‘Very well!’ she said, getting up again and turning baleful eyes on the two friends: eyes full of hate, darting both fire and venom. ‘I’m sick of doing no good here and wearing myself out. You’ll have to get a nurse.’
The two friends exchanged terrified glances.
‘It’s all very well for you to look at each other like a couple of play-actors! My mind’s made up. I’m going to ask Dr Poulain to find you a nurse. And we’ll settle accounts. You’ll pay me back the money I’ve laid out on you – I would never have asked for it back – and to think I’ve just been to Monsieur Pillerault to borrow another five hundred francs…’
‘It iss hiss tisseasse!’ said Schmucke, rushing over to Madame Cibot and putting his arm round her waist. ‘Haf patience viz him!’
‘Oh, you’re a blessed saint, and I’d let you walk over me as if I were dirt,’ she said. ‘But Monsieur Pons has never liked me. He hates the sight of me… Anyway, he might think I want to be put in his will…’
‘Hush!’ cried Schmucke. ‘You vill kill him.’
‘Good-bye, Monsieur Pons,’ she said, going up to his bed and blasting him with a look. ‘I don’t wish you any worse than to get better. When you’re nice to me again, and when you’re ready to believe I do what’s best for you, I’ll come back! Till then I’ll keep my distance… You were like my own child. But have children ever started going against their mothers?… No, Monsieur Schmucke, I won’t hear a word… I’ll bring you your dinner, and I’ll serve you. But get a nurse in. Ask Monsieur Poulain for one.’
And out she went, slamming the door hard enough to shatter the frail and precious objects in the flat. Pons heard a rattle of china which, to his tormented soul, was like the coup de grâce administered to a man being broken on the wheel.
One hour later, La Cibot, instead of coming into Pons’s bedroom, called out to Schmucke through the doorway, telling him his dinner was ready in the dining-room. The poor German came in with a pallid, tear-stained face.
‘My poor Pons iss out of hiss vits,’ he said, ‘for he svears you are a vicket voman. It iss only hiss tisseasse,’ he added, hoping to soften La Cibot without accusing Pons.
‘Oh, I’ve had enough of his disease! Look, he’s not my father, nor my husband, nor my brother, nor my child. He’s got a grudge against me, and that’s just about enough! Look at you now: I’d go through fire and water for you. But when you’ve given up your whole life, your whole heart, all your savings, neglecting your husband – Cibot’s taken ill now – and then get called a wicked woman, it’s too much to stand…’
‘Too moch?’
‘Yes, too much. Let’s stop wasting words and come down to simple facts. Here then: You owe me three months’ wages – a hundred and ninety francs a month – that’s five hundred and seventy. Then there’s the rent I paid twice – here are the receipts – that makes six hundred francs, and the five per cent for me and the rates. That’s a bit less than twelve hundred francs, then there’s the two thousand francs, without interest, mind you! All told, three thousand one hundred and ninety-two francs… And remember, you’ll have to find at least two thousand for the nurse, the doctor, the medicine and the nurse’s keep – that’s why I went out and borrowed a thousand francs from Monsieur Pillerault,’ she added, producing the thousand-franc note which Gaudissart had given her.
Schmucke listened to this statement of accounts with very understandable stupefaction, for he knew as much about finance as a cat knows about music.
‘Matame Cipot, Pons iss not in hiss right mint! Forgif him. Ton’t gif up nursink him. Pe our goot antchell shtill… On my knees I pek you!’ And the German threw himself down in front of La Cibot and kissed the hands of his tormentor.
‘Listen, my kitten,’ she said, pulling him to his feet and kissing his forehead. ‘Cibot is ill in bed, I’ve just sent for Dr Poulain. That being so I must get my affairs in order. Besides, Cibot saw me coming in crying, and he fell into such a fury he won’t let me set foot in here again. It’s him that’s demanding the money, and it’s his money after all. Womenfolk have nothing to do with that. But if we give my man his money back, three thousand two hundred francs, he may calm down. It’s all he owns, poor man, every bit he’s saved after pinching and scraping for twenty-seven years, and he earned it with the sweat of his brow. He wants his money tomorrow, and there’s no dodging out of it. You don’t know Cibot: when he gets angry he’d murder anybody. Never mind, I might perhaps get him to agree for me to go on looking after the pair of you. Don’t worry, I’ll let him go on at me as much as he likes. I’ll put up with it for love of you, you’re such an angel.’
