A COMPACT WITH ROSE.
Toward the end of September, 1871, Count Frederick von Waldberg,
alias Franz Werner, arrived in Paris and took up his quarters at a
well-known hotel in the Rue de Rivoli under the name of Baron F. Wolff.
He stated that he had just arrived from Japan, a country in which he
claimed to have resided for over two years. As he spent his money very
liberally he was taken at his word and treated with great respect and
consideration at the hotel, where he soon made the acquaintance of
several American and English families who proposed to spend the winter
at Paris. Frederick's personal appearance had undergone such a change
during the twelve months which had elapsed since he left Paris that
there was not much fear of his being recognized by any of his former
acquaintances. He had grown taller and broader, his face was bronzed by
the Indian sun, and his beard, which he had once more allowed to grow
during the long sea voyage, caused him to look much older than he was
in reality.
One night, some two months after his arrival at Paris, he accompanied
three of his new acquaintances to the Jardin Mabille, at that time a
well-known rendezvous of the _jeunesse doree_ and of the demi-mondaines
of every class.
[Illustration: FREDERICK AT THE JARDIN MABILLE.]
He was standing near the orchestra, leaning against one of the
artificial palm trees loaded with fantastically colored glass fruits,
each of which contained a tiny gas jet, and was watching the gay
throng of dancers as they bounded through the intricate figures of a
disheveled can-can, when suddenly a woman, who was conspicuous by the
enormous amount of satin, lace, and flowers which she had managed to
accumulate about the lower part of her person, and by the extraordinary
scantiness of her corsage, stopped in front of him, and with the tip
of her satin-slippered foot delicately knocked his hat from off his
head to the ground. This being by no means an unusual feat among the
female habitues of Mabille, the incident did not attract much attention
and no one noticed the start of surprise and consternation with which
Frederick recognized in the painted creature with dyed hair his wife
Rose—Countess of Waldberg.
As his hat fell to the ground, the mocking smile on Rose's face
disappeared. Her features assumed a hard, stony expression; there was
a dangerous glitter in her eyes, and she gave one or two convulsive
little shivers, as if striving to control her feelings. Then, rapidly
bending toward him, she murmured:
“Come with me, quickly. I must speak to you at once.”
Frederick, realizing that the recognition had been mutual and afraid
that if he made any attempt to resist she would create a disturbance
and reveal his identity to all the bystanders, followed her without a
word. They soon reached a part of the gardens which was comparatively
deserted, and Rose led the way to a small arbor. Throwing herself
down on one of the wooden benches, she crossed her arms, and, looking
insolently into her husband's face, exclaimed, in a hard, rasping voice:
“Concealment is useless with me. I would have recognized you fifty
years hence. If love is blind, hatred is not. I have a little account
to square with you, _mon cher_, and you had better hear me out. I am
not surprised at your look of alarm when you realized who it was that
had kicked at your hat. It is unpleasant to be recognized when one has
so very much to keep dark.”
“What do you mean? I do not understand you.”
“Oh, yes, you do. The newspapers have hinted at your doings in India,
and a man who had made your acquaintance out there caught sight of one
of your portraits in my rooms about a fortnight ago. From him—I forget
his name, but he was an English captain—I heard the whole story of your
connection with the murder of——”
“Hush, for Heavens sake! not so loud!” interrupted Frederick,
terror-stricken. “You don't know what you are saying! If any one were
to hear you!”
“What do I care if the whole world hears?” retorted Rose. “You didn't
take the trouble of thinking about the world's opinion when you thrust
your wife out into the street in the middle of the night and suffered
her to be locked up at St. Lazarre as a common street-walker. Every dog
has its day, Monsieur le Comte, and I mean to show you that I can be as
cruel and relentless as you are yourself.”
“You surely will not betray me, Rose. You loved me once. I am a rich
man now, and can do much for you, if you will only be reasonable,”
exclaimed Frederick, imploringly.
He saw that his safety depended on Rose's silence and determined to do
everything that he could to propitiate her and to gain time. She looked
up with something like relenting in her hard blue eyes. The mention
of his wealth had evidently created some impression on her mercenary
nature.
“Why, why,” laughed she, “misfortunes seem to have rendered you more
reasonable, and to have softened your temper somewhat. It's more than
they have done for me. I don't think that I ever had what you can call
_un cœur sensible_ (a soft heart), but now I have none left at all.
Give me money, jewels, an easy life, and I am easy enough to manage! A
fig for sentiment! It's all bosh!”
