1.
Ah, my dear Sir, it is easy enough to despise our profession, but
believe me that all the finer qualities—those of loyalty and of
truth—are essential, not only to us, but to our subordinates, if we are
to succeed in making even a small competence out of it.
Now let me give you an instance. Here was I, Hector Ratichon, settled
in Paris in that eventful year 1816 which saw the new order of things
finally swept aside and the old order resume its triumphant sway, which
saw us all, including our God-given King Louis XVIII, as poor as the
proverbial church mice and as eager for a bit of comfort and luxury as
a hungry dog is for a bone; the year which saw the army disbanded and
hordes of unemployed and unemployable men wandering disconsolate and
half starved through the country seeking in vain for some means of
livelihood, while the Allied troops, well fed and well clothed, stalked
about as if the sacred soil of France was so much dirt under their
feet; the year, my dear Sir, during which more intrigues were hatched
and more plots concocted than in any previous century in the whole
history of France. We were all trying to make money, since there was so
precious little of it about. Those of us who had brains succeeded, and
then not always.
Now, I had brains—I do not boast of them; they are a gift from
Heaven—but I had them, and good looks, too, and a general air of
strength, coupled with refinement, which was bound to appeal to anyone
needing help and advice, and willing to pay for both, and yet—but you
shall judge.
You know my office in the Rue Daunou, you have been in it—plainly
furnished; but, as I said, these were not days of luxury. There was an
antechamber, too, where that traitor, blackmailer and thief, Theodore,
my confidential clerk in those days, lodged at my expense and kept
importunate clients at bay for what was undoubtedly a liberal
salary—ten per cent, on all the profits of the business—and yet he was
always complaining, the ungrateful, avaricious brute!
Well, Sir, on that day in September—it was the tenth, I remember—1816,
I must confess that I was feeling exceedingly dejected. Not one client
for the last three weeks, half a franc in my pocket, and nothing but a
small quarter of Strasburg patty in the larder. Theodore had eaten most
of it, and I had just sent him out to buy two sous’ worth of stale
bread wherewith to finish the remainder. But after that? You will
admit, Sir, that a less buoyant spirit would not have remained so long
undaunted.
I was just cursing that lout Theodore inwardly, for he had been gone
half an hour, and I strongly suspected him of having spent my two sous
on a glass of absinthe, when there was a ring at the door, and I,
Hector Ratichon, the confidant of kings and intimate counsellor of half
the aristocracy in the kingdom, was forced to go and open the door just
like a common lackey.
But here the sight which greeted my eyes fully compensated me for the
temporary humiliation, for on the threshold stood a gentleman who had
wealth written plainly upon his fine clothes, upon the dainty linen at
his throat and wrists, upon the quality of his rich satin necktie and
the perfect set of his fine cloth pantaloons, which were of an
exquisite shade of dove-grey. When, then, the apparition spoke,
inquiring with just a sufficiency of aristocratic hauteur whether M.
Hector Ratichon were in, you cannot be surprised, my dear Sir, that my
dejection fell from me like a cast-off mantle and that all my usual
urbanity of manner returned to me as I informed the elegant gentleman
that M. Ratichon was even now standing before him, and begged him to
take the trouble to pass through into my office.
This he did, and I placed a chair in position for him. He sat down,
having previously dusted the chair with a graceful sweep of his
lace-edged handkerchief. Then he raised a gold-rimmed eyeglass to his
right eye with a superlatively elegant gesture, and surveyed me
critically for a moment or two ere he said:
“I am told, my good M. Ratichon, that you are a trustworthy fellow, and
one who is willing to undertake a delicate piece of business for a
moderate honorarium.”
Except for the fact that I did not like the word “moderate,” I was
enchanted with him.
“Rumour for once has not lied, Monsieur,” I replied in my most
attractive manner.
“Well,” he rejoined—I won’t say curtly, but with businesslike brevity,
“for all purposes connected with the affair which I desire to treat
with you my name, as far as you are concerned, shall be Jean Duval.
Understand?”
“Perfectly, Monsieur le Marquis,” I replied with a bland smile.
It was a wild guess, but I don’t think that I underestimated my new
client’s rank, for he did not wince.
“You know Mlle. Mars?” he queried.
“The actress?” I replied. “Perfectly.”
“She is playing in _Le Rêve_ at the Theatre Royal just now.”
“She is.”
“In the first and third acts of the play she wears a gold bracelet set
with large green stones.”
“I noticed it the other night. I had a seat in the parterre, I may
say.”
“I want that bracelet,” broke in the soi-disant Jean Duval
unceremoniously. “The stones are false, the gold strass. I admire Mlle.
