Listening intently to the conversation of these two men, it was mechanically and at random that M. de Tregars and Maxence threw their cards on the table, and uttered the common terms of the game of piquet,
“Five cards! Tierce, major! Three aces.”
Meantime the old man was going on,
“Who knows but what M. Vincent may come back?”
“No danger of that!”
“Why?”
The other looked carefully around, and, seeing only two players absorbed in their game,
“Because,” he replied, “M. Vincent is completely ruined, it seems. He spent all his money, and a good deal of other people’s money besides. Amanda, the chambermaid, told me; and I guess she knows.”
“You thought he was so rich!”
“He was. But no matter how big a bag is: if you keep taking out of it, you must get to the bottom.”
“Then he spent a great deal?”
“It’s incredible! I have been in extravagant houses; but nowhere have I ever seen money fly as it has during the five months that I have been in that house. A regular pillage! Everybody helped themselves; and what was not in the house, they could get from the tradespeople, have it charged on the bill; and it was all paid without a word.”
“Then, yes, indeed, the money must have gone pretty lively,” said the old one in a convinced tone.
“Well,” replied the other, “that was nothing yet. Amanda the chambermaid who has been in the house fifteen years, told us some stories that would make you jump. She was not much for spending, Zelie; but some of the others, it seems . . .”
It required the greatest effort on the part of Maxence and M. de Tregars not to play, but only to pretend to play, and to continue to count imaginary points,—“One, two, three, four.”
Fortunately the coachman with the red nose seemed much interested.
“What others?” he asked.
“That I don’t know any thing about,” replied the younger valet. “But you may imagine that there must have been more than one in that little house during the many years that M. Vincent owned it,—a man who hadn’t his equal for women, and who was worth millions.”
“And what was his business?”
“Don’t know that, either.”
“What! there were ten of you in the house, and you didn’t know the profession of the man who paid you all?”
“We were all new.”
“The chambermaid, Amanda, must have known.”
“When she was asked, she said that he was a merchant. One thing is sure, he was a queer old chap.”
So interested was the old coachman, that, seeing the punch-bowl empty, he called for another. His comrade could not fail to show his appreciation of such politeness.
“Ah, yes!” he went on, “old Vincent was an eccentric fellow; and never, to see him, could you have suspected that he cut up such capers, and that he threw money away by the handful.”
“Indeed!”
“Imagine a man about fifty years old, stiff as a post, with a face about as pleasant as a prison-gate. That’s the boss! Summer and winter, he wore laced shoes, blue stockings, gray pantaloons that were too short, a cotton necktie, and a frock-coat that came down to his ankles. In the street, you would have taken him for a hosier who had retired before his fortune was made.”
“You don’t say so!”
“No, never have I seen a man look so much like an old miser. You think, perhaps, that he came in a carriage. Not a bit of it! He came in the omnibus, my boy, and outside too, for three sous; and when it rained he opened his umbrella. But the moment he had crossed the threshold of the house, presto, pass! complete change of scene. The miser became pacha. He took off his old duds, put on a blue velvet robe; and then there was nothing handsome enough, nothing good enough, nothing expensive enough for him. And, when he had acted the my lord to his heart’s content, he put on his old traps again, resumed his prison-gate face, climbed up on top of the omnibus, and went off as he came.”
“And you were not surprised, all of you, at such a life?”
“Very much so.”
“And you did not think that these singular whims must conceal something?”
“Oh, but we did!”
“And you didn’t try to find out what that something was?”
“How could we?”
“Was it very difficult to follow your boss, and ascertain where he went, after leaving the house?”
“Certainly not; but what then?”
“Why,” he replied, “you would have found out his secret in the end; and then you would have gone to him and told him, ‘Give me so much, or I peach.’”
This story of M. Vincent, as told by these two honest companions, was something like the vulgar legend of other people’s money, so eagerly craved, and so madly dissipated. Easily-gotten wealth is easily gotten rid of. Stolen money has fatal tendencies, and turns irresistibly to gambling, horse-jockeys, fast women, all the ruinous fancies, all the unwholesome gratifications.
They are rare indeed, among the daring cut-throats of speculation, those to whom their ill-gotten gain proves of real service,—so rare, that they are pointed out, and are as easily numbered as the girls who leap some night from the street to a ten-thousand-franc apartment, and manage to remain there.
Seized with the intoxication of sudden wealth, they lose all measure and all prudence. Whether they believe their luck inexhaustible, or fear a sudden turn of fortune, they make haste to enjoy themselves, and they fill the noted restaurants, the leading Cafés, the theatres, the clubs, the race-courses, with their impudent personality, the clash of their voice, the extravagance of their mistresses, the noise of their expenses, and the absurdity of their vanity. And they go on and on, lavishing other people’s money, until the fatal hour of one of those disastrous liquidations which terrify the courts and the exchange, and cause pallid faces and a gnashing of teeth in the “street,” until the moment when they have the choice between a pistol-shot, which they never choose, the criminal court, which they do their best to avoid, and a trip abroad.
What becomes of them afterwards? To what gutters do they tumble from fall to fall? Does any one know what becomes of the women who disappear suddenly after two or three years of follies and of splendors?
But it happens sometimes, as you step out of a carriage in front of some theatre, that you wonder where you have already seen the face of the wretched beggar who opens the door for you, and in a husky voice claims his two sous. You saw him at the Café Riche, during the six months that he was a big financier.
Some other time you may catch, in the crowd, snatches of a strange conversation between two crapulous rascals.
“It was at the time,” says one, “when I drove that bright chestnut team that I had bought for twenty thousand francs of the eldest son of the Duke de Sermeuse.”
“I remember,” replies the other; “for at that moment I gave six thousand francs a month to little Cabriole of the Varieties.”
And, improbable as this may seem, it is the exact truth; for one was manager of a manufacturing enterprise that sank ten millions; and the other was at the head of a financial operation that ruined five hundred families. They had houses like the one in the Rue du Cirque, mistresses more expensive than Mme. Zelie Cadelle, and servants like those who were now talking within a step of Maxence and Marius de Tregars. The latter had resumed their conversation; and the oldest one, the coachman with the red nose, was saying to his younger comrade,
“This Vincent affair must be a lesson to you. If ever you find yourself again in a house where so much money is spent, remember that it hasn’t cost much trouble to make it, and manage somehow to get as big a share of it as you can.”
