CHAPTER VI. A CRIMINAL INVESTIGATION, IN TWO PARTS.
The next morning there was a most unusual outcry, in the Doctor's house.The last thing before going to bed, the Doctor had locked up somevaluables in the dining-room cupboard; and behold, when he rose again, ashe did about four o'clock, the cupboard had been broken open, and thevaluables in question had disappeared. Madame and Jean-Marie weresummoned from their rooms, and appeared in hasty toilets; they found theDoctor raving, calling the heavens to witness and avenge his injury,pacing the room bare-footed, with the tails of his night-shirt flirtingas he turned.
'Gone!' he said; 'the things are gone, the fortune gone! We are paupersonce more. Boy! what do you know of this? Speak up, sir, speak up. Doyou know of it? Where are they?' He had him by the arm, shaking himlike a bag, and the boy's words, if he had any, were jolted forth ininarticulate murmurs. The Doctor, with a revulsion from his ownviolence, set him down again. He observed Anastasie in tears.'Anastasie,' he said, in quite an altered voice, 'compose yourself,command your feelings. I would not have you give way to passion like thevulgar. This--this trifling accident must be lived down. Jean-Marie,bring me my smaller medicine chest. A gentle laxative is indicated.'
And he dosed the family all round, leading the way himself with a doublequantity. The wretched Anastasie, who had never been ill in the wholecourse of her existence, and whose soul recoiled from remedies, weptfloods of tears as she sipped, and shuddered, and protested, and then wasbullied and shouted at until she sipped again. As for Jean-Marie, hetook his portion down with stoicism.
'I have given him a less amount,' observed the Doctor, 'his youthprotecting him against emotion. And now that we have thus parried anymorbid consequences, let us reason.'
'I am so cold,' wailed Anastasie.
'Cold!' cried the Doctor. 'I give thanks to God that I am made offierier material. Why, madam, a blow like this would set a frog into atranspiration. If you are cold, you can retire; and, by the way, youmight throw me down my trousers. It is chilly for the legs.'
'Oh, no!' protested Anastasie; 'I will stay with you.'
'Nay, madam, you shall not suffer for your devotion,' said the Doctor. 'Iwill myself fetch you a shawl.' And he went upstairs and returned morefully clad and with an armful of wraps for the shivering Anastasie. 'Andnow,' he resumed, 'to investigate this crime. Let us proceed byinduction. Anastasie, do you know anything that can help us?' Anastasieknew nothing. 'Or you, Jean-Marie?'
'Not I,' replied the boy steadily.
'Good,' returned the Doctor. 'We shall now turn our attention to thematerial evidences. (I was born to be a detective; I have the eye andthe systematic spirit.) First, violence has been employed. The door wasbroken open; and it may be observed, in passing, that the lock was dearindeed at what I paid for it: a crow to pluck with Master Goguelat.Second, here is the instrument employed, one of our own table-knives, oneof our best, my dear; which seems to indicate no preparation on the partof the gang--if gang it was. Thirdly, I observe that nothing has beenremoved except the Franchard dishes and the casket; our own silver hasbeen minutely respected. This is wily; it shows intelligence, aknowledge of the code, a desire to avoid legal consequences. I arguefrom this fact that the gang numbers persons of respectability--outward,of course, and merely outward, as the robbery proves. But I argue,second, that we must have been observed at Franchard itself by someoccult observer, and dogged throughout the day with a skill and patiencethat I venture to qualify as consummate. No ordinary man, no occasionalcriminal, would have shown himself capable of this combination. We havein our neighbourhood, it is far from improbable, a retired bandit of thehighest order of intelligence.'
'Good heaven!' cried the horrified Anastasie. 'Henri, how can you?'
'My cherished one, this is a process of induction,' said the Doctor. 'Ifany of my steps are unsound, correct me. You are silent? Then do not, Ibeseech you, be so vulgarly illogical as to revolt from my conclusion. Wehave now arrived,' he resumed, 'at some idea of the composition of thegang--for I incline to the hypothesis of more than one--and we now leavethis room, which can disclose no more, and turn our attention to thecourt and garden. (Jean-Marie, I trust you are observantly following myvarious steps; this is an excellent piece of education for you.) Comewith me to the door. No steps on the court; it is unfortunate our courtshould be paved. On what small matters hang the destiny of thesedelicate investigations! Hey! What have we here? I have led on to thevery spot,' he said, standing grandly backward and indicating the greengate. 'An escalade, as you can now see for yourselves, has taken place.'
