THE WEDDING BREAKFAST
As Ascott desired the wedding was carried out in the strictest
privacy. The party reached the _Mairie_ at an early hour. Ascott had
for witnesses his man servant John, and a casual secretary from the
Consulate, bound over to the closest secrecy. Moreover, the young man
in question, a person of much discretion who saw how things were with
half an eye, had vanished immediately after the ceremony, saying he
did not care to attend the breakfast, understanding in fact that his
absence would not be taken in ill part, but very much the reverse.
Nini Guinon’s witnesses were her uncle, Père Moche, recruited again
for the purpose, and the vagabond Bouzille, who had been fetched from
a drinking shop at Ménilmontant, and dressed up for the occasion in a
second-hand frock coat. The formalities at the _Mairie_ were quickly
completed, the party adjourned to hear a mass at the nearest church,
and then set off for the Bois de Vincennes.
The last act of the grotesque adventure, the wedding breakfast,
remained to be staged. Ascott, to Mme. Guinon’s bitter chagrin, had
emphatically refused to make her acquaintance, thereby making the good
woman desperately unhappy. Thus she had barely caught a glimpse of her
son-in-law, when at the _Mairie_ she authorized her daughter as a minor
to pronounce a definitive and binding “Yes.” Ascott, in fact, had shown
himself quite uncompromising all the morning. For this marriage, this
hole and corner marriage, so to speak, in which he had systematically
avoided all publicity, he had not chosen that his bride should wear the
orthodox white gown sacred to such occasions. In a word, the ceremony
was a gloomy, funereal function, depressing to the last degree.
It was abundantly clear the bridegroom was fulfilling a duty, carrying
out an irksome obligation; indeed, the whole thing wore so lugubrious
an aspect that Nini Guinon began to feel anxious, asking herself if
really and truly she had acted wisely in following old Moche’s advice,
for at the bottom of her heart she was far from convinced of the
advantages to accrue for her from her union with the rich Englishman.
On the drive to the restaurant, sitting silent in her corner of the
carriage, Nini was thinking all the while:
“If I’m in for a bad time, if old Moche has got me in a hole, I’ll make
him pay for it.”
However, Bouzille, who had kept quiet enough during the morning, began
to liven up on arriving at _The Orange Blossom_. He smiled broadly
at the regiment of bottles drawn up on a sideboard, and, like the
good-natured ninny he was, having never an inkling of the preposterous
situation of the bridal pair and those about them, he clapped his hands
gaily, suggesting:
“Well, good folks, about time for a bit of a spree, eh? what if we
cracked a bottle now before going any further?”
Ascott, for all his pre-occupation, could not help smiling; in fact,
if there was any one person in the whole crew that revolted him less
profoundly than the rest, it was certainly this merry-hearted tramp;
the fellow was rough and brutal, but he seemed to be an honest man. On
the contrary, Ascott felt greatly embarrassed at the idea of sitting
down to table with his servant; in his own mind he decided there was
only one thing to be done—to send the man about his business that very
evening. Besides, _The Orange Blossom_ itself was little to his taste.
What a place! What a vulgar show!
Still, he must make the best of things, and taking Bouzille’s hint,
Ascott called the waiter and demanded drinks. And it was no other than
Fandor who stepped forward to take the rich Englishman’s order.
Without more ado, Ascott took his seat, putting Nini on his right
and old Moche on his left; this done, he kept his eyes fixed on the
table-cloth, not knowing in the least which way to look or what to do.
Bouzille’s fine enthusiasm had suddenly quieted down, while the rest of
the company were not “playing up” one bit: there they sat, each more
stockish than the other. If anybody had come in hopes of diversion, he
was finding himself singularly disappointed. John, sitting facing his
master, dared not utter a word, Moche never opened his lips, Nini was
cross and angry, Ascott pale and silent as the grave!
Fandor, with the landlord’s help—for the journalist had proved himself
from the very start a most indifferent waiter—served the first course,
during which not half-a-dozen words were spoken. The landlord, when he
found himself in the kitchen again, alone with Fandor, could not hide
his surprise.
“For the last twenty years,” he declared, “I’ve had wedding-parties
here, I’ve known customers of every sort and kind, but anything like
those folks yonder—never! They couldn’t be more dismal if it was a
funeral they’d been at!”
