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The Mysteries of Paris V2

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"But, doctor--"

"But it is a fact," answered M. Griffon, absorbed by the love of his
art. "To ascertain the presence of a foreign liquid in the lungs,
Goodwin plunged some cats and dogs into a tub of ink for some seconds,
drew them out living, and dissected my gentlemen some time afterward.
Well, he convinced himself that the ink had penetrated into the lungs,
and that the presence of liquid in the organs of respiration does not
cause death."

The count knew the physician to be an excellent man at heart, but that
his frenzied passion for the sciences often made him appear
hard-hearted and almost cruel.

"Have you, at least, any hope?" asked he, with impatience.

"The extremities of the subject are very cold," said the doctor;
"there is but little hope."

"Oh, to die at her age, poor child--it is frightful!"

"The pupil fixed, dilated," answered the immovable doctor, raising
with his finger the moveless eyelid of Fleur-de-Marie.

"Strange man," cried the count, almost with indignation; "one would
think you without feeling; and yet I have seen you watch by my bedside
night after night. If I had been your brother, you could not have been
more devoted."

The doctor, quite occupied in administering to Fleur-de-Marie,
answered the count, without looking at him, and with settled calmness,
"Do you believe that one meets every day with such a malignant fever,
so marvelously complicated, so curious to study, as the one you had?
It was admirable, my good friend, admirable! Stupor, delirium,
twitchings of the sinews, syncopes--your deadly fever united the most
varied symptoms. Your constitution was also a rare thing, very rare,
and eminently interesting; you were also affected, in a partial and
momentary manner, with paralysis. If it were only for this fact, your
disease had a right to all my attention; you presented to me a
magnificent study; for, frankly, my dear friend, all I desire in this
world is to come across just such another fine case--but one has no
such luck twice."

[Illustration: FEELING FOR THE BEATING OF THE PULSE]

The count shrugged his shoulders impatiently. It was at this moment
that Martial descended, leaning on the arm of La Louve, who had, as
the reader knows, thrown over her wet clothes a plaid cloak belonging
to Calabash.

Struck with the pale looks of the lover of La Louve, and remarking his
hands covered with coagulated blood, the count cried, "Who is this
man?"

"_My husband!_" answered La Louve, looking at Martial with an
expression of happiness and noble pride impossible to describe.

"You have a good intrepid wife, sir," said the count to him. "I saw
her save this unfortunate child with rare courage."

"Oh, yes, sir; good and intrepid is _my wife!_" answered Martial,
dwelling on the last words, and looking at La Louve in his turn with
an air at once tender and affectionate. "Yes, intrepid; for she also
saved my life!"

"Yours!" said the astonished count.

"See his hands, his poor hands!" said La Louve, wiping the tears which
softened the indignant sparkling of her eyes.

"Oh, this is horrible!" cried the count. "This poor fellow has had his
hands literally chopped up. Look, doctor!"

Turning his head slightly, and looking over his shoulder at the
numerous wounds which Calabash had made, the doctor said, "Open and
shut your hand."

Martial executed this movement with much pain.

The doctor shrugged his shoulders, continued to occupy himself with
Fleur-de-Marie, and said disdainfully, and as if with regret, "Those
wounds are absolutely nothing serious. None of the tendons are
injured; in a week the subject can use his hands."

"Then, sir, my husband will not be a cripple?" cried La Louve with
gratitude.

The doctor shook his head.

"And La Goualeuse will live, will she not?" asked La Louve. "Oh, she
must live, my husband and I owe her so much!" Then turning toward
Martial, "Poor little thing! There is she of whom I spoke--she who
perhaps will be the cause of our happiness--she who gave me the idea
of telling you all I have said. See what chance has done, that I
should save her--and here too!"

"She is our Providence!" said Martial, struck with the beauty of La
Goualeuse. "What an angelic face! Oh, she will live! will she not,
doctor?"

"I don't know," answered the physician; "but, in the first place, she
ought to remain here. Can she have the necessary attentions?"

"Here!" cried La Louve. "Why, they murder here!"

"Hush, hush!" said Martial.

The count and doctor looked at La Louve with surprise.

"This house has a bad reputation; it surprises me the less," whispered
the physician to Saint Remy.

"You have, then, been the victim of violence?" asked the count. "Who
wounded you in this manner?" "It is nothing, sir. I had a dispute
here, a fight ensued, and I have been wounded. But this girl cannot
remain in the house," added he, in a gloomy manner. "I shall not
remain myself, neither my wife nor my brother, nor my sister. We leave
the island never to return."