Sure enough, the green paint was in several places scratched and broken;and one of the panels preserved the print of a nailed shoe. The foot hadslipped, however, and it was difficult to estimate the size of the shoe,and impossible to distinguish the pattern of the nails.
'The whole robbery,' concluded the Doctor, 'step by step, has beenreconstituted. Inductive science can no further go.'
'It is wonderful,' said his wife. 'You should indeed have been adetective, Henri. I had no idea of your talents.'
'My dear,' replied Desprez, condescendingly, 'a man of scientificimagination combines the lesser faculties; he is a detective just as heis a publicist or a general; these are but local applications of hisspecial talent. But now,' he continued, 'would you have me go further?Would you have me lay my finger on the culprits--or rather, for I cannotpromise quite so much, point out to you the very house where theyconsort? It may be a satisfaction, at least it is all we are likely toget, since we are denied the remedy of law. I reach the further stage inthis way. In order to fill my outline of the robbery, I require a manlikely to be in the forest idling, I require a man of education, Irequire a man superior to considerations of morality. The threerequisites all centre in Tentaillon's boarders. They are painters,therefore they are continually lounging in the forest. They arepainters, therefore they are not unlikely to have some smattering ofeducation. Lastly, because they are painters, they are probably immoral.And this I prove in two ways. First, painting is an art which merelyaddresses the eye; it does not in any particular exercise the moralsense. And second, painting, in common with all the other arts, impliesthe dangerous quality of imagination. A man of imagination is nevermoral; he outsoars literal demarcations and reviews life under too manyshifting lights to rest content with the invidious distinctions of thelaw!'
'But you always say--at least, so I understood you'--said madame, 'thatthese lads display no imagination whatever.'
'My dear, they displayed imagination, and of a very fantastic order,too,' returned the Doctor, 'when they embraced their beggarly profession.Besides--and this is an argument exactly suited to your intellectuallevel--many of them are English and American. Where else should weexpect to find a thief?--And now you had better get your coffee. Becausewe have lost a treasure, there is no reason for starving. For my part, Ishall break my fast with white wine. I feel unaccountably heated andthirsty to-day. I can only attribute it to the shock of the discovery.And yet, you will bear me out, I supported the emotion nobly.'
The Doctor had now talked himself back into an admirable humour; and ashe sat in the arbour and slowly imbibed a large allowance of white wineand picked a little bread and cheese with no very impetuous appetite, ifa third of his meditations ran upon the missing treasure, the other two-thirds were more pleasingly busied in the retrospect of his detectiveskill.
About eleven Casimir arrived; he had caught an early train toFontainebleau, and driven over to save time; and now his cab was stabledat Tentaillon's, and he remarked, studying his watch, that he could sparean hour and a half. He was much the man of business, decisively spoken,given to frowning in an intellectual manner. Anastasie's born brother,he did not waste much sentiment on the lady, gave her an English familykiss, and demanded a meal without delay.
'You can tell me your story while we eat,' he observed. 'Anything goodto-day, Stasie?'
He was
promised something good. The trio sat down to table in thearbour, Jean-Marie waiting as well as eating, and the Doctor recountedwhat had happened in his richest narrative manner. Casimir heard it withexplosions of laughter.
'What a streak of luck for you, my good brother,' he observed, when thetale was over. 'If you had gone to Paris, you would have played dick-duck-drake with the whole consignment in three months. Your own wouldhave followed; and you would have come to me in a procession like thelast time. But I give you warning--Stasie may weep and Henriratiocinate--it will not serve you twice. Your next collapse will befatal. I thought I had told you so, Stasie? Hey? No sense?'
The Doctor winced and looked furtively at Jean-Marie; but the boy seemedapathetic.
'And then again,' broke out Casimir, 'what children you are--viciouschildren, my faith! How could you tell the value of this trash? Itmight have been worth nothing, or next door.'
'Pardon me,' said the Doctor. 'You have your usual flow of spirits, Iperceive, but even less than your usual deliberation. I am not entirelyignorant of these matters.'
'Not entirely ignorant of anything ever I heard of,' interrupted Casimir,bowing, and raising his glass with a sort of pert politeness.
'At least,' resumed the Doctor, 'I gave my mind to the subject--that youmay be willing to believe--and I estimated that our capital would bedoubled.' And he described the nature of the find.
