“What would you say if I told you what had become of the three hundred
and fifty thousand francs?”
Prosper shook his head sadly.
“If it were known, monsieur, I would not be here, but at liberty.”
This device had often been used by the judge, and generally succeeded;
but, with a man so thoroughly master of himself, there was small chance
of success. It had been used at a venture, and failed.
“Then you persist in accusing M. Fauvel?”
“Him, or someone else.”
“Excuse me: no one else, since he alone knew the word. Had he any
interest in robbing himself?”
“I can think of none.”
“Well, now I will tell you what interest you had in robbing him.”
M. Patrigent spoke as a man who was convinced of the facts he was about
to state; but his assurance was all assumed.
He had relied upon crushing, at a blow, a despairing wretched man, and
was nonplussed by seeing him appear as determined upon resistance.
“Will you be good enough to tell me,” he said, in a vexed tone, “how
much you have spent during the last year?”
Prosper did not find it necessary to stop to reflect and calculate.
“Yes, monsieur,” he answered, unhesitatingly: “circumstances made it
necessary for me to preserve the greatest order in my wild career; I
spent about fifty thousand francs.”
“Where did you obtain them?”
“In the first place, twelve thousand francs were left to me by my
mother. I received from M. Fauvel fourteen thousand francs, as my
salary, and share of the profits. By speculating in stocks, I gained
eight thousand francs. The rest I borrowed, and intend repaying out of
the fifteen thousand francs which I have deposited in M. Fauvel’s bank.”
The account was clear, exact, and could be easily proved; it must be a
true one.
“Who lent you the money?”
“M. Raoul de Lagors.”
This witness had left Paris the day of the robbery, and could not be
found; so, for the time being, M. Patrigent was compelled to rely upon
Prosper’s word.
“Well,” he said, “I will not press this point; but tell me why, in spite
of the formal order of M. Fauvel, you drew the money from the Bank of
France the night before, instead of waiting till the morning of the
payment?”
“Because M. de Clameran had informed me that it would be agreeable,
necessary even, for him to have his money early in the morning. He will
testify to that fact, if you summon him; and I knew that I should reach
my office late.”
“Then M. de Clameran is a friend of yours?”
“By no means. I have always felt repelled by him; but he is the intimate
friend of M. Lagors.”
While Sigault was writing down these answers, M. Patrigent was racking
his brain to imagine what could have occurred between M. Bertomy and his
son, to cause this transformation in Prosper.
“One more thing,” said the judge: “how did you spend the evening, the
night before the crime?”
“When I left my office, at five o’clock, I took the St.-Germain train,
and went to Vesinet, M. de Lagors’s country seat, to carry him fifteen
hundred francs which he had asked for; and, finding him not at home, I
left it with his servant.”
“Did he tell you that M. de Lagors was going away?”
“No, monsieur. I did not know that he had left Paris.”
“Where did you go when you left Vesinet?”
“I returned to Paris, and dined at a restaurant with a friend.”
“And then?”
Prosper hesitated.
“You are silent,” said M. Patrigent; “then I shall tell you how you
employed your time. You returned to your rooms in the Rue Chaptal,
dressed yourself, and attended a _soiree_ given by one of those women
who style themselves dramatic artistes, and who are a disgrace to
the stage; who receive a hundred crowns a year, and yet keep their
carriages, at Mlle. Wilson’s.”
“You are right, monsieur.”
“There is heavy playing at Wilson’s?”
“Sometimes.”
“You are in the habit of visiting places of this sort. Were you not
connected in some way with a scandalous adventure which took place at
the house of a woman named Crescenzi?”
“I was summoned to testify, having witnessed a theft.”
“Gambling generally leads to stealing. And did you not play baccarat at
Wilson’s, and lose eighteen hundred francs?”
“Excuse me, monsieur, only eleven hundred.”
“Very well. In the morning you paid a note of a thousand francs.”
“Yes, monsieur.”
“Moreover, there remained in your desk five hundred francs, and you had
four hundred in your purse when you were arrested. So that altogether,
in twenty-four hours, four thousand five hundred francs--”
Prosper was not discountenanced, but stupefied.
Not being aware of the powerful means of investigation possessed by the
law, he wondered how in so short a time the judge could have obtained
such accurate information.
“Your statement is correct, monsieur,” he said finally.
“Where did all this money come from? The evening before you had so
little that you were obliged to defer the payment of a small bill.”
