Luxury-Gluttony Part 49

"An expedient! My inventions!" replied the abbe, feigning amazement.

"Come, doctor, you surely are not speaking seriously?"

"You have forgotten, dear abbe, that an old fox like me discovers a snare from afar."

"Doctor," replied the abbe, no longer able to conceal his violent anger, "you are at liberty to jest,--at liberty to let the time pa.s.s, and lose the opportunity of saving your nephew. I have warned you as a friend.

Now, do as you please, I wash my hands of it."

"So then, my dear abbe, you were and you are in the plot of those sanctimonious persons who desired to make a nun of Dolores Salcedo, for the purpose of getting possession of the property she would one day inherit from her uncle, the canon?"

"Dolores Salcedo! Her uncle, the canon! Really, doctor, I do not know what you mean."

"Ah! ah! you are in that pious plot! It is well to know it; it is always useful to recognise your adversaries, above all, when they are as clever as you are, dear abbe."

"But, hear me, doctor, I swear to you--"

"Stop, abbe, let us play an open game. You sent for me this morning, that the pathetic epistle you have just read to me might arrive in my presence."

"Doctor!" cried the abbe, "that is carrying distrust, suspicion, to a point which becomes--which becomes--permit me to say it to you--"

"Oh, by all means,--I permit you."

"Well, which becomes outrageous in the last degree, doctor. Ah, truly,"

added the abbe, with bitterness, "I was far from expecting that my eagerness to do you a kindness would be rewarded in such a manner."

"Zounds! I know very well, my poor abbe, that you hoped your ingenious stratagem would have an entirely different result."

"Doctor, this is too much!"

"No, abbe, it is not enough. Now, listen to me. This is what you hoped, I say, from your ingenious stratagem: Frightened by the danger to which my nephew was exposed, I would thank you effusively for the means you offered me to save him, and would fly like an arrow to warn this poor fellow to leave his place of concealment."

"So, in fact, any other person in your place, doctor, would have done, but you take care not to act so reasonably. Surely, to speak the truth, you must be struck with frenzy and blindness."

"Alas! abbe, it is the beginning of the punishment for my sins. But let us return to the consequences of your ingenious stratagem. According to your hope, then, I would fly like an arrow to save, as you advise, my nephew. My carriage is below. I would get in it, and have myself conveyed as rapidly as possible to the mysterious retreat of Captain Horace."

"Eh, without doubt, doctor, that is what you should have done some time ago."

"Now, do you know what would have happened, my poor abbe?"

"You would have saved your nephew."

"I would have lost him, I would have betrayed him, I would have delivered him to his enemies,--and see how. I wager that at this very hour, while I am talking to you, there is, not far from here in the street, and even in sight of this house, a cab, to which a strong horse is. .h.i.tched, and by a strange chance (unless you countermand your order) this cab would follow my carriage wherever it might go."

The abbe turned scarlet, but replied:

"I do not know what cab you are speaking of, doctor."

"In other words, my dear abbe, you have been seeking traces of my nephew in vain. In order to discover his retreat, you have had me followed in vain. Now, you hoped, by the sudden announcement of the danger he was running, to push me to the extremity of warning the captain. Your emissary below would have followed my carriage, so that, without knowing it, I, myself, would have disclosed the secret of my nephew's hiding-place. Again, abbe, for any other than yourself, the invention was not a bad one, but you have accustomed your admirers--and permit me to include myself among them--to higher and bolder conceptions. Let us hope, then, that another time you will show yourself more worthy of yourself. Good-bye, and without bearing you any grudge, my dear abbe, I count on you for our pleasant evening the twentieth of November.

Otherwise, I will come to remind you of your promise. Good-bye, again, my poor, dear abbe. Come, do not look so vexed,--so out of countenance; console yourself for this little defeat by recalling your past triumphs."

And with this derisive conclusion to his remarks, Doctor Gasterini left Abbe Ledoux.

"You sing victory, old serpent!" cried the abbe, purple with anger and shaking his fist at the door by which the doctor went out. "You are very arrogant, but you do not know that this morning even we have recaptured Dolores Salcedo, and your miserable nephew shall not escape us, for I am as cunning as you are, infernal doctor, and, as you say, I have more than one trick in my bag."

