The Exploits of Juve Part 37

Just fancy, I went to see him yesterday afternoon. He has taken a fancy to me. He promised to keep me in luxury. Ah, if I dared," sighed the girl.

"You would do well to leave Loupart."

"Leave Loupart? Especially now that Juve is in quod, Loupart will be the King of Paris!"

"Do you think your lover will attach much weight to the arrest of Juve?

Won't he fancy it's a put-up job?"

"A put-up job! How could it be? Why, I saw with my two eyes Juve led away with the bracelets on his wrists."

The growing hubbub of the newsboys crying the evening papers drew near the Place d'Anvers. Instinctively Fandor, followed by Josephine, went toward them. On the boulevard he bought a paper.

"There you see!" cried Josephine triumphantly. "Here it is in print, so it is true!"

In scare headlines appeared this notice--"Amazing development in the affair of the Outlaws of La Chapelle. Detective Juve under lock and key."

Fandor, when he met Josephine in the Place d'Anvers, was on his way to the Rue des Abesses where Bonardin occupied a nice little suite of three rooms, tastefully decorated and comfortably furnished.

The actor had his shoulder in plaster--Juve's bullet had broken his clavicle, but the doctor declared that with a few days' rest he would be quite well again.

"M. Fandor, I am very sorry for what is happening to M. Juve. Do you think if I were to declare my intention not to proceed against him----"

Fandor cut his companion short.

"Let justice take its course, M. Bonardin. There will always be time later on."

Although M. Bonardin was only twenty-five, he was beginning to have some reputation. By hard work he had come rapidly to the front, and was fast gaining a position among the best interpreters of modern comedy.

"My dream," he exclaimed to Fandor, "is one day to attain to the fame of my masters, of such men as Tazzide, Gemier, Valgrand and Dumeny."

"You knew Valgrand?" asked Fandor.

Bonardin smiled.

"Why, we were great friends. When I first made my appearance at the theatre, after the Conservatoire, Valgrand was my model, my master. You certainly don't recollect it, M. Fandor, but I played the lover in the famous play 'La Toche Sanglante,' for which Valgrand had made himself up exactly like Gurn, the murderer of Lord Beltham. You must have heard of the case?"

Fandor pretended to tax his memory.

"Why, to be sure I do recall certain incidents, but won't you refresh my memory?"

Bonardin asked no better than to chatter.

"Valgrand, on the first night of his presentation of Gurn,[B] was quite worn out and left the theatre very late. He did not come again! For the second performance, his understudy took his part. The following day they sent to Valgrand's rooms; he had not been there for two days. The third day from the 'first night' Valgrand came among us again."

"Pray go on, you interest me immensely!"

"Valgrand came back, but he had gone mad. He managed to get to his dressing-room after taking the wrong door. 'I don't know a single word of my part,' he confessed to me. I comforted him as best I could, but he flung himself down on his couch and shook his head helplessly at me. 'I have been very ill, Bonardin,' then suddenly he demanded: 'Where is Charlot?'

"Charlot was his dresser. I remembered now that Charlot had not returned to the theatre since his master's disappearance. His body was found later in the Rue Messier. He had been murdered. I did not want to mention this to him for fear it might upset him still more, so I advised my old friend to wait for me till the end of the play and let me keep him company. I intended to take him home and fetch a doctor. Valgrand a.s.sented readily. I was then obliged to leave him hurriedly: they were calling me--it was my cue. When I returned Valgrand had vanished: he had left the theatre. We were not to see him again!"

"A sad affair," commented Fandor.

Bonardin continued his narrative:

"Shortly afterwards in a deserted house in the Rue Messier, near Boulevard Arago, the police found the body of a murdered man. The corpse was easily identified; it was that of Charlot, Valgrand's dresser."

"How did he come there? The house had no porter: the owner, an old peasant, knew nothing."

"Well, what do you conclude from this?" asked Fandor.

"My theory is that Valgrand murdered his dresser, for some reason unknown to us. Then, overcome by his crime, he went mad and committed suicide. Of that there is no doubt."

"Oh!" muttered Fandor, a little taken aback by this unexpected a.s.sertion.

The journalist, though he had closely followed the actor's account, was far from drawing the same conclusions. For in fact, Gurn, Lord Beltham's murderer, whom Fandor believed to be Fantomas, had certainly got Valgrand executed in his stead. The Valgrand who came back to the theatre, three days after the execution, was not the real one, but the man who had taken his place--Gurn, the criminal, Gurn--Fantomas. Ah!

that was a stroke of the true Fantomas sort! It was certain that if Valgrand's disappearance had been simultaneous with Gurn's execution, there might have been suspicions. Gurn--Fantomas then found it necessary to show Valgrand living to witnesses, so that these could swear that the real Valgrand had not died instead of Gurn.

But Valgrand was an actor, Gurn--Fantomas was not! Not enough of one at least to venture to take the place on the boards of such a consummate player, such a famous tragedian.

"And that was the end?" asked Fandor.

"The end, no!" declared the actor. "Valgrand was married and had a son.

As is often the case with artists, the Valgrand marriage was not a success, and madame, a singer of talent, was separated from her husband, and travelled much abroad.

"About a year after these sad occurrences I had a visit from her. On her way through Paris, she had come to draw the allowance made her by her husband, to supply not only her own wants, but also those of her son, of whom she had the custody. Mme. Valgrand chatted with me for hours together. I recounted to her at length what I have had the honour of telling you, and it seemed to me that she gave no great credence to my words.

"Not that she threw doubts on my statements, but she kept reiterating, 'That is not like him; I know Valgrand would never have behaved in such a way!'

"But I never could get her to say exactly what she thought. Some weeks after this first visit I saw her again. Matters were getting complicated. There was no certificate of her husband's death. Her men of business made his 'absence' a pretext: she no longer drew a cent of her allowance, and yet people knew that Valgrand had left a pretty large amount, and it was in the bank or with a lawyer, I forget which. You are aware, M. Fandor, that when the settling of accounts, or questions of inheritance or wills, come to the fore there is no end to them."

"That's a fact," replied Fandor.

"We must believe," went on Bonardin, "that the matter was important in Mme. Valgrand's eyes, for she refused fine offers from abroad, and planted herself in Paris, living on her savings. The good woman evidently had a double object, to recover the inheritance for her son, little Rene, and also to get at the truth touching her husband's fate.

"She evidently cherished the hope that her husband was not guilty of the dresser's murder, that perhaps he was not even dead, that he would get over his madness if ever they managed to find him. In short, M. Fandor, some six or seven months ago, when I had quite ceased to think of these events, I found myself face to face with Mme. Valgrand on the Boulevard.

I had some difficulty in recognising her, for my friend's widow was no longer dressed like the Parisian smart woman. Her hair was plastered down and drawn tightly back, her garments were plain and humble, her dress almost neglected. No doubt the poor woman had experienced cruel disappointments.

"'Good day, Mme. Valgrand,' I cried, moving toward her with outstretched hands. She stopped me with a gesture.

"'Hush,' she breathed, 'there is no Mme. Valgrand now. I am a companion.' And the unhappy woman explained that to earn her living she had to accept an inferior position as reader and housekeeper to a rich lady."

"And to whom did Mme. Valgrand go as companion?"

"To an Englishwoman, I believe, but the name escapes me."

"Mme. Valgrand wished, you say, that her ident.i.ty should remain unknown?

Do you know what name she took?"

"Yes--Mme. Raymond."