The Honor of the Name, Emile Gaboriau [books to read now .txt] 📗

“Well?”

“I believe he was murdered.”

An exclamation of horror escaped Aunt Medea, and Blanche turned pale.

“Murdered!” she whispered.

“Yes, Blanche; and I could name the murderer. Oh! I am not deceived. The murderer of my father is the same man who attempted to assassinate the Marquis de Courtornieu——”

“Jean Lacheneur!”

Martial gravely bowed his head. It was his only reply.

“And you will not denounce him? You will not demand justice?”

Martial’s face grew more and more gloomy.

“What good would it do?” he replied. “I have no material proofs to give, and justice demands incontestable evidence.”

Then, as if communing with his own thoughts, rather than addressing his wife, he said, despondently:

“The Duc de Sairmeuse and the Marquis de Courtornieu have reaped what they have sown. The blood of murdered innocence always calls for vengeance. Sooner or later, the guilty must expiate their crimes.”

Blanche shuddered. Each word found an echo in her own soul. Had he intended his words for her, he would not have expressed himself differently.

“Martial,” said she, trying to arouse him from his gloomy revery, “Martial.”

He did not seem to hear her, and, in the same tone, he continued:

“These Lacheneurs were happy and honored before our arrival at Sairmeuse. Their conduct was above all praise; their probity amounted to heroism. We might have made them our faithful and devoted friends. It was our duty, as well as in our interests, to have done so. We did not understand this; we humiliated, ruined, exasperated them. It was a fault for which we must atone. Who knows but, in Jean Lacheneur’s place, I should have done what he has done?”

He was silent for a moment; then, with one of those sudden inspirations that sometimes enable one almost to read the future, he resumed:

“I know Jean Lacheneur. I alone can fathom his hatred, and I know that he lives only in the hope of vengeance. It is true that we are very high and he is very low, but that matters little. We have everything to fear. Our millions form a rampart around us, but he will know how to open a breach. And no precautions will save us. At the very moment when we feel ourselves secure, he will be ready to strike. What he will attempt, I know not; but his will be a terrible revenge. Remember my words, Blanche, if ruin ever threatens our house, it will be Jean Lacheneur’s work.”

Aunt Medea and her niece were too horror-stricken to articulate a word, and for five minutes no sound broke the stillness save Martial’s monotonous tread, as he paced up and down the room.

At last he paused before his wife.

“I have just ordered post-horses. You will excuse me for leaving you here alone. I must go to Sairmeuse at once. I shall not be absent more than a week.”

He departed from Paris a few hours later, and Blanche was left a prey to the most intolerable anxiety. She suffered more now than during the days that immediately followed her crime. It was not against phantoms she was obliged to protect herself now; Chupin existed, and his voice, even if it were not as terrible as the voice of conscience, might make itself heard at any moment.

If she had known where to find him, she would have gone to him, and endeavored, by the payment of a large sum of money, to persuade him to leave France.

But Chupin had left the hotel without giving her his address.

The gloomy apprehension expressed by Martial increased the fears of the young marquise. The mere sound of the name Lacheneur made her shrink with terror. She could not rid herself of the idea that Jean Lacheneur suspected her guilt, and that he was watching her.

Her wish to find Marie-Anne’s infant was stronger than ever.

It seemed to her that the child might be a protection to her some day. But where could she find an agent in whom she could confide?

At last she remembered that she had heard her father speak of a detective by the name of Chelteux, an exceedingly shrewd fellow, capable of anything, even honesty if he were well paid.

The man was really a miserable wretch, one of Fouche’s vilest instruments, who had served and betrayed all parties, and who, at last, had been convicted of perjury, but had somehow managed to escape punishment.

After his dismissal from the police-force, Chelteux founded a bureau of private information.

After several inquiries, Mme. Blanche discovered that he lived in the Place Dauphine; and she determined to take advantage of her husband’s absence to pay the detective a visit.

One morning she donned her simplest dress, and, accompanied by Aunt Medea, repaired to the house of Chelteux.

He was then, about thirty-four years of age, a man of medium height, of inoffensive mien, and who affected an unvarying good-humor.

He invited his clients into a nicely furnished drawing-room, and Mme. Blanche at once began telling him that she was married, and living in the Rue Saint-Denis, that one of her sisters, who had lately died, had been guilty of an indiscretion, and that she was ready to make any sacrifice to find this sister’s child, etc., etc. A long story, which she had prepared in advance, and which sounded very plausible.

Chelteux did not believe a word of it, however; for, as soon as it was ended, he tapped her familiarly on the shoulder, and said:

“In short, my dear, we have had our little escapades before our marriage.”

She shrank back as if from some venomous reptile.

To be treated thus! she—a Courtornieu—Duchesse de Sairmeuse!

“I think you are laboring under a wrong impression,” she said, haughtily.

He made haste to apologize; but while listening to further details given him by the young lady, he thought:

“What an eye! what a voice!—they are not suited to a denizen of the Saint-Denis!”

His suspicions were confirmed by the reward of twenty thousand francs, which Mme. Blanche imprudently promised him in case of success, and by the five hundred francs which she paid in advance.

“And where shall I have the honor of addressing my communications to you, Madame?” he inquired.

“Nowhere,” replied the young lady. “I shall be passing here from time to time, and I will call.”

When they left the house, Chelteux followed them.

“For once,” he thought, “I believe that fortune smiles upon me.”