Mars immensely. I dislike seeing her wearing false jewellery. I wish to
have the bracelet copied in real stones, and to present it to her as a
surprise on the occasion of the twenty-fifth performance of _Le Rêve_.
It will cost me a king’s ransom, and her, for the time being, an
infinite amount of anxiety. She sets great store by the valueless
trinket solely because of the merit of its design, and I want its
disappearance to have every semblance of a theft. All the greater will
be the lovely creature’s pleasure when, at my hands, she will receive
an infinitely precious jewel the exact counterpart in all save its
intrinsic value of the trifle which she had thought lost.”
It all sounded deliciously romantic. A flavour of the past
century—before the endless war and abysmal poverty had killed all
chivalry in us—clung to this proposed transaction. There was nothing of
the roturier, nothing of a Jean Duval, in this polished man of the
world who had thought out this subtle scheme for ingratiating himself
in the eyes of his lady fair.
I murmured an appropriate phrase, placing my services entirely at M. le
Marquis’s disposal, and once more he broke in on my polished diction
with that brusquerie which betrayed the man accustomed to be silently
obeyed.
“Mlle. Mars wears the bracelet,” he said, “during the third act of _Le
Rêve_. At the end of the act she enters her dressing-room, and her maid
helps her to change her dress. During this entr’acte Mademoiselle with
her own hands puts by all the jewellery which she has to wear during
the more gorgeous scenes of the play. In the last act—the finale of the
tragedy—she appears in a plain stuff gown, whilst all her jewellery
reposes in the small iron safe in her dressing-room. It is while
Mademoiselle is on the stage during the last act that I want you to
enter her dressing-room and to extract the bracelet out of the safe for
me.”
“I, M. le Marquis?” I stammered. “I, to steal a—”
“Firstly, M.—er—er—Ratichon, or whatever your confounded name may be,”
interposed my client with inimitable hauteur, “understand that my name
is Jean Duval, and if you forget this again I shall be under the
necessity of laying my cane across your shoulders and incidentally to
take my business elsewhere. Secondly, let me tell you that your
affectations of outraged probity are lost on me, seeing that I know all
about the stolen treaty which—”
“Enough, M. Jean Duval,” I said with a dignity equal, if not greater,
than his own; “do not, I pray you, misunderstand me. I am ready to do
you service. But if you will deign to explain how I am to break open an
iron safe inside a crowded building and extract therefrom a trinket,
without being caught in the act and locked up for house-breaking and
theft, I shall be eternally your debtor.”
“The extracting of the trinket is your affair,” he rejoined dryly. “I
will give you five hundred francs if you bring the bracelet to me
within fourteen days.”
“But—” I stammered again.
“Your task will not be such a difficult one after all. I will give you
the duplicate key of the safe.”
He dived into the breast pocket of his coat, and drew from it a
somewhat large and clumsy key, which he placed upon my desk.
“I managed to get that easily enough,” he said nonchalantly, “a couple
of nights ago, when I had the honour of visiting Mademoiselle in her
dressing-room. A piece of wax in my hand, Mademoiselle’s momentary
absorption in her reflection while her maid was doing her hair, and the
impression of the original key was in my possession. But between taking
a model of the key and the actual theft of the bracelet out of the safe
there is a wide gulf which a gentleman cannot bridge over. Therefore, I
choose to employ you, M.—er—er—Ratichon, to complete the transaction
for me.”
“For five hundred francs?” I queried blandly.
“It is a fair sum,” he argued.
“Make it a thousand,” I rejoined firmly, “and you shall have the
bracelet within fourteen days.”
He paused a moment in order to reflect; his steel-grey eyes, cool and
disdainful, were fixed searchingly on my face. I pride myself on the
way that I bear that kind of scrutiny, so even now I looked bland and
withal purposeful and capable.
“Very well,” he said, after a few moments, and he rose from his chair
as he spoke; “it shall be a thousand francs, M.—er—er—Ratichon, and I
will hand over the money to you in exchange for the bracelet—but it
must be done within fourteen days, remember.”
I tried to induce him to give me a small sum on account. I was about to
take terrible risks, remember; housebreaking, larceny, theft—call it
what you will, it meant the _police correctionelle_ and a couple of
years in New Orleans for sure. He finally gave me fifty francs, and
once more threatened to take his business elsewhere, so I had to accept
and to look as urbane and dignified as I could.
He was out of the office and about to descend the stairs when a thought
struck me.
“Where and how can I communicate with M. Jean Duval,” I asked, “when my
work is done?”
“I will call here,” he replied, “at ten o’clock of every morning that
follows a performance of _Le Rêve_. We can complete our transaction
then across your office desk.”
