The Mystery of Célestine

by Arthur Sherburne Hardy

 

THE MYSTERY OF CÉLESTINE

BY ARTHUR SHERBURNE HARDY

IIN the farthest recess of Belon's bookshop M. Joly, ex-Inspector of Police, was endeavoring to get rid of one of those hours which since his retirement hung so heavily on his hands. His eye, wandering over the musty volumes on the shelf, had been caught by the title, Criminal Responsibility.

"Come, now," he said to himself; "let us see what web these gentlemen of the robe have spun for my children;" for M. Joly, in spite of his respect for the law, entertained a certain affectionate regard for those he pursued. Spread open on his knee, the book itself, apart from its contents, appealed to him. Bound in flexible covers, its every page, flat and obedient to his touch, invited him.

Except for Belon on his high stool, writing with his stub pencil on the fly-leaves of a new invoice the characters with which he disguised his profits, the shop was empty. A mournful silence hung like a pall over the dusty shelves and encumbered counters. For Belon's wares consisted chiefly of first editions in contemporary bindings and presentation volumes, books to be neither "tasted, swallowed, chewed, nor digested," but gloated over by those whose chief interest is found in the joy of acquisition.

"Belon," said M. Joly one day, "the sign over your door annoys me. Your bookshop is a mausoleum."

In this mournful silence, his attention diverted only by a large spider whose tranquillity had been disturbed by the extraction from its resting-place of Criminal Responsibility, an event which had not occurred in its lifetime, M. Joly read on in the feeble light of the dark window, thick with the accumulated dust of years. "Retribution is instinctive in all animal life. This instinct is the expression of the Will to Live. All life is the constant overcoming of things that would hinder or destroy it. Vengeance is biologically necessary for survival. Retributive punishment is the order of all nature." Here M. Joly turned over the leaf. On the page which followed three dull-red spots broke the thread of the argument. Reading on mechanically, they constantly obtruded themselves on his attention.

It is impossible to admit that the purpose of punishment is to prevent the criminal from doing further injury to society or to prevent others from committing the like offense. Equality before the law is a cardinal tenet of our legal faith. Two persons who commit exactly the same crime must be punished equally, no matter whether the judge is certain that for the one case a hundredth part of the punishment for the other would be just as efficacious in deterring from further crime.

These spots have certainly fallen from a certain height. Even without a microscope one readily detects minute specks—the spatter of a liquid which drops from a distance.

If the one criminal were sent to prison for one week and the other for two years, there would arise a storm of protest from the outraged sense of retributive justice.

What was that liquid? A viscous one, for the words on which it fell are entirely obscured. A drop of wine would not render the text illegible.

The general principle that penal suffering should be graduated according to the magnitude of the crime goes to show that retribution is the proper basis for punishment.

One must be on one's guard against jumping at conclusions. If Pichon were to see these spots he would pronounce them blood offhand. Pichon sees blood in everything which is red. Yet they made him Inspector! Do I complain? Not at all. Pichon is an excellent fellow. Nature abhors a vacuum. I retire—enter Pichon!

Equally significant is the principle that punishment must not overstep the limits set down by moral disapproval. We are more indignant over the murder of a great man than over that of a worthless drunkard. So, too, courage, genius, worth of the criminal, constitute alleviating circumstances. These facts show that punishment is intended to pay back for wrong-doing in proportionate measure—is, in other words, for retribution.

Yet that property of the blood which we call clotting would produce precisely such spots as these. When withdrawn from the veins it becomes converted into a stiff jelly, which in time becomes solid. On the other hand, when old, the identity of blood-stains is not readily determined.

But is the motive of punishment for retribution worthy of a moral person? If the proper aim of punishment were retributive, the returning of evil for evil in proportionate measure, how could the amount of punishment be determined in case of such offenses as perjury, deception, or treason? Must society lie to the liar, deceive the deceiver, and betray the traitor? Seneca wittily asks, "Would any one think himself in his right mind if he were to return kicks to a mule or bites to a dog?"

"Belon," said M. Joly, closing the book on his knee, "of whom did you buy this amusing treatise?"

His pencil behind his ear under his bushy hair, Belon came down from his stool.

