CHAPTER XI

CONCERNING DOWER CLAIMS

When the partners had pawed over and patted their new employer like a couple of affectionate behemoths welcoming back their lost offspring, the elder suggested that they must now come to the business details of the first mission which was to be entrusted to him. Laroque resumed his seat and prepared to listen but they smiled at him in paternal reproof.

"Not here, my indiscreet friend!"

"_Most_ certainly not!"

The young man gazed at them astonished.

"Why, what's the matter with this place?" he demanded.

"Never discuss an important matter in detail within ear-shot of any wall, my dear young man!"! smiled M. Perissard, shaking his head.

"_Most_ certainly not!" affirmed his confrère, decidedly, "_Muribus aures_--ahem!--The Latin has it!"

Laroque rose and reached for his hat and coat with a smile of amusement.

"Well, where do you want to go?"

"We will seek a--ah--safe spot in the vicinity!" replied the senior partner. Laroque put his head in the dressing room and remarked chat he was going out for a little while and the three allies departed.

M. Perissard led the way to a large café and selected a table in a not too prominent location but still where there was no chance of being overheard.

He ordered a bottle of Chateau Lafitte and expensive cigars, gave the waiter more than suitable pourboire and told him they would require nothing more. They were as much alone as they would have been on a South Sea atoll.

Three glasses were raised together and a little later three clouds of smoke arose from the table. M. Perissard gazed into his glass reflectively for a moment.

"You must understand, my dear Laroque," he began, "that our business is largely with those men who, in public or private life, are a menace to the well-being of society."

The adventurer nodded with a little smile of weary cynicism. M. Merivel said something about "_latrones in officio_."

"Imagine the shock, the grief to my colleague and myself," continued M. Perissard, "when we learned that a very high official of this fair city of France had falsified his accounts to the extent of one million francs, _at least_!"

If he expected to rouse his new employé to eager enthusiasm he was not disappointed. Laroque's face expressed it.

"His name I will disclose to you in due time," said M. Perissard, in reply to an unspoken question. "You are wondering how so a large a peculation can possibly be concealed and therefore be of any value to us.

"I will not conceal from you that the man is a power in this part of the country and has many rich and influential friends. He recently threw himself on the mercy of these and appealed to them for help. As they were under obligations of more or less doubtful character they could not fail to respond.

"They have now made up more than eight hundred thousand francs, I have reason to believe, and will have no difficulty in raising the balance. But there is no occasion for haste and he is all the more useful to them while they still have this hold over him.

"Fortunately for the cause of civic and national purity--so dear to the heart of every true citizen of the Republic!--some of them were so indiscreet as to put part of the negotiations into the form of correspondence. A letter or two, quite providentially--"

"_Most_ providentially!" interjected M. Merivel.

"--Fell into our hands. We made investigations in a quiet way, as was our duty, and have secured What is almost legal proof of this astounding corruption!"

Laroque, stretched back in his chair, with his gleaming eyes half-veiled by the drooping lids nodded almost imperceptibly as M. Perissard paused. M. Merivel shook his head in heavy sadness over the fresh proof of the wickedness of man and sipped his wine.

"Now, then," resumed M. Perissard. "Since they are so willing to come forward with the full amount of his shortage they will undoubtedly be only too glad to add fifty or seventy-five thousand francs to the amount to insure the utmost secrecy. Ah--you understand, now?"

Laroque slowly heaved himself upright in his chair and rubbed his chin for a moment before replying.

"I understand, all right," he said doubtfully, "but if these friends of his can save him any time they choose, what is to prevent them from coming up with the money the moment we approach him?"

M. Perissard indulged him with another fatherly smile.

"Ah, my dear young sir, you don't quite understand as yet! If we go to the Public Prosecutor and lay our information in his hands he will have no way of knowing whether the money has been refunded without an official investigation, which will certainly ruin the gentlemen. For even if he escapes prison the fact that he is guilty of misconduct in office must be brought to light."

Laroque's face brightened.

"Ah, ha! I see!" he exclaimed, "It certainly begins to look promising!"

"_Most_ promising!" rumbled M. Merivel.

Then they began to outline the details of the campaign, and it was late in the afternoon when M. Perissard suggested that there was nothing more to do.

"I need not impress upon you the necessity for the utmost tact and caution in dealing with this gentleman," he said in conclusion. "You can see that in his position he has powerful official influence and we must be careful that he does not trip us. He is shrewd, bold and unscrupulous."

"_Most_ unscrupulous!" affirmed M. Merivel.

"By the way," said his colleague, suddenly, "you aren't married, are you?"

"Lord! No!" laughed Laroque.

"That's all right!" said M. Perissard, approvingly.

"Women are charming creatures, but in business-s-s!" M. Merivel's hands, shoulders and eye-brows went up.

"I was afraid when I saw the lady and I meant to mention it sooner!"

"Most charming woman!" declared M. Merivel, unctuously, "Artistic! Good-looking!"

