Mme. Zelie Cadelle was certainly not particularly virtuous; but she
was far from being the woman he expected to meet.
“At any rate,” he said, “you did well to wait patiently.”
“I do not regret it.”
“If you can keep this house--”
She interrupted him with a great burst of laughter.
“This house!” she exclaimed. “Why, it was sold long ago, with every
thing in it,--furniture, horses, carriages, every thing except me.
A young gentleman, very well dressed, bought it for a tall girl, who
looks like a goose, and has far over a thousand francs of red hair on
her head.”
“Are you sure of that?”
“Sure as I live, having seen with my own eyes the young swell and
his red-headed friend counting heaps of bank-notes to M. Vincent.
They are to move in day after to-morrow; and they have invited me
to the house-warming. But no more of it for me, I thank you! I
am sick and tired of all these people. And the proof of it is, I
am busy packing my things; and lots of them I have too,--dresses,
underclothes, jewelry. He was a good-natured fellow, old Vincent
was, anyhow. He gave me money enough to buy some furniture. I
have hired a small apartment; and I am going to set up dress-making
on my own hook. And won’t we laugh then! and won’t we have some
fun to make up for lost time! Come, my children, take your places
for a quadrille. Forward two!”
And, bouncing out of her chair, she began sketching out one of
those bold cancan steps which astound the policemen on duty in the
ball-rooms.
“Bravo!” said M. de Tregars, forcing himself to smile,--“bravo!”
He saw clearly now what sort of woman was Mme. Zelie Cadelle; how
he should speak to her, and what cords he might yet cause to vibrate
within her. He recognized the true daughter of Paris, wayward and
nervous, who in the midst of her disorders preserves an instinctive
pride; who places her independence far above all the money in the
world; who gives, rather than sells, herself; who knows no law but
her caprice, no morality but the policeman, no religion but pleasure.
As soon as she had returned to her seat,
“There you are dancing gayly,” he said, “and poor Vincent is
doubtless groaning at this moment over his separation from you.”
“Ah! I’d pity him if I had time,” she said.
“He was fond of you?”
“Don’t speak of it.”
“If he had not been fond of you, he would not have put you here.”
Mme. Zelie made a little face of equivocal meaning.
“What proof is that?” she murmured.
“He would not have spent so much money for you.”
“For me!” she interrupted,--“for me! What have I cost him of any
consequence? Is it for me that he bought, furnished, and fitted
out this house? No, no! He had the cage; and he put in the bird,
--the first he happened to find. He brought me here as he might
have brought any other woman, young or old, pretty or ugly, blonde
or brunette. As to what I spent here, it was a mere bagatelle
compared with what the other did,--the one before me. Amanda kept
telling me all the time I was a fool. You may believe me, then,
when I tell you that M. Vincent will not wet many handkerchiefs
with the tears he’ll shed over me.”
“But do you know what became of the one before you, as you call her,
--whether she is alive or dead, and owing to what circumstances the
cage became empty?”
But, instead of answering, Mme. Zelie was fixing upon Marius de
Tregars a suspicious glance. And, after a moment only,
“Why do you ask me that?” she said.
“I would like to know.”
She did not permit him to proceed. Rising from her seat, and
stepping briskly up to him,
“Do you belong to the police, by chance?” she asked in a tone of
mistrust.
If she was anxious, it was evidently because she had motives of
anxiety which she had concealed. If, two or three times she had
interrupted herself, it was because, manifestly, she had a secret
to keep. If the idea of police had come into her mind, it is
because, very probably, they had recommended her to be on her guard.
M. de Tregars understood all this, and, also, that he had tried to
go too fast.
“Do I look like a secret police-agent?” he asked.
She was examining him with all her power of penetration.
“Not at all, I confess,” she replied. “But, if you are not one, how
is it that you come to my house, without knowing me from this side
of sole leather, to ask me a whole lot of questions, which I am
fool enough to answer?”
“I told you I was a friend of M. Favoral.”
