As a medical student, as well as habitué of the quarter, Jean Marot
was not greatly alarmed at an ordinary case of hysterics. He soon had
Mlle. Fouchette in her proper senses again.
He was possibly not more stupid than any other egoist under similar
circumstances, and he attributed her sudden collapse to
over-excitement in arranging his affairs.
Mlle. Fouchette lay extended on his divan in silent enjoyment of his
manipulations, refusing as long as possible to reopen her eyes. When
she finally concluded to do so he was smoothing back her dishevelled
hair and gently bathing her face with his wet handkerchief.
"Don't be alarmed, mon enfant," he said, cheerily, "you are all right.
But you have worked too hard----"
"Oh! no, no, no!" she interrupted. "And it has been such a pleasure!"
"Yes; but too much pleasure----"
She sighed. Her eyes were wet,--she tried to turn them away.
"Hold on, petite! none of that!"
"Then you must not talk to me in that way,--not now!"
"No? And pray, how, then, mademoiselle?"
"Talk of--tell me of your love, monsieur, mon ami. You were speaking
of it but now. Tell me of that, please. It is so--love is so
beautiful, Monsieur Jean! Talk to me of her,--of Mademoiselle Remy. I
have a woman's curiosity, monsieur, mon frère."
It was the first time she had called him brother. She had risen upon
her elbow and nervously laid her small hand upon his.
She invited herself to the torture. It had an irresistible fascination
for her. She gave the executioner the knife and begged him to explore
and lay bare her bleeding heart.
"But, mon enfant----"
"Oh! it will do me good to hear you," she pleaded.
It does not require much urging to induce a young man in love to talk
about his passion to a sympathetic listener. And there never was time
or place more propitious or auditor more tender of spirit.
He began at the beginning, when he first met Mlle. Remy with Lerouge,
every detail of which was fixed upon his memory. He told how he sought
her in Rue Monge, how Lerouge interposed, how he quarrelled with his
friend, how the latter changed his address and kept the girl under
close confinement to prevent his seeing her,--Jean was certain of
this.
Monsieur Lerouge had a right to protect his sister, even against his
late friend; and even if she had been his mistress, Jean now argued,
Lerouge was justified; but love is something that in the Latin rises
superior to obstacles, beats down all opposition, is obstinate,
unreasonable, and uncharitable.
When Mlle. Fouchette, going straight to the core of the matter, asked
him what real ground he had for presuming that his attentions, if
permitted, would have been agreeable to Mlle. Remy, Jean confessed
reluctantly that there were no reasons for any conclusion on this
point.
"But," he wound up, impetuously, "when she knows--if she knew--how I
worship her she _must_ respond to my affection. A love such as mine
could not be forever resisted, mademoiselle. I feel it! I know it!"
"Yes, Monsieur Jean, it would be impossible to--to not----"
"You think so, too, chère amie?"
"Very sure," said Mlle. Fouchette.
"Now you can understand, Fouchette. You are a woman. Put yourself in
her place,--imagine that you are Mademoiselle Remy at this moment. And
you look something like her, really,--that is, at least you have the
exact shade of hair. What beautiful hair you have, Fouchette! Suppose
you were Mademoiselle Remy, I was going to say, and I were to tell you
all this and--and how much I loved you,--how I adored you,--and got
down on my knees to you and begged of you----"
"Oh!"
"And asked you for a corner--one small corner in your heart----"
"Ah! mon ami!"
"What would you----"
"Shall I show you, mon frère?"
"Yes--quickly!"
He had, with French gesture, suiting the action to the word, knelt
beside her and extended his arms, as if it were the woman he loved.
"Mon Dieu!" cried Mlle. Fouchette, throwing herself upon his breast
precipitately and entwining his neck with her arms,--"it would be
this! It would be this! Ah! mon Dieu! It surely would be this!"
For the moment Jean was so carried away by his imagination that he
accepted Mlle. Fouchette as Mlle. Remy and pressed her to his heart.
He mingled his tears and kisses with hers. Her fair hair fell upon his
face and he covered it with passionate caresses. He poured out the
endearing words of a heart surcharged with love. It was a very clever
make-believe on both sides,--very clever and realistic.
As a medical adviser of an hysterical young woman Jean Marot could
scarcely have been recommended.
