CHAPTER XITORTURE
Butthis devil did not heed my curses. Perhaps she knew herself damned already, and so feared God nor man. So, seeing her squatting laughing there, my wrath choked itself out, and I stood silent, hot with hate.
“Go on, Monsieur,” she screamed. “Do not stop, I beg of you. Oh, the delight of this moment!”
I bit my lips to keep them silent. That I, Pierre le Moyne, should be here, a dupe, a gull, a puppet, a fool, a make-sport for this creature!
“It is sublime,” she gasped, “this jest! Everything has played into my hands so nicely, and at last it is to be my turn. I have waited fifteen years for my turn, Monsieur, and now it has come. I think I shall tell you. It is too good to keep to myself; and then, too, I know the secret will be as safe with you as in the tomb,” and she paused to laugh again. “Those two creatures of d’Argensonendeavored to learn something about me, I’ll wager.”
“Yes,” I said, “but they found very little.”
“Mère Fouchon knows how to cover her steps,” and the woman chuckled grimly. “The gendarmerie think themselves very acute, but there are others who are sharper. How could they suspect that Mère Fouchon, twenty years ago, was Madame Basarge, housekeeper for M. and Mme. Charles Ribaut, and their brother, that very respectable M. Jacques Ribaut, whom we both love so dearly?”
She saw my look of dazed astonishment, and smiled again, still more grimly.
“It seems you do not understand,” she continued after a moment, during which she seemed to be debating how much she should tell me. Caution warned her to be silent; but the spirit of bravado held her in its grip; a silence of many years clamored to be broken; the devil in her urged her on, not to be denied. “After all,” she said, “what harm in talking to a dead man? Listen attentively, then, Monsieur. It was sixteen years ago, while I was employed in the Ribaut household, that Madame Ribaut gave birth to a girl—that adorableNanette whom you already know. The mother died a week later, and the father soon followed her. He was a good man, and so adored his wife that he found life not worth living without her—just the opposite of most men! Ah, I remember her so well—picture to yourself, Monsieur, a woman twice as beautiful as this Nanette and with a soul like the Virgin’s—well, that would be she. I have never seen another like her—if she had lived, there might, perhaps, have been another story to tell.”
She paused for a moment, and I gazed at her astounded. Her mouth was working and her fingers clutching at the bosom of her dress—could it be, after all, that this hell-hag had a heart? But she caught my eyes and threw her emotion from her.
“But she did not live,” she said, with an ugly laugh. “I am what I am—there is no going back. Let me get on with the story. Charles Ribaut was a good man, but his brother, Jacques—well, that they could have been moulded in the same womb was a miracle—they were like black and white, like night and day, like hell and heaven. His brother was left to take care of the baby and to look after her fortune for her—for her father was rich, oh,tremendously rich. She was sent off to a convent for the good sisters to care for. The name on the sign in front of the shop in the Rue des Moulins was altered from Charles Ribaut to Jacques Ribaut. I was discharged, for it seems that he did not wish to have any one near him who had known his brother. In ten years no one remembered that such a man as Charles Ribaut had ever existed. His brother was still taking care of his fortune, and as the moment drew near when he knew he must part with it, the thought came to him, why part with it at all? Clearly, there was only one thing which could disturb his possession—that was the girl’s marriage. Her husband would, of course, demand an accounting of her affairs.”
She paused for a moment and looked at me.
“Yes,” I nodded. “I begin to see.”
“You will understand, then,” she continued, “that it was necessary for Ribaut to find for the girl a husband who would not be too curious—who would be satisfied with a dowry of twenty or thirty thousand crowns and who would ask no questions. Such a husband was found in the person of a certain M. Jean Briquet.”
I shuddered as I recalled that hideous face.
“I see you know him,” she chuckled. “He is beautiful, is he not?”
“But how do you know all this?” I asked.
She hesitated for a moment—but the temptation was too strong. And, after all, what harm in talking to a dead man?