Frederick, shuddering at the vulgarity displayed by the woman who was
still legally his wife, and fearing that his friends, missing him,
might hunt him up and insist on being introduced to his companion,
touched her lightly on the shoulder, saying:
“Come, Rose, let me take you home. It is impossible to talk quietly
here, and I have much to say to you. This is no place for you.”
The woman shook his hand off, with a sneer.
“How very particular you have become! This place is decidedly more
pleasant than the “violon” (cell at police station) or St. Lazarre.
It is true that the society which one meets at the Jardin Mabille is
slightly mixed, but by far not so much as in the two places I have
just mentioned. Come home with me, if you like. It will show you what
you have made of me—of me, the Countess von Waldberg. I wonder if your
conscience ever troubles you. You have a good deal to answer for, my
dear Frederick!”
Frederick having dispatched a waiter to fetch her wraps from the
cloak-room, for she had been sitting all this time with bared
shoulders, offered her his arm and led her away. As they were stepping
forth into the street, the young man felt a slight tap on his shoulder,
and, turning quickly around, found himself face to face with one of his
American friends, who laughingly exclaimed:
“I see you have met your fate, my dear Wolff; I congratulate you. Don't
forget that we have those two men to lunch at the hotel to-morrow.”
And with a parting “au revoir, baron,” he jumped into a fiacre, and
in a loud, cheery tone of voice, bade the coachman drive home to the
Hotel Kensington. A couple of minutes later, Frederick, who was greatly
put out at thus having his alias and his residence made known to Rose,
hailed a passing cab, and a quarter of an hour afterward arrived at her
apartments in the Rue de Constantinople. They consisted of four rooms,
the tawdry ornaments, greasy furniture, vulgar attempts at display and
false elegance of which denoted that their tenant had sunk to the level
of a third-rate _cocotte_.
Before Frederick left Rose that night he succeeded in exacting a
promise from her that as long as he maintained her in luxury and gave
her all the money she wanted, she would make no attempt to reveal
his identity or to injure him in any way. He handed her a couple of
thousand-franc bank-notes on his departure, and, promising to call on
the following afternoon, strolled back to his hotel.
“She knows too much! She is dangerous! This will never do!” he muttered
to himself, as he walked along under the arcades of the Rue de Rivoli.
He knew full well that as he was able to provide her with money, he
would not have much to fear from her. She was far too careful of her
own interests to kill the goose that laid the golden eggs by forcing
him to take to flight. But, unfortunately, he was ever of a spendthrift
disposition. His tastes, pleasures, and mode of life were extravagant;
gold escaped like water through his fingers, and he realized that as
soon as the last penny of the money which he had abstracted from the
murdered widow's apartments at Baroda had been spent he would find
himself powerless to silence Rose, whose revelations would inevitably
result in a demand for his extradition on the part of the Anglo-Indian
Government.
Several days went by. He had installed Rose in a very handsomely
furnished apartment on the Avenue de l'Imperatrice, and had presented
her with a carriage and pair, besides providing her with jewels and
handsome dresses. It became noised abroad among the demi-monde that she
had become the mistress of a wealthy Austrian named Baron Wolff, and
both Frederick and Rose were careful to avoid any allusion to the real
relationship which existed between them.
Rose found that by means of a few judicious taunts and threats she
was able to get anything she wanted out of him. Of love between this
curiously assorted couple there was none, and with each additional
demand for money on her part the hatred and loathing with which he
regarded her increased.
One evening, about a month after his meeting with Rose at the Jardin
Mabille, Frederick entered her drawing-room half an hour before dinner,
carrying in his hand a large bouquet of gardenias and white lilac. It
was her birthday, and after having duly congratulated her he handed
her a blue velvet box, which she opened with a cry of delight. It
contained a bracelet composed of superb sapphires which a few months
previously had figured on the wrist of the murdered widow at Baroda.
Kissing her hand with old-fashioned courtesy, Frederick clasped the
jewel round Rose's shapely arm, and then led her before one of the huge
mirrors which gleamed here and there between the plush hangings of the
luxuriously appointed room. They were indeed a handsome couple as they
stood there gazing at their reflections in the glass. Rose was now
dressed in perfect taste, and her pale-blue satin dinner dress set off
her beauty to perfection. Suddenly she looked up at him with a mocking
smile, and exclaimed, with a sneer:
“What a charming pair we are to be sure! No wonder we love each other
so tenderly.”
