Chapter 13

As the clown addressed this voluble description to the crowd before him, he narrowly watched the countenance of the banker’s wife.

But nothing he had said seemed to affect her. She leaned back in her arm-chair perfectly calm, and occasionally smiled at the tragic manner of the showman.

“Good heavens!” muttered the clown uneasily, “can I be on the wrong track?”

He saw that his circle of listeners was increased by the presence of the doge, M. de Clameran.

“The third picture,” he said, after a roll of drums, “depicts the old mandarine after she has dismissed that most annoying of guests--remorse--from her bosom. She promises herself that interest shall supply the place of love in chaining the too seductive youth to her side. It is with this object that she invests him with false honors and dignity, and introduces him to the chief mandarins of the capital of the Celestial Empire; then, since so handsome a youth must cut a fine figure in society, and as a fine figure cannot be cut without money, the lady must needs to sacrifice all of her possessions for his sake. Necklaces, rings, bracelets, diamonds, and pearls, all are surrendered. The monster carries all these jewels to the pawnbrokers on Tien-Tsi Street, and then has the cruelty to refuse her the tickets, so that she may have a chance of redeeming her treasures.”

The clown thought that at last he had hit the mark. Mme. Fauvel began to betray signs of agitation.

Once she made an attempt to rise from her chair; but it seemed as if her strength failed her, and she sank back, forced to listen to the end.

“Finally, ladies and gentlemen,” continued the clown, “the richly stored jewel-cases became empty. The day came when the mandarine had nothing more to give. It was then that the young scoundrel conceived the project of carrying off the jasper button belonging to the Mandarin Li-Fo--a splendid jewel of incalculable value, which, being the badge of his dignity, was kept in a granite chest, and guarded by three soldiers night and day. Ah! the mandarine resisted a long time! She knew the innocent soldiers would be accused and crucified, as is the custom in Pekin; and this thought restrained her. But her lover besought her so tenderly, that she finally yielded to his entreaties; and--the jasper button was stolen. The fourth picture represents the guilty couple stealthily creeping down the private stairway: see their frightened look--see--”

He abruptly stopped. Three or four of his auditors rushed to the assistance of Mme. Fauvel, who seemed about to faint; and at the same time he felt his arm roughly seized by someone behind him.

He turned around and faced De Clameran and Lagors, both of whom were pale with anger.

“What do you want, gentlemen?” he inquired politely.

“To speak to you,” they both answered.

“I am at your service.”

And he followed them to the end of the picture-gallery, near a window opening on a balcony.

Here they were unobserved except by the man in the Venetian cloak, whom the clown had so respectfully addressed as “M. the Count.”

The minuet having ended, the orchestras were resting, and the crowd began to rapidly fill the gallery.

The sudden faintness of Mme. Fauvel had passed off unnoticed save by a few, who attributed it to the heat of the room. M. Fauvel had been sent for; but when he came hurrying in, and found his wife composedly talking to Madeleine, his alarm was dissipated, and he returned to the card-tables.

Not having as much control over his temper as Raoul, M. de Clameran angrily said:

“In the first place, monsieur, I would like to know who you are.”

The clown determined to answer as if he thought the question were a jest, replied in the bantering tone of a buffoon:

“You want my passport, do you, my lord doge? I left it in the hands of the city authorities; it contains my name, age, profession, domicile, and every detail--”

With an angry gesture, M. de Clameran interrupted him.

“You have just committed a gross insult!”

“I, my lord doge?”

“Yes, you! What do you mean by telling this abominable story in this house?”

“Abominable! You may call it abominable; but I, who composed it, have a different opinion of it.”

“Enough, monsieur; you will at least have the courage to acknowledge that your performance was a vile insinuation against Mme. Fauvel?”

The clown stood with his head thrown back, and mouth wide open, as if astounded at what he heard.

But anyone who knew him would have seen his bright black eyes sparkling with malicious satisfaction.

“Bless my heart!” he cried, as if speaking to himself. “This is the strangest thing I ever heard of! How can my drama of the Mandarine Li-Fo have any reference to Mme. Fauvel, whom I don’t know from Adam or Eve? I can’t think how the resemblance----unless----but no, that is impossible.”

