File No. 113, Émile Gaboriau [best ereader for graphic novels .TXT] 📗

millions, and lives as respectably and quietly as a grocer. He is devoted to his wife, adores his children, is lavishly hospitable, and seldom goes into society.”

“Then his wife is young?”

“She must be about fifty.”

Mme. Alexandre reflected a minute, then asked:

“Did you inquire about the other members of the family?”

“Certainly. The younger son is in the army. The elder son, Lucien, lives with his parents, and is as proper as a young lady; so good, indeed, that he is stupid.”

“And what about the niece?”

“Evariste could tell me nothing about her.”

Mme. Alexandre shrugged her fat shoulders.

“If you have discovered nothing, it is because there is nothing to be discovered. Still, do you know what I would do, if I were you?”

“Tell me.”

“I would consult with M. Lecoq.”

Fanferlot jumped up as if he had been shot.

“Now, that’s pretty advice! Do you want me to lose my place? M. Lecoq does not suspect that I have anything to do with the case, except to obey his orders.”

“Nobody told you to let him know you were investigating it on your own account. You can consult him with an air of indifference, as if you were not at all interested; and, after you have got his opinion, you can take advantage of it.”

The detective weighed his wife’s words, and then said:

“Perhaps you are right; yet M. Lecoq is so devilishly shrewd, that he might see through me.”

“Shrewd!” echoed Mme. Alexandre, “shrewd! All of you at the police office say that so often, that he has gained his reputation by it: you are just as sharp as he is.”

“Well, we will see. I will think the matter over; but, in the meantime, what does the girl say?”

The “girl” was Mme. Nina Gypsy.

In taking up her abode at the Archangel, the poor girl thought she was following good advice; and, as Fanferlot had never appeared in her presence since, she was still under the impression that she had obeyed a friend of Prosper’s. When she received her summons from M. Patrigent, she admired the wonderful skill of the police in discovering her hiding-place; for she had established herself at the hotel under a false, or rather her true name, Palmyre Chocareille.

Artfully questioned by her inquisitive landlady, she had, without any mistrust, confided her history to her.

Thus Fanferlot was able to impress the judge with the idea of his being a skilful detective, when he pretended to have discovered all this information from a variety of sources.

“She is still upstairs,” answered Mme. Alexandre. “She suspects nothing; but to keep her in her present ignorance becomes daily more difficult. I don’t know what the judge told her, but she came home quite beside herself with anger. She wanted to go and make a fuss at M. Fauvel’s; then she wrote a letter which she told Jean to post for her; but I kept it to show you.”

“What!” interrupted Fanferlot, “you have a letter, and did not tell me before? Perhaps it contains the clue to the mystery. Give it to me, quick.”

Obeying her husband, Mme. Alexandre opened a little cupboard, and took out a letter which she handed to him.

“Here, take it,” she said, “and be satisfied.”

Considering that she used to be a chambermaid, Palmyre Chocareille, since become Mme. Gypsy, wrote a good letter.

It bore the following address, written in a free, flowing hand:

For M. L. de Clameran,

Forge-Master, Hotel du Louvre.

To be handed to M. Raoul de Lagors.

(In great haste.)

“Oh, ho!” said Fanferlot, accompanying his exclamation with a little whistle, as was his habit when he thought he had made a grand discovery. “Oh, ho!”

“Do you intend to open it?” questioned Mme. Alexandre.

“A little bit,” said Fanferlot, as he dexterously opened the envelope.

Mme. Alexandre leaned over her husband’s shoulder, and they both read the following letter:

“Monsieur Raoul⁠—Prosper is in prison, accused of a robbery which he never committed. I wrote to you three days ago.”

“What!” interrupted Fanferlot, “this silly girl wrote, and I never saw the letter?”

“But, little man, she must have posted it herself, the day she went to the Palais de Justice.”

“Very likely,” said Fanferlot propitiated. He continued reading:

“I wrote to you three days ago, and have no reply. Who will help Prosper if his best friends desert him? If you don’t answer this letter, I shall consider myself released from a certain promise, and without scruple will tell Prosper of the conversation I overheard between you and M. de Clameran. But I can count on you, can I not? I shall expect you at the Archangel day after tomorrow, between twelve and four.

“Nina Gypsy”

The letter read, Fanferlot at once proceeded to copy it.

“Well!” said Mme. Alexandre, “what do you think?”

Fanferlot was delicately resealing the letter when the door of the hotel office was abruptly opened, and the boy twice whispered, “Pst! Pst!”

Fanferlot rapidly disappeared into a dark closet. He had barely time to close the door before Mme. Gypsy entered the room.

The poor girl was sadly changed. She was pale and hollow-cheeked, and her eyes were red with weeping.

On seeing her, Mme. Alexandre could not conceal her surprise.

“Why, my child, you are not going out?”

“I am obliged to do so, madame; and I come to ask you to tell anyone that may call during my absence to wait until I return.”

“But where in the world are you going at this hour, sick as you are?”

For a moment Mme. Gypsy hesitated.

“Oh,” she said, “you are so kind that I am tempted to confide in you; read this note which a messenger just now brought to me.”

“What!” cried Mme. Alexandre perfectly aghast: “a messenger enter my house, and go up to your room!”

“Is there anything surprising in that?”

“Oh, oh, no! nothing surprising.”

And in a tone loud enough to be heard in the closet she read the note:

“A friend of Prosper who can neither receive you, nor present himself at your house, is very anxious to speak to you. Be in the stage-office opposite the Saint Jacques tower, tonight at nine precisely, and the writer will approach, and tell you what he has to say.

“I have appointed this public place for the rendezvous so as