Meanwhile, Ascott sat deep in thought; he was realizing the appalling
folly he had been guilty of in marrying Nini Guinon.
“How could I ever for one single instant have entertained such an idea
... and put it into execution?”
But the unfortunate young man quickly called to mind that, if he had
not followed the injunctions of Père Moche, the plaint lodged by the
Guinon family would have taken its course, and that would have equally
involved disgrace, disgrace more terrible still, more irremediable even
than the grotesque marriage he had just contracted. Ascott saw clear
now—he was the victim of an odious piece of blackmailing, an abominable
plot. He was so worked up he felt himself prepared to do the maddest
things, he meditated going straight to the Procureur de la République
to denounce the whole business.... But the unhappy man, when he looked
closer into this last desperate resource, realized that the situation
was past cure, that no one could help him, that he was simply a victim,
and a ridiculous victim at that, and that, in fact, there was something
else, something more serious, which after all tied his hands and gave
him pause. Nini Guinon was _enceinte_; he must not, he could not forget
that fact. Ascott could stand no more of it; still controlling his
feelings, he leant over to his wife, sitting next him, and whispered:
“I am a little unwell, so I am going to withdraw into some room near;
I count on being left to myself, and shall expect you to join me there
when you have finished breakfast.” Nini had scarcely gathered the
sense of her husband’s words before the latter had disappeared.
In a moment, as if by enchantment, all recovered their spirits; they
clinked glasses, they drained bumpers, they ate with a better appetite,
gaiety reigned on every face: decidedly, the English milord had done
well to leave them to themselves; they would be more of a family party,
more at their ease.
“Say, Père Moche,” observed Bouzille, “he don’t strike me as being much
of a gallant, your niece’s husband! how’s she going to hit it off,
little Nini, with a lump of wood like that, eh?”
“Don’t you trouble your head,” broke in the girl, “I know what I’ve got
to do.”
Then, as everybody stopped talking to listen:
“Jabber away amongst yourselves,” she growled, “I’m going to have a
talk with Père Moche.”
The talk became general, while a very animated discussion began between
Nini and her reputed uncle.
“If you think it’s any fun,” began the young woman, “this marriage
you’ve brought about, I tell you I’m about fed up with it already.
I don’t give myself eight and forty hours before I hook it from my
husband.”
Moche shrugged his shoulders:
“Nini, you’re a born fool: a bit of patience, my lass, and you’ll see
Père Moche was in the right.” Then, in a lower tone: “You’re far too
pretty and too clever to spend all your young days among this crowd, a
parcel of rotters who’re good for nothing but talking loud and getting
drunk. I’ve told you, haven’t I, I’d make you rich, I’d make a great
lady of you, more than that, a queen of beauty, a queen of Paris, a
queen of society! Play your cards, Nini, listen to me....”
A gleam of covetousness flashed in the girl’s eyes.
“I shall be rich?” she questioned, “I shall have the nibs?”
Moche went on:
“Rich, and better than rich, my girl; but for that don’t go and play
the fool; just keep yourself in hand for another nine months. Your brat
must come into the world strong and healthy; after that there’ll be
something new to think about, you can trust Père Moche for that!”
While the young Englishman’s queer helpmeet and the enigmatical
personage who had passed himself off as her uncle for his own ends were
thus debating future projects, Jérôme Fandor, under pretence of paying
every attention to the customers’ wants, was never far from the table,
picking up scraps of talk as he hovered near. And in spite of himself,
Fandor could not keep his eyes off M. Moche’s face. As he stood over
him, he could, for the first time, observe otherwise than through the
glass of his spectacles the mysterious old fellow’s eyes. And they
disconcerted the journalist extremely, their clear, cold, steely glance
perplexed him beyond measure. Most certainly Fandor could trace no
likeness there, he had no recollection of having seen that expression
before; yet it seemed to him that a person like the old business agent
of the Rue Saint-Fargeau, whose caricature of a face betrayed the man’s
commonness of type, _could_ not have such a look of the eyes as he
actually had.
And, as a fact, who and what was this man who—Fandor saw it all—had
conceived so Machiavellian a scheme as that of marrying the street
wench Nini Guinon to Ascott, the wealthy Englishman of the Rue Fortuny,
and who, having conceived, had carried it through!
