LITMIR.BIZ

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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, was it not, Victor, who obtained that information respecting the solvency of the Vantrassons, husband and wife, who let out furnished rooms?”

      “Yes, monsieur, and I gave you the answer: nothing to hope for——”

      “I know; but that doesn’t matter. Do you remember their address?”

      “Perfectly. They are now living on the Asnieres Road, beyond the fortifications, on the right hand side.”

      “What is the number?”

      Chupin hesitated, reflected for a moment, and then began to scratch his head furiously, as he was in the habit of doing whenever his memory failed him and he wished to recall it to duty. “I’m not sure whether the number is eighteen or forty-six,” he said, at last; “that is——”

      “Never mind,” interrupted M. Fortunat. “If I sent you to the house could you find it?”

      “Oh—yes, m’sieur—at once—with my eyes shut. I can see the place perfectly—a rickety old barrack. There is a tract of unoccupied land on one side, and a kitchen-garden in the rear.”

      “Very well; you shall accompany me there.”

      Chupin seemed astonished by this strange proposal. “What, m’sieur,” said he, “do you think of going there at this time of night?”

      “Why not? Shall we find the establishment closed?”

      “No; certainly not. Vantrasson doesn’t merely keep furnished rooms; he’s a grocer, and sells liquor too. His place is open until eleven o’clock at least. But if you are going there to present a bill, it’s perhaps a little late. If I were in your place, m’sieur, I should wait till to-morrow. It’s raining, and the streets are deserted. It’s an out-of-the-way place too; and in such cases, a man has been known to settle his account with whatever came handiest—with a cudgel, or a bullet, for instance.”

      “Are you afraid?”

      This question seemed so utterly absurd to Chupin that he was not in the least offended by it; his only answer was a disdainful shrug of the shoulders.

      “Then we will go,” remarked M. Fortunat. “While I’m getting ready, go and hire a cab, and see that you get a good horse.”

      Chupin was off in an instant, tearing down the staircase like a tempest. There was a cab-stand only a few steps from the house, but he preferred to run to the jobmaster’s stables in the Rue Feydeau.

      “Cab, sir!” shouted several men, as they saw him approaching.

      He

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