The next moment he was gone. Theodore passed him on the stairs and
asked me, with one of his impertinent leers, whether we had a new
client and what we might expect from him. I shrugged my shoulders. “A
new client!” I said disdainfully. “Bah! Vague promises of a couple of
louis for finding out if Madame his wife sees more of a certain captain
of the guards than Monsieur the husband cares about.”
Theodore sniffed. He always sniffs when financial matters are on the
tapis.
“Anything on account?” he queried.
“A paltry ten francs,” I replied, “and I may as well give you your
share of it now.”
I tossed a franc to him across the desk. By the terms of my contract
with him, you understand, he was entitled to ten per cent, of every
profit accruing from the business in lieu of wages, but in this
instance do you not think that I was justified in looking on one franc
now, and perhaps twenty when the transaction was completed, as a more
than just honorarium for his share in it? Was I not taking all the
risks in this delicate business? Would it be fair for me to give him a
hundred francs for sitting quietly in the office or sipping absinthe at
a neighbouring bar whilst I risked New Orleans—not to speak of the
gallows?
He gave me a strange look as he picked up the silver franc, spat on it
for luck, bit it with his great yellow teeth to ascertain if it were
counterfeit or genuine, and finally slipped it into his pocket, and
shuffled out of the office whistling through his teeth.
An abominably low, deceitful creature, that Theodore, you will see
anon. But I won’t anticipate.
2.
The next performance of _Le Rêve_ was announced for the following
evening, and I started on my campaign. As you may imagine, it did not
prove an easy matter. To obtain access through the stage-door to the
back of the theatre was one thing—a franc to the doorkeeper had done
the trick—to mingle with the scene-shifters, to talk with the supers,
to take off my hat with every form of deep respect to the principals
had been equally simple.
I had even succeeded in placing a bouquet on the dressing-table of the
great tragedienne on my second visit to the theatre. Her dressing-room
door had been left ajar during that memorable fourth act which was to
see the consummation of my labours. I had the bouquet in my hand,
having brought it expressly for that purpose. I pushed open the door,
and found myself face to face with a young though somewhat forbidding
damsel, who peremptorily demanded what my business might be.
In order to minimise the risk of subsequent trouble, I had assumed the
disguise of a middle-aged Angliche—red side-whiskers, florid
complexion, a ginger-coloured wig plastered rigidly over the ears
towards the temples, high stock collar, nankeen pantaloons, a patch
over one eye and an eyeglass fixed in the other. My own sainted mother
would never have known me.
With becoming diffidence I explained in broken French that my deep
though respectful admiration of Mlle. Mars had prompted me to lay a
floral tribute at her feet. I desired nothing more.
The damsel eyed me coldly, though at the moment I was looking quite my
best, diffident yet courteous, a perfect gentleman of the old regime.
Then she took the bouquet from me and put it down on the
dressing-table.
I fancied that she smiled, not unkindly, and I ventured to pass the
time of day. She replied not altogether disapprovingly. She sat down by
the dressing-table and took up some needlework which she had obviously
thrown aside on my arrival. Close by, on the floor, was a solid iron
chest with huge ornamental hinges and a large escutcheon over the lock.
It stood about a foot high and perhaps a couple of feet long.
There was nothing else in the room that suggested a receptacle for
jewellery; this, therefore, was obviously the safe which contained the
bracelet. At the self-same second my eyes alighted on a large and
clumsy-looking key which lay upon the dressing-table, and my hand at
once wandered instinctively to the pocket of my coat and closed
convulsively on the duplicate one which the soi-disant Jean Duval had
given me.
I talked eloquently for a while. The damsel answered in monosyllables,
but she sat unmoved at needlework, and after ten minutes or so I was
forced to beat a retreat.
I returned to the charge at the next performance of _Le Rêve_, this
time with a box of bonbons for the maid instead of the bouquet for the
mistress. The damsel was quite amenable to a little conversation, quite
willing that I should dally in her company. She munched the bonbons and
coquetted a little with me. But she went on stolidly with her
needlework, and I could see that nothing would move her out of that
room, where she had obviously been left in charge.
Then I bethought me of Theodore. I realised that I could not carry this
affair through successfully without his help. So I gave him a further
five francs—as I said to him it was out of my own savings—and I assured
him that a certain M. Jean Duval had promised me a couple of hundred
francs when the business which he had entrusted to me was
satisfactorily concluded. It was for this business—so I explained—that
I required his help, and he seemed quite satisfied.
His task was, of course, a very easy one. What a contrast to the risk I
was about to run! Twenty-five francs, my dear Sir, just for knocking at
the door of Mlle. Mars’ dressing-room during the fourth act, whilst I
was engaged in conversation with the attractive guardian of the iron
safe, and to say in well-assumed, breathless tones:
“Mademoiselle Mars has been taken suddenly unwell on the stage. Will
her maid go to her at once?”
