Chapter I.29
Such was the exact situation of Maxence and Mlle. Lucienne on that eventful Saturday evening in the month of April, 1872, when the police came to arrest M. Vincent Favoral, on the charge of embezzlement and forgery.
It will be remembered, how, at his mother's request, Maxence had spent that night in the Rue St. Gilles, and how, the next morning, unable any longer to resist his eager desire to see Mlle. Lucienne, he had started for the Hotel des Folies, leaving his sister alone at home.
He retired to his room, as she had requested him, and, sinking upon his old arm- chair in a fit of the deepest distress, "She is singing," he murmured: "Mme. Fortin has not told her any thing."
And at the same moment Mlle. Lucienne had resumed her song, the words of which reached him like a bitter raillery, "Hope! O sweet, deceiving word! Mad indeed is he, Who does think he can trust thee, And take thy coin can afford. Over his door every one Will hang thee to his sorrow, Then saying of days begone, 'Cash to-day, credit to-morrow!' 'Tis very nice to run; But to have is better fun!"
"What will she say," thought Maxence, "when she learns the horrible truth?"
And he felt a cold perspiration starting on his temples when he remembered Mlle. Lucienne's pride, and that honor has her only faith, the safety-plank to which she had desperately clung in the midst of the storms of her life. What if she should leave him, now that the name he bore was disgraced!
A rapid and light step on the landing drew him from his gloomy thoughts. Almost immediately, the door opened, and Mlle. Lucienne came in.
She must have dressed in haste; for she was just finishing hooking her dress, the simplicity of which seemed studied, so marvelously did it set off the elegance of her figure, the splendors of her waist, and the rare perfections of her shoulders and of her neck.
A look of intense dissatisfaction could be read upon her lovely features; but, as soon as she had seen Maxence, her countenance changed.
And, in fact, his look of utter distress, the disorder of his garments, his livid paleness, and the sinister look of his eyes, showed plainly enough that a great misfortune had befallen him. In a voice whose agitation betrayed something more than the anxiety and the sympathy of a friend, "What is the matter? What has happened?" inquired the girl. "A terrible misfortune," he replied.
He was hesitating: he wished to tell every thing at once, and knew not how to begin.
"I have told you," he said, "that my family was very rich."
"Yes."
"Well, we have nothing left, absolutely nothing!" She seemed to breathe more freely, and, in a tone of friendly irony, "And it is the loss of your fortune," she said, "that distresses you thus?" He raised himself painfully to his feet, and, in a low hoarse voice, "Honor is lost too," he uttered.
"Honor?"
"Yes. My father has stolen: my father has forged!"
She had become whiter than her collar.
"Your father!" she stammered.
"Yes. For years he has been using the money that was intrusted to him, until the deficit now amounts to twelve millions."
"Great heavens!"
"And, notwithstanding the enormity of that sum, he was reduced, during the latter months, to the most miserable expedients,--going from door to door in the neighborhood, soliciting deposits, until he actually basely swindled a poor newspaper-vender out of five hundred francs."
"Why, this is madness! And how did you find out?"
"Last night they came to arrest him. Fortunately we had been notified; and I helped him to escape through a window of my sister's room, which opens on the yard of an adjoining house."
"And where is he now?"
"Who knows?"
"Had he any money?"
"Everybody thinks that he carries off millions. I do not believe it. He even refused to take the few thousand francs which M. de Thaller had brought him to facilitate his flight."
Mlle. Lucienne shuddered.
"Did you see M. de Thaller?" she asked.
"He got to the house a few moments in advance of the commissary of police; and a terrible scene took place between him and my father."
"What was he saying?"
"That my father had ruined him."
"And your father?"
"He stammered incoherent phrases. He was like a man who has received a stunning blow. But we have discovered incredible things. My father, so austere and so parsimonious at home, led a merry life elsewhere, spending money without stint. It was for a woman that he robbed."
"And--do you know who that woman is?"
"No. But I can find out from the writer of the article in this paper, who says that he knows her. See!"
Mlle. Lucienne took the paper which Maxence was holding out to her: but she hardly condescended to look at it.
"But what's your idea now?"
"I do not believe that my father is innocent; but I believe that there are people more guilty than he,--skillful and prudent knaves, who have made use of him as a man of straw,--villains who will quietly digest their share of the millions (the biggest one, of course), while he will be sent to prison."
A fugitive blush colored Mlle. Lucienne's cheeks.
"That being the case," she interrupted, "what do you expect to do?"
