Part 46

“Yes, monsieur.”

“Your grandson went there half an hour after you.”

“Did he? I knew nothing of that. I have just returned home, and have not seen my grandson for two days.”

“The writs he has shown me and the examination explain everything,” said the commissary of police. “I see the cause of the crime. Monsieur, I ought by rights to arrest you as accomplice to your grandson; for your answers confirm the allegations in Doctor Halpersohn’s complaint. But these papers, which I here return to you,” holding out to the old man a bundle of papers, “do prove you to be Baron Bourlac. Nevertheless, you must hold yourself ready to appear before Monsieur Marest, the judge of the Municipal Court who has cognizance of the case. As for your grandson, I will speak to the procureur du roi, and we will take all the care of him that is due to the grandson of a former judge,--the victim, no doubt, of youthful error. But the complaint has been made, the delinquent admits his guilt, I have drawn up the proces-verbal, and served the warrant of arrest; I cannot go back on that. As for the incarceration, I will put him in the Conciergerie.”

“Thank you, monsieur,” said the unhappy Bourlac.

With the words he fell rigid on the snow, and rolled into one of the hollows round the trees of the boulevard.

The commissary of police called for help, and Nepomucene ran up, together with Madame Vauthier. The old man was carried to his room, and Madame Vauthier begged the commissary to call on his way in the rue d’Enfer, and send Doctor Berton as soon as possible.

“What is the matter with my grandfather?” asked poor Auguste.

“He is out of his head. You see what it is to steal,” said the Vauthier.

Auguste made a movement as though he would dash out his brains. The two agents caught him.

“Come, young man, be calm,” said the commissary of police; “you have done wrong, but it may not be irreparable--”

“Monsieur, will you tell that woman my grandfather hasn’t had anything to ear for twenty-four hours?”

“Oh! the poor things!” exclaimed the commissary under his breath.

He stopped the coach, which had started, and said a word in the ear of one of his agents, who got out and ran to Madame Vauthier, and then returned.

When Dr. Berton arrived he declared that Monsieur Bernard (he knew him only under that name) had a high fever of great intensity. After hearing from Madame Vauthier all the events which had brought on this crisis (related after the manner of such women) he informed Monsieur Alain the next morning, at Saint-Jacques du Haut-Pas, of the present state of affairs; on which Monsieur Alain despatched a note in pencil by a street messenger to Monsieur Joseph.

Godefroid had given Monsieur Joseph, on his return from the boulevard du Mont-Parnasse the night before, the notes confided to him by Auguste, and Monsieur Joseph had spent part of the night in reading the first volume of Baron Bourlac’s work.

The next morning after breakfast Madame de la Chanterie told her neophyte that he should, if his resolution still held good, be put to work at once. Godefroid, initiated by her into the financial secrets of the society, worked steadily seven or eight hours a day for several months, under the inspection of Frederic Mongenod, who came every Sunday to examine the work, and from whom he received much praise and encouragement.

“You are,” he said, when the books were all in order and the accounts audited, “a precious acquisition to the saints among whom you live. Two or three hours a day will now suffice to keep the current accounts in order, and you will have plenty of surplus time to help the work in other ways, if you still have the vocation you showed for it six months ago.”

It was now July, 1838. During the time that had elapsed since his opening attempt on the boulevard du Mont-Parnasse, Godefroid, eager to prove himself worthy of his friends, had refrained from asking any question relating to Baron Bourlac. Not hearing a single word on the subject, and finding no record of any transaction concerning it in the accounts, he regarded the silence maintained about the enemy of Madame de la Chanterie and his family either as a test to which he himself was subjected, or as a proof that the friends of the noble woman had in some way avenged her.

Some two months after he had left Madame Vauthier’s lodgings he turned his steps when out for a walk towards the boulevard du Mont-Parnasse, where he came upon the widow herself, and asked for news of the Bernard family.

“Just as if I knew what has become of them!” she replied. “Two days after your departure--for it was you, slyboots, who got the affair away from my proprietor--some men came here and rid me of that arrogant old fool and all his belongings. Bless me! if they didn’t move everything out within twenty-four hours; and as close as wax they were too; not a word would they say to me. I think he went off to Algiers with his rogue of a grandson; for Nepomucene, who had a fancy for that young thief, being no better himself, couldn’t find him at the Conciergerie. I dare say Nepomucene knows where he is, though, for he, too, has run away. That’s what it is to bring up foundlings! that’s how they reward you for all your trouble, leaving you in the lurch! I haven’t yet been able to get a man in his place, and as the quarter is looking up the house is full, and I am worked to death.”

Godefroid would never have known more about Baron Bourlac and his family if it had not been for one of those chance encounters such as often happens in Paris.

In the month of September he was walking down the great avenue of the Champs Elysees, thinking, as he passed the end of the rue Marbeuf, of Dr. Halpersohn.

“I might,” thought he, “go and see him and ask if he ever cured Bourlac’s daughter. What a voice, what immense talents she had!--and she wanted to consecrate herself to God!”

When he reached the Rond-point Godefroid crossed it quickly, on account of the many carriages that were passing rapidly. As he reached the other side in haste he knocked against a young man with a lady on his arm.

“Take care!” said the young man; “are you blind?”

“Hey! is it you?” cried Godefroid, recognizing Auguste de Mergi.

Auguste was so well-dressed, and looked so dandified and handsome and so proud of giving his arm to a pretty woman, that if it had not been for the youth’s voice and the memories that were just then in his own mind he might not have recognized him.