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

He is beseeching his stockholders to relieve him from the effects of his mismanagement. If they refuse him, he will be brought up in court, and tried as a defaulter. Well, I tell you! they will refuse him; for among the largest stockholders there are three who belong to me: I have bribed them to refuse. What do you think the count will do when he finds himself dishonored and disgraced? I will tell you again; for I have seen him write his will, and load his revolver.”

But the door of the outer room was opened. She turned as pale as death itself, and, seizing Daniel’s arm violently, she whispered,—

“Listen!”

Heavy steps were heard in the adjoining room, then—nothing more!

“It is he!” she whispered again. “Our fate is hanging in the scales”—

A shot was heard, which made the window-panes rattle, and cut her short. She was seized with spasms from head to foot, but, making a great effort, she cried out,—

“Free at last, Daniel; we are free!”

And, rushing to the door, she opened it.

She opened it, but instantly shut it again violently, and uttered a terrible cry.

On the threshold stood Count Ville-Handry, his features terribly distorted, a smoking revolver in his hand.

“No,” he said, “Sarah, no, you are not free!”

Livid, and with eyeballs starting from their sockets, the wretched woman had shrunk back to a door which opened from the dining-room directly into her chamber.

She was not despairing yet.

It was evident she was looking for one of those almost incredible excuses which are sometimes accepted by credulous old men when violent passions seize them in their dotage.

She abandoned the thought, however, when the count stepped forward, and thus allowed Papa Ravinet to be seen behind him.

“Malgat!” she cried,—“Malgat!”

She held out her hands before her as if to push aside a spectre that had suddenly risen from the grave, and was now opening its arms to seize her, and carry her off.

In the meantime Malgat came forward, with Henrietta leaning on Mrs. Bertolle’s arm.

“She also,” muttered Sarah,—“she too!”

The terrible truth broke at last upon her mind: she saw the snare in which she had been caught, and felt that she was lost. Then turning to Daniel, she said to him,—

“Poor man! Who has made you do this? It was not in your loyal heart to plan such treachery against a woman. Are you mad? And do you not see, that for the privilege of being loved by me as I love you, and were it but for a day, Malgat would again rob his employers, and the count would again give all his millions, and his honor itself?”

She said this; but at the same time she had slipped one of her hands behind her back, and was feeling for the knob of the door. She got hold of it, and instantly disappeared, before any one could have prevented her escape.

“Never mind!” said Malgat. “All the outer doors are guarded.”

But she had not meant to escape. There she was again, pale and cold like marble. She looked defiantly all around her, and said in a mocking tone of voice,—

“I have loved; and now I can die. That is just. I have loved. Ah! Planix, Malgat, and Kergrist ought to have taught me what becomes of people who really love.”

Then looking at Daniel, she went on,—

“And you—you will know what you have lost when I am no more. I may die; but the memory of my love will never die: it will rankle ever in you like a wound which opens daily afresh, and becomes constantly sorer. You triumph now, Henrietta; but remember, that between your lips and Daniel’s there will forever rise the shadow of Sarah Brandon.”

As she said the last words, she raised a small phial, which she held in her hand, with an indescribably swift movement to her lips: she drank the contents, and, sinking into a chair, said,—

“Now I defy you all!”

“Ah, she escapes after all!” exclaimed Malgat, “she escapes from justice!” He rushed forward to assist her; but Daniel stepped between, and said,—

“Let her die.”

Already horrible convulsions began to seize her; and the penetrating smell of bitter almonds, which slowly filled the whole room, told but too plainly that the poison which she had taken was one of those from which there is no rescue.

She was carried to her bed; and in less than ten minutes she was dead: she had never uttered another word.

Henrietta and Mrs. Bertolle were kneeling by the side of the bed, and the count was sobbing in a corner of the room, when a police-sergeant entered.

“The woman Brian is not to be found,” he said; “but M. Elgin has been arrested. Where is the Countess Ville-Handry?”

Daniel pointed at the body.

“Dead?” said the officer. “Then I have nothing more to do here.”

He was going out, when Malgat stopped him.

“I beg your pardon, sir,” he said. “I wish to state that I am not Ravinet, dealer in curiosities; but that my true name is Malgat, formerly cashier of the Mutual Discount Society, sentenced in contumaciam to ten years’ penal servitude. I am ready to be tried, and place myself in your hands.”