“That’s what I’ve always done wherever I have been.”
“And, above all, make haste to fill your bag, because, you see, in houses like that, one is never sure, one day, whether, the next, the gentleman will not be at Mazas, and the lady at St. Lazares.”
They had done their second bowl of punch, and finished their conversation. They paid, and left.
And Maxence and M. de Tregars were able, at last, to throw down their cards.
Maxence was very pale; and big tears were rolling down his cheeks.
“What disgrace!” he murmured: “This, then, is the other side of my father’s existence! This is the way in which he spent the millions which he stole; whilst, in the Rue St. Gilles, he deprived his family of the necessaries of life!”
And, in a tone of utter discouragement,
“Now it is indeed all over, and it is useless to continue our search. My father is certainly guilty.”
But M. de Tregars was not the man thus to give up the game.
“Guilty? Yes,” he said, “but dupe also.”
“Whose dupe?”
“That’s what we’ll find out, you may depend upon it.”
“What! after what we have just heard?”
“I have more hope than ever.”
“Did you learn any thing from Mme. Zelie Cadelle, then?”
“Nothing more than you know by those two rascals’ conversation.”
A dozen questions were pressing upon Maxence’s lips; but M. de Tregars interrupted him.
“In this case, my friend, less than ever must we trust appearances. Let me speak. Was your father a simpleton? No! His ability to dissimulate, for years, his double existence, proves, on the contrary, a wonderful amount of duplicity. How is it, then, that latterly his conduct has been so extraordinary and so absurd? But you will doubtless say it was always such. In that case, I answer you, No; for then his secret could not have been kept for a year. We hear that other women lived in that house before Mme. Zelie Cadelle. But who were they? What has become of them? Is there any certainty that they have ever existed? Nothing proves it.
“The servants having been all changed, Amanda, the chambermaid, is the only one who knows the truth; and she will be very careful to say nothing about it. Therefore, all our positive information goes back no farther than five months. And what do we hear? That your father seemed to try and make his extravagant expenditures as conspicuous as possible. That he did not even take the trouble to conceal the source of the money he spent so profusely; for he told Mme. Zelie that he was at the end of his tether, and that, after having spent his own fortune, he was spending other people’s money. He had announced his intended departure; he had sold the house, and received its price. Finally, at the last moment, what does he do?
“Instead of going off quietly and secretly, like a man who is running away, and who knows that he is pursued, he tells every one where he intends to go; he writes it on all his trunks, in letters half a foot high; and then rides in great display to the railway station, with a woman, several carriages, servants, etc. What is the object of all this? To get caught? No, but to start a false scent. Therefore, in his mind, every thing must have been arranged in advance, and the catastrophe was far from taking him by surprise; therefore the scene with M. de Thaller must have been prepared; therefore, it must have been on purpose that he left his pocketbook behind, with the bill in it that was to lead us straight here; therefore all we have seen is but a transparent comedy, got up for our special benefit, and intended to cover up the truth, and mislead the law.”
But Maxence was not entirely convinced.
“Still,” he remarked, “those enormous expenses.”
M. de Tregars shrugged his shoulders.
“Have you any idea,” he said, “what display can be made with a million? Let us admit that your father spent two, four millions even. The loss of the Mutual Credit is twelve millions. What has become of the other eight?”
And, as Maxence made no answer,
“It is those eight millions,” he added, “that I want, and that I shall have. It is in Paris that your father is hid, I feel certain. We must find him; and we must make him tell the truth, which I already more than suspect.”
Whereupon, throwing on the table the pint of beer which he had not drunk, he walked out of the Café with Maxence.
“Here you are at last!” exclaimed the coachman, who had been waiting at the corner for over three hours, a prey to the utmost anxiety.
But M. de Tregars had no time for explanations; and, pushing Maxence into the cab, he jumped in after him, crying to the coachman,
“24 Rue Joquelet. Five francs extra for yourself.” A driver who expects an extra five francs, always has, for five minutes at least, a horse as fast as Gladiateur.
Whilst the cab was speeding on to its destination,
“What is most important for us now,” said M. de Tregars to Maxence, “is to ascertain how far the Mutual Credit crisis has progressed; and M. Latterman of the Rue Joquelet is the man in all Paris who can best inform us.”
Whoever has made or lost five hundred francs at the bourse knows M. Latterman, who, since the war, calls himself an Alsatian and curses with a fearful accent those “parparous Broossians.” This worthy speculator modestly calls himself a money-changer; but he would be a simpleton who should ask him for change: and it is certainly not that sort of business which gives him the three hundred thousand francs’ profits which he pockets every year.
When a company has failed, when it has been wound up, and the defrauded stockholders have received two or three per cent in all on their original investment, there is a prevailing idea that the certificates of its stocks are no longer good for any thing, except to light the fire. That’s a mistake. Long after the company has foundered, its shares float, like the shattered debris which the sea casts upon the beach months after the ship has been wrecked. These shares M. Latterman collects, and carefully stores away; and upon the shelves of his office you may see numberless shares and bonds of those numerous companies which have absorbed, in the past twenty years, according to some statistics, twelve hundred millions, and, according to others, two thousand millions, of the public fortune.
Say but a word, and his clerks will offer you some “Franco-American Company,” some “Steam Navigation Company of Marseilles,” some “Coal and Metal Company of the Asturias,” some “Transcontinental Memphis and El Paso” (of the United States), some “Caumart Slate Works,” and hundreds of others, which, for the general public, have no value, save that of old paper, that is from three to five cents a pound. And yet speculators are found who buy and sell these rags.
In an obscure corner of the bourse may be seen a miscellaneous population of old men with pointed beards, and overdressed young men, who deal in every thing salable, and other things besides. There are found foreign merchants, who will offer you stocks of merchandise, goods from auction, good claims to recover, and who at last will take out of their pockets an opera-glass, a Geneva watch (smuggled in), a revolver, or a bottle of patent hair-restorer.
