CHAPTER II. — A FOOL’S PARADISE
CHAPTER III. — ON THE BRINK
CHAPTER IV. — CARISSIMO
CHAPTER V. — THE TOYS
CHAPTER VI. — HONOUR AMONG——
CHAPTER VII. — AN OVER-SENSITIVE HEART
FOREWORD
In presenting this engaging rogue to my readers, I feel that I owe
them, if not an apology, at least an explanation for this attempt at
enlisting sympathy in favour of a man who has little to recommend him
save his own unconscious humour. In very truth my good friend Ratichon
is an unblushing liar, thief, a forger—anything you will; his vanity is
past belief, his scruples are non-existent. How he escaped a convict
settlement it is difficult to imagine, and hard to realize that he
died—presumably some years after the event recorded in the last chapter
of his autobiography—a respected member of the community, honoured by
that same society which should have raised a punitive hand against him.
Yet this I believe to be the case. At any rate, in spite of close
research in the police records of the period, I can find no mention of
Hector Ratichon. “Heureux le peuple qui n’a pas d’histoire” applies,
therefore, to him, and we must take it that Fate and his own sorely
troubled country dealt lightly with him.
Which brings me back to my attempt at an explanation. If Fate dealt
kindly, why not we? Since time immemorial there have been worse
scoundrels unhung than Hector Ratichon, and he has the saving grace—
which few possess—of unruffled geniality. Buffeted by Fate, sometimes
starving, always thirsty, he never complains; and there is all through
his autobiography what we might call an “Ah, well!” attitude about his
outlook on life. Because of this, and because his very fatuity makes us
smile, I feel that he deserves forgiveness and even a certain amount of
recognition.
The fragmentary notes, which I have only very slightly modified, came
into my hands by a happy chance one dull post-war November morning in
Paris, when rain, sleet and the north wind drove me for shelter under
the arcades of the Odéon, and a kindly vendor of miscellaneous printed
matter and mouldy MSS. allowed me to rummage amongst a load of old
papers which he was about to consign to the rubbish heap. I imagine
that the notes were set down by the actual person to whom the genial
Hector Ratichon recounted the most conspicuous events of his chequered
career, and as I turned over the torn and musty pages, which hung
together by scraps of mouldy thread, I could not help feeling the
humour—aye! and the pathos—of that drabby side of old Paris which was
being revealed to me through the medium of this rogue’s adventures. And
even as, holding the fragments in my hand, I walked home that morning
through the rain something of that same quaint personality seemed once
more to haunt the dank and dreary streets of the once dazzling Ville
Lumière. I seemed to see the shabby bottle-green coat, the nankeen
pantaloons, the down-at-heel shoes of this “confidant of Kings”; I
could hear his unctuous, self-satisfied laugh, and sensed his furtive
footstep whene’er a gendarme came into view. I saw his ruddy, shiny
face beaming at me through the sleet and the rain as, like a veritable
squire of dames, he minced his steps upon the boulevard, or, like a
reckless smuggler, affronted the grave dangers of mountain fastnesses
upon the Juras; and I was quite glad to think that a life so full of
unconscious humour had not been cut short upon the gallows. And I
thought kindly of him, for he had made me smile.
There is nothing fine about him, nothing romantic; nothing in his
actions to cause a single thrill to the nerves of the most
unsophisticated reader. Therefore, I apologize in that I have not held
him up to a just obloquy because of his crimes, and I ask indulgence
for his turpitudes because of the laughter which they provoke.
EMMUSKA ORCZY. _Paris, 1921_.
CASTLES IN THE AIR
CHAPTER I. — A ROLAND FOR HIS OLIVER
1.
My name is Ratichon—Hector Ratichon, at your service, and I make so
bold as to say that not even my worst enemy would think of minimizing
the value of my services to the State. For twenty years now have I
placed my powers at the disposal of my country: I have served the
Republic, and was confidential agent to Citizen Robespierre; I have
served the Empire, and was secret factotum to our great Napoléon; I
have served King Louis—with a brief interval of one hundred days— for
the past two years, and I can only repeat that no one, in the whole of
France, has been so useful or so zealous in tracking criminals, nosing
out conspiracies, or denouncing traitors as I have been.
And yet you see me a poor man to this day: there has been a
persistently malignant Fate which has worked against me all these
years, and would—but for a happy circumstance of which I hope anon to
tell you—have left me just as I was, in the matter of fortune, when I
first came to Paris and set up in business as a volunteer police agent
at No. 96 Rue Daunou.
My apartment in those days consisted of an antechamber, an outer office
where, if need be, a dozen clients might sit, waiting their turn to
place their troubles, difficulties, anxieties before the acutest brain
in France, and an inner room wherein that same acute brain—mine, my
dear Sir—was wont to ponder and scheme. That apartment was not
luxuriously furnished—furniture being very dear in those days—but there
were a couple of chairs and a table in the outer office, and a cupboard
wherein I kept the frugal repast which served me during the course of a
long and laborious day. In the inner office there were more chairs and
another table, littered with papers: letters and packets all tied up
with pink tape (which cost three sous the metre), and bundles of
letters from hundreds of clients, from the highest and the lowest in
the land, you understand, people who wrote to me and confided in me
to-day as kings and emperors had done in the past. In the antechamber
there was a chair-bedstead for Theodore to sleep on when I required him
to remain in town, and a chair on which he could sit.
And, of course, there was Theodore!
Ah! my dear Sir, of him I can hardly speak without feeling choked with
the magnitude of my emotion. A noble indignation makes me dumb.
