"When I reached home my clothes were soaking wet and my collar and necktie were gone. I had probably tom them off and thrown them away. Rose met me in the hall, and it did not strike me as being at all strange that she asked no questions. I went up to my room, took a bath and dressed in the most faultless style that my wardrobe would permit. With the pistol in my pocket I started, out again, first sending word that I would not, probably, be in my office for several days.
"All that day I haunted the cafés and clubs that I knew Lescelles frequented. I did not intend to kill him there unless he saw me. My plan was to follow him to whatever place he had taken Jacqueline, and kill them together.
"No one had seen him and I went home early in the morning, bitterly disappointed. I sat in my study most of the day planning, imagining, devising the most delightful ways in which to commit the double murder, as I did not intend to use the revolver unless it became necessary. The way that struck me as being best would be to find them asleep and waken them with one hand on the throat of each. Those throats haunted me. A dozen times that night I felt the joy of sinking my fingers into them, slowly squeezing out their lives as they stared up at me with eyes pleading for mercy.
"I was setting out again that evening when I met Rose a few steps outside my door. I think she was waiting for me—and she had the baby in her arms." His voice wavered and sank as if the rest were too terrible to tell.
"Noel," he went on at last in a strained, uncertain voice, "up to that moment I had not felt the slightest grief. I was apparently rational, but I was as insane as any man that ever lived. Fury and the lust of vengeance left no room for any other emotion. And," the voice dropped with horror until it was barely more than a hoarse whisper, "for a fraction of a moment I felt an impulse to kill the baby because it was hers!" Again he stopped, unable to go on. Noel could not repress a shudder but his hand shaded his features and he made no other sign that he had heard. Then Floriot spoke again.
"Noel! Noel!" he half-sobbed. "I thought the next moment that I was dying and—if it had only been true! For then for the first time came the realization of what I had lost. I must have staggered into my room and locked the door before I fainted, for light was coming in the window when I recovered consciousness and I was lying across my bed. With consciousness came the suffering hat has not ceased for two years!...
"I will not try to tell you what the next few days were. I lost track of time. I could not eat or drink or sleep. My revolver lay on the table and a dozen times I picked it up to blow out my brains, but the thought of the baby stopped me. I wept because I couldn't do it. She was so completely part of me that I did not see how I could live any longer.
"Finally, I made up my mind that no matter how dreary and empty my life might be, I must; live for the boy's sake, and with that resolution I locked up the revolver, burned every letter and photograph of her that I had, I held them in the fire, one by one, until the flames burned my fingers! Then I came into the world again.
"I fled to work like a man running away from something and the work brought—success! Success!"—And he ended with a grating laugh.
Then he turned his white, drawn face and feverish eyes on the still figure in the chair.
"Now," he demanded, "my friend, which of us deserves the most pity?"
A minute—two—minutes—passed but Noel gave no sign that he had heard the question. The hand that shaded the eyes prevented Floriot from finding in his face any clue to his thoughts. He turned away with a sigh that might have been weariness or disappointment or both and sank slowly into a chair.
At last Noel rose and shook himself slightly as if shaking off a hypnotic spell. His face was a little pale and his eyes had a queer look. He walked over and put his hand on his friend's arm.
"Floriot," he said, gently, "between us there need be no talk of sympathy. You know that I feel your pain almost as much as if it were mine. But I see this thing from a different angle. Even before I heard your story I understood, of course, that she was guilty of grave misconduct. But it seems to me that she has been punished enough—and she has repented!"
Floriot's only reply was an exclamation of scorn and contempt.
"Then why should she have come back?" asked Noel.
"I don't think I told you that her lover is dead," replied Floriot, bitterly. Then he straightened up determinedly: "She shall never come into this house again!"
"She's your wife!" said Noel calmly.
"I won't have her near the boy!"
"He's her boy, too! And whatever becomes of your boy's mother now, my friend, you can take the responsibility."
Floriot stared at him in astonishment and anger.
"I! Responsible! For her?" he exclaimed.
"Yes, you are responsible," was the firm reply. "Who knows what that poor woman may do now—after you have thrown her out!"
Floriot rose and burst out between anger and astonishment:
"Noel, what on earth is the matter with you? This woman has wrecked my home and ruined my life! Haven't I any rights? Wouldn't you have done what I did?"
"Your rights!" sneered his friend, with a scornful laugh. "Do you think that you have the right to sentence the mother of your boy to the life that she will have to lead now? Your own conscience must be singularly clear and your own life wonderfully blameless, my friend! Your rights! Humph! What about your duties? Did you look after your duties as faithfully as you are now looking out for your rights?
"Jacqueline was young and thoughtless—did you guide her and guard her? By your own story you threw her in the way of an attractive man so that you could shift some of your duties on to his shoulders!
"Did you study her heart? You expected her to make you happy—did you study her happiness?" he cried with bitter scorn. "Did you remember that she is far younger than you are? Did your age try to understand her youth and its needs?"
He paused. Floriot had sunk uncertainly back into his chair under the weight of this arraignment.
"You don' t answer! And because she—erred—because she has wounded your vanity by preferring—I'm not defending her!—by preferring another man to you when you did everything you could to make her do it, you throw her out and close your door against her! And you tell me you love her!"
"God knows I love her!" groaned Floriot.
Noel turned away with a short, scornful laugh.
"You loved her!" he exclaimed, contemptuously.
"Noel!"
Noel wheeled on him with flashing eyes.
"I say, it's not true!" he cried. "I tell you, you did not love her! Love is stronger than hate, for nothing can stop it! True love will trample down any obstacle to pardon, to sacrifice! And no one who has not suffered can be sure that he has loved. No, my friend," he went on more calmly, "you didn't love Jacqueline. You loved her grace and her beauty and her charm but it did not blind you to her weakness! If you had really loved her she could have done you no irreparable wrong; for, even when she made this mistake, your love would have found an excuse!"
Floriot sprang up with an angry protest.
"No, no!" he cried. "Any man in the same place would have done what I did! You would—what would you do?"
Noel hesitated a moment. "I don't know——exactly—what I should do," he replied gravely, "because I am a man with a man's limitations. But I know whatyou oughtto do!"
"I will never forgive her! I——"
"Listen to me a minute, Louis!" interrupted his friend, sternly. "Jacqueline is the mother of your son. He is her child and you have dared to separate them for life! Instead of holding out a helping hand to her, you have thrown her out of your house! You might have saved her from her future and you have given her the first push down the hill that leads—we both know where! Wait! Listen to me! You are a public servant. When you plead against a criminal you ask for a verdict and a sentence in proportion to the crime committed. Your wife loved you and gave you a son. She sinned against you and is sorry for her sin, and yet"—his voice rose with bitter passion—"and yet you have sentenced her to misery, despair and death!"
A growing fright was driving the angry gleam from Floriot's eyes as he raised his hand in protest.
