Castles in the Air

  3.

  The very next day M. le Marquis de Firmin-Latour called upon me at myoffice in the Rue Daunou. Theodore let him in, and the first thingthat struck me about him was his curt, haughty manner and the look ofdisdain wherewith he regarded the humble appointments of my businesspremises. He himself was magnificently dressed, I may tell you. Hisbottle-green coat was of the finest cloth and the most perfect cut Ihad ever seen. His kerseymere pantaloons fitted him without a wrinkle.He wore gloves, he carried a muff of priceless zibeline, and in hiscravat there was a diamond the size of a broad bean.

  He also carried a malacca cane, which he deposited upon my desk, and agold-rimmed spy-glass which, with a gesture of supreme affectation, heraised to his eye.

  "Now, M. Hector Ratichon," he said abruptly, "perhaps you will be goodenough to explain."

  I had risen when he entered. But now I sat down again and coollypointed to the best chair in the room.

  "Will you give yourself the trouble to sit down, M. le Marquis?" Iriposted blandly.

  He called me names--rude names! but I took no notice of that . . . andhe sat down.

  "Now!" he said once more.

  "What is it you desire to know, M. le Marquis?" I queried.

  "Why you interfered in my affairs last night?"

  "Do you complain?" I asked.

  "No," he admitted reluctantly, "but I don't understand your object."

  "My object was to serve you then," I rejoined quietly, "and later."

  "What do you mean by 'later'?"

  "To-day," I replied, "to-morrow; whenever your present positionbecomes absolutely unendurable."

  "It is that now," he said with a savage oath.

  "I thought as much," was my curt comment.

  "And do you mean to assert," he went on more earnestly, "that you canfind a way out of it?"

  "If you desire it--yes!" I said.

  "How?"

  He drew his chair nearer to my desk, and I leaned forward, with myelbows on the table, the finger-tips of one hand in contact with thoseof the other.

  "Let us begin by reviewing the situation, shall we, Monsieur?" Ibegan.

  "If you wish," he said curtly.

  "You are a gentleman of refined, not to say luxurious tastes, whofinds himself absolutely without means to gratify them. Is that so?"

  He nodded.

  "You have a wife and a father-in-law who, whilst lavishing costlytreasures upon you, leave you in a humiliating dependence on them foractual money."

  Again he nodded approvingly.

  "Human nature," I continued with gentle indulgence, "being what it is,you pine after what you do not possess--namely, money. Houses,equipages, servants, even good food and wine, are nothing to youbeside that earnest desire for money that you can call your own, andwhich, if only you had it, you could spend at your pleasure."

  "To the point, man, to the point!" he broke in impatiently.

  "One moment, M. le Marquis, and I have done. But first of all, withyour permission, shall we also review the assets in your life which wewill have to use in order to arrive at the gratification of yourearnest wish?"

  "Assets? What do you mean?"

  "The means to our end. You want money; we must find the means to getit for you."

  "I begin to understand," he said, and drew his chair another inch ortwo closer to me.

  "Firstly, M. le Marquis," I resumed, and now my voice had becomeearnest and incisive, "firstly you have a wife, then you have afather-in-law whose wealth is beyond the dreams of humble people likemyself, and whose one great passion in life is the social position ofthe daughter whom he worships. Now," I added, and with the tip of mylittle finger I touched the sleeve of my aristocratic client, "here atonce is your first asset. Get at the money-bags of papa by threateningthe social position of his daughter."

  Whereupon my young gentleman jumped to his feet and swore and abusedme for a mudlark and a muckworm and I don't know what. He seized hismalacca cane and threatened me with it, and asked me how the devil Idared thus to speak of Mme. la Marquise de Firmin-Latour. He cursed,and he stormed and he raved of his sixteen quarterings and of myloutishness. He did everything in fact except walk out of the room.

  I let him go on quite quietly. It was part of his programme, and wehad to go through the performance. As soon as he gave me the chance ofputting in a word edgeways I rejoined quietly:

  "We are not going to hurt Madame la Marquise, Monsieur; and if you donot want the money, let us say no more about it."

  Whereupon he calmed down; after a while he sat down again, this timewith his cane between his knees and its ivory knob between his teeth.

  "Go on," he said curtly.

  Nor did he interrupt me again whilst I expounded my scheme to him--onethat, mind you, I had evolved during the night, knowing well that Ishould receive his visit during the day; and I flatter myself that nofiner scheme for the bleeding of a parsimonious usurer was everdevised by any man.

  If it succeeded--and there was no reason why it should not--M. deFirmin-Latour would pocket a cool half-million, whilst I, sir, thebrain that had devised the whole scheme, pronounced myself satisfiedwith the paltry emolument of one hundred thousand francs, out ofwhich, remember, I should have to give Theodore a considerable sum.

  We talked it all over, M. le Marquis and I, the whole afternoon. I maytell you at once that he was positively delighted with the plan, andthen and there gave me one hundred francs out of his own meagre pursefor my preliminary expenses.

  The next morning we began work.

  I had begged M. le Marquis to find the means of bringing me a fewscraps of the late M. le Comte de Naquet's--Madame la Marquise'sfirst husband--handwriting. This, fortunately, he was able to do. Theywere a few valueless notes penned at different times by the deceasedgentleman and which, luckily for us all, Madame had not thought itworth while to keep under lock and key.

