intelligence you meant to bring to me remains unspoken. Let me encourage
you to tell me everything freely, and be assured that without your
express permission nothing you may say will be remembered by me."
"Thank you, very much," she said quietly, evidently regaining complete
confidence; "but I have nothing to conceal. A week ago, Monsieur Barre
gave me this bracelet with the stipulation that I should wear it at the
ball to-night. Two days ago, I received this letter, which I hesitated
to show even to you, lest it should be an injustice to the man I love."
She passed, with her words, a dirty scrap of a note to me, the leaf of a
sheet of the commonest lined scribbling paper; and I read upon it,
written in very bad French, the warning--
"Mademoiselle. If you wear the topaz bracelet at the Opera Ball to-night
you carry death upon your arm."
Thrice I read this; and as I repeated the words, the third time aloud, I
saw, shaping about the simplicity of the girl, a mystery which seemed as
deep, and at first sight as unfathomable, as any as I had known. As for
the momentary victim of it she sat watching me while I, all amazed, held
the paper still in my hand, and did not hide my surprise, or, indeed,
attempt to.
"Mademoiselle," said I, "you speak to me of very deep matters, I fear.
But, of course, you have shown this letter to your relatives?"
"I have but one relative in the world," said she, "my mother, who is a
paralytic. I dare not mention such a thing to her; she would die of
fear."
"And you yourself have no suspicion, no faint idea of the cause of such
a letter as that?"
"I cannot even attempt to guess at it."
"There are none of your lady friends who would hazard a joke with you?"
"Oh, no; they could not think of such a joke as that, and my few friends
love me, I believe."
I had now begun to pace up and down the room, being in a very whirl of
theory and conjecture. And, in truth, the problem presented so many
possibilities that it might well have troubled a man whose whole
occupation was the solution of mysteries. Not that I lacked any clue,
for my knowledge, such as it is, of the heartburnings, the jealousies,
and the crimes which hover over the possession of precious stones at
once compelled me to the conclusion, either that M. Georges Barre had
been the victim of a previous _affaire du coeur_, or that his _fiancee_
had been won only over trampled hopes and vain rivalries. In either case
(the case of the woman who resented the man's marriage, or the man who
resented the woman's) was there ample warranty for such a letter as
Mademoiselle Bernier had received. Yet was I too slow to venture the
question with her, and did so at last in sheer pity for her
childishness.
"Tell me," said I, stopping of a sudden before her, "what led you to
me?"
"Madame Carmalovitch," said she. "I went to her first, but she knew you
were in Paris, and would not rest until I had consented to see you. She
would have come with me, but is latterly almost always unable to face
the night air."
"You have no one else you would care to consult in such a case?"
"No one," said she.
"And if you go to the ball to-night without your bracelet----?"
She looked up at me with tears in her eyes when she answered,--
"Georges would never forgive me."
"Could you make no excuse to remain at home?"
"Oh, don't ask me to do that," she exclaimed pitifully, "I have lived
for the ball since the beginning of the year!"
It was a woman's plea, and not to be resisted. I saw at once that she
_would_ go to the dance whatever words fell from me, and I turned from
the subject to one more important.
"Since you are determined to be there to night," said I, "perhaps you
will give me Monsieur Georges Barre's address?"
"Oh, for the love of God, don't tell him!" she cried; "he would never
forgive me if I distrusted his present."
"My dear lady, I quite understand that. Really, you credit me with being
a very poor diplomatist. When I see him I doubt if I shall even mention
your name to him."
"You promise me that?"
"I promise you, at least, that he shall never know of your coming to me.
But I must exact another promise from you--it is that you will not wear
the topaz until you have my permission."
"But Georges expects me to wear it at the ball."
"He would not expect you to risk your life. And there is no reason, so
far as I can see, why I should not be able to give you permission, or to
refuse it, by eleven o'clock. You do not go to the opera until midnight,
I presume?"
"Monsieur Barre has promised to call in the Rue Boissiere at a quarter
past twelve. He has an _appartement_ in the Hotel Scribe. I can scarce
go with him and leave his gift at home."