"Oh, what joy!" cried both the children.

"Then what must we do?" said the doctor, regarding Fleur-de-Marie. "It
is impossible to think of transporting this subject in this state of
prostration. Yet, happily, my house is close at hand, and my
gardener's wife and daughter will make excellent nurses. Since this
asphyxia from submersion interests you, you can overlook her
attendants, my dear Saint Remy, and I will come and see her every
day."

"And you play the part of a hard-hearted, unmerciful man," cried the
count, "when you have a most generous heart, as this proposition
proves."

"If the subject sinks, as is possible, there will be a most
interesting autopsy, which will allow me to confirm once more the
assertions of Goodwin."

"What you say is frightful!" said the count.

"For him who knows how to read it, the human body is a book where one
learns to save the life of the sick," said Dr. Griffon, stoically.

"However, you do good," said Saint Remy, bitterly; "that is the
important thing. What matters the cause, as long as the benefit
exists! Poor child, the more I look at her, the more she interests
me."

"And she deserves it, sir," cried La Louve, passionately, drawing
near.

"You know her?" said the count.

"Know her, sir? To her I owe the happiness of my life; in saving her I
have not done as much for her as she has done for me."

"And who is she?" asked the count.

"An angel, sir; all that is good in the world. Yes, although she is
dressed as a peasant girl there is not a grand lady who can talk as
well as she can, with her soft little voice, just like music. She is a
noble girl, and courageous and good."

"How did she fall in the water?"

"I do not know, sir."

"She is not a peasant girl, then?" asked the count.

"A peasant girl! Look at her small white hands, sir!"

"It is true," said Saint Remy. "What a singular mystery! But her name,
her family?"

"Come," said the doctor, interrupting the conversation, "the subject
must be carried to the boat."

Half an hour afterward, Fleur-de-Marie, who had not yet recovered her
senses, was taken to the physician's house, placed in a warm bed, and
maternally watched by the gardener's wife, assisted by La Louve. The
doctor promised Saint Remy, who was more and more interested in La
Goualeuse, to return the same evening to visit her.

Martial went to Paris with Francois, and Amandine, La Louve not being
willing to leave Fleur-de-Marie until she was out of danger.

The island remained deserted. We shall soon meet with its wretched
occupants at Bras-Rouge's, where they had agreed to meet La Chouette,
to murder the diamond dealer.

In the meanwhile we would conduct the reader to the appointment that
Tom, the brother of the Countess Macgregor, had made with the horrible
old woman, the Schoolmaster's accomplice.




CHAPTER XXXVI.

THE LIKENESS.


Thomas Seyton walked impatiently up and down on one of the boulevards,
near the Observatory, till he saw La Chouette appear.

The old wretch had on a white cap, and was wrapped up in a large red
plaid shawl; the point of a very sharp dagger stuck through the bottom
of the straw basket which she carried on her arm; but Tom did not
perceive it.

"Three o'clock is striking from the Luxembourg," said the old woman.
"I am punctual, I think?"

"Come," answered Seyton; and walking before her, he crossed some waste
ground, entered a deserted street situated near the Rue Cassini,
stopped about the middle of the passage, where it was obstructed by a
turnstile, opened a small gate, made a sign for La Chouette to follow
him, and, after having taken a few steps in an alley shaded with large
trees, said, "Wait here," and disappeared.

"I hope he won't make me lose too much time," said La Chouette; "I
must be at Bras-Rouge's at five, to settle the broker. Ah! speaking of
that, my scoundrelly needle has his nose out of the window," added the
old woman, seeing the point of the dagger sticking through the basket.
"So much for not having put on his cap." And taking it from the
basket, she placed it in such a manner that it was completely
concealed.

"It is a tool of my man's," said she. "Did he not ask me for it to
kill the rats, which come and laugh at him in his cellar? Poor
beasts!--not for him. They have only the old blind man to divert them,
and keep them company! The least they can do is to nibble him a
little. Hence I don't wish him to do any harm to the small deer, and I
keep the tickler. Besides, I shall soon want it for the broker,
perhaps. Thirty thousand francs' worth of diamonds--a treasure for
each of us! A good day's work; not like the other day. That fool of a
notary whom I wanted to pluck--I did threaten him, if he would not
give me money, to inform that it was his housekeeper who gave me La
Goualeuse, through Tournemine, when she was quite small; but nothing
frightens him. He called me an old liar, and turned me out of doors.
Good, good--I will have a letter written to those people at the farm,
where Pegriotte was sent, and inform them it was the notary who
abandoned her. They know, perhaps, her family, and when she leaves
Saint Lazare, it will be hot work for this hound of a Ferrand. But
some one comes--a little pale lady whom I have seen before," added La
Chouette, seeing Sarah appear at the other end of the alley. "Some
more business to be done; it must be on account of this little lady
that we carried La Goualeuse away from the farm. If she pays well for
anything new, I'm on it, safe!"