Theodore, sir, has ever been the cruel thorn that times out of number
hath wounded my over-sensitive heart. Think of it! I had picked him out
of the gutter! No! no! I do not mean this figuratively! I mean that,
actually and in the flesh, I took him up by the collar of his tattered
coat and dragged him out of the gutter in the Rue Blanche, where he was
grubbing for trifles out of the slime and mud. He was frozen, Sir, and
starved—yes, starved! In the intervals of picking filth up out of the
mud he held out a hand blue with cold to the passers-by and
occasionally picked up a sou. When I found him in that pitiable
condition he had exactly twenty centimes between him and absolute
starvation.
And I, Sir Hector Ratichon, the confidant of two kings, three autocrats
and an emperor, took that man to my bosom—fed him, clothed him, housed
him, gave him the post of secretary in my intricate, delicate,
immensely important business—and I did this, Sir, at a salary which, in
comparison with his twenty centimes, must have seemed a princely one to
him.
His duties were light. He was under no obligation to serve me or to be
at his post before seven o’clock in the morning, and all that he had to
do then was to sweep out the three rooms, fetch water from the well in
the courtyard below, light the fire in the iron stove which stood in my
inner office, shell the haricots for his own mess of pottage, and put
them to boil. During the day his duties were lighter still. He had to
run errands for me, open the door to prospective clients, show them
into the outer office, explain to them that his master was engaged on
affairs relating to the kingdom of France, and generally prove himself
efficient, useful and loyal—all of which qualities he assured me, my
dear Sir, he possessed to the fullest degree. And I believed him, Sir;
I nurtured the scorpion in my over-sensitive bosom! I promised him ten
per cent. on all the profits of my business, and all the remnants from
my own humble repasts—bread, the skins of luscious sausages, the bones
from savoury cutlets, the gravy from the tasty carrots and onions. You
would have thought that his gratitude would become boundless, that he
would almost worship the benefactor who had poured at his feet the full
cornucopia of comfort and luxury. Not so! That man, Sir, was a snake in
the grass—a serpent—a crocodile! Even now that I have entirely severed
my connexion with that ingrate, I seem to feel the wounds, like
dagger-thrusts, which he dealt me with so callous a hand. But I have
done with him—done, I tell you! How could I do otherwise than to send
him back to the gutter from whence I should never have dragged him? My
goodness, he repaid with an ingratitude so black that you, Sir, when
you hear the full story of his treachery, will exclaim aghast.
Ah, you shall judge! His perfidy commenced less than a week after I had
given him my third best pantaloons and three sous to get his hair cut,
thus making a man of him. And yet, you would scarcely believe it, in
the matter of the secret documents he behaved toward me like a
veritable Judas!
Listen, my dear Sir.
I told you, I believe, that I had my office in the Rue Daunou. You
understand that I had to receive my clients—many of whom were of
exalted rank—-in a fashionable quarter of Paris. But I actually lodged
in Passy—being fond of country pursuits and addicted to fresh air—in a
humble hostelry under the sign of the “Grey Cat”; and here, too,
Theodore had a bed. He would walk to the office a couple of hours
before I myself started on the way, and I was wont to arrive as soon
after ten o’clock of a morning as I could do conveniently.
On this memorable occasion of which I am about to tell you—it was
during the autumn of 1815—I had come to the office unusually early, and
had just hung my hat and coat in the outer room, and taken my seat at
my desk in the inner office, there to collect my thoughts in
preparation for the grave events which the day might bring forth, when,
suddenly, an ill-dressed, dour-looking individual entered the room
without so much as saying, “By your leave,” and after having pushed
Theodore—who stood by like a lout—most unceremoniously to one side.
Before I had time to recover from my surprise at this unseemly
intrusion, the uncouth individual thrust Theodore roughly out of the
room, slammed the door in his face, and having satisfied himself that
he was alone with me and that the door was too solid to allow of
successful eavesdropping, he dragged the best chair forward—the one,
sir, which I reserve for lady visitors.
He threw his leg across it, and, sitting astride, he leaned his elbows
over the back and glowered at me as if he meant to frighten me.
“My name is Charles Saurez,” he said abruptly, “and I want your
assistance in a matter which requires discretion, ingenuity and
alertness. Can I have it?”
I was about to make a dignified reply when he literally threw the next
words at me: “Name your price, and I will pay it!” he said.
What could I do, save to raise my shoulders in token that the matter of
money was one of supreme indifference to me, and my eyebrows in a
manner of doubt that M. Charles Saurez had the means wherewith to repay
my valuable services? By way of a rejoinder he took out from the inner
pocket of his coat a greasy letter-case, and with his exceedingly grimy
fingers extracted therefrom some twenty banknotes, which a hasty glance
on my part revealed as representing a couple of hundred francs.
“I will give you this as a retaining fee,” he said, “if you will
undertake the work I want you to do; and I will double the amount when
you have carried the work out successfully.”
Four hundred francs! It was not lavish, it was perhaps not altogether
the price I would have named, but it was very good, these hard times.
You understand? We were all very poor in France in that year 1815 of
which I speak.
I am always quite straightforward when I am dealing with a client who
means business. I pushed aside the litter of papers in front of me,
leaned my elbows upon my desk, rested my chin in my hands, and said
briefly:
“M. Charles Saurez, I listen!”
He drew his chair a little closer and dropped his voice almost to a
whisper.
“You know the Chancellerie of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs?” he
asked.
“Perfectly,” I replied.
“You know M. de Marsan’s private office? He is chief secretary to M. de
Talleyrand.”
“No,” I said, “but I can find out.”
