XIV. MADEMOISELLE JEANNE
After she had so roughly disposed of the enterprising Henri Verbier,whose most unseemly advances had so greatly scandalised her, Mlle.Jeanne took to her heels, directly she was out of sight of the RoyalPalace Hotel, and ran like one possessed. She stood for a moment in thebrilliantly lighted, traffic-crowded Avenue Wagram, shaking withexcitement and with palpitating heart, and then mechanically hailed apassing cab and told the driver to take her towards the Bois. There shegave another heedless order to go to the boulevard Saint-Denis, but asthe cab approached the place de l'Etoile she realised that she was oncemore near the Royal Palace Hotel, and stopping the driver by the tramlines she dismissed him and got into a tram that was going to thestation of Auteuil. It was just half-past eleven when she reached thestation.
"When is the next train for Saint-Lazaire?" she asked.
She learned that one was starting almost at once, and hurriedly taking asecond-class ticket she jumped into a ladies' carriage and went as faras Courcelles. There she alighted, went out of the station, lookedaround her for a minute or two to get her bearings, and then walkedslowly towards the rue Eugene-Flachat. She hesitated a second, and thenwalked firmly towards a particular house, and rang the bell.
* * * * *
"A lady to see you, sir," the footman said to M. Rambert.
"Bring her in here at once," said M. Rambert, supposing that the man hadkept the Baronne de Vibray waiting in the anteroom.
The drawing-room door was opened a little way, and someone came in andstepped quickly into the shadow by the door. Therese, who had risen tohurry towards the visitor, stopped short when she perceived that it wasa stranger and not her guardian. Noticing her action, M. Etienne Rambertturned and looked at the person who had entered.
It was a lady.
"To what am I indebted----" he began with a bow; and then, havingapproached the visitor, he broke off short. "Good heavens----!"
The bell rang a second time, and on this occasion the Baronne de Vibrayhurried into the room, a radiant incarnation of gaiety.
"I am most dreadfully late!" she exclaimed, and was hurrying towards M.Etienne Rambert with outstretched hands, full of some amusing story shehad to tell him, when she too caught sight of the strange lady standingstiffly in the corner of the room, with downcast eyes.
Etienne Rambert repressed his first emotion, smiled to the Baronne, andthen went towards the mysterious lady.
"Madame," he said, not a muscle of his face moving, "may I trouble youto come into my study?"
"Who is that lady, M. Rambert?" said Therese when presently M. Rambertcame back into the drawing-room. "And how white you are!"
M. Rambert forced a smile.
"I am rather tired, dear. I have had a great deal to do these last fewdays."
The Baronne de Vibray was full of instant apologies.
"It is all my fault," she exclaimed. "I am dreadfully sorry to have keptyou up so late," and in a few minutes more the Baronne's car wasspeeding towards the rue Boissy-d'Anglais.
* * * * *
M. Rambert hurried back to his study, shut and locked the door behindhim, and almost sprang towards the unknown lady, his fists clenched, hiseyes starting out of his head.
"Charles!" he exclaimed.
"Papa!" the girl replied, and sank upon a sofa.
There was silence. Etienne Rambert seemed utterly dumbfounded.
"I won't, I won't remain disguised as a woman any longer. I've done withit. I cannot bear it!" the strange creature murmured.
"You must!" said Rambert harshly, imperiously. "I insist!"
The pseudo Mlle. Jeanne slowly took off the heavy wig that concealed herreal features, and tore away the corsage that compressed her bosom,revealing the strong and muscular frame of a young man.
"No, I will not," replied the strange individual, to whom M. Rambert hadnot hesitated to give the name of Charles. "I would rather anything elsehappened."
"You have got to expiate," Etienne Rambert said with the same harshness.
"The expiation is too great," the young fellow answered. "The torture isunendurable."
"Charles," said M. Rambert very gravely, "do you forget that legally,civilly, you are dead?"
"I would a thousand times rather be really dead!" the unhappy ladexclaimed.
"Alas!" his father murmured, speaking very fast, "I thought your mindwas more unhinged than it really is. I saved your life, regardless ofall risk, because I thought you were insane, and now I know you are acriminal! Oh, yes, I know things, I know your life!"
"Father," said Charles Rambert with so stern and determined anexpression that Etienne Rambert felt a moment's fear. "I want to knowfirst of all how you managed to save my life and make out that I wasdead. Was that just chance, or was it planned deliberately?"
Confronted with this new firmness of his son's, Etienne Rambert droppedhis peremptory tone; his shoulders drooped in distress.
"Can one anticipate things like that?" he said. "When we parted, myheart bled to think that you, my son, must fall into the hands ofjustice, and that your feet must tread the path that led to the scaffoldor, at least, to the galleys; I wondered how I could save you; thenchance, chance, mark you, brought that poor drowned body in my way: Isaw the fortunate coincidence of a faint resemblance, and resolved topass it off for you; I got those woman's clothes which you exchanged foryours, buried the dead man's clothes and put yours on the corpse. Do youknow, Charles, that I have suffered too? Do you know what agony andtorture I, as a man of honour, have endured? Have you not heard thestory of my appearance at the Assizes and of my humiliation in court?"