On approaching La Chouette, whom she saw for the first time since a
previous meeting, the countenance of Sarah expressed that disdain
which people of a certain class feel when they are obliged to come in
contact with wretches whom they use as instruments or accomplices.

Seyton, who until now had actively assisted the criminal machinations
of his sister, considering them useless, had refused to continue this
miserable game, consenting, nevertheless, to grant his sister, for the
last time, an interview with La Chouette, without wishing to take part
in any new schemes.

Having been unable to bring Rudolph back to her by breaking the ties
which she thought dear to him, the countess hoped, as we have said, to
render him the dupe of an infamous trick, the success of which might
realize the dream of this opinionated, ambitious, and cruel woman. It
was in contemplation to persuade Rudolph that the daughter, whom he
had supposed dead, was alive, and to substitute some orphan in the
place of his daughter.

The reader knows that Jacques Ferrand, having formally refused to
enter into this plot, in spite of Sarah's threats, had resolved to
make away with Fleur-de-Marie, as much from dread of the revelations
of La Chouette, as from fear of the countess. But she had not
renounced her designs, for she was almost certain of corrupting or
intimidating the notary, when she had secured a girl capable of
playing the part designed for her.

After a moment's silence, Sarah said to La Chouette, "Are you adroit,
discreet, and resolute?"

"Adroit as a monkey, resolute as a dog, dumb as a fish; there's La
Chouette, just as the devil has made her, ready to serve you if she is
capable--and she is rather," answered the hag in a lively manner. "I
hope we have famously decoyed the young country girl, who is safely
fastened up in Saint Lazare for two good months."

"The question is no longer of her, but of other things."

"As you wish, my little lady. As long as there is money at the end of
what you are about to propose, we shall be like two fingers of a
hand."

Sarah could not suppress a movement of disgust. "You must know," said
she, "some common people--some unfortunate family."

"There are more of them than millionaires; plenty to pick from; there
is a rich misery in Paris."

"You must find for me a young orphan girl, one who lost her parents
very early. She must be of an agreeable face, of a sweet temper, and
not more than seventeen."

La Chouette looked at Sarah with astonishment.

"Such an orphan cannot be difficult to find," resumed the countess;
"there are so many foundlings."

"My little lady, have you not forgotten La Goualeuse? Just what you
want."

"Whom do you mean by La Goualeuse?"

"The young person whom we carried off from Bouqueval."

"I tell you, we have nothing to do with her!"

"But listen to me, then; and above all, reward me with good advice;
you wish an orphan, as gentle as a lamb, beautiful as day, and not
seventeen."

"Without doubt."

"Well, then, take La Goualeuse when she comes out of Saint Lazare;
just what you want--as if made to order; for she was only six years
old when Jacques Ferrand (about ten years ago) gave her to me, with a
thousand francs, to get rid of her. It was a man named Tournemine, now
in the galleys at Rochefort, who brought her to me, saying, that she
was doubtless a child they wanted to get rid of, or pass for dead."

"Jacques Ferrand, say you!" cried Sarah, in a voice so changed that La
Chouette stepped back with alarm. "The notary, Jacques Ferrand,"
repeated she, "gave you this child, and"--she could not finish. Her
emotion was too violent; with her hands stretched toward La Chouette,
trembling violently, surprise and joy were expressed on her
countenance.

"But I did not know you were going to fire up in this manner, my
little lady," said the old woman. "Yet it is very plain. Ten years
ago, an old acquaintance, Toarnemine, said to me, 'Do you wish to take
charge of a little girl that some one wants to get rid of? If she
lives or dies, all the same there is a thousand francs to gain; you
may do with the child what you please.'"

"Ten years ago?" cried Sarah.

"Ten years."

"Fair?"

"Fair."

"With blue eyes?"

"With blue eyes, blue as bluebells."

"And it is she who, at the farm--"

"We packed up for Saint Lazare. I must say that I did not expect to
find her there."

"Oh! heaven!" cried Sarah, falling on her knees, and raising her hands
and eyes toward heaven; "your ways are impenetrable. I bow before
mysterious Providence. Oh! if such happiness were possible--but no, I
cannot believe it; it would be too much--no!" Then, suddenly rising,
she said to La Chouette, who looked at her with amazement, "Come."

