The Count's Millions - Pascal and Marguerite & Baron Trigault's Vengeance - Historical Mystery Novels

II.

M. Isidore Fortunat resided at No. 27 Place de la Bourse, on the third floor. He had a handsome suite of apartments: a drawing-room, a dining-room, a bed-room, a large outer office where his clerks worked, and a private one, which was the sanctuary of his thoughts and meditations. The whole cost him only six thousand francs a year, a mere trifle as rents go nowadays. His lease entitled him, moreover, to the use of a room ten feet square, up under the eaves, where he lodged his servant, Madame Dodelin, a woman of forty-six or thereabouts, who had met with reverses of fortune, and who now took such good charge of his establishment, that his table—for he ate at home—was truly fit for a sybarite.

Having been established here for five years or more, M. Fortunat was very well known in the neighborhood, and, as he paid his rent promptly, and met all his obligations without demur, he was generally respected. Besides, people knew very well from what source M. Fortunat derived his income. He gave his attention to contested claims, liquidations, the recovery of legacies, and so on, as was shown by the inscription in large letters which figured on the elegant brass plate adorning his door. He must have had a prosperous business, for he employed six collectors in addition to the clerks who wrote all day long in his office; and his clients were so numerous that the concierge was often heard to complain of the way they ran up and down the stairs, declaring that it was worse than a procession.

To be just, we must add that M. Fortunat’s appearance, manners and conduct were of a nature to quiet all suspicions. He was some thirty-eight years of age, extremely methodical in his habits, gentle and refined in his manner, intelligent, very good-looking, and always dressed in perfect taste. He was accused of being, in business matters, as cold, as polished, and as hard as one of the marble slabs of the Morgue; but then, no one was obliged to employ him unless they chose to do so. This much is certain: he did not frequent cafes or places of amusement. If he went out at all after dinner, it was only to pass the evening at the house of some rich client in the neighborhood. He detested the smell of tobacco, and was inclined to be devout—never failing to attend eight o’clock mass on Sunday mornings. His housekeeper suspected him of matrimonial designs, and perhaps she was right.

On the evening that the Count de Chalusse was struck with apoplexy M. Isidore Fortunat had been dining alone and was sipping a cup of tea when the door-bell rang, announcing the arrival of a visitor. Madame Dodelin hastened to open the door, and in walked Victor Chupin, breathless from his hurried walk. It had not taken him twenty-five minutes to cover the distance which separates the Rue de Courcelles from the Place de la Bourse.

“You are late, Victor,” said M. Fortunat, quietly.

“That’s true, monsieur, but it isn’t my fault. Everything was in confusion down there, and I was obliged to wait.”

“How is that? Why?”

“The Count de Chalusse was stricken with apoplexy this evening, and he is probably dead by this time.”

M. Fortunat sprang from his chair with a livid face and trembling lips. “Stricken with apoplexy!” he exclaimed in a husky voice. “I am ruined!”

Then, fearing Madame Dodelin’s curiosity, he seized the lamp and rushed into his office, crying to Chupin: “Follow me.”

Chupin obeyed without a word, for he was a shrewd fellow, and knew how to make the best of a trying situation. He was not usually allowed to enter this private room, the floor of which was covered with a magnificent carpet; and so, after carefully closing the door, he remained standing, hat in hand, and looking somewhat intimidated. But M. Fortunat seemed to have forgotten his presence. After depositing the lamp on the mantel-shelf, he walked several times round and round the room like a hunted beast seeking for some means of egress.

“If the count is dead,” he muttered, “the Marquis de Valorsay is lost! Farewell to the millions!”

The blow was so cruel, and so entirely unexpected, that he could not, would not believe in its reality. He walked straight to Chupin, and caught him by the collar, as if the young fellow had been the cause of this misfortune. “It isn’t possible,” said he; “the count CANNOT be dead. You are deceiving me, or they deceived you. You must have misunderstood—you only wished to give some excuse for your delay perhaps. Speak, say something!”

As a rule, Chupin was not easily impressed, but he felt almost frightened by his employer’s agitation. “I only repeated what M. Casimir told me, monsieur,” was his reply.