"No! No! I——" he began in an altered voice.
"Yes! Yes!" broke in his friend. "What will she do? What will become of her? Have you ever thought of that? She will have a dozen lovers, will she? Who will be responsible? Have you ever thought of that?
"You have not! I can see it in your face! And I suppose you consider yourself an honorable man, a model husband, a blameless father! If you won't do your duty, Floriot, by the living God! I'll do it for you!"
Floriot started up and moved toward his friend with queer, halting steps.
"What—do—you—mean?" came from his lips in barely more than a whisper.
Noel looked squarely into his eyes.
"I mean that your wife shall find in my house the place that you refuse her! My life shall be hers—and I will ask nothing in exchange!"
Floriot halted and stiffened and for a dozen seconds the two men gazed into each other's eyes. Then Floriot spoke slowly and coldly:
"It seems to me, Noel, that you are presuming little beyond the privilege of even a friend."
"In this case I have more than the privilege—of a friend!" was the calm reply, with a note of meaning in the voice.
Floriot continued to stare at him with a mixture of wonder and resentment. Then a sudden thought made him catch his breath with a sharp hiss. His figure relaxed and he took a half-step forward.
"Noel! ... Noel!" he gasped. "Jacqueline! ... She was the woman—you loved!"
The blue eyes did not waver.
"Yes, it was Jacqueline! And," he added, bitterly, "I loved her better, if not more, than you did!..."
In the nerve-wracking night Floriot had exhausted, he thought, every emotion. This last shock numbed him. He groped his way to a chair and with both hands to his head tried to collect his wandering mind and grasp the meaning of Noel's admission.
Noel had loved Jacqueline! This was the woman for whom he had tried to kill himself! His brain reeled dizzily and he stared down at the carpet with unseeing eyes. It put his friend in a strange and almost incomprehensible light. All that he had said and done now took on a different aspect. Noel had loved her! He still loved her and defended her! All that his friend had said, all that Jacqueline had said, his talk with Madame Varenne—all swept back over him with a new meaning! Was he wrong? Should he have obeyed the impulse to forgive when she sobbed at his feet—the impulse that he strangled almost at the cost of reason?... Noel was speaking but he barely heard the words.
"I loved her for years before your marriage," he was saying. "Many and many a time I made up my mind to speak to her but—I loved her more than I could tell her! I was afraid to risk everything on a word. Again and again I went away on my long wanderings, trying to show myself that I wanted nothing more than my freedom. The farther I traveled from St. Pierre the more miserable I grew and I always came back more in love than ever."
There was no grief or pain in his voice. He was still the judge denouncing the culprit.
"Then I began to think that she was falling in love with you! I tried again to take my life in my hands and to tell her I loved, but I couldn't. I ran away again, and this time I made up my mind that I would never come back. I got as far as Messina and bought my ticket for the next east-bound P. & O. Then I deliberately missed the boat and the next one. I couldn't drag myself up the gangplank!
"The next day, without hardly knowing how it happened, I found myself in the railway station, on my way back to France. I had nearly reached her house when I heard of your betrothal!"
He paused for a moment and eyed his friend's bowed figure.
"I suppose you wonder, Louis, why I was not more completely overcome and horrified by your story of your madness. My madness carried me a little farther. I, too, sat up in my room with a revolver one night trying to decide whether I should kill you or myself or both of us!"
Floriot gave no sign that he had heard.
"The old Padre told me once when I was a boy," he went on in the same bitter tone, "there is a line somewhere in the holy writings which says, 'Greater love hath no man than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.' But his friend ought to show that he appreciates the sacrifice!" He paused again for a moment.
"If I had dreamed," he said with stem calmness, "that Jacqueline would be where she is to-night, I would have killed you, my friend, before I tried to kill myself!"
The voice ceased abruptly and Noel turned slowly away. The silence seemed to stir Floriot more than the lashing words. He raised his head wearily.
"What do you think I ought to do?"
"Do! Do!" cried Noel, wheeling, his face blazing with scorn. He walked quickly to the door and paused with his hand on the knob. "I am going to find Jacqueline! Are you coming with me?"
Floriot rose unsteadily—doubt, dread and the faint promise of returning hope in his face. He moved uncertainly over toward his friend with hand outstretched. Noel seized it in an eager, painful grip and they looked into each other's eyes with trembling lips.
Then, without a word, they passed down the hall and out of the house.
You will find in the chronicle of Matthew of Paris (and a reference to it somewhere in the Apocrypha) a legend of a Jew who refused a resting place on the bench by his door to the Friend of the World as He passed on His way to Calvary. And as He walked on He said:
"I go to My rest in My Father's house but thou shalt wander o'er the earth till I come again."
Many great writers have loved to believe the strange old tale, and it has been immortalized in prose and verse.
As the curse was launched, try to imagine that the ancient Jew felt in his heart a great dread and unrest, and he rose from the seat that he denied the Saviour and struck out across the desert.
Then—who knows?—for his further punishment the wind piled sand-dunes in his path, and as he toiled over them new ones rose, and ever in the form of the Cross. The palm trees were as crosses through the heat-haze. A hundred times he was near death from thirst and heat but he could not die.
And when he came to the mountains the torrents were crosses and the snow drifts and the crags. He turned and sought death in the frozen North and the icebergs rose in cold and shining crosses. And southward in the trackless jungles, in the creepers at his feet and the vines overhead he saw the sign of him who walked on to Calvary.
Wandering over the face of the earth in suffering of the body and misery of the soul, praying daily for the death that is denied him, he must go on and on, and always about his path the hated symbol of his curse.
Louis Floriot thought often of the queer old legend in the dark years that followed that night in the house at Passy. Some one once said that the greatest hell on earth is reserved for the man who returns to his empty house from his wife's funeral and begins to ask himself whether he was or was not responsible for her death. But there is one even more terrible than that—believing that he is in a large measure responsible for her shame. And Louis Floriot stretched himself on that bed of torture every night of his life.
When he and Noel set out on their search they fully expected to find her within forty-eight hours at the longest. They learned at the Passy station that a woman answering Jacqueline's description had taken a train for Paris a short time before they arrived! so that simplified the hunt. They roamed through the cafés of the better sort and examined the registers of the larger hotels all through the night, planning to get help in the morning.
There was one dread in the hearts of both that neither dared speak until after daylight. They had found no clue after seeing the man at the Passy station, and when they took breakfast together they were avoiding each other's eyes as they talked.
Floriot would not eat, but his friend insisted that he drink several cups of coffee and two small glasses of brandy. When he saw his eye brighten and a faint touch of color return to his pale cheeks, Noel suggested as gently as possible:
"There is one more place that we ought to visit before we do anything else, Louis."
Floriot glanced at him with questioning dread. Noel read his thoughts and nodded.
"I don't think she would do it—as long—as long—as the boy is alive, and I don't want to alarm you needlessly. But we might as well be sure," he continued.