Such is the market to which drift those shares which were once issued to represent millions, and which now represent nothing but a palpable proof of the audacity of swindlers, and the credulity of their dupes. And there are actually buyers for these shares, and they go up or down, according to the ordinary laws of supply and demand; for there is a demand for them, and here comes in the usefulness of M. Latterman’s business.
Does a tradesman, on the eve of declaring himself bankrupt, wish to defraud his creditors of a part of his assets, to conceal excessive expenses, or cover up some embezzlement, at once he goes to the Rue Joquelet, procures a select assortment of “Cantonal Credit,” “Rossdorif Mines,” or “Maumusson Salt Works,” and puts them carefully away in his safe.
And, when the receiver arrives,
“There are my assets,” he says. “I have there some twenty, fifty, or a hundred thousand francs of stocks, the whole of which is not worth five francs to-day; but it isn’t my fault. I thought it a good investment; and I didn’t sell, because I always thought the price would come up again.”
And he gets his discharge, because it would really be too cruel to punish a man because he has made unfortunate investments.
Better than any one, M. Latterman knows for what purpose are purchased the valueless securities which he sells; and he actually advises his customers which to take in preference, in order that their purchase at the time of their issue may appear more natural, and more likely. Nevertheless, he claims to be a perfectly honest man, and declares that he is no more responsible for the swindles that are committed by means of his stocks than a gunsmith for a murder committed with a gun that he has sold.
“But he will surely be able to tell us all about the Mutual Credit,” repeated Maxence to M. de Tregars.
Four o’clock struck when the carriage stopped in the Rue Joquelet. The bourse had just closed; and a few groups were still standing in the square, or along the railings.
“I hope we shall find this Latterman at home,” said Maxence.
They started up the stairs (for it is up on the second floor that this worthy operator has his offices); and, having inquired,
“M. Latterman is engaged with a customer,” answered a clerk. “Please sit down and wait.”
M. Latterman’s office was like all other caverns of the same kind. A very narrow space was reserved to the public; and all around, behind a heavy wire screen, the clerks could be seen busy with figures, or handling coupons. On the right, over a small window, appeared the word, “CASHIER.” A small door on the left led to the private office.
M. de Tregars and Maxence had patiently taken a seat on a hard leather bench, once red; and they were listening and looking on.
There was considerable animation about the place. Every few minutes, well-dressed young men came in with a hurried and important look, and, taking out of their pocket a memorandum-book, they would speak a few sentences of that peculiar dialect, bristling with figures, which is the language of the bourse. At the end of fifteen or twenty minutes,
“Will M. Latterman be engaged much longer?” inquired M. de Tregars.
“I do not know,” replied a clerk.
At that very moment, the little door on the left opened, and the customer came out who had detained M. Latterman so long. This customer was no other than M. Costeclar. Noticing M. de Tregars and Maxence, who had risen at the noise of the door, he appeared most disagreeably surprised. He even turned slightly pale, and took a step backwards, as if intending to return precipitately into the room that he was leaving; for M. Latterman’s office, like that of all other large operators, had several doors, without counting the one that leads to the police-court. But M. de Tregars gave him no time to effect this retreat. Stepping suddenly forward,
“Well?” he asked him in a tone that was almost threatening.
The brilliant financier had condescended to take off his hat, usually riveted upon his head, and, with the smile of a knave caught in the act,
“I did not expect to meet you here, my lord-marquis,” he said.
At the title of “marquis,” everybody looked up. “I believe you, indeed,” said M. de Tregars. “But what I want to know is, how is the matter progressing?”
“The plot is thickening. Justice is acting.”
“Indeed!”
“It is a fact. Jules Jottras, of the house of Jottras and Brother, was arrested this morning, just as he arrived at the bourse.”
“Why?”
“Because, it seems, he was an accomplice of Favoral; and it was he who sold the bonds stolen from the Mutual Credit.”
Maxence had started at the mention of his father’s name but, with a significant glance, M. de Tregars bid him remain silent, and, in a sarcastic tone,
“Famous capture!” he murmured. “And which proves the clear-sightedness of justice.”
“But this is not all,” resumed M. Costeclar. “Saint Pavin, the editor of ‘The Financial Pilot,’ you know, is thought to be seriously compromised. There was a rumor, at the close of the market, that a warrant either had been, or was about to be, issued against him.”
“And the Baron de Thaller?”
The employes of the office could not help admiring M. Costeclar’s extraordinary amount of patience.
“The baron,” he replied, “made his appearance at the bourse this afternoon, and was the object of a veritable ovation.”
“That is admirable! And what did he say?”
“That the damage was already repaired.”
“Then the shares of the Mutual Credit must have advanced.”
“Unfortunately, not. They did not go above one hundred and ten francs.”
“Were you not astonished at that?”
“Not much, because, you see, I am a business-man, I am; and I know pretty well how things work. When they left M. de Thaller this morning, the stockholders of the Mutual Credit had a meeting; and they pledged themselves, upon honor, not to sell, so as not to break the market. As soon as they had separated, each one said to himself, ‘Since the others are going to keep their stock, like fools, I am going to sell mine.’ Now, as there were three or four hundred of them who argued the same way, the market was flooded with shares.”
Looking the brilliant financier straight in the eyes,
“And yourself?” interrupted M. de Tregars.
“I!” stammered M. Costeclar, so visibly agitated, that the clerks could not help laughing.
“Yes. I wish to know if you have been more faithful to your word than the stockholders of whom you are speaking, and whether you have done as we had agreed.”
“Certainly; and, if you find me here—”
But M. de Tregars, placing his own hand over his shoulder, stopped him short.
“I think I know what brought you here,” he uttered; “and in a few moments I shall have ascertained.”
“I swear to you.”
“Don’t swear. If I am mistaken, so much the better for you. If I am not mistaken, I’ll prove to you that it is dangerous to try any sharp game on me, though I am not a business-man.”
Meantime M. Latterman, seeing no customer coming to take the place of the one who had left, became impatient at last, and appeared upon the threshold of his private office.