It was some little distance from the dressing-room to the wings—down a
flight of ill-lighted stone stairs which demanded cautious ascent and
descent. Theodore had orders to obstruct the maid during her progress
as much as he could without rousing her suspicions.
I reckoned that she would be fully three minutes going, questioning,
finding out that the whole thing was a hoax, and running back to the
dressing-room—three minutes in which to open the chest, extract the
bracelet and, incidentally, anything else of value there might be close
to my hand. Well, I had thought of that eventuality, too; one must
think of everything, you know—that is where genius comes in. Then, if
possible, relock the safe, so that the maid, on her return, would find
everything apparently in order and would not, perhaps, raise the alarm
until I was safely out of the theatre.
It could be done—oh, yes, it could be done—with a minute to spare! And
to-morrow at ten o’clock M. Jean Duval would appear, and I would not
part with the bracelet until a thousand francs had passed from his
pocket into mine. I must get Theodore out of the house, by the way,
before the arrival of M. Duval.
A thousand francs! I had not seen a thousand francs all at once for
years. What a dinner I would have tomorrow! There was a certain little
restaurant in the Rue des Pipots where they concocted a cassolette of
goose liver and pork chops with haricot beans which . . . ! I only tell
you that.
How I got through the rest of that day I cannot tell you. The evening
found me—quite an habitué now—behind the stage of the Theatre Royal,
nodding to one or two acquaintances, most of the people looking on me
with grave respect and talking of me as the eccentric milor. I was
supposed to be pining for an introduction to the great tragedienne,
who, very exclusive as usual, had so far given me the cold shoulder.
Ten minutes after the rise of the curtain on the fourth act I was in
the dressing-room, presenting the maid with a gold locket which I had
bought from a cheapjack’s barrow for five and twenty francs—almost the
last of the fifty which I had received from M. Duval on account. The
damsel was eyeing the locket somewhat disdainfully and giving me
grudging thanks for it when there came a hurried knock at the door. The
next moment Theodore poked his ugly face into the room. He, too, had
taken the precaution of assuming an excellent disguise—peaked cap set
aslant over one eye, grimy face, the blouse of a scene-shifter.
“Mlle. Mars,” he gasped breathlessly; “she has been taken ill—on the
stage—very suddenly. She is in the wings—asking for her maid. They
think she will faint.”
The damsel rose, visibly frightened.
“I’ll come at once,” she said, and without the slightest flurry she
picked up the key of the safe and slipped it into her pocket. I fancied
that she gave me a look as she did this. Oh, she was a pearl among
Abigails! Then she pointed unceremoniously to the door.
“Milor!” was all she said, but of course I understood. I had no idea
that English milors could be thus treated by pert maidens. But what
cared I for social amenities just then? My hand had closed over the
duplicate key of the safe, and I walked out of the room in the wake of
the damsel. Theodore had disappeared.
Once in the passage, the girl started to run. A second or two later I
heard the patter of her high-heeled shoes down the stone stairs. I had
not a moment to lose.
To slip back into the dressing-room was but an instant’s work. The next
I was kneeling in front of the chest. The key fitted the lock
accurately; one turn, and the lid flew open.
The chest was filled with a miscellaneous collection of theatrical
properties all lying loose—showy necklaces, chains, pendants, all of
them obviously false; but lying beneath them, and partially hidden by
the meretricious ornaments, were one or two boxes covered with velvet
such as jewellers use. My keen eyes noted these at once. I was indeed
in luck! For the moment, however, my hand fastened on a leather case
which reposed on the top in one corner, and which very obviously, from
its shape, contained a bracelet. My hands did not tremble, though I was
quivering with excitement. I opened the case. There, indeed, was the
bracelet—the large green stones, the magnificent gold setting, the
whole jewel dazzlingly beautiful. If it were real—the thought flashed
through my mind—it would be indeed priceless. I closed the case and put
it on the dressing-table beside me. I had at least another minute to
spare—sixty seconds wherein to dive for those velvet-covered boxes
which— My hand was on one of them when a slight noise caused me
suddenly to turn and to look behind me. It all happened as quickly as a
flash of lightning. I just saw a man disappearing through the door. One
glance at the dressing-table showed me the whole extent of my
misfortune. The case containing the bracelet had gone, and at that
precise moment I heard a commotion from the direction of the stairs and
a woman screaming at the top of her voice: “Thief! Stop thief!”
Then, Sir, I brought upon the perilous situation that presence of mind
for which the name of Hector Ratichon will for ever remain famous.
Without a single flurried movement, I slipped one of the velvet-covered
cases which I still had in my hand into the breast pocket of my coat, I
closed down the lid of the iron chest and locked it with the duplicate
key, and I went out of the room, closing the door behind me.