"Of course you can't, but I would suggest that, unless you hear from me
by midnight, you carry it beneath your cloak as you do now. I shall meet
you in the Opera House, at any rate. Meanwhile, I have one more question
to put to you, forgive it from a man who is nearly old enough to be your
father. Before you became the _fiancee_ of Monsieur Barre was
there--well, was there any other in your thoughts?"
She looked at me with frankness shining clearly from her eyes, when she
said,--
"Never for a moment. I was in a convent until last year, and I have not
spoken to six men since I left."
"That is all I want to know. We will both dine now; but first let me
look at your bracelet once more."
She handed me the case again; and I, leaving her for a moment to fetch
my glass, put the jewel under the strong light of the chandelier, and
examined every inch of it within and without. I discovered then that
which had escaped me upon first acquaintance with it. In one of the
crevices of the clasp there was a blood-stain, unmistakable, even fresh,
yet so concealed by the embossment of the jewels that I did not wonder
she had remained in ignorance of it. But when I gave it to her again I
doubt not that I was very serious, and this she observed, and made
comment upon.
"You see something now which you did not see ten minutes ago," she
cried; "you will surely tell me?"
"I see a very pretty pink topaz," said I, forcing a smile, "and a young
lady who is missing her dinner. Come, have some confidence in me, and
put all these thoughts out of your mind until I ask you to remember them
again."
"I will," said she, "and can never thank you enough; you do not know
what a trouble you have taken from my mind."
Here was the end of our interview, for we had come to the door of the
courtyard as we spoke, and I put her at once into the neat little
brougham which was waiting for her. There were but two other men, the
concierge, and a short, exceedingly dark man in evening dress, about the
place at that time; and as the brougham drove away it occurred to me
that the latter fellow was watching me rather closely, upon which I had
a good look at him; but he turned away sharply to the coffee-room, while
I went to my dinner in as fine a state of bewilderment as I have known.
Never in my long years' work had I come across such a case, or one to
which a clue, save on the hypothesis of jealousy, was so completely
wanting. Yet if jealousy were the motive of the warning, how, I asked,
came the bloodstains upon the bracelet? And if the gem had any
connection with a previous affair of Barre's why did he give it to his
_fiancee_? The latter supposition seemed, in itself, sufficient to upset
the whole suggestion; nor could I find another; but I determined to call
upon the sculptor at once, and to use every device at my command in the
interests of the helpless girl who had called upon me.
It was now near to ten o'clock, and, having dined hastily, I passed
through the courtyard on my way to the Hotel Scribe. There I saw, to my
surprise, that the ill-visaged Italian--for so I judged he was--still
loitered about the place; but again appeared to avoid scrutiny. This
second appearance of his seemed to me--I knew not why--as the shaping of
a story from the air; but I had no courage then to speak to him, and I
walked on down the boulevard, perceiving as I went that flambeaus
already lighted the great Opera House, and that the _canaille_ were
preparing for the riot. When at last I came to the hotel, and sent up my
card, the answer was that Monsieur Barre had just left, and was not
expected to return until the next morning.
How completely this answer undid my purpose I could never set down. The
man was my only possible hope. In the haste of my conclusions I had
never found time to remember that I might not catch him; that every
_flaneur_ was hither and thither like a will-o'-the-wisp on such a
night. In vain I asked, nay, implored, for information--they could give
me none; and when further importunity was plainly a farce, I had no
alternative but to go to the Rue Boissiere, in the ultimate hope that
Barre's destination was there, and that he had called upon his _fiancee_
before the hour of the appointment. But upon this I was determined, that
until I had found him Mademoiselle Bernier should not wear the bracelet,
though I stood at her side from that hour to midnight.
My first attempt culminating unfruitfully, I quitted the passage of the
hotel, being still bent upon the journey to the Rue Boissiere, and was
again upon the pavement before the cafe, when I saw the Italian for the
third time. He stood upon the very edge of the curbstone, undisguisedly
waiting for me, so that upon a sudden impulse, which had wisdom in it, I
walked over to him, and this time he did not turn away.
"Forgive the question," said I, in my miserable French, "but you are
betraying an interest in my movements which is unusual; in fact, you
have followed me from my hotel, I think?"