“It is on the first floor, immediately facing the service staircase,
and at the end of the long passage which leads to the main staircase.”
“Easy to find, then,” I remarked.
“Quite. At this hour and until twelve o’clock, M. de Marsan will be
occupied in copying a document which I desire to possess. At eleven
o’clock precisely there will be a noisy disturbance in the corridor
which leads to the main staircase. M. de Marsan, in all probability,
will come out of his room to see what the disturbance is about. Will
you undertake to be ready at that precise moment to make a dash from
the service staircase into the room to seize the document, which no
doubt will be lying on the top of the desk, and bring it to an address
which I am about to give you?”
“It is risky,” I mused.
“Very,” he retorted drily, “or I’d do it myself, and not pay you four
hundred francs for your trouble.”
“Trouble!” I exclaimed, with withering sarcasm.
“Trouble, you call it? If I am caught, it means penal servitude—New
Caledonia, perhaps—”
“Exactly,” he said, with the same irritating calmness; “and if you
succeed it means four hundred francs. Take it or leave it, as you
please, but be quick about it. I have no time to waste; it is past nine
o’clock already, and if you won’t do the work, someone else will.”
For a few seconds longer I hesitated. Schemes, both varied and wild,
rushed through my active brain: refuse to take this risk, and denounce
the plot to the police; refuse it, and run to warn M. de Marsan; refuse
it, and— I had little time for reflection. My uncouth client was
standing, as it were, with a pistol to my throat—with a pistol and four
hundred francs! The police might perhaps give me half a louis for my
pains, or they might possibly remember an unpleasant little incident in
connexion with the forgery of some Treasury bonds which they have never
succeeded in bringing home to me—one never knows! M. de Marsan might
throw me a franc, and think himself generous at that!
All things considered, then, when M. Charles Saurez suddenly said,
“Well?” with marked impatience, I replied, “Agreed,” and within five
minutes I had two hundred francs in my pocket, with the prospect of two
hundred more during the next four and twenty hours. I was to have a
free hand in conducting my own share of the business, and M. Charles
Saurez was to call for the document at my lodgings at Passy on the
following morning at nine o’clock.
2.
I flatter myself that I conducted the business with remarkable skill.
At precisely ten minutes to eleven I rang at the Chancellerie of the
Ministry for Foreign Affairs. I was dressed as a respectable
commissionnaire, and I carried a letter and a small parcel addressed to
M. de Marsan. “First floor,” said the concierge curtly, as soon as he
had glanced at the superscription on the letter. “Door faces top of the
service stairs.”
I mounted and took my stand some ten steps below the landing, keeping
the door of M. de Marsan’s room well in sight. Just as the bells of
Notre Dame boomed the hour I heard what sounded like a furious
altercation somewhere in the corridor just above me. There was much
shouting, then one or two cries of “Murder!” followed by others of
“What is it?” and “What in the name of ——— is all this infernal row
about?” Doors were opened and banged, there was a general running and
rushing along that corridor, and the next minute the door in front of
me was opened also, and a young man came out, pen in hand, and shouting
just like everybody else:
“What the ——— is all this infernal row about?”
“Murder, help!” came from the distant end of the corridor, and M. de
Marsan—undoubtedly it was he—did what any other young man under the
like circumstances would have done: he ran to see what was happening
and to lend a hand in it, if need be. I saw his slim figure
disappearing down the corridor at the very moment that I slipped into
his room. One glance upon the desk sufficed: there lay the large
official-looking document, with the royal signature affixed thereto,
and close beside it the copy which M. de Marsan had only half
finished—the ink on it was still wet. Hesitation, Sir, would have been
fatal. I did not hesitate; not one instant. Three seconds had scarcely
elapsed before I picked up the document, together with M. de Marsan’s
half-finished copy of the same, and a few loose sheets of Chancellerie
paper which I thought might be useful. Then I slipped the lot inside my
blouse. The bogus letter and parcel I left behind me, and within two
minutes of my entry into the room I was descending the service
staircase quite unconcernedly, and had gone past the concierge’s lodge
without being challenged. How thankful I was to breathe once more the
pure air of heaven. I had spent an exceedingly agitated five minutes,
and even now my anxiety was not altogether at rest. I dared not walk
too fast lest I attracted attention, and yet I wanted to put the river,
the Pont Neuf, and a half dozen streets between me and the Chancellerie
of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. No one who has not gone through
such an exciting adventure as I have just recorded can conceive what
were my feelings of relief and of satisfaction when I at last found
myself quietly mounting the stairs which led to my office on the top
floor of No. 96 Rue Daunou.
3.
Now, I had not said anything to Theodore about this affair. It was
certainly arranged between us when he entered my service as
confidential clerk and doorkeeper that in lieu of wages, which I could
not afford to pay him, he would share my meals with me and have a bed
at my expense in the same house at Passy where I lodged; moreover, I
would always give him a fair percentage on the profits which I derived
from my business. The arrangement suited him very well. I told you that
I picked him out of the gutter, and I heard subsequently that he had
gone through many an unpleasant skirmish with the police in his day,
and if I did not employ him no one else would.
After all, he did earn a more or less honest living by serving me. But
in this instance, since I had not even asked for his assistance, I felt
that, considering the risks of New Caledonia and a convict ship which I
had taken, a paltry four hundred francs could not by any stretch of the
imagination rank as a “profit” in a business—and Theodore was not
really entitled to a percentage, was he?
