M. Tabaret’s house was in fact not more than four minutes’ walk from the
railway terminus of St. Lazare. It was a fine building carefully kept,
and which probably yielded a fine income though the rents were not too
high. The old fellow found plenty of room in it. He occupied on the
first floor, overlooking the street, some handsome apartments, well
arranged and comfortably furnished, the principal of which was his
collection of books. He lived very simply from taste, as well as habit,
waited on by an old servant, to whom on great occasions the concierge
lent a helping hand.
No one in the house had the slightest suspicion of the avocations of the
proprietor. Besides, even the humblest agent of police would be expected
to possess a degree of acuteness for which no one gave M. Tabaret
credit. Indeed, they mistook for incipient idiocy his continual
abstraction of mind.
It is true that all who knew him remarked the singularity of his
habits. His frequent absences from home had given to his proceedings an
appearance at once eccentric and mysterious. Never was young libertine
more irregular in his habits than this old man. He came or failed to
come home to his meals, ate it mattered not what or when. He went out
at every hour of the day and night, often slept abroad, and even
disappeared for entire weeks at a time. Then too he received the
strangest visitors, odd looking men of suspicious appearance, and
fellows of ill-favoured and sinister aspect.
This irregular way of living had robbed the old fellow of much
consideration. Many believed they saw in him a shameless libertine, who
squandered his income in disreputable places. They would remark to one
another, “Is it not disgraceful, a man of his age?”
He was aware of all this tittle-tattle, and laughed at it. This did not,
however, prevent many of his tenants from seeking his society and paying
court to him. They would invite him to dinner, but he almost invariably
refused.
He seldom visited but one person of the house, but with that one he
was very intimate, so much so indeed, that he was more often in her
apartment, than in his own. She was a widow lady, who for fifteen years
had occupied an apartment on the third floor. Her name was Madame Gerdy,
and she lived with her son Noel, whom she adored.
Noel Gerdy was a man thirty-three years of age, but looking older; tall
and well made, with a noble and intelligent face, large black eyes, and
black hair which curled naturally. An advocate, he passed for having
great talent, and greater industry, and had already gained a certain
amount of notoriety. He was an obstinate worker, cold and meditative,
though devoted to his profession, and affected, with some ostentation,
perhaps, a great rigidity of principle, and austerity of manners.
In Madame Gerdy’s apartment, old Tabaret felt himself quite at home. He
considered her as a relation, and looked upon Noel as a son. In spite
of her fifty years, he had often thought of asking the hand of this
charming widow, and was restrained less by the fear of a refusal than
its consequence. To propose and to be rejected would sever the existing
relations, so pleasurable to him. However, he had by his will, which
was deposited with his notary constituted this young advocate his sole
legatee; with the single condition of founding an annual prize of two
thousand francs to be bestowed on the police agent who during the year
had unravelled the most obscure and mysterious crime.
Short as was the distance to his house, old Tabaret was a good quarter
of an hour in reaching it. On leaving M. Daburon his thoughts reverted
to the scene of the murder; and, so blinded was the old fellow to
external objects, that he moved along the street, first jostled on the
right, then on the left, by the busy passers by, advancing one step and
receding two. He repeated to himself for the fiftieth time the words
uttered by Widow Lerouge, as reported by the milk-woman. “If I wished
for any more, I could have it.”
“All is in that,” murmured he. “Widow Lerouge possessed some important
secret, which persons rich and powerful had the strongest motives for
concealing. She had them in her power, and that was her fortune. She
made them sing to her tune; she probably went too far, and so they
suppressed her. But of what nature was this secret, and how did she
become possessed of it? Most likely she was in her youth a servant in
some great family; and whilst there, she saw, heard, or discovered,
something--What? Evidently there is a woman at the bottom of it. Did she
assist her mistress in some love intrigue? What more probable? And in
that case the affair becomes even more complicated. Not only must the
woman be found but her lover also; for it is the lover who has moved in
this affair. He is, or I am greatly deceived, a man of noble birth. A
person of inferior rank would have simply hired an assassin. This man
has not hung back; he himself has struck the blow and by that means
avoiding the indiscretion or the stupidity of an accomplice. He is a
courageous rascal, full of audacity and coolness, for the crime has
been admirably executed. The fellow left nothing behind of a nature to
compromise him seriously. But for me, Gevrol, believing in the robbery,
would have seen nothing. Fortunately, however, I was there. But yet it
can hardly be that,” continued the old man. “It must be something worse
than a mere love affair.”