Both had feared all night that when Jacqueline reached Paris and realized that she was alone! in the world with no place to go and no one to turn to for aid, comfort or advice, she might have thrown herself in the Seine. They were going to the morgue to see if her body had been found.
They walked through the rows of the silent figures wrapped in white sheets, and as the face of every woman was uncovered, Floriot gave a gasp and closed his eyes before he dared to look. The body they dreaded to find was not there, and they silently thanked God as they came out into the sunlight again.
Then they hastily formed a plan of campaign. Noel went out to the house in Passy to get a photograph of Jacqueline that he had in his bag. It was six years old, but it was better than none. He was to meet Floriot at the office of the Chief of the Parisian police.
The chief knew the young Deputy Attorney very well, and had a deep admiration and respect for him. He did not ask any useless or embarrassing questions when Floriot told him what he wanted. Being a good policeman he already knew much of the private life of the man, and it was easy for him to fill in the gaps in Floriot's story. Noel returned with the photograph and he promised that he would have a number of reproductions made and put his best men on the search.
Leaving the office of the police chief they made the rounds of all the hospitals without learning anything of a woman answering Jacqueline's description. Then Noel insisted that they could do nothing more that day and that they had better go out to Passy, have a good dinner and a night's rest.
All the way home, at dinner, and throughout the evening Noel talked to his friend with a buoyancy he did not feel. As the day wore on he realized what a task they had undertaken, and already he began to feel that if they succeeded in finding her it must be due more to chance than otherwise. But he had no idea of abandoning the search. In his heart he told himself that he would devote his life to it if necessary.
And Floriot? Like the Jew of the legend the spirit of unrest had already entered his soul. He made a hundred vain and impracticable suggestions in the course of the evening, each one involving useless activity on the part of himself and his friend. But the manifest futility of adopting any of his plans did not weigh with him. He wanted to be doing something. Noel finally drugged him with Burgundy and persuaded him to go to bed with many assurances that the Chief would have her or be on the trail in the morning.
"Noel, old man, I don't want to sleep!" was his last protest. "What do you think about going, as I suggested, down to——"
"Tut! Tut!" interrupted Noel, testily. "What have you employed the police for? Go to sleep, old man! It'll be all right by to-morrow night!"
And with a final hand-shake he left him.
In spite of his protest that he did not want to sleep, a mine explosion would not have stirred Floriot two minutes after he touched the bed. Exhausted Nature seized the opportunity to make up for the drains of more than two weeks, and he was still sleeping heavily when Noel came to call him shortly after noon.
"I've just come from the Chief's office," said Noel, brightly, after he had listened to and put aside Floriot's reproaches for not calling him. He did not mention that he had been to the morgue again.
"And what does he say?" demanded the other sitting up with eager anxiety. Noel avoided his eyes.
"He hasn't anything definite to report but he assures me that it is only a question of hours," he replied, cheerfully. "He has telegraphed to the frontiers and all the seaports, and unless Jacqueline has left France we have her just as surely as if she were in the next room now!"
"Left France! She can't have done that!" exclaimed Floriot.
"It's hardly possible in that length of time," agreed the other, "and for that reason I think that our friend the chief will have news for us by to-morrow night—sure!"
But there was no news "to-morrow night" nor the next night. The nights grew to weeks and the weeks to months and the months to years, and there was never a trace of the missing woman from the moment she left the Passy station.
Noel, true to the vow he had sworn the day after she left, spent his life in the search for her. He had ample funds, and Floriot was well provided for in the goods of the world. All the capitals of Europe and the larger cities he searched, aided by the police. He made friends with the demi-monde and the "submerged" of many races. The painted women of St. Petersburg and the belles of, the Tenderloin knew him equally well. But it! was all in vain. Jacqueline had disappeared.
Floriot could not abandon his work, for the sake of his boy, but he took from it all the time that he could spare. He labored now without soul and without ambition. The one thing in his life that seemed worth while was to find his wife.
He and Noel wrote to each other constantly when the latter was away—advising, suggesting, planning. All the time that he could take from the courts he employed in roaming about Europe while Noel was on the other side of the world. And like the sign of the cross to the ancient Jew, a hundred times a year he thought that in the glimpse of a profile or the sound of a woman's voice behind him, he had reached the end of his quest. And each disappointment was more bitter than the last.
Even in his home there was no escape. For as Raymond grew up it became more evident every year that his dark, passionate eyes, smooth forehead and dark curly hair were his mother's. The firmly cut jaw and mouth and straight, high-bred nose came from his father.
He was growing into a splendid young man, as clean mentally as he was physically. He was the one joy of his father's life and he tried to make up in his love what the boy missed in not having the mother that had been driven away.
He had an inherited taste for the law and at school he was a source of constant pride to his father. He was prouder when the young man—just turned twenty-four—was admitted to practice in the courts of France.
Floriot had been transferred from Paris to Dijon and from there to Bordeaux. He was appointed President of the Toulouse Court just before Raymond became a full-fledged advocate. This made it necessary for father and son to part because the son could not practise in his father's court. It was therefore decided that Raymond should remain in Bordeaux with Rose as housekeeper. She had been the nurse of the boy's babyhood, had raised him, and grown gray hair in the service. She was a fixture for life in the Floriot establishment.
About this time two men who had never even heard of any of the characters in this story-excepting M. Floriot, for whom they entertained a marked respect and hearty dislike, although he did not know of their existence—sat down one morning and wrote a letter, the effect of which was far beyond their foresight or wildest imaginings.
It was nearly twenty years after the disappearance of Jacqueline that M. Robert Henri Perissard and his very dear confrère, M. Modiste Hyacinthe Merivel, reached their office in a little street not very far from the Palace of Justice, about nine o'clock in the morning, as was their custom.
They always took a cab in going to and from their place of business for the same reason that the cab never took them to the door of their residence. And, for the same reason, their residence was in one of the worst streets of Montmartre. One maintained an address in the Rue Fribourg and the other in Rue St. Denis, but neither could ever be found there.
Their little home was beautifully furnished, but it was on the top floor of a squalid-looking building, and scarcely a soul in the world besides themselves knew that they lived there. They did not look at all like residents of the vilest quarter of Paris. In fact, their appearance was so blamelessly respectable that it would have aroused the suspicions of a clever policeman.
All this may seem strange, but in their relation to society it was quite necessary. It was their mission in life to avenge all transgressions of the laws of God and man. They ferreted out evildoing that escaped or was not punishable by the police, and heavily fined the evildoers. It was a lucrative business, but they dared not live up to anything like the full strength of their income. It would attract too much attention, and gentlemen who engage in that business always shrink from notoriety. As it is, they are frequently found in queer places decorated with bullet holes or knife wounds of great merit.
Then, besides, the natural guardians of the community—the police—are frequently brutal enough to call them "blackmailers" and send them to prison for long terms. So you can see that only gentlemen of great caution and perspicacity can ply the trade successfully.
