The Joyous Adventures of Aristide Pujol. Locke William John
manger, where he dined in solemn silence. The dinner over he went out again, passing by the bureau where Bocardon, in its dim recesses, was eating a sad meal brought to him by the melancholy Euphémie. Zette, he conjectured, was dining in the kitchen. An atmosphere of desolation impregnated the place, as though a corpse were somewhere in the house.
Aristide drank his coffee at the nearest café in a complicated state of mind. He had fallen furiously in love with the lady, believing her to be the victim of a jealous husband. In an outburst of generous emotion he had taken the husband to his heart, seeing that he was a good man stricken to death. Now he loved the lady, loved the husband, and hated the villain Bondon. What Aristide felt, he felt fiercely. He would reconcile these two people he loved, and then go and, if not assassinate Bondon, at least do him some bodily injury. With this idea in his head, he paid for his coffee and went back to the hotel.
He found Zette taking her turn at the bureau, for clients have to be attended to, even in the most distressing circumstances. She was talking to a new arrival, trying to smile a welcome. Aristide, loitering near, watched her beautiful face, to which the perfect classic features gave an air of noble purity. His soul revolted at the idea of her mixing herself up with a sordid wretch like Bondon. It was unbelievable.
“Eh bien?” she said as soon as they were alone.
“Mme. Zette, to-day I called your husband a scoundrel and a crocodile. I was wrong. I find him a man with a beautiful nature.”
“You needn’t tell me that, M. Aristide.”
“You are breaking his heart, Mme. Zette.”
“And is he not breaking mine? He has told you, I suppose. Am I responsible for what I know nothing more about than a babe unborn? You don’t believe I am speaking the truth? Bah! And your professions this afternoon? Wind and gas, like the words of all men.”
“Mme. Zette,” cried Aristide, “I said I would devote my life to your service, and so I will. I’ll go and find Bondon and kill him.”
He watched her narrowly, but she did not grow pale like a woman whose lover is threatened with mortal peril. She said dryly: —
“You had better have some conversation with him first.”
“Where is he to be found?”
She shrugged her shoulders. “How do I know? He left by the early train this morning that goes in the direction of Tarascon.”
“Then to-morrow,” said Aristide, who knew the ways of commercial travellers, “he will be at Tarascon, or at Avignon, or at Arles.”
“I heard him say that he had just done Arles.”
“Tant mieux. I shall find him either at Tarascon or Avignon. And by the Tarasque of Sainte-Marthe, I’ll bring you his head and you can put it up outside as a sign and call the place the ‘Hôtel de la Tête Bondon.’”
Early the next morning Aristide started on his quest, without informing the good Bocardon of his intentions. He would go straight to Avignon, as the more likely place. Inquiries at the various hotels would soon enable him to hunt down his quarry; and then – he did not quite know what would happen then – but it would be something picturesque, something entirely unforeseen by Bondon, something to be thrillingly determined by the inspiration of the moment. In any case he would wipe the stain from the family escutcheon. By this time he had convinced himself that he belonged to the Bocardon family.
The only other occupant of the first-class compartment was an elderly Englishwoman of sour aspect. Aristide, his head full of Zette and Bondon, scarcely noticed her. The train started and sped through the sunny land of vine and olive.
They had almost reached Tarascon when a sudden thought hit him between the eyes, like the blow of a fist. He gasped for a moment, then he burst into shrieks of laughter, kicking his legs up and down and waving his arms in maniacal mirth. After that he rose and danced. The sour-faced Englishwoman, in mortal terror, fled into the corridor. She must have reported Aristide’s behaviour to the guard, for in a minute or two that official appeared at the doorway.
“Qu’est-ce qu’il y a?”
Aristide paused in his demonstrations of merriment. “Monsieur,” said he, “I have just discovered what I am going to do to M. Bondon.”
Delight bubbled out of him as he walked from the Avignon Railway Station up the Cours de la République. The wretch Bondon lay at his mercy. He had not proceeded far, however, when his quick eye caught sight of an object in the ramshackle display of a curiosity dealer’s. He paused in front of the window, fascinated. He rubbed his eyes.
“No,” said he; “it is not a dream. The bon Dieu is on my side.”
He went into the shop and bought the object. It was a pair of handcuffs.
At a little after three o’clock the small and dilapidated hotel omnibus drove up before the Hôtel de la Curatterie, and from it descended Aristide Pujol, radiant-eyed, and a scrubby little man with a goatee beard, pince-nez, and a dome-like forehead, who, pale and trembling, seemed stricken with a great fear. It was Bondon. Together they entered the little hall. As soon as Bocardon saw his enemy his eyes blazed with fury, and, uttering an inarticulate roar, he rushed out of the bureau with clenched fists murderously uplifted. The terrified Bondon shrank into a corner, protected by Aristide, who, smiling like an angel of peace, intercepted the onslaught of the huge man.
“Be calm, my good Bocardon, be calm.”
But Bocardon would not be calm. He found his voice.
“Ah, scoundrel! Miscreant! Wretch! Traitor!” When his vocabulary of vituperation and his breath failed him, he paused and mopped his forehead.
Bondon came a step or two forward.
“I know, monsieur, I have all the wrong on my side. Your anger is justifiable. But I never dreamt of the disastrous effect of my acts. Let me see her, my good M. Bocardon, I beseech you.”
“Let you see her?” said Bocardon, growing purple in the face.
At this moment Zette came running up the passage.
“What is all this noise about?”
“Ah, madame!” cried Bondon, eagerly, “I am heart-broken. You who are so kind – let me see her.”
“Hein?” exclaimed Bocardon, in stupefaction.
“See whom?” asked Zette.
“My dear dead one. My dear Euphémie, who has committed suicide.”
“But he’s mad!” shouted Bocardon, in his great voice. “Euphémie! Euphémie! Come here!”
At the sight of Euphémie, pale and shivering with apprehension, Bondon sank upon a bench by the wall. He stared at her as if she were a ghost.
“I don’t understand,” he murmured, faintly, looking like a trapped hare at Aristide Pujol, who, debonair, hands on hips, stood a little way apart.
“Nor I, either,” cried Bocardon.
A great light dawned on Zette’s beautiful face. “I do understand.” She exchanged glances with Aristide. He came forward.
“It’s very simple,” said he, taking the stage with childlike exultation. “I go to find Bondon this morning to kill him. In the train I have a sudden inspiration, a revelation from Heaven. It is not Zette but Euphémie that is the bonne amie of Bondon. I laugh, and frighten a long-toothed English old maid out of her wits. Shall I get out at Tarascon and return to Nîmes and tell you, or shall I go on? I decide to go on. I make my plan. Ah, but when I make a plan, it’s all in a second, a flash, pfuit! At Avignon I see a pair of handcuffs. I buy them. I spend hours tracking that animal there. At last I find him at the station about to start for Lyon. I tell him I am a police agent. I let him see the handcuffs, which convince him. I tell him Euphémie, in consequence of the discovery of his letter, has committed suicide. There is a procès-verbal at which he is wanted. I summon him to accompany me in the name of the law – and there he is.”
“Then that letter