Detective Lecoq - Complete Murder Mysteries. Emile Gaboriau
me by half. You see now to what we are exposed every day in our profession, and it is dreadfully disagreeable. The magistrate did not conceal it from me. ‘M. Lubin,’ said he, ‘it is very sad for a man like you to have waited on such a scoundrel.’ For you must know, that, besides an old woman over eighty years old, he also assassinated a young girl of twelve. The little child, the magistrate told me, was chopped into bits.”
“Ah!” put in Joseph; “he must have been a great fool. Do people do those sort of things themselves when they are rich, and when there are so many poor devils who only ask to gain their living?”
“Pshaw!” said M. Lubin in a knowing tone; “you will see him come out of it as white as snow. These rich men can do anything.”
“Anyhow,” said the cook, “I’d willingly give a month’s wages to be a mouse, and to listen to what the count and the tall dark fellow are talking about. Suppose some one went up and tried to find out what is going on.”
This proposition did not meet with the least favour. The servants knew by experience that, on important occasions, spying was worse than useless.
M. de Commarin knew all about servants from infancy. His study was, therefore, a shelter from all indiscretion. The sharpest ear placed at the keyhole could hear nothing of what was going on within, even when the master was in a passion, and his voice loudest. One alone, Denis, the count’s valet, had the opportunity of gathering information; but he was well paid to be discreet, and he was so.
At this moment, M. de Commarin was sitting in the same arm-chair on which the evening before he had bestowed such furious blows while listening to Albert.
As soon as he left his carriage, the old nobleman recovered his haughtiness. He became even more arrogant in his manner, than he had been humble when before the magistrate, as though he were ashamed of what he now considered an unpardonable weakness.
He wondered how he could have yielded to a momentary impulse, how his grief could have so basely betrayed him.
At the remembrance of the avowals wrested from him by a sort of delirium, he blushed, and reproached himself bitterly. The same as Albert, the night before, Noel, having fully recovered himself, stood erect, cold as marble, respectful, but no longer humble.
The father and son exchanged glances which had nothing of sympathy nor friendliness.
They examined one another, they almost measured each other, much as two adversaries feel their way with their eyes before encountering with their weapons.
“Sir,” said the count at length in a harsh voice, “henceforth this house is yours. From this moment you are the Viscount de Commarin; you regain possession of all the rights of which you were deprived. Listen, before you thank me. I wish, at once, to relieve you of all misunderstanding. Remember this well, sir; had I been master of the situation, I would never have recognised you: Albert should have remained in the position in which I placed him.”
“I understand you, sir,” replied Noel. “I don’t think that I could ever bring myself to do an act like that by which you deprived me of my birthright; but I declare that, if I had the misfortune to do so, I should afterwards have acted as you have. Your rank was too conspicuous to permit a voluntary acknowledgment. It was a thousand times better to suffer an injustice to continue in secret, than to expose the name to the comments of the malicious.”
This answer surprised the count, and very agreeably too. But he wouldn’t let his satisfaction be seen, and it was in a still harsher voice that he resumed.
“I have no claim, sir, upon your affection; I do not ask for it, but I insist at all times upon the utmost deference. It is traditional in our house, that a son shall never interrupt his father when he is speaking; that, you have just been guilty of. Neither do children judge their parents; that also you have just done. When I was forty years of age my father was in his second childhood; but I do not remember ever having raised my voice above his. This said, I continue. I provided the necessary funds for the expenses of Albert’s household completely, distinct from my own, for he had his own servants, horses, and carriages; and besides that I allowed the unhappy boy four thousand francs a month. I have decided in order to put a stop to all foolish gossip, and to make your position the easier, that you should live on a grander scale; this matter concerns myself. Further, I will increase your monthly allowance to six thousand francs; which I trust you will spend as nobly as possible, giving the least possible cause for ridicule. I cannot too strongly exhort you to the utmost caution. Keep close watch over yourself. Weigh your words well. Study your slightest actions. You will be the point of observation of the thousands of impertinent idlers who compose our world; your blunders will be their delight. Do you fence?”
“Moderately well.”
“That will do! Do you ride?”
“No; but in six months I will be a good horseman, or break my neck.”
“You must become a horseman, and not break anything. Let us proceed. You will, of course, not occupy Albert’s apartments. They will be walled off, as soon as I am free of the police. Thank heaven! the house is large. You will occupy the other wing; and there will be a separate entrance to your apartments, by another staircase. Servants, horses, carriages, furniture, such as become a viscount, will be at your service, cost what it may, within forty-eight hours. On the day of your taking possession, you must look as though you had been installed there for years. There will be a great scandal; but that cannot be avoided. A prudent father might send you away for a few months to the Austrian or Russian courts; but, in this instance, such prudence would be absurd. Much better a dreadful outcry, which ends quickly, than low murmurs which last forever. Dare public opinion; and, in eight days, it will have exhausted its comments, and the story will have become old. So, to work! This very evening the workmen shall be here; and, in the first place, I must present you to my servants.”
To put his purpose into execution, the count moved to touch the bell-rope. Noel stopped him.
Since the commencement of this interview, the advocate had wandered in the regions of the thousand and one nights, the wonderful lamp in his hand. The fairy reality cast into the shade his wildest dreams. He was dazzled by the count’s words, and had need of all his reason to struggle against the giddiness which came over him, on realising his great good fortune. Touched by a magic wand, he seemed to awake to a thousand novel and unknown sensations. He rolled in purple, and bathed in gold.
But he knew how to appear unmoved. His face had contracted the habit of guarding the secret of the most violent internal excitement. While all his passions vibrated within him, he appeared to listen with a sad and almost indifferent coldness.
“Permit me, sir,” he said to the count “without overstepping the bounds of the utmost respect, to say a few words. I am touched more than I can express by your goodness; and yet I beseech you, to delay its manifestation. The proposition I am about to suggest may perhaps appear to you worthy of consideration. It seems to me that the situation demands the greatest delicacy on my part. It is well to despise public opinion, but not to defy it. I am certain to be judged with the utmost severity. If I install myself so suddenly in your house, what will be said? I shall have the appearance of a conqueror, who thinks little, so long as he succeeds, of passing over the body of the conquered. They will reproach me with occupying the bed still warm from Albert’s body. They will jest bitterly at my haste in taking possession. They will certainly compare me to Albert, and the comparison will be to my disadvantage, since I should appear to triumph at a time when a great disaster has fallen upon our house.”
The count listened without showing any signs of disapprobation, struck perhaps by the justice of these reasons. Noel imagined that his harshness was much more feigned than real; and this idea encouraged him.
“I beseech you then, sir,” he continued, “to permit me for the present in no way to change my mode of living, By not showing myself, I leave all malicious remarks to waste themselves in air — I let public opinion the better familiarise itself with the idea of a coming change. There is a great deal in not taking the world by surprise. Being expected, I shall not have the air of an intruder on presenting myself. Absent, I shall have the