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

not had twenty-four hours’ rest, but he bore no traces of fatigue. His iron muscles braved any amount of labor, and his elastic nature was too well tempered to give way beneath such pressure.

While any other man would have sunk exhausted in a chair, he stood up and described, with the enthusiasm and captivating animation peculiar to him, the minutest details and intricacies of the plot that he had devoted his whole energy to unravelling; personating every character he brought upon the scene to take part in the strange drama, so that his listener was bewildered and dazzled by his brilliant acting.

As Prosper listened to this narrative of events happening twenty years back, the secret conversations as minutely related as if overheard the moment they took place, it sounded more like a romance than a statement of plain facts.

All these ingenious explanations might be logical, but what foundation did they possess? Might they not be the dreams of an excited imagination?

M. Verduret did not finish his report until four o’clock in the morning; then he cried, with an accent of triumph:

“And now they are on their guard, and sharp, wary rascals too: but they won’t escape me; I have cornered them beautifully. Before a week is over, Prosper, you will be publicly exonerated, and will come out of this scrape with flying colors. I have promised your father you shall.”

“Impossible!” said Prosper in a dazed way, “it cannot be!”

“What?”

“All this you have just told me.”

M. Verduret opened wide his eyes, as if he could not understand anyone having the audacity to doubt the accuracy of his report.

“Impossible, indeed!” he cried. “What! have you not sense enough to see the plain truth written all over every fact, and attested by the best authority? Your thick-headedness exasperates me to the last degree.”

“But how can such rascalities take place in Paris, in our very midst, without–-”

“Parbleu!” interrupted the fat man, “you are young, my friend! Are you innocent enough to suppose that crimes, forty times worse than this, don’t occur every day? You think the horrors of the police-court are the only ones. Pooh! You only read in the Gazette des Tribunaux of the cruel melodramas of life, where the actors are as cowardly as the knife, and as treacherous as the poison they use. It is at the family fireside, often under shelter of the law itself, that the real tragedies of life are acted; in modern crimes the traitors wear gloves, and cloak themselves with public position; the victims die, smiling to the last, without revealing the torture they have endured to the end. Why, what I have just related to you is an everyday occurrence; and you profess astonishment.”

“I can’t help wondering how you discovered all this tissue of crime.”

“Ah, that is the point!” said the fat man with a self-satisfied smile. “When I undertake a task, I devote my whole attention to it. Now, make a note of this: When a man of ordinary intelligence concentrates his thoughts and energies upon the attainment of an object, he is certain to obtain ultimate success. Besides that, I have my own method of working up a case.”

“Still I don’t see what grounds you had to go upon.”

“To be sure, one needs some light to guide one in a dark affair like this. But the fire in Clameran’s eye at the mention of Gaston’s name ignited my lantern. From that moment I walked straight to the solution of the mystery, as I would walk to a beacon-light on a dark night.”

The eager, questioning look of Prosper showed that he would like to know the secret of his protector’s wonderful penetration, and at the same time be more thoroughly convinced that what he had heard was all true—that his innocence would be more clearly proved.

“Now confess,” cried M. Verduret, “you would give anything in the world to find out how I discovered the truth?”

“I certainly would, for it is the darkest of mysteries, marvellous!”

M. Verduret enjoyed Prosper’s bewilderment. To be sure, he was neither a good judge nor a distinguished amateur; but he was an astonished admirer, and sincere admiration is always flattering, no matter whence it comes.

“Well,” he replied, “I will explain my system. There is nothing marvellous about it as you will soon see. We worked together to find the solution of the problem, so you know my reasons for suspecting Clameran as the prime mover in the robbery. As soon as I had acquired this certainty, my task was easy. You want to know what I did? I placed trustworthy people to watch the parties in whom I was most interested. Joseph Dubois took charge of Clameran, and Nina Gypsy never lost sight of Mme. Fauvel and her niece.”

“I cannot comprehend how Nina ever consented to this service.”

“That is my secret,” replied M. Verduret. “Having the assistance of good eyes and quick ears on the spot, I went to Beaucaire to inquire into the past, so as to link it with what I knew of the present. The next day I was at Clameran; and the first step I took was to find the son of St. Jean, the old valet. An honest man he was, too; open and simple as nature herself; and he made a good bargain in selling me his madder.”

“Madder?” said Prosper with a puzzled look; “what did you–-”

“Of course I wanted to buy his madder. Of course I did not appear to him as I do to you now. I was a countryman wanting to buy madder; he had madder for sale; so we began to bargain about the price. The debate lasted almost all day, during which time we drank a dozen bottles of wine. About supper-time, St. Jean was as drunk as a bunghole, and I had purchased nine hundred francs’ worth of madder which your father will sell to-morrow.”

Prosper’s astonished countenance made M. Verduret laugh heartily.

