Slaves of Paris - Caught in the Net & The Champdoce Mystery

Chapter II.
A Registry Office

The establishment of the influential friend of Daddy Tantaine was situated in the Rue Montorgeuil, not far from the Passage de la Reine Hortense. M. B. Mascarin has a registry office for the engagement of both male and female servants. Two boards fastened upon each side of the door announce the hours of opening and closing, and give a list of those whose names are on the books; they further inform the public that the establishment was founded in 1844, and is still in the same hands. It was the long existence of M. Mascarin in a business which is usually very short-lived that had obtained for him a great amount of confidence, not only in the quarter in which he resided, but throughout the whole of Paris. Employers say that he sends them the best of servants, and the domestics in their turn assert that he only despatches them to good places. But M. Mascarin has still further claims on the public esteem; for it was he who, in 1845, founded and carried out a project which had for its aim and end the securing of a shelter for servants out of place. The better to carry out this, Mascarin took a partner, and gave him the charge of a furnished house close to the office. Worthy as these projects were, Mascarin contrived to draw considerable profit from them, and was the owner of the house before which, in the noon of the day following the events we have described, Paul Violaine might have been seen standing. The five hundred francs of old Tantaine, or at any rate a portion of them, had been well spent, and his clothes did credit to his own taste and the skill of his tailor. Indeed, in his fine feathers he looked so handsome, that many women turned to gaze after him. He however took but little notice of this, for he was too full of anxiety, having grave doubts as to the power of the man whom Tantaine had asserted could, if he liked, make his fortune. “A registry office!” muttered he scornfully. “Is he going to propose a berth of a hundred francs a month to me?” He was much agitated at the thoughts of the impending interview, and, before entering the house, gazed upon its exterior with great interest. The house much resembled its neighbors. The entrances to the Registry Office and the Servants’ Home were in the courtyard, at the arched entrance to which stood a vendor of roast chestnuts.

“There is no use in remaining here,” said Paul. Summoning, therefore, all his resolution, he crossed the courtyard, and, ascending a flight of stairs, paused before a door upon which “OFFICE” was written. “Come in!” responded at once to his knock. He pushed open the door, and entered a room, which closely resembled all other similar offices. There were seats all round the room, polished by frequent use. At the end was a sort of compartment shut in by a green baize curtain, jestingly termed “the Confessional” by the frequenters of the office. Between the windows was a tin plate, with the words, “All fees to be paid in advance,” in large letters upon it. In one corner a gentleman was seated at a writing table, who, as he made entries in a ledger, was talking to a woman who stood beside him.

“M. Mascarin?” asked Paul hesitatingly.

“What do you want with him?” asked the man, without looking up from his work. “Do you wish to enter your name? We have now vacancies for three bookkeepers, a cashier, a confidential clerk—six other good situations. Can you give good references?”

These words seemed to be uttered by rote.

“I beg your pardon,” returned Paul; “but I should like to see M. Mascarin. One of his friends sent me here.”

This statement evidently impressed the official, and he replied almost politely, “M. Mascarin is much occupied at present, sir; but he will soon be disengaged. Pray be seated.”

Paul sat down on a bench, and examined the man who had just spoken with some curiosity. M. Mascarin’s partner was a tall and athletic man, evidently enjoying the best of health, and wearing a large moustache elaborately waxed and pointed. His whole appearance betokened the old soldier. He had, so he asserted, served in the cavalry, and it was there that he had acquired the soubriquet by which he was known—Beaumarchef, his original name being David. He was about forty-five, but was still considered a very good-looking fellow. The entries that he was making in the ledger did not prevent him from keeping up a conversation with the woman standing by him. The woman, who seemed to be a cross between a cook and a market-woman, might be described as a thoroughly jovial soul. She seasoned her conversation with pinches of snuff, and spoke with a strong Alsatian brogue.

“Now, look here,” said Beaumarchef; “do you really mean to say that you want a place?”

“I do that.”