The passage was dark. The damsel was running up the stairs with a
couple of stage hands behind her. She was explaining to them volubly,
and to the accompaniment of sundry half-hysterical little cries, the
infamous hoax to which she had fallen a victim. You might think, Sir,
that here was I caught like a rat in a trap, and with that
velvet-covered case in my breast pocket by way of damning evidence
against me!
Not at all, Sir! Not at all! Not so is Hector Ratichon, the keenest
secret agent France has ever known, the confidant of kings, brought to
earth by an untoward move of fate. Even before the damsel and the stage
hands had reached the top of the stairs and turned into the corridor,
which was on my left, I had slipped round noiselessly to my right and
found shelter in a narrow doorway, where I was screened by the
surrounding darkness and by a projection of the frame. While the three
of them made straight for Mademoiselle’s dressing-room, and spent some
considerable time there in uttering varied ejaculations when they found
the place and the chest to all appearances untouched, I slipped out of
my hiding-place, sped rapidly along the corridor, and was soon half-way
down the stairs.
Here my habitual composure in the face of danger stood me in good
stead. It enabled me to walk composedly and not too hurriedly through
the crowd behind the scenes—supers, scene-shifters, principals, none of
whom seemed to be aware as yet of the hoax practised on Mademoiselle
Mars’ maid; and I reckon that I was out of the stage door exactly five
minutes after Theodore had called the damsel away.
But I was minus the bracelet, and in my mind there was the firm
conviction that that traitor Theodore had played me one of his
abominable tricks. As I said, the whole thing had occurred as quickly
as a flash of lightning, but even so my keen, experienced eyes had
retained the impression of a peaked cap and the corner of a blue blouse
as they disappeared through the dressing-room door.
3.
Tact, wariness and strength were all required, you must admit, in order
to deal with the present delicate situation. I was speeding along the
Rue de Richelieu on my way to my office. My intention was to spend the
night there, where I had a chair-bedstead on which I had oft before
slept soundly after a day’s hard work, and anyhow it was too late to go
to my lodgings at Passy at this hour.
Moreover, Theodore slept in the antechamber of the office, and I was
more firmly convinced than ever that it was he who had stolen the
bracelet. “Blackleg! Thief! Traitor!” I mused. “But thou hast not done
with Hector Ratichon yet.”
In the meanwhile I bethought me of the velvet-covered box in my breast
pocket, and of the ginger-coloured hair and whiskers that I was still
wearing, and which might prove an unpleasant “piece de conviction” in
case the police were after the stolen bracelet.
With a view to examining the one and getting rid of the other, I turned
into the Square Louvois, which, as usual, was very dark and wholly
deserted. Here I took off my wig and whiskers and threw them over the
railings into the garden. Then I drew the velvet-covered box from my
pocket, opened it, and groped for its contents. Imagine my feelings, my
dear Sir, when I realised that the case was empty! Fate was indeed
against me that night. I had been fooled and cheated by a traitor, and
had risked New Orleans and worse for an empty box.
For a moment I must confess that I lost that imperturbable sang-froid
which is the admiration of all my friends, and with a genuine oath I
flung the case over the railings in the wake of the milor’s hair and
whiskers. Then I hurried home.
Theodore had not returned. He did not come in until the small hours of
the morning, and then he was in a state that I can only describe, with
your permission, as hoggish. He could hardly speak. I had him at my
mercy. Neither tact nor wariness was required for the moment. I
stripped him to his skin; he only laughed like an imbecile. His eyes
had a horrid squint in them; he was hideous. I found five francs in one
of his pockets, but neither in his clothes nor on his person did I find
the bracelet.
“What have you done with it?” I cried, for by this time I was maddened
with rage.
“I don’t know what you are talking about!” he stammered thickly, as he
tottered towards his bed. “Give me back my five francs, you thief!” the
brutish creature finally blurted out ere he fell into a hog-like sleep.
4.
Desperate evils need desperate remedies. I spent the rest of the night
thinking hard. By the time that dawn was breaking my mind was made up.
Theodore’s stertorous breathing assured me that he was still
insentient. I was muscular in those days, and he a meagre, attenuated,
drink-sodden creature. I lifted him out of his bed in the antechamber
and carried him into mine in the office. I found a coil of rope, and
strapped him tightly in the chair-bedstead so that he could not move. I
tied a scarf round his mouth so that he could not scream. Then, at six
o’clock, when the humbler eating-houses begin to take down their
shutters, I went out.