‘No, no, I am tchust a poor man who lofs his frient unt voult gif his life to safe him…’
‘But the money?… My good Monsieur Schmucke, supposing you didn’t give me a penny, we still have to find three thousand for your day-to-day needs! My goodness, do you know what I would do if I were in your shoes?… I wouldn’t stop to think about it, I’d sell seven or eight of those wretched pictures and fill up the gaps with some of those in your bedroom – the ones which have been put face backwards to save space. What’s it matter whether it’s one picture or another?’
‘Vy to zet?’
‘He’s so sly! It’s his disease. When he’s well he’s as mild as a lamb. He might very well get out of bed and go ferreting round. And if he happened to come into the dining-room, even though he’s so weak he couldn’t get over the threshold, he’d still find the same number of pictures.’
‘Zet iss so!’
‘But we’ll tell him about the sale when he’s all right again. And if you want to tell him, put all the blame on me; tell him I wanted paying off. After all, I’ve broad enough shoulders!’
‘I cannot sell sinks vich to not pelonk to me,’ the good German answered simply.
‘Very well, I shall take you to court, you and Monsieur Pons.’
‘It voult kill him!’
‘Take your choice. Good heavens! Sell the pictures and tell him about it afterwards… You can show him the summons.’
That very day, at seven o’clock, Madame Cibot, after consulting a writ-server, asked Schmucke to come downstairs. The German found himself in the presence of Monsieur Tabareau, who called upon him to pay up. Schmucke, trembling from head to foot, muttered some sort of reply, but he and Pons were served with a summons to appear before the court and receive the order to pay. The sight of this man and the scrawl on the stamped paper had such an effect on Schmucke that he gave way.
‘Sell ze paintinks,’ he said with tears in his eyes.
The next day, at six in the morning, Elias Magus and Rémonencq each unhooked the pictures they had bought. Two formal receipts, correctly worded, ran thus:
I the undersigned, acting for and on behalf of Monsieur Pons, acknowledge receipt from Monsieur Elias Magus of the sum of two thousand five hundred francs for the four pictures sold to him, the said sum to be applied to the needs of Monsieur Pons. Of these pictures, one, attributed to Dürer, is the portrait of a woman; the second, of the Italian school, is likewise a portrait; the third is a Dutch landscape by Brueghel; the fourth is a Florentine picture of the Holy Family, painter unknown.
The receipt given by Rémonencq was similarly couched and included a Greuze, a Claude Lorrain, a Rubens and a Van Dyck, vaguely designated as being pictures of the French and Flemish schools.
‘Ziss money almost makes me pelief zet zese tchimcracks are vorse somesink,’ said Schmucke on receiving the five thousand francs.
‘They are worth something,’ said Rémonencq, ‘I’d willingly give a hundred thousand francs for all that lot.’
The Auvergnat was asked to render the small service of replacing the eight pictures by others of the same dimensions, in identical frames: he chose them from the inferior pictures Pons had put in Schmucke’s bedroom.
Once in possession of the four masterpieces, Elias Magus took La Cibot home with him on the pretext of settling accounts. But he pleaded poverty, fou
nd flaws in the paintings, asserted they would need new backings, and offered La Cibot a commission of thirty thousand francs. He induced her to accept them by waving in front of her some of those glistening scraps of paper on which the Bank of France inscribes the words MILLE FRANCS. Magus ordered Rémonencq to pay over a like sum to La Cibot as an instalment on the other four pictures, and had them deposited in his house. These four pictures seemed so magnificent to Magus that he could not bring himself to hand them back, and the next day he took a commission of six thousand francs to the second-hand dealer, who ceded the four canvases, duly receipted. Madame Cibot, the richer by sixty-eight thousand francs, once more stipulated absolute secrecy from her two accomplices, and asked the Jew to advise her how to invest this sum in such a way that no one would be able to pin the possession of it on her.
‘Buy shares in the Orleans railway. They are thirty francs below par. You will double your capital in three years, and you’ll have it in paper values which will go into a pocket-case.’
