Part 2

“Put away those bank-bills,” said he to his wife, “and let Maxence take them back to M. de Thaller to-morrow.”

The bell rang violently.

“The police!” groaned Mme. Desclavettes, who seemed on the point of fainting away.

“I am going to negotiate,” said M. Desormeaux. “Fly, Vincent: do not lose a minute.”

And he ran to the front-door, whilst Mme. Favoral was hurrying her husband towards Mlle. Gilberte’s room.

Rapidly and stoutly Maxence had fastened four sheets together by the ends, which gave a more than sufficient length. Then, opening the window, he examined carefully the courtyard of the adjoining house.

“No one,” said he: “everybody is at dinner. We’ll succeed.”

M. Favoral was tottering like a drunken man. A terrible emotion convulsed his features. Casting a long look upon his wife and children:

“O Lord!” he murmured, “what will become of you?”

“Fear nothing, father,” uttered Maxence. “I am here. Neither my mother nor my sister will want for any thing.”

“My son!” resumed the cashier, “my children!”

Then, with a choking voice:

“I am worthy neither of your love nor your devotion, wretch that I am! I made you lead a miserable existence, spend a joyless youth. I imposed upon you every trial of poverty, whilst I--And now I leave you nothing but ruin and a dishonored name.”

“Make haste, father,” interrupted Mlle. Gilberte. It seemed as if he could not make up his mind.

“It is horrible to abandon you thus. What a parting! Ah! death would indeed be far preferable. What will you think of me? I am very guilty, certainly, but not as you think. I have been betrayed, and I must suffer for all. If at least you knew the whole truth. But will you ever know it? We will never see each other again.”

Desperately his wife clung to him.

“Do not speak thus,” she said. “Wherever you may find an asylum, I will join you. Death alone can separate us. What do I care what you may have done, or what the world will say? I am your wife. Our children will come with me. If necessary, we will emigrate to America; we’ll change our name; we will work.”

The knocks on the outer door were becoming louder and louder; and M. Desormeaux’ voice could be heard, endeavoring to gain a few moments more.

“Come,” said Maxence, “you cannot hesitate any longer.”

And, overcoming his father’s reluctance, he fastened one end of the sheets around his waist.

“I am going to let you down, father,” said he; “and, as soon as you touch the ground, you must undo the knot. Take care of the first-story windows; beware of the concierge; and, once in the street, don’t walk too fast. Make for the Boulevard, where you will be sooner lost in the crowd.”

The knocks had now become violent blows; and it was evident that the door would soon be broken in, if M. Desormeaux did not make up his mind to open it.

The light was put out. With the assistance of his daughter, M. Favoral lifted himself upon the window-sill, whilst Maxence held the sheets with both hands.

“I beseech you, Vincent,” repeated Mme. Favoral, “write to us. We shall be in mortal anxiety until we hear of your safety.”

Maxence let the sheets slip slowly: in two seconds M. Favoral stood on the pavement below.

“All right,” he said.

The young man drew the sheets back rapidly, and threw them under the bed. But Mlle. Gilberte remained long enough at the window to recognize her father’s voice asking the concierge to open the door, and to hear the heavy gate of the adjoining house closing behind him.

“Saved!” she said.

It was none too soon. M. Desormeaux had just been compelled to yield; and the commissary of police was walking in.

IV

The commissaries of police of Paris, as a general thing, are no simpletons; and, if they are ever taken in, it is because it has suited them to be taken in.

Their modest title covers the most important, perhaps, of magistracies, almost the only one known to the lower classes; an enormous power, and an influence so decisive, that the most sensible statesman of the reign of Louis Philippe ventured once to say, “Give me twenty good commissaries of police in Paris, and I’ll undertake to suppress any government: net profit, one hundred millions.”

