Within an Inch of His Life by Emile Gaboriau (good summer reads .TXT) 📖

“I have entered into all these details, Magloire, because I want you to know what kind of a woman the countess is, so that you may understand her conduct. You see that she did not treat me like a traitor: she had given me fair warning, and shown me the abyss into which I was going to fall. Alas! so far from being terrified, these dark sides of her character only attracted me the more. I admired her imperious air, her courage, and her prudence, even her total lack of principle, which contrasted so strangely with her fear of public opinion. I said to myself with foolish pride,—

“‘She certainly is a superior woman!’

“She must have been pleased with my obedience at church; for I managed to check even a slight trembling which seized me when I saw her and bowed to her as she passed so close to me that my hand touched her dress. I obeyed her in other ways also. I asked my uncle for six thousand francs, and he gave them to me, laughing; for he was the most generous man on earth: but he said at the same time,—

“‘I thought you had not come to Boiscoran merely for the purpose of exploring the forest of Rochepommier.’

“This trifling circumstance increased my admiration for the Countess Claudieuse. How well she had foreseen my uncle’s astonishment, when I had not even dreamed of it!

“‘She has a genius for prudence,’ I thought.

“Yes, indeed she had a genius for it, and a genius for calculation also, as I soon found out. When I reached Paris, I found a letter from her waiting for me; but it was nothing more than a repetition of all she had told me at our meeting. This letter was followed by several others, which she begged me to keep for her sake, and which all had a number in the upper corner.

“The first time I saw her again, I asked her,—

“‘What are these numbers?’

“‘My dear Jacques,’ she replied, ‘a woman ought always to know how many letters she has written to her lover. Up to now, you must have had nine.’

“This occurred in May, 1867, at Rochefort, where she had gone to be present at the launching of a frigate, and where I had followed her, at her suggestion, with a view to spending a few hours in each other’s company. Like a fool, I laughed at the idea of this epistolary responsibility, and then I thought no more of it. I was at that time too busy otherwise. She had recalled to me the fact that time was passing, in spite of the sadness of our separation, and that the month of September, the month of her freedom, was drawing near. Should we be compelled again, like the year before, to resort to these perilous trips to Fontainebleau? Why not get a house in a remote quarter of town?

“Every wish of hers was an order for me. My uncle’s liberality knew no end. I bought a house.”

At last in the midst of all of Jacques’s perplexities, there appeared a circumstance which might furnish tangible evidence.

M. Magloire started, and asked eagerly,—

“Ah, you bought a house?”

“Yes, a nice house with a large garden, in Vine Street, Passy.”

“And you own it still?”

“Yes.”

“Of course you have the title-papers?”

Jacques looked in despair.

“Here, again, fate is against me. There is quite a tale connected with that house.”

The features of the Sauveterre lawyer grew dark again, much quicker than they had brightened up just now.

“Ah!” he said,—“a tale, ah!”

“I was scarcely of age,” resumed Jacques, “when I wanted to purchase this house. I dreaded difficulties. I was afraid my father might hear of it; in fine, I wanted to be as prudent as the countess was. I asked, therefore, one of my English friends, Sir Francis Burnett, to purchase it in his name. He agreed; and he handed me, with the necessary bills of sale, also a paper in which he acknowledged my right as proprietor.”

“But then”—

“Oh! wait a moment. I did not take these papers to my rooms in my father’s house. I put them into a drawer of a bureau in my house at Passy. When the war broke out, I forgot them. I had left Paris before the siege began, you know, being in command of a company of volunteers from this department. During the two sieges, my house was successively occupied by the National Guards, the soldiers of the Commune, and the regular troops. When I got back there, I found the four walls pierced with holes by the shells; but all the furniture had disappeared, and with it the papers.”

“And Sir Francis Burnett?”

“He left France at the beginning of the invasion; and I do not know what has become of him. Two friends of his in England, to whom I wrote, replied,—the one that he was probably in Australia; the other that he was dead.”

“And you have taken no other steps to secure your rights to a piece of property which legally belongs to you?”

“No, not till now.”

“You mean to say virtually that there is in Paris a house which has no owner, is forgotten by everybody, and unknown even to the tax-gatherer?”

“I beg your pardon! The taxes have always been regularly paid; and the whole neighborhood knows that I am the owner. But the individuality is not the same. I have unceremoniously assumed the identity of my friend. In the eyes of the neighbors, the small dealers near by, the workmen and contractors whom I have employed, for the servants and the gardener, I am Sir Francis Burnett. Ask them about Jacques de Boiscoran, and they will tell you, ‘Don’t know.’ Ask them about Sir Francis Burnett, and they will answer, ‘Oh, very well!’ and they will give you my portrait.”

M. Magloire shook his head as if he were not fully convinced.

“Then,” he asked again, “you declare that the Countess Claudieuse has been at this house?”

“More than fifty times in three years.”

“If that is so, she must be known there.”

“No.”

“But”—

“Paris is not like Sauveterre, my dear friend; and people are not solely occupied with their neighbors’ doings. Vine Street is quite a deserted street; and the countess took the greatest precautions in coming and going.”

“Well, granted, as far as the outside world is concerned. But within? You must have had somebody to stay in the house and keep it in order when you were away, and to wait upon you when you were there?”

“I had an English maid-servant.”

“Well, this