He then wished to furnish some particulars, but M. Fortunat had already resumed his furious tramp to and fro, giving vent to his wrath and despair in incoherent exclamations. “Forty thousand francs lost!” he exclaimed. “Forty thousand francs, counted out there on my desk! I see them yet, counted and placed in the hand of the Marquis de Valorsay in exchange for his signature. My savings for a number of years, and I have only a worthless scrap of paper to show for them. That cursed marquis! And he was to come here this evening, and I was to give him ten thousand francs more. They are lying there in that drawer. Let him come, the wretch, let him come!”

Anger had positively brought foam to M. Fortunat’s lips, and any one seeing him then would subsequently have had but little confidence in his customary good-natured air and unctuous politeness. “And yet the marquis is as much to be pitied as I am,” he continued. “He loses as much, even more! And such a sure thing it seemed, too! What speculation can a fellow engage in after this? And a man must put his money somewhere; he can’t bury it in the ground!”

Chupin listened with an air of profound commiseration; but it was only assumed. He was inwardly jubilant, for his interest in the affair was in direct opposition to that of his employer. Indeed, if M. Fortunat lost forty thousand francs by the Count de Chalusse’s death, Chupin expected to make a hundred francs commission on the funeral.

“Still, he may have made a will!” pursued M. Fortunat. “But no, I’m sure he hasn’t. A poor devil who has only a few sous to leave behind him always takes this precaution. He thinks he may be run over by an omnibus and suddenly killed, and he always writes and signs his last wishes. But millionaires don’t think of such things; they believe themselves immortal!” He paused to reflect for a moment, for power of reflection had returned to him. His excitement had quickly spent itself by reason of its very violence. “This much is certain,” he resumed, slowly, and in a more composed voice, “whether the count has made a will or not, Valorsay will lose the millions he expected from Chalusse. If there is no will, Mademoiselle Marguerite won’t have a sou, and then, good evening! If there is one, this devil of a girl, suddenly becoming her own mistress, and wealthy into the bargain, will send Monsieur de Valorsay about his business, especially if she loves another, as he himself admits—and in that case, again good evening!”

M. Fortunat drew out his handkerchief, and, pausing in front of the looking-glass, wiped the perspiration from his brow, and arranged his disordered hair. He was one of those men who may be stunned, but never crushed, by a catastrophe. “In conclusion,” he muttered, “I must enter my forty thousand francs as an item in the profit and loss account. It only remains to be seen if it would not be possible to regain them in the same affair.” He was again master of himself, and never had his mind been more clear. He seated himself at his desk, leant his elbows upon it, rested his head on his hands, and remained for some time perfectly motionless; but there was triumph in his gesture when he at last looked up again.

“I am safe,” he muttered, so low that Chupin could not hear him. “What a fool I was! If there is no will a fourth of the millions shall be mine! Ah, when a man knows his ground, he never need lose the battle! But I must act quickly,” he added, “very quickly.” And so speaking, he rose and glanced at the clock. “Nine o’clock,” said he. “I must open the campaign this very evening.”

Motionless in his dark corner, Chupin still retained his commiserating attitude; but he was so oppressed with curiosity that he could scarcely breathe. He opened his eyes and ears to the utmost, and watched his employer’s slightest movements with intense interest.

Prompt to act when he had once decided upon his course, M. Fortunat now drew from his desk a large portfolio, crammed full of letters, receipts, bills, deeds of property, and old parchments. “I can certainly discover the necessary pretext here,” he murmured, rummaging through the mass of papers. But he did not at once find what he sought, and he was growing impatient, as could be seen by his feverish haste, when all at once he paused with a sigh of relief. “At last!”

He held in his hand a soiled and crumpled note of hand, affixed by a pin to a huissier’s protest, thus proving conclusively that it had been dishonored. M. Fortunat waved these strips of paper triumphantly, and with a satisfied air exclaimed: “It is here that I must strike; it is here—if Casimir hasn’t deceived me—that I shall find the indispensable information I need.”

He was in such haste that he did not wait to put his portfolio in order. He threw it with the papers it had contained into the drawer of his desk again, and, approaching Chupin, he asked, “It was you,...