She walked before the hag with hurried steps. At the end of the alley,
she ascended some steps leading to the glass door of a cabinet,
sumptuously furnished.

At the moment when La Chouette was about to enter, Sarah made her a
sign to remain without. Then she rung the bell violently. A servant
appeared.

"I am not at home to any one--let no one in, do you understand?
absolutely no one."

The domestic retired, and to be more secure the lady locked the door.

La Chouette heard the orders given to the servant, and saw Sarah lock
the door. The countess, turning to her, said, "Come in quickly, and
shut the door."

La Chouette obeyed. Hastily opening a secretary, Sarah took from it an
ebony casket, which she placed on a desk in the middle of the room,
and made a sign for La Chouette to come near her. The casket contained
many jewel-boxes placed one on the other, inclosing magnificent
ornaments.

Sarah was so impatient to reach the bottom of the casket, that she
threw out on the table the boxes, splendidly furnished with necklaces,
bracelets, and diadems, where rubies, emeralds, and diamonds sparkled
with a thousand fires. La Chouette was astonished. She was armed, she
was shut up alone with the countess, her flight was easy, secure. An
infernal idea crossed the mind of this monster. But to execute this
new misdeed, she had to get her poniard from the basket, and draw near
to Sarah, without exciting her suspicions. With the cunning of a
tiger-cat, who crawls treacherously on its prey, the old woman
profited by the pre-occupation of the countess to steal round the
bureau which separated her from her victim. She had already commenced
this treacherous evolution, when she was obliged to stop suddenly.
Sarah drew a medallion from the bottom of the box, leaned on the
table, handed it to La Chouette with a trembling hand, and said, "Look
at this portrait."

"It is La Pegriotte!" cried La Chouette, struck with the great
likeness; "the little girl who was given to me; I see her as she was
when Tournemine brought her to me. There is her thick curly hair which
I cut off at once, and sold well, ma foi!"

"You recognize her? Oh! I conjure you do not deceive me!"

"I tell you, my little lady, that it is La Pegriotte; it is as if I
could see her before me," said La Chouette, trying to approach Sarah
without being remarked; "even now she looks like this portrait. If you
saw her, you would be struck with it."

Sarah had experienced no sorrow, no fright on learning that her child
had, during ten years, lived miserable and abandoned. No remorse on
thinking that she herself had torn her from the peaceful retreat where
Rudolph had placed her. This unnatural mother did not at once
interrogate La Chouette with terrible anxiety as to the past life of
her child. No; ambition with Sarah had for a long time stifled
maternal tenderness.

It was not joy at finding her daughter which transported her, it was
the certain hope of seeing realized the proud dream of all her life.
Rudolph was interested for this unfortunate creature, had protected
without knowing her, what would be his joy when he discovered her to
be his child! He was single, the countess a widow--Sarah already saw
glisten before her eyes a sovereign's crown. La Chouette, still
advancing with cautious steps, had already reached one end of the
table, and placed her dagger perpendicularly in her basket, the handle
close to the opening, quite ready. She was only a few steps from the
countess, when the latter suddenly said, "Do you know how to write?"
And pushing back with her hand the boxes and jewels, she opened a
blotter placed before an inkstand.

"No, madame, I cannot write," answered La Chouette at all hazard.

"I am going to write then, from your dictation. Tell me all the
circumstances attending the abandonment of this little girl." And
Sarah, seating herself in an armchair before the desk, took a pen and
made a motion for the old woman to draw near to her.

The eyes of La Chouette twinkled. At length she was standing erect
alongside of Sarah's seat. She, bending over the table, prepared to
write.

"I will read aloud slowly," said the countess, "you will correct my
mistakes."

"Yes, madame," answered La Chouette, watching every movement.

Then she slipped her right hand into her basket, so as to take hold of
the dagger without being seen. The lady began to write, "I declare
that--"

But interrupting herself, and turning toward La Chouette, who already
had hold of the handle of her dagger, Sarah added, "At what time was
this child delivered to you?"

"In the month of February, 1827."

"By whom?" asked Sarah, with her face still turned toward La Chouette.

"By Pierre Tournemine, now in the galleys at Rochefort. Mrs. Seraphin,
housekeeper of the notary, gave the little girl to him."

The countess turned to write and read in a loud voice: "I declare that
in the month of February, 1827, a man named--"

La Chouette had drawn out her dagger. Already she raised it to strike
her victim between the shoulders. Sarah again turned.