He was a man still young, small, thick-set, and vulgar. At the first glance, nothing of him could be seen but his abdomen,—a big, great, and ponderous abdomen, seat of his thoughts, and tabernacle of his aspirations, over which dangled a double gold chain, loaded with trinkets. Above an apoplectic neck, red as that of a turkey-cock, stood his little head, covered with coarse red hair, cut very short. He wore a heavy beard, trimmed in the form of a fan. His large, full-moon face was divided in two by a nose as flat as a Kalmuck’s, and illuminated by two small eyes, in which could be read the most thorough duplicity.
Seeing M. de Tregars and M. Costeclar engaged in conversation,
“Why! you know each other?” he said.
M. de Tregars advanced a step,
“We are even intimate friends,” he replied. “And it is very lucky that we should have met. I am brought here by the same matter as our dear Costeclar; and I was just explaining to him that he has been too hasty, and that it would be best to wait three or four days longer.”
“That’s just what I told him,” echoed the honorable financier.
Maxence understood only one thing,—that M. de Tregars had penetrated M. Costeclar’s designs; and he could not sufficiently admire his presence of mind, and his skill in grasping an unexpected opportunity.
“Fortunately there is nothing done yet,” added M. Latterman.
“And it is yet time to alter what has been agreed on,” said M. de Tregars. And, addressing himself to Costeclar,
“Come,” he added, “we’ll fix things with M. Latterman.”
But the other, who remembered the scene in the Rue St. Gilles, and who had his own reasons to be alarmed, would sooner have jumped out of the window.
“I am expected,” he stammered. “Arrange matters without me.”
“Then you give me carte blanche?”
Ah, if the brilliant financier had dared! But he felt upon him such threatening eyes, that he dared not even make a gesture of denial.
“Whatever you do will be satisfactory,” he said in the tone of a man who sees himself lost.
And, as he was going out of the door, M. de Tregars stepped into M. Latterman’s private office. He remained only five minutes; and when he joined Maxence, whom he had begged to wait for him,
“I think that we have got them,” he said as they walked off.
Their next visit was to M. Saint Pavin, at the office of “The Financial Pilot.” Every one must have seen at least one copy of that paper with its ingenious vignette, representing a bold mariner steering a boat, filled with timid passengers, towards the harbor of Million, over a stormy sea, bristling with the rocks of failure and the shoals of ruin. The office of “The Pilot” is, in fact, less a newspaper office than a sort of general business agency.
As at M. Latterman’s, there are clerks scribbling behind wire screens, small windows, a cashier, and an immense blackboard, on which the latest quotations of the Rente, and other French and foreign securities, are written in chalk.
As “The Pilot” spends some hundred thousand francs a year in advertising, in order to obtain subscribers; as, on the other hand, it only costs three francs a year,—it is clear that it is not on its subscriptions that it realizes any profits. It has other sources of income: its brokerages first; for it buys, sells, and executes, as the prospectus says, all orders for stocks, bonds, or other securities, for the best interests of the client. And it has plenty of business.
To the opulent brokerages, must be added advertising and puffing, —another mine. Six times out of ten, when a new enterprise is set on foot, the organizers send for Saint Pavin. Honest men, or knaves, they must all pass through his hands. They know it, and are resigned in advance.
“We rely upon you,” they say to him.
“What advantages have you to offer?” he replies.
Then they discuss the operation, the expected profits of the new company, and M. Saint Pavin’s demands. For a hundred thousand francs he promises bursts of lyrism; for fifty thousand he will be enthusiastic only. Twenty thousand francs will secure a moderate praise of the affair; ten thousand, a friendly neutrality. And, if the said company refuses any advantages to “The Pilot”—
“Ah, you must beware!” says Saint Pavin.
And from the very next number he commences his campaign. He is moderate at first, and leaves a door open for his retreat. He puts forth doubts only. He does not know much about it. “It may be an excellent thing; it may be a wretched one: the safest is to wait and see.”
That’s the first hint. If it remains without result, he takes up his pen again, and makes his doubts more pointed.
He knows how to steer clear of libel suits, how to handle figures so as to demonstrate, according to the requirements of the case, that two and two make three, or make five. It is seldom, that, before the third article, the company does not surrender at discretion.
All Paris knows him; and he has many friends. When M. de Tregars and Maxence arrived, they found the office full of people —speculators, brokers, go-betweens—come there to discuss the fluctuations of the day and the probabilities of the evening market.
“M. Saint Pavin is engaged,” one of the clerks told them.
Indeed, his coarse voice could be distinctly heard behind the screen. Soon he appeared, showing out an old gentleman, who seemed utterly confused at the scene, and to whom he was screaming,
“No, sir, no! ‘The Financial Pilot’ does not take that sort of business; and I find you very bold to come and propose to me a twopenny rascality.” But, noticing Maxence,
“M. Favoral!” he said. “By Jove! it is your good star that has brought you here. Come into the private office, my dear sir: come, we’ll have some fun now.”
Many of the people who were in the office had a word to say to M. Saint Pavin, some advice to ask him, an order to transmit, or some news to communicate. They had all stepped forward, and were holding out their hands with a friendly smile. He set them aside with his usual rudeness.
“By and by. I am busy now: leave me alone.”
And pushing Maxence towards the office-door, which he had just opened,
“Come in, come in!” he said in a tone of extraordinary impatience.
But M. de Tregars was coming in too; and, as he did not know him,
“What do you want, you?” he asked roughly.
“The gentleman is my best friend,” said Maxence, turning to him; “and I have no secret from him.”
“Let him walk in, then; but, by Heaven, let us hurry!”
Once very sumptuous, the private office of the editor of “The Financial Pilot” had fallen into a state of sordid dilapidation. If the janitor had received orders never to use a broom or a duster there, he obeyed them strictly. Disorder and dirt reigned supreme. Papers and manuscripts lay in all directions; and on the broad sofas the mud from the boots of all those who had lounged upon them had been drying for months. On the mantel-piece, in the midst of some half-dozen dirty glasses, stood a bottle of Madeira, half empty. Finally, before the fireplace, on the carpet, and along the furniture, cigar and cigarette stumps were heaped in profusion.
As soon as he had bolted the door, coming straight to Maxence,
“What has become of your father?” inquired M. Saint Pavin rudely.
Maxence started. That was the last question he expected to hear.
“I do not know,” he replied.