Père Moche ... Fantômas? ...? ...?
Fandor, as the result of a series of logical deductions, possibly
also through giving a certain weight to the presentiments that
rarely deceived him, had come to ask himself if the man of the Rue
Saint-Fargeau, really too mysterious a personage, was not one of the
incarnations of Fantômas himself. Since he had been watching his man,
and particularly since he had seen his eyes and their expression,
Fandor clung more and more closely to this opinion.
Ah! if only he were right! if he had discovered the villain? That would
be an extraordinarily fine trump card for him in the grim game he was
playing with Fantômas as adversary! And now, many hitherto unexplained
details recurred to his memory. Notably he recalled the strange
apparition of the man in the black mask on that terrible night he had
spent in M. Moche’s garret. He did not forget how on that occasion
Fantômas, under pretence of safeguarding him from harm, had involved
him in the direst peril, evidently in the hope that the police would
discover him hidden in the Chinese lantern.
“Why,” he thought presently, “but why did not Fantômas kill me when he
had this chance? that is what I cannot understand.”
But, when he examined the question more deeply, Fandor realized the
fact that Fantômas’ crimes invariably had a double object—to get rid
of an obnoxious adversary and at the same time to throw suspicions on
the dead man that went to prove by their very nature the innocence of
some accomplice of Fantômas or of Fantômas himself. Thus he pondered,
all the while carrying on with the utmost awkwardness his duties as a
waiter, under the wary and ever watchful eye of the landlord of _The
Orange Blossom_.
At the same time Fandor did not allow his attention to be absorbed
solely by the conversation between Moche and Nini. A short while before
Ascott had left the rest of the party—it was an incident which had, in
fact, contributed not a little to the rising nausea that had driven
the young Englishman from the table—two of the apache gang, the same
two, “Bull’s-eye” and the “Gasman” who had signalized themselves in the
_Silver Goblet_ affair and at the unpleasant interview with the Police
Commissary, appearing unexpectedly within sight of the window, had
been invited to join the wedding feast by the irrepressible Bouzille.
The two intruders were now seated at the table, and the _soi-disant_
waiter made a point of plying them with drink and incidentally catching
up any fragments of their talk that struck him as being to the point.
The apaches, in ambiguous terms, but in a fashion explicit enough for
Fandor’s comprehension, were discussing recent enterprises in which the
gang had been mixed up. It became very evident that a unanimous and
general feeling of suspicion and ill-will towards Fantômas was growing
up among the criminal confraternity. Fantômas, they muttered, used
everybody for his own purposes, forced each man to risk his skin and in
the end compensated nobody. In covert phrases, too, they spoke of Père
Moche, who, they hinted, must know all about Fantômas, and whose task
was always to pour oil on the troubled waters, who was for ever putting
off till to-morrow payments that should have been made yesterday, in
one word playing a double game.
“Oh!” grumbled the “Gasman,” while Fandor was refilling his glass,
“things can’t go on no longer like this, to-morrow night and the hour
sounds for definite and final explanations; we want our money, Fantômas
will have to answer our questions.”
“Bull’s-eye” bent over to his comrade, and in his hoarse voice asked:
“So the _rendez-vous_ still holds good at the same place, eh?”
At that moment Fandor was obliged to go away, M. Moche was calling
him; nevertheless the journalist had gathered from a remark of the
“Gasman’s” that the following night there was to be a meeting of the
gang on the outskirts of the city, close down by the banks of the Seine
at the far end of Alfort.
* * * * *
A superb limousine had drawn up at the back of the restaurant of _The
Orange Blossom_. It was about four of the afternoon: the breakfast had
resolved itself into a drunken debauch, a horrid uproar of ribald songs
disturbed the quiet of the establishment. Bouzille was the noisiest of
them all; the wine bottles had been left on the table at the end of the
meal, in an hour’s time they had to be replaced. Ascott, heedless of
the whole riot, had paid without a murmur.
Ten minutes ago Nini Guinon, at Moche’s urgent suggestion, had gone to
join her husband, who had spent a strange afternoon for a bridegroom,
shut up alone in a room on the first floor, anxiously awaiting, not so
much the return of his wife, as the arrival of the motor-car he had
ordered, eager to escape from Paris with all speed and hide himself
and his intolerable situation in some remote corner of the provinces.