"Exactly," he replied, having even less of the tongue than I had, though
I make no attempt to reproduce the vagaries of his idiom. "I followed
you here, as you say----"
"For what purpose, may I ask?"
"To warn you!"
"To warn me!"
"Certainly, since you carry in your pocket the topaz bracelet."
"Oh," said I, taken aback at his false conclusion, "it is that, is it? I
am much obliged to you, but I don't happen to possess such a thing."
"_Mon Dieu!_" said he; "then she did not sell it to you?"
"She certainly did not!"
"And she will wear it at the ball to-night?"
"Of course!"
"Mother of God! she is a dead woman then."
It is often possible to tell from the chord of voice a man strikes in
conversation whether he be friend or enemy. I knew from the sympathetic
note in this earnest exclamation that I had to do with one who wished
well to Mademoiselle Bernier; but the very sorrow of the words struck me
chill with fear. It was plain that I must shape a bold course if I would
learn the whole moment of the mystery, and observing that the stranger
was a man of much shabbiness and undoubted poverty--if that might be
judged by his dress--I played the only possible card at once.
"Look here," said I, "this is no time for words like this. Come into the
cafe with me, and I will pay you fifty pounds for what you know. It
shall be worth a hundred if you convince me that you have done a
substantial kindness to Mademoiselle Bernier."
He looked at his watch before he made answer. Then he said,--
"The offer is a fair one, but I do not seek your money. We have two
hours in which to save her, but before I go with you, you shall swear to
me that anything I may tell you will never be used against me here or in
any other country."
"Of course," said I; "you don't think I am a policeman, do you? I have
no other interest but that of the lady."
"Nor I," said he; and he followed me into the cafe, but the place was so
intolerably full that I bade him come with me to a little wine-shop in
the Rue Lafayette, and there we found a vacant table, and I ordered his
absinthe and a glass of coffee for myself. Scarcely, however, had he
lighted his cigarette before he began to talk of the matter we had come
upon.
"First," said he, "tell me, did Mademoiselle speak of a letter she had
received?"
"She not only spoke of it, but she gave it to me to read," I replied.
"Well," said he, "I wrote it."
"I gathered that from your words," said I next; "and of course you wrote
it for very good reasons?"
"You shall hear them," said he, sipping freely of his drink. "That
bracelet was last worn at the _Mi-Careme_ Ball in Marseilles by a girl
named Berthe Duval. She was carried from the ball-room stabbed horribly,
at one o'clock in the morning. She died in my arms, for in one week she
was to have been my wife."
"And the assassin?" I asked.
"Was hunted for by the police in vain," he continued. "I myself offered
every shilling that I had to find him, but, despite the activity of us
all, he was never so much as named. Let us go back another year--it is
painful enough for me because such a retrogression recalls to me the one
passion of my life--a passion beside which the affair at Marseilles is
not to be spoken of. God knows that the memory of the woman I refer to
is at this moment eating out my heart. She was an Italian girl, sixteen
years old when she died, and I think--why should I not?--that the world
has never held a more beautiful creature. Well, she wore the bracelet,
now about twenty-six months ago, at the _Mardi Gras_ Ball in Savona, and
she fell dead before my very eyes ten minutes after she had entered the
ball-room. She had drunk of poisoned coffee, and no man but one knew by
whose hand the death had come to her."
"You say no man but one; that one was----"
"Myself!"
"Then you knew who killed the other victim at Marseilles?"
"I knew, as you say; but to know and to arrest are different things."
"Have you any idea as to the man's whereabouts now?"
"Every idea; he was in Paris three days ago--he was in Paris to-day. I
should judge it more than likely that he will be at the Opera Ball
to-night."
Before he could say more I rose from my chair and summoned the head
waiter of the place to me. Then I wrote an urgent message upon a leaf of
my note-book, and despatched it by a cab to 32, Rue Boissiere. The
message implored Mademoiselle Bernier, as she valued her life, to leave
the bracelet at home for this night at any rate.
"Now," said I, "we can talk still at our leisure. You have taken me back
to Marseilles fourteen months ago; let us have the chapter in your life
which precedes that one."
He finished off his absinthe, and called for another glass before he
would answer me. At last he said,--
"You ask me to speak of things which I would well forget. I have
sufficient confidence in you, however, to trust my safety in your hands.
