File No. 113 Émile Gaboriau (the best books of all time TXT) 📖

over all the young men in his bank; but not one could he believe capable of resorting to so base a vengeance.

Then he wondered where the letter had been posted, thinking this might throw some light upon the mystery. He looked at the envelope, and read the postmark:

“Rue du Cardinal Lemoine.”

This fact told him nothing.

Once more he read the letter, spelling over each word, and trying to put a different construction on the horrible phrases that stared him in the face.

It is generally agreed that an anonymous letter should be treated with silent contempt, and cast aside as the malicious lies of a coward who dares not say to a man’s face what he secretly commits to paper, and forces upon him.

This is all very well in theory, but is difficult to practise when the anonymous letter comes. You throw it in the fire, it burns; but, although the paper is destroyed by the flames, doubt remains. Suspicion arises from its ashes, like a subtle poison penetrates the inmost recesses of the mind, weakens its holiest beliefs, and destroys its faith.

The trail of the serpent is left.

The wife suspected, no matter how unjustly, is no longer the wife in whom her husband trusted as he would trust himself: the pure being who was above suspicion no longer exists. Suspicion, no matter whence the source, has irrevocably tarnished the brightness of his idol.

Unable to struggle any longer against these conflicting doubts, M. Fauvel determined to resolve them by showing the letter to his wife; but a torturing thought, more terrible than any he had yet suffered, made him sink back in his chair in despair.

“Suppose it be true!” he muttered to himself; “suppose I have been miserably duped! By confiding in my wife, I shall put her on her guard, and lose all chance of discovering the truth.”

Thus were realized all Verduret’s presumptions.

He had said, “If M. Fauvel does not yield to his first impulse, if he stops to reflect, we have time to repair the harm done.”

After long and painful meditation, the banker finally decided to wait, and watch his wife.

It was a hard struggle for a man of his frank, upright nature, to play the part of a domestic spy, and jealous husband.

Accustomed to give way to sudden bursts of anger, but quickly mastering them, he would find it difficult to be compelled to preserve his self-restraint, no matter how dreadful the discoveries might be. When he collected the proofs of guilt one by one, he must impose silence upon his resentment, until fully assured of possessing certain evidence.

There was one simple means of ascertaining whether the diamonds had been pawned.

If the letter lied in this instance, he would treat it with the scorn it deserved. If, on the other hand, it should prove to be true!

At this moment, the servant announced breakfast; and M. Fauvel looked in the glass before leaving his study, to see if his face betrayed the emotion he felt. He was shocked at the haggard features which it reflected.

“Have I no nerve?” he said to himself: “oh! I must and shall control my feelings until I find out the truth.”

At table he talked incessantly, so as to escape any questions from his wife, who, he saw, was uneasy at the sight of his pale face.

But, all the time he was talking, he was casting over in his mind expedients of getting his wife out of the house long enough for him to search her bureau.

At last he asked Mme. Fauvel if she were going out before dinner.

“Yes,” said she: “the weather is dreadful, but Madeleine and I must do some shopping.”

“At what time shall you go?”

“Immediately after breakfast.”

He drew a long breath as if relieved of a great weight.

In a short time he would know the truth.

His uncertainty was so torturing to the unhappy man that he preferred the most dreadful reality to his present agony.

Breakfast over, he lighted a cigar, but did not remain in the dining-room to smoke it, as was his habit. He went into his study to try and compose his nerves.

He took the precaution to send Lucien on a message so as to be alone in the house.

After the lapse of half an hour, he heard the carriage roll away with his wife and niece.

Hurrying into Mme. Fauvel’s room, he opened the drawer of the chiffonnier, where she kept her jewels.

The last dozen or more leather and velvet boxes, containing superb sets of jewelry which he had presented to her, were gone!

Twelve boxes remained. He nervously opened them.

They were all empty!

The anonymous letter had told the truth.

“Oh, it cannot be!” he gasped in broken tones. “Oh, no, no!”

He wildly pulled open every drawer in the vain hope of finding them packed away. Perhaps she kept them elsewhere.

He tried to hope that she had sent them to be reset; but no, they were all superbly set in the latest fashion; and, moreover, she never would have sent them all at once. He looked again.

Nothing! not one jewel could he find.

He remembered that he had asked his wife at the Jandidier ball why she did not wear her diamonds; and she had replied with a smile:

“Oh! what is the use? Everybody knows them so well; and, besides, they don’t suit my costume.”

Yes, she had made the answer without blushing, without showing the slightest sign of agitation or shame.

What hardened impudence! What base hypocrisy concealed beneath an innocent, confiding manner!

And she had been thus deceiving him for twenty years! But suddenly a gleam of hope penetrated his confused mind⁠—slight, barely possible; still a straw to cling to:

“Perhaps Valentine has put her diamonds in Madeleine’s room.”

Without stopping to consider the indelicacy of what he was about to do, he hurried into the young girl’s room, and pulled open one drawer after another. What did he find?

Not Mme. Fauvel’s diamonds; but Madeleine’s seven or eight boxes also empty.

Great heavens! Was this gentle girl, whom he had treated as a daughter, an accomplice in this deed of shame? Had she contributed