The manager of “The Pilot” shrugged his shoulders. “That you should say so to the commissary of police, to the judges, and to all Favoral’s enemies, I understand: it is your duty. That they should believe you, I understand too; for, after all, what do they care? But to me, a friend, though you may not think so, and who has reasons not to be credulous——”
“I swear to you that we have no idea where he has taken refuge.”
Maxence said this with such an accent of sincerity, that doubt was no longer possible. M. Saint Pavin’s features expressed the utmost surprise.
“What!” he exclaimed, “your father has gone without securing the means of hearing from his family?”
“Yes.”
“Without saying a word of his intentions to your mother, or your sister, or yourself?”
“Without one word.”
“Without leaving any money, perhaps?”
“We found only an insignificant sum after he left.” The editor of “The Pilot” made a gesture of ironical admiration. “Well, the thing is complete,” he said; “and Vincent is a smarter fellow than I gave him credit for; or else he must have cared more for those infernal women of his than any one supposed.”
M. de Tregars, who had remained hitherto silent, now stepped forward.
“What women?” he asked.
“How do I know?” he replied roughly. “How could any one ever find out any thing about a man who was more hermetically shut up in his coat than a Jesuit in his gown?”
“M. Costeclar—”
“That’s another nice bird! Still he may possibly have discovered something of Vincent’s life; for he led him a pretty dance. Wasn’t he about to marry Mlle. Favoral once?”
“Yes, in spite of herself even.”
“Then you are right: he had discovered something. But, if you rely on him to tell you anything whatever, you are reckoning without your host.”
“Who knows?” murmured M. de Tregars.
But M. Saint Pavin heard him not. Prey to a violent agitation, he was pacing up and down the room.
“Ah, those men of cold appearance,” he growled, “those men with discreet countenance, those close-shaving calculators, those moralists! What fools they do make of themselves when once started! Who can imagine to what insane extremities this one may have been driven under the spur of some mad passion!”
And stamping violently his foot upon the carpet, from which arose clouds of dust,
“And yet,” he swore, “I must find him. And, by thunder! wherever he may be hid, I shall find him.”
M. de Tregars was watching M. Saint Pavin with a scrutinizing eye.
“You have a great interest in finding him, then?” he said.
The other stopped short.
“I have the interest,” he replied, “of a man who thought himself shrewd, and who has been taken in like a child,—of a man to whom they had promised wonders, and who finds his situation imperilled, —of a man who is tired of working for a band of brigands who heap millions upon millions, and to whom, for all reward, they offer the police-court and a retreat in the State Prison for his old age, —in a word, the interests of a man who will and shall have revenge, by all that is holy!”
“On whom?”
“On the Baron de Thaller, sir! How, in the world, has he been able to compel Favoral to assume the responsibility of all, and to disappear? What enormous sum has he given to him?”
“Sir,” interrupted Maxence, “my father went off without a sou.”
M. Saint Pavin burst out in a loud laugh.
“And the twelve millions?” he asked. “What has become of them? Do you suppose they have been distributed in deeds of charity?”
And without waiting for any further objections,
“And yet,” he went on, “it is not with money alone that a man can be induced to disgrace himself, to confess himself a thief and a forger, to brave the galleys, to give up everything,—country, family, friends. Evidently the Baron de Thaller must have had other means of action, some hold on Favoral—”
M. de Tregars interrupted him.
“You speak,” he said, “as if you were absolutely certain of M. de Thaller’s complicity.”
“Of course.”
“Why don’t you inform on him, then?”
The editor of “The Pilot” started back. “What!” he exclaimed, “draw the fingers of the law into my own business! You don’t think of it! Besides, what good would that do me? I have no proofs of my allegations. Do you suppose that Thaller has not taken his precautions, and tied my hands? No, no! without Favoral there is nothing to be done.”
“Do you suppose, then, that you could induce him to surrender himself?”
“No, but to furnish me the proofs I need, to send Thaller where they have already sent that poor Jottras.”
And, becoming more and more excited,
“But it is not in a month that I should want those proofs,” he went on, “nor even in two weeks, but to-morrow, but at this very moment. Before the end of the week, Thaller will have wound up the operation, realized, Heaven knows how many millions, and put every thing in such nice order, that justice, who in financial matters is not of the first capacity, will discover nothing wrong. If he can do that, he is safe, he is beyond reach, and will be dubbed a first-class financier. Then to what may he not aspire! Already he talks of having himself elected deputy; and he says everywhere that he has found, to marry his daughter, a gentleman who bears one of the oldest names in France,—the Marquis de Tregars.”
“Why, this is the Marquis de Tregars!” exclaimed Maxence, pointing to Marius.
For the first time, M. Saint Pavin took the trouble to examine his visitor; and he, who knew life too well not to be a judge of men, he seemed surprised.
“Please excuse me, sir,” he uttered with a politeness very different from his usual manner, “and permit me to ask you if you know the reasons why M. de Thaller is so prodigiously anxious to have you for a son-in-law.”
“I think,” replied M. de Tregars coldly, “that M. de Thaller would not be sorry to deprive me of the right to seek the causes of my father’s ruin.”
But he was interrupted by a great noise of voices in the adjoining room; and almost at once there was a loud knock at the door, and a voice called,
“In the name of the law!”
The editor of “The Pilot” had become whiter than his shirt.
“That’s what I was afraid of,” he said. “Thaller has got ahead of me; and perhaps I may be lost.”
Meantime he did not lose his wits. Quick as thought he took out of a drawer a package of letters, threw them into the fireplace, and set fire to them, saying, in a voice made hoarse by emotion and anger,
“No one shall come in until they are burnt.”
But it required an incredibly long time to make them catch fire; and M. Saint Pavin, kneeling before the hearth, was stirring them up, and scattering them, to make them burn faster.
“And now,” said M. de Tregars, “will you hesitate to deliver up the Baron de Thaller into the hands of justice?”
He turned around with flashing eyes.
“Now,” he replied, “if I wish to save myself, I must save him too. Don’t you understand that he holds me?”
And, seeing that the last sheets of his correspondence were consumed,
“You may open now,” he said to Maxence.
Maxence obeyed; and a commissary of police, wearing his scarf of office, rushed into the room; whilst his men, not without difficulty, kept back the crowd in the outer office.