"From the library of Monsieur Vidal."

"How astonishing! You know the former owners of all these volumes"—M. Joly waved his hand in an embracing gesture—"without referring to your records?"

"It is my trade," replied Belon, simply.

"In asking its price—"

"Oh," interrupted Belon, contemptuously, "it is of no value. In every library the worthless outnumber the valuable. One buys the lot for the few treasures known only to the connoisseur like myself. I make you a present of it, Monsieur Joly."

"Thank you," said M. Joly; and to Belon's amazement he added, "I also am a connoisseur."

Belon surveyed him anxiously over his spectacles. "Is it possible," he said to himself, "that I have overlooked something!"

M. Joly went on thinking. "A nose-bleed is out of the question." Then, aloud, "This Vidal, he is dead, then, since you possess his treasures."

"Not at all. He has simply moved away."

Folding his hands over his waistcoat, M. Joly played his card of silence. "Naturally you are ignorant of this detail since you came to Passy after Monsieur Vidal changed his domicile. Formerly he lived in the house of the curé—the little house in the trees, in the Impasse St.-Jean."

"Yes," assented M. Joly. "A pleasant spot. One must have had good reasons for abandoning it."

"As to that, they were excellent," said Belon, remounting his stool and plunging into his calculations.

"Can you explain to me, Belon," said M. Joly, reflectively, "how it happens that for one hundred people who insist upon talking of what they know nothing there is only one, on the contrary, who—"

"Ha, ha! You are curious. Monsieur Joly!"

"Why should I deny it? This Vidal who binds the maxims of the law in flexible morocco interests me."

"You gentry of the police"—Belon scratched his ear with the point of his pencil—"twenty per cent. of thirty is six, which added to thirty makes thirty-six—an impossible figure"—and he wrote forty on the fly-leaf—"I was saying that you gentry of the police—"

"Formerly," interposed M. Joly.

"It is the same thing. Habit is tenacious—have always a nose for what does not exist."

"Come, come," objected M. Joly, "you are thinking of Monsieur le Curé."

"Monsieur Vidal was an honest man—and most unfortunate," said Belon, returning to his figures.

"Ah, well," said M. Joly to himself, putting on his hat, "I will ask my wife. Good day, Belon."

Illustration: "BEFORE GOING AWAY MONSIEUR VIDAL HAD THIS ROOM DONE OVER"

Illustration: "AND TO THINK WITH SUCH A WOMAN THERE WAS ALSO A LEGACY!"

 

On the way to the "little house in the trees " M. Joly communed with himself. Solitude had no terrors for him. He had given instant absolution to his little Dorante, who, when chided for leaving the garden of Monrepos alone, had replied, "I was not alone; I was with myself."

Yet Belon's accusation of curiosity had penetrated below the skin, since it put him on his defense. "Why not?" he was repeating to himself. "Has not a great philosopher said curiosity is the desire to know how and why—a trait which distinguishes man from all other animals?" It must be admitted also that a visit to the curé of St.-Médard promised other felicities. The curé possessed for him the fascination which a mollusk has for a mischievous boy who loves to poke it with a stick "to see what it would do." M. Joly adored his wife. Never in his most captious mood would he dream of disturbing the placid pool of her beliefs. Grounded in faith, even to provoke a momentary ripple would be a crime. But the roots of the curé's beliefs were deep down in dogma, geological strata, fixed, rigid, immovable, full of dead men's bones.

He was sitting in his easy-chair when M. Joly opened the door, two fat, nerveless hands crossed over his paunch, eyelids heavy with sleep. "What is this mollusk thinking of?" M. Joly asked himself. At the sound of the opening door the mollusk stirred, jelly-wise, suspicious. If the ex-Inspector was in a friendly mood this morning, as his open face betokened, yet it was in these playful moods that he often asked the most embarrassing questions. Smiling, the curé watched him as the mouse watches the cat.

"What a restful place!" said M. Joly. Beyond the open window a thrush was singing on a swaying branch. Reassured, the curé nodded. "But the shade is too dense. A house should stand in the sun.

"True," echoed the curé, "in the sun."

"Monsieur Vidal, the former owner—"

"Pardon me, Monsieur Vidal is still the owner. Every month I send him the rent—a mere pittance. He is so generous."

