Castles in the Air by Baroness Emmuska Orczy
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Baroness Emmuska Orczy >> Castles in the Air
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"One word with you, my dear Marquis. It is so long since we have met."
I bowed to the ladies.
"Mesdames," I said, and was gratified to see that they followed my
dramatic exit with eyes of appreciation and of wonder. The proprietor
himself offered me my hat, and a moment or two later M. de
Firmin-Latour and I were out together in the Rue Lepic.
"My dear Comte," he said as soon as he had recovered his breath, "how
can I think you? . . ."
"Not now, Monsieur, not now," I replied. "You have only just time to
make your way as quickly as you can back to your palace in the Rue de
Grammont before our friend the proprietor discovers the several
mistakes which he has made in the past few minutes and vents his wrath
upon your fair guests."
"You are right," he rejoined lightly. "But I will have the pleasure to
call on you to-morrow at the Palais du Commissariat."
"Do no such thing, Monsieur le Marquis," I retorted with a pleasant
laugh. "You would not find me there."
"But--" he stammered.
"But," I broke in with my wonted business-like and persuasive manner,
"if you think that I have conducted this delicate affair for you with
tact and discretion, then, in your own interest I should advise you to
call on me at my private office, No. 96 Rue Daunou. Hector Ratichon,
at your service."
He appeared more bewildered than ever.
"Rue Daunou," he murmured. "Ratichon!"
"Private inquiry and confidential agent," I rejoined. "My brains are
at your service should you desire to extricate yourself from the
humiliating financial position in which it has been my good luck to
find you, and yours to meet with me."
With that I left him, Sir, to walk away or stay as he pleased. As for
me, I went quickly down the street. I felt that the situation was
absolutely perfect; to have spoken another word might have spoilt it.
Moreover, there was no knowing how soon the proprietor of that humble
hostelry would begin to have doubts as to the identity of the private
secretary of M. le Duc d'Otrante. So I was best out of the way.
3.
The very next day M. le Marquis de Firmin-Latour called upon me at my
office in the Rue Daunou. Theodore let him in, and the first thing
that struck me about him was his curt, haughty manner and the look of
disdain wherewith he regarded the humble appointments of my business
premises. He himself was magnificently dressed, I may tell you. His
bottle-green coat was of the finest cloth and the most perfect cut I
had ever seen. His kerseymere pantaloons fitted him without a wrinkle.
He wore gloves, he carried a muff of priceless zibeline, and in his
cravat there was a diamond the size of a broad bean.
He also carried a malacca cane, which he deposited upon my desk, and a
gold-rimmed spy-glass which, with a gesture of supreme affectation, he
raised to his eye.
"Now, M. Hector Ratichon," he said abruptly, "perhaps you will be good
enough to explain."
I had risen when he entered. But now I sat down again and coolly
pointed to the best chair in the room.
"Will you give yourself the trouble to sit down, M. le Marquis?" I
riposted blandly.
He called me names--rude names! but I took no notice of that . . . and
he 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 position
becomes 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 can
find 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 my
elbows on the table, the finger-tips of one hand in contact with those
of the other.
"Let us begin by reviewing the situation, shall we, Monsieur?" I
began.
"If you wish," he said curtly.
"You are a gentleman of refined, not to say luxurious tastes, who
finds himself absolutely without means to gratify them. Is that so?"
He nodded.
"You have a wife and a father-in-law who, whilst lavishing costly
treasures upon you, leave you in a humiliating dependence on them for
actual 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 you
beside that earnest desire for money that you can call your own, and
which, 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, with
your permission, shall we also review the assets in your life which we
will have to use in order to arrive at the gratification of your
earnest wish?"
"Assets? What do you mean?"
"The means to our end. You want money; we must find the means to get
it for you."
"I begin to understand," he said, and drew his chair another inch or
two closer to me.
"Firstly, M. le Marquis," I resumed, and now my voice had become
earnest and incisive, "firstly you have a wife, then you have a
father-in-law whose wealth is beyond the dreams of humble people like
myself, and whose one great passion in life is the social position of
the daughter whom he worships. Now," I added, and with the tip of my
little finger I touched the sleeve of my aristocratic client, "here at
once is your first asset. Get at the money-bags of papa by threatening
the social position of his daughter."
