Part 1

Produced by David Widger

A THOUSAND FRANCS REWARD.

By Emile Gaboriau.

Translated by Laura E. Kendall.

A THOUSAND FRANCS REWARD.

I.

It’s a very short time ago, yesterday as it were, that one Sunday afternoon about four o’clock, the whole Quartier du Marais was in an uproar.

Rumor asserted that one of the most respectable merchants in the Hue Boi-de-Sicile had disappeared, and all efforts to find him continued fruitless.

The strange event was discussed in all the shops in the neighborhood; there were groups at the doors of all the fruit-sellers, every moment some terrified housewife arrived, bringing fresh particulars.

The grocer on the corner had the best and latest news, the most reliable, too, for he received his information from the lips of the cook who lived in the house.

“So,” said he, “yesterday evening, after dinner, our neighbor, Monsieur Jandidier, went down to his cellar to get a bottle of wine, and was never seen again. He disappeared, vanished, evaporated!”

It occasionally happens that mysterious disappearances are mentioned. The public becomes excited, and prudent people buy sword-canes.

Policemen hear absurd reports, and shrug their shoulders. They know the wrong side of the carefully embroidered canvas. They investigate, and find, instead of artless falsehoods, the truth; instead of romances, sorrowful stories. Yet, up to a certain point, the grocer of the Rue Saint Louis told the truth.

M. Jandidier, manufacturer of imitation jewelry, had not been at home for the last twenty-four hours.

M. Theodore Jandidier was a man fifty-eight years old, very stout and very bald, who had made a large fortune in business. He was supposed to have a considerable income from stocks and bonds, and his business brought him annually, on an average, fifty thousand francs. He was beloved and respected in his neighborhood, and justly so; his honesty was above suspicion, his morality rigid. Married late in life to a penniless relative, he had made her perfectly happy. He had an only daughter, a pretty, graceful girl, named Thérèse, whom he worshiped. She had been engaged to the eldest son of Schmidt the banker--member of the firm Schmidt, Gubenheim & Worb--M. Gustave; but the match was broken off, nobody knew why, for the young people were desperately in love with each other. It was said by Jandidier’s acquaintances that Schmidt senior, a perfect skinflint, had demanded a dowry far beyond the merchant’s means.

Notified by public rumor, which hourly exaggerated the story, the commissary of police went to the home of the man already called “the victim,” to obtain more exact information.

He found Mme. and Mlle. Jandidier in such terrible grief that it was with great difficulty he gleaned the truth. At last he learned the following details:

The day before, Saturday, M. Jandidier had dined with his family as usual, though his appetite was not good, owing, he said, to a violent headache.

After dinner he went to his stores, gave some orders, and then entered his office.

At half past six he came upstairs again, and told his wife he was going to walk.

And he had not been seen since!

After carefully noting these particulars, the commissary requested Mme. Jandidier to let him speak with her alone a few minutes. She made a sign of assent, and Mlle. Thérèse left the room.

“Pardon the question I am about to ask, madame,” said the police officer. “Do you know whether your husband--again I beg you to excuse me--had any ties outside of his own family?”

Mme. Jandidier started up; anger dried her tears.

“I have been married twenty-three years, monsieur, and my husband has never returned home later than ten o’clock.”

“Was your husband in the habit of going to any club or café, madame?” continued the officer.

“Never; I wouldn’t have allowed it.”

“Did he usually carry valuables on his person?”

“I don’t know; I attended to my housekeeping and didn’t trouble myself about business matters.”

It was impossible to get anything more from the haughty wife, who was fairly bewildered by sorrow.

Having performed his duty, the commissary thought he ought to give the poor woman a little commonplace consolation.

But on withdrawing, after an examination of the house, he felt very anxious, and began to suspect that a crime had been committed.

That very evening one of the most skillful members of the detective force, Rétiveau, better known in the Rue de Jerusalem under the name of Maitre Magloire, was put on M. Jandidier’s track, supplied with an excellent photograph of the merchant.

II.

The very day after M. Jandidier’s disappearance, Maitre Magloire appeared at the Palais de justice to report what he had done to the magistrate in charge of the affair.