I had Theodore’s five francs in my pocket, and I was desperately
hungry. I spent ten sous on a cup of coffee and a plate of fried onions
and haricot beans, and three francs on a savoury pie, highly flavoured
with garlic, and a quarter-bottle of excellent cognac. I drank the
coffee and ate the onions and the beans, and I took the pie and cognac
home.
I placed a table close to the chair-bedstead and on it I disposed the
pie and the cognac in such a manner that the moment Theodore woke his
eyes were bound to alight on them. Then I waited. I absolutely ached to
have a taste of that pie myself, it smelt so good, but I waited.
Theodore woke at nine o’clock. He struggled like a fool, but he still
appeared half dazed. No doubt he thought that he was dreaming. Then I
sat down on the edge of the bed and cut myself off a large piece of the
pie. I ate it with marked relish in front of Theodore, whose eyes
nearly started out of their sockets. Then I brewed myself a cup of
coffee. The mingled odour of coffee and garlic filled the room. It was
delicious. I thought that Theodore would have a fit. The veins stood
out on his forehead and a kind of gurgle came from behind the scarf
round his mouth. Then I told him he could partake of the pie and coffee
if he told me what he had done with the bracelet. He shook his head
furiously, and I left the pie, the cognac and the coffee on the table
before him and went into the antechamber, closing the office door
behind me, and leaving him to meditate on his treachery.
What I wanted to avoid above everything was the traitor meeting M. Jean
Duval. He had the bracelet—of that I was as convinced as that I was
alive. But what could he do with a piece of false jewellery? He could
not dispose of it, save to a vendor of theatrical properties, who no
doubt was well acquainted with the trinket and would not give more than
a couple of francs for what was obviously stolen property. After all, I
had promised Theodore twenty francs; he would not be such a fool as to
sell that birthright for a mess of pottage and the sole pleasure of
doing me a bad turn.
There was no doubt in my mind that he had put the thing away somewhere
in what he considered a safe place pending a reward being offered by
Mlle. Mars for the recovery of the bracelet. The more I thought of this
the more convinced I was that that was, indeed, his proposed plan of
action—oh, how I loathed the blackleg!—and mine henceforth would be to
dog his every footstep and never let him out of my sight until I forced
him to disgorge his ill-gotten booty.
At ten o’clock M. Jean Duval arrived, as was his wont, supercilious and
brusque as usual. I was just explaining to him that I hoped to have
excellent news for him after the next performance of _Le Rêve_ when
there was a peremptory ring at the bell. I went to open the door, and
there stood a police inspector in uniform with a sheaf of papers in his
hand.
Now, I am not over-fond of our Paris police; they poke their noses in
where they are least wanted. Their incompetence favours the
machinations of rogues and frustrates the innocent ambitions of the
just. However, in this instance the inspector looked amiable enough,
though his manner, I must say, was, as usual, unpleasantly curt.
“Here, Ratichon,” he said, “there has been an impudent theft of a
valuable bracelet out of Mademoiselle Mars’ dressing-room at the
Theatre Royal last night. You and your mate frequent all sorts of
places of ill-fame; you may hear something of the affair.”
I chose to ignore the insult, and the inspector detached a paper from
the sheaf which he held and threw it across the table to me.
“There is a reward of two thousand five hundred francs,” he said, “for
the recovery of the bracelet. You will find on that paper an accurate
description of the jewel. It contains the celebrated Maroni emerald,
presented to the ex-Emperor by the Sultan, and given by him to Mlle.
Mars.”
Whereupon he turned unceremoniously on his heel and went, leaving me
face to face with the man who had so shamefully tried to swindle me. I
turned, and resting my elbow on the table and my chin in my hand, I
looked mutely on the soi-disant Jean Duval and equally mutely pointed
with an accusing finger to the description of the famous bracelet which
he had declared to me was merely strass and base metal.
But he had the impudence to turn on me before I could utter a syllable.
“Where is the bracelet?” he demanded. “You consummate liar, you! Where
is it? You stole it last night! What have you done with it?”
“I extracted, at your request,” I replied with as much dignity as I
could command, “a piece of theatrical jewellery, which you stated to me
to be worthless, out of an iron chest, the key of which you placed in
my hands. I . . .”
“Enough of this rubbish!” he broke in roughly. “You have the bracelet.
Give it me now, or . . .”
He broke off and looked somewhat alarmed in the direction of the office
door, from the other side of which there had just come a loud crash,
followed by loud, if unintelligible, vituperation. What had happened I
could not guess; all that I could do was to carry off the situation as
boldly as I dared.
“You shall have the bracelet, Sir,” I said in my most suave manner.
“You shall have it, but not unless you will pay me three thousand
francs for it. I can get two thousand five hundred by taking it
straight to Mlle. Mars.”
“And be taken up by the police for stealing it,” he retorted. “How will
you explain its being in your possession?”