“Do you pretend,” said M. de Clameran, “to be ignorant of M. Fauvel’s misfortune?”

The clown looked very innocent, and asked:

“What misfortune?”

“The robbery of which M. Fauvel was the victim. It has been in everyone’s mouth, and you must have heard of it.”

“Ah, yes, yes; I remember. His cashier ran off with three hundred and fifty thousand francs. Pardieu! It is a thing that almost daily happens. But, as to discovering any connection between this robbery and my play, that is another matter.”

M. de Clameran made no reply. A nudge from Lagors had calmed him as if by enchantment.

He looked quietly at the clown, and seemed to regret having uttered the significant words forced from him by angry excitement.

“Very well,” he finally said in his usual haughty tone; “I must have been mistaken. I accept your explanation.”

But the clown, hitherto so humble and silly-looking, seemed to take offence at the word, and, assuming a defiant attitude, said:

“I have not made, nor do I intend making, any explanation.”

“Monsieur,” began De Clameran.

“Allow me to finish, if you please. If, unintentionally, I have offended the wife of a man whom I highly esteem, it is his business to seek redress, and not yours. Perhaps you will tell me he is too old to demand satisfaction: if so, let him send one of his sons. I saw one of them in the ball-room to-night; let him come. You asked me who I am; in return I ask you who are you--you who undertake to act as Mme. Fauvel’s champion? Are you her relative, friend, or ally? What right have you to insult her by pretending to discover an allusion to her in a play invented for amusement?”

There was nothing to be said in reply to this. M. de Clameran sought a means of escape.

“I am a friend of M. Fauvel,” he said, “and this title gives me the right to be as jealous of his reputation as if it were my own. If this is not a sufficient reason for my interference, I must inform you that his family will shortly be mine: I regard myself as his nephew.”

“Ah!”

“Next week, monsieur, my marriage with Madeleine will be publicly announced.”

This news was so unexpected, so startling that for a moment the clown was dumb; and now his surprise was genuine.

But he soon recovered himself, and, bowing with deference, said, with covert irony:

“Permit me to offer my congratulations, monsieur. Besides being the belle to-night, Mlle. Madeleine is worth, I hear, half a million.”

Raoul de Lagors had anxiously been watching the people near them, to see if they overheard this conversation.

“We have had enough of this gossip,” he said, in a disdainful tone; “I will only say one thing more, master clown, and that is, that your tongue is too long.”

“Perhaps it is, my pretty youth, perhaps it is; but my arm is still longer.”

De Clameran here interrupted them by saying:

“It is impossible for one to seek an explanation from a man who conceals his identity under the guise of a fool.”

“You are at liberty, my lord doge, to ask the master of the house who I am--if you dare.”

“You are,” cried Clameran, “you are--”

A warning look from Raoul checked the forge-master from using an epithet which would have led to an affray, or at least a scandalous scene.

The clown stood by with a sardonic smile, and, after a moment’s silence, stared M. de Clameran steadily in the face, and in measured tones said:

“I was the best friend, monsieur, that your brother Gaston ever had. I was his adviser, and the confidant of his last wishes.”

These few words fell like a clap of thunder upon De Clameran.

He turned deadly pale, and stared back with his hands stretched out before him, as if shrinking from a phantom.

He tried to answer, to protest against this assertion, but the words froze on his lips. His fright was pitiable.

“Come, let us go,” said Lagors, who was perfectly cool.

And he dragged Clameran away, half supporting him, for he staggered like a drunken man, and clung to every object he passed, to prevent falling.

“Oh,” exclaimed the clown, in three different tones, “oh, oh!”

He himself was almost as much astonished as the forge-master, and remained rooted to the spot, watching the latter as he slowly left the room.

It was with no decided object in view that he had ventured to use the last mysteriously threatening words, but he had been inspired to do so by his wonderful instinct, which with him was like the scent of a blood-hound.

“What can this mean?” he murmured. “Why was he so frightened? What terrible memory have I awakened in his base soul? I need not boast of my penetration, or the subtlety of my plans. There is a great master, who, without any effort, in an instant destroys all my chimeras; he is called ‘Chance.’”

