Other People's Money. Emile Gaboriau
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shoulders. “Lost,” he said, “irrevocably lost!”
Then their rage exceeded all bounds. Then they forgot that this unfortunate man had been their friend for twenty years, that they were his guests; and they commenced heaping upon him threats and insults without name.
He did not even deign to defend himself.
“Go on,” he uttered, “go on. When a poor dog, carried away by the current, is drowning, men of heart cast stones at him from the bank. Go on!”
“You should have told us that you speculated,” screamed M. Desclavettes.
On hearing these words, he straightened himself up, and with a gesture so terrible that the others stepped back frightened.
“What!” said he, in a tone of crushing irony, “it is this evening only, that you discover that I speculated? Kind friends! Where, then, and in whose pockets, did you suppose I was getting the enormous interests I have been paying you for years? Where have you ever seen honest money, the money of labor, yield twelve or fourteen per cent? The money that yields thus is the money of the gaming table, the money of the bourse. Why did you bring me your funds? Because you were fully satisfied that I knew how to handle the cards. Ah! If I was to tell you that I had doubled your capital, you would not ask how I did it, nor whether I had stocked the cards. You would virtuously pocket the money. But I have lost: I am a thief. Well, so be it. But, then, you are all my accomplices. It is the avidity of the dupes which induces the trickery of the sharpers.”
Here he was interrupted by the servant coming in. “Sir,” she exclaimed excitedly, “O sir! the courtyard is full of police agents. They are speaking to the concierge. They are coming up stairs: I hear them!”
III
According to the time and place where they are uttered, there are words which acquire a terrible significance. In this disordered room, in the midst of these excited people, that word, the “police,” sounded like a thunderclap.
“Do not open,” Maxence ordered; “do not open, however they may ring or knock. Let them burst the door first.”
The very excess of her fright restored to Mme. Favoral a portion of her energy. Throwing herself before her husband as if to protect him, as if to defend him,
“They are coming to arrest you, Vincent,” she exclaimed. “They are coming; don’t you hear them?”
He remained motionless, his feet seemingly riveted to the floor.
“That is as I expected,” he said.
And with the accent of the wretch who sees all hope vanish, and who utterly gives up all struggle,
“Be it so,” he said. “Let them arrest me, and let all be over at once. I have had enough anxiety, enough unbearable alternatives. I am tired always to feign, to deceive, and to lie. Let them arrest me! Any misfortune will be smaller in reality than the horrors of uncertainty. I have nothing more to fear now. For the first time in many years I shall sleep to-night.”
He did not notice the sinister expression of his guests. “You think I am a thief,” he added: “well, be satisfied, justice shall be done.”
But he attributed to them sentiments which were no longer theirs. They had forgotten their anger, and their bitter resentment for their lost money.
The imminence of the peril awoke suddenly in their souls the memories of the past, and that strong affection which comes from long habit, and a constant exchange of services rendered. Whatever M. Favoral might have done, they only saw in him now the friend, the host whose bread they had broken together more than a hundred times, the man whose probity, up to this fatal night, had remained far above suspicion.
Pale, excited, they crowded around him.
“Have you lost your mind?” spoke M. Desormeaux. “Are you going to wait to be arrested, thrown into prison, dragged into a criminal court?”
He shook his head, and in a tone of idiotic obstinacy,
“Have I not told you,” he repeated, “that every thing is against me? Let them come; let them do what they please with me.”
“And your wife,” insisted M. Chapelain, the old lawyer, “and your children!”
“Will they be any the less dishonored if I am condemned by default?”
Wild with grief, Mme. Favoral was wringing her hands.
“Vincent,” she murmured, “in the name of Heaven spare us the harrowing agony to have you in prison.”
Obstinately he remained silent. His daughter, Mlle. Gilberte, dropped upon her knees before him, and, joining her hands:
“I beseech you, father,” she begged.
He shuddered all over. An unspeakable expression of suffering and anguish contracted his features; and, speaking in a scarcely intelligible voice:
“Ah! you are cruelly protracting my agony,” he stammered. “What do you ask of me?”
“You must fly,” declared M. Desclavettes.
“Which way? How? Do you not think that every precaution has been taken, that every issue is closely watched?”
Maxence interrupted him with a gesture:
“The windows in sister’s room, father,” said he, “open upon the courtyard of the adjoining house.”
“Yes; but here we are up two pairs of stairs.”
“No matter: I have a way.”
And turning towards his sister:
“Come, Gilberte,” went on the young man, “give me a light, and let me have some sheets.”
They went out hurriedly. Mme. Favoral felt a gleam of hope.
“We are saved!” she said.
“Saved!” repeated the cashier mechanically. “Yes; for I guess Maxence’s idea. But we must have an understanding. Where will you take refuge?”
“How can I tell?”
“There is a train at five minutes past eleven,” remarked M. Desormeaux. “Don’t let us forget that.”
“But money will be required to leave by that train,” interrupted the old lawyer. “Fortunately, I have some.”
And, forgetting his hundred and sixty thousand francs lost, he took out his pocket-book. Mme. Favoral stopped him. “We have more than we need,” said she.
She took from the table, and held out to her husband, the roll of bank notes which the director of the Mutual Credit Society had thrown down before going.
He refused them with a gesture of rage.
“Rather starve to death!” he exclaimed. “ ’Tis he, ’tis that wretch—” But he interrupted himself, and more gently:
“Put away those bank-bills,” said he to his wife, “and let Maxence take them back to M. de Thaller to-morrow.”
The bell rang violently.
“The police!” groaned Mme. Desclavettes, who seemed on the point of fainting away.
“I am going to negotiate,” said M. Desormeaux. “Fly, Vincent: do not lose a minute.”
And he ran to the front-door, whilst Mme. Favoral was hurrying her husband towards Mlle. Gilberte’s room.
Rapidly and stoutly Maxence had fastened four sheets together by the ends, which gave a more than sufficient length. Then, opening the window, he examined