"And it is here you compose your sermons."

"At this desk, in this chair. All you see here belongs to Monsieur Vidal," he added, changing the subject warily.

"One would say he expected some day to return."

The curé shook his head. "I think not. This house is full of painful recollections. Monsieur Vidal, already a widower, had the misfortune also to lose a beloved daughter."

"Ah!"

"Yes, a daughter who disappeared suddenly."

"Gossip," suggested M. Joly.

"Oh no; the fact is well known. Her name was Célestine."

M. Joly repressed a smile. The curé's logic was a perennial source of amusement.

"You would be astonished," he added, reflectively, "if you knew how many such disappearances are recorded every year at the Prefecture. One would say a gulf which opens. A young girl, an old man, vanish, without a trace. It is mortifying. I speak professionally. To be sure there are cases in which it is better not to explore the gulf."

"Monsieur Vidal was not of your opinion. A father prefers to know the truth. Uncertainty is the worst of tortures."

"Undoubtedly," sighed M. Joly. "Certainty is the panacea the church offers to humanity." A dull flush colored the curé's cheeks, but to his relief M. Joly added, "Next to owning a property is to have a good landlord."

The flush disappeared in a smile of placid contentment. "God has been good to me. Before going away Monsieur Vidal had this room done over—"

"I observed it. A new ceiling—"

"Tinted—fresh paper on the walls, and in the room above a new flooring, which I am told was decaying—but that was unnecessary. I sleep here, a little room next the kitchen, out of consideration for Babette, who is rheumatic."

And all this time above the droning voice M. Joly heard the sound of something dropping—one—two—three—on the book lying open on the desk where the sermons were written. "What a wild colt is this imagination!" he muttered. "Positively I must see Pichon. There is no antidote like Pichon."

"You were saying?" asked the curé.

"That if you have no objection I would like the address of your landlord."

"You think of purchasing the property!" gasped the curé.

"Not until Madame Joly receives another legacy," said M. Joly.

That afternoon M. Joly wrote a letter:

Dear Comrade: If your service permits, dine with Madame to-morrow. It will delight her. Monrepos has on its summer dress. We will dine on the little terrace under the arbor and renew our youth. There still remains a bottle of Romanée from the cellar of the Fountain of Health.

By the way, it appears that a young girl, Célestine Vidal, disappeared from the Impasse St.-Jean, Passy, in the year which you will ascertain if it appears on your record.

He read this invitation, omitting the last paragraph, to Madame Joly, who was sewing beside him.

"Very well," she said.

"That is all you have to say, Marie?"

"You know very well what I think, if I do not say it."

"What is it you think and do not say, Marie?"

"That you are restless."

"I restless! What an idea!"

"But you asked for it."

M. Joly laid down his cigar.

"You have no fault to find with Pichon, Marie?"

Illustration: "MONSIEUR VIDAL MUST BE DETAINED"

"No more than you have."

"Oh, Marie, Marie!" exclaimed M. Joly, taking her hand, "you know well there is only one person with whom I find no fault."

The head bent over the work, a faint color stole into the cheeks, and the hand was withdrawn gently. Did she know she was never more bewitching than when shy? M. Joly wondered.

"The old masters," he said, "did well to paint their angels in the clouds. I like them best so—even in my garden."

"We dine at the same hour?" asked Madame Joly, in a matter-of-fact voice which nevertheless trembled a little.

"Since it is only Pichon," assented M. Joly, relighting his cigar, which in this interlude had gone out.

 

The sun hung edgewise on the horizon. For the third time Pichon's glass was empty, but at this moment Madame Joly brought the fine champagne and coffee. In the softened glow of the sun her hair, drawn smoothly behind the ears, shone like strands of gold. In spite of the Romanée, the aroma of the coffee, and the fine Champagne mounting in his glass under the white wrist, Pichon sighed. His circumstances did not permit either of domestic felicity or table delicacies. Her slim figure outlined against the sky, there emanated from this woman, as from the garden of Monrepos, an atmosphere of fragrance—of promise and fulfilment.

"What luck!" thought Pichon. "And to think with such a woman there was also a legacy!"

