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

“It’s the lady,” he said, “that my cousin would like to know most about.”

“Naturally.  Well, you can safely tell her that she never will have had a better mistress.  Poor Madame Favoral!  She must have had a sweet time of it with her maniac of a husband!  But she is not young any more; and people get accustomed to every thing, you know.  The days when the weather is fine, I see her going by with her daughter to the Place Royale for a walk.  That’s about their only amusement.”

“The mischief!” said the servant, laughing.  “If that is all, she won’t ruin her husband, will she?”

“That is all,” continued the shop-keeper, “or rather, excuse me, no:  every Saturday, for many years, M. and Mme. Favoral receive a few of their friends:  M. and Mme. Desclavettes, retired dealers in bronzes, Rue Turenne; M. Chapelain, the old lawyer from the Rue St. Antoine, whose daughter is Mlle. Gilberte’s particular friend; M. Desormeaux, head clerk in the Department of Justice; and three or four others; and as this just happens to be Saturday—”

But here he stopped short, and pointing towards the street: 

“Quick,” said he, “look!  Speaking of the—you know—It is twenty minutes past five, there is M. Favoral coming home.”

It was, in fact, the cashier of the Mutual Credit Society, looking very much indeed as the shop-keeper had described him.  Walking with his head down, he seemed to be seeking upon the pavement the very spot upon which he had set his foot in the morning, that he might set it back again there in the evening.

With the same methodical step, he reached his house, walked up the two pairs of stairs, and, taking out his pass-key, opened the door of his apartment.

The dwelling was fit for the man; and every thing from the very hall, betrayed his peculiarities.  There, evidently, every piece of furniture must have its invariable place, every object its irrevocable shelf or hook.  All around were evidences, if not exactly of poverty, at least of small means, and of the artifices of a respectable economy.  Cleanliness was carried to its utmost limits:  every thing shone.  Not a detail but betrayed the industrious hand of the housekeeper, struggling to defend her furniture against the ravages of time.  The velvet on the chairs was darned at the angles as with the needle of a fairy.  Stitches of new worsted showed through the faded designs on the hearth-rugs.  The curtains had been turned so as to display their least worn side.

All the guests enumerated by the shop-keeper, and a few others besides, were in the parlor when M. Favoral came in.  But, instead of returning their greeting: 

“Where is Maxence?” he inquired.

“I am expecting him, my dear,” said Mme. Favoral gently.

“Always behind time,” he scolded.  “It is too trifling.”

His daughter, Mlle. Gilberte, interrupted him: 

“Where is my bouquet, father?” she asked.

M. Favoral stopped short, struck his forehead, and with the accent of a man who reveals something incredible, prodigious, unheard of,

“Forgotten,” he answered, scanning the syllables:  “I have for-got-ten it.”

It was a fact.  Every Saturday, on his way home, he was in the habit of stopping at the old woman’s shop in front of the Church of St. Louis, and buying a bouquet for Mlle. Gilberte.  And to-day . . .

“Ah!  I catch you this time, father!” exclaimed the girl.

Meantime, Mme. Favoral, whispering to Mme. Desclavettes: 

“Positively,” she said in a troubled voice, “something serious must have happened to—my husband.  He to forget!  He to fail in one of his habits!  It is the first time in twenty-six years.”

The appearance of Maxence at this moment prevented her from going on.  M. Favoral was about to administer a sound reprimand to his son, when dinner was announced.

“Come,” exclaimed M. Chapelain, the old lawyer, the conciliating man par excellence,—“come, let us to the table.”

They sat down.  But Mme. Favoral had scarcely helped the soup, when the bell rang violently.  Almost at the same moment the servant appeared, and announced: 

“The Baron de Thaller!”

More pale than his napkin, the cashier stood up.  “The manager,” he stammered, “the director of the Mutual Credit Society.”

II

Close upon the heels of the servant M. de Thaller came.

Tall, thin, stiff, he had a very small head, a flat face, pointed nose, and long reddish whiskers, slightly shaded with silvery threads, falling half-way down his chest.  Dressed in the latest style, he wore a loose overcoat of rough material, pantaloons that spread nearly to the tip of his boots, a wide shirt-collar turned over a light cravat, on the bow of which shone a large diamond, and a tall hat with rolled brims.  With a blinking glance, he made a rapid estimate of the dining-room, the shabby furniture, and the guests seated around the table.  Then, without even condescending to touch his hat, with his large hand tightly fitted into a lavender glove, in a brief and imperious tone, and with a slight accent which he affirmed was the Alsatian accent: 

“I must speak with you, Vincent,” said he to his cashier, “alone and at once.”

M. Favoral made visible efforts to conceal his anxiety.  “You see,” he commenced, “we are dining with a few friends, and—”

“Do you wish me to speak in presence of everybody?” interrupted harshly the manager of the Mutual Credit.

The cashier hesitated no longer.  Taking up a candle from the table, he opened the door leading to the parlor, and, standing respectfully to one side: 

“Be kind enough to pass on, sir,” said he:  “I follow you.”

And, at the moment of disappearing himself,

“Continue to dine without me,” said he to his guests, with a last effort at self-control.  “I shall soon catch up with you.  This will take but a moment.  Do not be uneasy in the least.”

They were not uneasy, but surprised, and, above all, shocked at the manners of M. de Thaller.

“What a brute!” muttered Mme. Desclavettes.

M. Desormeaux, the head clerk at the Department of Justice, was an old legitimist, much imbued with reactionary ideas.

“Such are our masters,” said he with a sneer, “the high barons of financial feudality.  Ah! you are indignant at the arrogance of the old aristocracy; well, on your knees, by Jupiter! on your face, rather, before the golden crown on field of gules.”

No one replied:  every one was trying his best to hear.

In the parlor, between M. Favoral and M. de Thaller, a discussion of the utmost violence was evidently going on.