THE TENANT OF THE PALANQUIN.
The Marquis called on me next day. My late breakfast was still
upon the table.
He had come, he said, to ask a favour. An accident had happened
to his carriage in the crowd on leaving the ball, and he begged,
if I were going into Paris, a seat in mine--I was going in, and
was extremely glad of his company. He came with me to my hotel;
we went up to my rooms. I was surprised to see a man seated in an
easy chair, with his back towards us, reading a newspaper. He
rose. It was the Count de St. Alyre, his gold spectacles on his
nose; his black wig, in oily curls, lying close to his narrow
head, and showing, like carved ebony over a repulsive visage of
boxwood. His black muffler had been pulled down. His right arm
was in a sling. I don't know whether there was anything unusual
in his countenance that day, or whether it was but the effect of
prejudice arising from all I had heard in my mysterious interview
in his park, but I thought his countenance was more strikingly
forbidding than I had seen it before.
I was not callous enough in the ways of sin to meet this man,
injured at least in intent, thus suddenly, without a momentary
disturbance.
He smiled.
"I called, Monsieur Beckett, in the hope of finding you here,"
he croaked, "and I meditated, I fear, taking a great liberty, but
my friend the Marquis d'Harmonville, on whom I have perhaps some
claim, will perhaps give me the assistance I require so much."
"With great pleasure," said the Marquis, "but not till after six
o'clock. I must go this moment to a meeting of three or four
people, whom I cannot disappoint, and I know, perfectly, we
cannot break up earlier."
"What am I to do?" exclaimed the Count, "an hour would have done
it all. Was ever _contre-temps_ so unlucky!"
"I'll give you an hour, with pleasure," said I.
"How very good of you, Monsieur, I hardly dare to hope it. The
business, for so gay and charming a man as Monsieur Beckett, is a
little _funeste_. Pray read this note which reached me this
morning."
It certainly was not cheerful. It was a note stating that the
body of his, the Count's cousin, Monsieur de St. Amand, who had
died at his house, the Château Clery, had been, in accordance
with his written directions, sent for burial at Père La Chaise,
and, with the permission of the Count de St. Alyre, would reach
his house (the Château de la Carque), at about ten o'clock on the
night following, to be conveyed thence in a hearse, with any
member of the family who might wish to attend the obsequies.
"I did not see the poor gentleman twice in my life," said the
Count, "but this office, as he has no other kinsman, disagreeable
as it is, I could scarcely decline, and so I want to attend at
the office to have the book signed, and the order entered. But
here is another misery. By ill luck, I have sprained my thumb,
and can't sign my name for a week to come. However, one name
answers as well as another. Yours as well as mine. And as you
are so good as to come with me, all will go right."
Away, we drove. The Count gave me a memorandum of the christian
and surnames of the deceased, his age, the complaint he died of,
and the usual particulars; also a note of the exact position in
which a grave, the dimensions of which were described, of the
ordinary simple kind, was to be dug, between two vaults belonging
to the family of St. Amand. The funeral, it was stated, would
arrive at half-past one o'clock A.M. (the next night but one);
and he handed me the money, with extra fees, for a burial by
night. It was a good deal; and I asked him, as he entrusted the
whole affair to me, in whose name I should take the receipt.
"Not in mine, my good friend. They wanted me to become an
executor, which I, yesterday, wrote to decline; and I am informed
that if the receipt were in my name it would constitute me an
executor in the eye of the law, and fix me in that position. Take
it, pray, if you have no objection, in your own name."
This, accordingly, I did.
"You will see, by-and-by, why I am obliged to mention all these
particulars."
The Count, meanwhile, was leaning back in the carriage, with his
black silk muffler up to his nose, and his hat shading his eyes,
while he dozed in his corner; in which state I found him on my
return.
Paris had lost its charm for me. I hurried through the little
business I had to do, longed once more for my quiet room in the
Dragon Volant, the melancholy woods of the Château de la Carque,
and the tumultuous and thrilling influence of proximity to the
object of my wild but wicked romance.
I was delayed some time by my stockbroker. I had a very large
sum, as I told you, at my banker's, uninvested. I cared very
little for a few days' interest--very little for the entire sum,
compared with the image that occupied my thoughts, and beckoned
me with a white arm, through the dark, toward the spreading
lime-trees and chestnuts of the Château de la Carque. But I had
fixed this day to meet him, and was relieved when he told me that
I had better let it lie in my banker's hands for a few days
longer, as the funds would certainly fall immediately. This
accident, too, was not without its immediate bearing on my
subsequent adventures.
When I reached the Dragon Volant, I found, in my sitting-room, a
good deal to my chagrin, my two guests, whom I had quite
forgotten. I inwardly cursed my own stupidity for having
embarrassed myself with their agreeable society. It could not be
helped now, however, and a word to the waiters put all things in
train for dinner.
Tom Whistlewick was in great force; and he commenced almost
immediately with a very odd story.
He told me that not only Versailles, but all Paris, was in a
ferment, in consequence of a revolting, and all but sacrilegious,
practical joke, played off on the night before.
The pagoda, as he persisted in calling the palanquin, had been
left standing on the spot where we last saw it. Neither conjuror,
nor usher, nor bearers had ever returned. When the ball closed,
and the company at length retired, the servants who attended to
put out the lights, and secure the doors, found it still there.
It was determined, however, to let it stand where it was until
next morning, by which time, it was conjectured, its owners would
send messengers to remove it.
None arrived. The servants were then ordered to take it away; and
its extraordinary weight, for the first time, reminded them of
its forgotten human occupant. Its door was forced; and, judge
what was their disgust, when they discovered, not a living man,
but a corpse! Three or four days must have passed since the death
of the burly man in the Chinese tunic and painted cap. Some
people thought it was a trick designed to insult the Allies, in
whose honour the ball was got up. Others were of opinion that it
was nothing worse than a daring and cynical jocularity which,
shocking as it was, might yet be forgiven to the high spirits and
irrepressible buffoonery of youth. Others, again, fewer in
number, and mystically given, insisted that the corpse was _bonâ
fide_ necessary to the exhibition, and that the disclosures and
allusions which had astonished so many people were distinctly due
to necromancy.
"The matter, however, is now in the hands of the police,"
observed Monsieur Carmaignac, "and we are not the body they were
two or three months ago, if the offenders against propriety and
public feeling are not traced, and convicted, unless, indeed,
they have been a great deal more cunning than such fools
generally are."
I was thinking within myself how utterly inexplicable was my
colloquy with the conjuror, so cavalierly dismissed by Monsieur
Carmaignac as a "fool;" and the more I thought the more
marvellous it seemed.
"It certainly was an original joke, though not a very clear one,"
said Whistlewick.
"Not even original," said Carmaignac. "Very nearly the same thing
was done, a hundred years ago or more, at a state ball in Paris;
and the rascals who played the trick were never found out."
In this Monsieur Carmaignac, as I afterwards discovered, spoke
truly; for, among my books of French anecdote and memoirs, the
very incident is marked, by my own hand.
While we were thus talking, the waiter told us that dinner was
served; and we withdrew accordingly; my guests more than making
amends for my comparative taciturnity.