“You said that six months ago. We got you a splendid one, and three days afterward you chucked up the whole concern.”

“And why shouldn’t I? There was no need to work then; but now it is another pair of shoes, for I have spent nearly all I had saved.”

Beaumarchef laid down his pen, and eyed her curiously for a second or two; then he said,—

“You’ve been making a fool of yourself somehow, I expect.”

She half turned away her head, and began to complain of the hardness of the terms and of the meanness of the mistresses, who, instead of allowing their cooks to do the marketing, did it themselves, and so cheated their servants out of their commissions.

Beaumarchef nodded, just as he had done half an hour before to a lady who had complained bitterly of the misconduct of her servants. He was compelled by his position to sympathize with both sides.

The woman had now finished her tirade, and drawing the amount of the fee from a well-filled purse, placed it on the table, saying,—

“Please, M. Beaumarchef, register my name as Caroline Scheumal, and get me a real good place. It must be a cook, you understand, and I want to do the marketing without the missus dodging around.”

“Well, I’ll do my best.”

“Try and find me a wealthy widower, or a young woman married to a very old fellow. Now, do look round; I’ll drop in again to-morrow;” and with a farewell pinch of snuff, she left the office.

Paul listened to this conversation with feelings of anger and humiliation, and in his heart cursed old Tantaine for having introduced him into such company. He was seeking for some plausible excuse for withdrawal, when the door at the end of the room was thrown open, and two men came in, talking as they did so. The one was young and well dressed, with an easy, swaggering manner, which ignorant people mistake for good breeding. He had a many-colored rosette at his buttonhole, showing that he was the knight of more than one foreign order. The other was an elderly man, with an unmistakable legal air about him. He was dressed in a quilted dressing-gown, fur-lined shoes, and had on his head an embroidered cap, most likely the work of the hands of some one dear to him. He wore a white cravat, and his sight compelled him to use colored glasses.

“Then, my dear sir,” said the younger man, “I may venture to entertain hopes?”

“Remember, Marquis,” returned the other, “that if I were acting alone, what you require would be at once at your disposal. Unfortunately, I have others to consult.”

“I place myself entirely in your hands,” replied the Marquis.

The appearance of the fashionably dressed young man reconciled Paul to the place in which he was.

“A Marquis!” he murmured; “and the other swell-looking fellow must be M. Mascarin.”

Paul was about to step forward, when Beaumarchef respectfully accosted the last comer,—

“Who do you think, sir,” said he, “I have just seen?”

“Tell me quickly,” was the impatient reply.

“Caroline Schimmel; you know who I mean.”

“What! the woman who was in the service of the Duchess of Champdoce?”

“Exactly so.”

M. Mascarin uttered an exclamation of delight.

“Where is she living now?”

Beaumarchef was utterly overwhelmed by this simple question. For the first time in his life he had omitted to take a client’s address. This omission made Mascarin so angry that he forgot all his good manners, and broke out with an oath that would have shamed a London cabman,—

“How could you be such an infernal fool? We have been hunting for this woman for five months. You knew this as well as I did, and yet, when chance brings her to you, you let her slip through your fingers and vanish again.”

“She’ll be back again, sir; never fear. She won’t fling away the money that she had paid for fees.”

“And what do you think that she cares for ten sous or ten francs? She’ll be back when she thinks she will; but a woman who drinks and is off her head nearly all the year round——”

Inspired by a sudden thought, Beaumarchef made a clutch at his hat.

“She has only just gone,” said he; “I can easily overtake her.”

But Mascarin arrested his progress.

“You are not a good bloodhound. Take Toto Chupin with you; he is outside with his chestnuts, and is as fly as they make them. If you catch her up, don’t say a word, but follow her up, and see where she goes. I want to know her whole daily life. Remember that no item, however unimportant it may seem, is not of consequence.”

Beaumarchef disappeared in an instant, and Mascarin continued to grumble.

“What a fool!” he murmured. “If I could only do everything myself. I...