Monsieur Lecoq, Émile Gaboriau [best non fiction books to read .txt] 📗

which had been placed somewhere in the neighborhood.

Jean knew that it was Marie-Anne’s child they were seeking. Why they had not succeeded in finding it, he knew equally well.

But why were there two persons seeking the child? One was Maurice d’Escorval, of course, but who was the other?

Instead of remaining at Sairmeuse a week, Jean Lacheneur tarried there a month; and by the expiration of that month he had traced these inquiries concerning the child to the agent of Chelteux. Through him, he reached Fouche’s former spy; and, finally, succeeded in discovering that the search had been instituted by no less a person than the Duchesse de Sairmeuse.

This discovery bewildered him. How could Mme. Blanche have known that Marie-Anne had given birth to a child; and knowing it, what possible interest could she have had in finding it? These two questions tormented Jean’s mind continually; but he could discover no satisfactory answer.

“Chupin’s son could tell me, perhaps,” he thought. “I must pretend to be reconciled to the sons of the wretch who betrayed my father.”

But the traitor’s children had been dead for several years, and after a long search, Jean found only the Widow Chupin and her son, Polyte. They were keeping a drinking-saloon not far from the Château-des-Rentiers; and their establishment, known as the Poivrière, bore anything but an enviable reputation.

Lacheneur questioned the widow and her son in vain; they could give him no information whatever on the subject. He told them his name, but even this did not awaken the slightest recollection in their minds.

Jean was about to take his departure when Mother Chupin, probably in the hope of extracting a few pennies, began to deplore her present misery, which was, she declared, all the harder to bear since she had wanted for nothing during the life of her poor husband, who had always obtained as much money as he wanted from a lady of high degree⁠—the Duchesse de Sairmeuse, in short.

Lacheneur uttered such a terrible oath that the old woman and her son started back in affright. He saw at once the close connection between the researches of Mme. Blanche and her generosity to Chupin.

“It was she who poisoned Marie-Anne,” he said to himself. “It was through my sister that she became aware of the existence of the child. She loaded Chupin with favors because he knew the crime she had committed⁠—that crime in which his father had been only an accomplice.”

He remembered Martial’s oath at the bedside of the murdered girl, and his heart overflowed with savage exultation. He saw his two enemies, the last of the Sairmeuse and the last of the Courtornieu take in their own hands his work of vengeance.

But this was mere conjecture; he desired to be assured of the correctness of his suppositions. He drew from his pocket a handful of gold, and, throwing it upon the table, he said:

“I am very rich; if you will obey me and keep my secret, your fortune is made.”

A shrill cry of delight from mother and son outweighed any protestations of obedience.

The Widow Chupin knew how to write, and Lacheneur dictated this letter:

“Madame la Duchesse⁠—I shall expect you at my establishment tomorrow between twelve and four o’clock. It is on business connected with the Borderie. If at five o’clock I have not seen you, I shall carry to the post a letter for the duke.”

“And if she comes what am I to say to her?” asked the astonished widow.

“Nothing; you will merely ask her for money.”

“If she comes, it is as I have guessed,” he reflected.

She came.

Hidden in the loft of the Poivrière, Jean, through an opening in the floor, saw the duchess give a banknote to Mother Chupin.

“Now, she is in my power!” he thought exultantly. “Through what sloughs of degradation will I drag her before I deliver her up to her husband’s vengeance!”

LIV

A few lines of the article consecrated to Martial de Sairmeuse in the General Biography of the Men of the Century, give the history of his life after his marriage.

“Martial de Sairmeuse,” it says there, “brought to the service of his party a brilliant intellect and admirable endowments. Called to the front at the moment when political strife was raging with the utmost violence, he had courage to assume the sole responsibility of the most extreme measures.

“Compelled by almost universal opprobrium to retire from office, he left behind him animosities which will be extinguished only with life.”

But what this article does not state is this: if Martial was wrong⁠—and that depends entirely upon the point of view from which his conduct is regarded⁠—he was doubly wrong, since he was not possessed of those ardent convictions verging upon fanaticism which make men fools, heroes, and martyrs.

He was not even ambitious.

Those associated with him, witnessing his passionate struggle and his unceasing activity, thought him actuated by an insatiable thirst for power.

He cared little or nothing for it. He considered its burdens heavy; its compensations small. His pride was too lofty to feel any satisfaction in the applause that delights the vain, and flattery disgusted him. Often, in his princely drawing-rooms, during some brilliant fête, his acquaintances noticed a shade of gloom steal over his features, and seeing him thus thoughtful and preoccupied, they respectfully refrained from disturbing him.

“His mind is occupied with momentous questions,” they thought. “Who can tell what important decisions may result from this revery?”

They were mistaken.

At the very moment when his brilliant success made his rivals pale with envy⁠—when it would seem that he had nothing left to wish for in this world, Martial was saying to himself:

“What an empty life! What weariness and vexation of spirit! To live for others⁠—what a mockery!”

He looked at his wife, radiant in her beauty, worshipped like a queen, and he sighed.

He thought of her who was dead⁠—Marie-Anne⁠—the only woman whom he had ever loved.

She was never absent from his mind. After all these years he saw her yet, cold, rigid, lifeless, in that luxurious room at the