THE BUTTERFLY MAN
The passing and repassing shadows of craft gave a fitful luster to the
river; so crisply white were the spanning highways that the eye grew
quickly dim with looking; the brisk channel breeze which moved with
rough gaiety through the trees in the gardens of the Tuileries, had,
long hours before, blown away the storm. Bright sunshine, expanses of
deep cerulean blue, towering banks of pleasant clouds, these made Paris
happy to-day, in spots.
The great minister gazed across the river, his hands under the tails of
his frock, and the perturbation of his mind expressed by the frequent
flapping of those somber woolen wings. To the little man who watched
him, there was a faint resemblance to a fiddling cricket.
"Sometimes I am minded to trust the whole thing to luck, and bother no
more about him."
"Monsieur, I have obeyed orders for seven years, since we first
recognized the unfortunate affair. Nothing he has done in this period
is missing from my notebook; and up to the present time he has
done--nothing. But just a little more patience. This very moment,
when you are inclined to drop it, may be the one. One way or another,
it is a matter of no real concern to me. There will always be plenty
of work for me to do, in France, or elsewhere. But I am like an old
soldier whose wound, twinging with rheumatism, announces the approach
of damp weather. I have, then, monsieur, a kind of psychological
rheumatism; prescience, bookmen call it. Presently we shall have damp
weather."
"You speak with singular conviction."
"In my time I have made very few mistakes. You will recollect that.
Twenty years have I served France. I was wrong to say that this affair
does not concern me. I'm interested to see the end."
"But will there be an end?" impatiently. "If I were certain of that!
But seven years, and still no sign."
"Monsieur, he is to be feared; this inactivity, to my mind, proves it.
He is waiting; the moment is not ripe. There are many sentimental
fools in this world. One has only to step into the street and shout
'Down with!' or 'Long live!' to bring these fools clattering about."
"That is true enough," flapping the tails of his coat again.
"This fellow was born across the Rhine. He has served in the navy; he
is a German, therefore we can not touch him unless he commits some
overt act. He waits; there is where the danger, the real danger, lies.
He waits; and it is his German blood which gives him this patience. A
Frenchman would have exploded long since."
"You have searched his luggage and his rooms, times without number."
"And found nothing; nothing that I might use effectively. But there is
this saving grace; he on his side knows nothing."
"I would I were sure of that also. Eh, well; I leave the affair in
your hands, and they are capable ones. When the time comes, act, act
upon your own initiative. In this matter we shall give no accounting
to Germany."
"No, because what I do must be done secretly. It will not matter that
Germany also knows and waits. But this is true; if we do not
circumvent him, she will make use of whatever he does."
"It has its whimsical side. Here is a man who may some day blow up
France, and yet we can put no hand on him till he throws the bomb."
"But there is always time to stop the flight of the bomb. That shall
be my concern; that is, if monsieur is not becoming discouraged and
desires me to occupy myself with other things. I repeat: I have
rheumatism, I apprehend the damp. He will go to America."
"Ah! It would be a very good plan if he remained there."
The little man did not reply.
"But you say in your reports that you have seen him going about with
some of the Orleanists. What is your inference there?"
"I have not yet formed one. It is a bit of a riddle there, for the
crow and the eagle do not fly together."
"Well, follow him to America."
"Thanks. The pay is good and the work is congenial." The tone of the
little man was softly given to irony.
Gray-haired, rosy-cheeked, a face smooth as a boy's, twinkling eyes
behind spectacles, he was one of the most astute, learned, and patient
of the French secret police. And he did not care the flip of his
strong brown fingers for the methods of Vidocq or Lecoq. His only
disguise was that not one of the criminal police of the world knew him
or had ever heard of him; and save his chief and three ministers of
war--for French cabinets are given to change--his own immediate friends
knew him as a butterfly hunter, a searcher for beetles and scarabs,
who, indeed, was one of the first authorities in France on the
subjects: Anatole Ferraud, who went about, hither and thither, with a
little red button in his buttonhole and a tongue facile in a dozen
languages.
"Very well, monsieur. I trust that in the near future I may bring you
good news."
"He will become nothing or the most desperate man in Europe."
"Admitted."
"He is a scholar, too."
"All the more interesting."
"As a student in Munich he has fought his three duels. He has been a
war correspondent under fire. He is a great fencer, a fine shot, a
daring rider."
"And penniless. What a country they have over there beyond the Rhine!
He would never have troubled his head about it, had they not harried
him. To stir up France, to wound her if possible! He will be a man of
great courage and resource," said the secret agent, drawing the palms
of his hands together.
"In the end, then, Germany will offer him money?"
"That is the possible outlook."
"But, suppose he went to work on his own responsibility?"
"In that case one would be justified in locking him up as a madman. Do
you know anything about Alpine butterflies?"
"Very little," confessed the minister.
"There is often great danger in getting at them; but the pleasure is
commensurate."
"Are there not rare butterflies in the Amazonian swamps?" cynically.