The doctor, the subject of this imprecatory monologue, had concealed the disquietude he felt by the discovery he had just made. He knew Abbe Ledoux capable of taking a brilliant revenge, so as he descended the steps of the saintly man's house, the doctor, before entering his carriage, looked cautiously on both sides of the street. As he expected, he saw a public cab about twenty steps from where he was standing. In this cab was a large man, wearing a brown overcoat. Walking up to the cab, the doctor, with a confidential air, said in a low voice to the large man:

"My friend, you are posted there, are you not, to follow this open carriage with two horses, standing before the door, Number 17?"

"Sir," said the man, hesitating, "I do not know who you are, or why you--"

"Hus.h.!.+ my friend," replied the doctor, in a tone full of mystery, "I have just left Abbe Ledoux; the order of proceeding is changed; the abbe expects you at once, to give you new orders,--quick, go, go!"

The fat man, rea.s.sured by the explicit directions given by the doctor, hesitated no longer, descended from his cab, and went in haste to see the Abbe Ledoux. When the doctor saw the door close upon the emissary of the abbe, feeling certain that he was not followed, he ordered his coachman to drive in haste to the Faubourg Poissonniere, for if he feared nothing for his nephew, he had reason enough for uneasiness since he had learned that Abbe Ledoux was concerned in this intrigue.

The doctor's carriage had just entered one of the less frequented streets of the Faubourg Poissonniere, not far from the gate of the same name, when he perceived at a short distance quite a large a.s.semblage in front of a modest-looking house. The doctor ordered his carriage to stop, descended from it, mingled with the crowd, and said to one of the men:

"What is the matter there, sir?"

"It seems, sir, they are taking back a stray dove to the dove-cote."

"A dove!"

"Yes, or if you like it better, a young girl who escaped from a convent.

The commissary of police arrived with his deputies, and a very fat man in a blue overcoat, who looked like a priest. He had the house opened.

The fugitive was found there, and put into a carriage with the fat man in a blue overcoat. I have never seen any citizen ornamented with such a stomach."

Doctor Gasterini did not wait to hear more, but rushed through the crowd and imperatively rang the bell at the door of the little house of which we have spoken. A young servant, still pale with emotion, came to open it.

"Where is Madame Dupont?" asked the physician, impatiently.

"She is at home, sir. Oh, sir, if you only knew!"

The doctor made no reply; went through two apartments, and entered a bedchamber, where he found an aged woman, with a venerable-looking face full of sweetness.

"Ah, doctor, doctor!" cried Madame Dupont, bursting into tears, "what a misfortune, what a scandal, poor young girl!"

"I am grieved, my poor Madame Dupont, that the service you rendered me should have been followed by such disagreeable consequences."

"Oh, do not think it is that which afflicts, doctor. I owe you more than my life, since I owe you the life of my son; I do not think of complaining of a transient vexation, and I know you too well, in other things, to raise the least doubt as to the intentions which led you to ask me to give a temporary asylum to this young girl."

"By this time, my dear Madame Dupont, I can and I ought to tell you all.

Here is the whole story in two words: I have a nephew, an indiscreet boy, but the bravest fellow in the world; he is captain in the marine service. In his last voyage from Cadiz to Bordeaux he took as pa.s.sengers a Spanish canon and his niece. My nephew fell desperately in love with the niece, but by a series of events too long and too ridiculous to relate to you, the canon took the greatest aversion to my nephew, and informed him that he should never marry Dolores. The opposition exasperated the lovers; my devil of a nephew followed the canon to Paris, discovered the convent where the uncle had placed the young girl, put himself in correspondence with her, and eloped with her.

Horace--that is his name--is an honest fellow, and, the elopement accomplished, he introduced Dolores to me and confessed all to me. While the marriage was pending, he besought me to place this young girl in a suitable house, since, for a thousand reasons, it was impossible for me to keep the child in my house after such an uproar. Then I thought of you, my good Madame Dupont."

"Ah, sir, I was certain that you acted n.o.bly in that as you have always, and, besides, the short time that she was here Mlle. Dolores interested me exceedingly,--indeed I was already attached to her, and you can judge of my distress this morning when--"

"The commissary of police ordered the house to be opened; I know it. And the canon, Dom Diego, accompanied him."

"Yes, sir, he was furious; he declared that he was acquainted with the French law; that it would not permit such things; that it was abduction of a minor, and that they were searching on all sides for your nephew."