The Parisians — Complete by Baron Edward Bulwer Lytton Lytton (beautiful books to read TXT) 📖

The man bore a very good character generally,—was said to be very honest and inoffensive; and the notice taken of him by persons of higher rank was attributed generally to a respect for his talents, and not on account of any sympathy in political opinions. I found that the confrere mentioned, and who alone could identify M. de Mauleon in the disguise which the Vicomte had assumed, was absent on one of those missions abroad in which he is chiefly employed. I had to wait for his return, and it was only the day before yesterday that I obtained the following particulars. M. de Mauleon bears the same name as he did at Lyons,—that name is Jean Lebeau; he exercises the ostensible profession of a ‘letter-writer,’ and a sort of adviser on business among the workmen and petty bourgeoisie, and he nightly frequents the cafe Jean Jacques, Rue Faubourg Montmartre. It is not yet quite half-past eight, and, no doubt, you could see him at the cafe this very night, if you thought proper to go.”

“Excellent! I will go! Describe him!”

“Alas! that is exactly what I cannot do at present; for after hearing what I now tell you, I put the same request you do to my colleague, when, before he could answer me, he was summoned to the bureau of his chief, promising to return and give me the requisite description. He did not return; and I find that he was compelled, on quitting his chief, to seize the first train starting for Lille upon an important political investigation which brooked no delay. He will be back in a few days, and then Monsieur shall have the description.”

“Nay; I think I will seize time by the forelock, and try my chance tonight. If the man be really a conspirator, and it looks likely enough, who knows but what he may see quick reason to take alarm and vanish from Paris at any hour?—Cafe Jean Jacques, Rue ———; I will go. Stay; you have seen Victor de Mauleon in his youth: what was he like then?”

“Tall, slender, but broad-shouldered, very erect, carrying his head high, a profusion of dark curls, a small black mustache, fair clear complexion, light-coloured eyes with dark lashes, fort bel homme. But he will not look like that now.”

“His present age?”

“Forty-seven or forty-eight. But before you go, I must beg you to consider well what you are about. It is evident that M. de Mauleon has some strong reason, whatever it be, for merging his identity in that of Jean Lebeau. I presume, therefore, that you could scarcely go up to M. Lebeau, when you have discovered him, and say, ‘Pray, Monsieur le Vicomte, can you give me some tidings of your niece, Louise Duval?’ If you thus accosted him, you might possibly bring some danger on yourself, but you would certainly gain no information from him.”

“True.”

“On the other hand, if you make his acquaintance as M. Lebeau, how can you assume him to know anything about Louise Duval?”

“Parbleu! Monsieur Renard, you try to toss me aside on both horns of the dilemma; but it seems to me that, if I once make his acquaintance as M. Lebeau, I might gradually and cautiously feel my way as to the best mode of putting the question to which I seek reply. I suppose, too, that the man must be in very poor circumstances to adopt so humble a calling, and that a small sum of money may smooth all difficulties.”

“I am not so sure of that,” said M. Renard, thoughtfully; “but grant that money may do so, and grant also that the Vicomte, being a needy man, has become a very unscrupulous one,—is there anything in your motives for discovering Louise Duval which might occasion you trouble and annoyance, if it were divined by a needy and unscrupulous man; anything which might give him a power of threat or exaction? Mind, I am not asking you to tell me any secret you have reasons for concealing, but I suggest that it might be prudent if you did not let M. Lebeau know your real name and rank; if, in short, you could follow his example, and adopt a disguise. But no; when I think of it, you would doubtless be so unpractised in the art of disguise that he would detect you at once to be other than you seem; and if suspecting you of spying into his secrets, and if those secrets be really of a political nature, your very life might not be safe.”

“Thank you for your hint; the disguise is an excellent idea, and combines amusement with precaution. That this Victor de Mauleon must be a very unprincipled and dangerous man is, I think, abundantly clear. Granting that he was innocent of all design of robbery in the affair of the jewels, still, the offence which he did own—that of admitting himself at night by a false key into the rooms of a wife, whom he sought to surprise or terrify into dishonour—was a villanous action; and his present course of life is sufficiently mysterious to warrant the most unfavourable supposition. Besides, there is another motive for concealing my name from him: you say that he once had a duel with a Vane, who was very probably my father, and I have no wish to expose myself to the chance of his turning up in London some day, and seeking to renew there the acquaintance that I had courted at Paris. As for my skill in playing any part I may assume, do not fear; I am no novice in that. In my younger days I was thought clever in private theatricals, especially in the transformations of appearance which belong to light comedy and farce. Wait a few minutes, and you shall see.”

Graham then retreated into his bedroom, and in a few minutes reappeared so changed, that Renard at first glance took him for a stranger. He had doffed his dress—which habitually, when in Capitals, was characterized by the quiet, indefinable elegance that to a man of the great world, high-bred and young, seems “to the manner born”—for one of those coarse suits which Englishmen are wont to wear in their travels, and by which they are represented in French or German caricatures,—loose jacket of tweed with redundant pockets, waistcoat to match, short dust-coloured trousers. He had combed his hair straight over his forehead, which, as I have said somewhere before, appeared in itself to alter the character of his countenance, and, without any resort to paints or cosmetics, had somehow or other given to the expression of his face an impudent, low-bred expression, with a glass screwed on to his right eye,—such a look as a cockney journeyman, wishing to pass for a “swell” about town, may cast on a servant-maid in the pit of a suburban theatre.

“Will it do, old fellow?” he exclaimed, in a rollicking, swaggering tone of voice, speaking French with a villanous British accent.

“Perfectly,” said Renard, laughing. “I offer my compliments, and if ever you are ruined, Monsieur, I will promise you a place in our police. Only one caution,—take care not to overdo your part.”

“Right. A quarter to nine; I’m off.”