‘Stay here, Monsieur Magus. I’m going to see the attorney acting for Monsieur Pons’s family. He wants to know what price you’ll give for all the stuff up there. I’ll go and fetch him.’
‘Pity she isn’t a widow!’ said Rémonencq to Magus. ‘She’d suit me down to the ground. She’s rolling in money.’
‘She’ll be better off still if she takes out shares in the Orleans railway: they’ll be worth twice that in a couple of years,’ said the Jew. ‘All my little savings are in them, for my daughter’s dowry… Let’s have a stroll along the boulevards while we’re waiting for the lawyer.’
‘If the Lord would take Cibot to His bosom – he’s ill already –’ continued Rémonencq, ‘I’d have a grand woman to manage my shop, and I could go in for a big line of business.’
23. Schmucke climbs to the mercy-seat of God
‘How do you do, my good Monsieur Fraisier?’ said La Cibot, adopting a fawning tone as she entered her legal adviser’s office. ‘What’s this your concierge tells me about you leaving here?’
‘It’s true, my dear Madame Cibot. I am moving to Dr Poulain’s house and taking the first-floor rooms over his. I’m trying to find two or three thousand francs to furnish it suitably: it’s a pretty flat and has just been redecorated. As I told you, I have been entrusted with the Président de Marville’s interests – and yours too… I am giving up as a legal factotum and registering my name on the barrister’s roll, and I must have very smart premises for that. Only those who possess respectable furniture, with a library and so on, can be called to the bar in Paris. I am a doctor of law, I have kept my terms, and I already have powerful protectors… Well now, how are things progressing?’
‘Perhaps you would accept what I’ve put by in the savings bank,’ said La Cibot. ‘It’s not much – three thousand francs; it comes from twenty-five years’ pinching and scraping… You could make me out a bill of exchange. That’s what Rémonencq calls them. I’m ignorant; I only know what I’ve been told.’
‘No, the rules of the bar do not allow barristers to sign bills of exchange. I will give you a receipt bearing interest at five per cent, and you will return it to me if I get you a twelve-hundred francs’ annuity out of old Pons’s estate.’
Caught in a trap, La Cibot said nothing.
‘Silence gives consent,’ said Fraisier. ‘Bring it to me tomorrow.’
‘Oh well, I don’t mind paying you your fees in advance. It means I’m sure of getting my annuity.’
Fraisier gave an assenting nod. ‘Now then, what’s the position?’ he asked. ‘I saw Poulain last night. It appears you are driving your patient pretty hard. One more attack like yesterday’s, and stones will form in his gall-bladder. Mind you’re gentle with him, my dear Madame Cibot. You mustn’t burden your conscience. It shortens one’s days.’
‘Leave me alone with your talk of conscience!… Are you going to start telling me about the guillotine again? Monsieur Pons is a pig-headed old man. You don’t know what he’s like! He puts me into such a state of aggravation! There isn’t a worse man alive; his relations were right; he’s foxy, spiteful, pig-headed… Anyway, Monsieur Magus is there, as I told you, and he’s waiting for you.’
‘Good!… I’ll be along as soon as you. The amount of your annuity depends on the worth of this collection. If it’s valued at eight hundred thousand francs, you’ll get fifteen hundred francs a year. That’s a fortune!’
‘All right, I’ll tell them to make a fair valuation.’
One hour later, while Pons was fast asleep after Schmucke had given him a sedative duly prescribed by the doctor – La Cibot had doubled the dose without Schmucke knowing it – the three gallows-birds, Fraisier, Rémonencq and Magus, were busy examining one by one the seventeen hundred objects comprising the old musician’s collection. Schmucke having gone to bed, they had the place to themselves and were sniffing around like carrion crows round a corpse.
‘Don’t make a sound,’ said La Cibot every time Magus went into raptures and argued with Rémonencq, as he informed him of the value of some fine piece of work.
It was heart-rending to see these four persons, each a prey to his own special kind of cupidity, gauging the value of the inheritance while the man whose death they were greedily anticipating was fast asleep. This valuation of the contents of the salon lasted three hours.
‘On an average,’ said the shabby old Jew, ‘every object here is worth a thousand francs.’
‘That would make seventeen hundred thousand francs!’ exclaimed Fraisier in stupefaction.