His mind had wandered far from the present scene, when he was brought back to his situation by someone touching him on the shoulder. It was the man in the Venetian cloak.

“Are you very satisfied, M. Verduret?” he inquired.

“Yes, and no, M. the Count. No, because I have not completely achieved the object I had in view when I asked you for an invitation here to-night; yes, because these two rascals behaved in a manner which dispels all doubt.”

“And yet you complain--”

“I do not complain, M. the Count: on the contrary, I bless chance, or rather Providence, which has just revealed to me the existence of a secret that I did not before even suspect.”

Five or six people approached the count, and he went off with them after giving the clown a friendly nod.

The latter instantly threw aside his banner, and started in pursuit of Mme. Fauvel. He found her sitting on a sofa in the large salon, engaged in an animated conversation with Madeleine.

“Of course they are talking over the scene; but what has become of Lagors and De Clameran?”

He soon saw them wandering among the groups scattered about the room, and eagerly asking questions.

“I will bet my head these honorable gentlemen are trying to find out who I am. Keep it up, my friends, ask everybody in the room; I wish you success!”

They soon gave it up, but were so preoccupied, and anxious to be alone in order to reflect and deliberate, that, without waiting for supper, they took leave of Mme. Fauvel and her niece, saying they were going home.

The clown saw them go up to the dressing-room for their cloaks, and in a few minutes leave the house.

“I have nothing more to do here,” he murmured; “I might as well go too.”

He completely covered his dress with a domino, and started for home, thinking the cold frosty air would cool his confused brain.

He lit a cigar, and, walking up the Rue St. Lazare, crossed the Rue Notre Dame de Lorette, and struck into the Faubourg Montmartre.

A man suddenly started out from some place of concealment, and rushed upon him with a dagger.

Fortunately the clown had a cat-like instinct, which enabled him to protect himself against immediate danger, and detect any which threatened.

He saw, or rather divined, the man crouching in the dark shadow of a house, and had the presence of mind to strike an attitude which enabled him to ward off the assassin by spreading out his arms before him.

This movement certainly saved his life; for he received in his arm a furious stab, which would have instantly killed him had it penetrated his breast.

Anger, more than pain, made him cry out:

“Ah, you villain!”

And recoiling a few feet, he put himself on the defensive.

But the precaution was useless.

Seeing his blow miss, the assassin did not return to the attack, but made rapidly off.

“That was certainly Lagors,” said the clown, “and Clameran must be somewhere near. While I walked around one side of the church, they must have gone the other and lain in wait for me.”

His wound began to pain him; he stood under a gas-lamp to examine it.

It did not appear to be dangerous, but the arm was cut through to the bone.

He tore his handkerchief into four bands, and tied his arm up with the dexterity of a surgeon.

“I must be on the track of some great crime, since these fellows are resolved upon murder. When such cunning rogues are only in danger of the police court, they do not gratuitously risk the chance of being tried for murder.”

He thought by enduring a great deal of pain he might still use his arm; so he started in pursuit of his enemy, taking care to keep in the middle of the road, and avoid all dark corners.

Although he saw no one, he was convinced that he was being pursued.

He was not mistaken. When he reached the Boulevard Montmartre, he crossed the street, and, as he did so, distinguished two shadows which he recognized. They crossed the same street a little higher up.

“I have to deal with desperate men,” he muttered. “They do not even take pains to conceal their pursuit of me. They seem to be accustomed to this kind of adventure, and the carriage trick which fooled Fanferlot would never succeed with them. Besides, my light hat is a perfect beacon to lead them on in the night.” He continued his way up the boulevard, and, without turning his head, was sure that his enemies were thirty feet behind him.

“I must get rid of them somehow,” he said to himself. “I can neither return home nor to the Archangel with these devils at my heels. They are following me to find out where I live, and who I am. If they discover that the clown is M. Verduret, and that M. Verduret is M. Lecoq, my plans will be ruined. They will escape abroad with the money, and I shall be left to console myself with a wounded arm. A pleasant ending to all my exertions!”

The idea of Raoul and Clameran escaping him so exasperated him that for an instant he thought of having them arrested at once.