"You did all that!" Charles Rambert murmured. "Strange chance, indeed!"Then his tone changed and he sobbed. "Oh, my poor father, what an awfulfatality it all is!" Suddenly he sprang to his feet. "But I committed nocrime, papa! I never killed the Marquise de Langrune! Oh, do believe me!Why, you have just this minute said that you know I am not mad!"
Etienne Rambert looked at his son with distress.
"Not mad, my poor boy? Yet perhaps you were mad--then?" Then he stoppedabruptly. "Don't let us go over all that again! I forbid it absolutely."He leaned back on his writing-table, folded his arms and asked sternly:"Have you come here only to tell me that?"
The curt question seemed to affect the lad strangely. All his formeraudacity dropped from him. Nervously he stammered:
"I can't remain a woman any longer!"
"Why not?" snapped Etienne Rambert.
"I can't."
The two men looked at each other in silence, as if trying to read oneanother's thoughts. Then Etienne Rambert seemed to see the inner meaningof the words his son had just said.
"I see!" he answered slowly. "I understand.... The Royal Palace Hotel,where Mlle. Jeanne held a trusted post, has just been the scene of adaring robbery. Obviously, if anyone could prove that Charles Rambertand the new cashier were one and the same person----"
But the young fellow understood the insinuation and burst out:
"I did not commit that robbery!"
"You did!" Etienne Rambert insisted: "you did. I read the newspaperaccounts of the robbery, read them with all the agony that only a fatherlike me with a son like you could feel. The detectives and themagistrates were at a loss to find the key to the mystery, but I sawclearly and at once what the solution of the mystery was. And I knew andunderstood because I knew it was--you!"
"I did not commit the robbery," Charles Rambert shouted. "Do you mean tobegin all your horrible insinuations again, as you did at Beaulieu?" hedemanded in almost threatening tones. "What evil spirit obsesses you?Why will you insist that your unhappy son is a criminal? I had nothingto do with those robberies at the hotel; I swear I had not, father!"
M. Rambert shrugged his shoulders and clasped his hands.
"What have I done," he muttered, "to have so heavy a cross laid on me?"He turned again to his son. "Your defence is childish. What is the useof mere de
nials? Words don't mean anything without proofs to supportthem." The lad was silent, seeming to think it useless to attempt toconvince a father who appeared so certain of his guilt, and also crushedby the thought of all that had happened at the hotel. His fatherbetrayed some uneasiness at a new thought that had come into his mind."I told you not to come to me again except as a last resource, whenpunishment was actually overtaking you, or when you had proved yourinnocence: why are you here now? Has something happened that I do notknow about? What has happened? What else have you done? Speak!"
Charles Rambert answered in a toneless voice, as if hypnotised:
"There has been a detective in the hotel for the last few days. Hecalled himself Henri Verbier, and was disguised, but I knew him, for Ihad seen him too lately, and in circumstances too deeply impressed uponmy mind for me to be able to forget him, although I only saw him thenfor a few minutes."
"What do you mean?" said the elder man uneasily.
"I mean that Juve was at the Royal Palace Hotel."
"Juve?" exclaimed Etienne Rambert. "And then--go on!"
"Juve, disguised as Henri Verbier, subjected me to a kind ofexamination, and I don't know what conclusion he came to. Then, thisevening, barely two hours ago, he came up to my room and had a longtalk, and while he was trying to get some information from me about amatter that I know nothing about--for I swear, papa, that I had nothingwhatever to do with the robbery--he came up to me and took hold of me asa man does when he wants to make up to a woman. And I lost my head! Ifelt that in another minute all would be up with me--that he wouldestablish my identity, which he perhaps suspected already--and I thoughtof all you had done to save my life by representing that I was dead,and----"
Charles paused for breath. His father's fists were clenched and his facecontracted.
"Go on!" he said, "go on, but speak lower!"
"As Juve came close," Charles went on, "I dealt him a terrific blow onthe forehead, and he fell like a stone. And I got away!"
"Is he dead?" Etienne Rambert whispered.
"I don't know."
* * * * *
For ten minutes Charles Rambert remained alone in the study, where hisfather had left him, thinking deeply. Then the door opened and EtienneRambert came back carrying a bundle of clothes.
"There you are," he said to his son: "here are some man's clothes. Putthem on, and go!"
The young man hastily took off his woman's garments and dressed himselfin silence, while his father walked up and down the room, plunged indeepest thought. Twice he asked: "Are you quite sure it was Juve?" andtwice his son replied "Quite sure." And once again Etienne Rambertasked, in tones that betrayed his keen anxiety: "Did you kill him?" andCharles Rambert shrugged his shoulders and replied: "I told you before,I do not know."
And now Charles Rambert stood upon the threshold of the house, about toleave his father without a word of farewell or parting embrace. M.Etienne Rambert stayed him, holding out a pocket-book, filled full withbank-notes.
"There: take that," he said, "and go!"