The Lesser Bourgeoisie Part 26

The crackling of the wood and the heat, which soon spread about the room, brought Toupillier out of his stupor. Seeing the stove lighted he called out:--

"Who is making a fire here? Do you want to burn the house down?"

"Why, uncle," said the Cardinal, "it is wood I bought with my own money, to warm your wine. The doctor doesn't want you to drink it cold."

"Where is it, that wine?" demanded Toupillier, calming down a little at the thought that the fire was not burning at his expense.

"It must come to a boil," said his nurse; "the doctor insisted upon that. Still, if you'll be good I'll give you half a gla.s.s of it cold, just to wet your whistle. I'll take that upon myself, but don't you tell the doctor."

"Doctor! I won't have a doctor; they are all scoundrels, invented to kill people," cried Toupillier, whom the idea of drink had revived.

"Come, give me the wine!" he said, in the tone of a man whose patience had come to an end.

Convinced that though this compliance would do no harm it could do no good, Madame Cardinal poured out half a gla.s.s, and while she gave it with one hand to the sick man, with the other she raised him to a sitting posture that he might drink it.

With his fleshless, eager fingers Toupillier clutched the gla.s.s, emptied it at a gulp, and exclaimed:--

"Ah! that's a fine drop, that is! though you've watered it."

"You mustn't say that, uncle; I went and bought it myself of Pere Legrelu, and I've given it you quite pure. But you let me simmer the rest; the doctor said I might then give you all you wanted."

Toupillier resigned himself with a shrug of the shoulders. At the end of fifteen minutes, the infusion being in condition to serve, Madame Cardinal brought him, without further appeal, a full cup of it.

The avidity with which the old pauper drank it down prevented him from noticing at first that the wine was drugged; but as he swallowed the last drops he tasted the sickly and nauseating flavor, and flinging the cup on the bed he cried out that some one was trying to poison him.

"Poison! nonsense!" said the fishwife, pouring into her own mouth a few drops of that which remained in the bottle, declaring to the old man that if the wine did not seem to him the same as usual, it was because his mouth had a "bad taste to it."

Before the end of the dispute, which lasted some time, the narcotic began to take effect, and at the end of an hour the sick man was sound asleep.

While idly waiting for Cerizet, an idea took possession of the Cardinal's mind. She thought that in view of their comings and goings with the treasure, it would be well if the vigilance of the Perrache husband and wife could be dulled in some manner. Consequently, after carefully flinging the refuse poppy-heads into the privy, she called to the portress:--

"Madame Perrache, come up and taste his wine. Wouldn't you have thought to hear him talk he was ready to drink a cask of it? Well, a cupful satisfied him."

"Your health!" said the portress, touching gla.s.ses with the Cardinal, who was careful to have hers filled with the unboiled wine. Less accomplished as a gourmet than the old beggar, Madame Perrache perceived nothing in the insidious liquid (cold by the time she drank it) to make her suspect its narcotic character; on the contrary, she declared it was "velvet," and wished that her husband were there to have a share in the treat. After a rather long gossip, the two women separated. Then, with the cooked meat she had provided for herself, and the remains of the Roussillon, Madame Cardinal made a repast which she finished off with a siesta. Without mentioning the emotions of the day, the influence of one of the most heady wines of the country would have sufficed to explain the soundness of her sleep; when she woke darkness was coming on.

Her first care was to give a glance at her patient; his sleep was restless, and he was dreaming aloud.

"Diamonds," he said; "those diamonds? At my death, but not before."

"Gracious!" thought Madame Cardinal, "that was the one thing lacking,--diamonds! that he should have diamonds!"

Then, as Toupillier seemed to be in the grasp of a violent nightmare, she leaned over him so as not to lose a word of his speech, hoping to gather from it some important revelation. At this moment a slight rap given to the door, from which the careful nurse had removed the key, announced the arrival of Cerizet.

"Well?" he said, on entering.

"He has taken the drug. He's been sound asleep these two hours; just now, in dreaming, he was talking of diamonds."

"Well," said Cerizet, "it wouldn't be surprising if we found some. These paupers when they set out to be rich, like to pile up everything."

"Ah ca!" cried the Cardinal, suddenly, "what made you go and tell Mere Perrache that you were my man of business, and that you weren't a doctor? I thought we agreed this morning that you were coming as a doctor?"

Cerizet did not choose to admit that the usurpation of that t.i.tle had seemed to him dangerous; he feared to discourage his accomplice.

"I saw that the woman was going to propose a consultation," he replied, "and I got out of it that way."

"Goodness!" exclaimed Madame Cardinal, "they say fine minds come together; that was my dodge, too. Calling you my man of business seemed to give that old pilferer a few ideas. Did they see you come in, those porters?"

"I thought, as I went by," replied Cerizet, "that the woman was asleep in her chair."

"And well she might be," said the Cardinal, significantly.

"What, really?" said Cerizet.

"Parbleu!" replied the fishwife; "what's enough for one is enough for two; the rest of the stuff went that way."