“I risked nine hundred francs,” he continued, “but thread by thread I gathered the whole history of the Clamerans, Gaston’s love-affair, his flight, and the stumbling of the horse ridden by Louis. I found also that about a year ago Louis returned, sold the chateau to a man named Fougeroux, whose wife, Mihonne, had a secret interview with Louis the day of the purchase. I went to see Mihonne. Poor woman! her rascally husband has pounded all the sense out of her; she is almost idiotic. I told her I came from the Clameran family, and she at once related to me everything she knew.”

The apparent simplicity of this mode of investigation confounded Prosper. He wondered it had not occurred to him before.

“From that time,” continued M. Verduret, “the skein began to disentangle; I held the principal thread. I now set about finding out what had become of Gaston. Lafourcade, who is a friend of your father, informed me that he had bought a foundery, and settled in Oloron, where he soon after suddenly died. Thirty-six hours later I was at Oloron.”

“You are certainly indefatigable!” said Prosper.

“No, but I always strike while the iron is hot. At Oloron I met Manuel, who had gone there to make a little visit before returning to Spain. From him I obtained a complete history of Gaston’s life, and all the particulars of his death. Manuel also told me of Louis’s visit; and the inn-keeper described a young workman who was there at the same time, whom I at once recognized as Raoul.”

“But how did you know of all the conversations between the villains?” said Prosper. “You seem to be aware of their secret thoughts.”

“You evidently think I have been drawing upon my imagination. You will soon see to the contrary,” said Verduret good-humoredly. “While I was at work down there, my aids did not sit with their hands tied together. Mutually distrustful, Clameran and Raoul preserved all the letters received from each other. Joseph Dubois copied them, or the important portions of them, and forwarded them to me. Nina spent her time listening at all doors under her supervision, and sent me a faithful report. Finally, I have at the Fauvels another means of investigation which I will reveal to you later.”

“I understand it all now,” murmured Prosper.

“And what have you been doing during my absence, my young friend?” asked M. Verduret; “have you heard any news?”

At this question Prosper turned crimson. But he knew that it would never do to keep silent about his imprudent step.

“Alas!” he stammered, “I read in a newspaper that Clameran was about to marry Madeleine; and I acted like a fool.”

“What did you do?” inquired Verduret anxiously.

“I wrote an anonymous letter to M. Fauvel, informing him that his wife was in love with Raoul—”

M. Verduret here brought his clinched fist down upon the little table near by, with such violence that the thin plank was shivered. His cheerful face in an instant clouded over.

“What folly!” he exclaimed, “how could you go and ruin everything?”

He arose from his seat, and strode up and down the room, oblivious of the lodgers below, whose windows shook with every angry stamp of his foot.

“What made you act so like a child, an idiot, a fool?” he said indignantly to Prosper.

“Monsieur!”

“Here you are, drowning; an honest man springs into the water to save you, and just as he approaches the shore you entangle his feet to prevent him from swimming! What was my last order to you when I left here?”

“To keep quiet, and not go out of the hotel.”

“Well.”

The consciousness of having done a foolish thing made Prosper appear like a frightened school-boy, accused by his teacher of playing truant.

“It was night, monsieur,” he hesitatingly said, “and, having a violent headache, I took a walk along the quay thinking there was no risk in my entering a cafe; there I picked up a paper, and read the dreadful announcement.”

“Did you not promise to trust everything to me?”

“You were absent, monsieur; and you yourself might have been surprised by an unexpected—”

“Only fools are ever surprised into committing a piece of folly,” cried M. Verduret impatiently. “To write an anonymous letter! Do you know to what you expose me? Breaking a sacred promise made to one of the few persons whom I highly esteem among my fellow-beings. I shall be looked upon as a liar, a cheat—I who—”

He abruptly stopped, as if afraid to trust himself to speak further; after calming down a little, he turned to Prosper, and said:

“The best thing we can do is to try and repair the harm you have done. When and where did you post this idiotic letter?”

“Yesterday evening, at the Rue du Cardinal Lemoine. It hardly reached the bottom of the box before I regretted having written it.”

“You had better have regretted it before dropping it in. What time was it?”

“About ten o’clock.”

“Then your sweet little letter must have reached M. Fauvel with his early mail; probably he was alone in his study when he read it.”

“I know he was: he never goes down to the bank until he has opened his letters.”

“Can you recall the exact terms of your letter? Stop and think, for it is very important that I should know.”

“Oh, it is unnecessary for me to reflect. I remember the letter as if I had just written it.”

And almost verbatim he repeated what he had written.

After attentively listening, M. Verduret sat with a perplexed frown upon his face, as if trying to discover some means of repairing the harm done.

“That is an awkward letter,” he finally said, “to come from a person who does not deal in such things. It leaves everything to