“Who’s that Favoral?”
“That’s M. Vincent’s real name, madame.”
She opened her eyes wide.
“You must be mistaken. I never heard him called any thing but
Vincent.”
“It is because he had especial motives for concealing his
personality. The money he spent here did not belong to him: he
took it, he stole it, from the Mutual Credit Company where he was
cashier, and where he left a deficit of twelve millions.”
Mme. Zelie stepped back as though she had trodden on a snake.
“It’s impossible!” she cried.
“It is the exact truth. Haven’t you seen in the papers the case
of Vincent Favoral, cashier of the Mutual Credit?”
And, taking a paper from his pocket, he handed it to the young woman,
saying, “Read.”
But she pushed it back, not without a slight blush. “Oh, I believe
you!” she said.
The fact is, and Marius understood it, she did not read very
fluently.
“The worst of M. Vincent Favoral’s conduct,” he resumed, “is, that,
while he was throwing away money here by the handful, he subjected
his family to the most cruel privations.”
“Oh!”
“He refused the necessaries of life to his wife, the best and the
worthiest of women; he never gave a cent to his son; and he
deprived his daughter of every thing.”
“Ah, if I could have suspected such a thing!” murmured Mme. Zelie.
“Finally, and to cap the--climax, he has gone, leaving his wife
and children literally without bread.”
Transported with indignation,
“Why, that man must have been a horrible old scoundrel!” exclaimed
the young woman.
This is just the point to which M. de Tregars wished to bring her.
“And now,” he resumed, “you must understand the enormous interest
we have in knowing what has become of him.”
“I have already told you.”
M. de Tregars had risen, in his turn. Taking Mme. Zelie’s hands,
and fixing upon her one of those acute looks, which search for the
truth down to the innermost recesses of the conscience,
“Come, my dear child,” he began in a penetrating voice, “you are a
worthy and honest girl. Will you leave in the most frightful
despair a family who appeal to your heart? Be sure that no harm
will ever happen through us to Vincent Favoral.”
She raised her hand, as they do to take an oath in a court of
justice, and, in a solemn tone,
“I swear,” she uttered, “that I went to the station with M. Vincent;
that he assured me that he was going to Brazil; that he had his
passage-ticket; and that all his baggage was marked, ‘Rio de
Janeiro.’”
The disappointment was great: and M. de Tregars manifested it by
a gesture.
“At least,” he insisted, “tell me who the woman was whose place you
took here.”
But already had the young woman returned to her feeling of mistrust.
“How in the world do you expect me to know?” she replied. “Go and
ask Amanda. I have no accounts to give you. Besides, I have to
go and finish packing my trunks. So good-by, and enjoy yourself.”
And she went out so quick, that she caught Amanda, the chambermaid,
kneeling behind the door.
“So that woman was listening,” thought M. de Tregars, anxious and
dissatisfied.
But it was in vain that he begged Mme. Zelie to return, and to hear
a single word more. She disappeared; and he had to resign himself
to leave the house without learning any thing more for the present.
He had remained there very long; and he was wondering, as he walked
out, whether Maxence had not got tired waiting for him in the little
cafe where he had sent him.
But Maxence had remained faithfully at his post. And when Marius de
Tregars came to sit by him, whilst exclaiming, “Here you are at last!”
he called his attention at the same time with a gesture, and a wink
from the corner of his eye, to two men sitting at the adjoining table
before a bowl of punch.
Certain, now, that M. de Tregars would remain on the lookout, Maxence
was knocking on the table with his fist, to call the waiter, who was
busy playing billiards with a customer.
And when he came at last, justly annoyed at being disturbed,
“Give us two mugs of beer,” Maxence ordered, “and bring us a pack
of cards.”
M. de Tregars understood very well that something extraordinary had
happened; but, unable to guess what, he leaned over towards his
companion.
“What is it?” he whispered.
“We must hear what these two men are saying; and we’ll play a game
of piquet for a subterfuge.”
