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

stabbing his enemy in the heart; but he was young.

He was young in sin. Vice had not yet penetrated to his marrow-bones: corruption had not yet crowded into his soul enough to uproot and destroy every generous sentiment.

It had not been so very long since he had cherished a few holy beliefs. The good intentions of his boyhood were not quite obliterated from his sometimes reproachful memory.

Possessing the daring courage natural to youth, he despised the cowardly part forced upon him; this dark plot, laid for the destruction of two helpless women, filled him with horror and disgust. His heart revolted at the idea of acting the part of Judas toward his mother to betray her between two kisses.

Disgusted by the cool villainy of Louis, he longed for some unexpected danger to spring up, some great peril to be braved, so as to excuse himself in his own eyes, to give him the spirit to carry through the scheme; for he would like to reap the benefits without doing the revolting work.

But no; he well knew that he ran no risk, not even that of being arrested and sent to the galleys. For he was certain that, if M. Fauvel discovered everything, he would do his best to hush it up, to conceal every fact connected with the disgraceful story which would implicate his wife. Although he was careful not to breathe it to Clameran, he felt a sincere affection for Mme. Fauvel, and was touched by the indulgent fondness which she so unchangingly lavished upon him. He had been happy at Vesinet, while his accomplice, or rather his master, was at Oloron. He would have been glad to lead an honest life, and could not see the sense of committing a crime when there was no necessity for it. He hated Clameran for not consenting to let the matter drop, now that he was rich enough to live in affluence the rest of his life, and who, for the sake of gratifying a selfish passion, was abusing his power, and endangering the safety and happiness of so many people. He longed for an opportunity of thwarting his plots, if it could be done without also ruining himself.

His resolution, which had been so firm in the beginning, was growing weaker and weaker as the hours rolled on: as the crisis approached, his horror of the deed increased.

Seeing this uncertain state of Raoul’s mind, Louis never left him, but continued to paint for him a dazzling future, position, wealth, and freedom. Possessing a large fortune, he would be his own master, gratify his every wish, and make amends to his mother for his present undutiful conduct. He urged him to take pride in acting his part in this little comedy, which would soon be over without doing harm to anyone.

He prepared, and forced his accomplice to rehearse, the scene which was to be enacted at Mme. Fauvel’s, with as much coolness and precision as if it were to be performed at a public theatre. Louis said that no piece could be well acted unless the actor was interested and imbued with the spirit of his role.

But the more urgently Louis pressed upon him the advantages to be derived from success, the oftener he sounded in his ears the magic words, “five hundred thousand francs,” the more loudly did Raoul’s conscience cry out against the sinful deed.

On Monday evening, about six o’clock, Raoul felt so depressed and miserable, that he had almost made up his mind to refuse to move another step, and to tell Louis that he must find another tool to carry out his abominable plot.

“Are you afraid?” asked Clameran, who had anxiously watched these inward struggles.

“Yes, I am afraid. I am not cursed with your ferocious nature and iron will. I am the most miserable dog living!”

“Come, cheer up, my boy! You are not yourself to-day. Don’t fail me at the last minute, when everything depends upon you. Just think that we have almost finished; one more stroke of our oars, and we are in port. You are only nervous: come to dinner, and a bottle of Burgundy will soon set you right.”

They were walking along the boulevard. Clameran insisted upon their entering a restaurant, and having dinner in a private room.

Vainly did he strive, however, to chase the gloom from Raoul’s pale face; he sat listening, with a sullen frown, to his friend’s jests about “swallowing the bitter pill gracefully.”

Urged by Louis, he drank two bottles of wine, in hopes that intoxication would inspire him with courage to do the deed, which Clameran impressed upon his mind must and should be done before many more hours had passed over his head.

But the drunkenness he sought came not; the wine proved false; at the bottom of the last bottle he found disgust and rage.

The clock struck eight.

“The time has come,” said Louis firmly.

Raoul turned livid; his teeth chattered, and his limbs trembled so that he was unable to stand on his feet.

“Oh, I cannot do it!” he cried in an agony of terror and rage.

Clameran’s eyes flashed with angry excitement at the prospect of all his plans being ruined at the last moment. But he dared not give way to his anger, for fear of exasperating Raoul, whom he knew to be anxious for an excuse to quarrel; so he quietly pulled the bell-rope. A boy appeared.

“A bottle of port,” he said, “and a bottle of rum.”

When the boy returned with the bottles, Louis filled a goblet with the two liquors mixed, and handed it to Raoul.

“Drink this,” he said in a tone of command.

Raoul emptied the glass at one draught, and a faint color returned to his ashy cheeks. He arose, and snatching up his hat, cried fiercely:

“Come along!”

But before he had walked half a square, the factitious energy inspired by drink deserted him.