The story is not a long one. Three years ago I was a struggling painter
in Savona, giving half my life to a study of the pictures in the
cathedral--you may know the work of Antonio Semini there--and the other
half to the worship of Pauline di Chigi, the daughter of a silversmith
who lives over against the Hotel Royal. Needless to tell you of my
poverty, or of my belief in myself. I lived then in the day-dreams which
come at the seed-time of art; they were broken only by the waywardness
of the girl, by her womanly fickleness, by the riches of the men who
sought her. It would weary you to hear of my long nights of agony
following the momentary success of this man or that who wooed her, of my
curses upon my own poverty, of my bitterness, and sometimes even of my
hopelessness. There is something of this sort in the life of every poor
man, but the romance will scarce bear the light of other eyes; it has a
place in my story only in so far as it prompted me to steal the topaz,
if stealing is the word for the act which gave me its possession.
"But _arrivons_! In the end of the January of last year, I, struggling
to embrace a career in which I have failed because I have genius and no
talent, obtained a commission from the Dominican monks to go to the
Valley of San Bernardo, and to take up my residence there while I
retouched some of the more modern and more faded pictures in the
sanctuary of Nostra Signora di Misericordia. The shrine and village lie
in the mountains five miles above Savona. The former is now regaining
its splendor, though grievously pillaged by the French and by later
vandals. The work would have been recreation to me had it not been for
Pauline, whom I left to the persecution of a fat and soulless trader,
and to the solicitations of her father that she would marry him. The new
lover loaded her with presents and with the follies of speech which a
middle-aged man who is amorous can be guilty of. I could give her
nothing but the promise of a future, and that being without market value
did not convince her. While she would make pretence of affection for me
when we were alone, she did nothing to repulse the other. Thus I left
Savona with her kisses on my lips, and rage of her wantonness in my
heart; and for three weeks I labored patiently in the mountain village;
and my art lifted me even beyond the spell of the girl.
"It was at the end of the third week that my thoughts were ardently
recalled to her by a circumstance which cannot fail to appear remarkable
to you. I was walking in the late afternoon of the Sunday in the path
which leads one high amongst the mountains, here rising green and
purple, and afar with snowcaps above this lovely spot; and, chancing to
turn aside from the road and to plunge into a shrubbery, I sat at last
upon the log of a tree perched at the side of as wild a glen as I have
seen in Italy. Below me were rocks of marble-black, yellow, red--all
colors; aloe trees flourished abundantly, springing from every cranny of
the dell; and though the reign of winter was not done, flowers blossomed
everywhere, and multitudinous shrubs were rich in green and buds. Here I
sat for an hour buried in my musings, and when at last I left it was by
an overgrown path across the dingle. I found then that the opposite
side of the place was vastly steeper than the one by which I had
descended; in fact, I mounted it with difficulty; and when near to the
summit, I clung to the saplings and the branches for sheer foothold.
This action brought all my trouble, for of a sudden, just as I had come
to the top, a shrub to which I was holding gave at the roots, and
giving, sent me rolling to the bottom again with a great quantity of
soft earth all about me and my bones aching indescribably.
"For some minutes I sat, being dizzy and shaken, on the soft grass. When
I could look around me I saw a strange thing. In a mound of the mould
which had fallen there was a crucifix of gold. Thickly covered with the
clammy earth as it was, dulled and tarnished with long burial, the value
of the thing was unmistakable. Rubies were set in the hands for blood,
there was a crown of diamonds for thorns; the whole was ornamented with
a sprinkling of jewels, whose fire was brilliant even through the pasty
clay which clung upon the cross. I need scarce tell you that all the
curiosity which is a part of me was whetted at this unexpected sight;
and believing that I had come upon a very mine of treasure, I shook the
mould off me, and went quickly by the easier path to the hill-top and
the place of the landslip.
[Illustration: "When I could look around me, I saw a strange thing."