'My word of honour!' said Casimir, 'I half believe you! But much woulddepend on the quality of the gold.'
'The quality, my dear Casimir, was--' And the Doctor, in default oflanguage, kissed his finger-tips.
'I would not take your word for it, my good friend,' retorted the man ofbusiness. 'You are a man of very rosy views. But this robbery,' hecontinued--'this robbery is an odd thing. Of course I pass over yournonsense about gangs and landscape-painters. For me, that is a dream.Who was in the house last night?'
'None but ourselves,' replied the Doctor.
'And this young gentleman?' asked Casimir, jerking a nod in the directionof Jean-Marie.
'He too'--the Doctor bowed.
'Well; and if it is a fair question, who is he?' pursued the brother-in-law.
'Jean-Marie,' answered the Doctor, 'combines the functions of a son andstable-boy. He began as the latter, but he rose rapidly to the morehonourable rank in our affections. He is, I may say, the greatestcomfort in our lives.'
'Ha!' said Casimir. 'And previous to becoming one of you?'
'Jean-Marie has lived a remarkable existence; his experience his beeneminently formative,' replied Desprez. 'If I had had to choose aneducation for my son, I should have chosen such another. Beginning lifewith mountebanks and thieves, passing onward to the society andfriendship of philosophers, he may be said to have skimmed the volume ofhuman life.'
'Thieves?' repeated the brother-in-law, with a meditative air.
The Doctor could have bitten his tongue out. He foresaw what was coming,and prepared his mind for a vigorous defence.
'Did you ever steal yourself?' asked Casimir, turning suddenly on Jean-Marie, and for the first time employing a single eyeglass which hunground his neck.
'Yes, sir,' replied the boy, with a deep blush.
Casimir turned to the others with pursed lips, and nodded to themmeaningly. 'Hey?' said he; 'how is that?'
'Jean-Marie is a teller of the truth,' returned the Doctor, throwing outhis bust.
'He has never told a lie,' added madame. 'He is the best of boys.'
'Never told a lie, has he not?' reflected Casimir. 'Strange, verystrange. Give me your attention, my young friend,' he continued. 'Youknew about this treasure?'
'He helped to bring it home,' interposed the Doctor.
'Desprez, I ask you nothing but to hold your tongue,' returned Casimir.'I mean to question this stable-boy of yours; and if you are so certainof his innocence, you can afford to let him answer for himself. Now,sir,' he resumed, pointing his eyeglass straight at Jean-Marie. 'Youknew it could be stolen with impunity? You knew you could not beprosecuted? Come! Did you, or did you not?'
'I did,' answered Jean-Marie, in a miserable whisper. He sat therechanging colour like a revolving pharos, twisting his fingershysterically, swallowing air, the picture of guilt.
'You knew where it was put?' resumed the inquisitor.
'Yes,' from Jean-Marie.
'You say you have been a thief before,' continued Casimir. 'Now how am Ito know that you are not one still? I suppose you could climb the greengate?'
'Yes,' still lower, from the culprit.
'Well, then, it was you who stole these things. You know it, and youdare not deny it. Look me in the face! Raise your sneak's eyes, andanswer!'
But in place of anything of that sort Jean-Marie broke into a dismal howland fled from the arbour. Anastasie, as she pursued to capture andreassure the victim, found time to send one Parthian arrow--'Casimir, youare a brute!'
'My brother,' said Desprez, with the greatest dignity, 'you take uponyourself a licence--'
'Desprez,' interrupted Casimir, 'for Heaven's sake be a man of the world.You telegraph me to leave my business and come down here on yours. Icome, I ask the business, you say "Find me this thief!" Well, I findhim; I say "There he is!" You need not like it, but you have no mannerof right to take offence.'
'Well,' returned the Doctor, 'I grant that; I will even thank you foryour mistaken zeal. But your hypothesis was so extravagantly monstrous--'
'Look here,' interrupted Casimir; 'was it you or Stasie?'
'Certainly not,' answered the Doctor.
'Very well; then it was the boy. Say no more about it,' said the brother-in-law, and he produced his cigar-case.
'I will say this much more,' returned Desprez: 'if that boy came and toldme so himself, I should not believe him; and if I did believe him, soimplicit is my trust, I should conclude that he had acted for the best.'
