Other People's Money, Emile Gaboriau [best ebook reader txt] 📗

To insist further would have been puerile.

“Very well, we’ll see, then,” said M. de Tregars.  But as he walked out and got into his cab, which had been waiting for him at the door, he could not help wondering what gave the Baron de Thaller so much assurance, and whether he was not mistaken in his conjectures.

It was nearly eight o’clock, and Maxence, Mme. Favoral and Mlle. Gilberte must have been waiting for him with a feverish impatience; but he had eaten nothing since morning, and he stopped in front of one of the restaurants of the Boulevard.

He had just ordered his dinner, when a gentleman of a certain age, but active and vigorous still, of military bearing, wearing a mustache, and a tan-colored ribbon at his buttonhole, came to take a seat at the adjoining table.

In less than fifteen minutes M. de Tregars had despatched a bowl of soup and a slice of beef, and was hastening out, when his foot struck his neighbor’s foot, without his being able to understand how it had happened.

Though fully convinced that it was not his fault, he hastened to excuse himself.  But the other began to talk angrily, and so loud, that everybody turned around.

Vexed as he was, Marius renewed his apologies.

But the other, like those cowards who think they have found a greater coward than themselves, was pouring forth a torrent of the grossest insults.

M. de Tregars was lifting his hand to administer a well-deserved correction, when suddenly the scene in the grand parlor of the Thaller mansion came back vividly to his mind.  He saw again, as in the glass, the ill-looking man listening, with an anxious look, to Mme. de Thaller’s propositions, and afterwards sitting down to write.

“That’s it!” he exclaimed, a multitude of circumstances occurring to his mind, which had escaped him at the moment.

And, without further reflection, seizing his adversary by the throat, he threw him over on the table, holding him down with his knee.

“I am sure he must have the letter about him,” he said to the people who surrounded him.

And in fact he did take from the side-pocket of the villain a letter, which he unfolded, and commenced reading aloud,

“I am waiting for you, my dear major, come quick, for the thing is pressing,—a troublesome gentleman who is to be made to keep quiet.  It will be for you the matter of a sword-thrust, and for us the occasion to divide a round amount.”

“And, that’s why he picked a quarrel with me,” added M. de Tregars.

Two waiters had taken hold of the villain, who was struggling furiously, and wanted to surrender him to the police.

“What’s the use?” said Marius.  “I have his letter:  that’s enough.  The police will find him when they want him.”

And, getting back into his cab,

“Rue St. Gilles,” he ordered, “and lively, if possible.”

In the Rue St. Gilles the hours were dragging, slow and gloomy.  After Maxence had left to go and meet M. de Tregars, Mme. Favoral and her daughter had remained alone with M. Chapelain, and had been compelled to bear the brunt of his wrath, and to hear his interminable complaints.

He was certainly an excellent man, that old lawyer, and too just to hold Mlle. Gilberte or her mother responsible for Vincent Favoral’s acts.  He spoke the truth when he assured them that he had for them a sincere affection, and that they might rely upon his devotion.  But he was losing a hundred and sixty thousand francs; and a man who loses such a large sum is naturally in bad humor, and not much disposed to optimism.

The cruellest enemies of the poor women would not have tortured them so mercilessly as this devoted friend.

He spared them not one sad detail of that meeting at the Mutual Credit office, from which he had just come.  He exaggerated the proud assurance of the manager, and the confiding simplicity of the stockholders.  “That Baron de Thaller,” he said to them, “is certainly the most impudent scoundrel and the cleverest rascal I have ever seen.  You’ll see that he’ll get out of it with clean hands and full pockets.  Whether or not he has accomplices, Vincent will be the scapegoat.  We must make up our mind to that.”

His positive intention was to console Mme. Favoral and Gilberte.  Had he sworn to drive them to distraction, he could not have succeeded better.

“Poor woman!” he said, “what is to become of you?  Maxence is a good and honest fellow, I am sure, but so weak, so thoughtless, so fond of pleasure!  He finds it difficult enough to get along by himself.  Of what assistance will he be to you?”

Then came advice.

Mme. Favoral, he declared, should not hesitate to ask for a separation, which the tribunal would certainly grant.  For want of this precaution, she would remain all her life under the burden of her husband’s debts, and constantly exposed to the annoyances of the creditors.

And always he wound up by saying,

“Who could ever have expected such a thing from Vincent,—a friend of twenty years’ standing!  A hundred and sixty thousand francs!  Who in the world can be trusted hereafter?”

Big tears were rolling slowly down Mme. Favoral’s withered cheeks.  But Mlle. Gilberte was of those for whom the pity of others is the worst misfortune and the most acute suffering.

Twenty times she was on the point of exclaiming,

“Keep your compassion, sir:  we are neither so much to be pitied nor so much forsaken as you think.  Our misfortune has revealed to us a true friend,—one who does not speak, but acts.”

At last, as twelve o’clock struck, M. Chapelain withdrew, announcing that he would return the next day to get the news, and to bring further consolation.

“Thank Heaven, we are alone at last!” said Mlle. Gilberte.

But they had not much peace, for all that.

Great as had been the noise of Vincent Favoral’s disaster, it had not reached at once all those who had intrusted their savings to him.  All day long, the belated creditors kept coming in; and the scenes of the morning were renewed on a smaller scale.  Then legal summonses began to pour in, three or four at a time.  Mme. Favoral was losing all courage.

“What disgrace!” she groaned.  “Will it always be so hereafter?”

And she exhausted herself in useless conjectures upon the causes of the catastrophe; and such was the disorder of her mind, that she knew not what to hope and what to fear, and that from one minute to another she wished for the most contradictory things.

She would have been