Illustration: MONSIEUR JOLY DROPPED IT GENTLY INTO THE SEINE

M. Joly waited. It was never necessary to intimate anything to Marie. She had long since ceased the attempt to reconcile her husband's profession with his character. Certainly these two men were going to talk shop, a subject repugnant to her gentle nature. Pichon could not have told at what instant of the deepening shadows she vanished. The light of two cigars, like glow-worms, punctured the dark, and the murmur of voices mingled with the hum of insects.

Madame Joly closed her window.

Yes, Pichon was saying, it was the year 18—, the 13th of May, that M. Vidal applied to the police. His daughter had disappeared three days before. He explained that he had not applied at once, thinking Célestine had gone to visit an aunt who lived in Reuil. Pichon had the record of the Prefecture by heart: Age twenty—height lm 70c, approximate—weight about 59k—complexion fair—eyes and hair brown—wearing when last seen a dark-blue dress. The hat usually worn, missing. M. Vidal could offer no explanation. Célestine was of a retiring disposition. Nothing had occurred to furnish a reason for her departure. "She had no lover," added Pichon, skeptically. Then, as a cat thrusts its claws forward, he asked, negligently, "You are interested in Monsieur Vidal?"

"As a bibliophile," said M. Joly.

Pichon's curiosity rose to fever pitch, but he remained silent. Pichon was aggressive only with inferiors.

"It is far easier to lose sight of the living than to dispose of the dead," said M. Joly, after a long pause.

"You are right," nodded Pichon, completely mystified, "and invariably they bungle it terribly."

M. Joly rose, throwing his cigar in the lilacs.

"Well, good night, my friend. It is a pleasure to see you. I will go to the gate with you. Listen to that nightingale"—his hand paused on the latch—"a soul that rejoices when evil is abroad. Did you ever think of that? Another cigar, Pichon."

Outside the gate, striking a match on the lamp-post as he listened to the retreating footsteps on the gravel of Monrepos, Pichon was saying to himself:

"What the devil is the old fox after?"

Pichon would have been astounded had he known M. Joly was asking the same question. Often in the past perplexed, he had rarely been undecided. Indecision and rashness hunt in couples. Was he growing old—or rusty? Was leisure robbing him of his faculties? In every crunch of his foot on the gravel he heard the word Justice! Justice! Yet something, like a ball and chain, clogged his every movement. He even went so far as to consult Madame Joly—indirectly.

"Marie, suppose that by chance you became aware of circumstances—"

"By chance, you say."

"Well, yes, for the most part. Of circumstances, I was saying, which, let us suppose, proved that a grave crime had been committed against society—that a neighbor who passed for an honest man was in reality a great criminal."

"You ask what I would do?"

"Yes, I ask you."

Madame Joly reflected a moment before lifting her face to her husband's.

"Not being of the police, I should close my eyes," she said, firmly.

"There is something in that," replied M. Joly, noting the delicate use of the personal pronoun.

 

Nevertheless, the next day he called a cab and gave the address confided him by the curé. In his pocket was the morocco-bound volume. Beyond indulging in one of those searching conversations for which he was famous at the Prefecture, his intentions were of the vaguest. In the hoof-beats on the asphalt he heard again the word Justice! Justice! In the glass behind the bent form of the coachman he also saw the faun eyes of Marie. Between these two his mind swayed like a pendulum.

The cab stopped before a wooden gate on which was inscribed the name Vidal.

No, said the maid who answered his summons, M. Vidal was not at home. Would Monsieur wait? He was expected shortly.

"We will wait," said M. Joly to himself; "since time is no longer of any value, let us enjoy a luxury which costs nothing."

Entering, he saw that he was in a garden—less formal than that of Monrepos, but still a garden. Evidently, like himself, M. Vidal was a lover of nature.

Under a mulberry-tree a table was spread. The remains of a breakfast, abandoned to the bees, still encumbered it. M. Joly noted there were two covers.

Would Monsieur prefer to go into the house, or would he repose in the garden?

Monsieur would wait in the open air.