The commissary, who was an old hand, and had perhaps been on a hundred expeditions of this kind, had surveyed the scene at a glance. Noticing in the fireplace the carbonized debris, upon which still fluttered an expiring flame,
“That’s the reason, then,” he said, “why you were so long opening the door?”
A sarcastic smile appeared upon the lips of the editor of “The Pilot.”
“Private matters,” he replied; “women’s letters.”
“This will be moral evidence against you, sir.”
“I prefer it to material evidence.”
Without condescending to notice the impertinence, the commissary was casting a suspicious glance on Maxence and M. de Tregars.
“Who are these gentlemen who were closeted with you?” he asked.
“Visitors, sir. This is M. Favoral.”
“The son of the cashier of the Mutual Credit?”
“Exactly; and this gentleman is the Marquis de Tregars.”
“You should have opened the door when you heard a knocking in the name of the law,” grumbled the commissary.
But he did not insist. Taking a paper from his pocket, he opened it, and, handing it to M. Saint Pavin,
“I have orders to arrest you,” he said. “Here is the warrant.”
With a careless gesture, the other pushed it back. “What’s the use of reading?” he said. “When I heard of the arrest of that poor Jottras, I guessed at once what was in store for me. It is about the Mutual Credit swindle, I imagine.”
“Exactly.”
“I have no more to do with it than yourself, sir; and I shall have very little trouble in proving it. But that is not your business. And you are going, I suppose, to put the seals on my papers?”
“Except on those that you have burnt.”
M. Saint Pavin burst out laughing. He had recovered his coolness and his impudence, and seemed as much at ease as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
“Shall I be allowed to speak to my clerks,” he asked, “and to give them my instructions?”
“Yes,” replied the commissary, “but in my presence.”
The clerks, being called, appeared, consternation depicted upon their countenances, but joy sparkling in their eyes. In reality they were delighted at the misfortune which befell their employer.
“You see what happens to me, my boys,” he said. “But don’t be uneasy. In less than forty-eight hours, the error of which I am the victim will be recognized, and I shall be liberated on bail. At any rate, I can rely upon you, can’t I?”
They all swore that they would be more attentive and more zealous than ever.
And then addressing himself to his cashier, who was his confidential and right-hand man,
“As to you, Bernard,” he said, “you will run to M. de Thaller’s, and advise him of what’s going on. Let him have funds ready; for all our depositors will want to draw out their money at once. You will then call at the printing-office: have my article on the Mutual Credit kept out, and insert in its place some financial news cut out from other papers. Above all, don’t mention my arrest, unless M. de Thaller should demand it. Go ahead, and let ‘The Pilot’ appear as usual: that’s important.”
He had, whilst speaking, lighted a cigar. The honest man, victim of human iniquity, has not a firmer and more tranquil countenance.
“Justice does not know,” he said to the commissary, who was fumbling in all the drawers of the desk, “what irreparable damage she may cause by arresting so hastily a man who has charge of immense interests like me. It is the fortune of ten or twelve small capitalists that is put in jeopardy.”
Already the witnesses of the arrest had retired, one by one, to go and scatter the news along the Boulevard, and also to see what could be made out of it; for, at the bourse, news is money.
M. de Tregars and Maxence left also. As they passed the door,
“Don’t you say any thing about what I told you,” M. Saint Pavin recommended to them.
M. de Tregars made no answer. He had the contracted features and tightly-drawn lips of a man who is maturing a grave determination, which, once taken, will be irrevocable.
Once in the street, and when Maxence had opened the carriage-door,
“We are going to separate here,” he told him in that brief tone of voice which reveals a settled plan. “I know enough now to venture to call at M. de Thaller’s. There only shall I be able to see how to strike the decisive blow. Return to the Rue St. Gilles, and relieve your mother’s and sister’s anxiety. You shall see me during the evening, I promise you.”
And, without waiting for an answer, he jumped into the cab, which started off.
But it was not to the Rue St. Gilles that Maxence went. He was anxious, first, to see Mlle. Lucienne, to tell her the events of that day, the busiest of his existence; to tell her his discoveries, his surprises, his anxieties, and his hopes.
To his great surprise, he failed to find her at the Hotel des Folies. She had gone riding at three o’clock, M. Fortin told him, and had not yet returned; but she could not be much longer, as it was already getting dark. Maxence went out again then, to see if he could not meet her. He had walked a little way along the Boulevard, when, at some distance off, on the Place du Chateau d’Eau, he thought he noticed an unusual bustle. Almost immediately he heard shouts of terror. Frightened people were running in all directions; and right before him a carriage, going at full gallop, passed like a flash.
But, quick as it had passed, he had time to recognize Mlle. Lucienne, pale, and clinging desperately to the seat. Wild with fear, he started after it as fast as he could run. It was clear that the driver had no control over his horses. A policeman who tried to stop them was knocked down. Ten steps farther, the hind-wheel of the carriage, catching the wheel of a heavy wagon, broke to splinters; and Mlle. Lucienne was thrown into the street, whilst the driver fell over on the sidewalk.
The Baron de Thaller was too practical a man to live in the same house, or even in the same district, where his offices were located. To dwell in the midst of his business; to be constantly subjected to the contact of his employes, to the unkindly comments of a crowd of subordinates; to expose himself to hourly annoyances, to sickening solicitations, to the reclamations and eternal complaints of his stockholders and his clients! Pouah! He’d have given up the business first. And so, on the very days when he had established the offices of the Mutual Credit in the Rue de Quatre-Septembre, he had purchased a house in the Rue de la Pepiniere within a step of the Faubourg St. Honore.
It was a brand-new house, which had never yet been occupied, and which had just been erected by a contractor who was almost celebrated, towards 1866, at the moment of the great transformations of Paris, when whole blocks were leveled to the ground, and rose again so rapidly, that one might well wonder whether the masons, instead of a trowel, did not make use of a magician’s wand.
This contractor, named Parcimieux, had come from the Limousin in 1860 with his carpenter’s tools for all fortune, and, in less than six years, had accumulated, at the lowest estimate, six millions of francs. Only he was a modest man, and took as much pains to conceal his fortune, and offend no one, as mostparvenusdo to display their wealth, and insult the public.