Whereupon my young gentleman jumped to his feet and swore and abused
me for a mudlark and a muckworm and I don't know what. He seized his
malacca cane and threatened me with it, and asked me how the devil I
dared thus to speak of Mme. la Marquise de Firmin-Latour. He cursed,
and he stormed and he raved of his sixteen quarterings and of my
loutishness. 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 we
had to go through the performance. As soon as he gave me the chance of
putting in a word edgeways I rejoined quietly:
"We are not going to hurt Madame la Marquise, Monsieur; and if you do
not want the money, let us say no more about it."
Whereupon he calmed down; after a while he sat down again, this time
with 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--one
that, mind you, I had evolved during the night, knowing well that I
should receive his visit during the day; and I flatter myself that no
finer scheme for the bleeding of a parsimonious usurer was ever
devised by any man.
If it succeeded--and there was no reason why it should not--M. de
Firmin-Latour would pocket a cool half-million, whilst I, sir, the
brain that had devised the whole scheme, pronounced myself satisfied
with the paltry emolument of one hundred thousand francs, out of
which, remember, I should have to give Theodore a considerable sum.
We talked it all over, M. le Marquis and I, the whole afternoon. I may
tell you at once that he was positively delighted with the plan, and
then and there gave me one hundred francs out of his own meagre purse
for my preliminary expenses.
The next morning we began work.
I had begged M. le Marquis to find the means of bringing me a few
scraps of the late M. le Comte de Naquet's--Madame la Marquise's
first husband--handwriting. This, fortunately, he was able to do. They
were a few valueless notes penned at different times by the deceased
gentleman and which, luckily for us all, Madame had not thought it
worth while to keep under lock and key.
I think I told you before, did I not? what a marvellous expert I am in
every kind of calligraphy, and soon I had a letter ready which was to
represent the first fire in the exciting war which we were about to
wage against an obstinate lady and a parsimonious usurer.
My identity securely hidden under the disguise of a commissionnaire, I
took that letter to Mme. la Marquise de Firmin-Latour's sumptuous
abode in the Rue de Grammont.
M. le Marquis, you understand, had in the meanwhile been thoroughly
primed in the role which he was to play; as for Theodore, I thought it
best 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. la
Marquise, one of the maids, on going past her mistress's door, was
startled to hear cries and moans proceeding from Madame's room. She
entered and found Madame lying on the sofa, her face buried in the
cushions, and sobbing and screaming in a truly terrifying manner. The
maid applied the usual restoratives, and after a while Madame became
more calm and at once very curtly ordered the maid out of the room.
M. le Marquis, on being apprised of this mysterious happening, was
much distressed; he hurried to his wife's apartments, and was as
gentle and loving with her as he had been in the early days of their
honeymoon. But throughout the whole of that evening, and, indeed, for
the next two days, all the explanation that he could get from Madame
herself was that she had a headache and that the letter which she had
received that afternoon was of no consequence and had nothing to do
with her migraine.
But clearly the beautiful Rachel was extraordinarily agitated. At
night she did not sleep, but would pace up and down her apartments in
a state bordering on frenzy, which of course caused M. le Marquis a
great deal of anxiety and of sorrow.
Finally, on the Friday morning it seemed as if Madame could contain
herself no longer. She threw herself into her husband's arms and
blurted out the whole truth. M. le Comte de Naquet, her first husband,
who had been declared drowned at sea, and therefore officially
deceased by Royal decree, was not dead at all. Madame had received a
letter from him wherein he told her that he had indeed suffered
shipwreck, 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 to
collect together a little money so as to render himself presentable
before his wife, whom he had never ceased to love.
Inquiries discreetly conducted had revealed the terrible truth, that
Madame had been faithless to him, had light-heartedly assumed the
death of her husband, and had contracted what was nothing less than a
bigamous marriage. Now he, M. de Naquet, standing on his rights as
Rachel Mosenstein's only lawful husband, demanded that she should
return to him, and as a prelude to a permanent and amicable
understanding, she was to call at three o'clock precisely on the
following Friday at No. 96 Rue Daunou, where their reconciliation and
reunion was to take place.