“Ah! there you are, Monsieur Magloire,” said the magistrate; “so you’ve discovered something?”

“I am on the trail, monsieur.”

“Speak.”

“To begin with, Monsieur Jandidier did not leave home at half past six o’clock, but precisely seven.”

“Precisely?”

“Precisely. I ascertained that from a clock-maker in the Rue Saint Denis, who is sure of it, because while passing his shop, Monsieur Jandidier took out his watch to see if it was exactly like the clock over the door. He held an unlighted cigar in his mouth. Having discovered this last circumstance, I said to myself, ‘I have it! He’ll light his cigar somewhere.’ I reasoned correctly; he went into a retail shop on the Boulevard du Temple, whose mistress knows him very well. The fact was impressed on the woman’s memory because he always smoked sou cigars, and this time bought London ones.”

“How did he appear?”

“Absent-minded, the shop-keeper told me. It was from her I found out that he often went to the Café Ture. I entered it, and was told that he had been there Saturday evening. He took two small glasses of brandy, and talked with his friends. He seemed dull. ‘The gentleman talked all the time about life insurance policies,’ the waiter told me. At half past eight o’clock our man left the with one of his friends, a merchant in the neighborhood, Monsieur Blandureau. I instantly went to this gentleman, who informed me that he walked up the boulevard with Monsieur Jandidier, who left him at the corner of the Rue Richelieu, pleading a business engagement. He was not in his usual spirits, and seemed to be assailed by the gloomiest presentiments.”

“Very well, so far,” murmured the magistrate.

“On leaving Monsieur Blandureau, I went to the Rue Roi-de-Sicile to ascertain from somebody in the house whether Monsieur Jandidier had any customers or friends in the Rue Richelieu, but no one lived there except his tailor. I therefore proceeded hap-hazard to the tailor. He saw our man Saturday. Monsieur Jandidier called on him after nine o’clock to order a pair of trousers. While his measure was being taken, he noticed that one of his vest buttons was nearly off, and asked to have it sewed on. He was obliged to take off his overcoat while the trifling repair was made, and as at the same time he removed the contents of the side pocket, the tailor noticed several hundred-franc bank-bills.”

“Ah!” that’s a clew, “He had a considerable sum of money with him?”

“Considerable, no; but tolerably large. The tailor estimates it at twelve or fourteen hundred francs.”

“Go on,” said the magistrate.

“While his vest was being repaired, Monsieur Jandidier complained of sudden indisposition, and sent a little boy for a carriage, saying that he was obliged to go to one of his workmen, who lived a long distance off. Unfortunately, the lad had forgotten the number of the carriage. He only recollected that it had yellow wheels, and was drawn by a large black horse. The vehicle was found. A circular sent to all who kept carriages for hire, put me on the track. I learned this morning that it was No. 6007. The driver, on being questioned, distinctly remembered having been stopped Saturday evening, about nine o’clock, in the Rue Richelieu, by a little boy, and waiting ten minutes in front of the Maison Gouin. The description he gave of his fare exactly suits our man, and he recognized the photograph among five different ones I showed him.”

Maitre Magloire stopped. He wanted to enjoy the approval visible in the magistrate’s expression.

“Monsieur Jandidier,” he continued, “ordered the driver to take him to No. 48 Rue d’Arras-Saint-Victor. In this house lives a workman named Jules Tarot, employed by Monsieur Jandidier.”

M. Magloire’s way of pronouncing this name was intended to rouse the magistrate’s attention, and did so.

“You have suspicions?” he asked.

“Not exactly, but this is the story. Monsieur Jandidier dismissed the carriage at the Rue d’Arras and went to Tarot’s about ten o’clock. At eleven the employer and workman came out together. The latter did not return until midnight, and here I lose all trace of my man. Of course I didn’t question Tarot, for fear of putting him on his guard.”

“Who is this Jules Tarot?”

“A workman in mother-of-pearl, a man who polishes shells on a grindstone to make them perfectly iridescent. He’s a skillful fellow, and, assisted by his wife, to whom he has taught his trade, can make nearly a hundred francs a week.”