And it must be remarked, in the same connection, that Mlle. Fouchette
remained in this embrace a good deal longer than even a clever
imitation seemed to demand. However, since the real thing could not
have lasted forever, there must be a limitation to this rehearsal.
Both had become silent and thoughtful.
It was Mlle. Fouchette who first moved to disengage, and she did so
with a sigh so profound as to appear quite real. This was the second,
and she felt it would be the last time. They would never again hold
each other thus. Her eyes were red and swollen and her dishevelled
hair stuck to her tear-stained face. She was not at all pretty at the
moment, yet Jean would have gone to the wood of St. Cloud sword in
hand to prove her the best-hearted little woman in the world.
"Voilà!" she exclaimed, with affected gayety, "how foolish I am,
monsieur! But you are so eloquent of your passion that you carry one
away with you."
"I hope it will have that effect upon Mademoiselle Remy," he said, but
rather doubtfully.
"So I have given a satisfactory----"
"So real, indeed, Fouchette, that I almost forgot it was only you."
Mademoiselle Fouchette was bending over the basin.
"I think"--splash--"that I'll"--splash--"go on the stage," she
murmured.
"You'd be a hit, Fouchette."
"If I had a lover--er--equal to the occasion, perhaps."
"Oh! as to that----"
"Now, Monsieur Jean, we have not yet settled your affair," she
interrupted, throwing herself again upon the divan among the cushions.
"No; not quite," said he.
She tried to think connectedly. But everything seemed such a jumble.
And out of this chaos of thought came the details of the miserable
part she had played.
Her part!
What if he knew that she was merely the wretched tool of the police?
What would he say if he came to know that she had once reported his
movements at the Préfecture? And what would he do if he were aware
that she knew the true relation of Lerouge and Mlle. Remy and had
intentionally misled both him and Madeleine?
Fortunately, Mlle. Fouchette had been spared the knowledge of the real
cause of Madeleine's misfortune,--the jealous grisette whom she had
set on to worse than murder.
But she was thinking only of Jean Marot now. Love had awakened her
soul to the enormity of her offence. It also caused her to suffer
remorse for her general conduct. Before she loved she never cared; she
had never suffered mentally. Now she was on the rack. She was being
punished.
Love had furrowed the virgin ground of her heart and turned up
self-consciousness and conscience, and sowed womanly sweetness, and
tenderness, and pity, and humility, and the sensitiveness to pain.
Mlle. Fouchette, living in the shadow of the world's greatest
educational institutions, was, perhaps naturally, a heathen. She
feared neither God nor devil.
Jean Marot was her only tangible idea of God. His contempt would be
her punishment. To live where he was not would be Hell.
To secure herself against this damnation she was ready to sacrifice
anything,--everything! She would have willingly offered herself to be
cuffed and beaten every day of her life by him, and would have
worshipped him and kissed the hand that struck her.
Perhaps, after all, the purest and holiest love is that which stands
ready to sacrifice everything to render its object happy; that,
blotting out self and trampling natural desire underfoot, thinks only
of the one great aim and end, the happiness of the beloved.
This was the instinct now of the girl who struggled with her emotions,
who sought a way out that would accomplish that end very much desired
by her as well as Jean. There was at the same time a faint idea that
her own material happiness lay in the same direction.
"Monsieur Jean!"
"Well?"
"You must make friends with Lerouge."
"But, mon enfant, if----"
"There are no 'buts' and 'ifs.' You must make friends with the brother
or you can never hope to win his sister. That is clear. Write to
him,--apologize to him,--anything----"
"I don't just see my way open," he began. "You can't apologize to a
man who tries to assassinate you on sight."
"You were friends before that day in the Place de la Concorde?"
"We had not come to blows."
"Politics,--is that all?"
"That is all that divides us, and, parbleu! it divides a good many in
France just now."
"Yes. Monsieur Jean, you must change your politics," she promptly
responded.
"Wha-at? Never! Why----"
"Not for the woman you love?"
"But, Fouchette, you don't understand, mon enfant. A gentleman can't
change his politics as he does his coat."
"Men do, monsieur,--men do,--yes, every day."
"But----"
"What does it amount to, anyhow?--politics? Bah! One side is just like
the other side."
"Oh! oh!"
"Half of them don't know. It's only the difference between celui-ci
and celui-là. You must quit ci and join là, n'est-ce pas?"
