Other People's Money by Emile Gaboriau (superbooks4u txt) 📖

few lines of this terrible article.  To find himself thus held up to public curiosity, though innocent, was more than he could bear.

And yet he was, perhaps, still more surprised than indignant.  He had just learned in that paper more than his father’s most intimate friends knew, more than he knew himself.  Where had it got its information?  And what could be these other details which the writer pretended to know, but did not wish to publish as yet?  Maxence felt like running to the office of the paper, fancying that they could tell him there exactly where and under what name M. Favoral led that existence of pleasure and luxury, and who the woman was to whom the article alluded.

But in the mean time he had reached his hotel,—the Hotel des Folies.  After a moment of hesitation,

“Bash!” he thought, “I have the whole day to call at the office of the paper.”

And he started in the corridor of the hotel, a corridor that was so long, so dark, and so narrow, that it gave an idea of the shaft of a mine, and that it was prudent, before entering it, to make sure that no one was coming in the opposite direction.  It was from the neighboring theatre, des Folies-Nouvelles (now the Theatre Dejazet), that the hotel had taken its name.

It consists of the rear building of a large old house, and has no frontage on the Boulevard, where nothing betrays its existence, except a lantern hung over a low and narrow door, between a Café and a confectionery-shop.  It is one of those hotels, as there are a good many in Paris, somewhat mysterious and suspicious, ill-kept, and whose profits remain a mystery for simple-minded folks.  Who occupy the apartments of the first and second story?  No one knows.  Never have the most curious of the neighbors discovered the face of a tenant.  And yet they are occupied; for often, in the afternoon, a curtain is drawn aside, and a shadow is seen to move.  In the evening, lights are noticed within; and sometimes the sound of a cracked old piano is heard.

Above the second story, the mystery ceases.  All the upper rooms, the price of which is relatively modest, are occupied by tenants who may be seen and heard,—clerks like Maxence, shop-girls from the neighborhood, a few restaurant-waiters, and sometimes some poor devil of an actor or chorus-singer from the Theatre Dejazet, the Circus, or the Chateau d’Eau.  One of the great advantages of the Hotel des Folies—and Mme. Fortin, the landlady, never failed to point it out to the new tenants, an inestimable advantage, she declared—was a back entrance on the Rue Beranger.

“And everybody knows,” she concluded, “that there is no chance of being caught, when one has the good luck of living in a house that has two outlets.”

When Maxence entered the office, a small, dark, and dirty room, the proprietors, M. and Mme. Fortin were just finishing their breakfast with an immense bowl of coffee of doubtful color, of which an enormous red cat was taking a share.

“Ah, here is M. Favoral!” they exclaimed.

There was no mistaking their tone.  They knew the catastrophe; and the newspaper lying on the table showed how they had heard it.

“Some one called to see you last night,” said Mme. Fortin, a large fat woman, whose nose was always besmeared with snuff, and whose honeyed voice made a marked contrast with her bird-of-prey look.

“Who?”

“A gentleman of about fifty, tall and thin, with a long overcoat, coming down to his heels.”

Maxence imagined, from this description, that he recognized his own father.  And yet it seemed impossible, after what had happened, that he should dare to show himself on the Boulevard du Temple, where everybody knew him, within a step of the Café Turc, of which he was one of the oldest customers.

“At what o’clock was he here?” he inquired.

“I really can’t tell,” answered the landlady.  “I was half asleep at the time; but Fortin can tell us.”

M. Fortin, who looked about twenty years younger than his wife, was one of those small men, blonde, with scanty beard, a suspicious glance, and uneasy smile, such as the Madame Fortins know how to find, Heaven knows where.

“The confectioner had just put up his shutters,” he replied:  “consequently, it must have been between eleven and a quarter-past eleven.”

“And didn’t he leave any word?” said Maxence.

“Nothing, except that he was very sorry not to find you in.  And, in fact, he did look quite annoyed.  We asked him to leave his name; but he said it wasn’t worth while, and that he would call again.”

At the glance which the landlady was throwing toward him from the corner of her eyes, Maxence understood that she had on the subject of that late visitor the same suspicion as himself.

And, as if she had intended to make it more apparent still,

“I ought, perhaps, to have given him your key,” she said.

“And why so, pray?”

“Oh!  I don’t know, an idea of mine, that’s all.  Besides, Mlle. Lucienne can probably tell you more about it; for she was there when the gentleman came, and I even think that they exchanged a few words in the yard.”

Maxence, seeing that they were only seeking a pretext to question him, took his key, and inquired,

“Is—Mlle. Lucienne at home?”

“Can’t tell.  She has been going and coming all the morning, and I don’t know whether she finally staid in or out.  One thing is sure, she waited for you last night until after twelve; and she didn’t like it much, I can tell you.”

Maxence started up the steep stairs; and, as he reached the upper stories, a woman’s voice, fresh and beautifully toned, reached his ears more and more distinctly.

She was singing a popular tune,—one of those songs which are monthly put in circulation by the singing Cafés—

“To hope!  O charming word,
Which, during all life,
Husband and children and wife
Repeat in common accord! 
When the moment of success
From us ever further slips,
‘Tis Hope from its rosy lips
Whispers, To-morrow you will bless. 
‘Tis very nice to run,
But to have is better fun.”

“She is in,” murmured Maxence, breathing more freely.

Reaching the fourth story, he stopped before the door which faced the stairs, and knocked lightly.

At once, the voice, which had just commenced another verse stopped short, and inquired, “Who’s there?”

“I, Maxence!”

“At this hour!” replied the voice with an ironical laugh.  “That’s lucky.  You have probably forgotten that we were to go