It’s a very short time ago, yesterday as it were, that one Sunday
afternoon about four o’clock, the whole Quartier du Marais was in an
uproar.
Rumor asserted that one of the most respectable merchants in the Hue
Boi-de-Sicile had disappeared, and all efforts to find him continued
fruitless.
The strange event was discussed in all the shops in the neighborhood;
there were groups at the doors of all the fruit-sellers, every moment
some terrified housewife arrived, bringing fresh particulars.
The grocer on the corner had the best and latest news, the most
reliable, too, for he received his information from the lips of the cook
who lived in the house.
“So,” said he, “yesterday evening, after dinner, our neighbor, Monsieur
Jandidier, went down to his cellar to get a bottle of wine, and was
never seen again. He disappeared, vanished, evaporated!”
It occasionally happens that mysterious disappearances are mentioned.
The public becomes excited, and prudent people buy sword-canes.
Policemen hear absurd reports, and shrug their shoulders. They know the
wrong side of the carefully embroidered canvas. They investigate, and
find, instead of artless falsehoods, the truth; instead of romances,
sorrowful stories. Yet, up to a certain point, the grocer of the Rue
Saint Louis told the truth.
M. Jandidier, manufacturer of imitation jewelry, had not been at home
for the last twenty-four hours.
M. Theodore Jandidier was a man fifty-eight years old, very stout and
very bald, who had made a large fortune in business. He was supposed
to have a considerable income from stocks and bonds, and his business
brought him annually, on an average, fifty thousand francs. He was
beloved and respected in his neighborhood, and justly so; his honesty
was above suspicion, his morality rigid. Married late in life to a
penniless relative, he had made her perfectly happy. He had an only
daughter, a pretty, graceful girl, named Thérèse, whom he worshiped. She
had been engaged to the eldest son of Schmidt the banker--member of the
firm Schmidt, Gubenheim & Worb--M. Gustave; but the match was broken
off, nobody knew why, for the young people were desperately in love
with each other. It was said by Jandidier’s acquaintances that Schmidt
senior, a perfect skinflint, had demanded a dowry far beyond the
merchant’s means.
Notified by public rumor, which hourly exaggerated the story, the
commissary of police went to the home of the man already called “the
victim,” to obtain more exact information.
He found Mme. and Mlle. Jandidier in such terrible grief that it was
with great difficulty he gleaned the truth. At last he learned the
following details:
The day before, Saturday, M. Jandidier had dined with his family as
usual, though his appetite was not good, owing, he said, to a violent
headache.
After dinner he went to his stores, gave some orders, and then entered
his office.
At half past six he came upstairs again, and told his wife he was going
to walk.
And he had not been seen since!
After carefully noting these particulars, the commissary requested Mme.
Jandidier to let him speak with her alone a few minutes. She made a sign
of assent, and Mlle. Thérèse left the room.
“Pardon the question I am about to ask, madame,” said the police
officer. “Do you know whether your husband--again I beg you to excuse
me--had any ties outside of his own family?”
Mme. Jandidier started up; anger dried her tears.
“I have been married twenty-three years, monsieur, and my husband has
never returned home later than ten o’clock.”
“Was your husband in the habit of going to any club or café, madame?”
continued the officer.
“Never; I wouldn’t have allowed it.”
“Did he usually carry valuables on his person?”
“I don’t know; I attended to my housekeeping and didn’t trouble myself
about business matters.”
It was impossible to get anything more from the haughty wife, who was
fairly bewildered by sorrow.
Having performed his duty, the commissary thought he ought to give the
poor woman a little commonplace consolation.
But on withdrawing, after an examination of the house, he felt very
anxious, and began to suspect that a crime had been committed.
That very evening one of the most skillful members of the detective
force, Rétiveau, better known in the Rue de Jerusalem under the name
of Maitre Magloire, was put on M. Jandidier’s track, supplied with an
excellent photograph of the merchant.