Parisian above all, the commissary has had ample time to study his ground when he was yet only a peace-officer. The dark side of the most brilliant lives has no mysteries for him. He has received the strangest confidences: he has listened to the most astounding confessions. He knows how low humanity can stoop, and what aberrations there are in brains apparently the soundest. The work woman whom her husband beats, and the great lady whom her husband cheats, have both come to him. He has been sent for by the shop-keeper whom his wife deceives, and by the millionaire who has been blackmailed. To his office, as to a lay confessional, all passions fatally lead. In his presence the dirty linen of two millions of people is washed _en famille_.

A Paris commissary of police, who after ten years’ practice, could retain an illusion, believe in something, or be astonished at any thing in the world, would be but a fool. If he is still capable of some emotion, he is a good man.

The one who had just walked into M. Favoral’s apartment was already past middle age, colder than ice, and yet kindly, but of that commonplace kindliness which frightens like the executioner’s politeness at the scaffold.

He required but a single glance of his small but clear eyes to decipher the physiognomies of all these worthy people standing around the disordered table. And beckoning to the agents who accompanied him to stop at the door,--“Monsieur Vincent Favoral?” he inquired. The cashier’s guests, M. Desormeaux excepted, seemed stricken with stupor. Each one felt as if he had a share of the disgrace of this police invasion. The dupes who are sometimes caught in clandestine “hells” have the same humiliated attitudes.

At last, and not without an effort,

“M. Favoral is no longer here,” replied M. Chapelain, the old lawyer.

The commissary of police started. Whilst they were discussing with him through the door, he had perfectly well understood that they were only trying to gain time; and, if he had not at once burst in the door, it was solely owing to his respect for M. Desormeaux himself, whom he knew personally, and still more for his title of head clerk at the Department of Justice. But his suspicions did not extend beyond the destruction of a few compromising papers. Whereas, in fact:

“You have helped M. Favoral to escape, gentlemen?” said he.

No one replied.

“Silence means assent,” he added. “Very well: which way did he get off?”

Still no answer. M. Desclavettes would have been glad to add something to the forty-five thousand francs he had just lost, to be, together with Mme. Desclavettes, a hundred miles away.

“Where is Mme. Favoral?” resumed the commissary, evidently well informed. “Where are Mlle. Gilberte and M. Maxence Favoral?”

They continued silent. No one in the dining-room knew what might have taken place in the other room; and a single word might be treason.

The commissary then became impatient.

“Take up a light,” said he to one of the agents who had remained at the door, “and follow me. We shall see.”

And without a shadow of hesitation, for it seems to be the privilege of police-agents to be at home everywhere, he crossed the parlor, and reached Mlle. Gilberte’s room just as she was withdrawing from the window.

“Ah, it is that way he escaped!” he exclaimed.

He rushed to the window, and remained long enough leaning on his elbows to thoroughly examine the ground, and understand the situation of the apartment.

“It’s evident,” he said at last, “this window opens on the courtyard of the next house.”

This was said to one of his agents, who bore an unmistakable resemblance to the servant who had been asking so many questions in the afternoon.

“Instead of gathering so much useless information,” he added, “why did you not post yourself as to the outlets of the house?”

He was “sold”; and yet he manifested neither spite nor anger. He seemed in no wise anxious to run after the fugitive. Upon the features of Maxence and of Mlle. Gilberte, and more still in Mme. Favoral’s eyes, he had read that it would be useless for the present.

“Let us examine the papers, then,” said he.

“My husband’s papers are all in his study,” replied Mme. Favoral.

“Please lead me to it, madame.”

The room which M. Favoral called loftily his study was a small room with a tile floor, white-washed walls, and meanly lighted through a narrow transom.

It was furnished with an old desk, a small wardrobe with grated door, a few shelves upon which were piled some bandboxes and bundles of old newspapers, and two or three deal chairs.

“Where are the keys?” inquired the commissary of police.

“My father always carries them in his pocket, sir,” replied Maxence.

“Then let some one go for a locksmith.” Stronger than fear, curiosity had drawn all the guests of the cashier of the Mutual Credit Society, M. Desormeaux, M. Chapelain, M. Desclavettes himself; and, standing within the door-frame, they followed eagerly every motion of the commissary, who, pending the arrival of the locksmith, was making a flying examination of the bundles of papers left exposed upon the desk.