I did not blanch.
“That is my affair,” I replied. “Will you give me three thousand francs
for it? It is worth sixty thousand francs to a clever thief like you.”
“You hound!” he cried, livid with rage, and raised his cane as if he
would strike me.
“Aye, it was cleverly done, M. Jean Duval, whoever you may be. I know
that the gentleman-thief is a modern product of the old regime, but I
did not know that the fraternity could show such a fine specimen as
yourself. Pay Hector Ratichon a thousand francs for stealing a bracelet
for you worth sixty! Indeed, M. Jean Duval, you deserved to succeed!”
Again he shook his cane at me.
“If you touch me,” I declared boldly, “I shall take the bracelet at
once to Mlle. Mars.”
He bit his lip and made a great effort to pull himself together.
“I haven’t three thousand francs by me,” he said.
“Go, fetch the money,” I retorted, “and I’ll fetch the bracelet.”
He demurred for a while, but I was firm, and after he had threatened to
thrash me, to knock me down, and to denounce me to the police, he gave
in and went to fetch the money.
5.
When I remembered Theodore—Theodore, whom only a thin partition wall
had separated from the full knowledge of the value of his ill-gotten
treasure!—I could have torn my hair out by the roots with the magnitude
of my rage. He, the traitor, the blackleg, was about to triumph, where
I, Hector Ratichon, had failed! He had but to take the bracelet to
Mlle. Mars himself and obtain the munificent reward whilst I, after I
had taken so many risks and used all the brains and tact wherewith
Nature had endowed me, would be left with the meagre remnants of the
fifty francs which M. Jean Duval had so grudgingly thrown to me.
Twenty-five francs for a gold locket, ten francs for a bouquet, another
ten for bonbons, and five for gratuities to the stage-doorkeeper! Make
the calculation, my good Sir, and see what I had left. If it had not
been for the five francs which I had found in Theodore’s pocket last
night, I would at this moment not only have been breakfastless, but
also absolutely penniless.
As it was, my final hope—and that a meagre one—was to arouse one spark
of honesty in the breast of the arch-traitor, and either by cajolery or
threats, to induce him to share his ill-gotten spoils with me.
I had left him snoring and strapped to the chair-bedstead, and when I
opened the office door I was marvelling in my mind whether I could
really bear to see him dying slowly of starvation with that savoury pie
tantalizingly under his nose. The crash which I had heard a few minutes
ago prepared me for a change of scene. Even so, I confess that the
sight which I beheld glued me to the threshold. There sat Theodore at
the table, finishing the last morsel of pie, whilst the chair-bedstead
lay in a tangled heap upon the floor.
I cannot tell you how nasty he was to me about the whole thing,
although I showed myself at once ready to forgive him all his lies and
his treachery, and was at great pains to explain to him how I had given
up my own bed and strapped him into it solely for the benefit of his
health, seeing that at the moment he was threatened with delirium
tremens.
He would not listen to reason or to the most elementary dictates of
friendship. Having poured the vials of his bilious temper over my
devoted head, he became as perverse and as obstinate as a mule. With
the most consummate impudence I ever beheld in any human being, he
flatly denied all knowledge of the bracelet.
Whilst I talked he stalked past me into the ante-chamber, where he at
once busied himself in collecting all his goods and chattels. These he
stuffed into his pockets until he appeared to be bulging all over his
ugly-body; then he went to the door ready to go out. On the threshold
he turned and gave me a supercilious glance over his shoulder.
“Take note, my good Ratichon,” he said, “that our partnership is
dissolved as from to-morrow, the twentieth day of September.”
“As from this moment, you infernal scoundrel!” I cried.
But he did not pause to listen, and slammed the door in my face.
For two or three minutes I remained quite still, whilst I heard the
shuffling footsteps slowly descending the corridor. Then I followed
him, quietly, surreptitiously, as a fox will follow its prey. He never
turned round once, but obviously he knew that he was being followed.
I will not weary you, my dear Sir, with the details of the dance which
he led me in and about Paris during the whole of that memorable day.
Never a morsel passed my lips from breakfast to long after sundown. He
tried every trick known to the profession to throw me off the scent.
But I stuck to him like a leech. When he sauntered I sauntered; when he
ran I ran; when he glued his nose to the window of an eating house I
halted under a doorway close by; when he went to sleep on a bench in
the Luxembourg Gardens I watched over him as a mother over a babe.
Towards evening—it was an hour after sunset and the street-lamps were
just being lighted—he must have thought that he had at last got rid of
me; for, after looking carefully behind him, he suddenly started to
walk much faster and with an amount of determination which he had
lacked hitherto. I marvelled if he was not making for the Rue Daunou,
where was situated the squalid tavern of ill-fame which he was wont to
frequent. I was not mistaken.
