File No. 113, Emile Gaboriau [ink book reader TXT] 📗

you do not know Prosper and I arranged this little affair together, and that he is to have half the booty?”

“Impossible! I never will believe such a thing of Prosper!”

“Why, how do you suppose I discovered the secret word? Who do you suppose disobeyed orders, and left the money in the safe?”

“Prosper is honest.”

“Of course he is, and so am I too. The only thing is, that we both need money.”

“You are telling a falsehood, Raoul!”

“Upon my soul, I am not. Madeleine rejected Prosper, and the poor fellow has to console himself for her cruelty; and these sorts of consolations are expensive, my good mother.”

He took up the candle, and gently but firmly led Mme. Fauvel toward the staircase.

She mechanically suffered herself to be led along, more bewildered by what she had just heard than she was at the opening of the safe-door.

“What!” she gasped, “can Prosper be a thief?”

She began to think herself the victim of a terrible nightmare, and that, when she waked, her mind would be relieved of this intolerable torture. She helplessly clung to Raoul’s arm as he helped her up the narrow little staircase.

“You must put the key back in the secretary,” said Raoul, as soon as they were in the chamber again.

But she did not seem to hear him; so he went and replaced the safe-key in the place from which he had seen her take it.

He then led, or rather carried, Mme. Fauvel into the little sitting-room, and placed her in an easy-chair.

The set, expressionless look of the wretched woman’s eyes, and her dazed manner, frightened Raoul, who thought that she had lost her mind, that her reason had finally given way beneath this last terrible shock.

“Come, cheer up, my dear mother,” he said in coaxing tones as he rubbed her icy hands; “you have saved my life, and rendered an immense service to Prosper. Don’t be alarmed; everything will come out right in the end. Prosper will be accused, perhaps arrested; he expects that, and is prepared for it; he will deny his culpability; and, as there is no proof against him, he will be set at liberty immediately.”

But these falsehoods were wasted on Mme. Fauvel, who was incapable of understanding anything said to her.

“Raoul,” she moaned in a broken-hearted tone, “Raoul, my son, you have killed me.”

Her gentle voice, kind even in its despairing accents, touched the very bottom of Raoul’s perverted heart, and once more his soul was wrung by remorse; so that he felt inclined to put back the stolen money, and comfort the despairing woman whose life and reason he was destroying. The thought of Clameran restrained him.

Finding his efforts to restore Mme. Fauvel fruitless, that, in spite of all his affectionate regrets and promises, she still sat silent, motionless, and death-like; and fearing that M. Fauvel or Madeleine might enter at any moment, and demand an explanation, he hastily pressed a kiss upon his mother’s brow, and hurried from the house.

At the restaurant, in the room where they had dined, Clameran, tortured by anxiety, awaited his accomplice.

He wondered if at the last moment, when he was not near to sustain him, Raoul would prove a coward, and retreat; if any unforeseen trifle had prevented his finding the key; if any visitors were there; and, if so, would they depart before M. Fauvel’s return from the dinner-party?

He had worked himself into such a state of excitement, that, when Raoul returned, he flew to him with ashy face and trembling all over, and could scarcely gasp out:

“Well?”

“The deed is done, uncle, thanks to you; and I am now the most miserable, abject villain on the face of the earth.”

He unbuttoned his vest, and, pulling out the four bundles of bank-notes, angrily dashed them upon the table, saying, in a tone of scorn and disgust:

“Now I hope you are satisfied. This is the price of the happiness, honor, and perhaps the life of three people.”

Clameran paid no attention to these angry words. With feverish eagerness he seized the notes, and rattled them in his hand as if to convince himself of the reality of success.

“Now Madeleine is mine!” he cried excitedly.

Raoul looked at Clameran in silent disgust. This exhibition of joy was a shocking contrast to the scene in which he had just been an actor. He was humiliated at being the tool of such a heartless scoundrel as he now knew Clameran to be.

Louis misinterpreted this silence, and said gayly:

“Did you have much difficulty?”

“I forbid you ever to allude to this evening’s work,” cried Raoul fiercely. “Do you hear me? I wish to forget it.”

Clameran shrugged his shoulders at this outburst of anger, and said in a bantering tone:

“Just as you please, my handsome nephew: I rather think you will want to remember it though, when I offer you these three hundred and fifty thousand francs. You will not, I am sure, refuse to accept them as a slight souvenir. Take them: they are yours.”

This generosity seemed neither to surprise nor satisfy Raoul.

“According to our agreement,” he said sullenly, “I was to have more than this.”

“Of course: this is only part of your share.”

“And when am I to have the rest, if you please?”

“The day I marry Madeleine, and not before, my boy. You are too valuable an assistant to lose at present; and you know that, though I don’t mistrust you, I am not altogether sure of your sincere affection for me.”

Raoul reflected that to commit a crime, and not profit by it, would be the height of absurdity. He had come with the intention of breaking off all connection with Clameran; but he now determined that he would not abandon his accomplice until he had been well paid for his services.

“Very well,” he said, “I accept this on account; but remember, I will never do another piece of work like this to-night. You can do what you please; I shall flatly refuse.”

Clameran burst into a loud laugh, and said:

“That is sensible: now that you are rich, you can afford to be honest. Set your conscience at rest, for I promise you I will require nothing more of you save a few trifling services. You can retire behind the scenes now, while I appear upon the stage; my role begins.”