Mlle. Fouchette laid this down as if it were merely a choice between
mutton and lamb chops for dinner. But Jean Marot walked impatiently up
and down.
"You overlook the possible existence of such a thing as principle,--as
honor, mademoiselle," he observed, somewhat coldly.
"Rubbish!" said Mlle. Fouchette.
"Oh! oh! what political morals!" he laughingly exclaimed, with an
affectation of horror.
"There are no morals in politics."
"Precious little, truly!"
"Principles are a matter of belief,--political principles. You change
your belief,--the principles go with it; you can't desert 'em,--they
follow you. It is the rest of them, those who disagree with you, who
never have any principles. Is it not so, monsieur?"
He laughed the more as he saw that she was serious. And yet there was
a nipping satire in her words that tickled his fancy.
A gentle knock at the door interrupted this political argument. A
peculiar, diffident, apologetic knock, like the forerunner of the man
come to borrow money. There was a red bell-cord hanging outside, too,
but the rap came from somebody too timid to make a noise.
Mlle. Fouchette started up as if it were the signal for execution. She
turned pale, and placed her finger on her lips. Then, with a
significant glance at Jean, she gathered herself together and tiptoed
to a closet in the wall.
She entered the closet and closed the door softly upon herself.
Jean had regarded her with surprise, then with astonishment. He saw no
reason for this singular development of timidity. As soon as he had
recovered sufficiently he opened the door.
A tall, thin man quietly stepped into the room, as quietly shut the
door behind him, and addressed the young man briskly,--
"Monsieur Marot?"
"Yes, monsieur, at your service."
"So."
"And this is--ah! I remember--this is----"
"Inspector Loup."
The fishy eyes of Monsieur l'Inspecteur had been swimming about in
their fringed pools, taking in every detail of the chamber. They
penetrated the remotest corners, plunged at the curtains of the bed,
and finally rested for a wee little moment upon the two cups and
saucers, the two empty glasses, the two spoons, which still remained
on the table. And yet had not Inspector Loup called attention to the
fact one would never have suspected that he had seen anything.
"Pardon, Monsieur Marot," he said, half behind his hand, "but I am not
disturbing any quiet little--er----"
"Not yet, Monsieur l'Inspecteur," replied the young man, suggestively.
"Go on, I beg."
"Ah! not yet? Good! Very well,--then I will try not to do so."
Whereupon Monsieur l'Inspecteur dived down into a deep pocket and
brought up a package neatly wrapped in pink paper and sealed with a
red seal.
The package bore the address of "M. Jean Marot."
"May I ask if Monsieur Marot can divine the contents of this parcel?"
"Monsieur l'Inspecteur will pardon me,--I'm not good at guessing."
"Monsieur missed some personal property after his arrest----"
"If that is my property," Jean interrupted, brusquely, "it ought to be
a gold watch, hunting case, chronometer, Geneva make, with
eighteen-carat gold chain, dragon-head design for hook; a bunch of
keys, seven in number, and a door-key, and about one hundred and
eighty francs in paper, gold, and silver."
"Very good. Excellent memory, monsieur. It ought to serve you well
enough to keep out of such brawls hereafter. Here,--examine!"
Hastily opening the package, Jean found his watch and chain and
everything else intact, so far as he could recollect. He expressed his
delight,--and when his grasp left the thin hand of the police official
it was to leave a twenty-franc gold piece there.
"Will monsieur kindly sign this receipt?" inquired Monsieur
l'Inspecteur, whose hand had closed upon the coin with true official
instinct.
"But how and where did they get the things back?" inquired Jean,
having complied with this reasonable request.
"I know nothing about that," said the man.
"And how did they know I had lost them? I never complained."
"Then perhaps somebody else did, eh?"
The bright little fishy right eye partially closed to indicate a
roguish expression.
"Bon soir, monsieur."
And with another wink which meant "You can't fool me, young man," he
was gone.
"Well, this is luck!" muttered Jean aloud. He examined the watch
lovingly. It was a present from his father. "But how did they get
these? how did they know they were mine? and how did they know where I
lived? Who asked----"
He went back to the closet and told Mlle. Fouchette the coast was
clear. There was no answer. He tried the door. It was locked. She had
turned the key on the inside.
"Mademoiselle! Come!"
He waited and listened. Not a sound.