So when I returned I crossed the ante-chamber and walked past him with
my accustomed dignity; nor did he offer any comment on my get-up. I
often affected a disguise in those days, even when I was not engaged in
business, and the dress and get-up of a respectable commissionnaire was
a favourite one with me. As soon as I had changed I sent him out to
make purchases for our luncheon—five sous’ worth of stale bread, and
ten sous’ worth of liver sausage, of which he was inordinately fond. He
would take the opportunity on the way of getting moderately drunk on as
many glasses of absinthe as he could afford. I saw him go out of the
outer door, and then I set to work to examine the precious document.
Well, one glance was sufficient for me to realize its incalculable
value! Nothing more or less than a Treaty of Alliance between King
Louis XVIII of France and the King of Prussia in connexion with certain
schemes of naval construction. I did not understand the whole
diplomatic verbiage, but it was pretty clear to my unsophisticated mind
that this treaty had been entered into in secret by the two monarchs,
and that it was intended to prejudice the interests both of Denmark and
of Russia in the Baltic Sea.
I also realized that both the Governments of Denmark and Russia would
no doubt pay a very considerable sum for the merest glance at this
document, and that my client of this morning was certainly a secret
service agent—otherwise a spy—of one of those two countries, who did
not choose to take the very severe risks which I had taken this
morning, but who would, on the other hand, reap the full reward of the
daring coup, whilst I was to be content with four hundred francs!
Now, I am a man of deliberation as well as of action, and at this
juncture—feeling that Theodore was still safely out of the way—I
thought the whole matter over quietly, and then took what precautions I
thought fit for the furthering of my own interests.
To begin with, I set to work to make a copy of the treaty on my own
account. I have brought the study of calligraphy to a magnificent
degree of perfection, and the writing on the document was easy enough
to imitate, as was also the signature of our gracious King Louis and of
M. de Talleyrand, who had countersigned it.
If you remember, I had picked up two or three loose sheets of paper off
M. de Marsan’s desk; these bore the arms of the Chancellerie of Foreign
Affairs stamped upon them, and were in every way identical with that on
which the original document had been drafted. When I had finished my
work I flattered myself that not the greatest calligraphic expert could
have detected the slightest difference between the original and the
copy which I had made.
The work took me a long time. When at last I folded up the papers and
slipped them once more inside my blouse it was close upon two. I
wondered why Theodore had not returned with our luncheon, but on going
to the little anteroom which divides my office from the outer door,
great was my astonishment to see him lolling there on the rickety chair
which he affectioned, and half asleep. I had some difficulty in rousing
him. Apparently he had got rather drunk while he was out, and had then
returned and slept some of his booze off, without thinking that I might
be hungry and needing my luncheon.
“Why didn’t you let me know you had come back?” I asked curtly, for
indeed I was very cross with him.
“I thought you were busy,” he replied, with what I thought looked like
a leer.
I have never really cared for Theodore, you understand.
However, I partook of our modest luncheon with him in perfect amity and
brotherly love, but my mind was busy all the time. I began to wonder if
Theodore suspected something; if so, I knew that I could not trust him.
He would try and ferret things out, and then demand a share in my
hard-earned emoluments to which he was really not entitled. I did not
feel safe with that bulky packet of papers on me, and I felt that
Theodore’s bleary eyes were perpetually fixed upon the bulge in the
left-hand side of my coat. At one moment he looked so strange that I
thought he meant to knock me down.
So my mind was quickly made up.
After luncheon I would go down to my lodgings at Passy, and I knew of a
snug little hiding-place in my room there where the precious documents
would be quite safe until such time as I was to hand them—or one of
them—to M. Charles Saurez.
This plan I put into execution, and with remarkable ingenuity too.
While Theodore was busy clearing up the debris of our luncheon, I not
only gave him the slip, but as I went out I took the precaution of
locking the outer door after me, and taking the key away in my pocket.
I thus made sure that Theodore could not follow me. I then walked to
Passy—a matter of two kilometres—and by four o’clock I had the
satisfaction of stowing the papers safely away under one of the tiles
in the flooring of my room, and then pulling the strip of carpet in
front of my bed snugly over the hiding-place.
Theodore’s attic, where he slept, was at the top of the house, whilst
my room was on the ground floor, and so I felt that I could now go back
quite comfortably to my office in the hope that more remunerative work
and more lavish clients would come my way before nightfall.
4.
It was a little after five o’clock when I once more turned the key in
the outer door of my rooms in the Rue Daunou.
Theodore did not seem in the least to resent having been locked in for
two hours. I think he must have been asleep most of the time. Certainly
I heard a good deal of shuffling when first I reached the landing
outside the door; but when I actually walked into the apartment with an
air of quiet unconcern Theodore was sprawling on the chair-bedstead,
with eyes closed, a nose the colour of beetroot, and emitting sounds
through his thin, cracked lips which I could not, Sir, describe
graphically in your presence.
I took no notice of him, however, even though, as I walked past him, I
saw that he opened one bleary eye and watched my every movement. I went
straight into my private room and shut the door after me. And here, I
assure you, my dear Sir, I literally fell into my favourite chair,
overcome with emotion and excitement. Think what I had gone through!
The events of the last few hours would have turned any brain less keen,
less daring than that of Hector Ratichon. And here was I, alone at
last, face to face with the future. What a future, my dear Sir! Fate
was smiling on me at last. At last I was destined to reap a rich reward
for all the skill, the energy, the devotion, which up to this hour I
had placed at the service of my country and my King—or my Emperor, as
the case might be—without thought of my own advantage. Here was I now
in possession of a document—two documents—each one of which was worth
at least a thousand francs to persons whom I could easily approach. One
thousand francs! Was I dreaming? Five thousand would certainly be paid
by the Government whose agent M. Charles Saurez admittedly was for one
glance at that secret treaty which would be so prejudicial to their
political interests; whilst M. de Marsan himself would gladly pay
another five thousand for the satisfaction of placing the precious
document intact before his powerful and irascible uncle.