The waiter returned, bringing two glasses of a muddy liquid, a piece
of cloth, the color of which was concealed under a layer of dirt, and
a pack of cards horribly soft and greasy.
“My deal,” said Maxence.
And he began shuffling, and giving the cards, whilst M. de Tregars
was examining the punch-drinkers at the next table.
In one of the two, a man still young, wearing a striped vest with
alpaca sleeves, he thought he recognized one of the rascally-looking
fellows he had caught a glimpse of in Mme. Zelie Cadelle’s
carriage-house.
The other, an old man, whose inflamed complexion and blossoming
nose betrayed old habits of drunkenness, looked very much like a
coachman out of place. Baseness and duplicity bloomed upon his
countenance; and the brightness of his small eyes rendered still
more alarming the slyly obsequious smile that was stereotyped upon
his thin and pale lips.
They were so completely absorbed in their conversation, that they
paid no attention whatever to what was going on around them.
“Then,” the old one was saying, “it’s all over.”
“Entirely. The house is sold.”
“And the boss?”
“Gone to America.”
“What! Suddenly, that way?”
“No. We supposed he was going on some journey, because, every day
since the beginning of the week, they were bringing in trunks and
boxes; but no one knew exactly when he would go. Now, in the night
of Saturday to Sunday, he drops in the house like a bombshell, wakes
up everybody, and says he must leave immediately. At once we
harness up, we load the baggage up, we drive him to the Western
Railway Station, and good-by, Vincent!”
“And the young lady?”
“She’s got to get out in the next twenty-four hours; but she don’t
seem to mind it one bit. The fact is we are the ones who grieve
the most, after all.”
“Is it possible?”
“It is so. She was a good girl; and we won’t soon find one like
her.”
The old man seemed distressed.
“Bad luck!” he growled. “I would have liked that house myself.”
“Oh, I dare say you would!”
“And there is no way to get in?”
“Can’t tell. It will be well to see the others, those who have
bought. But I mistrust them: they look too stupid not to be mean.”
Listening intently to the conversation of these two men, it was
mechanically and at random that M. de Tregars and Maxence threw
their cards on the table, and uttered the common terms of the game
of piquet,
“Five cards! Tierce, major! Three aces.”
Meantime the old man was going on,
“Who knows but what M. Vincent may come back?”
“No danger of that!”
“Why?”
The other looked carefully around, and, seeing only two players
absorbed in their game,
“Because,” he replied, “M. Vincent is completely ruined, it seems.
He spent all his money, and a good deal of other people’s money
besides. Amanda, the chambermaid, told me; and I guess she knows.”
“You thought he was so rich!”
“He was. But no matter how big a bag is: if you keep taking out
of it, you must get to the bottom.”
“Then he spent a great deal?”
“It’s incredible! I have been in extravagant houses; but nowhere
have I ever seen money fly as it has during the five months that I
have been in that house. A regular pillage! Everybody helped
themselves; and what was not in the house, they could get from the
tradespeople, have it charged on the bill; and it was all paid
without a word.”
“Then, yes, indeed, the money must have gone pretty lively,” said
the old one in a convinced tone.
“Well,” replied the other, “that was nothing yet. Amanda the
chambermaid who has been in the house fifteen years, told us some
stories that would make you jump. She was not much for spending,
Zelie; but some of the others, it seems . . .”
It required the greatest effort on the part of Maxence and M. de
Tregars not to play, but only to pretend to play, and to continue
to count imaginary points,--“One, two, three, four.”
Fortunately the coachman with the red nose seemed much interested.
“What others?” he asked.
“That I don’t know any thing about,” replied the younger valet.
“But you may imagine that there must have been more than one in that
little house during the many years that M. Vincent owned it,--a man who
hadn’t his equal for women, and who was worth millions.”
“And what was his business?”
“Don’t know that, either.”
“What! there were ten of you in the house, and you didn’t know the
profession of the man who paid you all?”