“They are in easy circumstances, then?”

“Oh! no. They are both young, they have no children, they are Parisians. Deuce take it, they enjoy themselves. Monday regularly carries away what the other days bring.”

III.

Two hours after Maitre Magloire’s report, the police went to search Jules Tarot’s house.

At sight of the officers, the workman and his wife turned deadly pale, and were seized with a nervous tremor that could not escape Maitre Magloire’s practiced eye, Yet the most thorough investigation failed to detect anything suspicious, and the policemen were about to withdraw, when the detective noticed Tarot’s wife glance anxiously at a cage hung in the window.

This was a ray of light. In less than an instant Magloire had unhooked and taken down the cage. Between the boards, at the bottom, twelve hundred-franc bank-bills were found.

This discovery seemed to crush the workman. As to his wife, she began to utter piercing shrieks, protesting that both she and her husband were innocent. They were arrested, conveyed to head-quarters, and questioned by the magistrate. Their answers were precisely the same.

They acknowledged having received a visit from their employer Saturday evening. He seemed so ill that they asked him to take something to drink, but he refused. He had come, he said, to give a large order, and proposed that Tarot should undertake it, employing his own workmen. They replied that they had no means to do so, whereupon their employer answered: “No matter, I’ll supply the money.” And laid twelve hundred-franc bills on the table.

At eleven o’clock M. Jandidier asked his workman to accompany him; he was going to the Faubourg Saint Antoine. Tarot went as far as the Place de la Bastile, crossing the foot-bridge of Constantine, and walking along the canal.

The magistrate asked both husband and wife the very natural question:

“Why did you hide the money?”

They made the same reply.

Monday morning, hearing of M. Jandidier’s disappearance, they were seized with terror. Tarot said to his wife: “If it is known that our employer came here, that I crossed the bridge and followed the edge of the canal with him, I shall be seriously compromised. If this money were found in our possession we should be lost.”

The wife then wanted to burn the notes, but Tarot opposed the plan, intending to return them to the family.

This explanation was reasonable and plausible, if not probable, but it was merely an explanation. Tarot and his wife were kept under arrest.

IV.

A week after, the magistrate was still greatly perplexed. Three more examinations had not enabled him to come to any fixed conclusion.

Were Tarot and his wife innocent? Were they simply marvelously clever in maintaining a probable story?

The magistrate knew not what to think, when one morning a strange rumor spread abroad. The Maison Jandidier had failed. A detective sent to make inquiries, brought back the most startling news. M. Jandidier, who people supposed to be so rich, was ruined, utterly ruined, and for three years had kept up his credit by all sorts of expedients. There was not a thousand francs in his house, and his notes due at the end of the month amounted to sixty-seven thousand, five hundred francs.

The cautious merchant gambled in stocks at the Bourse, the virtuous husband was unfaithful.

The magistrate had just heard these particulars, when Maitre Magloire appeared, pale and panting for breath.

“You know, monsieur?” he exclaimed on the threshold. “All!”

“Tarot is innocent.”

“I think so; and yet, that visit--how do you explain that visit?”

Magloire shook his head mournfully.

“I’m a fool,” said he, “and Lecoq has just proved it. Monsieur Jandidier talked about life insurance policies at the Café Ture. That was the key to the whole matter. Jandidier was insured for 200,000 francs, and the companies, in France, never pay in case of suicide; do you understand?”

V.

Thanks to M. Gustave Schmidt, who will marry Mlle. Thérèse Jandidier next month, the Maison Jandidier did not fail.

Tarot and his wife, on being restored to liberty, were set up in business by the same M. Gustave, and no longer go junketing on Mondays.

But what has become of M. Jandidier? A thousand francs reward for news of him!

MILITARY SKETCHES.

THE CANTINIERE.

She may be young or old, dazzlingly pretty or frightfully ugly; in this case looks make no difference, she is ever and always the same. If there is much that is evil in her composition there is quite as much that is good. She is a woman although--or because--she is a cantinière. This much is certain--she loves the soldier, and is ever ready to do him a service.

