Part 19

"Well, let him run; we will catch him fast enough!" coldly replied M. Tricamp. "I claim that it is necessary to study the nature of the game in order to run it down. Now, all robberies differ more or less and it is rarely that murders are committed in the same manner. For instance, two servant girls were accused of stealing their mistress's shawl. I discovered the criminal at the first glance. The thief had the choice of two cashmeres: one was blue and the other white; now, she stole the blue one. One of the servants was a blonde and the other had red hair. I was confident that the blonde was guilty--the red-headed girl would never have selected the blue shawl on account of the combination."

"Wonderful!" remarked Cornelius.

"Then hurry up and tell me the name of the thief, for patience is wellnigh exhausted."

"I can't do this at the start, but I claim that this is the criminal's first robbery. You will no doubt not credit this assertion, as you will probably say to yourself that it shows the workmanship of an old hand; but any child could loosen a bit of dried-up wall paper. I will say nothing regarding your portfolio, or your broken secrétaire, for that plainly bears the imprint of a novice's hand."

"Then you are sure it is the work of a novice?" interrupted Cornelius.

"Undoubtedly. I will add that he is a clumsy greenhorn. An out-and-out thief would never have left your room in such disorder; he would take more pride in his workmanship. Furthermore, the criminal is neither very strong nor very tall, otherwise he could have drawn himself up there without the aid of that knife and bit of wire."

"But it must have required considerable strength to demolish that desk in that fashion."

"Not at all; a child, or even a woman--"

"A woman?" exclaimed Balthazar.

"Since I first set my foot in this room, such has been my impression."

Balthazar and Cornelius looked at one another, in doubt as to whom he could possibly suspect.

"Now then, to sum up: it is a young woman; she must be young or she would not climb so well--petite, since she needed a wire to pull herself up with. Then, again, she must be familiar with your habits, for she took advantage of your absence to commit the felony, and she went direct to the drawer in which you kept your money, as she apparently did not bother her head about the others. In a word, if you have a young housekeeper or servant you need look no further, for she is the guilty one!"

"Christina!" exclaimed the young men in one breath.

"Ah! so there is a Christina about the premises!" remarked M. Tricamp smilingly. "Well, then, Christina is guilty!"

VI

Both Cornelius and Balthazar were pale as death. Christina! Little Christina, so good, so kind, so pretty, a thief--nonsense! And then they remembered her origin and the manner in which she was adopted. She was only a Bohemian after all! Balthazar dropped into a chair as if he had been shot, and Cornelius felt as if his heart had just been seared with a red-hot iron.

"Will you kindly send for this person?" suddenly remarked M. Tricamp, awakening them from their reverie. "Or, better still, let us visit her room."

"Her room--her room," faltered Balthazar; "why, there it is," and he pointed to the adjoining apartment.

"And it took all this time for you to make up your mind who had committed the theft!" said the sergeant with a sneer.

"But," ventured Cornelius, "she certainly must have heard us."

Tricamp picked up the lamp and, pushing open the door of the adjoining room, entered, followed by the young men. The room was empty! Simultaneously they exclaimed: "She has escaped!"

M. Tricamp felt under the mattress to see whether he could find any of the stolen property. "She has not even slept on the bed to-night," he said, after carefully inspecting the couch.

At the same moment they heard the sound of struggling outside, and the officer who had been left on guard downstairs entered the room, pushing Christina before him. The poor girl appeared more surprised than afraid.

"This young woman was attempting to escape, Mijnheer; I arrested her just as she was drawing the bolts of the back door," said the officer.

Christina looked around her with such an air of innocence that no one believed in her guilt, excepting, of course, M. Tricamp.

"But do tell me what this all means?" asked she of the officer, who locked the door after her. "Why don't you tell them who I am?" she continued, addressing Balthazar.

"Where have you been?" he demanded.

"I have been upstairs with old Gudule, who, you know, is afraid of the lightning. As I was very tired, I fell asleep in the armchair in her room. When I awoke I looked out of the window, and as the storm had ceased I came downstairs with the intention of going to bed; but I first desired to assure myself that you had bolted the door, and it was at that moment that this gentleman placed his hand on my shoulder and informed me that I was under arrest. And, I assure you, he has given me a good fright--"

"You lie!" coarsely interrupted M. Tricamp. "You were just going out when my man arrested you; and I will add that you did not go to bed, so as to avoid the trouble of dressing when the moment arrived for you to make your escape."

Christina looked a him in astonishment. "Escape? What escape?" she asked.

"Ah!" muttered M. Tricamp. "What nerve, what deceit!"

"Come here," said Balthazar, who knew not what to believe, "and I will tell you what it all means!"

He took the young girl by the arm and dragged her into the adjoining room.

"My God!" exclaimed the young woman, as she crossed the threshold and perceived the scene of devastation for the first time; "who could have done this?"

