Part 1

A CAPILLARY CRIME

AND OTHER STORIES

BY

F. D. MILLET

ILLUSTRATED

NEW YORK HARPER & BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS 1892

Copyright, 1892, by HARPER & BROTHERS.

_All rights reserved._

CONTENTS.

PAGE

A CAPILLARY CRIME 3

A FADED SCAPULAR 53

YATIL 87

TEDESCO’S RUBINA 129

MEDUSA’S HEAD 165

THE FOURTH WAITS 191

THE BUSH 269

A CAPILLARY CRIME

Near the summit of the hill in the Quartier Montmartre, Paris, is a little street in which the grass grows between the paving-stones, as in the avenues of some dead old Italian city. Tall buildings border it for about one third its length, and the walls of tiny gardens, belonging to houses on adjacent streets, occupy the rest of its extent. It is a populous thoroughfare, but no wheels pass through it, for the very good reason that near the upper end it suddenly takes a short turn, and shoots up the hill at an incline too steep for a horse to climb. The regular morning refuse cart, and on rare occasions a public carriage, venture a short distance into the lower part of the street, and even these, on wet, slippery days, do not pass the door of the first house. Scarcely two minutes’ walk from the busy exterior boulevards, this little corner of the great city is as quiet as a village nearly all day long. Early in the morning the sidewalks clatter with the shoes of workmen hurrying down to their work, children scamper along playing hide-and-seek in the doorways on their way to school, and then follows a long silence, broken only by the glazier with his shrill cry, “Vi-i-i-tri-er!” or the farmer with his “À la crème, fromage à la crème!” In the late summer afternoons the women bring their babies out and sit on the doorsteps, as the Italians do, gossiping across the street, and watching the urchins pitch sous against the curb-stone, or draw schoolboy hieroglyphics on the garden walls. There is a musical quiet in this little street. Birds sing merrily in the stunted trees of the shady gardens, the familiar calls of hens and chickens and the shrill crows of the cock come from every enclosure, and all the while is heard the deep and continuous note of the rumble of the city down below. At night the street is lighted by two lanterns swung on ropes between opposite houses; and the flickering, dim light, sending uncertain shadows upon the blank walls and the towering façades, gives the place a weird and fantastic aspect.

Montmartre is full of these curious highways. Quite distinct from the rest of the city by reason of its elevated position, few or no modern improvements have changed its character, and a large extent of it remains to-day much the same as it was fifty years ago.

It is perhaps the cheapest quarter of the city. Rents are low, and the necessities and commodities of life are proportionately cheaper than in other parts of the town. This fact, and the situation the quarter affords for unobstructed view of the sky, have always attracted artists, and many cosy studios are hidden away in the maze of housetops there. On the little street I have just described are several large windows indicating unmistakably the profession of those occupying the apartments.

Late one dark and stormy evening a gate creaked and an automatic bell sounded at the entrance to one of the little gardens halfway up the street. A young woman came out into the light of the swinging lantern, and hurried down the sidewalk. Her unnaturally quick and spasmodic movements showed she was anxious to get away from the neighborhood as quickly as possible. Her instinctive avoidance of the bad places in the sidewalk gave evidence of her familiarity with the locality. In a few moments she had left the tortuous narrow side street that led down the hill, and stood upon the brilliantly lighted boulevard. Pausing for an instant only, she rapidly crossed the street, and soon stood beside the fountain in the Place Pigalle. Here she watched for a moment the surface of the water, ruffled by the gusts of wind and beaten by the fierce rain-drops. Suddenly she turned and hurried away down the Rue Pigalle, across to the Rue Blanche, and was shortly lost in the crowd that was pouring out of the doorway of the skating-rink.

The little street on the hill remained deserted and desolate. The lights in the windows went out one by one. The wind gusts swayed the lanterns to and fro, creaking the rusty pulleys and rattling the glass in the iron frames. Now and then a gate was blown backward and forward with a dull sound, a shutter slammed, and between the surges of the wind could be heard the spirting of the stream from the spouts and the rush of the water in the gutters. Towards midnight a single workman staggered up the street from the cheap cabaret kept in the wood-and-charcoal shop on the corner. A little later a _sergent de ville_, wrapped in a cloak, passed slowly up the sidewalk, until he came to a spot where the asphalt was worn away, and there was a great pool of muddy water. There he stopped, turned around, and strode down the street again. The melancholy music of the storm went on.

