Here was good reason for his satisfaction! He never ceased to thank his stars, especially as this was not the full extent of his gains.
To appreciate the genius of this man it will be well to listen to a little conversation he had with Antoinette’s husband a week after the marriage. The Prince had called at the cashier’s office to draw the monthly allowance provided for in the contract. But he came away wildly excited after throwing at the cashier’s head the two hundred and seventy-five francs offered him in lieu of the bundle of thousand franc notes due to him.
“There’s nothing more to come to you. I have my orders,” said the cashier politely.
The Prince uttered a few words in a language that the cashier failed to understand. But it was easy to guess their offensive import. At last he shouted in French: “By God, he shan’t have me like this!”
He arrived at the “tyrant’s” office in a towering passion. But his sudden appearance in no way caused surprise, it appeared.
“Take a seat, my dear fellow,” said Supia. “What’s happened to put you in such a state?”
“I’ve come from the cashier’s office,” yelped the Prince, restraining himself lest he should fly in his face. “Understand me, Supia, you are a rotten pezevengh.”
‘‘‘Pezevengh! I don’t know what that means,” returned Supia calmly.
“In Transylvania we call a man a pezevengh who lives on money from patchouras.”
“Patchouras!”
“Yes, patchouras are women who give money to pezevengh.”
“After all you ought to know more about that than I do. You come from that country, my dear Prince. I wish you would sit down. And above all calm yourself.”
“Have done with this nonsense. I’m not going to allow myself to be cheated. I am a palikare.”
“Palikare if you like. I have never said that you were not a palikare.”
“A palikare is afraid of nothing. And I am going to show you how easily a palikare can beat a pezevengh.”
“Stuff! We shall end by coming to an understanding,” said M. Supia coolly.
The Prince banged his fist upon the desk:
“Why two hundred and seventy-five francs?” he yelled. “Ah, now we are coming to the point. I prefer that,” returned the “tyrant.”
“Why two hundred and seventy-five francs? Well, my dear Prince, because that’s all we owe you.”
“Scoundrel!”
“My dear Hippothadee, you call me a scoundrel. I might call you a sharper, and, what is more, have you sent to jail, though you may be a palikare. I wish to retain your friendship, though you don’t deserve it. You are a regular bad lot, and I preferred once more to advance you money though I have to deduct something from the amount payable to you every month. Of course, nothing much is left after this deduction. But who is to blame for that? In any case, I shall be only too pleased to come to your assistance, you may be sure. It serves no purpose to throttle people, and such has never been my policy. But I won’t be confronted by a madman who calls me a pezevengh. I don’t know what the word means, but it doesn’t sound pleasant, and we all have our pride.”
The Prince did not interrupt him. He listened, keeping his eyes fixed on him, wondering what the old miser was leading up to; for he had had many opportunities of realizing that the “tyrant” was never so formidable as when he affected this genial tone. At last he asked himself whether Antoinette’s ex-guardian had any hold over him. He had spoken of swindling — prison. All that sort of thing was scarcely reassuring, particularly to an aristocrat unaccustomed to trouble himself with the exact system of accounts in which the ordinary prudent lower middle-classes found satisfaction. Suddenly a thought came to him.
“May the great Hippothadee forgive me,” he exclaimed. “Can it be that you, M. Supia, are making all this fuss over that little affair of the furniture?”
The “tyrant” grinned without malice.
“Come, come, you have finished behaving like a surly dog, which is something; all the more so as in business matters no one has ever frightened me. That’s the one ground on which I am ready to fight, my dear Prince. As a matter of fact it has to do with that little business. Do you know how much that furniture was worth?”
“I never knew and I don’t want to know. I don’t even know how much I sold it for.”
“I could enlighten you. The accounts are here.”
“Spare me your figures, if you don’t mind.”
“And as I have nothing to keep from you I could also tell you how much it cost me to buy it back again.”
“You bought back that awful stuff?”
“You can’t do without furniture.”
“I don’t want the flat again. We are very comfortable at the hotel.”
“You won’t be able to pay your hotel bills out of your monthly allowance. But to return to the furniture, I bought it back for a mere nothing.”
“Had you told me otherwise I shouldn’t have believed you.”
“Hang it all, it was furniture that you had no right to sell and the buyer no right to buy. This business might have gone a great deal further, you know. However, if it were merely a question of this furniture, which is now settled, I should have been less exacting in the amount that must be deducted monthly to enable me to get back my money without feeling it too much. But there’s another matter.”
“What other matter,” gasped the Prince.
“Well, what about the necklace?”
“Necklace — what necklace?” asked the Prince, turning pale.
“Why, you know as well as I do, Mme. Supia’s necklace. You must admit that this is much more serious, particularly as Mme. Supia’s pearls were very fine ones. I selected them myself, one by one, with a care and, I venture to say, a love, increasing with every birthday and anniversary. With what delight my dear Thélise saw the necklace grow larger and with what pride I saw her wearing it! Those pearls represented a veritable fortune.... Mme. Supia’s necklace was famous.”
“But she still has it,” interjected the Prince in a husky voice.