After a while, and unable to hold in any longer:

“Would it be indiscreet,” timidly inquired the old bronze-merchant, “to ask the nature of the charges against that poor Favoral?”

“Embezzlement, sir.”

“And is the amount large?”

“Had it been small, I should have said theft. Embezzling commences only when the sum has reached a round figure.”

Annoyed at the sardonic tone of the commissary:

“The fact is,” resumed M. Chapelain, “Favoral was our friend; and, if we could get him out of the scrape, we would all willingly contribute.”

“It’s a matter of ten or twelve millions, gentlemen.” Was it possible? Was it even likely? Could any one imagine so many millions slipping through the fingers of M. de Thaller’s methodic cashier?

“Ah, sir!” exclaimed Mme. Favoral, “if any thing could relieve my feelings, the enormity of that sum would. My husband was a man of simple and modest tastes.”

The commissary shook his head.

“There are certain passions,” he interrupted, “which nothing betrays externally. Gambling is more terrible than fire. After a fire, some charred remnants are found. What is there left after a lost game? Fortunes may be thrown into the vortex of the bourse, without a trace of them being left.”

The unfortunate woman was not convinced.

“I could swear, sir,” she protested, “that I knew how my husband spent every hour of his life.”

“Do not swear, madame.”

“All our friends will tell you how parsimonious my husband was.”

“Here, madame, towards yourself and your children, I have no doubt; for seeing is believing: but elsewhere--”

He was interrupted by the arrival of the locksmith, who, in less than five minutes, had picked all the locks of the old desk.

But in vain did the commissary search all the drawers. He found only those useless papers which are made relics of by people who have made order their religious faith,--uninteresting letters, grocers’ and butchers’ bills running back twenty years.

“It is a waste of time to look for any thing here,” he growled.

And in fact he was about to give up his perquisitions, when a bundle thinner than the rest attracted his attention. He cut the thread that bound it; and almost at once:

“I knew I was right,” he said. And holding out a paper to Mme. Favoral:

“Read, madame, if you please.”

It was a bill. She read thus:

“Sold to M. Favoral an India Cashmere, fr. 8,500. Received payment, FORBE & TOWLER.”

“Is it for you, madame,” asked the commissary, “that this magnificent shawl was bought?”

Stupefied with astonishment, the poor woman still refused to admit the evidence.

“Madame de Thaller spends a great deal,” she stammered. “My husband often made important purchases for her account.”

“Often, indeed!” interrupted the commissary of police; “for here are many other receipted bills,--earrings, sixteen thousand francs; a bracelet, three thousand francs; a parlor set, a horse, two velvet dresses. Here is a part, at least, if not the whole, of the ten millions.”

V

Had the commissary received any information in advance? or was he guided only by the scent peculiar to men of his profession, and the habit of suspecting every thing, even that which seems most unlikely?

At any rate he expressed himself in a tone of absolute certainty.

The agents who had accompanied and assisted him in his researches were winking at each other, and giggling stupidly. The situation struck them as rather pleasant.

The others, M. Desclavettes, M. Chapelain, and the worthy M. Desormeaux himself, could have racked their brains in vain to find terms wherein to express the immensity of their astonishments. Vincent Favoral, their old friend, paying for cashmeres, diamonds, and parlor sets! Such an idea could not enter in their minds. For whom could such princely gifts be intended? For a mistress, for one of those redoubtable creatures whom fancy represents crouching in the depths of love, like monsters at the bottom of their caves!

But how could any one imagine the methodic cashier of the Mutual Credit Society carried away by one of those insane passions which knew no reason? Ruined by gambling, perhaps, but by a woman!

Could any one picture him, so homely and so plain here, Rue St. Gilles, at the head of another establishment, and leading elsewhere in one of the brilliant quarters of Paris, a reckless life, such as strike terror in the bosom of quiet families?