--_Page 206_]
"Twilight was now rushing through the mountains, and a steely light,
soon to turn into darkness, fell upon the ravine; yet I was able still
to see clearly enough for my purpose--and for my disappointment. It is
true that the slip of the earth from the hillside disclosed a
cavernous hole which had been dug, no doubt, many years ago; but of the
kind of treasure whose image had leaped into my mind I saw little. The
few bright things that lay about in the part of the trough which
remained were entirely such vessels as serve priests in the Mass. There
was a pyx in silver, a paten in gold, and two smaller ones; a monstrance
with some exceedingly fine diamonds and the topaz in it, and a gold
chalice much indented. I judged at once that these things had been
buried either when the French plunderers came to Italy, or after the
trouble of '70. It was equally clear that they were the property of the
Dominicans whose house was hard by; and either that their present
hiding-place was unknown, or that they had been left in concealment for
some reason of diplomacy. In any case, the value of the stones in the
monstrance was unquestionable; but I am an Italian, as you see, and I
believed then, as now, in nothing but omens. For a long while no thought
of touching these things, scarce even of handling them--so strong in
human flesh is the grain of early superstition--came to me. I sat there
gazing at them and watching the light of the topaz sparkling even above
the radiance of the smaller diamonds--sat, in fact, until it was quite
dark and the miasma rose from the valley. Then, in one of those flashes
of thought which often mean much to a man, I had it in my mind that both
the diamonds and the topaz above them would sit well upon the arms of
Pauline; I even saw her in my fancy coquetting to me for the present. I
began to laugh aloud at the other thoughts, to call them echoes of
childish schooling, to handle the chalice and the ring of jewels, and to
tell myself that there would be no bigger fool in Europe if I did not
take them. Need I tell you that the reasoning convinced me? and quickly,
as the cold of the mist grew more intense, I took the baubles in my
hand, still lacking the courage to secure the chalice and the crucifix,
and rose to leave the place.
"Now, for the first time, I think, you are beginning to see the point of
my story. The strangest part of it yet remains. I have told you that
dark had fallen upon the ravine as I rose up to quit it, and that mists
rose thick from the valley with the early night. You will, therefore,
easily understand my discomfiture when, reflected upon the white curtain
of fog, I saw the dancing light of a lantern. In the next moment a man,
young but ragged, with a full-bearded face, and the cape of a priest
about his shoulders, stood swinging his lantern before me, and looking
down at the tomb of the jewels by our feet. I know not why, but there
was something of such power and command writ upon the monk's face that I
have never called him by any other name than the Christ. With what
feelings he inspired me I cannot tell you. Terror, human terror, is no
word for my experience; my whole being seemed stricken with an
apprehension which tortured me and made my brain burn. God! the memory
shakes me even now, and I have seen him thrice since, and the fear is
greater every time I look upon his face.
"Thus I stood facing the man when he opened his lips to curse me. I
believe now, and shall always believe, that he is nothing but a madman,
whose brain has failed from long fasting. Be that as it may, his words
ring yet in my ears. If you search the world through, read the curse
upon Barbarossa, and all the volumes of anathema, you will never find
such a blasting accusation as the man spoke when he saw the monstrance
in my hand. So dreadful was it that I reeled before him; and, losing all
command, I struck him down with my stick and fled the place. The next
day I quitted the valley of San Bernardo, and in a week Pauline was
wearing the topaz, set by her father as a bracelet, and the diamonds
sparkled upon her fingers. She covered me with kisses for the gift, and
in her embraces I forgot the madman of the hills, and my melancholy
passed.
"The rest of my story you know. Pauline wore the topaz at the _Mardi
Gras_ Ball, and died ten minutes after she had entered the room. A year
later, having fled from Italy, I became engaged _pour passer le temps_
to Berthe Duval, at Marseilles. A man has many love affairs, but only
one passion. I was not in love with her, but she was rich, and troubled
herself to get a smattering of art-talk, which amused me. One day she
found the topaz in my studio and begged it of me. She died as you have
heard; and I, poor as always, and now pursued by the damning curse, came
to Paris, selling the topaz on my way here to M. Georges Barre. I have
never ceased to regret that which I did; I have lamented it the most
since I saw the exquisite creature who is to be his wife. And when,
three days ago, I discovered the madman who had cursed me at San
Bernardo in the very Rue Boissiere where Mademoiselle Bernier lives, I
determined to save her though the deed cost me a confession and my
liberty."
* * * * *