Old Tabaret entered the porch of the house. The concierge seated by the
window of his lodge saw him as he passed beneath the gas lamp.
“Ah,” said he, “the proprietor has returned at last.”
“So he has,” replied his wife, “but it looks as though his princess
would have nothing to do with him to-night. He seems more loose than
ever.”
“Is it not positively indecent,” said the concierge, “and isn’t he in
a state! His fair ones do treat him well! One of these fine mornings I
shall have to take him to a lunatic asylum in a straight waistcoat.”
“Look at him now!” interrupted his wife, “just look at him now, in the
middle of the courtyard!”
The old fellow had stopped at the extremity of the porch. He had taken
off his hat, and, while talking to himself, gesticulated violently.
“No,” said he, “I have not yet got hold of the clue, I am getting near
it; but have not yet found it out.”
He mounted the staircase, and rang his bell, forgetting that he had his
latch-key in his pocket. His housekeeper opened the door.
“What, is it you, sir,” said she, “and at this hour!”
“What’s that you say?” asked the old fellow.
“I say,” replied the housekeeper, “that it is more than half-past eight
o’clock. I thought you were not coming back this evening. Have you at
least dined?”
“No, not yet.”
“Well, fortunately I have kept your dinner warm. You can sit down to it
at once.”
Old Tabaret took his place at the table, and helped himself to soup,
but mounting his hobby-horse again, he forgot to eat, and remained, his
spoon in the air, as though suddenly struck by an idea.
“He is certainly touched in the head,” thought Manette, the housekeeper.
“Look at that stupid expression. Who in his senses would lead the life
he does?” She touched him on the shoulder, and bawled in his ear, as if
he were deaf,--“You do not eat. Are you not hungry?”
“Yes, yes,” muttered he, trying mechanically to escape the voice that
sounded in his ears, “I am very hungry, for since the morning I have
been obliged--” He interrupted himself, remaining with his mouth open,
his eyes fixed on vacancy.
“You were obliged--?” repeated Manette.
“Thunder!” cried he, raising his clenched fists towards the
ceiling,--“heaven’s thunder! I have it!”
His movement was so violent and sudden that the housekeeper was a little
alarmed, and retired to the further end of the dining-room, near the
door.
“Yes,” continued he, “it is certain there is a child!”
Manette approached him quickly. “A child?” she asked in astonishment.
“What next!” cried he in a furious tone. “What are you doing there? Has
your hardihood come to this that you pick up the words which escape me?
Do me the pleasure to retire to your kitchen, and stay there until I
call you.”
“He is going crazy!” thought Manette, as she disappeared very quickly.
Old Tabaret resumed his seat. He hastily swallowed his soup which was
completely cold. “Why,” said he to himself, “did I not think of it
before? Poor humanity! I am growing old, and my brain is worn out. For
it is clear as day; the circumstances all point to that conclusion.”
He rang the bell placed on the table beside him; the servant reappeared.
“Bring the roast,” he said, “and leave me to myself.”
“Yes,” continued he furiously carving a leg of Presale mutton--“Yes,
there is a child, and here is his history! The Widow Lerouge, when a
young woman, is in the service of a great lady, immensely rich. Her
husband, a sailor, probably had departed on a long voyage. The lady had
a lover--found herself enciente. She confided in the Widow Lerouge, and,
with her assistance, accomplished a clandestine accouchement.”
He called again.
“Manette, the dessert, and get out!”
Certainly such a master was unworthy of so excellent a cook as Manette.