Suddenly, towards morning, there was a dull, prolonged report like the sound of a distant blast of rocks. The great studio window over the little garden flashed red for an instant, then grew black again, and all was still. Away up on the opposite side of the street a window was opened, a head thrust out, and, meeting the drenching rain, was quickly withdrawn. A hand and bare arm were pushed through the half-open window, feeling for the fastening of the shutter. In an adjoining house a light was seen in the window, and it continued to burn. Then the mournful music of the tempest went on as before.

Shortly after daybreak the same young woman who had fled so hastily the evening before, slowly and with difficulty mounted the hill. Her clothes were saturated with the rain, and clung to her form as the violent wind caught her and sent her staggering along. Her bonnet was out of shape and beaten down around her ears, and her dark hair was matted on her forehead. Her face was haggard, and her eyes were large and full of a strange gleam. She was evidently of Southern birth, for her features had the sculpturesque regularity of the Italian, and her skin, though pallid and bloodless, was still deep in tone. She hesitated at the garden gate for a while, then opened it, entered, and shut it behind her, the automatic bell tinkling loudly. No one appearing at the door, she opened and shut the gate again to ring the bell. A second and third time she rang in the same way, and without any response from the house. At last, hearing no sound, she crossed the garden, tried the house door, and, finding it unlocked, opened it and went in. Shortly afterwards a frightened cry was heard in the studio, and a moment later the girl came out of the house, her haggard face white with fear. Clutching her hands together with a nervous motion, she hastened down the street. A half-hour later a _femme de ménage_ opened the gate, passed through the garden, and tried her key in the door. Finding it unlocked, she simply said, “Perhaps he’s gone out,” and went into the kitchen and began to prepare breakfast. Before the water boiled the gate opened sharply, and three persons entered; first, the martial figure of a _sergent de ville_; second, a tall, blond young man in a brown velveteen coat and waistcoat and light trousers; and, lastly, the girl, still trembling and panting. The _sergent_ carefully locked the gate on the inside, taking the key with him, and, followed by the young man, entered the house, paused in the kitchen for a few rapid words with the _femme de ménage_, and then went up into the studio. The girl crouched down upon the stone step by the gate and hid her face.

The studio was of irregular shape, having curious projections and corners, and one third of the ceiling lower than the rest. The alcove formed by this drop in the ceiling was about the size of an ordinary bedchamber. The drawn curtain of the large side window shut out so much of the dim daylight that the whole studio was in twilight. In the farther corner of the deep alcove was a low divan, filling the recess between a quaint staircase which led into the attic and the wall opposite the window. This divan served as a bed, and on it, half covered with the bedclothes, lay a man, stretched on his back, with his face turned towards the window. The left arm hung over the edge of the divan, and the hand, turned inertly under the wrist, rested on the floor. There was the unmistakable pallor of death on the face, visible even in the uncertain gloom. The _sergent_ quickly lowered the curtain, letting in a flood of cold, gray light. Then great blood-stains were seen on the pillow, and on the neck and shoulders of the shirt. Beside the bed stood, like a grim guard of the dead body, the rigid and angular figure of a manikin dressed in Turkish costume. Between the manikin and the window lay on the floor a large flint-lock pistol. Near the window stood an easel, with a large canvas turned away from the light.

The two men paused in the middle of the studio, and looked at the spectacle without speaking. Then the young man rushed to the divan, and caught the arm that hung over the side, but dropped it instantly again.

“Touch nothing. Do not touch a single object,” commanded the _sergent_, sternly. Then he approached the body himself, put his hand on the face, and said, “He is dead.” Taking the young man by the arm, he led him out of the room, carefully locking the door behind him. In the kitchen he wrote a few words on a leaf torn from his note-book, gave it to the _femme de ménage_ with a hasty direction, checked her avalanche of questions with a single, significant gesture, led the way into the garden, unlocked the gate, and half pushed her into the street.

He stood quietly watching the crouching figure of the young girl for some time, then stooping over her, raised her, half forcibly, half gently, to her feet, and pointed out that the place where she sat was wet and muddy. Then he made a few commonplace remarks about the weather. In a short time the _femme de ménage_ returned, breathless, accompanied by two more officers, one of them a lieutenant.