‘Not as far as I am concerned,’ Magus continued with a chilly glint in his eyes. ‘I would not give more than eight hundred thousand francs. You never know how long you’ll have such articles on your hands… Some real masterpieces don’t sell for a matter of ten years, and so your purchase price is doubled if you take compound interest into account. But I’ll pay cash down.’
‘In the bedroom,’ Rémonencq remarked, ‘he has some stained glass, enamels, miniatures, and gold and silver snuff-boxes.’
‘May we examine them?’ asked Fraisier.
‘I’ll see if he’s sound asleep,’ said La Cibot. Then she beckoned the three birds of prey in.
Magus, with every hair in his white beard quivering, pointed back to the salon. ‘That’s where the masterpieces are,’ he said. ‘But here are the real treasures. And what treasures! Crowned kings haven’t finer articles in their collections.’
Rémonencq’s eyes, all aflame at the sight of the snuff-boxes, were shining like coals of fire. Fraisier, calm and cold as a coiled snake, had his flattened head thrust forward, and his pose was like that which painters give to Mephistopheles. Each of these three varieties of miser, thirsting for gold just as devils in hell thirst for the dew of paradise, directed his own special glance at the owner of so much wealth, for he had stirred in his sleep as if he were having a nightmare. Suddenly, under the diabolic glare of this triple gaze, the sick man opened his eyes and let out a piercing cry.
‘Thieves!… Look at them!… Call the police!… Help!… Murder!’
Although he was awake, his dream evidently still hung over him: he was now sitting up, his eyes wide open in a blank stare, unable to move.
Elias Magus and Rémonencq made for the door, but they stood rooted to the spot when they heard Pons shout ‘Magus here!… I’m being tricked!’… The instinct which prompted him to watch over his treasure was no less strong in him than the instinct of self-preservation, and it had awakened him.
‘Madame Cibot, who is this man?’ he cried out with a shiver at the sight of Fraisier standing there motionless.
‘For heavens’ sake, I couldn’t turn him out of the house, could I?’ she said, winking at Fraisier and motioning to him. ‘This gentleman has just called here on behalf of your family.’
Fraisier could not repress a start of admiration for La Cibot’s resourcefulness.
‘That is so, Monsieur. I have come on behalf of Madame la Présidente de Marvil
le, her husband and her daughter, to bring you their apologies. They heard of your illness by chance and would like to take charge of you themselves. They invite you to go to their Marville estate to recover your health, Madame la Vicomtesse Popinet, the little Cécile you love so well, will nurse you… She took your part against her mother and made her realize the mistake she had made.’
Pons was indignant. ‘So my would-be heirs sent you here with the cleverest connoisseur, the finest expert in Paris, as your guide!…’
‘That’s stretching it a bit too far!’ he continued with a maniacal laugh. ‘You’ve come here to value my pictures, my curios, my snuff-boxes, my miniatures!… Value them! You’ve brought a man with you who is not only knowledgeable about everything, but is able to buy, as he’s a millionaire ten times over… My kind relatives won’t have long to wait for my inheritance,’ he added with deep irony. ‘They’ve given me a good nudge forward… And you, Madame Cibot, you call yourself my mother, and while I am asleep you let in dealers, my rival, and the Camusots! Get out, all of you!’
And the unhappy man, under the double stimulus of anger and fear, lifted his gaunt body out of bed.
‘Take my arm, Monsieur Pons,’ said La Cibot, rushing forward to prevent him from falling. ‘Calm down then, those gentlemen have gone.’
‘I want to see the salon,’ said the moribund man.
La Cibot motioned to the three vultures to hurry off. Then she took hold of Pons, lifted him up like a feather, and put him back to bed in spite of his shouting. Seeing that the unhappy collector was utterly exhausted, she went to shut the door of the flat. Pons’s three tormentors were still out there on the landing and, seeing them, she asked them to wait. She heard Fraisier make the following remark to Magus:
‘Write me a letter signed by both of you in which you undertake to pay nine hundred thousand francs in cash for the Pons collection, and we shall be putting a fine piece of business in your way.’
Then he whispered one word, one single word which no one could overhear, in La Cibot’s ear, and went down to the porter’s lodge with the two dealers.