He would have been puzzled to say what he had eaten for diner, or even
what he was eating at this moment; it was a preserve of pears.
“But what,” murmured he, “has become of the child? Has it been
destroyed? No; for the Widow Lerouge, an accomplice in an infanticide,
would be no longer formidable. The child has been preserved, and
confided to the care of our widow, by whom it has been reared. They have
been able to take the infant away from her, but not the proofs of its
birth and its existence. Here is the opening. The father is the man of
the fine carriage; the mother is the lady who came with the handsome
young man. Ha! ha! I can well believe the dear old dame wanted for
nothing. She had a secret worth a farm in Brie. But the old lady was
extravagant; her expenses and her demands have increased year by year.
Poor humanity! She has leaned upon the staff too heavily, and broken it.
She has threatened. They have been frightened, and said, ‘Let there be
an end of this!’ But who has charged himself with the commission? The
papa? No; he is too old. By jupiter! The son,--the child himself! He
would save his mother, the brave boy! He has slain the witness and burnt
the proofs!”
Manette all this time, her ear to the keyhole, listened with all her
soul; from time to time she gleaned a word, an oath, the noise of a blow
upon the table; but that was all.
“For certain,” thought she, “his women are running in his head.”
Her curiosity overcame her prudence. Hearing no more, she ventured to
open the door a little way. The old fellow caught her in the very act.
“Monsieur wants his coffee?” stammered she timidly.
“Yes, you may bring it to me,” he answered.
He attempted to swallow his coffee at a gulp, but scalded himself so
severely that the pain brought him suddenly from speculation to reality.
“Thunder!” growled he; “but it is hot! Devil take the case! it has set
me beside myself. They are right when they say I am too enthusiastic.
But who amongst the whole lot of them could have, by the sole exercise
of observation and reason, established the whole history of the
assassination? Certainly not Gevrol, poor man! Won’t he feel vexed and
humiliated, being altogether out of it. Shall I seek M. Daburon? No,
not yet. The night is necessary to me to sift to the bottom all the
particulars, and arrange my ideas systematically. But, on the other
hand, if I sit here all alone, this confounded case will keep me in a
fever of speculation, and as I have just eaten a great deal, I may get
an attack of indigestion. My faith! I will call upon Madame Gerdy: she
has been ailing for some days past. I will have a chat with Noel, and
that will change the course of my ideas.”
He got up from the table, put on his overcoat, and took his hat and
cane.
“Are you going out, sir?” asked Manette.
“Yes.”
“Shall you be late?”
“Possibly.”
“But you will return to-night?”
“I do not know.”
One minute later, M. Tabaret was ringing his friend’s bell.
Madame Gerdy lived in respectable style. She possessed sufficient for
her wants; and her son’s practice, already large, had made them almost
rich. She lived very quietly, and with the exception of one or two
friends, whom Noel occasionally invited to dinner, received very few
visitors. During more than fifteen years that M. Tabaret came familiarly
to the apartments, he had only met the cure of the parish, one of Noel’s
old professors, and Madame Gerdy’s brother, a retired colonel. When
these three visitors happened to call on the same evening, an event
somewhat rare, they played at a round game called Boston; on other
evenings piquet or all-fours was the rule. Noel, however, seldom
remained in the drawing-room, but shut himself up after dinner in
his study, which with his bedroom formed a separate apartment to his
mother’s, and immersed himself in his law papers. He was supposed to
work far into the night. Often in winter his lamp was not extinguished
before dawn.
Mother and son absolutely lived for one another, as all who knew them
took pleasure in repeating. They loved and honoured Noel for the care
he bestowed upon his mother, for his more than filial devotion, for the
sacrifices which all supposed he made in living at his age like an old
man.
The neighbours were in the habit of contrasting the conduct of this
exemplary young man with that of M. Tabaret, the incorrigible old rake,
the hairless dangler.
