The Slaves of Paris - Émile Gaboriau (macos ebook reader .txt) 📗

is presented to M. Martin Rigal?”

“Very unlikely. Gandelu is the drawer, Rigal merely the endorser. Bills, when due, are always presented to the drawer,” returned Verminet laconically.

Evidently a trap had been laid for Gaston, but the reason was still buried in obscurity.

“Then,” remarked André, “we have but one course to pursue: we must trace those notes to the hands in which they now are, and take them up.”

“Quite right.”

“But to enable us to do so, you must first let us know the name of the party who discounted them.”

“I don’t know; I have forgotten,” answered Verminet, with a careless wave of his hand.

“Then,” returned André, in a low, deep voice of concentrated fury, “let me advise you, for your own sake, to make an immediate call upon your powers of memory.”

“Do you threaten me?”

“And if you do not succeed in remembering the name or names, the consequences may be more serious than you seem to anticipate.”

Verminet saw that the young painter was in dangerous earnest, and rose from his chair, but André was too quick for him.

“No,” said he, placing his back against the door; “you will not leave this room until you have done what I require.”

For fully ten minutes the men stood gazing at each other. Verminet was green with terror, while André’s face, though pale, was firm and determined.

“If the scoundrel makes any resistance,” said he to himself, “I will fling him out of the window.”

“The man is a perfect athlete,” thought Verminet, “and looks as if he would stick at nothing.”

Seeing that he had better give in, the managing director took up a bulky ledger, and began to turn over the leaves with trembling fingers.

André saw that he was holding it upside-down.

“There it is,” cried Verminet at last.

“Bills for five thousand francs. Gandelu and Rigal, booked for discount to Van Klopen, ladies’ tailor.”

André was silent.

Why was it that Verminet had suggested Rigal’s signature as the one he ought to imitate? And why had he handed the bills over to Van Klopen? Was it mere chance that had arranged it all? He did not believe it, but felt sure that some secret tie united them all together, Verminet, Van Klopen, Rigal, and the Marquis de Croisenois.

“Do you want anything more?” asked the manager of the Mutual Loan Society.

“Are the bills in Van Klopen’s hands?”

“I can’t say.”

“Never mind, he will have to tell me where they are, if he has not got them,” returned André.

They left the house, and as soon as they were again in the street André took his companion’s arm, and hurried him off in the direction of the Rue de Grammont.

“I don’t want to give this thief, Verminet, time to warn Van Klopen of what has taken place; I had rather fall upon him with the suddenness of an earthquake. Come, let us go to his establishment at once.”

XXIV The Vanishing Bills

Had André known a little more of the man he had to deal with, he would have learned that no one could fall like an earthquake upon Van Klopen. Shut up in the sanctum where he composed the numberless costumes that were the wonder and delight of Paris, Van Klopen made as careful arrangements to secure himself from the interview as the Turk does to guard the approaches to his seraglio; and so André and Gandelu were accosted in the entrance hall by his stately footmen, clad in gorgeous liveries, glittering with gold.

“M. van Klopen is of the utmost importance,” asserted André.

“Our master is composing.”

Entreaties, threats, and even a bribe of one hundred francs were alike useless; and André, seeing that he was about to be checkmated, was half tempted to take the men by the collar and hurl them on one side, but he calmed himself, and, already repenting of his violence at Verminet’s, he determined on a course of submission, and so meekly followed the footmen into the famous waiting-room, styled by Van Klopen his purgatory. The footmen, however, had spoken the truth, for several ladies of the highest rank and standing were awaiting the return of this arbiter elegantiarum. All of them turned as the young men entered⁠—all save one, who was gazing out of the window, drawing with her pretty fingers on the window panes. André recognized her in an instant as Madame de Bois Arden.

“Is it possible?” thought he. “Can the Countess have returned here after what has occurred?”

Gaston felt that five charming pairs of eyes were fixed upon him, and studied to assume his most graceful posture.

After a brief time given to arrangement, André grew disgusted.

“I wish that she would look round,” said he to himself. “I think she would feel rather ashamed. I will say a word to her.”

He rose from his chair, and, without thinking how terribly he might compromise the lady, he took up a position at her side. She was, however, intently watching something that was going on in the street, and did not turn her head.

“Madame,” said he.

She started, and, as she turned and recognized André, she uttered a little cry of surprise.

“Great heavens! is that you?”

“Yes, it is I.”

“And here? I dare say that my presence in this place surprises you,” she went on, “and that I have a short memory, and no feelings of pride.”

André made no reply, and his silence was a sufficient rejoinder to the question.

“You do me a great injustice,” muttered the Countess. “I am here because De Breulh told me that in your interests I ought to pardon Van Klopen, and go to him again as I used to do; so you see, M. André, that it is never safe to judge by appearance, and a woman more than anything else.”

“Will you forgive me?” asked André earnestly.

The lady interrupted him by a little wave of her hand, invisible to all save to him, which clearly said⁠—

“Take care; we are not alone.”

She once more turned her eyes towards the street, and he mechanically did the same. By this means their faces were hidden from observation.

“De Breulh,”