Though he could hardly sign his name, yet he knew and practised the maxim of the Greek philosopher, which is, perhaps, the true secret of happiness,—hide thy life. And there were no expedients to which he did not resort to hide it. At the time of his greatest prosperity, for instance, having need of a carriage, he had applied to the manager of the Petites Voitures Company, and had had built for himself two cabs, outwardly similar in every respect to those used by the company, but within, most luxuriously upholstered, and drawn by horses of common appearance, but who could go their twenty-five miles in two hours any day. And these he had hired by the year.
Having his carriage, the worthy builder determined to have, also, his house, his own house, built by himself. But this required infinitely greater precautions still.
“For, as you may imagine,” he explained to his friends, “a man does not make as much money as I have, without also making many cruel, bitter, and irreconcilable enemies. I have against me all the builders who have not succeeded, all the sub-contractors I employ, and who say that I speculate on their poverty, and the thousands of workmen who work for me, and swear that I grind them down to the dust. Already they call me brigand, slaver, thief, leech. What would it be, if they saw me living in a beautiful house of my own? They’d swear that I could not possibly have got so rich honestly, and that I must have committed some crimes. Besides, to build me a handsome house on the street would be, in case of a mob, setting up windows for the stones of all the rascals who have been in my employment.”
Such were M. Parcimieux’s thoughts, when, as he expressed it, he resolved to build.
A lot was for sale in the Rue de la Pepiniere. He bought it, and at the same time purchased the adjoining house, which he immediately caused to be torn down. This operation placed in his possession a vast piece of ground, not very wide, but of great depth, stretching, as it did, back to the Rue Labaume. At once work was begun according to a plan which his architect and himself had spent six months in maturing. On the line of the street arose a house of the most modest appearance, two stories in height only, with a very high and very wide carriage-door for the passage of vehicles. This was to deceive the vulgar eye,—the outside of the cab, as it were. Behind this house, between a spacious court and a vast garden was built the residence of which M. Parcimieux had dreamed; and it really was an exceptional building both by the excellence of the materials used, and by the infinite care which presided over the minutest details. The marbles for the vestibule and the stairs were brought from Africa, Italy, and Corsica. He sent to Rome for workmen for the mosaics. The joiner and locksmithing work was intrusted to real artists.
Repeating to every one that he was working for a great foreign lord, whose orders he went to take every morning, he was free to indulge his most extravagant fancies, without fearing jests or unpleasant remarks.
Poor old man! The day when the last workman had driven in the last nail, an attack of apoplexy carried him off, without giving him time to say, “Oh!” Two days after, all his relatives from the Limousin were swooping into Paris like a pack of wolves. Six millions to divide: what a godsend! Litigation followed, as a matter of course; and the house was offered for sale under a judgment.
M. de Thaller bought it for two hundred and seventy-five thousand francs,—about one-third what it had cost to build.
A month later he had moved into it; and the expenses which he incurred to furnish it in a style worthy of the building itself was the talk of the town. And yet he was not fully satisfied with his purchase.
Unlike M. Parcimieux, he had no wish whatever to conceal his wealth.
What! he owned one of those exquisite houses which excite at once the wonder and the envy of passers-by, and that house was hid behind such a common-looking building!
“I must have that shanty pulled down,” he said from time to time.
And then he thought of something else; and the “shanty” was still standing on that evening, when, after leaving Maxence, M. de Tregars presented himself at M. de Thaller’s.
The servants had, doubtless, received their instructions; for, as soon as Marius emerged from the porch of the front-house, the porter advanced from his lodge, bent double, his mouth open to his very ears by the most obsequious smile.
Without waiting for a question,
“The baron has not yet come home—,” he said. “But he cannot be much longer away; and certainly the baroness is at home for my lord-marquis. Please, then, give yourself the trouble to pass.”
And, standing aside, he struck upon the enormous gong that stood near his lodge a single sharp blow, intended to wake up the footman on duty in the vestibule, and to announce a visitor of note. Slowly, but not without quietly observing every thing, M. de Tregars crossed the courtyard, covered with fine sand,—they would have powdered it with golden dust, if they had dared,—and surrounded on all sides with bronze baskets, in which beautiful rhododendrons were blossoming.
It was nearly six o’clock. The manager of the Mutual Credit dined at seven; and the preparations for this important event were everywhere apparent. Through the large windows of the dining-room the steward could be seen presiding over the setting of the table. The butler was coming up from the cellar, loaded with bottles. Finally, through the apertures of the basement arose the appetizing perfumes of the kitchen.
What enormous business it required to support such a style, to display this luxury, which would shame one of those German princelings, who exchanged the crown of their ancestors for a Prussian livery gilded with French gold!—other people’s money.
Meantime, the blow struck by the porter on the gong had produced the desired effect; and the gates of the vestibule seemed to open of their own accord before M. de Tregars as he ascended the stoop.
This vestibule with the splendor of which Mlle. Lucienne had been so deeply impressed, would, indeed, have been worthy the attention of an artist, had it been allowed to retain the simple grandeur and the severe harmony which M. Parcimieux’s architect had imparted to it.
But M. de Thaller, as he was proud of boasting, had a perfect horror of simplicity; and, wherever he discovered a vacant space as big as his hand, he hung a picture, a bronze, or a piece of china, any thing and anyhow.
The two footmen were standing when M. de Tregars came in. Without asking any question, “Will M. le Marquis please follow me?” said the youngest.
And, opening the broad glass doors, he began walking in front of M. de Tregars, along a staircase with marble railing, the elegant proportions of which were absolutely ruined by a ridiculous profusion of “objects of art” of all nature, and from all sources. This staircase led to a vast semicircular landing, upon which, between columns of precious marble, opened three wide doors. The footman opened the middle one, which led to M. de Thaller’s picture-gallery, a celebrated one in the financial world, and which had acquired for him the reputation of an enlightened amateur.
But M. de Tregars had no time to examine this gallery, which, moreover, he already knew well enough. The footman showed him into the small drawing-room of the baroness, a bijou of a room, furnished in gilt and crimson satin.