As for Madame Gerdy, she saw nothing but her son in all the world. Her
love had actually taken the form of worship. In Noel she believed she
saw united all the physical and moral perfections. To her he seemed of a
superior order to the rest of humanity. If he spoke, she was silent and
listened: his word was a command, his advice a decree of Providence. To
care for her son, study his tastes, anticipate his wishes, was the sole
aim of her life. She was a mother.
“Is Madame Gerdy visible?” asked old Tabaret of the girl who opened the
door; and, without waiting for an answer, he walked into the room like
a man assured that his presence cannot be inopportune, and ought to be
agreeable.
A single candle lighted the drawing-room, which was not in its
accustomed order. The small marble-top table, usually in the middle of
the room, had been rolled into a corner. Madame Gerdy’s large arm-chair
was near the window; a newspaper, all crumpled, lay before it on the
carpet.
The amateur detective took in the whole at a glance.
“Has any accident happened?” he asked of the girl.
“Do not speak of it, sir: we have just had a fright! oh, such a fright!”
“What was it? tell me quickly!”
“You know that madame has been ailing for the last month. She has eaten
I may say almost nothing. This morning, even, she said to me--”
“Yes, yes! but this evening?”
“After her dinner, madame went into the drawing-room as usual. She sat
down and took up one of M. Noel’s newspapers. Scarcely had she begun to
read, when she uttered a great cry,--oh, a terrible cry! We hastened to
her; madame had fallen on to the floor, as one dead. M. Noel raised
her in his arms, and carried her into her room. I wanted to fetch the
doctor, sir, but he said there was no need; he knew what was the matter
with her.”
“And how is she now?”
“She has come to her senses; that is to say, I suppose so; for M. Noel
made me leave the room. All that I do know is, that a little while ago
she was talking, and talking very loudly too, for I heard her. Ah, sir,
it is all the same, very strange!”
“What is strange?”
“What I heard Madame Gerdy say to M. Noel.”
“Ah ha! my girl!” sneered old Tabaret; “so you listen at key-holes, do
you?”
“No, sir, I assure you; but madame cried out like one lost. She said,--”
“My girl!” interrupted old Tabaret severely, “one always hears wrong
through key-holes. Ask Manette if that is not so.”
The poor girl, thoroughly confused, sought to excuse herself.
“Enough, enough!” said the old man. “Return to your work: you need not
disturb M. Noel; I can wait for him very well here.”
And satisfied with the reproof he had administered, he picked up the
newspaper, and seated himself beside the fire, placing the candle near
him so as to read with ease. A minute had scarcely elapsed when he in
his turn bounded in his chair, and stifled a cry of instinctive terror
and surprise. These were the first words that met his eye.
“A horrible crime has plunged the village of La Jonchere in
consternation. A poor widow, named Lerouge, who enjoyed the general
esteem and love of the community, has been assassinated in her home. The
officers of the law have made the usual preliminary investigations, and
everything leads us to believe that the police are already on the track
of the author of this dastardly crime.”
“Thunder!” said old Tabaret to himself, “can it be that Madame Gerdy?--”
The idea but flashed across his mind; he fell back into his chair, and,
shrugging his shoulders, murmured,--
“Really this affair of La Jonchere is driving me out of my senses! I
can think of nothing but this Widow Lerouge. I shall be seeing her in
everything now.”
In the mean while, an uncontrollable curiosity made him peruse the
entire newspaper. He found nothing with the exception of these lines, to
justify or explain even the slightest emotion.
“It is an extremely singular coincidence, at the same time,” thought
the incorrigible police agent. Then, remarking that the newspaper was
slightly torn at the lower part, and crushed, as if by a convulsive
grasp, he repeated,--
“It is strange!”
At this moment the door of Madame Gerdy’s room opened, and Noel appeared
on the threshold.
Without doubt the accident to his mother had greatly excited him; for
he was very pale and his countenance, ordinarily so calm, wore an
expression of profound sorrow. He appeared surprised to see old Tabaret.
“Ah, my dear Noel!” cried the old fellow. “Calm my inquietude. How is
your mother?”
“Madame Gerdy is as well as can be expected.”