It was curious to see the instantaneous transformation of the little street when the _femme de ménage_ and the two policemen entered the gate. Windows were opened and heads thrust out on all sides. It was impossible to say where the people came from, but in a very short time the street was blocked with a crowd that gathered around the gate. Those on the sidewalk struggled to get a peep through the gate, while those in the street stared fixedly at the studio window. One or two tried to force the gate open, but a _sergent de ville_, posted inside, pushed the bolts in place. The _femme de ménage_, who had managed to get a glimpse of the scene in the studio, sat weeping dramatically at the kitchen window.

The lieutenant and the _sergent_ who first came went from one room to another, examining everything with care, to see if there had been a robbery. In the studio they scrutinized every inch of the room, even to the dust-covered stairway that led to the little attic over the alcove. Then, after a hasty examination of the corpse, they mounted the stairway that led from the entry to the roof, and searched for fresh scratches on the lead-covered promenade there. Apparently satisfied with the completeness of their search, they remained awhile there, looking at the slated roof, and at the hawthorn-tree which stretched two or three strong branches almost up to the iron railing of the balcony.

The lieutenant then, with great deliberation, took down in his note-book the exact situation in the studio, measuring carefully the distance of the pistol from the body, noting the angle of the wound (for the ball had gone through the head just over the ear), taking account of many things that would have escaped the attention of the ordinary observer. When this was finished, he sent away one of the _sergents_, who shortly returned with two men bearing a stretcher, or rather a rusty black bier. The men were conducted to the studio, and there, with business-like haste, they placed the body on the bier, strapped it firmly there, covered it with a soiled and much-worn black cloth, and with the aid of the officers carried it down the stairs and out of the house into the garden. The girl, who had remained standing where the _sergent_ had placed her, sank down again on the stone steps at the sight of the black bier and its burden, and hid her face in her hands. There was a momentary gleam of something like satisfaction in the eye of the _sergent_ who stood beside her.

The lieutenant, who had remained to put seals on the door of the studio, on the door which led out upon the promenade, and upon all the windows of the upper stories, came out of the house, followed by the young man in the velveteen coat, and the weeping _femme de ménage_. The lieutenant had a bundle in his arms a foot and a half long, done up in a newspaper. He gave the _sergent_ at the gate a brief order, then went out into the street, clearing the sidewalk of the crowd. The body was next borne out, and the young man and the two women, followed by one of the _sergents_, presented themselves to the eyes of the curious multitude. Without delay the two bearers marched off down the street at a rapid pace, the heavy burden shaking with the rhythm of their step. The little procession of officers and prisoners, accompanied by the whole of the great crowd, followed the bier to the prefecture. There a preliminary examination of the two women and the young man was held, and they were all detained as witnesses. The body was carried to the morgue.

It would be tedious to describe in detail the different processes of law which to our Anglo-Saxon eyes appear but empty and useless indignities heaped upon the defenceless dead. Neither would it be an attractive task to give a minute account of the meagre funeral ceremonies which the friends of the dead artist conducted, after they had succeeded in getting possession of the body for burial. The grave was dug in the cemetery of Montmartre, and the few simple tributes of friendship placed on the mound were lost among the flashing filigree emblems and gaudy wreaths which adorned the surrounding tombstones.

The theories which were advanced by the three officers who had examined the premises were distinguished by some invention and ingenuity. From carefully collected information concerning the intimate life and whole history of the three persons kept as witnesses, the officers constructed each his separate romance about the motives for the crime and the manner in which it was committed. The lieutenant had quite a voluminous biography of each character.

Concerning Charles Mandel, the dead artist, it was found that he was a native of Styria, in Austria; that his parents and all his relatives were exceedingly poor; that he had worked his way up from a place as a farmer’s boy to a position as attendant in the baths at Gastein, and thence he had found his way to Munich, and to the School of Fine Arts there. He had taken a good rank in the Academy, and after several years’ study, supporting himself meanwhile on a small government subsidy and by the sale of pen-and-ink sketches, he began to paint pictures. When he had saved money enough he came to Paris, where he had lived about eighteen months. His character was unimpeachable. He lived quietly, and rarely went out of the quarter; was never seen at the balls in the old windmill on the summit of Montmartre, nor did he frequent the Élisée Montmartre, the skating rink, the Cirque Fernando, nor any other place of amusement in the neighborhood. The little Café du Rat Mort, in the Place Pigalle, was the only café he visited, and in this he was accustomed to pass an hour or two every evening in company with his friend, the sculptor Paul Benner. He was not known to have any enemies, there was no suspicion that he was connected with the Internationalists, and the only reason he had been remarked at all as an individual was because he spoke French badly, and always conversed in German with his friend Benner.

