“You speak,” he said, “as if you were absolutely certain of M. de Thaller’s
complicity.”
“Of course.”
“Why don’t you inform on him, then?”
The editor of “The Pilot” started back. “What!” he exclaimed, “draw
the fingers of the law into my own business! You don’t think of it!
Besides, what good would that do me? I have no proofs of my
allegations. Do you suppose that Thaller has not taken his
precautions, and tied my hands? No, no! without Favoral there is
nothing to be done.”
“Do you suppose, then, that you could induce him to surrender
himself?”
“No, but to furnish me the proofs I need, to send Thaller where they
have already sent that poor Jottras.”
And, becoming more and more excited,
“But it is not in a month that I should want those proofs,” he went
on, “nor even in two weeks, but to-morrow, but at this very moment.
Before the end of the week, Thaller will have wound up the operation,
realized, Heaven knows how many millions, and put every thing in
such nice order, that justice, who in financial matters is not of
the first capacity, will discover nothing wrong. If he can do that,
he is safe, he is beyond reach, and will be dubbed a first-class
financier. Then to what may he not aspire! Already he talks of
having himself elected deputy; and he says everywhere that he has
found, to marry his daughter, a gentleman who bears one of the
oldest names in France,--the Marquis de Tregars.”
“Why, this is the Marquis de Tregars!” exclaimed Maxence, pointing
to Marius.
For the first time, M. Saint Pavin took the trouble to examine his
visitor; and he, who knew life too well not to be a judge of men,
he seemed surprised.
“Please excuse me, sir,” he uttered with a politeness very different
from his usual manner, “and permit me to ask you if you know the
reasons why M. de Thaller is so prodigiously anxious to have you
for a son-in-law.”
“I think,” replied M. de Tregars coldly, “that M. de Thaller would
not be sorry to deprive me of the right to seek the causes of my
father’s ruin.”
But he was interrupted by a great noise of voices in the adjoining
room; and almost at once there was a loud knock at the door, and a
voice called,
“In the name of the law!”
The editor of “The Pilot” had become whiter than his shirt.
“That’s what I was afraid of,” he said. “Thaller has got ahead of
me; and perhaps I may be lost.”
Meantime he did not lose his wits. Quick as thought he took out of
a drawer a package of letters, threw them into the fireplace, and
set fire to them, saying, in a voice made hoarse by emotion and
anger,
“No one shall come in until they are burnt.”
But it required an incredibly long time to make them catch fire;
and M. Saint Pavin, kneeling before the hearth, was stirring them
up, and scattering them, to make them burn faster.
“And now,” said M. de Tregars, “will you hesitate to deliver up
the Baron de Thaller into the hands of justice?”
He turned around with flashing eyes.
“Now,” he replied, “if I wish to save myself, I must save him too.
Don’t you understand that he holds me?”
And, seeing that the last sheets of his correspondence were consumed,
“You may open now,” he said to Maxence.
Maxence obeyed; and a commissary of police, wearing his scarf of
office, rushed into the room; whilst his men, not without difficulty,
kept back the crowd in the outer office.
The commissary, who was an old hand, and had perhaps been on a
hundred expeditions of this kind, had surveyed the scene at a
glance. Noticing in the fireplace the carbonized debris, upon
which still fluttered an expiring flame,
“That’s the reason, then,” he said, “why you were so long opening
the door?”
A sarcastic smile appeared upon the lips of the editor of “The Pilot.”
“Private matters,” he replied; “women’s letters.”
“This will be moral evidence against you, sir.”
“I prefer it to material evidence.”
Without condescending to notice the impertinence, the commissary
was casting a suspicious glance on Maxence and M. de Tregars.
“Who are these gentlemen who were closeted with you?” he asked.
“Visitors, sir. This is M. Favoral.”
“The son of the cashier of the Mutual Credit?”
“Exactly; and this gentleman is the Marquis de Tregars.”
“You should have opened the door when you heard a knocking in the
name of the law,” grumbled the commissary.
But he did not insist. Taking a paper from his pocket, he opened
it, and, handing it to M. Saint Pavin,
“I have orders to arrest you,” he said. “Here is the warrant.”
With a careless gesture, the other pushed it back. “What’s the use
of reading?” he said. “When I heard of the arrest of that poor
Jottras, I guessed at once what was in store for me. It is about
the Mutual Credit swindle, I imagine.”
“Exactly.”
“I have no more to do with it than yourself, sir; and I shall have
very little trouble in proving it. But that is not your business.
And you are going, I suppose, to put the seals on my papers?”
“Except on those that you have burnt.”
M. Saint Pavin burst out laughing. He had recovered his coolness
and his impudence, and seemed as much at ease as if it were the
most natural thing in the world.
“Shall I be allowed to speak to my clerks,” he asked, “and to give
them my instructions?”
“Yes,” replied the commissary, “but in my presence.”
The clerks, being called, appeared, consternation depicted upon
their countenances, but joy sparkling in their eyes. In reality
they were delighted at the misfortune which befell their employer.
“You see what happens to me, my boys,” he said. “But don’t be
uneasy. In less than forty-eight hours, the error of which I am
the victim will be recognized, and I shall be liberated on bail.
At any rate, I can rely upon you, can’t I?”
They all swore that they would be more attentive and more zealous
than ever.
And then addressing himself to his cashier, who was his
confidential and right-hand man,
“As to you, Bernard,” he said, “you will run to M. de Thaller’s,
and advise him of what’s going on. Let him have funds ready; for
all our depositors will want to draw out their money at once. You
will then call at the printing-office: have my article on the
Mutual Credit kept out, and insert in its place some financial news
cut out from other papers. Above all, don’t mention my arrest,
unless M. de Thaller should demand it. Go ahead, and let ‘The
Pilot’ appear as usual: that’s important.”
He had, whilst speaking, lighted a cigar. The honest man, victim
of human iniquity, has not a firmer and more tranquil countenance.
“Justice does not know,” he said to the commissary, who was fumbling
in all the drawers of the desk, “what irreparable damage she may
cause by arresting so hastily a man who has charge of immense
interests like me. It is the fortune of ten or twelve small
capitalists that is put in jeopardy.”
Already the witnesses of the arrest had retired, one by one, to go
and scatter the news along the Boulevard, and also to see what
could be made out of it; for, at the bourse, news is money.