M. Perissard, the elder of the two, had in conversation a mixture of pomposity and unction that was truly edifying.
He was about medium height with a rotund figure, bald head, bushy side-whiskers and little porcine eyes in a fat face. If you were not a close observer of men you would have taken him for a prosperous banker.
His companion, M. Merivel, was the larger and younger man. He affected an even more subdued and painfully respectable garb. He had oily black hair and heavy jowls. He was gifted with a deep heavy voice, though not so glib a tongue, but it was most impressive to hear him back up his co-worker's statements with rumbling affirmatives.
The commodities in which they dealt are not hard to come by—especially in Continental Europe. There is scarcely a wealthy family that has not some secret that it would rather the world did not know. For men with the shrewdness and insight of Messrs. Perissard and Merivel a whisper, a breath, was enough. A patient and careful system of espionage and research and a little judicious bribing of servants and, lo! The thing was done!
Lately their business had been remarkably successful and was spreading rapidly—so rapidly that they had found it necessary to take in another man to look after their interests in Lyons, where they had two or three "mostpromising affairs," as M. Merivel would have put it. And now they felt the need of a shrewd man in Bordeaux—shrewd and courageous, for they had laid out a "mission" there that was so dangerous that neither cared to handle it in person, and yet so lucrative that it could not be abandoned.
The man in Lyons had proved that he was just the genius needed there and the partners feared that they should "never look upon his like again." For weeks they had gone over the field of reckless and unscrupulous blackguards whom they knew—and knew to be at that time out of prison—but they could not fix upon one who, they were sure, had the ability and the loyalty combined.
It was in this dilemma that M. Perissard began opening the morning's mail, sighing heavily, while his associate busied himself with a collection of society papers from various capitals in the hope of unearthing a profitable hint of threatened scandal.
The first letter was from the editor of a black-mailing weekly who received commissions on all of his "tips" that developed into financial gain for the firm of "Perissard and Merivel, Confidential Missions." It contained the information that a certain Marquise had gone into a secluded part of Switzerland "for her health" and was very anxious to maintain the utmost secrecy, as it was well known that her husband had been in the Far East for more than a year.
M. Perissard put the letter carefully to one side of his desk and picked up the next, which bore a queer-looking South American stamp. He opened it and glanced over the two sheets of notepaper that it contained, and as he read his face expressed a grateful and uplifting joy.
"My dear Merivel!" he exclaimed. "Our problem is solved! The—veree—thing!"
M. Merivel ponderously folded his paper and turned a look of heavy inquiry on his associate.
"Indeed!" he rumbled.
"True! my dear friend, true!" M. Perissard assured him, joyously. "Listen!" And this is what he read:
Café Libertad, Buenos Ayres, Feb. 11th.My Revered Preceptor:You will no doubt be surprised to hear from me, and especially in this God-forsaken place, but here I am without exactly knowing how I got here. Furthermore, now that I am here and have been here for some weeks, I don't see how I am going to live much longer.South America is a great place for government officials and cattle raisers. Cattle thieves, I am told, do rather well, too, but none of these three lines of occupation is open to me. I haven't the influence for the first, the capital for the second or the inclination for the third. It isbourgeois, and it is well for us of the upper classes to keep our hands clean of vulgar theft. The more gentlemanly forms of acquiring mentionable sums are practically useless. These people of Latin America have the suspicious nature of all provincials; and, as most of them chat about their family scandals in the cafés, it is not a fruitful field for a discreet young man with a keen scent. The very wealthy are usually investing in revolutions, and I have no vocation for that form of promoting.All this, my dear teacher, is simply a prelude to the information that I want to get back to La Belle France—want to very badly. If you can find something for me to do and want me badly enough to pay my passage, I will take the first ship that sails. You can reach me at the above address, unless a certain yellow-skinned suitor of one of the ladies at the café knifes me before I hear from you. Believe me to be yours dutifully,FREDERIC LAROQUE.
Café Libertad, Buenos Ayres, Feb. 11th.
My Revered Preceptor:
You will no doubt be surprised to hear from me, and especially in this God-forsaken place, but here I am without exactly knowing how I got here. Furthermore, now that I am here and have been here for some weeks, I don't see how I am going to live much longer.
South America is a great place for government officials and cattle raisers. Cattle thieves, I am told, do rather well, too, but none of these three lines of occupation is open to me. I haven't the influence for the first, the capital for the second or the inclination for the third. It isbourgeois, and it is well for us of the upper classes to keep our hands clean of vulgar theft. The more gentlemanly forms of acquiring mentionable sums are practically useless. These people of Latin America have the suspicious nature of all provincials; and, as most of them chat about their family scandals in the cafés, it is not a fruitful field for a discreet young man with a keen scent. The very wealthy are usually investing in revolutions, and I have no vocation for that form of promoting.
All this, my dear teacher, is simply a prelude to the information that I want to get back to La Belle France—want to very badly. If you can find something for me to do and want me badly enough to pay my passage, I will take the first ship that sails. You can reach me at the above address, unless a certain yellow-skinned suitor of one of the ladies at the café knifes me before I hear from you. Believe me to be yours dutifully,
FREDERIC LAROQUE.
M. Perissard read and M. Merivel heard this flippant letter without the trace of a smile. They were serious-minded folk. "Confidential missions" have the effect of dwarfing the sense of humor, and they had been in the profession for many years.
"A-ahem!" said M. Merivel heavily. "And this Frederic Laroque—-?
"He is a young man who was a clerk in my office before we became partners, my dear Merivel," explained M. Perissard, smiling happily. "He displayed a singular aptitude for our work but——Youth! Youth!" He shook his head. "He would not stay with me as I advised. He insisted on going his own way and I lost sight of him in a short time. I am really surprised that he is not in prison, but it shows that he must have developed as I knew that he would. His hardships in the New World probably have had the needed subduing effect. And now he is an instrument made to our hand! Thoroughly loyal to his friend or employer he always was, I assure you, my dear Merivel, and without fear—without fear absolutely! Oh, it is providential! Providential!" and he raised his hands piously.
"Mostprovidential!" echoed M. Merivel in rolling thunder. Then he added: "You are certain, my dear Robert, that the young man is trustworthy? You remember that Guadin was also fearless!"
"Oh, quite so! Quite so, my dear friend!" his confrère hastened to assure him. "He is the soul of honor! He would not think of attempting anything dishonest with me!"
"In that case," came from the depths of M. Merivel's chest, "I think that we would do well to send him the money."
"Just what I was going to propose the moment I finished his letter!" declared M. Perissard.
So the letter was written and a postal order for a thousand francs enclosed. Laroque was requested to meet M. Perissard at the Hotel of the Three Crowns in Bordeaux as soon as he could get there.