It is unnecessary to describe the cantinière in her glory; that is to say, at the head of her regiment on review days, arrayed in fall uniform, her glazed cap perched jauntily over one ear and her little cask on her back. Every one knows her traditional jacket, coquettish short skirt, trousers with scarlet stripes, and her fantastic boots.

It is certainly a pretty sight to see her when the drum beats, leading the way, and keeping time to the step of the soldiers.

But the drum is not always beating, fortunately! glory and noise do not suffice to fill the stomach, so on her return to the quarters, the cantinière lays aside her gorgeous apparel, and resumes her civilian costume, that is, a skirt and drees, and bestows her attention upon the thousand details connected with her establishment.

The cantine is not what the civilian generally supposes; it is at once a restaurant, wine-shop, café, beer-shop, and boarding-house. It is here that the soldier--and sometimes the officer--takes his morning dram; the volunteer spends here a portion of the money sent him by his family; hussars afflicted with a hearty appetite find here a cheap supplement to the mess-room; troopers under arrest can here enjoy a demi-tasse without leaving the quarters, and here all the non-commissioned officers take their meals.

They pay forty-five centimes a day and furnish their bread: in exchange for this amount, they are entitled to two meals a day, each composed of two dishes and a dessert, besides a bowl of soup or porridge in the evening.

The charges are not high, as you see; so cantinières do not accumulate fortunes as rapidly as the restaurant-keepers on the boulevards.

But moderation in price does not prevent the articles from being good, for some cantinières are veritable _cor-dons bleus_, competent to prepare a dish originated by Dr. Véron.

In the generality of cases the cantinière is the wife of a drummer in the infantry, of a trumpeter in the cavalry; her husband is sometimes the fencing-master, or even a common soldier; but his position or rank is not of the slightest importance. In the cantine, the husband is a nonentity. His existence is scarcely recognized; and he is visible only on great occasions, when there is a crowd, or when it is necessary to quell disorder, which is seldom the case.

The husband of the cantinière, when his duties are over for the day, smokes his pipe behind the door, and drinks brandy--or beer if he is a German; almost all the cantinièrea are Alsatians. Their children are sent to the regimental school; some become officers, the majority become excellent trumpeters.

So the cantinière reigns supreme in her domain, which does not prevent her from serving others. She is generally assisted by a young woman, and by a good-natured soldier, who becomes her soldier, her right arm, in consideration of a small salary. If any disorder arises she quells it, putting the offender out-of-doors herself if necessary.

She does not like to give credit; but she is so kind-hearted that she can not bear to see a man suffer, and it is impossible for her to refuse a drop to a really thirsty soldier. Though she censures herself for her weakness, she does not know how to resist an entreaty; but we must admit that she is generally paid, and that she does not lose much by her liberality.

And what woman would not do the same? How could any one refuse to comply with a request of this kind:

“My good Madame Bajot,--I have been in the lock-. up for four days. I have not a penny nor even a morsel of tobacco to put in my pipe. I entreat you to send me six sous’ worth of tobacco--and a quart of brandy--for I am very thirsty--through my comrade, and in a little bottle on account of the corporal. By so doing you will save my life, and I will settle your bill next pay-day. Let the tobacco be very dry and of the best quality.

“Be assured of my eternal gratitude,

“Brulard,

“Of the 1st Division, 3d Squadron.”

The excellent woman shudders on contemplating the prisoner’s privations, and sends him the tobacco and brandy.

Moreover, if a trooper be sick or wounded, though not sufficiently to be sent to the hospital, she nurses him, dresses his wound, and prepares the _tisane_, for which she will never accept any pay.

If the cantinière is ugly, no one thinks of criticising her.

It is her right, and no one even perceives it; but if she is pretty, it is a very different matter. She makes havoc in the regiment, and all the young conscripts are speedily subjugated by her conquering charms.

It is an old trooper’s axiom, that the goodness of the wine is in an inverse ratio to the beauty of the cantinière.

She has a little wagon drawn by one or two horses. It is in this equipage that she follows the troops, and appears upon the parade ground, where she dispenses tobacco and liquors to the officers and men in the intervals of rest during the drill.

