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

replied, “I am merely a friend of Prosper Bertomy. It depends entirely upon your behavior which character I appear in while settling up this little affair.”

“What do you expect me to do?”

“Restore the three hundred and fifty thousand francs which you have stolen.”

The young rascal hesitated a moment, and then said:

“The money is in this room.”

“Very good. This frankness is creditable, and will benefit you. I know that the money is in this room, and also exactly where it is to be found. Be kind enough to look behind that cupboard, and you will find the three hundred and fifty thousand francs.”

Raoul saw that his game was lost. He tremblingly went to the cupboard, and pulled out several bundles of bank-notes, and an enormous package of pawnbroker’s tickets.

“Very well done,” said M. Verduret, as he carefully examined the money and papers: “this is the most sensible step you ever took.”

Raoul relied on this moment, when everybody’s attention would be absorbed by the money, to make his escape. He slid toward the door, gently opened it, slipped out, and locked it on the outside; the key being still in the lock.

“He has escaped!” cried M. Fauvel.

“Naturally,” replied M. Verduret, without even looking up: “I thought he would have sense enough to do that.”

“But is he to go unpunished?”

“My dear sir, would you have this affair become a public scandal? Do you wish your wife’s name to be brought into a case of this nature before the police-court?”

“Oh, monsieur!”

“Then the best thing you can do, is to let the rascal go scot free. Here are receipts for all the articles which he has pawned, so that we should consider ourselves fortunate. He has kept fifty thousand francs, but that is all the better for you. This sum will enable him to leave France, and we shall never see him again.”

Like everyone else, M. Fauvel yielded to the ascendancy of M. Verduret.

Gradually he had awakened to the true state of affairs; prospective happiness no longer seemed impossible, and he felt that he was indebted to the man before him for more than life. But for M. Verduret, where would have been his honor and domestic peace?

With earnest gratitude he seized M. Verduret’s hand as if to carry it to his lips, and said, in broken tones:

“Oh, monsieur! how can I ever find words to express how deeply I appreciate your kindness? How can I ever repay the great service you have rendered me?”

M. Verduret reflected a moment, and then said:

“If you feel under any significant obligations to me, monsieur, you have it in your power to return them. I have a favor to ask of you.”

“A favor? you ask of me? Speak, monsieur, you have but to name it. My fortune and life are at your disposal.”

“I will not hesitate, then, to explain myself. I am Prosper’s friend, and deeply interested in his future. You can exonerate him from this infamous charge of robbery; you can restore him to his honorable position. You can do more than this, monsieur. He loves Mlle. Madeleine.”

“Madeleine shall be his wife, monsieur,” interrupted the banker: “I give you my word of honor. And I will so publicly exonerate him, that not a shadow of suspicion will rest upon his name. I will place him in a position which will prevent slander from reproaching him with the painful remembrance of my fatal error.”

The fat man quietly took up his hat and cane, as if he had been paying an ordinary morning call, and turned to leave the room, after saying, “Good-morning.” But, seeing the weeping woman raise her clasped hands appealingly toward him, he said hesitatingly:

“Monsieur, excuse my intruding any advice; but Mme. Fauvel—”

“Andre!” murmured the wretched wife, “Andre!”

The banker hesitated a moment; then, following the impulse of his heart, ran to his wife, and, clasping her in his arms, said tenderly:

“No, I will not be foolish enough to struggle against my deep-rooted love. I do not pardon, Valentine: I forget; I forget all!”

M. Verduret had nothing more to do at Vesinet.

Without taking leave of the banker, he quietly left the room, and, jumping into his cab, ordered the driver to return to Paris, and drive to the Hotel du Louvre as rapidly as possible.

His mind was filled with anxiety about Clameran. He knew that Raoul would give him no more trouble; the young rogue was probably taking his passage for some foreign land at that very moment. But Clameran should not escape unpunished; and how this punishment could be brought about without compromising Mme. Fauvel, was the problem to be solved.

M. Verduret thought over the various cases similar to this, but not one of his former expedients could be applied to the present circumstances. He could not deliver the villain over to justice without involving Mme. Fauvel.

After long thought, he decided that an accusation of poisoning must come from Oloron. He would go there and work upon “public opinion,” so that, to satisfy the townspeople, the authorities would order a post-mortem examination of Gaston. But this mode of proceeding required time; and Clameran would certainly escape before another day passed over his head. He was too experienced a knave to remain on slippery ground, now that his eyes were open to the danger which menaced him. It was almost dark when the carriage stopped in front of the Hotel du Louvre; M. Verduret noticed a crowd of people collected together in groups, eagerly discussing some exciting event which seemed to have just taken place. Although the policeman attempted to disperse the crowd by authoritatively ordering them to “Move on! Move on!” they would merely separate in one spot to join a more clamorous group a few yards off.

“What has happened?” demanded M. Verduret of a lounger near by.