Ten thousand francs! How few were possessed of such a sum in these
days! How much could be done with it! I would not give up business
altogether, of course, but with my new capital I would extend it and,
there was a certain little house, close to Chantilly, a house with a
few acres of kitchen garden and some fruit trees, the possession of
which would render me happier than any king. . . . I would marry! Oh,
yes! I would certainly marry—found a family. I was still young, my dear
Sir, and passably good looking. In fact there was a certain young
widow, comely and amiable, who lived not far from Passy, who had on
more than one occasion given me to understand that I was more than
passably good looking. I had always been susceptible where the fair sex
was concerned, and now . . . oh, now! I could pick and choose! The
comely widow had a small fortune of her own, and there were others! . .
.
Thus I dreamed on for the better part of an hour, until, soon after six
o’clock, there was a knock at the outer door and I heard Theodore’s
shuffling footsteps crossing the small anteroom. There was some
muttered conversation, and presently my door was opened and Theodore’s
ugly face was thrust into the room.
“A lady to see you,” he said curtly.
Then, he dropped his voice, smacked his lips, and winked with one eye.
“Very pretty,” he whispered, “but has a young man with her whom she
calls Arthur. Shall I send them in?”
I then and there made up my mind that I would get rid of Theodore now
that I could afford to get a proper servant. My business would in
future be greatly extended; it would become very important, and I was
beginning to detest Theodore. But I said “Show the lady in!” with
becoming dignity, and a few moments later a beautiful woman entered my
room.
I was vaguely conscious that a creature of my own sex walked in behind
her, but of him I took no notice. I rose to greet the lady and invited
her to sit down, but I had the annoyance of seeing the personage whom
deliberately she called “Arthur” coming familiarly forward and leaning
over the back of her chair.
I hated him. He was short and stout and florid, with an
impertinent-looking moustache, and hair that was very smooth and oily
save for two tight curls, which looked like the horns of a young goat,
on each side of the centre parting. I hated him cordially, and had to
control my feelings not to show him the contempt which I felt for his
fatuousness and his air of self-complacency. Fortunately the beautiful
being was the first to address me, and thus I was able to ignore the
very presence of the detestable man.
“You are M. Ratichon, I believe,” she said in a voice that was dulcet
and adorably tremulous, like the voice of some sweet, shy young thing
in the presence of genius and power.
“Hector Ratichon,” I replied calmly. “Entirely at your service,
Mademoiselle.” Then I added, with gentle, encouraging kindliness,
“Mademoiselle...?”
“My name is Geoffroy,” she replied, “Madeleine Geoffroy.”
She raised her eyes—such eyes, my dear Sir!—of a tender, luscious grey,
fringed with lashes and dewy with tears. I met her glance. Something in
my own eyes must have spoken with mute eloquence of my distress, for
she went on quickly and with a sweet smile. “And this,” she said,
pointing to her companion, “is my brother, Arthur Geoffroy.”
An exclamation of joyful surprise broke from my lips, and I beamed and
smiled on M. Arthur, begged him to be seated, which he refused, and
finally I myself sat down behind my desk. I now looked with unmixed
benevolence on both my clients, and then perceived that the lady’s
exquisite face bore unmistakable signs of recent sorrow.
“And now, Mademoiselle,” I said, as soon as I had taken up a position
indicative of attention and of encouragement, “will you deign to tell
me how I can have the honour to serve you?”
“Monsieur,” she began in a voice that trembled with emotion, “I have
come to you in the midst of the greatest distress that any human being
has ever been called upon to bear. It was by the merest accident that I
heard of you. I have been to the police; they cannot—will not—act
without I furnish them with certain information which it is not in my
power to give them. Then when I was half distraught with despair, a
kindly agent there spoke to me of you. He said that you were attached
to the police as a voluntary agent, and that they sometimes put work in
your way which did not happen to be within their own scope. He also
said that sometimes you were successful.”
“Nearly always, Mademoiselle,” I broke in firmly and with much dignity.
“Once more I beg of you to tell me in what way I may have the honour to
serve you.”
“It is not for herself, Monsieur,” here interposed M. Arthur, whilst a
blush suffused Mlle. Geoffroy’s lovely face, “that my sister desires to
consult you, but for her fiancé M. de Marsan, who is very ill indeed,
hovering, in fact, between life and death. He could not come in person.
The matter is one that demands the most profound secrecy.”
“You may rely on my discretion, Monsieur,” I murmured, without showing,
I flatter myself, the slightest trace of that astonishment which, at
mention of M. de Marsan’s name, had nearly rendered me speechless.
“M. de Marsan came to see me in utmost distress, Monsieur,” resumed the
lovely creature. “He had no one in whom he could—or rather
dared—confide. He is in the Chancellerie for Foreign Affairs. His uncle
M. de Talleyrand thinks a great deal of him and often entrusts him with
very delicate work. This morning he gave M. de Marsan a valuable paper
to copy—a paper, Monsieur, the importance of which it were impossible
to overestimate. The very safety of this country, the honour of our
King, are involved in it. I cannot tell you its exact contents, and it
is because I would not tell more about it to the police that they would
not help me in any way, and referred me to you. How could they, said
the chief Commissary to me, run after a document the contents of which
they did not even know? But you will be satisfied with what I have told
you, will you not, my dear M. Ratichon?” she continued, with a pathetic
quiver in her voice and a look of appeal in her eyes which St. Anthony
himself could not have resisted, “and help me to regain possession of
that paper, the final loss of which would cost M. de Marsan his life.”