“The day to which you allude, I sold through an agent some bonds I had,
about three thousand francs; besides, I took from the safe two thousand
francs in advance on my salary.”
The prisoner had given clear answers to all the questions put to him,
and M. Patrigent thought he would attack him on a new point.
“You say you have no wish to conceal any of your actions; then why did
you write this note to one of your companions?” Here he held up the
mysterious note.
This time the blow struck. Prosper’s eyes dropped before the inquiring
look of the judge.
“I thought,” he stammered, “I wished--”
“You wished to screen this woman?”
“Yes, monsieur; I did. I knew that a man in my condition, accused of
a robbery, has every fault, every weakness he has ever indulged in,
charged against him as a great crime.”
“Which means that you knew that the presence of a woman at your house
would tell very much against you, and that justice would not excuse this
scandalous defiance of public morality. A man who respects himself so
little as to associate with a worthless woman, does not elevate her to
his standard, but he descends to her base level.”
“Monsieur!”
“I suppose you know who the woman is, whom you permit to bear the honest
name borne by your mother?”
“Mme. Gypsy was a governess when I first knew her. She was born at
Oporto, and came to France with a Portuguese family.”
“Her name is not Gypsy; she has never been a governess, and she is not a
Portuguese.”
Prosper began to protest against this statement; but M. Patrigent
shrugged his shoulders, and began looking over a large file of papers on
his desk.
“Ah, here it is,” he said, “listen: Palmyre Chocareille, born at Paris
in 1840, daughter of James Chocareille, undertaker’s assistant, and of
Caroline Piedlent, his wife.”
Prosper looked vexed and impatient; he did not know that the judge was
reading him this report to convince him that nothing can escape the
police.
“Palmyre Chocareille,” he continued, “at twelve years of age was
apprenticed to a shoemaker, and remained with him until she was sixteen.
Traces of her for one year are lost. At the age of seventeen she is
hired as a servant by a grocer on the Rue St. Denis, named Dombas, and
remains there three months. She lives out during this same year,
1857, at eight different places. In 1858 she entered the store of a
fan-merchant in Choiseul Alley.”
As he read, the judge watched Prosper’s face to observe the effect of
these revelations.
“Toward the close of 1858 she was employed as a servant by Madame Munes,
and accompanied her to Lisbon. How long she remained in Lisbon, and
what she did while she remained there, is not reported. But in 1861 she
returned to Paris, and was sentenced to three months’ imprisonment for
assault and battery. Ah, she returned from Portugal with the name of
Nina Gypsy.”
“But I assure you, monsieur,” Prosper began.
“Yes, I understand; this history is less romantic, doubtless, than the
one related to you; but then it has the merit of being true. We lose
sight of Palmyre Chocareille, called Gypsy, upon her release from
prison, but we meet her again six months later, having made the
acquaintance of a travelling agent named Caldas, who became infatuated
with her beauty, and furnished her a house near the Bastille. She
assumed his name for some time, then she deserted him to devote herself
to you. Did you ever hear of this Caldas?”
“Never, monsieur.”
“This foolish man so deeply loved this creature that her desertion drove
him almost insane from grief. He was a very resolute man, and publicly
swore that he would kill his rival if he ever found him. The current
report afterward was, that he committed suicide. He certainly sold
the furniture of the House occupied by Chocareille, and suddenly
disappeared. All the efforts made to discover him proved fruitless.”
The judge stopped a moment as if to give Prosper time for reflection,
and then slowly said:
“And this is the woman whom you made your companion, the woman for whom
you robbed the bank!”
Once more M. Patrigent was on the wrong track, owing to Fanferlot’s
incomplete information.
He had hoped that Prosper would betray himself by uttering some
passionate retort when thus wounded to the quick; but he remained
impassible. Of all the judge said to him his mind dwelt upon only one
word--Caldas, the name of the poor travelling agent who had killed
himself.
“At any rate,” insisted M. Patrigent, “you will confess that this girl
has caused your ruin.”
“I cannot confess that, monsieur, for it is not true.”
“Yet she is the occasion of your extravagance. Listen.” The judge here
drew a bill from the file of papers. “During December you paid her
dressmaker, Van Klopen, for two walking dresses, nine hundred francs;
one evening dress, seven hundred francs; one domino, trimmed with lace,
four hundred francs.”
“I spent this money cheerfully, but nevertheless I was not especially
attached to her.”