The Clique of Gold, Emile Gaboriau [if you liked this book .txt] 📗

salons of Paris, has been a galley-slave, condemned for forgery.”

Henrietta had risen, filled with terror.

“Then,” she stammered, “this wretched man was”—

“Chevassat’s son; yes, madam,” replied Mrs. Bertolle.

“Oh!” exclaimed the poor girl, “oh!”

And she fell heavily back into her chair, overcome by this discovery. The old dealer alone preserved his calm appearance.

“How did you learn that?” he asked Daniel.

“Through the man whom my friend Maxime had hired to murder me.”

Positively this threatened to be too much for Henrietta’s mind.

“Ah! I thought the mean coward would try to get you out of the way, Daniel. I wrote to you to be careful.”

“And I received your letter, my darling, but too late. After having missed me twice, the assassin fired at me; and I was in my bed, a ball in my chest, dying.”

“What has become of the murderer?” asked Papa Ravinet.

“He was arrested.”

“Then he confessed?”

“Yes, thanks to the astonishing cleverness of the magistrate who carried on the investigation.”

“What has become of him?”

“He has left Saigon by this time. They have sent him home to be tried here.”

“And Brevan?”

“I am surprised he has not yet been arrested. The papers in the case were sent to Paris by a vessel which left a fortnight before I left. To be sure, ‘The Saint Louis’ may have gotten ahead of her. At all events, I have in my keeping a letter to the court.”

Papa Ravinet seemed to be almost delirious with joy. He gesticulated like a madman; he laughed nervously, and almost frightfully, till his sides shook; and at last he said,—

“I shall see Brevan on the scaffold! Yes, I shall!”

But from that moment there was an end of that logical order which the old gentleman had so far kept up. As it always happens with people who are under the influence of some passion, eager to learn what they do not know, and little disposed to tell what they do know, confusion prevailed soon. Questions crossed each other, and followed, without order or connection. Answers came at haphazard. Each wanted to be heard; and all were speaking at once. Thus the explanations, which, by a little management, might have been given in twenty minutes, took them more than two hours.

At last, after the lapse of this time, and by dint of great efforts, it became possible to ascertain the sum total of the information given by Papa Ravinet, Daniel, and Henrietta. The truth began to show itself in the midst of this chaos; and the plot of Sarah Brandon and her accomplices appeared in all its hideous outlines. A plan of striking simplicity, the success of which seemed to have hung upon a hair. If the old dealer, instead of going down by the backstairs, had taken the front staircase, he would never have heard Henrietta’s agony, and the poor child would have been lost.

If Crochard’s ball had been a few lines nearer the heart, Daniel would have been killed.

And still the old dealer was not quite satisfied. He hung his lip, and winked with his yellow eyes, as if he wished it to be understood that he was by no means fully convinced, and that there were certain points which required fuller explanation.

“Look here, M. Champcey,” he began at last, “the more I think of it, the more I am convinced that Sarah Brandon had nothing to do with these attempts at assassination, which so nearly made an end of you. She is too strong in her perversity to stoop to such coarse means, which always leave traces behind, and finally lead to a court of justice. She always acts alone, when her mind is made up; and her accomplices aid her only unconsciously, so that they can never betray her.”

Daniel had been thoughtful.

“What you tell me,” he answered, “I was told before by M. de Brevan.”

The old gentleman did not seem to hear him, so intensely did he apply all the faculties of his mind to the problem before him.

“Still,” he continued, “there is no doubt about the manner in which Crochard, surnamed Bagnolet, was employed. Could Brevan have done so without Sarah’s knowledge, and perhaps even contrary to her wishes?”

“That is quite possible; but then why should he have done so?”

“To secure to himself the fortune which M. Champcey had so imprudently intrusted to him,” said Henrietta.

But Papa Ravinet shook his head, looking very wise, and said,—

“That is one explanation. I do not say no to it; but it is not the true one yet. Murder is so dangerous an expedient, that even the boldest criminals only resort to it in the last extremity, and generally very much against their inclination. Could not Brevan have possessed himself of M. Champcey’s property without a murder? Of course, he could.

“Then we must look for another motive. You may say, it was fear which drove him to it. No; for at the time when he engaged Crochard, he could not foresee the atrocious outrages of which he would have become guilty during the succeeding year. Believe my experience; I discern in the whole affair a hurry and an awkwardness which betray a passion, a violent hatred, or, perhaps”—

He stopped suddenly, and seemed to reflect and deliberate, while he was mechanically stroking his chin. Then all of a sudden, looking strangely at Daniel, he asked him,—

“Could the Countess Sarah be in love with you, M. Champcey?”

Daniel’s face turned crimson. He had not forgotten that fatal evening, when, in the house in Circus Street, he had held Sarah Brandon in his arms; and the intoxicating delirium of that moment had left in his heart a bitter and undying pang of remorse. He had never dared confess to Henrietta that Sarah had actually come to his rooms alone. And even to-night, while giving very fully all the details of his passage out, and his residence in Saigon, he had not said a word of the letters which had been addressed to him by the countess.

“Sarah Brandon in love with me?” he stammered. “What an idea!”

But he could not tell a falsehood; and Henrietta would not have been a woman, if she had not noticed his embarrassment.

“Why not?” she asked.

And, looking fixedly at Daniel, she went on,—

“That wretched woman impudently boasted to my face that she loved you; more than that, she swore that you, also, had loved her, and were still in love with her. She laughed at me contemptuously, telling me that she had it in her power to make you do anything she chose,