"I met her at Buenos Ayres," explained Laroque, "She hadn't a son to bless herself with and was picking up a living around a café. There's no harm in her but she's taking a lot of trash--morphine, ether, opium and that sort of stuff--to help her forget, she says. She's a married woman, you know. Wife of a man in a good position and quite a shining light at the bar, she says."

"Really!" exclaimed M. Perissard, with interest, and he exchanged a glance with his colleague.

"Yes," went on Laroque carelessly, "Deputy Attorney in Paris, I believe. She was false to him and he turned her out."

M. Merivel's upraised hands indicated that he was shocked.

"Oh dear! Oh, dear! Oh, dear!" he groaned with a sigh like the roar of a tornado, "Even the morals of our magistrates and leading lawyers _are_ not above suspicion these degenerate days!"

"Have some more wine!" laughed Laroque, filling his glass. But M. Perissard hardly heard either of them.

"Was this long ago?" he demanded eagerly.

"Twenty years ago," replied the young man, settling back in his chair. "She says she went to England shortly after he turned her out. Since then she has been to America, Colombia, Brazil, all over the place--sometimes rich and sometimes poor. When I met her she was dying to get back to France and didn't have a centime, so I brought her with me. Never liked to travel alone," he added with a grin.

But the master of "confidential missions" did not smile.

"Did she tell you the story herself?" he persisted.

"Yes," nodded Laroque, "one day when she'd had a little more ether than usual. It's funny sort of stuff--that! She's a silent sort of woman as a rule, but when she's been drinking ether she gets talkative, and if she doesn't become maudlin over her past, she breaks out with a hellish temper and says anything. She won't live long. About worn out--poor tramp!"

M. Perissard listened attentively.

"I have been thinking," he said slowly, when Laroque had finished, "that if her husband was a Deputy Attorney in Paris twenty years ago, he may be Attorney General now."

"Indeed, yes!" his partner nodded emphatically.

"This might lead to business," pursued the other in the same thoughtful tone.

Laroque's face betrayed that he, too, had grown suddenly keenly interested.

"How?" he demanded.

"Supposing the husband is now occupying a position worth having," suggested the older man, "He would be likely to make a sacrifice to prevent scandal about his wife from becoming public property."

M. Merivel's fat countenance expressed the most exalted admiration.

"Isn't he a wonderful man?" he breathed ecstatically. "Always getting ideas like that! A benefactor of humanity! Most certainly a benefactor!"

But his partner and Laroque did not heed.

"Do you know her husband's name?" asked the former.

"No, she never told me that."

"How old would you take her to be?"

"Past forty."

"H'm! He must have been rather young for the position if he was near her age. You are sure she never mentioned his name?"

"I would have remembered it if she had," replied Laroque.

"H'm! Well, I don't know that it matters. A Deputy Attorney in Paris whose wife left him twenty years ago ought not be difficult to find."

"Do you think so?"

"Mere child's play, my dear boy! And I think," he added, thoughtfully, "I think that, on the whole, this had better be your first piece of business. Ah! Wait!" he exclaimed with a sudden thought, "Did she ever mention that her own people were wealthy at the time of her marriage?"

Laroque scratched his head in an effort to remember.

"No, I don't think she ever did," he said at last "Why? It's the husband we'll have to see anyway? What have her people to do with it?"

"Why, don't you see," cried M. Perissard almost pityingly, "That if she is only a little past forty she must have married young and left her husband shortly afterward. The inference is that he was probably a young lawyer and without a great deal of money. He could not have married her unless she brought a _dot_."

"Well?" demanded Laroque, not catching the ether drift.

"Well, then! If he drove her out of the house she has a good claim to that money--unless he gave it to her then or later," he added anxiously. "Do you know?"

"I don't know whether she ever had a _dot_," replied Laroque, as the scheme dawned on him, "but if she did I'm certain that she didn't take it away with her."

"Excellent! Excellent!" exclaimed M. Perissard, pressing the palms of his hands together.

"_Most_ excellent! Wonderful man!" breathed M. Merivel, with an upward glance of thanksgiving.

"Now, then," continued the former briskly, "we will stay the hand of punishment temporarily in the matter of this official scoundrel and teach this magistrate or attorney-general, or whatever he is, that he cannot turn his wife out of his house and keep her money!"

"But," objected Laroque. "I think there is a child, though I'm not certain."

"Makes no difference whatsoever!" declared M. Perissard. "The money goes to the child upon the death of its mother--not before!" He glanced at his watch. "You go back and find out all that you can from the lady and we will wait for you here. You should be able to pump her thoroughly in an hour. That will give you plenty of time to catch the six-thirty train for Paris. You might as well begin on the work right away."

"_Most_ certainly!" agreed M. Merivel, with a heavy nod. "_Nulla dies sine_--H'm!--the Latin, of course!"

"We will wait for you here and give you your final instructions," added M. Perissard, as Laroque rose. "Oh, and try to get a power of attorney from her!" The latter nodded.

"I'll be back in an hour!" he promised, and with a wave of the hand he hurried out.