From the adjoining shrubbery a little girl ran out, eying him suspiciously from behind the skirts of the maid removing the dishes. M. Joly took the book from his pocket. It was difficult, however, to read in the presence of this child, for he adored children. From time to time his gaze wandered to the innocent face on which suspicion was gradually yielding to curiosity. Wisps of thin brown hair, the thin hair of childhood, strayed over the brown eyes. At last, having completed its survey of this silent stranger, the little figure toddled unsteadily on its fat legs toward the house, crying: "Mamma! Mamma!"

"The wretch has married again," thought M. Joly, opening to a page at random.

"No validity can be ascribed to the theory of expiation so far as social protection is concerned. Let injuries to the gods be the concern of the gods. No man must be the viceregent of God to avenge—"

"Mamma! Mamma!" cried the voice again.

"History abounds in mistakes of this nature. As to the theory of retribution, like that of deterrence, it is justified only as it is socially useful.

At this moment the present generation intervened. Clinging to the folds of a dark-blue dress, it babbled up into the face of a woman whose eyes smiled down upon it.

"Monsieur Vidal must be detained. I am sorry."

"It is of no consequence," said M. Joly. "My business can wait."

Fortified by the presence of the blue dress, the child began to climb upon his knee. The woman bent forward to restrain it.

"No, no," cried M. Joly; "if I do not lift her it is because effort is good for the young." Firmly ensconced at last on his knees, the child's chubby fingers began to rumple the leaves of Criminal Responsibility. "Unfortunately, there are no pictures," smiled M. Joly. What an amiable gentleman! the woman was saying to herself. "One has only to look at this face to perceive you are its mother."

The woman flushed with pleasure. M. Joly watched the color disappearing among the fine roots of the brown hair and beneath the lace fichu of the bosom. Nothing in this woman really reminded him of Marie, yet he thought of her.

The gate creaked on its hinges.

"Ah, here he is! Papa, a gentleman who wishes to see you."

"Leave us, Célestine," said M. Vidal.

"Your daughter's name is Célestine!" said M. Joly, dumfounded.

Amazed at this pronouncement, M. Vidal's face betrayed surprise—but nothing more.

"After her mother," he replied, staring at his singular visitor.

"Pardon me," said M. Joly, completely taken back, "but I thought that it was her sister's."

M. Vidal drew himself up stiffly. "Célestine never had the good fortune to possess a sister. Célestine is my only child. To what have I the honor—"

"A mere trifle." M. Joly had recovered himself. "Recently, in the bookshop of Belon, in Passy, I purchased this volume. Afterward, I observed from the fly-leaf that it had been given to you with the author's compliments. It occurred to me that—being a presentation copy—by some error—"

M. Vidal unbent a little. "Your consideration does you honor. I thank you. But you are mistaken, I take no interest in either the writer or his subject."

M. Joly replaced the book in his pocket. Not within his memory had he experienced so embarrassing a moment. Not within his memory had the solitude of a cab proved so agreeable.

"It is true," he muttered, "that when the dead return and the lost are found there is no need to trouble the Prefecture. They keep no fatted calves there. Pichon was probably right. There was a lover, since there is now that little cherub. At all events, it appears Monrepos is not the only Eden. Ah, Pichon, Pichon, if it had been you astride that Barbary colt Imagination you would certainly have gone over the precipice."

With this consoling reflection, M. Joly lowered the window and called to the coachman, "The Fountain of Health, rue Dauphiné."

After his luncheon he strolled along the river. On reaching a quiet spot he took the book from his pocket and laid it on the parapet. By a perverse fate it opened in the breeze to the three sinister spots. Looking about to see if he was observed, M. Joly dropped Criminal Responsibility gently into the Seine.

"Ma foi," he said, watching it swirling in the eddy under the bridge, "I take no more interest in it than you do"—and hailed the tram for Passy.

Dorante came running down the path before he could lock the gate behind him. He caught her in his arms, to deposit her in the lap of Marie, sewing in the arbor. One of Madame Joly's charms was her silences. She knew how to refrain. Yet it was natural under the circumstances—for M. Joly had gone out that morning without saying a word—to look up into his face inquiringly.

"Marie," he whispered, indulging in one of those white lies permitted by conscience, "since we are no longer in the police, I shut my eyes as you do."