To say that my feeling of elation of a while ago had turned to one of
supreme beatitude would be to put it very mildly indeed. To think that
here was this lovely being in tears before me, and that it lay in my
power to dry those tears with a word and to bring a smile round those
perfect lips, literally made my mouth water in anticipation—for I am
sure that you will have guessed, just as I did in a moment, that the
valuable document of which this adorable being was speaking, was snugly
hidden away under the flooring of my room in Passy. I hated that
unknown de Marsan. I hated this Arthur who leaned so familiarly over
her chair, but I had the power to render her a service beside which
their lesser claims on her regard would pale.
However, I am not the man to act on impulse, even at a moment like
this. I wanted to think the whole matter over first, and . . . well . .
. I had made up my mind to demand five thousand francs when I handed
the document over to my first client to-morrow morning. At any rate,
for the moment I acted—if I may say so—with great circumspection and
dignity.
“I must presume, Mademoiselle,” I said in my most business-like manner,
“that the document you speak of has been stolen.”
“Stolen, Monsieur,” she assented whilst the tears once more gathered in
her eyes, “and M. de Marsan now lies at death’s door with a terrible
attack of brain fever, brought on by shock when he discovered the
loss.”
“How and when was it stolen?” I asked.
“Some time during the morning,” she replied. “M. de Talleyrand gave the
document to M. de Marsan at nine o’clock, telling him that he wanted
the copy by midday. M. de Marsan set to work at once, laboured
uninterruptedly until about eleven o’clock, when a loud altercation,
followed by cries of ‘Murder!’ and of ‘Help!’ and proceeding from the
corridor outside his door, caused him to run out of the room in order
to see what was happening. The altercation turned out to be between two
men who had pushed their way into the building by the main staircase,
and who became very abusive to the gendarme who ordered them out. The
men were not hurt; nevertheless they screamed as if they were being
murdered. They took to their heels quickly enough, and I don’t know
what has become of them, but . . .”
“But,” I concluded blandly, “whilst M. de Marsan was out of the room
the precious document was stolen.”
“It was, Monsieur,” exclaimed Mlle. Geoffroy piteously. “You will find
it for us . . . will you not?”
Then she added more calmly: “My brother and I are offering ten thousand
francs reward for the recovery of the document.”
I did not fall off my chair, but I closed my eyes. The vision which the
lovely lady’s words had conjured up dazzled me.
“Mademoiselle,” I said with solemn dignity, “I pledge you my word of
honour that I will find the document for you and lay it at your feet or
die in your service. Give me twenty hours, during which I will move
heaven and earth to discover the thief. I will go at once to the
Chancellerie and collect what evidence I can. I have worked under M. de
Robespierre, Mademoiselle, under the great Napoléon, and under the
illustrious Fouché! I have never been known to fail, once I have set my
mind upon a task.”
“In that case you will earn your ten thousand francs, my friend,” said
the odious Arthur drily, “and my sister and M. de Marsan will still be
your debtors. Are there any questions you would like to ask before we
go?”
“None,” I said loftily, choosing to ignore his sneering manner. “If
Mademoiselle deigns to present herself here to-morrow at two o’clock I
will have news to communicate to her.”
You will admit that I carried off the situation in a becoming manner.
Both Mademoiselle and Arthur Geoffroy gave me a few more details in
connexion with the affair. To these details I listened with well
simulated interest. Of course, they did not know that there were no
details in connexion with this affair that I did not know already. My
heart was actually dancing within my bosom. The future was so
entrancing that the present appeared like a dream; the lovely being
before me seemed like an angel, an emissary from above come to tell me
of the happiness which was in store for me. The house near
Chantilly—the little widow—the kitchen garden—the magic words went on
hammering in my brain. I longed now to be rid of my visitors, to be
alone once more, so as to think out the epilogue of this glorious
adventure. Ten thousand francs was the reward offered me by this
adorable creature! Well, then, why should not M. Charles Saurez, on his
side, pay me another ten thousand for the same document, which was
absolutely undistinguishable from the first?
Ten thousand, instead of two hundred which he had the audacity to offer
me!
Seven o’clock had struck before I finally bowed my clients out of the
room. Theodore had gone. The lazy lout would never stay as much as five
minutes after his appointed time, so I had to show the adorable
creature and her fat brother out of the premises myself. But I did not
mind that. I flatter myself that I can always carry off an awkward
situation in a dignified manner. A brief allusion to the inefficiency
of present-day servants, a jocose comment on my own simplicity of
habits, and the deed was done. M. Arthur Geoffroy and Mademoiselle
Madeleine his sister were half-way down the stairs. A quarter of an
hour later I was once more out in the streets of Paris. It was a
beautiful, balmy night. I had two hundred francs in my pocket and there
was a magnificent prospect of twenty thousand francs before me! I could
afford some slight extravagance. I had dinner at one of the fashionable
restaurants on the quay, and I remained some time out on the terrace
sipping my coffee and liqueur, dreaming dreams such as I had never
dreamed before. At ten o’clock I was once more on my way to Passy.
5.
When I turned the corner of the street and came is sight of the squalid
house where I lodged, I felt like a being from another world. Twenty
thousand francs—a fortune!—was waiting for me inside those dingy walls.