This was easy; for he had only to rush upon them, scream for help, and they would all three be arrested, carried to the watch-house, and consigned to the commissary of police.

The police often resort to this ingenious and simple means of arresting a malefactor for whom they are on the lookout, and whom they cannot seize without a warrant.

The next day there is a general explanation, and the parties, if innocent, are dismissed.

The clown had sufficient proof to sustain him in the arrest of Lagors. He could show the letter and the mutilated prayer-book, he could reveal the existence of the pawnbroker’s tickets in the house at Vesinet, he could display his wounded arm. He could force Raoul to confess how and why he had assumed the name of Lagors, and what his motive was in passing himself off for a relative of M. Fauvel.

On the other hand, in acting thus hastily, he was insuring the safety of the principal plotter, De Clameran. What proofs had he against him? Not one. He had strong suspicions, but no well-grounded charge to produce against him.

On reflection the clown decided that he would act alone, as he had thus far done, and that alone and unaided he would discover the truth of all his suspicions.

Having reached this decision, the first step to be taken was to put his followers on the wrong scent.

He walked rapidly up the Rue Sebastopol, and, reaching the square of the Arts et Metiers, he abruptly stopped, and asked some insignificant questions of two constables who were standing talking together.

The manoeuvre had the result he expected; Raoul and Clameran stood perfectly still about twenty steps off, not daring to advance.

Twenty steps! That was as much start as the clown wanted. While talking with the constables, he had pulled the bell of the door before which they were standing, and its hollow sound apprised him that the door was open. He bowed, and entered the house.

A minute later the constables had passed on, and Lagors and Clameran in their turn rang the bell. When the concierge appeared, they asked who it was that had just gone in disguised as a clown.

They were told that no such person had entered, and that none of the lodgers had gone out disguised that night. “However,” added the concierge, “I am not very sure, for this house has a back door which opens on the Rue St. Denis.”

“We are tricked,” interrupted Lagors, “and will never know who the clown is.”

“Unless we learn it too soon for our own good,” said Clameran musingly.

While Lagors and Clameran were anxiously trying to devise some means of discovering the clown’s identity, Verduret hurried up the back street, and reached the Archangel as the clock struck three.

Prosper, who was watching from his window, saw him in the distance, and ran down to open the door for him.

“What have you learned?” he said; “what did you find out? Did you see Madeleine? Were Raoul and Clameran at the ball?”

But M. Verduret was not in the habit of discussing private affairs where he might be overheard.

“First of all, let us go into your room, and get some water to wash this cut, which burns like fire.”

“Heavens! Are you wounded?”

“Yes, it is a little souvenir of your friend Raoul. Ah, I will soon teach him the danger of chopping up a man’s arm!”

Prosper was surprised at the look of merciless rage on his friend’s face, as he calmly washed and dressed his arm.

“Now, Prosper, we will talk as much as you please. Our enemies are on the alert, and we must crush them instantly, or not at all. I have made a mistake. I have been on the wrong track; it is an accident liable to happen to any man, no matter how intelligent he may be. I took the effect for the cause. The day I was convinced that culpable relations existed between Raoul and Mme. Fauvel, I thought I held the end of the thread that must lead us to the truth. I should have been more mistrustful; this solution was too simple, too natural.”

“Do you suppose Mme. Fauvel to be innocent?”

“Certainly not. But her guilt is not such as I first supposed. I imagined that, infatuated with a seductive young adventurer, Mme. Fauvel had first bestowed upon him the name of one of her relatives, and then introduced him as her nephew. This was an adroit stratagem to gain him admission to her husband’s house.

“She began by giving him all the money she could could dispose of; later she let him take her jewels to the pawnbrokers; when she had nothing more to give, she allowed him to steal the money from her husband’s safe. That is what I first thought.”

“And in this way everything was explained?”

“No, this did not explain everything, as I well knew at the time, and should, consequently, have studied my characters more thoroughly. How is Clameran’s position to be accounted for, if my first idea was the correct one?”

“Clameran is Lagors’s accomplice of course.”