Could any one understand the same man at once miserly-economical and madly-prodigal, storming when his wife spent a few cents, and robbing to supply the expenses of an adventuress, and collecting in the same drawer the jeweler’s accounts and the butcher’s bills?

“It is the climax of absurdity,” murmured good M. Desormeaux.

Maxence fairly shook with wrath. Mlle. Gilberte was weeping.

Mme. Favoral alone, usually so timid, boldly defended, and with her utmost energy, the man whose name she bore. That he might have embezzled millions, she admitted: that he had deceived and betrayed her so shamefully, that he had made a wretched dupe of her for so many years, seemed to her insensate, monstrous, impossible.

And purple with shame:

“Your suspicions would vanish at once, sir,” she said to the commissary, “if I could but explain to you our mode of life.”

Encouraged by his first discovery, he was proceeding more minutely with his perquisitions, undoing the strings of every bundle.

“It is useless, madame,” he answered in that brief tone which made so much impression upon M. Desclavettes. “You can only tell me what you know; and you know nothing.”

“Never, sir, did a man lead a more regular life than M. Favoral.”

“In appearance, you are right. Besides, to regulate one’s disorder is one of the peculiarities of our time. We open credits to our passions, and we keep account of our infamies by double entry. We operate with method. We embezzle millions that we may hang diamonds to the ears of an adventuress; but we are careful, and we keep the receipted bills.”

“But, sir, I have already told you that I never lost sight of my husband.”

“Of course.”

“Every morning, precisely at nine o’clock, he left home to go to M. de Thaller’s office.”

“The whole neighborhood knows that, madame.”

“At half-past five he came home.”

“That, also, is a well-known fact.”

“After dinner he went out to play a game, but it was his only amusement; and at eleven o’clock he was always in bed.”

“Perfectly correct.”

“Well, then, sir, where could M. Favoral have found time to abandon himself to the excesses of which you accuse him?”

Imperceptibly the commissary of police shrugged his shoulders.

“Far from me, madame,” he uttered, “to doubt your good faith. What matters it, moreover, whether your husband spent in this way or in that way the sums which he is charged with having appropriated? But what do your objections prove? Simply that M. Favoral was very skillful, and very much self-possessed. Had he breakfasted when he left you at nine? No. Pray, then, where did he breakfast? In a restaurant? Which? Why did he come home only at half-past five, when his office actually closed at three o’clock? Are you quite sure that it was to the Cafe Turc that he went every evening? Finally, why do not you say anything of the extra work which he always had to attend to, as he pretended, once or twice a month? Sometimes it was a loan, sometimes a liquidation, or a settlement of dividends, which devolved upon him. Did he come home then? No. He told you that he would dine out, and that it would be more convenient for him to have a cot put up in his office; and thus you were twenty-four or forty-eight hours without seeing him. Surely this double existence must have weighed heavily upon him; but he was forbidden from breaking off with you, under penalty of being caught the very next day with his hand in the till. It is the respectability of his official life here which made the other possible,--that which has absorbed such enormous sums. The harsher and the closer he were here, the more magnificent he could show himself elsewhere. His household in the Rue St. Gilles was for him a certificate of impunity. Seeing him so economical, every one thought him rich. People who seem to spend nothing are always trusted. Every privation which he imposed upon you increased his reputation of austere probity, and raised him farther above suspicion.”

Big tears were rolling down Mme. Favoral’s cheeks.

“Why not tell me the whole truth?” she stammered.

“Because I do not know it,” replied the commissary; “because these are all mere presumptions. I have seen so many instances of similar calculations!”

Then regretting, perhaps, to have said so much,

“But I may be mistaken,” he added: “I do not pretend to be infallible.” He was just then completing a brief inventory of all the papers found in the old desk. There was nothing left but to examine the drawer which was used for a cash drawer. He found in it in gold, notes, and small change, seven hundred and eighteen francs.

Having counted this sum, the commissary offered it to Mme. Favoral, saying,

“This belongs to you madame.”

But instinctively she withdrew her hand.