Some three weeks later M. Frederic Laroque, accompanied by the lady of the Café Libertad, walked up the gangplank of the "Amazon," bound for France, while on the pier, Manuel Silvas blasphemed the Virgin because he was armed only with a knife; and Laroque had carelessly dropped his hand on his pistol pocket as he passed.
Marie, the pretty chambermaid of the Hotel of the Three Crowns, was visibly nervous one misty day in April. She could not be kept away from the front door, which opened on a dingy street a few minutes' walk from the railway station.
Not that there was any particular reason why she should not be there. The guests of the Hotel of the Three Crowns were late risers as a rule. It was too early to set about her duties, and in the meantime the proprietor would rather have had her at the front door than anywhere else, for we have mentioned the fact that she was pretty, and that made her the only attractive feature about the front of the down-at-heel little inn. Transients of the commercial traveler type were seldom known to walk past the door if they caught a glimpse of Marie.
It was for one of these gentlemen that Marie was so anxiously waiting, and her nervousness was due to the fact that her husband, Victor, the "boots" of the hotel, was roaming around in the background. He was as simple-minded and unattractive as a husband ought to be. Whenever his intellect tried to grasp anything beyond the mysteries of cleaning shoes and carrying trunks it ran into heavy opaque obstructions.
Marie might have carried on a dozen flirtation under his very chin and he would have been none the wiser. But she had never done it, because of her naturally clean morals. So now, that she was preparing to inflict on him the greatest wrong that she had in her power to commit, she felt the trepidation that always precedes the first plunge into crime.
In spite of the wrought-up condition of her mind she could not help observing curiously a queer-looking pair that alighted from a cab in front of the door. The man was a tall, rather slender but muscular man of thirty-five or past with sandy hair, a bold chin and sparkling pale gray eyes that ran over her trim figure and pretty face with undisguised pleasure. It was his dress that most attracted her attention. He wore a long, check traveling coat of rough English cloth and soft gray hat, patent-leather shoes with singularly high heels, brown and very baggy "peg-top" trousers. His open coat and overcoat disclosed a gray silk shirt and loose black tie. But the really bizarre feature of the costume was a broad red sash about the waist in place of the conventional belt or braces.
The woman, his companion, was rather flashily dressed in clothes that bore the marks of travel and long wear. She was small and might once have been pretty. She was now plainly past forty and looked all of it. Her figure still retained suggestions of a departed grace. Her hair was dark and wavy but it was cut short, and she had dark, unnaturally bright eyes. Even Marie knew enough of the world to place her at once in a calling that is older than the profession of arms. In her face, glance and walk she bore the brand that Nature places on those who "eat the bread of infamy and take the wage of shame." But what Marie did not understand was the unearthly, almost translucent, pallor of her face and the peculiar delicacy of the pouches under the eyes—the hall-marks of the drug slave.
The man dropped a large traveling bag on the sidewalk and then helped the driver of the cab unship a small and much battered trunk. The woman eyed the proceedings listlessly. Then he turned to Marie with a breezy smile.
"Well, my dear, have you a room to spare and some strong and willing young man to help me carry this trunk up to it?" he asked. On being addressed, the maid started and then smiled sweetly.
"Oh, yes, monsieur! I think there is still a vacant room. Victor! Victor!" she called, turning her head to the doorway. In a few moments her husband shambled out. He had a placid, gently inquiring expression that made his face resemble nothing so much as that of a good-natured horse.
"Just give me a lift with this trunk, my man," commanded the guest, briskly, as Victor came down the steps. The procession streamed into the house, leaving Marie still on guard at the door, much to the gentleman's regret. Victor showed the way up two flights of stairs to a rather large room under the roof. It contained one big bed, two small tables, a dressing-case and several chairs. The porter, in a slow drawl, pointed out that one of the most stylish features of the apartment was a small dressing-room that opened off it. The walls and low ceiling were kalsomined. The floor was stained with cheap paint and a few cheaper rugs were scattered about.
A step or two inside the door the man stopped, looked around and laughed.
"H'm! I've seen better!" he remarked.
"It's the only one we've got left, monsieur," drawled Victor.
"Not a palace, is it?" he went on, turning to his companion. She shrugged her shoulders slightly.
"Oh, what does it matter? This room or any other!" she replied, and the indifference of tone and words matched the weariness of her manner and the carelessness of her tawdry attire.
"Well, I don't suppose we shall be here long," said her companion.
He and Victor carried the luggage into the dressing-room.
The woman took off her hat and cloak, put the former on the dresser, threw the latter carelessly across a chair and dropped wearily into another.
"Oh, I'm tired!" she sighed.
"Has anyone inquired for M. Laroque—Frederic Laroque?" the man was asking as he came back with Victor. The porter handed him a card.
"This gentleman called about an hour ago," he replied. Laroque glanced at it.
"Perissard," he nodded, half to himself.
"He said he'd come back in about an hour," he drawled.
"All right! Show him up when he does," he ordered briskly, taking off his coat and overcoat.
"Can I get you anything, monsieur?"
"A bottle of absinthe!" was the prompt reply.
"Yes, monsieur."
"And some cigarettes."
"Yes, monsieur." And, the guest adding nothing further to the order, he shuffled out and slowly closed the door. Laroque looked again at the card that he still held in his hand.
"I wonder what that old devil is up to now!" he murmured, thoughtfully. He had been wondering ever since he received the letter and the thousand francs. The woman did not hear him; or, if she did, paid no attention.
"This is better than the ship, anyhow, isn't it?" she remarked from the depths of the big armchair. Laroque was busily emptying his pockets on to the top of the dresser. As he took out the pistol he thought of Senor Silvas and smiled.
"Yes!" he declared emphatically, "I've had enough of the sea for a long time. You ought to be glad to be back again; you were certainly anxious to see 'la belle France,' weren't you?"
"I've been away from it for twenty—twenty years!" said the woman in a low voice.
"I shouldn't wonder if you found a change or two," he suggested pleasantly, marching into the dressing-room to "wash up." She sighed wearily.
"I don't suppose I'll find any changes greater than those in myself."
"Because you have your hair cut short?" came from the dressing-room with a laugh. "People often have their hair cut short for all sorts of reasons. Typhoid fever is better than most. And I rather like your short curly hair. You look like a boy, dressed up!"
"I'm not thinking of my hair," she returned wearily. "I'm thinking of what I was twenty years ago when I left France and what I am to-day."
"If it hurts you to think of it, my girl, don't think of it!" he suggested lightly, appearing at the door with a towel in his hands.
"I suppose you are right—perhaps that is the better way," was the reply in world-weary tones.
"Of course, it is!" he assured her cheerfully. "What's done can't be undone, old girl. There are lots of women more to be pitied than you are."
"I wonder!" she murmured, with a faint bitter smile.
"To begin with," he went on, vigorously polishing his nails on his trouser legs, "you are the only woman I have loved for the last six months! That ought to count for something, oughtn't it?"
