File No. 113 by Emile Gaboriau (ebook reader browser TXT) 📖

Such are the facts that, with an almost incredible talent for investigation, had been collected and prepared by the stout man with the jovial face who had taken Prosper under his protection, M. Verduret.

Reaching Paris at nine o’clock in the evening, not by the Lyons road as he had said, but by the Orleans train, M. Verduret hurried up to the Archangel, where he found the cashier impatiently expecting him.

“You are about to hear some rich developments,” he said to Prosper, “and see how far back into the past one has to seek for the primary cause of a crime. All things are linked together and dependent upon each other in this world of ours. If Gaston de Clameran had not entered a little cafe at Tarascon to play a game of billiards twenty years ago, your money-safe would not have been robbed three weeks ago.

“Valentine de la Verberie is punished in 1866 for the murder committed for her sake in 1840. Nothing is neglected or forgotten, when stern Retribution asserts her sway. Listen.”

And he forthwith related all that he had discovered, referring, as he went along, to a voluminous manuscript which he had prepared, with many notes and authenticated proofs attached.

During the last week M. Verduret had not had twenty-four hours’ rest, but he bore no traces of fatigue. His iron muscles braved any amount of labor, and his elastic nature was too well tempered to give way beneath such pressure.

While any other man would have sunk exhausted in a chair, he stood up and described, with the enthusiasm and captivating animation peculiar to him, the minutest details and intricacies of the plot that he had devoted his whole energy to unravelling; personating every character he brought upon the scene to take part in the strange drama, so that his listener was bewildered and dazzled by his brilliant acting.

As Prosper listened to this narrative of events happening twenty years back, the secret conversations as minutely related as if overheard the moment they took place, it sounded more like a romance than a statement of plain facts.

All these ingenious explanations might be logical, but what foundation did they possess? Might they not be the dreams of an excited imagination?

M. Verduret did not finish his report until four o’clock in the morning; then he cried, with an accent of triumph:

“And now they are on their guard, and sharp, wary rascals too: but they won’t escape me; I have cornered them beautifully. Before a week is over, Prosper, you will be publicly exonerated, and will come out of this scrape with flying colors. I have promised your father you shall.”

“Impossible!” said Prosper in a dazed way, “it cannot be!”

“What?”

“All this you have just told me.”

M. Verduret opened wide his eyes, as if he could not understand anyone having the audacity to doubt the accuracy of his report.

“Impossible, indeed!” he cried. “What! have you not sense enough to see the plain truth written all over every fact, and attested by the best authority? Your thick-headedness exasperates me to the last degree.”

“But how can such rascalities take place in Paris, in our very midst, without——”

“Parbleu!” interrupted the fat man, “you are young, my friend! Are you innocent enough to suppose that crimes, forty times worse than this, don’t occur every day? You think the horrors of the police-court are the only ones. Pooh! You only read in the Gazette des Tribunaux of the cruel melodramas of life, where the actors are as cowardly as the knife, and as treacherous as the poison they use. It is at the family fireside, often under shelter of the law itself, that the real tragedies of life are acted; in modern crimes the traitors wear gloves, and cloak themselves with public position; the victims die, smiling to the last, without revealing the torture they have endured to the end. Why, what I have just related to you is an everyday occurrence; and you profess astonishment.”

“I can’t help wondering how you discovered all this tissue of crime.”

“Ah, that is the point!” said the fat man with a self-satisfied smile. “When I undertake a task, I devote my whole attention to it. Now, make a note of this: When a man of ordinary intelligence concentrates his thoughts and energies upon the attainment of an object, he is certain to obtain ultimate success. Besides that, I have my own method of working up a case.”

“Still I don’t see what grounds you had to go upon.”

“To be sure, one needs some light to guide one in a dark affair like this. But the fire in Clameran’s eye at the mention of Gaston’s name ignited my lantern. From that moment I walked straight to the solution of the mystery, as I would walk to a beacon-light on a dark night.”

The eager, questioning look of Prosper showed that he would like to know the secret of his protector’s wonderful penetration, and at the same time be more thoroughly convinced that what he had heard was all true—that his innocence would be more clearly proved.

“Now confess,” cried M. Verduret, “you would give anything in the world to find out how I discovered the truth?”

“I certainly would, for it is the darkest of mysteries, marvellous!”

M. Verduret enjoyed Prosper’s bewilderment. To be sure, he was neither a good judge nor a distinguished amateur; but he was an astonished admirer, and sincere admiration is always flattering, no matter whence it comes.

“Well,” he replied, “I will explain my system. There is nothing marvellous about it as you will soon see. We worked together to find the solution of the problem, so you know my reasons for suspecting Clameran as the prime mover in the robbery. As soon as I had acquired this certainty, my task was easy. You want to know what I did? I placed trustworthy people to watch the parties in whom I was most interested. Joseph Dubois took charge of Clameran, and Nina Gypsy never lost sight of Mme. Fauvel and her niece.”

“I cannot comprehend how Nina ever consented to this service.”

“That is my secret,” replied M. Verduret. “Having the assistance of good eyes and quick ears on the spot, I went to Beaucaire to inquire into the past, so as to link it with what I knew of the present. The next day I was