'Well, well,' said Casimir, indulgently. 'Have you a light? I must begoing. And by the way, I wish you would let me sell your Turks for you.I always told you, it meant smash. I tell you so again. Indeed, it waspartly that that brought me down. You never acknowledge my letters--amost unpardonable habit.'
'My good brother,' replied the Doctor blandly, 'I have never denied yourability in business; but I can perceive your limitations.'
'Egad, my friend, I can return the compliment,' observed the man ofbusiness. 'Your limitation is to be downright irrational.'
'Observe the relative position,' returned the Doctor with a smile. 'Itis your attitude to believe through thick and thin in one man'sjudgment--your own. I follow the same opinion, but critically and withopen eyes. Which is the more irrational?--I leave it to yourself.'
'O, my dear fellow!' cried Casimir, 'stick to your Turks, stick to yourstable-boy, go to the devil in general in your own way and be done withit. But don't ratiocinate with me--I cannot bear it. And so, ta-ta. Imight as well have stayed away for any good I've done. Say good-bye fromme to Stasie, and to the sullen hang-dog of a stable-boy, if you insiston it; I'm off.'
And Casimir departed. The Doctor, that night, dissected his characterbefore Anastasie. 'One thing, my beautiful,' he said, 'he has learnedone thing from his lifelong acquaintance with your husband: the word_ratiocinate_. It shines in his vocabulary, like a jewel in a muck-heap.And, even so, he continually misapplies it. For you must have observedhe uses it as a sort of taunt, in the sense of to _ergotise_, implying,as it were--the poor, dear fellow!--a vein of sophistry. As for hiscruelty to Jean-Marie, it must be forgiven him--it is not his nature, itis the nature of his life. A man who deals with money, my dear, is a manlost.'
With Jean-Marie the process of reconciliation had been somewhat slow. Atfirst he was inconsolable, insisted on leaving the family, went fromparoxysm to paroxysm of tears; and it was only after Anastasie had beencloseted for an hour with him, alone, that she came forth, sought out theDoctor, and, with tears in her eyes, acquainted that gentle
man with whathad passed.
'At first, my husband, he would hear of nothing,' she said. 'Imagine! ifhe had left us! what would the treasure be to that? Horrible treasure,it has brought all this about! At last, after he has sobbed his veryheart out, he agrees to stay on a condition--we are not to mention thismatter, this infamous suspicion, not even to mention the robbery. Onthat agreement only, the poor, cruel boy will consent to remain among hisfriends.'
'But this inhibition,' said the Doctor, 'this embargo--it cannot possiblyapply to me?'
'To all of us,' Anastasie assured him.
'My cherished one,' Desprez protested, 'you must have misunderstood. Itcannot apply to me. He would naturally come to me.'
'Henri,' she said, 'it does; I swear to you it does.'
'This is a painful, a very painful circumstance,' the Doctor said,looking a little black. 'I cannot affect, Anastasie, to be anything butjustly wounded. I feel this, I feel it, my wife, acutely.'
'I knew you would,' she said. 'But if you had seen his distress! Wemust make allowances, we must sacrifice our feelings.'
'I trust, my dear, you have never found me averse to sacrifices,'returned the Doctor very stiffly.
'And you will let me go and tell him that you have agreed? It will belike your noble nature,' she cried.
So it would, he perceived--it would be like his noble nature! Up jumpedhis spirits, triumphant at the thought. 'Go, darling,' he said nobly,'reassure him. The subject is buried; more--I make an effort, I haveaccustomed my will to these exertions--and it is forgotten.'
A little after, but still with swollen eyes and looking mortallysheepish, Jean-Marie reappeared and went ostentatiously about hisbusiness. He was the only unhappy member of the party that sat down thatnight to supper. As for the Doctor, he was radiant. He thus sang therequiem of the treasure:--
'This has been, on the whole, a most amusing episode,' he said. 'We arenot a penny the worse--nay, we are immensely gainers. Our philosophy hasbeen exercised; some of the turtle is still left--the most wholesome ofdelicacies; I have my staff, Anastasie has her new dress, Jean-Marie isthe proud possessor of a fashionable kepi. Besides, we had a glass ofHermitage last night; the glow still suffuses my memory. I was growingpositively niggardly with that Hermitage, positively niggardly. Let metake the hint: we had one bottle to celebrate the appearance of ourvisionary fortune; let us have a second to console us for itsoccultation. The third I hereby dedicate to Jean-Marie's weddingbreakfast.'
The Merry Men, and Other Tales and Fables Page 17