The Mystery of Madeline Le Blanc/Chapter 9
IX.
They lodged in a pension in the Rue Mouffetard, a few squares south of the Seine, near the Halle aux Vins. The place had been recommended by the cocher who brought them from Gros-bois. When they arrived it was much too dark to tell what it looked like. Irène, gathering a handful of newspapers as she passed through the hall, retired to her room at once. Monsieur and Joseph sat up to discuss plans of procedure.
The two rooms they occupied were on the third story facing the north, and commanded a magnificent view of Paris for many squares beyond the Seine. Although it was late, many lights besides the rows of street lamps still dotted the darkness of the night. Beyond the river the lights grew smaller, but increased immensely in numbers. There seemed to be an uncommon activity for the lateness of the hour; but that was easily accounted for; since the public nervousness before and after short and decisive revolutions always manifested itself in crowded streets of staring people who wandered everywhere and nowhere.
"What is to be done now that we are here?" said Monsieur Le Blanc, looking out the open window at Paris in her gala evening dress, that he had not seen for years—but once since he had taken away his young wife, and that was when Madeline was a little girl. "Does she now flaunt somewhere amid this invisible throng?" the father was asking himself.
"Don't you think we ought to notify the police?" asked Joseph, leaning on his elbows at the table.
"We shall go to the prefecture to-morrow —and then?" said the father, looking at a light a little west of Notre Dame that was growing larger with the lapse of every moment,
Joseph made no reply, but sat in deep meditation.
Presently Monsieur said: "Come here. What do you think this can be?"
"Fire—perhaps revolution! Liste—hear the clamor. Could it be Notre Dame"
"No, that is Notre Dame just to the east. It must be near the Rue St. Honoré or the Rue St. Denis, if I remember the streets rightly."
They stood for some time and watched the magnificent flames in the black background of the night.
"Are you making plans there at the window?" said Irène, thrusting her head from behind the door that led into her room.
Both men turned.
"See what I have found—here," and she handed Monsieur a newspaper—the morning edition of the Moniteur—marked by the pressure of her finger in a lower corner of the page. "Read, Monsieur, read aloud!" she demanded, triumphantly.
Monsieur Le Blanc took the paper, and read:—
"'The body of the unknown person who led for a few hours with such brilliancy the straggling forces of the Swiss and Royal guards at the Louvre last Thursday was buried today. He was seen to fall near the statue of Henry IV., and from that moment the vicinity of the Louvre and the Palais Royal were wrenched from the tyrant's forces. The body has lain in the morgue since Friday. The only document of identity found upon his person was an empty envelope bearing the name Doctor Satiani, and addressed to "The southwest corner of the Rue St. Honoré and the Rue du Roule."'"
The first thing that Monsieur said, laying aside the paper, was, "Then it was to fight for the King that Doctor Satiani came to Paris, Irène, again I say, it was a vision that you saw on Rue—Rue"
"St. Honoré," answered the girl, "perhaps in the very vicinity of the address on the envelope. Where is the Rue du Roule?"
"I do not know," replied Monsieur.
"Nor I," said Joseph.
"Well, good night again," said Irène. "In the morning we shall find out, and go thither."
They retired for the night; and owing to the fatigue of the day's journey, slept soundly.
Irène was awake with the first murmurs of the city's business; and pounding stoutly on the door between the rooms, she aroused Monsieur and Joseph, who arose immediately. They had not the enthusiasm in this present business that animated Irène. Though neither expressed himself, both believed that she was laboring under delusions not far from unsoundness. It had been her persistence that brought them to Paris; and despite their melancholy, her hope spurred them on.
After they had breakfasted she said: "Now for the Rue St. Honoré and the Rue du Roule. Which way?"
Monsieur made some inquiries and they started out, passed the Halle aux Vins, crossed the Seine at the Isle St. Louis by way of the Pont de la Tournelle and the Pont Marie, thence north-westward until they reached the Rue St. Denis at the Marche des Innocentes, where everything was astir.
