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

“You have heard all, Maxime?”

“All! I have not lost a word nor a gesture. But do not blame me for my indiscretion. It enables me to give you some friendly advice. You know I have paid dear for my experience.”

He hesitated, being at a loss how to express his ideas; then he continued in a short, sharp tone,—

“You love Miss Ville-Handry?”

“More than my life, don’t you know?”

“Well, if that is so, abandon all thoughts of useless resistance; induce Miss Henrietta to do as her father wishes; and persuade Miss Brandon to let your wedding take place a month after her own. But ask for special pledges. Miss Ville-Handry may suffer somewhat during that month; but the day after your wedding you will carry her off to your own home, and leave the poor old man to his amorous folly.”

Daniel showed in his face that this suggestion opened a new prospect before him.

“I had not thought of that,” he said.

“It is all you can do.”

“Yes, it is what prudence would advise me to do. But can I do so in honor?”

“Oh, honor, honor!”

“Would it not be wrong in me to abandon the poor old man to the mercy of Miss Brandon and her accomplices?”

“You will never be able to rescue him, my dear fellow.”

“I ought at least to try. You thought so yesterday, and even this morning, not two hours ago.”

Maxime could scarcely hide his impatience.

“I did not know then what I know now,” he said.

Daniel had risen, and was walking up and down the small room, replying to his own objections, rather than to those raised by Brevan.

“If I were alone master,” he said, “I might, perhaps, agree to a capitulation. But could Henrietta accept it? Never, never! Her father knows her well. She is as weak as a child; but at the proper moment she can develop a masculine energy and an iron will.”

“Why should you tell her at all who Miss Brandon is?”

“I have pledged my word of honor to tell her every thing.”

Brevan again shrugged his shoulders, and there was no mistaking what he meant by that gesture. He might just as well have said aloud, “Can one conceive such stupidity?”

“Then you had better give up your Henrietta, my poor fellow,” he said.

But Daniel’s despair had been overcome. He ground his teeth with anger, and said,—

“Not yet, my friend, not yet! An honest man who defends his honor and his life is pretty strong. I have no experience, that is true; but I have you, Maxime; and I know I can always count upon you.”

Daniel did not seem to have noticed that M. de Brevan, at first all fire and energy, had rapidly cooled off, like a man, who, having ventured too far, thinks he has made a mistake, and tries to retrace his steps.

“Certainly you may count upon me,” he replied; “but what can be done?”

“Well, what you said yourself. I shall call upon Miss Brandon, and watch her. I shall dissemble, and gain time. If necessary, I shall employ detectives, and find out her antecedents. I shall try to interest some high personage in my behalf,—my minister, for instance, who is very kind to me. Besides, I have an idea.”

“Ah!”

“That unlucky cashier, whose story you told me, and who, you think, is not dead—if we could find him. How did you call him? Oh, Malgat! An advertisement inserted in all the leading newspapers of Europe would, no doubt, reach him; and the hope of seeing himself avenged”—

M. de Brevan’s cheeks began to redden perceptibly. He broke out with strange vehemence,—

“What nonsense!”

Then he added, more collectedly,—

“You forget that Malgat has been sentenced to I know not how many years’ penal servitude, and that he will see in your advertisement a trick of the police; so that he will only conceal himself more carefully than ever.”

But Daniel was not so easily shaken. He said,—

“I will think it over. I will see. Perhaps something might be done with that young man whom the count mentioned, that M. Wilkie Gordon. If I thought he was really anxious for Miss Brandon’s hand”—

“I have heard it said, and I am sure it is so, the young man is one of those idiots whom vanity renders insane, and who do not know what to do in order to make themselves notorious. Miss Brandon being very famous, he would marry her, just as he would pay a hundred thousand dollars for a famous racer.”

“And how do you account for Miss Brandon’s refusal?”

“By the character of the man, whom I know very well, and whom she knows as well. She is quite aware that, three months after the wedding, he would decamp, and in less than a year she would be divorced. Then there is another thing: Wilkie is only twenty-five years old; and you know a fellow at that age is likely to live a good deal longer than a lover who is beyond the sixties.”

The way in which he said this lent to his words a terrible significance; and Daniel, turning pale, stammered out,—

“Great God! Do you think Miss Brandon could”—

“Could do anything, most assuredly,—except, perhaps, get into trouble with the police. I have heard her say that only fools employ poison or the dagger.”

A strange smile passed over his lips; and he added in a tone of horrible irony,—

“It is true there are other means, less prompt, perhaps, but much safer, by which people may be removed when they become inconvenient.

“What means? The same, no doubt, which she had employed to get rid of poor Kergrist, and that unlucky Malgat, the cashier of the Mutual Discount Society. Purely moral means, based upon her thorough knowledge of the character of her victims, and her own infernal power over them.”

But Daniel tried in vain to obtain more light from his friend. Brevan answered evasively; perhaps because he did not dare to speak out freely, and reveal his real thoughts; or because it lay in his plans to be content with having added this horrible fear to all the other apprehensions of his friend.

His embarrassment, just now unmistakable, had entirely disappeared, as if he had come to a final decision after long hesitation. He who had first advised all kinds of concessions now