The Parisians Part 27

"How so?"

"Well, he has queer notions."

"Notions shared, I believe, by many of your countrymen?"

"I should think not many. Those poor simpletons yonder may have caught 'em from their French fellow-workmen, but I don't think that even the gobemouches in our National Reform Society open their mouths to swallow such wasps."

"Yet I believe the a.s.sociation to which most of those ouvriers belong had its origin in England."

"Indeed! what a.s.sociation?"

"The International."

"Ah, I have heard of that."

Lebeau turned his green spectacles full on Graham's face as he said slowly, "And what do you think of it?"

Graham prudently checked the disparaging reply that first occurred to him, and said, "I know so little about it that I would rather ask you."

"I think it might become formidable if it found able leaders who knew how to use it. Pardon me, how came you to know of this cafe? Were you recommended to it?"

"No; I happened to be in this neighbourhood on business, and walked in, as I might into any other cafe."

"You don't interest yourself in the great social questions which are agitated below the surface of this best of all possible worlds?"

"I can't say that I trouble my head much about them."

"A game at dominos before M. Georges arrives?"

"Willingly. Is M. Georges one of those agitators below the surface?"

"No, indeed. It is for you to play."

Here M. Georges arrived, and no further conversation on political or social questions ensued.

Graham had already called more than once at M. Lebeau's office, and asked him to put into good French various letters on matters of business, the subjects of which had been furnished by M. Renard. The office was rather imposing and stately, considering the modest nature of M. Lebeau's ostensible profession. It occupied the entire ground-floor of a corner house, with a front-door at one angle and a back-door at the other. The anteroom to his cabinet, and in which Graham had generally to wait some minutes before he was introduced, was generally well filled, and not only by persons who, by their dress and outward appearance, might be fairly supposed sufficiently illiterate to require his aid as polite letter-writers,--not only by servant-maids and grisettes, by sailors, zouaves, and journeymen workmen,--but not unfrequently by clients evidently belonging to a higher, or at least a richer, cla.s.s of society,--men with clothes made by a fas.h.i.+onable tailor; men, again, who, less fas.h.i.+onably attired; looked like opulent tradesmen and fathers of well-to-do families,--the first generally young, the last generally middle-aged. All these denizens of a higher world were introduced by a saturnine clerk into M. Lebeau's reception-room, very quickly and in precedence of the ouvriers and grisettes.

"What can this mean?" thought Graham; "is it really that this humble business avowed is the cloak to some political conspiracy concealed,--the International a.s.sociation?" And so pondering, the clerk one day singled him from the crowd and admitted him into M. Lebeau's cabinet. Graham thought the time had now arrived when he might safely approach the subject that had brought him to the Faubourg Montmartre.

"You are very good," said Graham, speaking in the English of a young earl in our elegant novels,--"you are very good to let me in while you have so many swells and n.o.bs waiting for you in the other room. But, I say, old fellow, you have not the cheek to tell me that they want you to correct their c.o.c.ker or spoon for them by proxy?"

"Pardon me," answered M. Lebeau in French, "if I prefer my own language in replying to you. I speak the English I learned many years ago, and your language in the beau monde, to which you evidently belong, is strange to me. You are quite right, however, in your surmise that I have other clients than those who, like yourself, think I could correct their verbs or their spelling. I have seen a great deal of the world,--I know something of it, and something of the law; so that many persons come to me for advice and for legal information on terms more moderate than those of an avoue. But my ante-chamber is full, I am pressed for time; excuse me if I ask you to say at once in what I can be agreeable to you to-day."

"Ah!" said Graham, a.s.suming a very earnest look, "you do know the world, that is clear; and you do know the law of France, eh?"

"Yes, a little."

"What I wanted to say at present may have something to do with French law, and I meant to ask you either to recommend to me a sharp lawyer, or to tell me how I can best get at your famous police here."

"Police?"

"I think I may require the service of one of those officers whom we in England call detectives; but if you are busy now, I can call to-morrow."

"I spare you two minutes. Say at once, dear Monsieur, what you want with law or police."