“What an indifferent connoisseur you are! The necklace that Mme. Supia wears now is but an echo of the real one. I don’t deny for that matter that the workmanship is first rate. The paste is so excellent an imitation of the real thing that dear Thélise herself has no suspicion of the fraud, inasmuch as the clasp is the actual clasp and adds to the delusion; and I congratulate myself on that fact, for I am very fond of her, and I am in the throes of despair when I see her fretting. You yourself, my dear Prince, who have some liking for her, cannot have wished her to suspect the substitution — and I thank you for it....
“You do things in the grand manner, and I know you didn’t haggle with the jeweler over the price charged you for making it when it was a question of his buying the original necklace from you. That was all the more praiseworthy on your part, as he proved to be rather avaricious. I really don’t know how you came to be satisfied with those forty-five thousand francs. A necklace like that is worth at the very lowest, two hundred and fifty thousand francs....
“I am well aware that you can say it was a loan and you were free to withdraw the necklace within a fortnight on paying the horrible money-lender fifty-five thousand francs, but you also ran the risk of not having the ready money and of the necklace becoming the property of the scoundrel. You see, my dear Prince, you have too much delicacy not to be cheated by these gentry. Let this be a lesson to you another time! Especially as you acted like a child. To order the jeweler to transfer the genuine clasp to the paste necklace was to give things away! Either you were robbing your fair lady friend, excuse the word, or you were in league with her to cheat her husband, who gave her the necklace.
“I mentioned just now your delicacy, but I ought to have said ‘simplicity.’ When I was told about the affair, I assure you that I was grieved for you. You lower your head. You say nothing. You no longer bang the table. You do not even ask me from whom I got this incredible story. But I will te
ll you, never fear. It will still further enlighten you. I had it from the jeweler himself.
“Mme. Supia’s necklace is, I repeat, famous. Our jeweler recognized it. And as he knows the sort of man I am he had no wish to take the responsibility for a shabby transaction of this sort. I told him that it was not for me to interfere in your business, that I had the greatest confidence in you and wished nothing so much as to see you a member of our family, and that if Mme. Supia had ordered a paste necklace through you he had only to execute the order. As he persisted, and indulged in language scarcely flattering to your character, I flatly showed him the door. He got his own back a month later by sending me word that I made a mistake not to listen to him as he was now the owner of the necklace....
“I need not tell you, my dear Prince, how worried I was over the matter. I set great store on this necklace. But that thief, after acquiring it for, as you know, a ridiculous sum, would only give it up on my paying him its full value. The sum total you can work out for yourself, and you will see why I have to deduct so much money at the end of the month. As to the necklace — here it is!”
M. Supia took from his drawer a case containing the real necklace. Suddenly the Prince recovered from his confusion and once more banged the table with his fist.
“Damn you, you are very clever. Why you worked the whole business. It was you who lent me forty-five thousand francs through that jeweler. And now I’ve got to pay two hundred and fifty thousand francs while you have the necklace!”
“My dear Prince, you are not lacking in a certain imagination,” grinned the “tyrant,”
“but I am not called upon to let you into the secret of my business. I have already said enough about it!... Here’s another matter settled. And now what are we going to de with the necklace?”
Here the Prince collected himself.
“If you are fair, M. Supia, you will admit that an innocent person is concerned — Mme. Supia. Therefore it would be well to restore the necklace without allowing her to suspect its return any more than she suspected its going. Leave that to me. And in so doing you will be acting like a gentleman.”
“My dear Prince, I said that we should end by coming to an understanding. I was going to ask you to do us this little service, especially as I’m no longer afraid of your taking it back to the jeweler since you know, from experience, what this transaction is costing you. However, if you are absolutely bent on repeating the experience...”
“No, I understand. I thought I should be a richer man by marrying your ward, and I find myself penniless.”
“No man can be penniless if, like you, he has capital in Bella Nissa,” returned M. Supia.
“What’s the use of capital if it brings me no return, and I am to have to-day’s surprise repeated every time I call at your cashier’s office?” said Hippothadee lugubriously.
“Stuff! You will have a couple of bad years to get through.... It’s not worth mentioning. Business is business and this affair is settled for good and all like the other. But we can do more business together, my dear Prince. I am always at your disposal. I admit that you can’t run your household on two hundred and seventy-five francs a month. A man like you has need of big sums of money. You’ll want a pretty fair amount now and then.”
“I want it at once!”
“Not this evening, in any case. We’ll discuss the matter again two or three days hence, if you like. At the moment I am in the middle of settling my monthly accounts. Meantime you have two hundred and seventy-five francs. You won’t starve. When you have spent that — well, I am not a hard man. I have my security in your interest in my stores. I won’t leave you in the lurch.”
“Do I need my wife’s signature?”
“Not at all. You were married, thanks to me, my dear palikare under the system in which all property is held in common. Everything belonging to your wife is yours.”
“And everything belonging to me is yours, or soon will be?”
“Protect yourself.”
“I will try. So I am to take the necklace?”
“Yes, and you will give it to Thélise at once, you understand.”
“But she is at La Fourca with her daughter. I can’t leave my young wife alone. She’s expecting me.”
