File No. 113, Emile Gaboriau [digital e reader txt] 📗

more seriously, “we had better end this child’s play, and come to a clear understanding. I follow you here, because I thoroughly understand your character, and have just as much confidence in you as you deserve, and not a particle more. If it were for your advantage to ruin me, you would not hesitate one instant. If danger threatened us, you would fly alone, and leave your dutiful nephew to make his escape the best way he could. Oh! don’t look shocked, and pretend to deny it; your conduct is perfectly natural, and in your place I would act the same way. Only remember this, that I am not a man to be trifled with. Now let us cease these unnecessary recriminations, and come to the point: what is your present plan?”

Louis saw that his accomplice was too shrewd to be deceived, and that the safest course was to trust all to him, and to pretend that he had intended doing so all along.

Without any show of anger, he briefly and clearly related all that had occurred at his brother’s.

He told the truth about everything except the amount of his brother’s fortune, the importance of which he lessened as much as possible.

“Well,” said Raoul, when the report was ended, “we are in a nice fix. And do you expect to get out of it?”

“Yes, if you don’t betray me.”

“I wish you to understand, marquis, that I have never betrayed anyone yet; don’t judge me by yourself, I beg. What steps will you take to get free of this entanglement?”

“I don’t know; but something will turn up. Oh, don’t be alarmed; I’ll find some means of escape: so you can return home with your mind at rest. You run no risk in Paris, and ‘tis the best place for you. I will stay here to watch Gaston.”

Raoul reflected for some moments, and then said:

“Are you sure I am not in danger at Paris?”

“What are you afraid of? We have Mme. Fauvel so completely in our power that she would not dare speak a word against you; even if she knew the whole truth, what no one but you and I know, she would not open her lips, but be only too glad to hush up matters so as to escape punishment for her fault from her deceived husband and a censuring world.”

“I know we have a secure hold on her,” said Raoul. “I am not afraid of her giving any trouble.”

“Who, then?”

“An enemy of your own making, my respected uncle; a most implacable enemy—Madeleine.”

“Fiddlesticks!” replied Clameran, disdainfully.

“It is very well for you to treat her with contempt,” said Raoul, gravely; “but I can tell you, you are much mistaken in your estimate of her character. I have studied her lately, and see that she is devoted to her aunt, and ready to make any sacrifice to insure her happiness. But she has no idea of doing anything blindly, of throwing herself away if she can avoid it. She has promised to marry you. Prosper is broken-hearted at being discarded, it is true; but he has not given up hope. You imagine her to be weak and yielding, easily frightened? It’s a great mistake. She is self-reliant and fearless. More than that, she is in love, my good uncle; and a woman will defend her lover as a tigress defends her young. She will fight to the bitter end before marrying anyone save Prosper.”

“She is worth five hundred thousand francs.”

“So she is; and at five per cent we would each have an income of twelve thousand five hundred francs. But, for all that, you had better take my advice, and give up Madeleine.”

“Never; I swear by Heaven!” exclaimed Clameran. “Rich or poor, she shall be mine! I first wanted her money, but now I want her; I love her for herself, Raoul!”

Raoul seemed to be amazed at this declaration of his uncle.

He raised his hands, and started back with astonishment.

“Is it possible,” he said, “that you are in love with Madeleine?— you!”

“Yes,” replied Louis, sullenly. “Is there anything so very extraordinary in it?”

“Oh, no, certainly not! only this sentimental view of the matter explains your strange behavior. Alas, you love Madeleine! Then, my venerable uncle, we might as well surrender at once.”

“Why so?”

“Because you know the axiom, ‘When the heart is interested the head is lost.’ Generals in love always lose their battles. The day is not far off when your infatuation of Madeleine will make you sell us both for a smile. And, mark my words, she is shrewd, and watching us as only an enemy can watch.”

With a forced laugh Clameran interrupted his nephew.

“Just see how you fire up for no cause,” he said; “you must dislike the charming Madeleine very much, if you abuse her in this way.”

“She will prove to be our ruin: that is all.”

“You might as well be frank, and say you are in love with her yourself.”

“I am only in love with her money,” replied Raoul, with an angry frown.

“Then what are you complaining of? I shall give you half her fortune. You will have the money without being troubled with the wife; the profit without the burden.”

“I am not over fifty years old,” said Raoul conceitedly. “I can appreciate a pretty woman better than you.”

“Enough of that,” interrupted Louis angrily. “The day I relieved your pressing wants, and brought you to Paris, you promised to follow my directions, to help me carry out my plan; did you not?”

“Yes; but not the plot you are hatching now! You forget that my liberty, perhaps my life, is at stake. You may hold the cards, but I must have the right of advising you.”