The letter announcing this terrible news and making this preposterous
demand she now placed in the hands of M. le Marquis, who at first was
horrified and thunderstruck, and appeared quite unable to deal with
the situation or to tender advice. For Madame it meant complete social
ruin, of course, and she herself declared that she would never survive
such 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 and
comfort the lady, whom, alas! he could no longer look upon as his
wife. Then, gradually, both he and she became more composed. It was
necessary above all things to make sure that Madame was not being
victimized by an impostor, and for this purpose M. le Marquis
generously offered himself as a disinterested friend and adviser. He
offered to go himself to the Rue Daunou at the hour appointed and to
do his best to induce M. le Comte de Naquet--if indeed he existed--to
forgo his rights on the lady who had so innocently taken on the name
and hand of M. le Marquis de Firmin-Latour. Somewhat more calm, but
still unconsoled, the beautiful Rachel accepted this generous offer. I
believe that she even found five thousand francs in her privy purse
which was to be offered to M. de Naquet in exchange for a promise
never to worry Mme. la Marquise again with his presence. But this I
have never been able to ascertain with any finality. Certain it is
that when at three o'clock on that same afternoon M. de Firmin-Latour
presented himself at my office, he did not offer me a share in any
five thousand francs, though he spoke to me about the money, adding
that he thought it would look well if he were to give it back to
Madame, and to tell her that M. de Naquet had rejected so paltry a sum
with disdain.
I thought such a move unnecessary, and we argued about it rather
warmly, and in the end he went away, as I say, without offering me any
share in the emolument. Whether he did put his project into execution
or not I never knew. He told me that he did. After that there followed
for me, Sir, many days, nay, weeks, of anxiety and of strenuous work.
Mme. la Marquise received several more letters from the supposititious
M. de Naquet, any one of which would have landed me, Sir, in a vessel
bound for New Caledonia. The discarded husband became more and more
insistent as time went on, and finally sent an ultimatum to Madame
saying that he was tired of perpetual interviews with M. le Marquis de
Firmin-Latour, whose right to interfere in the matter he now wholly
denied, and that he was quite determined to claim his lawful wife
before the whole world.
Madame la Marquise, in the meanwhile, had passed from one fit of
hysterics into another. She denied her door to everyone and lived in
the strictest seclusion in her beautiful apartment of the Rue de
Grammont. Fortunately this all occurred in the early autumn, when the
absence of such a society star from fashionable gatherings was not as
noticeable as it otherwise would have been. But clearly we were
working up for the climax, which occurred in the way I am about to
relate.
4.
Ah, my dear Sir, when after all these years I think of my adventure
with that abominable Marquis, righteous and noble indignation almost
strikes me dumb. To think that with my own hands and brains I
literally put half a million into that man's pocket, and that he
repaid me with the basest ingratitude, almost makes me lose my faith
in human nature. Theodore, of course, I could punish, and did so
adequately; and where my chastisement failed, Fate herself put the
finishing touch.
But M. de Firmin-Latour . . .!
However, you shall judge for yourself.
As I told you, we now made ready for the climax; and that climax, Sir,
I can only describe as positively gorgeous. We began by presuming that
Mme. la Marquise had now grown tired of incessant demands for
interviews and small doles of money, and that she would be willing to
offer a considerable sum to her first and only lawful husband in
exchange for a firm guarantee that he would never trouble her again as
long as she lived.
We fixed the sum at half a million francs, and the guarantee was to
take the form of a deed duly executed by a notary of repute and signed
by the supposititious Comte de Naquet. A letter embodying the demand
and offering the guarantee was thereupon duly sent to Mme. la
Marquise, and she, after the usual attack of hysterics, duly confided
the matter to M. de Firmin-Latour.
The consultation between husband and wife on the deplorable subject
was touching in the extreme; and I will give that abominable Marquis
credit for playing his role in a masterly manner. At first he declared
to his dear Rachel that he did not know what to suggest, for in truth
she had nothing like half a million on which she could lay her hands.