“Will M. le Marquis be kind enough to take a seat?” he said. “I run to notify Mme. le Baronne of M. le Marquis’s visit.”
The footman uttered these titles of nobility with a singular pomp, and as if some of their lustre was reflected upon himself. Nevertheless, it was evident that “Marquis” jingled to his ear much more pleasantly than “Baronne.”
Remaining alone, M. de Tregars threw himself upon a seat. Worn out by the emotions of the day, and by an extraordinary contention of mind, he felt thankful for this moment of respite, which permitted him, at the moment of a decisive step, to collect all his energy and all his presence of mind.
And after two minutes he was so deeply absorbed in his thoughts, that he started, like a man suddenly aroused from his sleep, at the sound of an opening door. At the same moment he heard a slight exclamation of surprise, “Ah!”
Instead of the Baroness de Thaller, it was her daughter, Mlle. Cesarine, who had come in.
Stepping forward to the centre of the room, and acknowledging by a familiar gesture M. de Tregars’ most respectful bow,
“You should warn people,” she said. “I came here to look for my mother, and it is you I find. Why, you scared me to death. What a crack! Princess dear!”
And taking the young man’s hand, and pressing it to her breast,
“Feel,” she added, “how my heart beats.”
Younger than Mlle. Gilberte, Mlle. Cesarine de Thaller had a reputation for beauty so thoroughly established, that to call it in question would have seemed a crime to her numerous admirers. And really she was a handsome person. Rather tall and well made, she had broad hips, the waist round and supple as a steel rod, and a magnificent throat. Her neck was, perhaps, a little too thick and too short; but upon her robust shoulders was scattered in wild ringlets the rebellious hair that escaped from her comb. She was a blonde, but of that reddish blonde, almost as dark as mahogany, which Titian admired, and which the handsome Venetians obtained by means of rather repulsive practices, and by exposing themselves to the noonday sun on the terraces of their palaces. Her complexion had the gilded hues of amber. Her lips, red as blood, displayed as they opened, teeth of dazzling whiteness. In her large prominent eyes, of a milky blue, like the Northern skies, laughed the eternal irony of a soul that no longer has faith in any thing. More anxious of her fame than of good taste, she wore a dress of doubtful shade, puffed up by means of an extravagant pannier, and buttoned obliquely across the chest, according to that ridiculous and ungraceful style invented by flat or humped women.
Throwing herself upon a chair, and placing cavalierly one foot upon another, so as to display her leg, which was admirable,
“Do you know that it’s perfectly stunning to see you here?” she said to M. de Tregars. “Just imagine, for a moment, what a face the Baron Three Francs Sixty-eight will make when he sees you!”
It was her father whom she called thus, since the day when she had discovered that there was a German coin called thaler, which represents three francs and sixty-eight centimes in French currency.
“You know, I suppose,” she went on, “that papa has just been badly stuck?”
M. de Tregars was excusing himself in vague terms; but it was one of Mlle. Cesarine’s habits never to listen to the answers which were made to her questions.
“Favoral,” she continued, “papa’s cashier, has just started on an international picnic. Did you know him?”
“Very little.”
“An old fellow, always dressed like a country sexton, and with a face like an undertaker. And the Baron Three Francs Sixty-eight, an old bird, was fool enough to be taken in by him! For he was taken in. He had a face like a man whose chimney is on fire, when he came to tell us, mamma and myself, that Favoral had gone off with twelve millions.”
“And has he really carried off that enormous sum?”
“Not entire, of course, because it was not since day before yesterday only that he began digging into the Mutual Credit’s pile. There were years that this venerable old swell was leading a somewhat-variegated existence, in company with rather-funny ladies, you know. And as he was not exactly calculated to be adored at par, why, it cost papa’s stockholders a pretty lively premium. But, anyhow, he must have carried off a handsome nugget.”
And, bouncing to the piano, she began an accompaniment loud enough to crack the window-panes, singing at the same time the popular refrain of the “Young Ladies of Pautin”:
Cashier, you’ve got the bag;Quick on your little nag,And then, ho, ho, for Belgium!
Cashier, you’ve got the bag;Quick on your little nag,And then, ho, ho, for Belgium!
Any one but Marius de Tregars would have been doubtless strangely surprised at Mlle. de Thaller’s manners. But he had known her for some time already: he was familiar with her past life, her habits, her tastes, and her pretensions. Until the age of fifteen, Mlle. Cesarine had remained shut up in one of those pleasant Parisian boarding-schools, where young ladies are initiated into the great art of the toilet, and from which they emerge armed with the gayest theories, knowing how to see without seeming to look, and to lie boldly without blushing; in a word, ripe for society. The directress of the boarding-school, a lady of the ton, who had met with reverses, and who was a good deal more of a dressmaker than a teacher, said of Mlle. Cesarine, who paid her three thousand five hundred francs a year,
“She gives the greatest hopes for the future; and I shall certainly make a superior woman of her.”
But the opportunity was not allowed her. The Baroness de Thaller discovered, one morning, that it was impossible for her to live without her daughter, and that her maternal heart was lacerated by a separation which was against the sacred laws of nature. She took her home, therefore, declaring that nothing, henceforth, not even her marriage, should separate them, and that she should finish herself the education of the dear child. From that moment, in fact, whoever saw the Baroness de Thaller would also see Mlle. Cesarine following in her wake.
A girl of fifteen, discreet and well-trained, is a convenient chaperon; a chaperon which enables a woman to show herself boldly where she might not have dared to venture alone. In presence of a mother followed by her daughter, disconcerted slander hesitates, and dares not speak.
Under the pretext that Cesarine was still but a child and of no consequence, Mme. de Thaller dragged her everywhere,—to the bois and to the races, visiting and shopping, to balls and parties, to the watering-places and the seashore, to the restaurant, and to all the “first nights” at the Palais Royal, the Bouffes, the Varietes, and the Delassements. It was, therefore, especially at the theatre, that the education of Mlle. de Thaller, so happily commenced, had received the finishing touch. At sixteen she was thoroughly familiar with the repertoire of the genre theatres, imitated Schneider far better than ever did Silly, and sang with surprising intonations and astonishing gestures Blanche d’Autigny’s successful moods, and Theresa’s most wanton verses.