"Twenty years ago!" she repeated more to herself than to him. "I was young and pretty then."
"Oh, you look all right by gaslight now!" he assured her.
"I had a husband and child," she went on without heeding. "Now, I am alone—with nothing left!"
"And what about me, pray!" he protested with a laugh. "Don't I count for something?"
"Oh, shut up!" she snapped, pettishly. "I don't want to play the fool to-day!"
"So I see," retorted Laroque, with an ironical bow. "Madame has her nerves, has she?"
"To-day I'm sick of everything," she continued drearily. "Life disgusts me. I'd sell mine for a centime!"
"Oh, it's worth more than that! Now, buck up!" he cried, cheerfully. "I quite understand that you used to be a rich woman and now you are not, but everyone has his ups and downs. Look at me! I used to be a lawyer's clerk—old Perissard's clerk—and look at me now! Take the times as they come, old girl, and money when you can get your hands on it! That's my motto—money's the only thing that matters!"
She turned her head slowly toward him with a contemptuous look.
"Oh, I know you'd do anything for money!"
M. Laroque shrugged his shoulders.
"Better that than do nothing and get nothing for it," he replied with light philosophy, taking a chair at the opposite side of the table.
Victor entered with bottle of absinthe and the cigarettes and deposited them carefully between them. Laroque rubbed his hands together and gazed at the bottle with glistening eyes.
"Good!" he exclaimed, enthusiastically. "Now, mix up the drinks, old girl, and put some power in 'em! You want yours about as badly as I want mine!"
The woman uncorked the bottle and began preparing the absinthe while he lighted a cigarette and turned to Victor, who stood stolidly by the table.
"What's going on in Bordeaux?" he asked pleasantly. "Is there any fun?"
Victor studied the question gravely and then drawled:
"Well, it's amusing sometimes, then sometimes it isn't."
Laroque's clear laugh rang out.
"Now, we know all about it, don't we?"
Victor stared at him with the mild gaze of a surprised cow. He did not see the joke and didn't feel up to the mental effort of looking for it.
"Will you dine at the table d'hôte?" he inquired.
"What's the cooking like?" Again Victor pondered for several moments.
"Well," he drawled at last, "some people say it's good and then—some people say it isn't."
Again Laroque roared with laughter.
"Well, you are a mine of information, aren't you?" he shouted. Victor did not acknowledge the compliment.
"Dinner's at seven," he announced solemnly.
"Right!"
"If you want anything, ring once for me and twice for the chambermaid."
"Thank you, my lord!" bowed Laroque.
"Shall I take away the absinthe?" he asked, as the woman slowly put the bottle down when enough of the milky fluid had dripped slowly into, the tumblers. The other quickly put out a restraining hand.
"Nay, nay, my lord!" he replied, firmly. "Never remove a bottle until it's empty!"
"It makes no difference to me, monsieur."
"Just what I thought!" was the retort. "But it makes a good deal of difference to me!" And as Victor slowly slouched out he picked up one of the tumblers with trembling hands and took a sip.
"Great! Great!" he murmured, closing his eyes in ecstasy.
"Yes, it is good, isn't it?" And the woman took a long drink.
"It's a marvel! A marvel! There's nothing you do better than an absinthe! Light up, old girl and let's be happy!"
She lighted a cigarette, and for several minutes they smoked and sipped in silence.
"Are we going to stay here long?" she asked at last, in a tone that implied that it made no difference to her whether they did or not.
"I don't know," he replied, passing over his empty glass as she began laying the foundations of another drink. "That depends on Perissard. I must have a chat with him before I can say."
"Who is Perissard?" she inquired indifferently.
"I told you I used to be his clerk. He's a lawyer!"
"What sort of a man is he?"
"Oh, he's a clever old devil!" smiled Laroque. "He knows the Code Napoleon backwards! When I wrote to him I thought to myself, 'There's a postage stamp wasted, for Perissard has either retired from business or he's making felt shoes in prison somewhere, unless he's flirting with the dusky native ladies of New Caledonia.' But I was wrong, you see, for he's not in prison, says he's glad to hear from me and sends me a thousand francs to pay my passage. That knocked me edgewise! The old fox certainly needs me for something. He doesn't spend a thousand francs for nothing!"
"Be careful!" she warned him, but the tone was a mockery of the words.
"Don't worry!" he replied jauntily. "I'll keep my eyes open and——" a knock at the door interrupted him. "There he is now, I guess. Come in!" he called, turning his head toward the door. It was opened quickly and with brisk step, M. Perissard, closely followed by his associate in "Confidential missions," bustled in.
"My dear Laroque!" exclaimed M. Perissard, effusively holding out his hand as the adventurer advanced to meet him.
"Well! How are you, monsieur?" returned the ether, cordially shaking his hand. "By heaven! You've put on flesh, haven't you?"
M. Perissard laughed.
"Ah! I put most of that on with my clothes every morning," he explained with a wink of elephantine slyness.
"Every morning! What on earth for?" demanded Laroque, blankly.
"Thin people do not inspire confidence," declared M. Perissard, impressively, but still smiling. "Fat people do!" Then he noticed the woman in the chair and evolved an elaborate bow, seconded by M. Merivel. "Madame!"
"My life's companion—for the last six months," said Laroque, with flippant irony and an introductory wave of his hand. The partners bowed once more in unison and the woman acknowledged the introduction with a perfunctory nod, the absinthe and cigarette immediately reclaiming her attention.
"Let me present M. Merivel," said Perissard, suavely. "Formerly a schoolmaster, but now my friend and associate!"
"Delighted!" exclaimed Laroque, squeezing a limp, mushy hand, "But, sit down! Sit down!"
All three took chairs, the visitors carefully placing their silk hats on the floor beside them.
"And first let me thank you," he went on addressing himself to the older man, "to begin with——"
"For the thousand francs I sent you?"
"Yes," nodded Laroque. M. Perissard smiled.
"When I received your letter it struck me that you were not exactly rolling in money," he said with ponderous playfulness.
"I wasn't—exactly!" laughed the young man.
"So I thought it was well to send you a little on account," continued M. Perissard.
"And supposing I had put the money in my pocket and remained in South America?"
"I should have lost my thousand francs. But I wasn't afraid of that," his prospective employer assured him. "I knew you too well, Laroque. I knew you to be too—too——"
"Too honest?" grinned the adventurer.
"Too intelligent," corrected M. Perissard, "to do such a foolish thing. What are a thousand francs," with an expressive sweep of his arm, "in the position I am going to offer you!"
"As good as that, eh?" There was an eager gleam in his eyes.
"Ask M. Merivel!" said the senior partner bowing toward his friend.
M. Merivel, thus appealed to, delivered his first contribution to the chat in an unctuous bass.
"A first class position!Mostadmirable!" "Well! That sounds interesting!" and Laroque hitched his chair a little nearer.