"As for the husband, he was there," said Cerizet; "for he gave me a gracious sign of recognition, which I could have done without."

"Wait till it is quite dark, and we'll play him a comedy that shall fool him finely."

Accordingly, ten minutes later, the fishwife, with a vim that delighted the usurer, organized for the innocent porter the comedy of a _monsieur_ who would not, out of politeness, let her accompany him to the door; she herself with equal politeness insisting. Appearing to conduct the sham physician into the street gate she pretended that the wind had blown out of her lamp, and under pretext of relighting it she put out that of Perrache. All this racket, accompanied by exclamations and a bewildering loquacity, was so briskly carried out that the porter, if summoned before the police-court, would not have hesitated to swear that the doctor, whose arrival he had witnessed, left the house between nine and ten o'clock.

When the two accomplices were thus in tranquil possession of the field of operations Madame Cardinal hung up her rabbit's-hair shawl before the window to exclude all possible indiscretion on the part of a neighbor.

In the Luxembourg quarter life quiets down early. By ten o'clock all the sounds in the house as well as those out of doors were stilled, and Cerizet declared that the moment had come to go to work; by beginning at once they were certain that the sleeper would remain under the influence of the drug; besides, if the booty were found at once, Madame Cardinal could, under pretence of a sudden attack on her patient, which required her to fetch a remedy from the apothecary, get the porter to open the street gate for her without suspicion. As all porters pull the gate-cord from their beds, Cerizet would be able to get away at the same time without notice.

Powerful in advice, Cerizet was a very incapable hand in action; and, without the robust a.s.sistance of Mere Cardinal he could never have lifted what might almost be called the corpse of the former drum-major.

Completely insensible, Toupillier was now an inert ma.s.s, a dead-weight, which could, fortunately, be handled without much precaution, and the athletic Madame Cardinal, gathering strength from her cupidity, contrived, notwithstanding Cerizet's insufficient a.s.sistance, to effect the transfer of her uncle from one bed to the other.

On rummaging the bed from which the body was moved, nothing was found, and Madame Cardinal, pressed by Cerizet to explain why she had confidently a.s.serted that her uncle "was lying on one hundred thousand francs in gold," was forced to admit that a talk with Madame Perrache, and her own fervid imagination were the sole grounds of her certainty.

Cerizet was furious; having for one whole day dallied with the idea and hope of fortune, having, moreover, entered upon a dangerous and compromising course of action, only to find himself, at the supreme moment, face to face with--nothing! The disappointment was so bitter that if he had not been afraid of the muscular strength of his future mother-in-law, he would have rushed upon her with some frantic intention.

His anger, however, spent itself in words. Harshly abused, Madame Cardinal contented herself by remarking that all hope was not lost, and then, with a faith that ought to have moved mountains, she set to work to empty the straw from the mattress she had already vainly explored in all directions. But Cerizet would not allow that extreme measure; he remarked that after the autopsy of a straw mattress such detritus would remain upon the floor as must infallibly give rise to suspicion. But the Cardinal, who thought this caution ridiculous, was determined to, at least, take apart the flock bedstead. The pa.s.sion of the search gave extraordinary vigilance to her senses, and as she raised the wooden side-frame she heard the fall of some tiny object on the floor. Seizing the light she began to search in the mound of filth of all kinds that was under the bed, and finally laid her hand on a bit of polished steel about half an inch long, the use of which was to her inexplicable.

"That's a key!" cried Cerizet, who was standing beside her with some indifference, but whose imagination now set off at a gallop.

"Ha! ha! you see I was right," cried the Cardinal. "But what can it open?" she added, on reflection; "nothing bigger than a doll's house."

"No," said Cerizet, "it is a modern invention, and very strong locks can be opened with that little instrument."

With a rapid glance he took in all the pieces of furniture in the room; went to the bureau and pulled out the drawers; looked in the stove, in the table; but nowhere did he find a lock to which the little key could be adapted.

Suddenly the Cardinal had a flash of illumination.

"See here!" she said. "I remarked that the old thief, as he lay on his bed, never took his eyes off the wall just opposite to him."

"A cupboard hidden in the wall!" cried Cerizet, seizing the light eagerly; "it is not impossible!"

Examining attentively the door of the alcove, which was opposite the bed's head, he could see nothing there but a vast acc.u.mulation of dust and spiders' webs. He next employed the sense of touch, and began to rap and sound the wall in all directions. At the spot to which Toupillier's constant gaze was directed he thought he perceived in a very narrow s.p.a.ce a slight sonority, and he presently perceived that he was rapping on wood. He then rubbed the spot vigorously with his handkerchief, and beneath the thick layer of dust and dirt which he thus removed he found a piece of oak plank carefully inserted in the wall. On one side of this plank was a small round hole; it was that of the lock which the key fitted!

While Cerizet was turning the key, which worked with great difficulty, Madame Cardinal, holding the light, was pale and breathless; but, oh!

cruel deception! the cupboard, at last unlocked and open, showed only an empty s.p.a.ce, into which the light in her hand fell uselessly.