"Ah, but this man has good blood in him; and if he flies at all he will
fly high. Think of this man fifty years ago; what a possibility he
would have been! But it is out of fashion to-day. Well, monsieur, I
must be off. There is an old manuscript at the Bibliothèque I wish to
inspect."
"Concerning this matter?"
"Butterflies," softly; "or, I should say, chrysalides."
The subtle inference passed by the minister. There were many other
things to-ing and fro-ing in the busy corridors of his brain. "I shall
hear from you frequently?"
"As often as the situation requires. By the way, I have an idea. When
I cable you the word butterfly, prepare yourself accordingly. It will
mean that the bomb is ready."
"Good luck attend you, my savant," said the minister, with a
friendliness which was deep and genuine. He had known Monsieur Ferraud
in other days. "And, above all, take care of yourself."
"Trust me, Count." And the secret agent departed, to appear again in
these chambers only when his work was done.
"A strange man," mused the minister when he was alone. "A still
stranger business for a genuine scholar. Is he really poor? Does he
do this work to afford him ease and time for his studies? Or, better
still, does he hide a great and singular patriotism under butterfly
wings? Patriotism? More and more it becomes self-interest. It is
only when a foreign mob starts to tear down your house, that you become
a patriot."
Now the subject of these desultory musings went directly to the
Bibliothèque Nationale. The study he pursued was of deep interest to
him; it concerned a butterfly of vast proportions and kaleidoscopic in
color, long ago pinned away and labeled among others of lesser
brilliancy. It had cast a fine shadow in its brief flight. But the
species was now extinct, at least so the historian of this particular
butterfly declared. Hybrid? Such a contingency was always possible.
"Suppose it does exist, as I and a few others very well know it does;
what a fine joke it would be to see it fly into Paris! But, no. Idle
dream! Still, I shall wait and watch. And now, suppose we pay a visit
to Berlin and use blunt facts in place of diplomacy? It will surprise
them."
Each German chancellor has become, in turn, the repository of such
political secrets as fell under the eyes of his predecessor; and the
chancellor who walked up and down before Monsieur Ferraud, possessed
several which did not rest heavily upon his soul simply because he was
incredulous, or affected that he was.
"The thing is preposterous."
"As your excellency has already declared."
"What has it to do with France?"
"Much or little. It depends upon this side of the Rhine."
"What imagination! But for your credentials, Monsieur Ferraud, I
should not listen to you one moment."
"I have seen some documents."
"Forgeries!" contemptuously.
"Not in the least," suavely. "They are in every part genuine. They
are his own."
The chancellor paused, frowning. "Well, even then?"
Monsieur Ferraud shrugged.
"This fellow, who was forced to resign from the navy because of his
tricks at cards, why I doubt if he could stir up a brawl in a tavern.
Really, if there was a word of truth in the affair, we should have
acted before this. It is all idle newspaper talk that Germany wishes
war; far from it. Still, we lose no point to fortify ourselves against
the possibility of it. Some one has been telling you old-wives' tales."
"Ten thousand marks," almost inaudibly.
"What was that you said?" cried the chancellor, whirling round
abruptly, for the words startled him.
"Pardon me! I was thinking out loud about a sum of money."
"Ah!" And yet the chancellor realized that the other was telling him
as plainly as he dared that the German government had offered such a
sum to forward the very intrigue which he was so emphatically denying.
"Why not turn the matter over to your own ambassador here?"
The secret agent laughed. "Publicity is what neither your government
nor mine desires. Thank you."
"I am sorry not to be of some service to you."
"I can readily believe that, your excellency," not to be outdone in the
matter of duplicity. "I thank you for your time."
"I hadn't the least idea that you were in the service; butterflies and
diplomacy!" with a hearty laugh.
"It is only temporary."
"Your _Alpine Butterflies_ compares favorably with _The Life of the
Bee_."
"That is a very great compliment!"
And with this the interview, extraordinary in all ways, came to an end.
Neither man had fooled the other, neither had made any mistake in his
logical deductions; and, in a way, both were satisfied. The chancellor
resumed his more definite labors, and the secret agent hurried away to
the nearest telegraph office.
"So I am to stand on these two feet?" Monsieur Ferraud ruminated, as he
took the seat by the window in the second-class carriage for Munich.
"All the finer the sport. Ten thousand marks! He forgot himself for a
moment. And I might have gone further and said that ninety thousand
marks would be added to those ten thousand if the bribe was accepted
and the promise fulfilled."
Ah, it would be beautiful to untangle this snarl all alone. It would
be the finest chase that had ever fallen to his lot. No grain of sand,
however small, should escape him. There were fools in Berlin as well
as in Paris; and he knew what he knew. "Never a move shall he make
that I shan't make the same; and in one thing I shall move first. Two
million francs! Handsome! It is I who must find this treasure, this
fulcrum to the lever which is going to upheave France. There will be
no difficulty then in pricking the pretty bubble. In the meantime we
shall proceed to Munich and carefully inquire into the affairs of the
grand opera singer, Hildegarde von Mitter."
He extracted a wallet from an inner pocket and opened it across his
knees. It was full of butterflies.