Other People's Money. Emile Gaboriau
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neither spite nor anger. He seemed in no wise anxious to run after the fugitive. Upon the features of Maxence and of Mlle. Gilberte, and more still in Mme. Favoral’s eyes, he had read that it would be useless for the present.
“Let us examine the papers, then,” said he.
“My husband’s papers are all in his study,” replied Mme. Favoral.
“Please lead me to it, madame.”
The room which M. Favoral called loftily his study was a small room with a tile floor, white-washed walls, and meanly lighted through a narrow transom.
It was furnished with an old desk, a small wardrobe with grated door, a few shelves upon which were piled some bandboxes and bundles of old newspapers, and two or three deal chairs.
“Where are the keys?” inquired the commissary of police.
“My father always carries them in his pocket, sir,” replied Maxence.
“Then let some one go for a locksmith.” Stronger than fear, curiosity had drawn all the guests of the cashier of the Mutual Credit Society, M. Desormeaux, M. Chapelain, M. Desclavettes himself; and, standing within the door-frame, they followed eagerly every motion of the commissary, who, pending the arrival of the locksmith, was making a flying examination of the bundles of papers left exposed upon the desk.
After a while, and unable to hold in any longer:
“Would it be indiscreet,” timidly inquired the old bronze-merchant, “to ask the nature of the charges against that poor Favoral?”
“Embezzlement, sir.”
“And is the amount large?”
“Had it been small, I should have said theft. Embezzling commences only when the sum has reached a round figure.”
Annoyed at the sardonic tone of the commissary:
“The fact is,” resumed M. Chapelain, “Favoral was our friend; and, if we could get him out of the scrape, we would all willingly contribute.”
“It’s a matter of ten or twelve millions, gentlemen.” Was it possible? Was it even likely? Could any one imagine so many millions slipping through the fingers of M. de Thaller’s methodic cashier?
“Ah, sir!” exclaimed Mme. Favoral, “if any thing could relieve my feelings, the enormity of that sum would. My husband was a man of simple and modest tastes.”
The commissary shook his head.
“There are certain passions,” he interrupted, “which nothing betrays externally. Gambling is more terrible than fire. After a fire, some charred remnants are found. What is there left after a lost game? Fortunes may be thrown into the vortex of the bourse, without a trace of them being left.”
The unfortunate woman was not convinced.
“I could swear, sir,” she protested, “that I knew how my husband spent every hour of his life.”
“Do not swear, madame.”
“All our friends will tell you how parsimonious my husband was.”
“Here, madame, towards yourself and your children, I have no doubt; for seeing is believing: but elsewhere—”
He was interrupted by the arrival of the locksmith, who, in less than five minutes, had picked all the locks of the old desk.
But in vain did the commissary search all the drawers. He found only those useless papers which are made relics of by people who have made order their religious faith—uninteresting letters, grocers’ and butchers’ bills running back twenty years.
“It is a waste of time to look for any thing here,” he growled.
And in fact he was about to give up his perquisitions, when a bundle thinner than the rest attracted his attention. He cut the thread that bound it; and almost at once:
“I knew I was right,” he said. And holding out a paper to Mme. Favoral:
“Read, madame, if you please.”
It was a bill. She read thus:
“Sold to M. Favoral an India Cashmere, fr. 8,500.
Received payment, FORBE & TOWLER.”
“Is it for you, madame,” asked the commissary, “that this magnificent shawl was bought?”
Stupefied with astonishment, the poor woman still refused to admit the evidence.
“Madame de Thaller spends a great deal,” she stammered. “My husband often made important purchases for her account.”
“Often, indeed!” interrupted the commissary of police; “for here are many other receipted bills—earrings, sixteen thousand francs; a bracelet, three thousand francs; a parlor set, a horse, two velvet dresses. Here is a part, at least, if not the whole, of the ten millions.”
V
Had the commissary received any information in advance? or was he guided only by the scent peculiar to men of his profession, and the habit of suspecting every thing, even that which seems most unlikely?
At any rate he expressed himself in a tone of absolute certainty.
The agents who had accompanied and assisted him in his researches were winking at each other, and giggling stupidly. The situation struck them as rather pleasant.
The others, M. Desclavettes, M. Chapelain, and the worthy M. Desormeaux himself, could have racked their brains in vain to find terms wherein to express the immensity of their astonishments. Vincent Favoral, their old friend, paying for cashmeres, diamonds, and parlor sets! Such an idea could not enter in their minds. For whom could such princely gifts be intended? For a mistress, for one of those redoubtable creatures whom fancy represents crouching in the depths of love, like monsters at the bottom of their caves!
But how could any one imagine the methodic cashier of the Mutual Credit Society carried away by one of those insane passions which knew no reason? Ruined by gambling, perhaps, but by a woman!
Could any one picture him, so homely and so plain here, Rue St. Gilles, at the head of another establishment, and leading elsewhere in one of the brilliant quarters of Paris, a reckless life, such as strike terror in the bosom of quiet families?
Could any one understand the same man at once miserly-economical and madly-prodigal, storming when his wife spent a few cents, and robbing to supply the expenses of an adventuress, and collecting in the same drawer the jeweler’s accounts and the butcher’s bills?
“It is the climax of absurdity,” murmured good M. Desormeaux.
Maxence fairly shook with wrath. Mlle. Gilberte was weeping.
Mme. Favoral alone, usually so timid, boldly defended, and with her utmost energy, the man whose name she bore. That he might have embezzled millions, she admitted: that he had deceived and betrayed her so shamefully, that he had made a wretched dupe of her for so many years, seemed to her insensate, monstrous, impossible.
And purple with shame:
“Your suspicions would vanish at once, sir,” she said to the commissary, “if I could but explain to you our mode of life.”
Encouraged by his first discovery, he was proceeding more minutely with his perquisitions, undoing the strings of every bundle.
“It is useless, madame,” he answered in that brief tone which made so much impression upon M. Desclavettes. “You can only tell me what you know; and you know nothing.”
“Never, sir, did a man lead a more regular life than M. Favoral.”