The woman had just finished concocting a third glass of absinthe and now she rose with:
"I'll leave you to your business talk and go and unpack the trunk."
"Yes, do, my girl!" nodded her "life's companion," and she passed out with the drink and the package of cigarettes.
"Now then, to business!" said M. Perissard in slightly crisper tones when the door had closed.
"Right!"
"To begin with, I'm no longer a lawyer," declared M. Perissard.
"So I see," nodded Laroque. "According to your card you are now a Notary Public." His eyes twinkled.
Messrs. Perissard and Merivel laughed at the same moment and for precisely the same length of time. The Siamese Twins were in constant discord compared with these two.
"That's to inspire confidence," explained the senior partner.
"I see! Like this!" chuckled the adventurer sticking his finger into M. Perissard's paunch.
"Ah, yes!" rumbled M. Merivel, rolling his eyes up piously and clasping his hands, "Confidence is such a be—u—tiful thing in these days of disrespect! Alas! To-day respect is rapidly disappearing. The young have ceased to respect the old and the family solicitor no longer holds the proud position that was his. 'Where are the snows of yesteryear'?"
Laroque listened to this speech with a grin that indicated an utter absence of the virtue the decline of which struck M. Merivel as so exceedingly deplorable.
"By Jove! He talks well, doesn't he?" he exclaimed.
"Like a book!" declared M. Perissard in a hoarse but enthusiastic whisper. "But to resume," he added in his "business" voice, "I'm in business now."
"What sort of business?" inquired the adventurer.
"Business of all kinds. I refuse no business!"
"With money in it," amended M. Merivel, in a thunderous aside.
"But we deal principally in the faults, vices and weakness of our fellow men," continued the senior partner.
"Sounds like a good trade!" commented Laroque, heartily, his lips twitching, as he glanced from one to the other.
"And amostmoral one!" came unctuously from the unsounded depths of M. Merivel's chest, "For we do good with the Strong Hand, you see. Ah-utile dulci—the Latin—ahem!"
"I don't altogether get you," said the young man, crossing one knee over the other with the air of a man who has made up his mind not to understand hints. M. Perissard shifted his chair a little, cleared his throat and leaned forward with his hands on his thighs.
"You shall!" he declared, a little more of the "stagey" quality was missing in his voice. "There are very few houses without a skeleton in the closet."
"Skeletons are cheap to-day!" struck in M. Merivel's bass.
"And in the best families there are often secrets which are worth a fortune," continued M. Perissard, impressively.
Laroque's eye-brows went up.
"O, I see," he said a trifle coolly, "Blackmail!"
Four large fat hands went up simultaneously in a gesture of horror and two shocked voices burst forth as one.
"Sh—h—h! My dear young friend! What an ugly word!"
"We are humble helpers in the cause of justice!Mostugly word!"
"Find it rather dangerous, don't you?" pursued Laroque in the same tone.
"We do not!" came the reply in chorus, baritone and bass.
"Pays, does it?"
Again the four plump hands went up.
"Pay! My dear Laroque, I should think it did!" cried Perissard. "You will very soon find out for yourself how well it pays for I propose paying you—in addition to your salary—ten per cent upon the profits! You won't find it hard work and you won't find it difficult. Quickness, discretion and tact are all that are required. I know you pretty well, my dear friend. You are intelligent and energetic and I'm sure you are honest! Not too scrupulously so at all times—but—ah—you understand!"
"Scruples are out of date," groaned M. Merivel, shaking his head gloomily, "Ne quid nimis—the Latin again—ahem!"
"And you are fond of money!" went on the spokesman.
Laroque smiled and nodded.
"Well, then! You shall have the money!" declared M. Perissard. Word, look and tone were those of a true philanthropist.
"It's a tempting offer," admitted the adventurer rubbing his chin, reflectively; "but, you know, I was sometime getting out of——It has not been many years since I was in trouble and I don't want any more trouble if I can help it."
"What possible trouble can there be?" M. Perissard protested.
"Well, you know, even a lamb will bleat if you handle him roughly."
"Our little lambkins don't!" the older man as? sured him with an oily, paternal smile in which his confrère nobly seconded him. "They have a horror of all kinds of fuss and do net draw attentions to themselves if they can help it."
"The fear of a fuss is the beginning of wisdom!" rose from M. Merivel's diaphragm in oracular thunder.
"So there is nothing to be afraid of! Our head office is in Paris," resumed M. Perissard, "But I have come to Bordeaux to open a branch office of which M. Merivel will be temporary manager. In a little while, when you understand our methods thoroughly, he will go to Marseilles and leave you in charge. Then we will double your salary and increase your share of the profits to fifteen per cent!"
Laroque wavered a moment, then suddenly straightened up to his feet and held out his hand.
"It's a bargain!" he said.
When the partners had pawed over and patted their new employer like a couple of affectionate behemoths welcoming back their lost offspring, the elder suggested that they must now come to the business details of the first mission which was to be entrusted to him. Laroque resumed his seat and prepared to listen but they smiled at him in paternal reproof.
"Not here, my indiscreet friend!"
"Mostcertainly not!"
The young man gazed at them astonished.
"Why, what's the matter with this place?" he demanded.
"Never discuss an important matter in detail within ear-shot of any wall, my dear young man!"! smiled M. Perissard, shaking his head.
"Mostcertainly not!" affirmed his confrère, decidedly, "Muribus aures—ahem!—The Latin has it!"
Laroque rose and reached for his hat and coat with a smile of amusement.
"Well, where do you want to go?"
"We will seek a—ah—safe spot in the vicinity!" replied the senior partner. Laroque put his head in the dressing room and remarked chat he was going out for a little while and the three allies departed.
M. Perissard led the way to a large café and selected a table in a not too prominent location but still where there was no chance of being overheard.
He ordered a bottle of Chateau Lafitte and expensive cigars, gave the waiter more than suitable pourboire and told him they would require nothing more. They were as much alone as they would have been on a South Sea atoll.
Three glasses were raised together and a little later three clouds of smoke arose from the table. M. Perissard gazed into his glass reflectively for a moment.
"You must understand, my dear Laroque," he began, "that our business is largely with those men who, in public or private life, are a menace to the well-being of society."
The adventurer nodded with a little smile of weary cynicism. M. Merivel said something about "latrones in officio."
"Imagine the shock, the grief to my colleague and myself," continued M. Perissard, "when we learned that a very high official of this fair city of France had falsified his accounts to the extent of one million francs,at least!"
If he expected to rouse his new employé to eager enthusiasm he was not disappointed. Laroque's face expressed it.
"His name I will disclose to you in due time," said M. Perissard, in reply to an unspoken question. "You are wondering how so a large a peculation can possibly be concealed and therefore be of any value to us.
"I will not conceal from you that the man is a power in this part of the country and has many rich and influential friends. He recently threw himself on the mercy of these and appealed to them for help. As they were under obligations of more or less doubtful character they could not fail to respond.