“We were all new.”
“The chambermaid, Amanda, must have known.”
“When she was asked, she said that he was a merchant. One thing is
sure, he was a queer old chap.”
So interested was the old coachman, that, seeing the punch-bowl
empty, he called for another. His comrade could not fail to show
his appreciation of such politeness.
“Ah, yes!” he went on, “old Vincent was an eccentric fellow; and
never, to see him, could you have suspected that he cut up such
capers, and that he threw money away by the handful.”
“Indeed!”
“Imagine a man about fifty years old, stiff as a post, with a face
about as pleasant as a prison-gate. That’s the boss! Summer and
winter, he wore laced shoes, blue stockings, gray pantaloons that
were too short, a cotton necktie, and a frock-coat that came down
to his ankles. In the street, you would have taken him for a hosier
who had retired before his fortune was made.”
“You don’t say so!”
“No, never have I seen a man look so much like an old miser. You
think, perhaps, that he came in a carriage. Not a bit of it! He
came in the omnibus, my boy, and outside too, for three sous; and
when it rained he opened his umbrella. But the moment he had
crossed the threshold of the house, presto, pass! complete change
of scene. The miser became pacha. He took off his old duds, put
on a blue velvet robe; and then there was nothing handsome enough,
nothing good enough, nothing expensive enough for him. And, when
he had acted the my lord to his heart’s content, he put on his old
traps again, resumed his prison-gate face, climbed up on top of the
omnibus, and went off as he came.”
“And you were not surprised, all of you, at such a life?”
“Very much so.”
“And you did not think that these singular whims must conceal
something?”
“Oh, but we did!”
“And you didn’t try to find out what that something was?”
“How could we?”
“Was it very difficult to follow your boss, and ascertain where he
went, after leaving the house?”
“Certainly not; but what then?”
“Why,” he replied, “you would have found out his secret in the end;
and then you would have gone to him and told him, ‘Give me so much,
or I peach.’”
V
This story of M. Vincent, as told by these two honest companions,
was something like the vulgar legend of other people’s money, so
eagerly craved, and so madly dissipated. Easily-gotten wealth is
easily gotten rid of. Stolen money has fatal tendencies, and turns
irresistibly to gambling, horse-jockeys, fast women, all the ruinous
fancies, all the unwholesome gratifications.
They are rare indeed, among the daring cut-throats of speculation,
those to whom their ill-gotten gain proves of real service,--so
rare, that they are pointed out, and are as easily numbered as the
girls who leap some night from the street to a ten-thousand-franc
apartment, and manage to remain there.
Seized with the intoxication of sudden wealth, they lose all measure
and all prudence. Whether they believe their luck inexhaustible, or
fear a sudden turn of fortune, they make haste to enjoy themselves,
and they fill the noted restaurants, the leading cafes, the theatres,
the clubs, the race-courses, with their impudent personality, the
clash of their voice, the extravagance of their mistresses, the
noise of their expenses, and the absurdity of their vanity. And
they go on and on, lavishing other people’s money, until the fatal
hour of one of those disastrous liquidations which terrify the
courts and the exchange, and cause pallid faces and a gnashing of
teeth in the “street,” until the moment when they have the choice
between a pistol-shot, which they never choose, the criminal court,
which they do their best to avoid, and a trip abroad.
What becomes of them afterwards? To what gutters do they tumble
from fall to fall? Does any one know what becomes of the women who
disappear suddenly after two or three years of follies and of
splendors?
But it happens sometimes, as you step out of a carriage in front of
some theatre, that you wonder where you have already seen the face
of the wretched beggar who opens the door for you, and in a husky
voice claims his two sous. You saw him at the Cafe Riche, during
the six months that he was a big financier.
Some other time you may catch, in the crowd, snatches of a strange
conversation between two crapulous rascals.
“It was at the time,” says one, “when I drove that bright chestnut
team that I had bought for twenty thousand francs of the eldest son
of the Duke de Sermeuse.”