"Here," said Irène, pointing to the great Marché, "is where my uncle, aunt and I stopped to drink at the fountain before we passed down this way," and she pointed into the Rue St. Honore. "This way—down this way is where we saw her," she continued, almost dragging Monsieur along.
Joseph asked a man who was standing near where the Rue du Roule was.
"It's all out," said the stranger, "and they are already clearing it away."
The men stared at each other.
"I do not know what you are talking about," said Joseph. "Can you tell me where the Rue du Roule is?"
"Certainly. Go but a short distance," replied the stranger, pointing westward into the Rue St. Honoré. "I thought you were speaking of last night's fire."
Irène, nervous with excitement, walked before. She stared into every face that passed, and often looked around and across the street.
Monsieur shook his head.
As they proceeded the crowd became denser; until, a short distance ahead, it became a great mass hovering around the corner of a street.
"See! that is the Rue du Roule, where the crowd is. The name is on the building this way," cried Irène.
They approached the southward corner, which was surrounded by a mass of people, and, working their way forward, at length they stood before heaps of ruins and ashes, which were being cleared away by some workmen.
"It was in this vicinity that I saw her, and this is the address on the envelope," said Irène, looking into Monsieur's face, and taking hold of his hand.
"When was this fire?" asked Joseph of one next to him.
"Last night," replied the stranger.
In silence, they watched the workmen for a while, when Monsieur turned and said, '"What fools we are for wandering here in Paris!"
"No, no," begged Irène, gripping his hand, "we will hunt elsewhere."
"Ha, ha! Ave Maria!" cried a laborer, not far from where they were standing, as he drew from the wet ashes and held high into the air a pearl rosary bearing a golden crucifix. And not far away lay some fragments of charred bones.
Irène sank into Monsieur's arms and was borne away from among the wondering crowd; Joseph relapsed again into silence; and the father began immediately to busy himself with the prefecture of police.
On the second day after, they started home, arriving at their native town at night-fall. Monsieur wandered alone to the cottage beside the garden, where there awaited one to hear what he had to tell; and Joseph walked home with Irène. He had bought the rosary of the laborer, and as he was about to turn away to his own abode, he gave it to her, saying: "You keep it. It can remind me of nothing save what I must forget in order to live."
"I feel sorry for you, Joseph," whispered Irène, "I did what I could."
"Yes," replied the young soldier, and out of the sorrow and gratitude of his heart, he bowed and kissed her hand.
***** *****
Two years after, Joseph and Irène were married.
***** *****
In 1870, forty years later, when nearly all the persons who figured in this brief episode had died, and when the old stone house had sunk further into the earth and become to several generations of children the abode of the evil spirit, and when fragments of the foregoing narrative had become a tradition, and time had spread oblivion over what once seethed and throbbed with human interest, there came to the town two women: one, small, slender and white with age; the other, younger, but already passed the meridian of life. They had in their possession a deed to the old stone house; into which, after some repairs were made, they moved. They turned a deaf ear to every admonition that the house had been many years ago the abode of sinister deeds, and also baffled every effort of inquisitive persons to disclose their identity.
If anybody of the town ever saw squarely into the face of the older of these two women, it was never known; for with such studied care did she avoid the gaze of any passer-by that nothing save her small dark figure and snow-white hair were ever seen, Occasionally, she wandered in the cemetery across the way; but beyond this her steps rarely went further than the hedge that surrounded the court of the old stone house. In 1887 she died, and was interred in the ancient cemetery, near a tomb bearing the name of "Joseph Collot." A few weeks later, the younger woman disappeared, and was never again seen.
There was enough difference in the ages of these two women to be mother and daughter; for the older at the time of her death must have been not far from eighty, and the younger perhaps about sixty. In appearance they were not unlike; except that the eyes of the younger woman were horribly dissimilar, one being blue and the other black. And it was of her that the townspeople asked M. de Corbière such questions as "Is not this, indeed, the daughter of the famous doctor?" "Has not she the eyes of Satiani?"