The Lerouge Case, Emile Gaboriau [e books for reading TXT] 📗

at once eccentric and mysterious. Never was young libertine more irregular in his habits than this old man. He came or failed to come home to his meals, ate it mattered not what or when. He went out at every hour of the day and night, often slept abroad, and even disappeared for entire weeks at a time. Then too he received the strangest visitors, odd looking men of suspicious appearance, and fellows of ill-favoured and sinister aspect.

This irregular way of living had robbed the old fellow of much consideration. Many believed they saw in him a shameless libertine, who squandered his income in disreputable places. They would remark to one another, “Is it not disgraceful, a man of his age?”

He was aware of all this tittle-tattle, and laughed at it. This did not, however, prevent many of his tenants from seeking his society and paying court to him. They would invite him to dinner, but he almost invariably refused.

He seldom visited but one person of the house, but with that one he was very intimate, so much so indeed, that he was more often in her apartment, than in his own. She was a widow lady, who for fifteen years had occupied an apartment on the third floor. Her name was Madame Gerdy, and she lived with her son Noel, whom she adored.

Noel Gerdy was a man thirty-three years of age, but looking older; tall and well made, with a noble and intelligent face, large black eyes, and black hair which curled naturally. An advocate, he passed for having great talent, and greater industry, and had already gained a certain amount of notoriety. He was an obstinate worker, cold and meditative, though devoted to his profession, and affected, with some ostentation, perhaps, a great rigidity of principle, and austerity of manners.

In Madame Gerdy’s apartment, old Tabaret felt himself quite at home. He considered her as a relation, and looked upon Noel as a son. In spite of her fifty years, he had often thought of asking the hand of this charming widow, and was restrained less by the fear of a refusal than its consequence. To propose and to be rejected would sever the existing relations, so pleasurable to him. However, he had by his will, which was deposited with his notary constituted this young advocate his sole legatee; with the single condition of founding an annual prize of two thousand francs to be bestowed on the police agent who during the year had unravelled the most obscure and mysterious crime.

Short as was the distance to his house, old Tabaret was a good quarter of an hour in reaching it. On leaving M. Daburon his thoughts reverted to the scene of the murder; and, so blinded was the old fellow to external objects, that he moved along the street, first jostled on the right, then on the left, by the busy passers by, advancing one step and receding two. He repeated to himself for the fiftieth time the words uttered by Widow Lerouge, as reported by the milk-woman. “If I wished for any more, I could have it.”

“All is in that,” murmured he. “Widow Lerouge possessed some important secret, which persons rich and powerful had the strongest motives for concealing. She had them in her power, and that was her fortune. She made them sing to her tune; she probably went too far, and so they suppressed her. But of what nature was this secret, and how did she become possessed of it? Most likely she was in her youth a servant in some great family; and whilst there, she saw, heard, or discovered, something—What? Evidently there is a woman at the bottom of it. Did she assist her mistress in some love intrigue? What more probable? And in that case the affair becomes even more complicated. Not only must the woman be found but her lover also; for it is the lover who has moved in this affair. He is, or I am greatly deceived, a man of noble birth. A person of inferior rank would have simply hired an assassin. This man has not hung back; he himself has struck the blow and by that means avoiding the indiscretion or the stupidity of an accomplice. He is a courageous rascal, full of audacity and coolness, for the crime has been admirably executed. The fellow left nothing behind of a nature to compromise him seriously. But for me, Gevrol, believing in the robbery, would have seen nothing. Fortunately, however, I was there. But yet it can hardly be that,” continued the old man. “It must be something worse than a mere love affair.”

Old Tabaret entered the porch of the house. The concierge seated by the window of his lodge saw him as he passed beneath the gas lamp.

“Ah,” said he, “the proprietor has returned at last.”

“So he has,” replied his wife, “but it looks as though his princess would have nothing to do with him to-night. He seems more loose than ever.”

“Is it not positively indecent,” said the concierge, “and isn’t he in a state! His fair ones do treat him well! One of these fine mornings I shall have to take him to a lunatic asylum in a straight waistcoat.”

“Look at him now!” interrupted his wife, “just look at him now, in the middle of the courtyard!”

The old fellow had stopped at the extremity of the porch. He had taken off his hat, and, while talking to himself, gesticulated violently.

“No,” said he, “I have not yet got hold of the clue, I am getting near it; but have not yet found it out.”

He mounted the staircase, and rang his bell, forgetting that he had his latch-key in his pocket. His housekeeper opened the door.

“What, is it you, sir,” said she, “and at this hour!”

“What’s that you say?” asked the old fellow.

“I say,” replied the housekeeper, “that it is more than half-past eight o’clock. I thought you were not coming back this evening. Have you at least dined?”

“No, not yet.”

“Well, fortunately I have kept your dinner warm. You can sit down to it at once.”

Old Tabaret took his place at the table, and helped himself to soup, but mounting his hobby-horse again, he forgot to eat, and remained, his spoon in the air, as though suddenly struck by an idea.

“He is certainly touched in the head,” thought Manette, the housekeeper. “Look at that stupid expression. Who in his senses would lead the life he does?” She touched him on the shoulder, and bawled in his ear, as if he were deaf,—“You do not eat. Are you not hungry?”

“Yes, yes,” muttered he, trying mechanically to escape the voice that sounded in his ears, “I am very hungry, for since the morning I have been obliged—” He interrupted himself, remaining with his mouth open, his eyes fixed on vacancy.

“You were obliged—?” repeated Manette.

“Thunder!” cried he, raising his clenched fists towards the ceiling,—“heaven’s thunder! I have it!”

His movement was so violent and sudden that the housekeeper was a little alarmed, and retired to the further end of the dining-room, near the door.

“Yes,” continued he, “it is certain there is a child!”

Manette approached him quickly. “A child?” she asked in astonishment.