Yes, twenty thousand, for by now I had fully made up my mind. I had two
documents concealed beneath the floor of my bedroom—one so like the
other that none could tell them apart. One of these I would restore to
the lovely being who had offered me ten thousand francs for it, and the
other I would sell to my first and uncouth client for another ten
thousand francs!
Four hundred! Bah! Ten thousand shall you pay for the treaty, my friend
of the Danish or Russian Secret Service! Ten thousand!—it is worth that
to you!
In that happy frame of mind I reached the front door of my dingy abode.
Imagine my surprise on being confronted with two agents of police, each
with fixed bayonet, who refused to let me pass.
“But I lodge here,” I said.
“Your name?” queried one of the men. “Hector Ratichon,” I replied.
Whereupon they gave me leave to enter.
It was very mysterious. My heart beat furiously. Fear for the safety of
my precious papers held me in a death-like grip. I ran straight to my
room, locked the door after me, and pulled the curtains together in
front of the window. Then, with hands that trembled as if with ague, I
pulled aside the strip of carpet which concealed the hiding-place of
what meant a fortune to me.
I nearly fainted with joy; the papers were there—quite safely. I took
them out and replaced them inside my coat.
Then I ran up to see if Theodore was in. I found him in bed. He told me
that he had left the office whilst my visitors were still with me, as
he felt terribly sick. He had been greatly upset when, about an hour
ago, the maid-of-all-work had informed him that the police were in the
house, that they would allow no one—except the persons lodging in the
house—to enter it, and no one, once in, would be allowed to leave. How
long these orders would hold good Theodore did not know.
I left him moaning and groaning and declaring that he felt very ill,
and I went in quest of information. The corporal in command of the
gendarmes was exceedingly curt with me at first, but after a time he
unbent and condescended to tell me that my landlord had been denounced
for permitting a Bonapartiste club to hold its sittings in his house.
So far so good. Such denunciations were very frequent these days, and
often ended unpleasantly for those concerned, but the affair had
obviously nothing to do with me. I felt that I could breathe again. But
there was still the matter of the consigne. If no one, save the persons
who lodged in the house, would be allowed to enter it, how would M.
Charles Saurez contrive to call for the stolen document and,
incidentally, to hand me over the ten thousand francs I was hoping for?
And if no one, once inside the house, would be allowed to leave it, how
could I meet Mlle. Geoffroy to-morrow at two o’clock in my office and
receive ten thousand francs from her in exchange for the precious
paper?
Moreover the longer the police stayed in this house and poked their
noses about in affairs that concerned hardworking citizens like
myself—why—the greater the risk would be of the matter of the stolen
document coming to light.
It was positively maddening.
I never undressed that night, but just lay down on my bed, thinking.
The house was very still at times, but at others I could hear the tramp
of the police agents up and down the stairs and also outside my window.
The latter gave on a small, dilapidated back garden which had a wooden
fence at the end of it. Beyond it were some market gardens belonging to
a M. Lorraine. It did not take me very long to realize that that way
lay my fortune of twenty thousand francs. But for the moment I remained
very still. My plan was already made. At about midnight I went to the
window and opened it cautiously. I had heard no noise from that
direction for some time, and I bent my ear to listen.
Not a sound! Either the sentry was asleep, or he had gone on his round,
and for a few moments the way was free. Without a moment’s hesitation I
swung my leg over the sill.
Still no sound. My heart beat so fast that I could almost hear it. The
night was very dark. A thin mist-like drizzle was falling; in fact the
weather conditions were absolutely perfect for my purpose. With utmost
wariness I allowed myself to drop from the window-ledge on to the soft
ground below.
If I was caught by the sentry I had my answer ready: I was going to
meet my sweetheart at the end of the garden. It is an excuse which
always meets with the sympathy of every true-hearted Frenchman. The
sentry would, of course, order me back to my room, but I doubt if he
would ill-use me; the denunciation was against the landlord, not
against me.
Still not a sound. I could have danced with joy. Five minutes more and
I would be across the garden and over that wooden fence, and once more
on my way to fortune. My fall from the window had been light, as my
room was on the ground floor; but I had fallen on my knees, and now, as
I picked myself up, I looked up, and it seemed to me as if I saw
Theodore’s ugly face at his attic window. Certainly there was a light
there, and I may have been mistaken as to Theodore’s face being
visible. The very next second the light was extinguished and I was left
in doubt.
But I did not pause to think. In a moment I was across the garden, my
hands gripped the top of the wooden fence, I hoisted myself up—with
some difficulty, I confess—but at last I succeeded. I threw my leg over
and gently dropped down on the other side.
Then suddenly two rough arms encircled my waist, and before I could
attempt to free myself a cloth was thrown over my head, and I was
lifted up and carried away, half suffocated and like an insentient
bundle.
When the cloth was removed from my face I was half sitting, half lying,
in an arm-chair in a strange room which was lighted by an oil lamp that
hung from the ceiling above. In front of me stood M. Arthur Geoffroy
and that beast Theodore.
M. Arthur Geoffroy was coolly folding up the two valuable papers for
the possession of which I had risked a convict ship and New Caledonia,
and which would have meant affluence for me for many days to come.
It was Theodore who had removed the cloth from my face. As soon as I
had recovered my breath I made a rush for him, for I wanted to strangle
him. But M. Arthur Geoffroy was too quick and too strong for me. He
pushed me back into the chair.
“Easy, easy, M. Ratichon,” he said pleasantly; “do not vent your wrath
upon this good fellow. Believe me, though his actions may have deprived
you of a few thousand francs, they have also saved you from lasting and
biting remorse. This document, which you stole from M. de Marsan and so
ingeniously duplicated, involved the honour of our King and our
country, as well as the life of an innocent man. My sister’s fiancé
would never have survived the loss of the document which had been
entrusted to his honour.”
