The Slaves of Paris Émile Gaboriau (free reads .TXT) 📖

taking a small notebook from it, turned over the pages, and leaving it open at a certain place, handed it to the lawyer.

“There,” said he, “that is made up to December last, and shows precisely how you stand financially. Twice, then, you have increased your funds. These deposits you will find in an addenda at the end of the book.”

Catenac started to his feet; all his calmness had now disappeared.

“Yes,” he said, “I have just the sum you name; and I, for that very reason, refuse to have anything further to do with your schemes. I have an income of sixty thousand francs; that is to say, sixty thousand good reasons for receiving no further risks. You envy me my good fortune, but did we not all start penniless? I have taken care of my money, while you have squandered yours. Hortebise has lost his patients, while I have increased the number of my clients; and now you want me to tread the dangerous road again. Not I; go your way, and leave me to go home.”

Again he took up his hat, but a wave of the hand from Mascarin detained him.

“Suppose,” said he coldly, “that I told you that your assistance was necessary to me.”

“I should say so much the worse for you.”

“But suppose I insist?”

“And how can you insist? We are both in the same boat, and sink or swim together.”

“Are you certain of that?”

“So certain that I repeat from this day I wash my hands of you.”

“I am afraid you are in error.”

“How so?”

“Because for twelve months past; I have given food and shelter to a girl of the name of Clarisse. Do you by any chance know her?”

At the mention of this name, the lawyer started, as a man starts who, walking peacefully along, suddenly sees a deadly serpent coiled across his path.

“Clarisse,” stammered he, “how did you know of her? who told you?”

But the sarcastic sneer upon the lips of his two confederates wounded his pride so deeply, that in an instant he recovered his self-possession.

“I am getting foolish,” said he, “to ask these men how they learned my secret. Do they not always work by infamous and underhand means?”

“You see I know all,” remarked Mascarin, “for I foresaw the day would come when you would wish to sever our connection, and even give us up to justice, if you could do so with safety to yourself. I therefore took my precautions. One thing, however, I was not prepared for, and that was, that a man of your intelligence should have played so paltry a game, and even twelve months back thought of betraying us. It is almost incredible. Do you ever read the Gazette des Tribunaux? I saw in its pages yesterday a story nearly similar to your own. Shall I tell it to you? A lawyer who concealed his vices beneath a mantle of joviality and candor, brought up from the country a pretty, innocent girl to act as servant in his house. This lawyer occupied his leisure time in leading the poor child astray, and the moment at last came when the consequences of her weakness were too apparent. The lawyer was half beside himself at the approaching scandal. What would the neighbors say? Well, to cut the story short, the infant was suppressed⁠—you understand, suppressed, and the mother turned into the street.”

“Baptiste, have mercy!”

“It was a most imprudent act, for such things always leak out somehow. You have a gardener at your house at Champigny, and suppose the idea seized upon this worthy man to dig up the ground round the wall at the end of the garden.”

“That is enough,” said Catenac, piteously. “I give in.”

Mascarin adjusted his spectacles, as he always did in important moments.

“You give in, do you? Not a bit. Even now you are endeavoring to find a means of parrying my home thrusts.”

“But I declare to you⁠—”

“Do not be alarmed; dig as deeply as he might, your gardener would discover nothing.”

The lawyer uttered a stifled exclamation of rage as he perceived the pit into which he had fallen.

“He would find nothing,” resumed Mascarin, “and yet the story is all true. Last January, on a bitterly cold night, you dug a hole, and in it deposited the body of a newborn infant wrapped in a shawl. And what shawl? Why the very one that you purchased at the Bon Marché, when you were making yourself agreeable to Clarisse. The shopman who sold it to you has identified it, and is ready to give evidence when called upon. You may look for that shawl, Catenac, but you will not find it.”

“Have you got that shawl?” asked Catenac hoarsely.

“Am I a fool?” asked Mascarin contemptuously. “Tantaine has it; but I know where the body is, and will keep the information to myself. Do not be alarmed; act fairly, and you are safe; but make one treacherous move, and you will read in the next day’s papers a paragraph something to this effect: ‘Yesterday some workmen, engaged in excavations near so-and-so, discovered the body of a newborn infant. Every effort is being made to discover the author of the crime.’ You know me, and that I work promptly. To the shawl I have added a handkerchief and a few other articles belonging to Clarisse, which will render it an easy matter to fix the guilt on you.”

Catenac was absolutely stunned, and had lost all power of defending himself. The few incoherent words that he uttered showed his state of utter despair.

“You have killed me,” gasped he, “just as the prize, that I have been looking for for twenty years, was in my grasp.”

“Work does a man no harm,” remarked the doctor sententiously.

There was, however, little time to lose; the Marquis de Croisenois and Paul might be expected to arrive at any moment, and Mascarin hastened to restore a certain amount of calmness to his prostrate antagonist.

“You make as much noise as if we were going to hand you