I tracked the traitor to the corner of the street, and saw him
disappear beneath the doorway of the Taverne des Trois Tigres. I
resolved to follow. I had money in my pocket—about twenty-five sous—and
I was mightily thirsty. I started to run down the street, when suddenly
Theodore came rushing back out of the tavern, hatless and breathless,
and before I succeeded in dodging him he fell into my arms.
“My money!” he said hoarsely. “I must have my money at once! You thief!
You . . .”
Once again my presence of mind stood me in good stead.
“Pull yourself together, Theodore,” I said with much dignity, “and do
not make a scene in the open street.”
But Theodore was not at all prepared to pull himself together. He was
livid with rage.
“I had five francs in my pocket last night!” he cried. “You have stolen
them, you abominable rascal!”
“And you stole from me a bracelet worth three thousand francs to the
firm,” I retorted. “Give me that bracelet and you shall have your money
back.”
“I can’t,” he blurted out desperately.
“How do you mean, you can’t?” I exclaimed, whilst a horrible fear like
an icy claw suddenly gripped at my heart. “You haven’t lost it, have
you?”
“Worse!” he cried, and fell up against me in semi-unconsciousness.
I shook him violently. I bellowed in his ear, and suddenly, after that
one moment of apparent unconsciousness, he became, not only wide awake,
but as strong as a lion and as furious as a bull. We closed in on one
another. He hammered at me with his fists, calling me every kind of
injurious name he could think of, and I had need of all my strength to
ward off his attacks.
For a few moments no one took much notice of us. Fracas and quarrels
outside the drinking-houses in the mean streets of Paris were so
frequent these days that the police did not trouble much about them.
But after a while Theodore became so violent that I was forced to call
vigorously for help. I thought he meant to murder me. People came
rushing out of the tavern, and someone very officiously started
whistling for the gendarmes. This had the effect of bringing Theodore
to his senses. He calmed down visibly, and before the crowd had had
time to collect round us we had both sauntered off, walking in apparent
amity side by side down the street.
But at the first corner Theodore halted, and this time he confined
himself to gripping me by the arm with one hand whilst with the other
he grasped one of the buttons of my coat.
“That five francs,” he said in a hoarse, half-choked voice. “I must
have that five francs! Can’t you see that I can’t have that bracelet
till I have my five francs wherewith to redeem it?”
“To redeem it!” I gasped. I was indeed glad then that he held me by the
arm, for it seemed to me as if I was falling down a yawning abyss which
had opened at my feet.
“Yes,” said Theodore, and his voice sounded as if it came from a great
distance and through cotton-wool,
“I knew that you would be after that bracelet like a famished hyena
after a bone, so I tied it securely inside the pocket of the blouse I
was wearing, and left this with Legros, the landlord of the Trois
Tigres. It was a good blouse; he lent me five francs on it. Of course,
he knew nothing about the bracelet then. But he only lends money to
clients in this manner on the condition that it is repaid within
twenty-four hours. I have got to pay him back before eight o’clock this
evening or he will dispose of the blouse as he thinks best. It is close
on eight o’clock now. Give me back my five francs, you confounded
thief, before Legros has time to discover the bracelet! We’ll share the
reward, I promise you. Faith of an honest man. You liar, you cheat,
you—”
What was the use of talking? I had not got five francs. I had spent ten
sous in getting myself some breakfast, and three francs in a savoury
pie flavoured with garlic and in a quarter of a bottle of cognac. I
groaned aloud. I had exactly twenty-five sous left.
We went back to the tavern hoping against hope that Legros had not yet
turned out the pockets of the blouse, and that we might induce him, by
threat or cajolery or the usurious interest of twenty-five sous, to
grant his client a further twenty-four hours wherein to redeem the
pledge.
One glance at the interior of the tavern, however, told us that all our
hopes were in vain. Legros, the landlord, was even then turning the
blouse over and over, whilst his hideous hag of a wife was talking to
the police inspector, who was showing her the paper that announced the
offer of two thousand five hundred francs for the recovery of a
valuable bracelet, the property of Mlle. Mars, the distinguished
tragedienne.
We only waited one minute with our noses glued against the windows of
the Trois Tigres, just long enough to see Legros extracting the leather
case from the pocket of the blouse, just long enough to hear the police
inspector saying peremptorily:
“You, Legros, ought to be able to let the police know who stole the
bracelet. You must know who left that blouse with you last night.”
Then we both fled incontinently down the street.
Now, Sir, was I not right when I said that honour and loyalty are the
essential qualities in our profession? If Theodore had not been such a
liar and such a traitor, he and I, between us, would have been richer
by three thousand francs that day.