The Greatest Murder Mysteries of Mary Elizabeth Braddon. Mary Elizabeth Braddon
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decide a little wager. Some foolish girl, who had seen De Lancy on the stage, and who believed him the ideal hero of romance, and was only in too much danger of throwing her heart and fortune at his feet, was to be disenchanted by any stratagem that could be devised. Her parents had intrusted the management of the affair to him, a relation of the lady’s. Would I assist him? Would I represent De Lancy, and play a little scene in the Bois de Boulogne, to open the eyes of this silly boarding-school miss—would I, for a consideration? It was only to act a little stage play off the stage, and was for a good cause. I consented; and that evening, at half-past ten o’clock, under the shadow of the winter night and the leafless trees, I——”
“Stop, stop! Signor Mosquetti!” cry the bystanders. “Madame! Madame de Marolles! Water! Smelling-salts! Your flacon, Lady Emily: she has fainted!”
No; she has not fainted; this is something worse than fainting, this convulsive agony, in which the proud form writhes, while the white and livid lips murmur strange and dreadful words.
“Murdered, murdered and innocent! while I, vile dupe, pitiful fool, was only a puppet in the hands of a demon!”
At this very moment Monsieur de Marolles, who has been summoned from the adjoining apartment, where he has been discussing a financial measure with some members of the lower House, enters hurriedly.
“Valerie, Valerie, what is the matter?” he says, approaching his wife.
She rises—rises with a terrible effort, and looks him full in the face.
“I thought, monsieur, that I knew the hideous abyss of your black soul to its lowest depths. I was wrong; I never knew you till to-night.”
Imagine such strong language as this in a Belgravian drawing-room, and then you can imagine the astonishment of the bystanders.
“Good heavens!” exclaimed Signor Mosquetti hurriedly.
“What?” cried they eagerly.
“That is the very man I have been speaking of.”
“That? The Count de Marolles?”
“The man bending over the lady who has fainted.”
Petrified Belgravians experience a new sensation—surprise—and rather like it.
Argyle Fitz-Bertram twists his black moustachios reflectively, and mutters—
“So help me, Jupiter, I knew there’d be a row! I shan’t have to sing ‘Scots wha hae,’ and shall be just in time for that little supper at the Café de l’Europe.”
Chapter VII
The Golden Secret is Told, and the Golden Bowl is Broken
The new tiger, or, as he is called in the kitchen, the “tempory tiger,” takes his place, on the morning after Lady Londersdon’s Wednesday, behind the Count de Marolles’s cab, as that gentleman drives into the City.
There is little augury to be drawn from the pale smooth face of Raymond de Marolles, though Signor Mosquetti’s revelation has made his position rather a critical one. Till now he has ruled Valerie with a high hand; and though never conquering the indomitable spirit of the proud Spanish woman, he has at least forced that spirit to do the will of his. But now, now that she knows the trick put upon her—now that she knows that the man she so deeply adored did not betray her, but died the victim of another’s treachery—that the blood in which she has steeped her soul was the blood of the innocent,—what if now, in her desperation and despair, she dares all, and reveals all; what then?
“Why, then,” says Raymond de Marolles, cutting his horse over the ears with a delicate touch of the whip, which stings home, though, for all its delicacy; “why then, never shall it be said that Raymond Marolles found himself in a dilemma, without finding within himself the power to extricate himself. We are not conquered yet, and we have seen a good deal of life in thirty years—and not a little danger. Play your best card, Valerie; I’ve a trump in my own hand to play when the time comes. Till then, keep dark. I tell you, my good woman, I have hothouses of my own, and don’t want your Covent-Garden exotics at twopence a bunch!”
This last sentence is addressed to a woman, who pleads earnestly for the purchase of a wretched bunch of violets, which she holds up to tempt the man of fashion as she runs by the wheels of his cab, driving very slowly through the Strand.
“Fresh violets, sir. Do, sir, please. Only twopence, just twopence, sir, for the love of charity. I’ve a poor old woman at home, not related to me, sir, but I keep her. She’s dying—starving, sir, and dying of old age.”
“Bah! I tell you, my good woman, I’m not Lawrence Sterne on a sentimental journey, but a practical man of business. I don’t give macaroons to donkeys, or save mythic old women from starvation. You’d better keep out of the way of the wheels—they’ll be over your feet presently, and if you suffer from corns they may probably hurt you,” says the philanthropic banker, in his politest tones.
“Stop, stop!” suddenly exclaims the woman, with an energy that almost startles even Raymond. “It’s you, is it—Jim? No, not Jim; he’s dead and gone, I know; but you, you, the fine gentleman, the other brother. Stop, stop, I tell you, if you want to know a secret that’s in the keeping of one who may die while I am talking here! Stop, if you want to know who you are and what you are! Stop!”
Raymond does pull up at this last sentence.
“My good woman, do not be so energetic. Every eye in the Strand is on us; we shall have a crowd presently. Stay, wait for me in Essex Street; I’ll get out at the corner; that’s a quiet street, and we shall not be observed. Anything you have to tell me you can tell me there.”
The woman obeys him, and draws back to the pavement, where she keeps pace with the cab.
“A pretty time this for discoveries!” mutters the Count. “Who I am, and what I am! It’s the secret, I suppose, that the twaddling old maniac in Blind Peter made such a row about. Who I am, and what I am! Oh, I dare say I shall turn out to be somebody great, as the hero does in a lady’s novel. It’s a pity I haven’t the mark of a coronet behind my ear, or a bloody hand on my wrist. Who I am, and what I am! The son of a journeyman tailor perhaps, or a chemist’s apprentice, whose aristocratic connections prevented his acknowledging my mother.”
He is at the corner of Essex Street by this time, and springs out of the cab, throwing the reins to the temporary tiger, whose sharp face we need scarcely inform the reader discloses the features of the boy Slosh.
The woman is waiting for him; and after a few moments’ earnest conversation, Raymond emerges from the street, and orders the boy to drive the cab home immediately: he is not going to the City, but is going on particular business elsewhere.
Whether the “temporary tiger” proves himself worthy of the responsible situation he holds, and does drive the cab home, I cannot say; but I only know that a very small boy, in a ragged coat a great deal too large for him, and a battered hat so slouched over his eyes as quite to conceal his face from the casual observer, creeps cautiously, now a few paces behind, now a hundred yards on the other side of the way, now disappearing in the shadow of a doorway, now reappearing at the corner of the street, but never losing sight of the Count de Marolles and the purveyor of violets, as they bend their steps in the direction of Seven Dials.
Heaven forbid that we should follow them through all the turnings and twistings of that odoriferous neighbourhood, where foul scents, foul sights, and fouler language abound; whence May Fair and Belgravia shrink shuddering, as from an ill it is well for them to let alone, and a wrong that he may mend who will: not they who have been born for better things than to set disjointed times aright, or play the revolutionist to the dethronement of the legitimate monarchy of Queen Starvation and King Fever, to say nothing of the princes of the blood—Dirt, Drunkenness, Theft, and Murder. When John Jones,