“I remember,” replies the other; “for at that moment I gave six
thousand francs a month to little Cabriole of the Varieties.”
And, improbable as this may seem, it is the exact truth; for one
was manager of a manufacturing enterprise that sank ten millions;
and the other was at the head of a financial operation that ruined
five hundred families. They had houses like the one in the Rue du
Cirque, mistresses more expensive than Mme. Zelie Cadelle, and
servants like those who were now talking within a step of Maxence
and Marius de Tregars. The latter had resumed their conversation;
and the oldest one, the coachman with the red nose, was saying to
his younger comrade,
“This Vincent affair must be a lesson to you. If ever you find
yourself again in a house where so much money is spent, remember
that it hasn’t cost much trouble to make it, and manage somehow
to get as big a share of it as you can.”
“That’s what I’ve always done wherever I have been.”
“And, above all, make haste to fill your bag, because, you see,
in houses like that, one is never sure, one day, whether, the
next, the gentleman will not be at Mazas, and the lady at St.
Lazares.”
They had done their second bowl of punch, and finished their
conversation. They paid, and left.
And Maxence and M. de Tregars were able, at last, to throw down
their cards.
Maxence was very pale; and big tears were rolling down his cheeks.
“What disgrace!” he murmured: “This, then, is the other side of
my father’s existence! This is the way in which he spent the
millions which he stole; whilst, in the Rue St. Gilles, he
deprived his family of the necessaries of life!”
And, in a tone of utter discouragement,
“Now it is indeed all over, and it is useless to continue our
search. My father is certainly guilty.”
But M. de Tregars was not the man thus to give up the game.
“Guilty? Yes,” he said, “but dupe also.”
“Whose dupe?”
“That’s what we’ll find out, you may depend upon it.”
“What! after what we have just heard?”
“I have more hope than ever.”
“Did you learn any thing from Mme. Zelie Cadelle, then?”
“Nothing more than you know by those two rascals’ conversation.”
A dozen questions were pressing upon Maxence’s lips; but M. de
Tregars interrupted him.
“In this case, my friend, less than ever must we trust appearances.
Let me speak. Was your father a simpleton? No! His ability to
dissimulate, for years, his double existence, proves, on the
contrary, a wonderful amount of duplicity. How is it, then, that
latterly his conduct has been so extraordinary and so absurd? But
you will doubtless say it was always such. In that case, I answer
you, No; for then his secret could not have been kept for a year.
We hear that other women lived in that house before Mme. Zelie
Cadelle. But who were they? What has become of them? Is there
any certainty that they have ever existed? Nothing proves it.
“The servants having been all changed, Amanda, the chambermaid, is
the only one who knows the truth; and she will be very careful to
say nothing about it. Therefore, all our positive information
goes back no farther than five months. And what do we hear? That
your father seemed to try and make his extravagant expenditures as
conspicuous as possible. That he did not even take the trouble to
conceal the source of the money he spent so profusely; for he told
Mme. Zelie that he was at the end of his tether, and that, after
having spent his own fortune, he was spending other people’s money.
He had announced his intended departure; he had sold the house, and
received its price. Finally, at the last moment, what does he do?
“Instead of going off quietly and secretly, like a man who is
running away, and who knows that he is pursued, he tells every one
where he intends to go; he writes it on all his trunks, in letters
half a foot high; and then rides in great display to the railway
station, with a woman, several carriages, servants, etc. What is
the object of all this? To get caught? No, but to start a false
scent. Therefore, in his mind, every thing must have been arranged
in advance, and the catastrophe was far from taking him by surprise;
therefore the scene with M. de Thaller must have been prepared;
therefore, it must have been on purpose that he left his pocketbook
behind, with the bill in it that was to lead us straight here;
therefore all we have seen is but a transparent comedy, got up for
our special benefit, and intended to cover up the truth, and
mislead the law.”
But Maxence was not entirely convinced.
“Still,” he remarked, “those enormous expenses.”