"They have now made up more than eight hundred thousand francs, I have reason to believe, and will have no difficulty in raising the balance. But there is no occasion for haste and he is all the more useful to them while they still have this hold over him.
"Fortunately for the cause of civic and national purity—so dear to the heart of every true citizen of the Republic!—some of them were so indiscreet as to put part of the negotiations into the form of correspondence. A letter or two, quite providentially—"
"Mostprovidentially!" interjected M. Merivel.
"—Fell into our hands. We made investigations in a quiet way, as was our duty, and have secured What is almost legal proof of this astounding corruption!"
Laroque, stretched back in his chair, with his gleaming eyes half-veiled by the drooping lids nodded almost imperceptibly as M. Perissard paused. M. Merivel shook his head in heavy sadness over the fresh proof of the wickedness of man and sipped his wine.
"Now, then," resumed M. Perissard. "Since they are so willing to come forward with the full amount of his shortage they will undoubtedly be only too glad to add fifty or seventy-five thousand francs to the amount to insure the utmost secrecy. Ah—you understand, now?"
Laroque slowly heaved himself upright in his chair and rubbed his chin for a moment before replying.
"I understand, all right," he said doubtfully, "but if these friends of his can save him any time they choose, what is to prevent them from coming up with the money the moment we approach him?"
M. Perissard indulged him with another fatherly smile.
"Ah, my dear young sir, you don't quite understand as yet! If we go to the Public Prosecutor and lay our information in his hands he will have no way of knowing whether the money has been refunded without an official investigation, which will certainly ruin the gentlemen. For even if he escapes prison the fact that he is guilty of misconduct in office must be brought to light."
Laroque's face brightened.
"Ah, ha! I see!" he exclaimed, "It certainly begins to look promising!"
"Mostpromising!" rumbled M. Merivel.
Then they began to outline the details of the campaign, and it was late in the afternoon when M. Perissard suggested that there was nothing more to do.
"I need not impress upon you the necessity for the utmost tact and caution in dealing with this gentleman," he said in conclusion. "You can see that in his position he has powerful official influence and we must be careful that he does not trip us. He is shrewd, bold and unscrupulous."
"Mostunscrupulous!" affirmed M. Merivel.
"By the way," said his colleague, suddenly, "you aren't married, are you?"
"Lord! No!" laughed Laroque.
"That's all right!" said M. Perissard, approvingly.
"Women are charming creatures, but in business-s-s!" M. Merivel's hands, shoulders and eye-brows went up.
"I was afraid when I saw the lady and I meant to mention it sooner!"
"Most charming woman!" declared M. Merivel, unctuously, "Artistic! Good-looking!"
"I met her at Buenos Ayres," explained Laroque, "She hadn't a son to bless herself with and was picking up a living around a café. There's no harm in her but she's taking a lot of trash—morphine, ether, opium and that sort of stuff—to help her forget, she says. She's a married woman, you know. Wife of a man in a good position and quite a shining light at the bar, she says."
"Really!" exclaimed M. Perissard, with interest, and he exchanged a glance with his colleague.
"Yes," went on Laroque carelessly, "Deputy Attorney in Paris, I believe. She was false to him and he turned her out."
M. Merivel's upraised hands indicated that he was shocked.
"Oh dear! Oh, dear! Oh, dear!" he groaned with a sigh like the roar of a tornado, "Even the morals of our magistrates and leading lawyersarenot above suspicion these degenerate days!"
"Have some more wine!" laughed Laroque, filling his glass. But M. Perissard hardly heard either of them.
"Was this long ago?" he demanded eagerly.
"Twenty years ago," replied the young man, settling back in his chair. "She says she went to England shortly after he turned her out. Since then she has been to America, Colombia, Brazil, all over the place—sometimes rich and sometimes poor. When I met her she was dying to get back to France and didn't have a centime, so I brought her with me. Never liked to travel alone," he added with a grin.
But the master of "confidential missions" did not smile.
"Did she tell you the story herself?" he persisted.
"Yes," nodded Laroque, "one day when she'd had a little more ether than usual. It's funny sort of stuff—that! She's a silent sort of woman as a rule, but when she's been drinking ether she gets talkative, and if she doesn't become maudlin over her past, she breaks out with a hellish temper and says anything. She won't live long. About worn out—poor tramp!"
M. Perissard listened attentively.
"I have been thinking," he said slowly, when Laroque had finished, "that if her husband was a Deputy Attorney in Paris twenty years ago, he may be Attorney General now."
"Indeed, yes!" his partner nodded emphatically.
"This might lead to business," pursued the other in the same thoughtful tone.
Laroque's face betrayed that he, too, had grown suddenly keenly interested.
"How?" he demanded.
"Supposing the husband is now occupying a position worth having," suggested the older man, "He would be likely to make a sacrifice to prevent scandal about his wife from becoming public property."
M. Merivel's fat countenance expressed the most exalted admiration.
"Isn't he a wonderful man?" he breathed ecstatically. "Always getting ideas like that! A benefactor of humanity! Most certainly a benefactor!"
But his partner and Laroque did not heed.
"Do you know her husband's name?" asked the former.
"No, she never told me that."
"How old would you take her to be?"
"Past forty."
"H'm! He must have been rather young for the position if he was near her age. You are sure she never mentioned his name?"
"I would have remembered it if she had," replied Laroque.
"H'm! Well, I don't know that it matters. A Deputy Attorney in Paris whose wife left him twenty years ago ought not be difficult to find."
"Do you think so?"
"Mere child's play, my dear boy! And I think," he added, thoughtfully, "I think that, on the whole, this had better be your first piece of business. Ah! Wait!" he exclaimed with a sudden thought, "Did she ever mention that her own people were wealthy at the time of her marriage?"
Laroque scratched his head in an effort to remember.
"No, I don't think she ever did," he said at last "Why? It's the husband we'll have to see anyway? What have her people to do with it?"
"Why, don't you see," cried M. Perissard almost pityingly, "That if she is only a little past forty she must have married young and left her husband shortly afterward. The inference is that he was probably a young lawyer and without a great deal of money. He could not have married her unless she brought adot."
"Well?" demanded Laroque, not catching the ether drift.
"Well, then! If he drove her out of the house she has a good claim to that money—unless he gave it to her then or later," he added anxiously. "Do you know?"
"I don't know whether she ever had adot," replied Laroque, as the scheme dawned on him, "but if she did I'm certain that she didn't take it away with her."
"Excellent! Excellent!" exclaimed M. Perissard, pressing the palms of his hands together.
"Mostexcellent! Wonderful man!" breathed M. Merivel, with an upward glance of thanksgiving.
"Now, then," continued the former briskly, "we will stay the hand of punishment temporarily in the matter of this official scoundrel and teach this magistrate or attorney-general, or whatever he is, that he cannot turn his wife out of his house and keep her money!"