To speak of this awful pending scandal to Papa Mosenstein was not to
be thought of. He was capable of repudiating the daughter altogether
who was bringing such obloquy upon herself and would henceforth be of
no use to him as a society star.
As for himself in this terrible emergency, he, of course, had less
than nothing, or his entire fortune would be placed--if he had one--at
the feet of his beloved Rachel. To think that he was on the point of
losing her was more than he could bear, and the idea that she would
soon become the talk of every gossip-monger in society, and mayhap be
put in prison for bigamy, wellnigh drove him crazy.
What could be done in this awful perplexity he for one could not
think, unless indeed his dear Rachel were willing to part with some of
her jewellery; but no! he could not think of allowing her to make such
a sacrifice.
Whereupon Madame, like a drowning man, or rather woman, catching at a
straw, bethought her of her emeralds. They were historic gems, once
the property of the Empress Marie-Therese, and had been given to her
on her second marriage by her adoring father. No, no! she would never
miss them; she seldom wore them, for they were heavy and more valuable
than elegant, and she was quite sure that at the Mont de Piete they
would lend her five hundred thousand francs on them. Then gradually
they could be redeemed before papa had become aware of their temporary
disappearance. Madame would save the money out of the liberal
allowance she received from him for pin-money. Anything, anything was
preferable to this awful doom which hung over her head.
But even so M. le Marquis demurred. The thought of his proud and
fashionable Rachel going to the Mont de Piete to pawn her own jewels was
not to be thought of. She would be seen, recognized, and the scandal
would be as bad and worse than anything that loomed on the black horizon
of her fate at this hour.
What was to be done? What was to be done?
Then M. le Marquis had a brilliant idea. He knew of a man, a very
reliable, trustworthy man, attorney-at-law by profession, and
therefore a man of repute, who was often obliged in the exercise of
his profession to don various disguises when tracking criminals in the
outlying quarters of Paris. M. le Marquis, putting all pride and
dignity nobly aside in the interests of his adored Rachel, would
borrow one of these disguises and himself go to the Mont de Piete with
the emeralds, obtain the five hundred thousand francs, and remit them
to the man whom he hated most in all the world, in exchange for the
aforementioned guarantee.
Madame la Marquise, overcome with gratitude, threw herself, in the
midst of a flood of tears, into the arms of the man whom she no longer
dared to call her husband, and so the matter was settled for the
moment. M. le Marquis undertook to have the deed of guarantee drafted
by the same notary of repute whom he knew, and, if Madame approved of
it, the emeralds would then be converted into money, and the interview
with M. le Comte de Naquet fixed for Wednesday, October 10th, at some
convenient place, subsequently to be determined on--in all
probability at the bureau of that same ubiquitous attorney-at-law, M.
Hector Ratichon, at 96 Rue Daunon.
All was going on excellently well, as you observe. I duly drafted the
deed, and M. de Firmin-Latour showed it to Madame for her approval. It
was so simply and so comprehensively worded that she expressed herself
thoroughly satisfied with it, whereupon M. le Marquis asked her to
write to her shameful persecutor in order to fix the date and hour for
the exchange of the money against the deed duly signed and witnessed.
M. le Marquis had always been the intermediary for her letters, you
understand, and for the small sums of money which she had sent from
time to time to the factitious M. de Naquet; now he was to be
entrusted with the final negotiations which, though at a heavy cost,
would bring security and happiness once more in the sumptuous palace
of the Rue de Grammont.
Then it was that the first little hitch occurred. Mme. la
Marquise--whether prompted thereto by a faint breath of suspicion, or
merely by natural curiosity--altered her mind about the appointment.
She decided that M. le Marquis, having pledged the emeralds, should
bring the money to her, and she herself would go to the bureau of M.
Hector Ratichon in the Rue Daunou, there to meet M. de Naquet, whom
she had not seen for seven years, but who had once been very dear to
her, and herself fling in his face the five hundred thousand francs,
the price of his silence and of her peace of mind.
At once, as you perceive, the situation became delicate. To have
demurred, or uttered more than a casual word of objection, would in
the case of M. le Marquis have been highly impolitic. He felt that at
once, the moment he raised his voice in protest: and when Madame
declared herself determined he immediately gave up arguing the point.