They remained a long time at table that night, sipping their wine, and
for a wonder chatting peacefully and pleasantly. Suddenly Rose jumped
up and exclaimed:
“By the by, Frederick, I must show you a letter which I received
to-day. There is a kind of East Indian nabob who is staying here at the
Grand Hotel. He has seen me at the opera, and writes to make me the
most dazzling proposals,” added she, cynically.
It was one of Rose's chief delights to show her husband what she had
now become; and without giving him time to say a word she ran lightly
out of the room in quest of the letter.
Hardly had she disappeared behind the portiere which hung before the
door than Frederick, who had suddenly grown very pale, took from his
waistcoat-pocket a small cut-glass bottle filled with a colorless and
transparent fluid. Bending over the table, he dropped part of its
contents in the half-finished glass of green chartreuse which stood in
front of Rose's plate. With an almost supernatural coolness he shook
the mixture, so as to amalgamate it properly, and then sank back into
his chair and lit a cigar, as if to give himself what the French call a
“countenance.”
At this moment Rose reappeared, holding in her hand an open letter.
“Let me read this to you. It will show you that if you don't behave I
can do without you, sir,” she said.
“Nonsense, Rose! What pleasure can it afford you to be always teasing
me? You are not half so bad as you try to make yourself out to be.
Here, let me drink your health again. That will be much more to the
purpose!”
Rose laughed a harsh, unlovely laugh, and seizing hold of her glass
clinked it against her husband's and tossed the liquor down her throat
with a “cranerie” which showed that she was not afraid of a stiff drink!
“What a peculiar taste this chartreuse has,” she said, as she threw
herself back in her chair.
Frederick laughed rather uneasily.
“You swallowed it too quickly. It is a pity, for it is good stuff, and
I prefer taking mine more quietly,” continued he, raising his own glass
to his lips.
“I feel awfully jolly to-night,” exclaimed Rose, jumping up from her
chair again and beginning to restlessly pace the floor. “We ought to go
out. Why don't you take me to some theater? Oh! it's too late for that!
Let us go to my boudoir and have some music; it will remind us of past
times.”
She left the room, beckoning him to follow. He did so, but as soon as
she rose from the table he quietly pocketed the glass from which she
had been drinking. He found Rose in the act of opening all the windows
in her boudoir. She was unusually flushed, and he noticed that the
pupils of her bright blue eyes were greatly contracted. This gave her
so strange and wild a look that he started back as she turned toward
him.
“How oppressively hot it is to-night, Frederick!” said she, in a
muffled voice, and breathing heavily.
“Why, no; it is not warmer than usual. You must have been drinking too
much, Rose. Compose yourself. Come here and lie down on the sofa, while
I play you some of your favorite melodies.”
Saying this, he sat down at the piano and began to play at random,
watching her intently all the time as she flitted about the room.
At the end of a few minutes she flung herself down on a lounge and
closed her eyes. She breathed more heavily than before, and from time
to time passed her hand across her forehead, which was bathed in cold
perspiration.
All at once she opened her eyes again. They were now dilated as if by
pain.
“Frederick,” she cried, in a low, oppressed kind of tone, “please come
here. I am not feeling well. I wish you would give me a glass of water.”
He walked to a side table and brought her a large glass filled to the
brim with iced water, which she drank eagerly.
“I am so sleepy,” murmured she, lying down again on the cushions.
Frederick sat down near her on the edge of the lounge, and watched
her curiously. Her face had assumed a cadaverous aspect, and now and
again she shuddered from head to foot. She appeared to be suffocating,
and there was a bluish tint round her drawn mouth and sunken eyes.
Frederick did not move. His face was nearly as white as that of his
victim. But he made no attempt to help or to assist her. He cruelly,
and in cold blood this time, allowed the poison to take definite hold
of her system, and his pitiless eyes remained fastened on her distorted
face without once relenting.
Gradually her breathing became less and less audible, and a few
moments later it had entirely ceased. Placing his hand to her bosom he
convinced himself that the beating of the heart had stopped forever.
Then arising from the couch he calmly removed his picture from its
place on the table, and then, loudly ringing the bell, he summoned the
servants.
The violence of the peal brought two or three of them to the door. They
found Baron Wolff apparently in a state of extreme excitement, trying
with all his might to revive their mistress as she lay unconscious on
the sofa.
“Quick! For Heaven's sake! Run for a doctor! Madam is very ill. She is
in a fit!” exclaimed he, wringing his hands.