He clung to Clameran’s arm, and was almost dragged along in the direction of the banker’s house, trembling like a criminal on his way to the scaffold.

“If I can once get him in the house,” thought Louis, “and make him begin, the excitement of his mother’s opposition will make him carry it through successfully. The cowardly baby! I would like to wring his neck!”

Although his breast was filled with these thoughts and fears, he was careful to conceal them from Raoul, and said soothingly:

“Now, don’t forget our arrangement, and be careful how you enter the house; everything depends upon your being unconcerned and cool, to avoid arousing suspicion in the eyes of anyone you may meet. Have you a pistol in your pocket?”

“Yes, yes! Let me alone!”

It was well that Clameran had accompanied Raoul; for, when he got in sight of the door, his courage gave way, and he longed to retreat.

“A poor, helpless woman!” he groaned, “and an honest man who pressed my hand in friendship yesterday, to be cowardly ruined, betrayed by me! Ah, it is too base! I cannot!”

“Come, don’t be a coward! I thought you had more nerve. Why, you might as well have remained virtuous and honest; you will never earn your salt in this sort of business.”

Raoul overcame his weakness, and, silencing the clamors of his conscience, rushed up the steps, and pulled the bell furiously.

“Is Mme. Fauvel at home?” he inquired of the servant who opened the door.

“Madame is alone in the sitting-room adjoining her chamber,” was the reply.

Raoul went upstairs.

XX

Clameran’s last injunction to Raoul was:

“Be very cautious when you enter the room; your appearance must tell everything, so you can avoid preliminary explanations.”

The recommendation was useless.

The instant that Raoul went into the little salon, the sight of his pale, haggard face and wild eyes caused Mme. Fauvel to spring up with clasped hands, and cry out:

“Raoul! What has happened? Speak, my son!”

The sound of her tender, affectionate voice acted like an electric shock upon the young bandit. He shook like a leaf. But at the same time his mind seemed to change. Louis was not mistaken in his estimate of his companion’s character. Raoul was on the stage, his part was to be played; his assurance returned to him; his cheating, lying nature assumed the ascendant, and stifled any better feeling in his heart.

“This misfortune is the last I shall ever suffer, mother!”

Mme. Fauvel rushed toward him, and, seizing his hand, gazed searchingly into his eyes, as if to read his very soul.

“What is the matter? Raoul, my dear son, do tell me what troubles you.”

He gently pushed her from him.

“The matter is, my mother,” he said in a voice of heart-broken despair, “that I am an unworthy, degenerate son! Unworthy of you, unworthy of my noble father!”

She tried to comfort him by saying that his errors were all her fault, and that he was, in spite of all, the pride of her heart.

“Alas!” he said, “I know and judge myself. No one can reproach me for my infamous conduct more bitterly than does my own conscience. I am not naturally wicked, but only a miserable fool. At times I am like an insane man, and am not responsible for my actions. Ah, my dear mother, I would not be what I am, if you had watched over my childhood. But brought up among strangers, with no guide but my own evil passions, nothing to restrain me, no one to advise me, no one to love me, owning nothing, not even my stolen name, I am cursed with vanity and unbounded ambition. Poor, with no one to assist me but you, I have the tastes and vices of a millionnaire’s son.

“Alas for me! When I found you, the evil was done. Your affection, your maternal love, the only true happiness of my life, could not save me. I, who had suffered so much, endured so many privations, even the pangs of hunger, became spoiled by this new life of luxury and pleasure which you opened before me. I rushed headlong into extravagance, as a drunkard long deprived of liquor seizes and drains to the dregs the first bottle in his reach.”

Mme. Fauvel listened, silent and terrified, to these words of despair and remorse, which Raoul uttered with vehemence.

She dared not interrupt him, but felt certain some dreadful piece of news was coming.

Raoul continued in a sad, hopeless tone:

“Yes, I have been a weak fool. Happiness was within my reach, and I had not the sense to stretch forth my hand and grab it. I rejected a heavenly reality to eagerly pursue a vain phantom. I, who ought to have spent my life at your feet, and daily striven to express my gratitude for your lavish kindness, have made you unhappy, destroyed your peace of mind, and, instead of being a blessing, I have been a curse ever since the first fatal day you welcomed me to your kind heart. Ah, unfeeling brute that I was, to squander upon creatures whom I despised, a fortune, of which each gold piece must have cost you a tear! Too late, too late! With you I might have been a good and happy man!”

He stopped, as if overcome by the conviction of his evil deeds, and seemed about to burst into tears.

“It is never too late to repent, my son,” murmured Mme. Fauvel in comforting tones.

“Ah, if I only could!” cried Raoul; “but no, it is too late! Besides, can I tell how long my good resolutions will last? This is not the first time that I have condemned myself pitilessly. Stinging remorse for each new fault made me swear to lead a better life, to sin no more. What was