"I am instructed to find out the address of a certain Louise Duval, daughter of a drawing-master named Adolphe Duval, living in the Rue ----in the year 1848."

Graham, while he thus said, naturally looked Lebeau in the face,--not pryingly, not significantly, but as a man generally does look in the face the other man whom he accosts seriously. The change in the face he regarded was slight, but it was unmistakable. It was the sudden meeting of the eyebrows, accompanied with the sudden jerk of the shoulder and bend of the neck, which betoken a man taken by surprise, and who pauses to reflect before he replies. His pause was but momentary,

"For what object is this address required?"

"That I don't know; but evidently for some advantage to Madame or Mademoiselle Duval, if still alive, because my employer authorizes me to spend no less than L100 in ascertaining where she is, if alive, or where she was buried, if dead; and if other means fail, I am instructed to advertise to the effect that if Louise Duval, or, in case of her death, any children of hers living in the year 1849, will communicate with some person whom I may appoint at Paris, such intelligence, authenticated, may prove to the advantage of the party advertised for. I am, however, told not to resort to this means without consulting either with a legal adviser or the police."

"Hem! have you inquired at the house where this lady was, you say, living in 1848?"

"Of course I have done that; but very clumsily, I dare say, through a friend, and learned nothing. But I must not keep you now. I think I shall apply at once to the police. What should I say when I get to the bureau?"

"Stop, Monsieur, stop. I do not advise you to apply to the police. It would be waste of time and money. Allow me to think over the matter. I shall see you this evening at the cafe Jean Jacques at eight o'clock.

Till then do nothing."

"All right; I obey you. The whole thing is out of my way of business awfully. Bonjour."

CHAPTER IX.

Punctually at eight o'clock Graham Vane had taken his seat at a corner table at the remote end of the cafe Jean Jacques, called for his cup of coffee and his evening journal, and awaited the arrival of M. Lebeau.

His patience was not tasked long. In a few minutes the Frenchman entered, paused at the comptoir, as was his habit, to address a polite salutation to the well-dressed lady who there presided, nodded as usual to Armand Monnier, then glanced round, recognized Graham with a smile, and approached his table with the quiet grace of movement by which he was distinguished.

Seating himself opposite to Graham, and speaking in a voice too low to be heard by others, and in French, he then said,

"In thinking over your communication this morning, it strikes me as probable, perhaps as certain, that this Louise Duval or her children, if she have any, must be ent.i.tled to some moneys bequeathed to her by a relation or friend in England. What say you to that a.s.sumption, Monsieur Lamb?"

"You are a sharp fellow," answered Graham. "Just what I say to myself.

Why else should I be instructed to go to such expense in finding her out? Most likely, if one can't trace her, or her children born before the date named, any such moneys will go to some one else; and that some one else, whoever he be, has commissioned my employer to find out. But I don't imagine any sum due to her or her heirs can be much, or that the matter is very important; for, if so, the thing would not be carelessly left in the hands of one of the small fry like myself, and clapped in along with a lot of other business as an off-hand job."

"Will you tell me who employed you?"

"No, I don't feel authorized to do that at present; and I don't see the necessity of it. It seems to me, on consideration, a matter for the police to ferret out; only, as I asked before, how should I get at the police?"

"That is not difficult. It is just possible that I might help you better than any lawyer or any detective."

"Why, did you ever know this Louise Duval?"

"Excuse me, Monsieur Lamb; you refuse me your full confidence; allow me to imitate your reserve."

"Oho!" said Graham; "shut up as close as you like; it is nothing to me.

Only observe, there is this difference between us, that I am employed by another. He does not authorize me to name him, and if I did commit that indiscretion, I might lose my bread and cheese. Whereas you have n.o.body's secret to guard but your own, in saying whether or not you ever knew a Madame or Mademoiselle Duval; and if you have some reason for not getting me the information I am instructed to obtain, that is also a reason for not troubling you further. And after all, old boy" (with a familiar slap on Lebeau's stately shoulder), "after all, it is I who would employ you; you don't employ me. And if you find out the lady, it is you who would get the L100., not I."