It was midnight before the accomplices separated.

“I won’t stand idle,” said Louis. “I agree with you that something must be done at once. But I can’t decide what it shall be on the spur of the moment. Meet me here at this hour to-morrow night, and I will have some plan ready for you.”

“Very good. I will be here.”

“And remember, don’t be imprudent!”

“My costume ought to convince you that I am not anxious to be recognized by anyone. I left such an ingenious alibi, that I defy anybody to prove that I have been absent from my house at Vesinet. I even took the precaution to travel in a third-class car. Well, good-night. I am going to the inn.”

Raoul went off after these words, apparently unconscious of having aroused suspicion in the breast of his accomplice.

During his adventurous life, Clameran had transacted “business” with too many scamps not to know the precise amount of confidence to place in a man like Raoul.

The old adage, “Honor among thieves,” seldom holds good after the “stroke.” There is always a quarrel over the division of the spoils.

This distrustful Clameran foresaw a thousand difficulties and counter-plots to be guarded against in his dealings with Raoul.

“Why,” he pondered, “did the villain assume this disguise? Why this alibi at Paris? Can he be laying a trap for me? It is true that I have a hold upon him; but then I am completely at his mercy. Those accursed letters which I have written to him, while here, are so many proofs against me. Can he be thinking of cutting loose from me, and making off with all the profits of our enterprise?”

Louis never once during the night closed his eyes; but by daybreak he had fully made up his mind how to act, and with feverish impatience waited for evening to come, to communicate his views with Raoul.

His anxiety made him so restless that the unobserving Gaston finally noticed it, and asked him what the matter was; if he was sick, or troubled about anything.

At last evening came, and, at the appointed hour, Louis went to the field where they had met the night previous, and found Raoul lying on the grass smoking a fragrant cigar, as if he had no other object in life except to blow little clouds of smoke in the air, and count the stars in the clear sky above him.

“Well?” he carelessly said, as Louis approached, “have you decided upon anything?”

“Yes. I have two projects, either of which would probably accomplish our object.”

“I am listening.”

Louis was silently thoughtful for a minute, as if arranging his thoughts so as to present them as clearly and briefly as possible.

“My first plan,” he began, “depends upon your approval. What would you say, if I proposed to you to renounce the affair altogether?”

“What!”

“Would you consent to disappear, leave France, and return to London, if I paid you a good round sum?”

“What do you call a good round sum?”

“I will give you a hundred and fifty thousand francs.”

“My respected uncle,” said Raoul with a contemptuous shrug, “I am distressed to see how little you know me! You try to deceive me, to outwit me, which is ungenerous and foolish on your part; ungenerous, because it fails to carry out our agreement; foolish, because as you know well enough, my power equals yours.”

“I don’t understand you.”

“I am sorry for it. I understand myself, and that is sufficient. Oh! I understand you, my dear uncle. I have watched you with careful eyes, which are not to be deceived; I see through you clearly. If you offer me one hundred and fifty thousand francs, it is because you intend to walk off with half a million for yourself.”

“You are talking like a fool,” said Clameran with virtuous indignation.

“Not at all; I only judge the future by the past. Of all the large sums extorted from Mme. Fauvel, often against my wishes, I never received a tenth part.”

“But you know we have a reserve fund.”

“All very good; but you have the keeping of it, my good uncle. It is very nice for you, but not so funny for me. If our little plot were to be discovered to-morrow, you would walk off with the money-box, and leave your devoted nephew to be sent to prison.”

“Ingrate!” muttered Louis, as if distressed at these undeserved reproaches of his protege.

“You have hit on the very word I was trying to remember,” cried Raoul: “‘ingrate’ is the name that just suits you. But we have not time for this nonsense. I will end the matter by proving how you have been trying to deceive me.”

“I would like to hear you do so if you can.”

“Very good. In the first place, you told me that your brother only possessed a modest competency. Now, I learn that Gaston has an income of at least sixty thousand francs. It is useless for you to deny it; and how much is this property worth? A hundred thousand crowns. He had four hundred thousand francs deposited in M. Fauvel’s bank. Total, seven hundred thousand francs. And, besides all this, the broker in Oloron has orders to buy up a large amount of stocks and railroad shares, which will require large cash payments. I have not wasted my day, you see, and have obtained all the information I came for.”

Raoul’s information was too concise and exact for Louis to deny it.

“You might have sense enough,” Raoul went on, “to know how to manage your forces if you undertake to be a commander. We had a splendid game in our hands; and you, who held the cards, have made a perfect muddle of it.”

“I think—”

“That the game is lost? That is my opinion too, and all through you. You have no one to blame but yourself.”

“I could not control events.”

“Yes, you could, if you had been shrewd. Fools sit down