But I adopted the course I pursued because I wished to prove to you that _you_ belonged more absolutely to Mascarin than did your wretched foreign slaves to you. You are absolutely at his mercy, and he can crush you to powder whenever he likes."
"Your Mascarin is Satan himself," muttered the discomfited man. "Who can resist him?"
"Come, as you think thus, we can talk sensibly at last."
"Well," answered Perpignan ruefully, as he adjusted his disordered necktie, "say what you like, I have no answer to make."
"Let us begin at the commencement," said Tantaine. "For some days past your people have been following a certain Caroline Schimmel. A fellow of sixteen called Ambrose, a lad with a harp, was told off for this duty.
He is not to be trusted. Only a night or two ago one of my men made him drunk; and fearing lest his absence might create surprise, drove him here in a cab, and left him at the corner."
The ex-cook uttered an oath.
"Then you too are watching Caroline," said he. "I knew well that there was some one else in the field, but that was no matter of mine."
"Well, tell me why you are watching her?"
"How can you ask me? You know that my motto is silence and discretion, and that this is a secret intrusted to my honor."
Tantaine shrugged his shoulders.
"Why do you talk like that, when you know very well that you are following Ambrose on your own account, hoping by that means to penetrate a secret, only a small portion of which has been intrusted to you?"
remarked he.
"Are you certain of this statement?" asked the man, with a cunning look.
"So sure that I can tell you that the matter was placed in your hands by a certain M. Catenac."
The expression in Perpignan"s face changed from astonishment to fear.
"Why, this Mascarin knows everything," muttered he.
"No," replied Tantaine, "my master does not know everything, and the proof of this is, that I have come to ask you what occurred between Catenac"s client and yourself, and this is the service that we expect from you."
"Well, if I must, I must. About three weeks ago, one morning, I had just finished with half a dozen clients at my office in the Rue de Fame, when my servant brought me Catenac"s card. After some talk, he asked me if I could find out a person that he had utterly lost sight of. Of course I said, yes, I could. Upon this he asked me to make an appointment for ten the next morning, when some one would call on me regarding the affair.
At the appointed time a shabbily dressed man was shown in. I looked at him up and down, and saw that, in spite of his greasy hat and threadbare coat, his linen was of the finest kind, and that his shoes were the work of one of our best bootmakers. "Aha," said I to myself, "you thought to take me in, did you!" I handed him a chair, and he at once proceeded to let me into his reasons for coming. "Sir," said he, "my life has not been a very happy one, and once I was compelled to take to the Foundling Asylum a child that I loved very dearly, the son of a woman whom I adored. She is dead now, and I am old and solitary. I have a small property, and would give half of it to recover the child. Tell me, is there any chance of my doing so?" You must imagine, my dear sir,"
continued he, after a slight pause, "that I was much interested in this story, for I said to myself, that the man"s fortune must be a very small one if half of it would not amply repay me for making a journey to the Foundling Hospital. So I agreed to undertake the business, but the old fellow was too sharp for me. "Stop a bit, and let me finish," said he, "and you will see that your task will not be so easy as you seem to think it." I, of course, bragged of my enormous sources of information, and the probability of ultimate success."
"Keep to your story," said Tantaine impatiently, "I know all about that."
"I will leave you, then, to imagine all I said to the old man, who listened to me with great satisfaction. "I only hope that you are as skilful as M. Catenac says you are, and have as much influence and power as you a.s.sert, for no man has a finer chance than you now have. I have tried all means up to this, but I have failed." I went first to the hospital where the child had been placed, and they showed me the register containing the date of his admission, but no one knew what had become of him, for at twelve years of age he had left the place, and no one had heard of him since; and in spite of every effort, I have been unable to discover whether he is alive or dead."
"A pretty riddle to guess," remarked Tantaine.
"An enigma that it is impossible to solve," returned Perpignan. "How is one to get hold of a boy who vanished ten years ago, and who must now be a grown-up man?"
"We could do it."
Tantaine"s tone was so decided, that the other man looked sharply at him with a vague suspicion rising in his breast that the affair had also been placed in Mascarin"s hands; and if so, whether he had worked it with more success than himself.
"You might, for all I know; but I felt that the clue was absolutely wanting," answered Perpignan sulkily. "I put on a bold face, however, and asked for the boy"s description. The man told me that he could provide me with an accurate one, for that many people, notably the lady superior, remembered the lad. He could also give other details which might be useful."
"And these you obtained, of course?"
"Not yet."
"Are you joking?"
"Not a bit. I do not know whether the old man was sharp enough to read in the expression of my features that I had not the smallest hope of success; be that as it may, he could give me no further information that day, declaring that he came in only to consult me, and that everything must be done in a most confidential way. I hastened to a.s.sure him that my office was a perfect tomb of secrets. He told me that he took that for granted. Then telling me that he wished me to draw up a _precis_ of my intended course, he took out a note for five hundred francs, which he handed to me for my time. I refused to take it, though it cost me a struggle to do so, for I thought that I should make more out of him later on. But he insisted on my taking it, saying that he would see me again soon, and that Catenac would communicate with me. He left me less interested in the search than in who this old man could possibly be."
Tantaine felt that Perpignan was telling the truth.
"Did you not try and find out that?" asked he.
Perpignan hesitated; but feeling convinced that there was no loophole for escape, he answered, "Hardly had my visitor left than, slipping on a cap and a workman"s blouse, I followed him in his track, and saw him enter one of the finest houses in the Rue de Varennes."
"He lived there then?"
"He did, and he was a very well-known man--the Duke de Champdoce."
"Yes, I know all that," answered Tantaine, placidly, "but I can"t, for the life of me, imagine the connection between the Duke and Caroline Schimmel."
Perpignan raised his eyebrows.
"Why did you put a man to watch her?" asked Tantaine.
"My reasons for doing so were most simple. I made every inquiry regarding the Duke; learned that he was very wealthy, and lived a very steady life. He is married, and loves his wife dearly. They had one son, whom they lost a year ago, and have never recovered from the shock. I imagine that this Duke, having lost his legitimate heir, wished me to find his other son. Do you not think that I am right?"
"There is something in it; but, after all, you have not explained your reasons for watching Caroline."
Perpignan was no match for Mascarin"s right-hand man, but he was keen enough to discern that Tantaine was putting a string of questions to him which had been prepared in advance. This he, however, was powerless to resent.
"As you may believe," said he, "I made every inquiry into the past as well as the present of the Duke, and also tried to discover who was the mother of the child, but in this I entirely failed."
"What! not with all your means?" cried Tantaine, with a sneer.
"Laugh at me as much as you like; but out of the thirty servants in the Champdoce establishment, not one has been there more than ten years.
Nor could I anywhere lay my hands upon one who had been in the Duke"s service in his youth. Once, however, as I was in the wineshop in the Rue de Varennes, I quite by chance heard allusion made to a woman who had been in the service of the Duke twenty-five years ago, and who was now in receipt of a small allowance from him. This woman was Caroline Schimmel. I easily found out her address, and set a watch on her."
"And of what use will she be to you?"
"Very little, I fear. And yet the allowance looks as if she had at one time done something out of the way for her employers. Can it be that she has any knowledge of the birth of this natural child?"
"I don"t think much of your idea," returned Tantaine carelessly.
"Since then," continued Perpignan, "the Duke has never put in an appearance in my office."
"But how about Catenac?"
"I have seen him three times."