"Avenge my father, if possible, and discover his accomplices, if he has any." She held out her hand to him.
"That's right," she said. "But how will you go about it?"
"I don't know yet. At any rate, I must first of all run to the newspaper office, and get that woman's address."
But Mlle. Lucienne stopped him.
"No," she uttered: "it isn't there that you must go. You must come with me to see my friend the commissary."
Maxence received this suggestion with a gesture of surprise, almost of terror. "Why, how can you think of such a thing?" he exclaimed. "My father is fleeing from justice; and you want me to take for my confidant a commissary of police,-– the very man whose duty it is to arrest him, if he can find him!"
But he interrupted himself for a moment, staring and gaping, as if the truth had suddenly flashed upon his mind in dazzling evidence.
"For my father has not gone abroad," he went on. "It is in Paris that he is hiding: I am sure of it. You have seen him?"
Mlle. Lucienne really thought that Maxence was losing his mind. "I have seen your father--I?" she said.
"Yes, last evening. How could I have forgotten it? While you were waiting for me down stairs, between eleven and half-past eleven a middle-aged man, thin, wearing a long overcoat, came and asked for me."
"Yes, I remember."
"He spoke to you in the yard."
"That's a fact."
"What did he tell you?"
She hesitated for a moment, evidently trying to tax her memory; then, "Nothing," she replied, "that he had not already said before the Fortins; that he wanted to see you on important business, and was sorry not to find you in. What surprised me, though, is, that he was speaking as if he knew me, and knew that I was a friend of yours." Then, striking her forehead, "Perhaps you are right," she went on. "Perhaps that man was indeed your father. Wait a minute. Yes, he seemed quite excited, and at every moment he looked around towards the door. He said it would be impossible for him to return, but that he would write to you, and that probably he would require your assistance and your services."
"You see," exclaimed Maxence, almost crazy with subdued excitement, "it was my father. He is going to write; to return, perhaps; and, under the circumstances, to apply to a commissary of police would be sheer folly, almost treason."
She shook her head.
"So much the more reason," she uttered, "why you should follow my advice. Have you ever had occasion to repent doing so?"
"No, but you may be mistaken."
"I am not mistaken."
She expressed herself in a tone of such absolute certainty, that Maxence, in the disorder of his mind, was at a loss to know what to imagine, what to believe.
"You must have some reason to urge me thus," he said. "I have."
"Why not tell it to me then?"
"Because I should have no proofs to furnish you of my assertions. Because I should have to go into details which you would not understand. Because, above all, I am following one of those inexplicable presentiments which never deceive."
It was evident that she was not willing to unveil her whole mind; and yet Maxence felt himself terribly staggered.
"Think of my agony," he said, "if I were to cause my father's arrest."
"Would my own be less? Can any misfortune strike you without reaching me? Let us reason a little. What were you saying a moment since? That certainly your father is not as guilty as people think; at any rate, that he is not alone guilty; that he has been but the instrument of rascals more skillful and more powerful than himself; and that he has had but a small share of the twelve millions?"
"Such is my absolute conviction."
"And that you would like to deliver up to justice the villains who have benefitted by your father's crime, and who think themselves sure of impunity?"
Tears of anger fell from Maxence's eyes.
"Do you wish to take away all my courage?" he murmured.
"No; but I wish to demonstrate to you the necessity of the step which I advise you to take. The end justifies the means; and we have not the choice of means. Come, 'tis to an honest man and a tried friend that I shall take you. Fear nothing. If he remembers that he is commissary of police, it will be to serve us, not to injure you. You hesitate? Perhaps at this moment he already knows more than we do ourselves."
Maxence took a sudden resolution. "Very well," he said: "let us go."
In less than five minutes they were off; and, as they went out, they had to disturb Mme. Fortin, who stood at the door, gossiping with two or three of the neighboring shop-keepers.
As soon as Maxence and Mlle. Lucienne were out of hearing,
"You see that young man," said the honorable proprietress of the Hotel des Folies to her interlocutors. "Well, he is the son of that famous cashier who has just run off with twelve millions, after ruining a thousand families. It don't seem to trouble him, either; for there he is, going out to spend a pleasant day with his mistress, and to treat her to a fine dinner with the old man's money."
Meantime, Maxence and Lucienne reached the commissary's house. He was at home; they walked in. And, as soon as they appeared, "I expected you," he said.
He was a man already past middle age, but active and vigorous still. With his white cravat and long frock-coat, he looked like a notary. Benign was the expression of his countenance; but the lustre of his little gray eyes, and the mobility of his nostrils, showed