La Chouette, not to be discovered, placed her right arm on the back of
the chair, and leaned toward her to answer her new question.

"I have forgotten the name of the man who confided the child to you."

"Pierre Tournemine," answered La Chouette.

"Pierre Tournemine," repeated Sarah, continuing to write--"now in the
galleys at Rochefort, placed in my hands a child who had been confided
to him by the housekeeper of--"

The countess could not finish. La Chouette, after having softly
disencumbered herself of the basket by dropping it on the ground, had
thrown herself on the countess with as much rapidity as fury; with her
left hand she caught her by the throat, and holding her face down to
the table, she had, with her right hand, planted the dagger between
the shoulders.

This horrible deed was executed so quickly that the countess did not
utter a single cry or groan. Still seated, she remained with her face
on the table. The pen had fallen from her hand.

"The same blow as Fourline gave the little old man in the Rue du
Roule," said the monster. "Another one who will talk no more--her
account is made."

And gathering in haste the jewels, which she threw into her basket,
she did not perceive that her victim still breathed.

The murder and robbery accomplished, the horrible old woman opened the
glass-door, disappeared rapidly in the green alley, went out by the
small door, and reached the waste ground. Near the Observatory, she
took a cab, which conveyed her to Bras-Rouge's. Widow Martial,
Nicholas, Calabash, and Barbillon had, as the reader knows, made an
appointment to meet La Chouette in this den, to rob and kill the
diamond broker.




CHAPTER XXXVII.

THE DETECTIVE.


The "Bleeding Heart Tavern" was situated on the Champs Elysees, near
the Cours la Reine, in one of the vast moats which bounded this
promenade some years since. The inhabitants of the island had not yet
appeared. Since the departure of Bradamanti, who had accompanied the
step-mother of Madame d'Harville to Normandy, Tortillard had returned
to his father's house.

Placed as lookout on the top of the staircase leading down to the inn,
the little cripple was to notify the arrival of the Martials by a
concerted signal, Bras-Rouge being then in secret conference with
Narcisse Borel, a police-officer.

This man, about forty years, strong and thickset, had his skin
stained, a sharp and piercing eye, and face completely shaved, so as
to be able to assume the different disguises necessary to his
dangerous expeditions; for it was often necessary for him to unite the
sudden transformations of a comedian with the energy and courage of
the soldier, to surprise certain bandits whom he was obliged to match
in courage and determination. Narcisse Borel was, in a word, one of
the most useful, the most active instruments of the providence, on a
small scale, modestly and vulgarly called the police.

Let us return to the interview between Borel and Bras-Rouge. Their
conversation seemed very animated.

"Yes," said the plain-clothes constable, "you are accused of profiting
by your position in a double manner, by taking part with impunity in
the robberies of a band of very dangerous malefactors, and of giving
false information concerning them to the police. Take care, Bras-Rouge;
if this should be proved, they would have no mercy on you."

"Alas! I know I am accused of this; and it is afflicting, my good M.
Narcisse," replied Bras-Rouge, giving to his weasel face an expression
of hypocritical sorrow. "But I hope that to-day they will render me
justice, and that my good faith will be certainly acknowledged."

"We shall see."

"How can I be suspected? Have I not given proofs? Was it not I--yes or
no--who, in time past secured you Ambrose Martial, one of the most
dangerous malefactors in Paris? For, as it is said, that runs in his
race, and the Martials come from below, where they will soon return."

"All this is very fine; but Ambrose was informed that he was about to
be arrested; if I had not advanced the hour indicated by you, he would
have escaped."

"Do you believe me capable, M. Narcisse, of having secretly given him
information of your intentions?"

"All I know is, that I received a pistol shot from the rascal, which,
very fortunately, only went through my arm."

"Marry! M. Narcisse, it is very certain that in your calling one is
exposed to such mistakes."

"Oh! you call that a mistake?"

"Certainly; for doubtless the scoundrel wanted to plant the ball in
your body."

"In the arms, body, or head, no matter; it is not of that I complain;
every trade has its offsets."

"And its pleasures also, M. Narcisse; and its pleasures! For instance,
when a man as cunning, as adroit, as courageous as you are, is for a
long time on the tracks of a nest of robbers; follows them from place
to place--from house to house, with a good bloodhound like your
servant Bras-Rouge, and he succeeds in getting them into a trap from
which not one can escape, acknowledge, M. Narcisse, that there is
great pleasure in it--a huntsman's joy--without counting the service
rendered to justice," added the landlord of the "Bleeding Heart."

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