their strange expressions.

All night long Mme. Fauvel suffered the most intolerable agony. She counted each stroke of the town-clock, as the hours dragged on.

“In six hours,” she said to herself, “in five hours—in four hours—in three hours—in one hour—all will be discovered; and then what will happen? Heaven help me!”

At sunrise she heard the servants moving about the house. Then the office-shutters opened; then, later, she heard the clerks going into the bank.

She attempted to get up, but felt so ill and weak that she sank back on her pillow; and lying there, trembling like a leaf, bathed in cold perspiration, she awaited the discovery of the robbery.

She was leaning over the side of the bed, straining her ear to catch a sound from the cash-room, when Madeleine, who had just left her, rushed into the room.

The white face and wild eyes of the poor girl told Mme. Fauvel that the crime was discovered.

“Do you know what