The Lerouge Case Part 59

"Yours ought to be a better one. I said twenty francs; I'll make it forty."

The driver whipped up his horse most mercilessly, and growled, "It's no use, I must catch her. For twenty francs, I would have let her escape; for I love the girls, and am on their side. But, fancy! Forty francs! I wonder how such an ugly man can be so jealous."

Old Tabaret tried in every way to occupy his mind with other matters. He did not wish to reflect before seeing the woman, speaking with her, and carefully questioning her.

He was sure that by one word she would either condemn or save her lover.

"What! condemn Noel? Ah, well! yes."

The idea that Noel was the a.s.sa.s.sin hara.s.sed and tormented him, and buzzed in his brain, like the moth which flies again and again against the window where it sees a light.

As they pa.s.sed the Chaussee d'Antin, the brougham was scarcely thirty paces in advance. The cab driver turned, and said: "But the Brougham is stopping."

"Then stop also. Don't lose sight of it; but be ready to follow it again as soon as it goes off."

Old Tabaret leaned as far as he could out of the cab.

The young woman alighted, crossed the pavement, and entered a shop where cashmeres and laces were sold.

"There," thought the old fellow, "is where the thousand franc notes go!

Half a million in four years! What can these creatures do with the money so lavishly bestowed upon them? Do they eat it? On the altar of what caprices do they squander these fortunes? They must have the devil's own potions which they give to drink to the idiots who ruin themselves for them. They must possess some peculiar art of preparing and spicing pleasure; since, once they get hold of a man, he sacrifices everything before forsaking them."

The cab moved on once more, but soon stopped again.

The brougham had made a fresh pause, this time in front of a curiosity shop.

"The woman wants then to buy out half of Paris!" said old Tabaret to himself in a pa.s.sion. "Yes, if Noel committed the crime, it was she who forced him to it. These are my fifteen thousand francs that she is frittering away now. How long will they last her? It must have been for money, then, that Noel murdered Widow Lerouge. If so, he is the lowest, the most infamous of men! What a monster of dissimulation and hypocrisy!

And to think that he would be my heir, if I should die here of rage! For it is written in my will in so many words, 'I bequeath to my son, Noel Gerdy!' If he is guilty, there isn't a punishment sufficiently severe for him. But is this woman never going home?"

The woman was in no hurry. The weather was charming, her dress irresistible, and she intended showing herself off. She visited three or four more shops, and at last stopped at a confectioner's, where she remained for more than a quarter of an hour.

The old fellow, devoured by anxiety, moved about and stamped in his cab.

It was torture thus to be kept from the key to a terrible enigma by the caprice of a worthless hussy! He was dying to rush after her, to seize her by the arm, and cry out to her: "Home, wretched, creature, home at once! What are you doing here? Don't you know that at this moment your lover, he whom you have ruined, is suspected of an a.s.sa.s.sination? Home, then, that I may question you, that I may learn from you whether he is innocent or guilty. For you will tell me, without knowing it. Ah! I have prepared a fine trap for you! Go home, then, this anxiety is killing me!"

She returned to her carriage. It started off once more, pa.s.sed up the Rue de Faubourg Montmarte, turned into the Rue de Provence, deposited its fair freight at her own door, and drove away.

"She lives here," said old Tabaret, with a sigh of relief.

He got out of the cab, gave the driver his forty francs, bade him wait, and followed in the young woman's footsteps.

"The old fellow is patient," thought the driver; "and the little brunette is caught."

The detective opened the door of the concierge's lodge.

"What is the name of the lady who just came in?" he demanded.

The concierge did not seem disposed to reply.

"Her name!" insisted the old man.

The tone was so sharp, so imperative, that the concierge was upset.

"Madame Juliette Chaffour," he answered.

"On what floor does she reside?"

"On the second, the door opposite the stairs."

A minute later, the old man was waiting in Madame Juliette's drawing-room. Madame was dressing, the maid informed him, and would be down directly.

Tabaret was astonished at the luxury of the room. There was nothing flaring or coa.r.s.e, or in bad taste. It was not at all like the apartment of a kept woman. The old fellow, who knew a good deal about such things, saw that everything was of great value. The ornaments on the mantelpiece alone must have cost, at the lowest estimate, twenty thousand francs.

"Clergeot," thought he, "didn't exaggerate a bit."

Juliette's entrance disturbed his reflections.

She had taken off her dress, and had hastily thrown about her a loose black dressing-gown, trimmed with cherry-coloured satin. Her beautiful hair, slightly disordered after her drive, fell in cascades about her neck, and curled behind her delicate ears. She dazzled old Tabaret. He began to understand.

"You wished, sir, to speak with me?" she inquired, bowing gracefully.

"Madame," replied M. Tabaret, "I am a friend of Noel Gerdy's, I may say his best friend, and--"

"Pray sit down, sir," interrupted the young woman.

She placed herself on a sofa, just showing the tips of her little feet encased in slippers matching her dressing-gown, while the old man sat down in a chair.

"I come, madame," he resumed, "on very serious business. Your presence at M. Gerdy's--"

"Ah," cried Juliette, "he already knows of my visit? Then he must employ a detective."

"My dear child--" began Tabaret, paternally.

"Oh! I know, sir, what your errand is. Noel has sent you here to scold me. He forbade my going to his house, but I couldn't help it. It's annoying to have a puzzle for a lover, a man whom one knows nothing whatever about, a riddle in a black coat and a white cravat, a sad and mysterious being--"

"You have been imprudent."

"Why? Because he is going to get married? Why does he not admit it then?"

"Suppose that it is not true."

"Oh, but it is! He told that old shark Clergeot so, who repeated it to me. Any way, he must be plotting something in that head of his; for the last month he has been so peculiar, he has changed so, that I hardly recognize him."

Old Tabaret was especially anxious to know whether Noel had prepared an _alibi_ for the evening of the crime. For him that was the grand question. If he had, he was certainly guilty; if not, he might still be innocent. Madame Juliette, he had no doubt, could enlighten him on that point.

Consequently he had presented himself with his lesson all prepared, his little trap all set.

The young woman's outburst disconcerted him a little; but trusting to the chances of conversation, he resumed.

"Will you oppose Noel's marriage, then?"