“The strangest thing you ever heard of,” replied the man; “yes, I saw him with my own eyes. He first appeared at that seventh-story window; he was only half-dressed. Some men tried to seize him; but, bast! with the agility of a squirrel, he jumped out upon the roof, shrieking, ‘Murder! murder!’ The recklessness of his conduct led me to suppose—”

The gossip stopped short in his narrative, very much surprised and vexed; his questioner had vanished.

“If it should be Clameran!” thought M. Verduret; “if terror has deranged that brain, so capable of working out great crimes! Fate must have interposed–-”

While thus talking to himself, he elbowed his way through the crowded court-yard of the hotel.

At the foot of the staircase he found M. Fanferlot and three peculiar-looking individuals standing together, as if waiting for someone.

“Well,” cried M. Verduret, “what is the matter?”

With laudable emulation, the four men rushed forward to report to their superior officer.

“Patron,” they all began at once.

“Silence!” said the fat man with an oath; “one at a time. Quick! what is the matter?”

“The matter is this, patron,” said Fanferlot dejectedly. “I am doomed to ill luck. You see how it is; this is the only chance I ever had of working out a beautiful case, and, paf! my criminal must go and fizzle! A regular case of bankruptcy!”

“Then it is Clameran who—”

“Of course it is. When the rascal saw me this morning, he scampered off like a hare. You should have seen him run; I thought he would never stop this side of Ivry: but not at all. On reaching the Boulevard des Ecoles, a sudden idea seemed to strike him, and he made a bee-line for his hotel; I suppose, to get his pile of money. Directly he gets here, what does he see? these three friends of mine. The sight of these gentlemen had the effect of a sunstroke upon him; he went raving mad on the spot. The idea of serving me such a low trick at the very moment I was sure of success!”

“Where is he now?”

“At the prefecture, I suppose. Some policemen handcuffed him, and drove off with him in a cab.”

“Come with me.”

M. Verduret and Fanferlot found Clameran in one of the private cells reserved for dangerous prisoners.

He had on a strait-jacket, and was struggling violently against three men, who were striving to hold him, while a physician tried to force him to swallow a potion.

“Help!” he shrieked; “help, for God’s sake! Do you not see my brother coming after me? Look! he wants to poison me!”

M. Verduret took the physician aside, and questioned him about the maniac.

“The wretched man is in a hopeless state,” replied the doctor; “this species of insanity is incurable. He thinks someone is trying to poison him, and nothing will persuade him to eat or drink anything; and, as it is impossible to force anything down his throat, he will die of starvation, after having suffered all the tortures of poison.”

M. Verduret, with a shudder, turned to leave the prefecture, saying to Fanferlot:

“Mme. Fauvel is saved, and by the interposition of God, who has himself punished Clameran!”

“That don’t help me in the least,” grumbled Fanferlot. “The idea of all my trouble and labor ending in this flat, quiet way! I seem to be born for ill-luck!”

“Don’t take your blighted hopes of glory so much to heart,” replied M. Verduret. “It is a melancholy fact for you that File No. 113 will never leave the record-office; but you must bear your disappointment gracefully and heroically. I will console you by sending you as bearer of despatches to a friend of mine, and what you have lost in fame will be gained in gold.”

XXV

Four days had passed since the events just narrated, when one morning M. Lecoq—the official Lecoq, who resembled the dignified head of a bureau—was walking up and down his private office, at each turn nervously looking at the clock, which slowly ticked on the mantel, as if it had no intention of striking any sooner than usual, to gratify the man so anxiously watching its placid face.

At last, however, the clock did strike; and just then the faithful Janouille opened the door, and ushered in Mme. Nina and Prosper Bertomy.

“Ah,” said M. Lecoq, “you are punctual; lovers are generally so.”

“We are not lovers, monsieur,” replied Mme. Gypsy. “M. Verduret gave us express orders to meet here in your office this morning, and we have obeyed.”

“Very good,” said the celebrated detective: “then be kind enough to wait a few minutes; I will tell him you are here.”

During the quarter of an hour that Nina and Prosper remained alone together, they did not exchange a word. Finally a door opened, and M. Verduret appeared.

Nina and Prosper eagerly started toward him; but he checked them by one of those peculiar looks which no one ever dared resist.

“You have come,” he said severely, “to hear the secret of my conduct. I have promised, and will keep my word, however painful it may be to my feelings. Listen, then. My best friend is a loyal, honest man, named Caldas. Eighteen months ago this friend was the happiest of men. Infatuated by a woman, he lived for her alone, and, fool that he was, imagined that she felt the same love for him.”

“She did!” cried Gypsy, “yes, she always loved him.”

“She showed her love in a peculiar way. She loved him so much, that one fine day she left him, and ran off with another man. In his first moments of despair, Caldas wished to kill himself. Then he reflected that it would be wiser to live, and avenge himself.”

“And then,” faltered Prosper.

“Then Caldas avenged himself in his own way. He made the woman who deserted him recognize his immense superiority over