“Ah, there is the mistake! I for a long time believed Lagors to be the principal person, when, in fact, he is not. Yesterday, in a dispute between them, the forge-master said to his dear friend, ‘And, above all things, my friend, I would advise you not to resist me, for if you do I will crush you to atoms.’ That explains all. The elegant Lagors is not the lover of Mme. Fauvel, but the tool of Clameran. Besides, did our first suppositions account for the resigned obedience of Madeleine? It is Clameran, and not Lagors, whom Madeleine obeys.”

Prosper began to remonstrate.

M. Verduret shrugged his shoulders. To convince Prosper he had only to utter one word: to tell him that three hours ago Clameran had announced his intended marriage with Madeleine; but he did not.

“Clameran,” he continued, “Clameran alone has Mme. Fauvel in his power. Now, the question is, what is the secret of this terrible influence he has gained over her? I have positive proof that they have not met since their early youth until fifteen months ago; and, as Mme. Fauvel’s reputation has always been above the reach of slander, we must seek in the past for the cause of her resigned obedience to his will.”

“We can never discover it,” said Prosper mournfully.

“We can discover it as soon as we know Clameran’s past life. Ah, to-night he turned as white as a sheet when I mentioned his brother Gaston’s name. And then I remembered that Gaston died suddenly, while his brother Louis was making a visit.”

“Do you think he was murdered?”

“I think the men who tried to assassinate me would do anything. The robbery, my friend, has now become a secondary detail. It is quite easily explained, and, if that were all to be accounted for, I would say to you, My task is done, let us go ask the judge of instruction for a warrant of arrest.”

Prosper started up with sparkling eyes.

“Ah, you know--is it possible?”

“Yes, I know who gave the key, and I know who told the secret word.”

“The key might have been M. Fauvel’s. But the word----”

“The word you were foolish enough to give. You have forgotten, I suppose. But fortunately Gypsy remembered. You know that, two days before the robbery, you took Lagors and two other friends to sup with Mme. Gypsy? Nina was sad, and reproached you for not being more devoted to her.”

“Yes, I remember that.”

“But do you remember what you replied to her?”

“No, I do not,” said Prosper after thinking a moment.

“Well, I will tell you: ‘Nina, you are unjust in reproaching me with not thinking constantly of you; for at this very moment your dear name guards M. Fauvel’s safe.’”

The truth suddenly burst upon Prosper like a thunderclap. He wrung his hands despairingly, and cried:

“Yes, oh, yes! I remember now.”

“Then you can easily understand the rest. One of the scoundrels went to Mme. Fauvel, and compelled her to give up her husband’s key; then, at a venture, placed the movable buttons on the name of Gypsy, opened the safe, and took the three hundred and fifty thousand francs. And Mme. Fauvel must have been terribly frightened before she yielded. The day after the robbery the poor woman was near dying; and it was she who at the greatest risk sent you the ten thousand francs.”

“But which was the thief, Raoul or Clameran? What enables them to thus tyrannize over Mme. Fauvel? And how does Madeleine come to be mixed up in the affair?”

“These questions, my dear Prosper, I cannot yet answer; therefore I postpone seeing the judge. I only ask you to wait ten days; and, if I cannot in that time discover the solution of this mystery, I will return and go with you to report to M. Patrigent all that we know.”

“Are you going to leave the city?”

“In an hour I shall be on the road to Beaucaire. It was from that neighborhood that Clameran came, as well as Mme. Fauvel, who was a Mlle. de la Verberie before marriage.”

“Yes, I knew both families.”

“I must go there to study them. Neither Raoul nor Clameran can escape during my absence. The police are watching them. But you, Prosper, must be prudent. Promise me to remain a prisoner here during my trip.”

All that M. Verduret asked, Prosper willingly promised. But he did not wish to be left in complete ignorance of his projects for the future, or of his motives in the past.

“Will you not tell me, monsieur, who you are, and what reasons you had for coming to my rescue?”

The extraordinary man smiled sadly, and said:

“I tell, in the presence of Nina, on the day before your marriage with Madeleine.”

Once left to his own reflections, Prosper began to appreciate the powerful assistance rendered by his friend.

Recalling the field of investigation gone over by his mysterious protector, he was amazed at its extent.