“You have perhaps noticed, Monsieur,” she said at last, “that I do not speak the argot of the sewers, and yet for ten years I was a part of them. After leaving Ribaut, I made a mistake, a false step—no matter what. It was necessary for me to remain concealed from the police. I was no longer Mme. Basarge. I became Mère Fouchon, a consort of thieves and drabs—a receiver of stolen goods—a thing of the night. Do you fancy I relished it, Monsieur? At the end of ten years, I thought it safe to emerge from the darkness. I became concierge of the house in the Rue du Chantre, and dreamed of a day when I might regain my old place in the world. I had been in hell, but I fancied I could drag myself out.”
Again she paused, and I looked at her with something like pity in my heart. I could see what those ten years in the sewers of Paris had done for her. D’Argenson’s theory, then, had been correct.
“It was at that time I thought of applying to M. Ribaut,” she continued. “I thought perhaps he might be willing to assist me. I did not then suspect what a dog he was. But he raved at me like a madman, and threatened to denounce me to the police should I ever again appear before him. I began to suspect something. I made inquiries, but I could find out nothing. His niece, they said, was at the Sacré Cœur getting her education. Had she been home? No, no one had ever seen her. But I saw her—the scrub-woman at the convent pointed her out to me. Indeed, I did not need to have her pointed out—she was so like her mother, I thought for a moment I was looking at a ghost, and grew quite faint. But it passed, and I looked at her well and saw she was not happy. What girl could be in that gray, cold, silent place? Ugh, it makes me shiver to think of it! Even the sewers were better, for, after all, there is life in the sewers, not always and always silence! But I did not rest there. I made a friend of a concierge just across from the Ribaut house, but she could tell me nothing. Was the girl coming home? She did not know. Had she been betrothed? Well, there was a rumor that she was destined for a certain M. Briquet, a greatfriend of her uncle’s. Then in a flash I understood, Monsieur, for I had known M. Briquet, having met him during those ten years spent in the darkness,” and she laughed harshly. “His is not a pleasant character, though he has raised himself out of the abyss.”
I said nothing, fearing to interrupt this remarkable story.
“But though I knew everything,” she went on after a moment, “I could do nothing, as I had no wish to make the acquaintance of M. d’Argenson’s men. It was not until I saw you enter the court of the Epée Flamboyante with Mlle. Ribaut on your arm that I found a plan. Now, M. le Moyne, my plan is working admirably. I hold the key to the situation. In a day or two, Ribaut will come to terms. I will take my ten thousand crowns and pouf!—there will no longer be a Mère Fouchon. I will go to Marseilles, Bordeaux, Nice—anywhere away from this execrable Paris. I shall have money—I shall live well—I shall no longer fear the police or a return to the life of the Rue des Marmosets. I shall escape from hell, after all.”
“And what do you propose doing with me?” I asked.
She looked at me a moment with glittering eyes, all her venom in her face.
“Ah, you, M. le Moyne. It is most unfortunate for you that you did not remain contentedly in the Rue du Chantre instead of following the girl here. You have put your head in the trap, and in the trap you stay. Out of it, you would trouble me. You are too intimate with M. d’Argenson. So, when I am ready to leave Paris, I shall close the outer door, swing into place a certain slab of stone, and go away. That will be the end. A century from now, perhaps, workmen will find a cavern under the street. In the cavern will be a skeleton chained to the wall. They can wonder as they please, but I’ll wager they’ll not guess the story. Perhaps some one will make a very pretty romance of it. Think what an honor, Monsieur! The hero of a romance!”
Honor! Ah, well, this devil should not see I feared her. Besides, was not the lieutenant of police my friend? He would learn from the concierge whither I had gone. Doubtless he was already searching for me.
So I laughed in her face.
“You deceive yourself, Madame,” I said. “Ihave friends who know that I came here. They will turn this whole quarter upside down but they find me, and then you will be sent to ornament a gibbet at Bicetre.”