The trouble was that we had so very little time wherein to formulate
new plans. Monsieur was to go the very next morning to the Mont de
Piete to negotiate the emeralds, and the interview with the fabulous
M. de Naquet was to take place a couple of hours later; and it was now
three o'clock in the afternoon.
As soon as M. de Firmin-Latour was able to leave his wife, he came
round to my office. He appeared completely at his wits' end, not
knowing what to do.
"If my wife," he said, "insists on a personal interview with de
Naquet, who does not exist, our entire scheme falls to the ground.
Nay, worse! for I shall be driven to concoct some impossible
explanation for the non-appearance of that worthy, and heaven only
knows if I shall succeed in wholly allaying my wife's suspicions.
"Ah!" he added with a sigh, "it is doubly hard to have seen fortune so
near one's reach and then to see it dashed away at one fell swoop by
the relentless hand of Fate."
Not one word, you observe, of gratitude to me or of recognition of the
subtle mind that had planned and devised the whole scheme.
But, Sir, it is at the hour of supreme crises like the present one
that Hector Ratichon's genius soars up to the empyrean. It became
great, Sir; nothing short of great; and even the marvellous schemes of
the Italian Macchiavelli paled before the ingenuity which I now
displayed.
Half an hour's reflection had sufficed. I had made my plans, and I had
measured the full length of the terrible risks which I ran. Among
these New Caledonia was the least. But I chose to take the risks, Sir;
my genius could not stoop to measuring the costs of its flight. While
M. de Firmin-Latour alternately raved and lamented I had already
planned and contrived. As I say, we had very little time: a few hours
wherein to render ourselves worthy of Fortune's smiles. And this is
what I planned.
You tell me that you were not in Paris during the year 1816 of which I
speak. If you had been, you would surely recollect the sensation
caused throughout the entire city by the disappearance of M. le
Marquis de Firmin-Latour, one of the most dashing young officers in
society and one of its acknowledged leaders. It was the 10th day of
October. M. le Marquis had breakfasted in the company of Madame at
nine o'clock. A couple of hours later he went out, saying he would be
home for dejeuner. Madame clearly expected him, for his place was
laid, and she ordered the dejeuner to be kept back over an hour in
anticipation of his return. But he did not come. The afternoon wore on
and he did not come. Madame sat down at two o'clock to dejeuner alone.
She told the major-domo that M. le Marquis was detained in town and
might not be home for some time. But the major-domo declared that
Madame's voice, as she told him this, sounded tearful and forced, and
that she ate practically nothing, refusing one succulent dish after
another.
The staff of servants was thus kept on tenterhooks all day, and when
the shadows of evening began to draw in, the theory was started in the
kitchen that M. le Marquis had either met with an accident or been
foully murdered. No one, however, dared speak of this to Madame la
Marquise, who had locked herself up in her room in the early part of
the afternoon, and since then had refused to see anyone. The
major-domo was now at his wits' end. He felt that in a measure the
responsibility of the household rested upon his shoulders. Indeed he
would have taken it upon himself to apprise M. Mauruss Mosenstein of
the terrible happenings, only that the worthy gentleman was absent
from Paris just then.
Mme. la Marquise remained shut up in her room until past eight
o'clock. Then she ordered dinner to be served and made pretence of
sitting down to it; but again the major-domo declared that she ate
nothing, whilst subsequently the confidential maid who had undressed
her vowed that Madame had spent the whole night walking up and down
the room.
Thus two agonizing days went by; agonizing they were to everybody.
Madame la Marquise became more and more agitated, more and more
hysterical as time went on, and the servants could not help but notice
this, even though she made light of the whole affair, and desperate
efforts to control herself. The heads of her household, the
major-domo, the confidential maid, the chef de cuisine, did venture to
drop a hint or two as to the possibility of an accident or of foul
play, and the desirability of consulting the police; but Madame would
not hear a word of it; she became very angry at the suggestion, and
declared that she was perfectly well aware of M. le Marquis's
whereabouts, that he was well and would return home almost
immediately.
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