“Never!” she said.

The commissary went on with a gesture of kindness,--“I understand your scruples, madame, and yet I must insist. You may believe me when I tell you that this little sum is fairly and legitimately yours. You have no personal fortune.”

The efforts of the poor woman to keep from bursting into loud sobs were but too visible.

“I possess nothing in the world, sir,” she said in a broken voice. “My husband alone attended to our business-affairs. He never spoke to me about them; and I would not have dared to question him. Alone he disposed of our money. Every Sunday he handed me the amount which he thought necessary for the expenses of the week, and I rendered him an account of it. When my children or myself were in need of any thing, I told him so, and he gave me what he thought proper. This is Saturday: of what I received last Sunday I have five francs left: that, is our whole fortune.”

Positively the commissary was moved.

“You see, then, madame,” he said, “that you cannot hesitate: you must live.”

Maxence stepped forward.

“Am I not here, sir?” he said.

The commissary looked at him keenly, and in a grave tone,

“I believe indeed, sir,” he replied, “that you will not suffer your mother and sister to want for any thing. But resources are not created in a day. Yours, if I have not been deceived, are more than limited just now.”

And as the young man blushed, and did not answer, he handed the seven hundred francs to Mlle. Gilberte, saying,

“Take this, mademoiselle: your mother permits it.” His work was done. To place his seals upon M. Favoral’s study was the work of a moment.

Beckoning, then, to his agents to withdraw, and being ready to leave himself,

“Let not the seals cause you any uneasiness, madame,” said the commissary of police to Mme. Favoral. “Before forty-eight hours, some one will come to remove these papers, and restore to you the free use of that room.”

He went out; and, as soon as the door had closed behind him,

“Well?” exclaimed M. Desormeaux;

But no one had any thing to say. The guests of that house where misfortune had just entered were making haste to leave. The catastrophe was certainly terrible and unforeseen; but did it not reach them too? Did they not lose among them more than three hundred thousand francs?

Thus, after a few commonplace protestations, and some of those promises which mean nothing, they withdrew; and, as they were going down the stairs,

“The commissary took Vincent’s escape too easy,” remarked M. Desormeaux. “He must know some way to catch him again.”

VI

At last Mme. Favoral found herself alone with her children and free to give herself up to the most frightful despair.

She dropped heavily upon a seat; and, drawing to her bosom Maxence and Gilberte,

“O my children!” she sobbed, covering them with her kisses and her tears,--“my children, we are most unfortunate.”

Not less distressed than herself, they strove, nevertheless, to mitigate her anguish, to inspire her with sufficient courage to bear this crushing trial; and kneeling at her feet, and kissing her hands,

“Are we not with you still, mother?” they kept repeating.

But she seemed not to hear them.

“It is not for myself that I weep,” she went on. “I! what had I still to wait or hope for in life? Whilst you, Maxence, you, my poor Gilberte!--If, at least, I could feel myself free from blame! But no. It is my weakness and my want of courage that have brought on this catastrophe. I shrank from the struggle. I purchased my domestic peace at the cost of your future in the world. I forgot that a mother has sacred duties towards her children.”

Mme. Favoral was at this time a woman of some forty-three years, with delicate and mild features, a countenance overflowing with kindness, and whose whole being exhaled, as it were, an exquisite perfume of _noblesse_ and distinction.

Happy, she might have been beautiful still,--of that autumnal beauty whose maturity has the splendors of the luscious fruits of the later season.

But she had suffered so much! The livid paleness of her complexion, the rigid fold of her lips, the nervous shudders that shook her frame, revealed a whole existence of bitter deceptions, of exhausting struggles, and of proudly concealed humiliations.

And yet every thing seemed to smile upon her at the outset of life.

She was an only daughter; and her parents, wealthy silk-merchants, had brought her up like the daughter of an archduchess desired to marry some sovereign prince.

But at fifteen she had lost her mother. Her father, soon tired of his lonely fireside, commenced to seek away from home some diversion from his sorrow.