“Madame Gerdy!” repeated the old fellow with an air of astonishment; but
he continued, “It is plain you have been seriously alarmed.”
“In truth,” replied the advocate, seating himself, “I have experienced a
rude shock.”
Noel was making visibly the greatest efforts to appear calm, to listen
to the old fellow, and to answer him. Old Tabaret, as much disquieted on
his side, perceived nothing.
“At least, my dear boy,” said he, “tell me how this happened?”
The young man hesitated a moment, as if consulting with himself. No
doubt he was unprepared for this point blank question, and knew not what
answer to make; at last he replied,--
“Madame Gerdy has suffered a severe shock in learning from a paragraph
in this newspaper that a woman in whom she takes a strong interest has
been assassinated.”
“Ah!” replied old Tabaret.
The old fellow was in a fever of embarrassment. He wanted to question
Noel, but was restrained by the fear of revealing the secret of his
association with the police. Indeed he had almost betrayed himself by
the eagerness with which he exclaimed,--
“What! your mother knew the Widow Lerouge?”
By an effort he restrained himself, and with difficulty dissembled his
satisfaction; for he was delighted to find himself so unexpectedly on
the trace of the antecedents of the victim of La Jonchere.
“She was,” continued Noel, “the slave of Madame Gerdy, devoted to her in
every way! She would have sacrificed herself for her at a sign from her
hand.”
“Then you, my dear friend, you knew this poor woman!”
“I had not seen her for a very long time,” replied Noel, whose voice
seemed broken by emotion, “but I knew her well. I ought even to say I
loved her tenderly. She was my nurse.”
“She, this woman?” stammered old Tabaret.
This time he was thunderstruck. Widow Lerouge Noel’s nurse? He was most
unfortunate. Providence had evidently chosen him for its instrument, and
was leading him by the hand. He was about to obtain all the information,
which half an hour ago he had almost despaired of procuring. He remained
seated before Noel amazed and speechless. Yet he understood, that,
unless he would compromise himself, he must speak.
“It is a great misfortune,” he murmured at last.
“What it is for Madame Gerdy, I cannot say,” replied Noel with a gloomy
air; “but, for me, it is an overwhelming misfortune! I am struck to
the heart by the blow which has slain this poor woman. Her death, M.
Tabaret, has annihilated all my dreams of the future, and probably
overthrown my most cherished hopes. I had to avenge myself for cruel
injuries; her death breaks the weapon in my hands, and reduces me to
despair, to impotence. Alas! I am indeed unfortunate.”
“You unfortunate?” cried old Tabaret, singularly affected by his dear
Noel’s sadness. “In heaven’s name, what has happened to you?”
“I suffer,” murmured the advocate, “and very cruelly. Not only do I fear
that the injustice is irreparable; but here am I totally without defence
delivered over to the shafts of calumny. I may be accused of inventing
falsehood, of being an ambitious intriguer, having no regard for truth,
no scruples of conscience.”
Old Tabaret was puzzled. What connection could possibly exist between
Noel’s honour and the assassination at La Jonchere? His brain was in
a whirl. A thousand troubled and confused ideas jostled one another in
inextricable confusion.
“Come, come, Noel,” said he, “compose yourself. Who would believe any
calumny uttered about you? Take courage, have you not friends? am I
not here? Have confidence, tell me what troubles you, and it will be
strange, indeed if between us two--”
The advocate started to his feet, impressed by a sudden resolution.
“Well! yes,” interrupted he, “yes, you shall know all. In fact, I am
tired of carrying all alone a secret that is stifling me. The part I
have been playing irritates and wearies me. I have need of a friend to
console me. I require a counsellor whose voice will encourage me, for
one is a bad judge of his own cause, and this crime has plunged me into
an abyss of hesitations.”
“You know,” replied M. Tabaret kindly, “that I regard you as my own son.
Do not scruple to let me serve you.”
“Know then,” commenced the advocate,--“but no, not here: what I have to
say must not be overheard. Let us go into my study.”