Her surprise seemed to be so sincere that Balthazar hesitated for a moment, but M. Tricamp was not so easily affected; he dragged Christina by the arm up to the secrétaire and exclaimed:

"You did it!"

"I!" cried out Christina, who did not as yet realize what it all meant.

She looked at Balthazar as if to read his thoughts, then she cast a glance at the drawer of the secrétaire, and seeing that it was empty, she realized at last the terrible meaning of their accusation. With a heartrending cry, she exclaimed:

"My God! And you say I have done this!"

But no one had the courage to answer her. Christina advanced a step closer to Balthazar, but he only lowered his eyes at her approach. Suddenly she raised her hand to her heart, as if she were suffocating--she attempted to speak--she tried to pronounce two or three words, but all she could say was:

"A thief! They say I am a thief!" and she fell backward on the floor as if dead! Cornelius precipitated himself toward her and raised her gently in his arms.

"No!" he cried; "no! it is impossible! This child is innocent!"

Then he carried the young girl into her room and laid her on the bed. Balthazar followed him, and it was easy to see that he was deeply affected. M. Tricamp, still smiling, entered immediately after them, but one of his officers motioned to him that he had something to communicate to him.

"Mijnheer, we already have obtained some information regarding this young woman."

"Well, and what do you know?"

"The baker across the way says that a little while before the storm he saw Mademoiselle Christina at the window of the ground floor. She slipped a package to a man who was standing outside; this man wore a long cloak and a slouch hat--"

"A package, eh?" muttered M. Tricamp; "excellent! Now, secure the witness and keep a sharp watch outside. In the first place, go and send the cook to me at once."

The officer withdrew, and M. Tricamp entered Christina's room.

The young woman was stretched out on the bed in a dead faint, and Cornelius was rubbing her hands. Without stopping to notice the condition of the girl, he proceeded with his examination of the premises. He started in with the bureau and overhauled all the drawers. Then he approached Balthazar with a smile of satisfaction on his face.

"After all, what proof is there that this young girl is guilty?" asked the latter as he gazed tenderly upon the unconscious woman.

"Why, this!" answered M. Tricamp, as he handed Balthazar one of the missing pearls.

"Where did you find this?"

"There," and he pointed to the top drawer of Christina's bureau.

Balthazar rushed up to the drawer and began to overhaul all of the young girl's effects, but his search did not result in his finding any more of the stolen jewels.

At this moment Christina opened her eyes, and looking around her as if to recall the situation, burst into tears as she buried her face in the pillow.

"Oh, ho!" ejaculated M. Tricamp, "tears, eh? She is going to confess"; and as he leaned over her, he added in his sweetest voice: "Come, my child, return good for evil and confess the truth. Confession is good for the soul. After all, we are not all perfect. Now, I suppose you permitted yourself to be led astray, or you allowed yourself to succumb to a passion for finery. You wanted to make yourself look pretty, eh, my dear, to please some one you love?"

"What an idea, Mijnheer!" interrupted Cornelius.

"Hush, young man! I know what I am talking about. This woman has an accomplice as sure as my name is Tricamp;" and leaning over Christina, he continued: "Am I not right, my dear?"

"Oh, why don't you kill me, instead of torturing me thus!" cried Christina with a fresh outburst of tears.

This was so unexpected that M. Tricamp started back in surprise.

"Kindly leave us alone with the girl, Mijnheer; your presence irritates her," remarked Balthazar. "If she has anything to confess she will do so to my friend and me."

M. Tricamp bowed himself out of the room.

"Oh, just as you please," he replied, "but be very careful; she is a clever minx."

VII

Cornelius almost closed the door in the sergeant's face; then the two young men approached Christina, who had assumed a sitting posture, and was staring before her into space.

"Come, my child," said Balthazar, as he held out his hand; "we are now alone; you are with friends, so you need not be afraid."

"I don't want to stay here! I want to go away! Oh, let me--let me go!"

"No, Christina, you can not leave here until you answer us," said Cornelius.

"Tell us the truth, I beg of you, Christina," added Balthazar, "and I promise you no harm will come to you--I swear it on my honor. I will forgive you, and no one will ever know of this--I swear it, Christina, I swear it before God!--don't you hear me, my child?"

"Yes!" answered Christina, who did not appear to be listening. "Oh, if I could only cry--if I could only cry!"

Cornelius seized the young girl's burning hands in his. "Christina, my child, God forgives us all, and we love you too much not to pardon you. Listen to me, I beg of you. Don't you recognize me?"

"Yes," said Christina, as her eyes filled with tears.

"Well, then, I love you, do you hear?--I love you with all my heart!"

"Oh!" said the young girl as she burst into tears; "and yet you believe that I am a thief!"