  I think I told you before, did I not? what a marvellous expert I am inevery kind of calligraphy, and soon I had a letter ready which was torepresent the first fire in the exciting war which we were about towage against an obstinate lady and a parsimonious usurer.

  My identity securely hidden under the disguise of a commissionnaire, Itook that letter to Mme. la Marquise de Firmin-Latour's sumptuousabode in the Rue de Grammont.

  M. le Marquis, you understand, had in the meanwhile been thoroughlyprimed in the role which he was to play; as for Theodore, I thought itbest for the moment to dispense with his aid.

  The success of our first skirmish surpassed our expectations.

  Ten minutes after the letter had been taken upstairs to Mme. laMarquise, one of the maids, on going past her mistress's door, wasstartled to hear cries and moans proceeding from Madame's room. Sheentered and found Madame lying on the sofa, her face buried in thecushions, and sobbing and screaming in a truly terrifying manner. Themaid applied the usual restoratives, and after a while Madame becamemore calm and at once very curtly ordered the maid out of the room.

  M. le Marquis, on being apprised of this mysterious happening, wasmuch distressed; he hurried to his wife's apartments, and was asgentle and loving with her as he had been in the early days of theirhoneymoon. But throughout the whole of that evening, and, indeed, forthe next two days, all the explanation that he could get from Madameherself was that she had a headache and that the letter which she hadreceived that afternoon was of no consequence and had nothing to dowith her migraine.

  But clearly the beautiful Rachel was extraordinarily agitated. Atnight she did not sleep, but would pace up and down her apartments ina state bordering on frenzy, which of course caused M. le Marquis agreat deal of anxiety and of sorrow.

  Finally, on the Friday morning it seemed as if Madame could containherself no longer. She threw herself into her husband's arms andblurted out the whole truth. M. le Comte de Naquet, her first husband,who had been declared drowned at sea, and therefore officiallydeceased by Royal decree, was not dead at all. Madame had received aletter from him wherein he told he
r that he had indeed sufferedshipwreck, then untold misery on a desert island for three years,until he had been rescued by a passing vessel, and finally been able,since he was destitute, to work his way back to France and to Paris.Here he had lived for the past few months as best he could, trying tocollect together a little money so as to render himself presentablebefore his wife, whom he had never ceased to love.

  Inquiries discreetly conducted had revealed the terrible truth, thatMadame had been faithless to him, had light-heartedly assumed thedeath of her husband, and had contracted what was nothing less than abigamous marriage. Now he, M. de Naquet, standing on his rights asRachel Mosenstein's only lawful husband, demanded that she shouldreturn to him, and as a prelude to a permanent and amicableunderstanding, she was to call at three o'clock precisely on thefollowing Friday at No. 96 Rue Daunou, where their reconciliation andreunion was to take place.

  The letter announcing this terrible news and making this preposterousdemand she now placed in the hands of M. le Marquis, who at first washorrified and thunderstruck, and appeared quite unable to deal withthe situation or to tender advice. For Madame it meant complete socialruin, of course, and she herself declared that she would never survivesuch a scandal. Her tears and her misery made the loving heart of M.le Marquis bleed in sympathy. He did all he could to console andcomfort the lady, whom, alas! he could no longer look upon as hiswife. Then, gradually, both he and she became more composed. It wasnecessary above all things to make sure that Madame was not beingvictimized by an impostor, and for this purpose M. le Marquisgenerously offered himself as a disinterested friend and adviser. Heoffered to go himself to the Rue Daunou at the hour appointed and todo his best to induce M. le Comte de Naquet--if indeed he existed--toforgo his rights on the lady who had so innocently taken on the nameand hand of M. le Marquis de Firmin-Latour. Somewhat more calm, butstill unconsoled, the beautiful Rachel accepted this generous offer. Ibelieve that she even found five thousand francs in her privy pursewhich was to be offered to M. de Naquet in exchange for a promisenever to worry Mme. la Marquise again with his presence. But this Ihave never been able to ascertain with any finality. Certain it isthat when at three o'clock on that same afternoon M. de Firmin-Latourpresented himself at my office, he did not offer me a share in anyfive thousand francs, though he spoke to me about the money, addingthat he thought it would look well if he were to give it back toMadame, and to tell her that M. de Naquet had rejected so paltry a sumwith disdain.

  I thought such a move unnecessary, and we argued about it ratherwarmly, and in the end he went away, as I say, without offering me anyshare in the emolument. Whether he did put his project into executionor not I never knew. He told me that he did. After that there followedfor me, Sir, many days, nay, weeks, of anxiety and of strenuous work.Mme. la Marquise received several more letters from the supposititiousM. de Naquet, any one of which would have landed me, Sir, in a vesselbound for New Caledonia. The discarded husband became more and moreinsistent as time went on, and finally sent an ultimatum to Madamesaying that he was tired of perpetual interviews with M. le Marquis deFirmin-Latour, whose right to interfere in the matter he now whollydenied, and that he was quite determined to claim his lawful wifebefore the whole world.

  Madame la Marquise, in the meanwhile, had passed from one fit ofhysterics into another. She denied her door to everyone and lived inthe strictest seclusion in her beautiful apartment of the Rue deGrammont. Fortunately this all occurred in the early autumn, when theabsence of such a society star from fashionable gatherings was not asnoticeable as it otherwise would have been. But clearly we wereworking up for the climax, which occurred in the way I am about torelate.