The information concerning the latter was a great deal more accurate and precise. A great deal of it, however, was irrelevant. He was born in Strasburg, in 1849, and began the study of his profession there. He came to Paris when he was twenty years old, and entered the Académie des Beaux Arts. After he had finished the course he set up his studio in Montmartre, and had already exhibited successful works in three _salons_. He had a great many friends in the city, and was well spoken of by all who knew him. The only thing that could possibly be urged against him was the fact that he seemed very little disturbed at the idea of being a Prussian subject. But he was consistently cosmopolitan, as his intimate friendship with the Austrian and his equally close relations with fellow-students in the Beaux Arts abundantly proved.

The inquiries about the girl were, judging from the frequent gaps in the history as written in the lieutenant’s note-book, conducted with difficulty, and with only partial success. She was a Corsican, and was generally called Rose Blanche, the translation of her Corsican name, Rosina Bianchi. By the artists she was facetiously called La Rose Blanche, partly because of her hair and complexion, which were of the darkest Southern hue, and partly for the sake of the grammatical harmony of the name thus altered. Nothing in particular was found out about her early life. She herself declared she was born in a small village in the mountains of Corsica, and that her father, mother, and several brothers and sisters were still living there. She had come to Paris as a model just before the siege, having first begun to pose in Marseilles, whither she had gone from Corsica to live with an aunt. This aunt had married a crockery merchant, and was a respectable member of the community. From her was gleaned some notion of the family. It was of genuine Corsican stock, and they all had the violent passions which are the common characteristic of that people. Rosina, while in Marseilles, had been quiet and proper enough except when she had been, as her aunt described, _un peu toquee_. At long intervals it seems that she became highly sensitive and excitable. She would on these occasions fly into a mad rage at a trifle, and when she grew calmer would sob and weep for a while, and end by remaining sullen and morose for hours, sometimes for days. Her aunt had opposed her going to Paris, prophesying all sorts of evil. She had never seen her since her departure, and had only heard from her twice or three times since she had left Marseilles.

There was scarcely a better-known model in Paris than La Rose Blanche. She was not one of those choice favorites who are engaged for months and sometimes for a year in advance at double prices, but she was in great demand, especially among sculptors. Her head was Italian enough to serve as a model for the costume pictures of the Campagna peasants, but she was much more picturesque as a Spanish girl, and her employment among the painters was chiefly with those who painted Spanish or Eastern subjects. The sculptors found in her form a certain girlishness which had not disappeared with age, and although she was twenty-five years old, she had the lithe, slender figure of a girl of seventeen. There was something of the faun in the accents of her limbs, and she was active, wiry, and muscular. The artists connected the peculiarities of her figure with the characteristics of her disposition, and often said to her, “What a hand and arm for a stiletto!” “Yes,” she would answer, with a glittering eye; “and it isn’t afraid to hold one either!” Every one had noticed her violent temper, and some of those who were best acquainted with her confessed to the feeling that it was like playing with gunpowder to have much to do with her. When she was in good spirits, she was soft-mannered and amiable; but when roused in the least, she became like a fury. She had frequently posed in the _ateliers_, and then she had been treated with great respect by the students. For the past year she had served often as a model for Benner in the execution of his statue “Diana surprised at her Bath,” and when she was not at work with him was generally in Mandel’s studio, where she posed for a figure in a picture from the history of Hungary, an event in one of the Turkish invasions. With the exception of the report of her eccentricities of temper, nothing had counted against her. Even this was partly counterbalanced by the testimony of many to whom she had been both kind and useful. As far as her moral character went, some had said, with an expressive shrug of the shoulders, “She’s a model, and like all the rest of them.” Others had declared that she was undoubtedly honest and virtuous. No one knew anything--at least no one confessed to any positive knowledge--of her suspected transgressions.