During a campaign she devotes herself to her regiment. More than once in the thickest of the fight she has been seen going from rank to rank to carry a drop to the soldiers, and braving the canister and grape in order to give a little water to the wounded. She keeps no accounts at such times; she does not sell, she gives.

Several cantinières have been decorated, and the exploits of one of their number have been related throughout Europe. They have formed the plot of a drama which delineates all the characteristics of “the soldier’s mother,” under the title of “The Vivandière of the Grand Army.”

THE BARBER OF THE SQUADRON.

As a general thing, it is upon the cheeks of his brother soldiers that he serves his apprenticeship--a severe apprenticeship for the cheeks! Heaven preserve you from ever falling into his clutches and testing his dexterity. In former years, before entering the service, he was a carpenter, a mechanic, or a stone-cutter;--his good conduct elevated him to the important position of barber, and since that time he has plied in turn the scissors and razor with more zeal than discretion.

This office of barber is one of the most popular in the regiment; and the person who holds it is not a little proud of the honor. First of all, he has a right to exact a small monthly payment from each soldier; he also enjoys perfect freedom after ten o’clock; in short, he is excused from all drudgery, and most of the exercises. And yet his position is no sinecure.

The barber is responsible for the heads of the entire company. If the beards are too long, or the hair transgresses the limits prescribed by ordinance, he is the one upon whom the blame will fall. The regulation is there; he must follow it to the letter, and shave his companions-in-arms as closely as possible, and not unfrequently against their will; for there are troopers who cling to their hair-- the natural ornament of man. The military gallant would love to wear long hair, probably so a loving hand could caress his curls; but the regulations are pitiless.

“As soon as the hair can be seized with the hand, it must positively be cut,” says the corporal.

All sorts of means are vainly employed by the foppish trooper to preserve his hair. He wets it every day, or pastes it down with the aid of _cosmetique_, then hides it carefully under his cap.

‘Wasted efforts! the officers are acquainted with all these tricks; they pull off the caps, rumple up the hair, and then the delinquent and the barber, who is held responsible, are almost sure of two, or even four days in the guard house.

Those sly foxes--the old troopers--do not resort to such hackneyed expedients; they feign some affection of the eyes or ears, and thus obtain from the sergeant-major permission to wear their hair long.

The days of grand reviews are trying ordeals for the barber. In less than two hours he must shave one hundred and fifty or two hundred beards, to say nothing of the hair-cutting.

You should see him then, his sleeves rolled up to the elbow, and armed with a terrible razor which he has not even time to sharpen. The soldiers--I should say, the patients--perhaps martyrs would be still better--lather themselves in advance, and come one after another to take their place in the seat of torture. The work is accomplished in the twinkling of an eye; the most obstinate beards do not resist; hairs that refuse to be cut are torn out; the cheek bleeds a little, but that is nothing. What is a scratch to a French soldier? Moreover, the barber is a conscientious man, and if he occasionally happens to slice off an ear, he always takes the greatest possible pains to restore it to its rightful owner.

The troopers dread the razor, but they jeer at the barber; they call him the butcher, in whispers be it understood--for if he overhears them, it is in his power to avenge himself summarily.

Barbers are the heroes of a host of army legends; there is, first, the story of Barber Plumepate, who belonged to a cavalry regiment.

This barber, who was very skillful in his profession, had an exceedingly vindictive disposition. Very severely punished one day by his captain, he swore vengeance, and openly declared he would kill the man who had so wronged him.

The barber’s threats coming to the ears of the captain, he immediately summoned Plumepate.

“You have sworn that you would kill me,” he said to him; “that is mere boasting on your part; you would never dare to do it. Wait a moment; I will try you. Prepare your implements and shave me.”

The terrible Plumepate was completely disconcerted. He set to work, but he dared not carry out his threats. Never, on the contrary, did he do a neater job.

On another occasion, during a campaign, a barber in one of the regiments of the line was summoned to shave the commander-in-chief. He was badly frightened, and he could but think of the possible consequences should his hand tremble. It did tremble so much that the general’s face was covered with blood when the operation was concluded. The unfortunate barber, terrified by what he had done, shook in every limb, and stammered a thousand excuses.