She rocked back and forth, clasping her knees and leering into my face.
“Find you?” she echoed. “Not soon, Monsieur; certainly not in time to save you, unless the earth opens. The police have been this way, and they have passed without finding a trace of you or of me. You would never have discovered me, never have found a trace of me, had I not opened the door that you might walk in. I saw my chance to be revenged—and revenge is very sweet—so I opened the trap and in you came! For you had not behaved nicely to me, Monsieur; you had looked at me in a way that any woman would resent; you had spoken words to me that were not to be forgiven. Well, you are in the trap, and you will never get out. Do you fancy I would have taken the risk of sending for that clothing had I not been certain I could laugh at the police?”
She paused for breath. Now that the gates were opened, that silence of fifteen years was being broken with a vengeance!
“Nevertheless, they will find me,” I repeated resolutely. “You do not know Monsieur d’Argenson.”
“Do I not!” and she laughed horribly, with contorted face. “For fifteen years has he been seeking me, yet he has never found me. Nor will he ever find you, for you are well hidden, Monsieur; so well that Christ may not find you at Judgment. That would be horrible—not to get your reward for sleeping on the hard floor the other night, and leaving that pretty girl to go, pucelle, to our friend, Bri——”
But she did not finish, for, mad with rage, I caught from the floor the vessel that had held the water, and dashed it full at her face. But quick as a flash, she bent aside, and the dish crashed against the wall behind her.
She sat for a moment looking at me, a queer light in her eyes.
“You love her, do you not, Monsieur?” she said quietly, at last. “Too bad your fate should bring you here, for there is no way out.”
No way out! There was a finality in her tone that chilled me. I sat down again trembling, against the wall.
“I bought the secret of this place at a price”—she paused, and her features became frightful, “at a price of body and soul,” she continued, hoarsely. “I had to have it—to save my life—I did not hesitate. Now, it is serving me once more, Monsieur. When I leave it to-morrow, for the last time, it will never again be opened.”
I felt myself gazing, fascinated, over the edge of an abyss.
“It is a very interesting place,” she went on, sneeringly. “The man of whom I—bought it—had been a scholar before he became a brute—I think it is your men of genius who fall the lowest when they fall—and he told me about it one day. He said that at one time this little island was all Paris, and that this cavern was hewn in the rock by some tyrant who ruled here then—a queer name he had—I have forgotten. Its very existence had been unknown for I know not how many centuries, until this beast I tell you of chanced upon the secret of the entrance there. A hundred men have eaten their hearts out, bound in that belt, sitting just where you are sitting.”
I shuddered at the thought. I felt that my blood was chilled, that my manhood was slipping from me.
“You will leave me here to starve, then?” I asked at last.
“No, I will be merciful, Monsieur,” she answered. “I have no wish to torture you. I am, in a way, sorry for you. Before I go I will place by your side a cup of wine. You will drink the wine, and you will fall into a pleasant sleep from which you will never awaken.”
“Oh, you fiend!” I groaned, sick at the thought. “You fiend!”
“I think you understand the situation now,” and she laughed harshly as she arose to go. “Do you suppose for a moment that I will allow the life of one man or of twenty men to stand between me and success? Do you suppose I would go back to the Rue des Marmosets—to the life that was a living hell—for anything on earth? I was so sure that you must die—that I could not with safety spare you, even if I so desired—that I have thrown into the Seine the key of the lock at your belt. That belt is there to stay, Monsieur, until it rots away.”
She picked up her lantern and took a step towards the door.
“I will tell you one thing more, Monsieur,” she added, pausing, “that you may guess what my lifehas been. The drink which I will give you is one that I have kept by me for fifteen years. I preferred that death to the wheel—yes, a thousand times. But I shall no longer have need of it, Monsieur, so I give it to you. You see that I am generous.”
She laughed again, and in a moment the door swung shut behind her and I was left alone in the darkness.