Hardly had Nini appeared, all flushed and excited, before Ascott,
looking her coldly up and down, ordered her:
“Put on your hat, we are going.”
Furious at bottom to be so treated, but scared by her husband’s manner,
and also remembering old Moche’s counsels, she obeyed, muttering curses
under her breath; “He shall pay me for this, come the day I can bring
him to heel.”
Hastily she put on a long dust-cloak, settled her hat in place and
followed her husband and the two, without a word of good-bye to anyone,
got into the car, which started away at once. Père Moche, however, had
run up hastily to see the last of them; with a wave of the hand he bade
farewell to the newly-wed pair, a broad, ironical smile on his lips.
But suddenly he started back. An explosion had rung out, half an inch
more and Père Moche would have received a bullet full in the face.
Luckily he had foreseen the shot and ducked in time. With amazing
agility, Moche sprang at his assailant, whom he hurled to the ground,
keeping him down with a knee pressed hard on the fellow’s chest.
“Brigand! scoundrel! I don’t know what stops me from killing you here
and now!”
Who was this man Père Moche had mastered so adroitly? No other than
Paulet, Nini Guinon’s lover, the white-faced, pale-eyed scamp who had
assuredly been completely sacrificed in the old usurer’s sinister
machinations. With calm ferocity the latter was now brandishing the
revolver he had snatched from the apache’s hands.
“One word, one movement,” he declared, “and I blow your brains out,
as you tried to blow out mine the day of the bank messenger’s death.
Villain! murderer! Remember I hold your life in my hands, that I can do
for you where I choose and when I choose.”
“Scoundrel!” vociferated Paulet, “you’ve robbed me of my doxy, what
d’you think is to become of me now?”
“Fool! she wanted to be done with you!”
“Ah! if you hadn’t hid her away, you old rascal, if only I could have
seen her!”
But Moche ordered him to hold his tongue. It needed all his strength to
keep the apache down. Paulet, savage and desperate, had managed with
his right hand to grasp the barrel of the revolver, and was holding
it away from his body; it looked as if he might renew the struggle,
perhaps floor the old man in his turn. The two wretches fought
furiously for some seconds, now one, now the other momentarily getting
the upper hand; the two rolled over and over in the dust. At last Moche
succeeded in gripping the young apache’s throat between his powerful
fingers, after forcing him to let go the revolver.
“Die, then,” yelled Moche, “die, as you won’t give in!”
“Oh! oh!” stammered Paulet in a broken voice, “Curse it, curse my luck!
will no one save me?”
Suddenly the two combatants were dragged apart. In answer to Paulet’s
cry for help, someone shouted in a ringing voice: “I will.”
The someone had picked up the revolver that had been dropped in the
struggle and stood with it in his hand. Dazed and dumbfounded, Paulet
gazed open-mouthed at his preserver, whom he did not know. Père Moche,
for his part, saw that the person who had just intervened between them
in the battle was no other than the servant at the restaurant who had
waited at breakfast.
Moche stared at the man, scrutinizing his face with concentrated
attention; suddenly he broke into a cry:
“Fandor, in heaven’s name!” he exclaimed, “you blackguard, I didn’t
recognize you before....”
At the name of Fandor, Paulet sprang up and ranged himself
instinctively by the journalist’s side; while Père Moche realized
the time was not come to continue the discussion. Besides which,
the landlord of _The Orange Blossom_ now came running up from the
penetralia of his establishment with very natural curiosity:
“What is up now?” he demanded, “I seem to have heard an explosion, like
a revolver shot.”
Mine host looked hard at the three men, standing there with torn
clothes, all filthy and smothered in dust; but Fandor was ready with a
plausible explanation. He gave his account with perfect self-possession:
“It’s nothing, landlord, only the customer’s car burst a tyre just now
and we’ve been helping to mend it; it was a case of creeping in under
the chassis, that’s how we’re a bit dirty, but a clothes brush’ll soon
put that to rights!”
The landlord asked no more questions, and the four men returned
quietly to the restaurant, but three of them were well aware that this
tranquillity was only apparent. It was but a truce before the battle,
for war seemed henceforth to be definitely declared.