"Mademoiselle! Ah, çà! He is gone long ago!"
Still not a stir. Perhaps she was asleep,--or, maybe,--why, she would
smother in that place!
He kicked the door impatiently. He got down upon his breast and put
his ear to the crevice below. If she were prostrated he might hear her
breathing.
All was silence.
This closet door was the merest sheathing, flush with the wall and
covered with the same paper, after the fashion of the ancient Parisian
appartements, and had nothing tangible to the grasp save the key,
which was now on the inside. Jean tried to jostle this out of place by
inserting other keys, but unsuccessfully.
"Sacré!" he cried, in despair; "but we'll see!"
And he hastily brought a combination poker and stove-lifter from the
kitchen, and, inserting the sharp end in the crack near the lock, gave
the improvised "jimmy" a vigorous wrench. The light wood-work flew in
splinters.
At the same moment the interior of the closet was thus suddenly
exposed to the uninterrupted view.
Jean recoiled in astonishment that was almost terror. If he had been
confronted with the suspended corpse of Mlle. Fouchette he could have
scarcely been more startled.
For Mlle. Fouchette was not there!
The cold sweat started out of him. He felt among his clothes,--passed
his hand over the three remaining walls. They appeared solid enough.
"Que diable! but where is she, then?" he muttered.
He was dazed,--rendered incapable of reasoning. He went around vaguely
examining his rooms, peering behind curtains and even moving bits of
furniture, as if Mlle. Fouchette were the elusive collar-button and
might have rolled out of sight somewhere among the furniture.
"Peste! this is astonishing!"
All of this time there was the lock with the key on the inside.
Without being a spiritualist, Jean felt that nobody but spirits could
come out of a room leaving the doors locked and the keys on the
inside. But for that lock, he might have even set it down to optical
illusion and have persuaded himself that perhaps she had really never
entered that place at all.
As Jean Marot was not wholly given to illusions or superstitions, he
logically concluded that there was some other outlet to that closet.
"And why such a thing as that?" he asked himself. What could it be
for? Was it a trap? Perhaps it was a police souricière? He remembered
the warning of Benoit.
Jean hesitated,--quite naturally, since he was up to the tricks of the
political police. If this were a trap, why, Mlle. Fouchette must have
known all about it! Yet that would be impossible.
Then he thought of M. de Beauchamp, and his brow cleared. Whatever the
arrangement, it could have never been designed with regard to the
present occupant of the appartement,--and M. de Beauchamp had escaped.
He lighted a cigarette and took a turn or two up and down,--a habit of
his when lost in thought.
"Ah! it is a door of love!" he concluded. "Yes; that is all. Well, we
shall find out about that pretty soon."
The more he thought of the handsome, godlike artist who had so
mysteriously fled, why, the more he recalled Mlle. Fouchette's
confusion on a certain evening when he first called on her, and her
recent disinclination to discuss his disappearance. He was now certain
that this mysterious exit emptied into her room. He smiled at his own
sagacity. His philosophy found the same expression of the cabman of
Rue Monge,--
"Toujours de même, ces femmes-là!"
He laughed at the trick she had played him; he would show her how
quickly he had reached its solution. He went outside and tapped gently
on her door.
No reply.
He tried the lock, but it was unyielding. Examination by the light of
a match showed no key on the inside.
"Eh bien! I will go by the same route," he said, returning to his
room.
He brought a lighted candle to bear on the magical closet. It proved
to be, as stated, the ordinary blind closet of the ancient Parisian
houses, the depth of the wall's thickness and about three feet wide;
the door being flush with the wall and covered with the same paper,
the opening was unnoticeable to the casual view.
All Parisian doors close with a snap-lock, and a key is indispensable.
This knowledge is acquired by the foreigner after leaving his key on
the inside a few times and hunting up a locksmith after midnight.
The back of these closets, which are used for cupboards as well as
receptacles for clothing, abuts on the adjoining room, quite often, in
a thin sheathing of lath and plaster, which, being covered with the
wall-paper, is concealed from the neighboring eyes, but through which
a listener may be constantly informed as to what is going on next
door.
A superficial survey of the place having developed no unusual
characteristics, Jean took down all of his clothing and emptied the
closet of its contents to the last old shoe.
With the candle to assist him, he then carefully examined the rear
wall.