“I would have returned it to Mademoiselle to-morrow,” I murmured.
“Only one copy of it, I think,” he retorted; “the other you would have
sold to whichever spy of the Danish or Russian Governments happened to
have employed you in this discreditable business.”
“How did you know?” I said involuntarily.
“Through a very simple process of reasoning, my good M. Ratichon,” he
replied blandly. “You are a very clever man, no doubt, but the
cleverest of us is at times apt to make a mistake. You made two, and I
profited by them. Firstly, after my sister and I left you this
afternoon, you never made the slightest pretence of making inquiries or
collecting information about the mysterious theft of the document. I
kept an eye on you throughout the evening. You left your office and
strolled for a while on the quays; you had an excellent dinner at the
Restaurant des Anglais; then you settled down to your coffee and
liqueur. Well, my good M. Ratichon, obviously you would have been more
active in the matter if you had not known exactly where and when and
how to lay your hands upon the document, for the recovery of which my
sister had offered you ten thousand francs.”
I groaned. I had not been quite so circumspect as I ought to have been,
but who would have thought—
“I have had something to do with police work in my day,” continued M.
Geoffroy blandly, “though not of late years; but my knowledge of their
methods is not altogether rusty and my powers of observation are not
yet dulled. During my sister’s visit to you this afternoon I noticed
the blouse and cap of a commissionnaire lying in a bundle in a corner
of your room. Now, though M. de Marsan has been in a burning fever
since he discovered his loss, he kept just sufficient presence of mind
at the moment to say nothing about that loss to any of the Chancellerie
officials, but to go straight home to his apartments in the Rue Royale
and to send for my sister and for me. When we came to him he was
already partly delirious, but he pointed to a parcel and a letter which
he had brought away from his office. The parcel proved to be an empty
box and the letter a blank sheet of paper; but the most casual inquiry
of the concierge at the Chancellerie elicited the fact that a
commissionaire had brought these things in the course of the morning.
That was your second mistake, my good M. Ratichon; not a very grave
one, perhaps, but I have been in the police, and somehow, the moment I
caught sight of that blouse and cap in your office, I could not help
connecting it with the commissionnaire who had brought a bogus parcel
and letter to my future brother-in-law a few minutes before that
mysterious and unexplained altercation took place in the corridor.”
Again I groaned. I felt as a child in the hands of that horrid creature
who seemed to be dissecting all the thoughts which had run riot through
my mind these past twenty hours.
“It was all very simple, my good M. Ratichon,” now concluded my
tormentor still quite amiably. “Another time you will have to be more
careful, will you not? You will also have to bestow more confidence
upon your partner or servant. Directly I had seen that
commissionnaire’s blouse and cap, I set to work to make friends with M.
Theodore. When my sister and I left your office in the Rue Daunou, we
found him waiting for us at the bottom of the stairs. Five francs
loosened his tongue: he suspected that you were up to some game in
which you did not mean him to have a share; he also told us that you
had spent two hours in laborious writing, and that you and he both
lodged at a dilapidated little inn, called the ‘Grey Cat,’ in Passy. I
think he was rather disappointed that we did not shower more questions,
and therefore more emoluments, upon him. Well, after I had denounced
this house to the police as a Bonapartiste club, and saw it put under
the usual consigne, I bribed the corporal of the gendarmerie in charge
of it to let me have Theodore’s company for the little job I had in
hand, and also to clear the back garden of sentries so as to give you a
chance and the desire to escape. All the rest you know. Money will do
many things, my good M. Ratichon, and you see how simple it all was. It
would have been still more simple if the stolen document had not been
such an important one that the very existence of it must be kept a
secret even from the police. So I could not have you shadowed and
arrested as a thief in the usual manner! However, I have the document
and its ingenious copy, which is all that matters. Would to God,” he
added with a suppressed curse, “that I could get hold equally easily of
the Secret Service agent to whom you, a Frenchman, were going to sell
the honour of your country!”
Then it was that—though broken in spirit and burning with thoughts of
the punishment I would mete out to Theodore—my full faculties returned
to me, and I queried abruptly:
“What would you give to get him?”
“Five hundred francs,” he replied without hesitation. “Can you find
him?”
“Make it a thousand,” I retorted, “and you shall have him.”
“How?”
“Will you give me five hundred francs now,” I insisted, “and another
five hundred when you have the man, and I will tell you?”
“Agreed,” he said impatiently.
But I was not to be played with by him again. I waited in silence until
he had taken a pocket-book from the inside of his coat and counted out
five hundred francs, which he kept in his hand.
“Now—” he commanded.
“The man,” I then announced calmly, “will call on me for the document
at my lodgings at the hostelry of the ‘Grey Cat’ to-morrow morning at
nine o’clock.”
“Good,” rejoined M. Geoffroy. “We shall be there.”
He made no demur about giving me the five hundred francs, but half my
pleasure in receiving them vanished when I saw Theodore’s bleary eyes
fixed ravenously upon them.
“Another five hundred francs,” M. Geoffroy went on quietly, “will be
yours as soon as the spy is in our hands.”
I did get that further five hundred of course, for M. Charles Saurez
was punctual to the minute, and M. Geoffroy was there with the police
to apprehend him. But to think that I might have had twenty thousand—!
And I had to give Theodore fifty francs on the transaction, as he
threatened me with the police when I talked of giving him the sack.
But we were quite good friends again after that until— But you shall
judge.