“No, she is not expecting you. And as to being left alone she will be only too pleased. Everybody knows that the marriage is one in name only.”
“Everybody knows that?”
“Well, nothing is being discussed from Nice to Monte Carlo but this little episode. And it’s partly your own fault, you must admit. Why did you tell the story to your dear friend the Comtesse d’Azila?”
“Why, that was done to reassure her.”
“Well, believe me, she is now reassured and is jeering at you with all those ladies who run our local charities and are waiting to congratulate you when they see you. You had better go off to La Fourca.”
While speaking M. Supia closed the case and slipped it into Hippothadee’s pocket.
“Am I to bring you back the paste necklace?” asked the Prince helplessly.
“Oh, no. What use would it be to me? It is your property. It is entered on the account. Take it to the jeweler, if it amuses you, just to see what he will lend you on it.”
M. Supia helped the Prince gently out of the office. Hippothadee offered no resistance. He reflected that this was the first time he had a jewel of such value in his possession without being able to turn it to account. Oh, Supia was a pretty smart fellow! Certainly it would be better to be his friend than his enemy. He decided not to go against his wishes in future. He would come to terms with him to avoid being further cheated. Was not Antoinette there to pay the score for both of them? She would get her deserts, it was true. The marriage was one in name only! Poor Hippothadee rejected by his wife and laughed at by his mistress! He had nothing to fall back on but Thélise’s affection.
Such were his thoughts as he stepped into the taxi to drive to La Fourca. His trip, in the circumstances, was not unwelcome to him. He was unaware, was this noble palikare that the execrable “tyrant” had warned his wife by letter that she would have to keep a stricter watch over her necklace in future than she had done in the past:
“You have been wearing a paste necklace for the past three months. I am sending you the genuine one. It will be placed in your hands by the thief himself. He is a pretty gentleman, but I ask you not to be too hard on him since he is now a member of the family.”
Supia felt certain that his letter would set them by the ears, and, as far as both they and Hardigras were concerned, he would cease at last to appear ridiculous. He was a clever business man, but a poor judge of psychology — at least, as will soon be seen, in matters of love.
CHAPTER XX
MORE ABOUT THE NECKLACE
AS WE HAVE said, the rumor of Titin’s death gained ground. No one had seen him. Not a soul had heard from him. Rage, and the spirit of revenge, succeeded dejection in La Fourca. Rage against whom? Revenge for what? For the time being they made a shift to vent their feelings on their adversaries in La Torre les Tourettes, little disposed to bewail Titin’s disappearance. Regrettable incidents occurred in the two towns. Now the blame was cast on St. Helene, whose statue was taken without further ado from the church, stripped of its embroidered gold robe, and clothed in a mourning veil as in the days of the great struggle between dwellers in the Gorges du Loup and the Plain de Grasse.
When Hippothadee reached La Fourca Nova during the evening, his taxi was held up by the procession. Torrential rain, as we have said, had fallen. For the time being, the heavenly fountains seemed to be suspended. But the roads were like trenches, and the Grande Rue de la Fourca was a mass of thick, slippery mud, from which vehicular traffic had some difficulty in extricating itself.
And yet young men and girls marched barefooted, through this morass, singing mournful litanies. It recalled the long ago when great catastrophes devastated Provence and the county of Nice, when seas raged wildly, earth shook, winds rock
ed houses as though they were rushes, while the mountains thundered, and rivers overflowed their banks, carrying disaster and desolation on every hand.
Leading the way under a canopy draped in black, resting on a platform devoid of flowers or garlands, and borne on the shoulders of Jerome Brocard, Pierre Antoine, alias Cauva, and the two Ravibands, was the time-honored image of St. Helene in its mourning veil. Mme. Bibi walked behind. Then came Toton Robin, the smith, and his men supporting the mayor, the poor peasant, who likewise was barefooted.
The rector had declined to assist, alleging that to remove St. Helene in such weather, clad like a beggar-woman, with nothing to lose in this world and nothing to gain in the next, was an act of sacrilege. He was told that if she were powerless to help them to trace Titin she was no use in the church, and they would replace her by a new statue, young and all gilt and more beautiful, and the new St. Helene would work miracles.
That such a spirit of medieval superstition should still hold sway in La Fourca was its chief charm. For, in truth, long search would have been needed to find such antiquated ideas in any country spoilt by everyday politics, the traffic of motor-cars, the invasion of foreigners and modern ideas — in a word, by that which it pleases us to call the march of progress.
It was to be the last procession accorded to St. Helene until the day when they would place her outside the walls in a recess above the main gate which led through the plain from the upper and old Fourca to La Fourca Nova. When St. Helene wished to return to the church in the town and resume her place under her gilded canopy, she had but to show that she still possessed some power.
Giaousé, Tulip, Gamba Secca, and Le Budeu were followed by a group of girls singing loudly in voices raised less in supplication than in menace — voices that at times broke into a terrible scream. As the procession passed La Patentaine a general shout went up: “Down with the ‘tyrant’!” But by Giaousé’s order they continued their march.
Collected Works of Gaston Leroux Page 425