"No, no!" hastily exclaimed Cornelius, "I do not believe it, I do not believe it! But, my dear child, you must help me to justify you, you must assist me to discover the criminal, and to do this you must be frank and tell me everything."

"Yes, you are good, you alone are kind to me. You pity me and do not believe what they say! They accuse me because I am a Bohemian--because I stole when I was a child. And they call me _a thief!--a thief!_ They call me _a thief!_--"

And she fell backward on the bed, sobbing as if her heart would burst.

Balthazar could stand this no longer: he fell upon his knees by the side of the bed, and exclaimed in a voice of pity, as if he himself was the accused instead of the accuser:

"Christina, my sister, my child, my daughter--look at me! I am on my knees before you! I ask your forgiveness for the wrong I have done you. No one will say anything, no one will do anything; it is all over!--do you hear? I hope you do not wish to repay all the kindness my mother and I have shown you by making me suffer all the tortures of the damned! Well, then, I beg you to tell me what has become of my little medallion--(I do not ask you where it is, you understand?--I do not wish to know that, for I do not suspect you). But if you do know where it is, I beg of you to help me find it. I implore you by the love you bore my mother, whom you called your own, I implore you to find it--this is all I want. My future happiness depends on the recovery of this jewel--give me back my medallion--please give me back my medallion."

"Oh!" answered Christina in despair, "I would give my life to be able to tell you where it is!"

"Christina!"

"But I haven't got it; I haven't got it!" she cried, wringing her hands.

Balthazar, exasperated, sprang to his feet: "But, wretched woman--"

Cornelius silenced him with a gesture, and Christina raised her hands to her forehead.

"Ah!" she said, as she burst into a loud laugh, "when I am mad, this farce will be ended, I suppose?"

And, overcome with emotion, she fell backward, hiding her face in the pillow as if determined not to utter another word.

VIII

Cornelius dragged Balthazar out of the room; he staggered as though he had been shot. In the other room they found M. Tricamp, who had not been wasting his time. He had been cross-examining the old cook, Gudule, who, most unceremoniously aroused by one of the officers, was still half asleep.

"Come, come, my good woman," remarked M. Tricamp, "control yourself, if you please!"

"Oh, my good master, my good master!" she exclaimed as Balthazar entered the room accompanied by Cornelius. "What's the matter? They dragged me out of bed, and they are asking me all kinds of questions! For mercy's sake, tell me what it is all about!"

"Don't be alarmed, my good woman," said Balthazar kindly; "you have nothing to do with all this. But I have been robbed and we are looking for the thief."

"You have been robbed?"

"Yes."

"My God! I have lived in this house for over thirty years, and not as much as a pin was ever stolen before! Oh, Mijnheer, why didn't they wait until I was dead before they began their thieving!"

"Come, come, don't give way like that, my good woman," said M. Tricamp.

"You will have to speak a little louder, Mijnheer; the woman is deaf," remarked Balthazar.

"Now, I want to know whether you were in the house when the robbery was committed?" continued M. Tricamp, raising his voice.

"But I never go out at all, Mijnheer."

"Didn't you go out at all this evening?"

"I wasn't outside the house; besides, it was very stormy, and at my age one doesn't venture out in a blinding rainstorm for fun."

"Then you were in your room?"

"No, Mijnheer, I was in the kitchen most of the day, knitting by the stove."

"And you never left the kitchen for a moment?"

"Not for a minute--until I went upstairs to bed."

"Is your eyesight good?"

"Mijnheer?" questioned Gudule, not having heard aright.

"I asked you if you had good eyes," repeated M. Tricamp.

"Oh! I can see all right, even if I am a little bit hard of hearing. And I have a good memory, too--"

"So you have a good memory, eh? Then tell me who called here to-day."

"Oh, there was the postman; and a neighbor who called to borrow a pie-plate--and Petersen who came to ask something of Christina."

"Indeed! And who is this Petersen?"

"A neighbor, Mijnheer; a night-watchman; my master knows him well."

"Yes," said Balthazar, addressing the sergeant, "he is a poor devil who lost his wife a month ago, and his two little children are both sick. We help the poor fellow from time to time."

"And this Petersen was in the house to-day?"

"No, Mijnheer," replied Gudule; "he only spoke to Christina from the sidewalk."

"And what did he tell her?"

"I did not hear, Mijnheer."

"And did no one else call after him?"

Gudule asked him to repeat the question, then she replied:

"No one at all."

"And where was Christina while you were knitting?"

"Why, the dear child was looking after the cooking for me, as I was too tired to move from my chair. She is so kind and obliging!"

"But she wasn't in the kitchen all the time?"

"No, Mijnheer, she retired to her own room toward evening."

"So you say she retired to her own room toward evening?"

"Yes, Mijnheer, to dress for supper."

"And--did she remain in her room a long time?"

"About an hour, Mijnheer."

"An hour?"

"Yes, fully an hour, Mijnheer."

"And you heard nothing during all this time?"

"I beg your pardon--"

"I asked you if you heard any noise--for instance, the sound of some one hammering wood?"

"No, Mijnheer."

"Yes, gentlemen, she is as deaf as a door-post," said M. Tricamp, turning toward the young men. Then he approached Gudule, and raising his voice he added:

"I suppose the storm was at its height at this time?"

"Oh, yes, Mijnheer; I could hear the thunder plain enough."

"She has no doubt confounded the noise made by the thief, in breaking in, with the roar of the elements," he muttered to himself. "And then?" he asked of Gudule in a louder voice.

"And then, Mijnheer, night had fallen and the storm raged furiously; master had not returned. I was terribly frightened. I got down on my knees and said my prayers. Just then Christina came down from her room; she was as white as a ghost, and was trembling all over. Then the thunder burst overhead and deafened me--"

"Ah! then you noticed that she was nervous?"

"Certainly! And so was I; the storm frightened me almost to death. Shortly after this, master knocked at the door, and Christina let him in. Now, Mijnheer, this is all I know, as sure as I am an honest woman."

"Don't cry, my good woman! I tell you that no one suspects you."

"But then, master, whom do they suspect? Merciful Father!" she exclaimed, as the truth flashed upon her. "Then they accuse Christina?"

No one answered her.

"Ah!" continued the old woman, "you do not answer me! Master, is this true?"

"My poor Gudule!"

"And you let them accuse little Christina!" continued the old woman, who would not be silenced. "That angel of kindness and loveliness sent to us from Heaven!"

"Come, come, if it is not you it must be she," brutally interrupted Tricamp.

"Oh, why don't they blame me? I am an old woman and have not long to live; but this child is innocent and I won't let them touch a hair of her head! Ah, Mijnheer Balthazar, do not let them touch Christina, she is a sacred trust. Don't listen to that bad man--he is the cause of all this trouble!"

M. Tricamp made a sign to his men, and they seized the old woman by the arm. Gudule advanced a few steps, then fell on her knees near the fireplace, weeping and bemoaning her fate. M. Tricamp then ordered his men not to disturb the woman as she knelt there offering up a prayer to Heaven that Christina should not suffer for a crime committed by another.

IX

"You see," remarked the agent of police, turning toward Cornelius, "that no one has called here whom we might have cause to suspect--neither the postman, the neighbor, or that fellow Petersen. It therefore remains between the old woman and the young girl; and, as I do not believe the old one is sufficiently active to perform gymnastics, I beg you to draw your own conclusions."

"Oh, do not ask me to form an opinion; I really do not know what to think; it seems as if it were all a frightful nightmare!"

"I don't know whether it is a dream, but it strikes me that I am pretty wide awake, and that I reason remarkably well."

"Yes, yes," said Cornelius, pacing nervously up and down the room, "you reason remarkably well!"

"And my suppositions are logical enough."

"Yes, yes, very logical."

"And so far I have not made a single error. Therefore, you must admit that the young girl is guilty."

"Well, then, no!" eagerly replied Cornelius, looking the sergeant square in the face. "No! I will never believe her guilty, unless she says so herself! And God knows--she might declare that she is guilty, and yet I would protest that she is innocent!"

"But," objected the sergeant, "what proofs can you produce? I, at least, have proven the truth of my assertions."

"Ah! I know nothing, I can prove nothing," replied Cornelius, "and everything you have said, every proof you have produced, is not to be disputed--"

"Well, then?"

"But my conscience revolts against your assertions nevertheless, and something seems to cry out: 'No, no; her dear face, her despair, her agony, are not those of a guilty wretch, and I swear that she is innocent! I can't prove it--but still I am sure of it, and I will assert it in the face of the most damaging evidence!' Oh, do not listen to her accusers! They will lie away the future of a noble girl! Their logic is born of earthly evidence--mine comes direct from Heaven, and is therefore true!"

"Then--"

"Do not heed them," continued Cornelius, whose excitement was now tense; "and remember that when your pride is ready to dispute the existence of a God something within you cries out to affirm _that He does exist_! And now, since this voice proclaims the innocence of the girl, how could I suspect her?"

"If the police reasoned like that, criminals would have an easy time of it."

"Oh, I will not attempt to convince you," added Cornelius; "continue your work! Go on with your search for evidence, and pile your proofs one upon the other in your efforts to crush this unfortunate child. On the other hand, I will begin my search to discover the proofs of her innocence!"

"Then I would advise you not to include this among the latter."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean that I found this black pearl--"

"Where?"

"In her bureau drawer."

"Yes, my friend," interrupted Balthazar, "he found it in my presence in her drawer."