The Red Lottery Ticket. Du Boisgobey Fortuné

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ the title of marquis somewhere in Italy. Octavia does not wish to marry beneath her station."

      "Have you communicated all this information to your friend Dargental?"

      "No, I have taken good care not to do that. He would imagine I had invented the story, and slandered the countess, from jealousy. But he will hear it from plenty of others, by and by. He already knows that Lescombat bequeathed his entire fortune to his wife only about a month before his death, and he will learn, sooner or later on, that the pretended attack of apoplexy that killed the count was a plain case of suicide. The old nobleman felt so much regret at having despoiled his natural heirs that he poisoned himself with prussic acid."

      "But why didn't he alter his will?" inquired George Caumont.

      "He couldn't; Octavia watched him too closely. Besides, she is a perfect Circe, in her power to bewitch men. She has poor Dargental completely under her control, for it is evident she has confiscated him this morning."

      Adhémar and George could not repress a smile. They plainly realised that Blanche would never forgive Dargental for deserting her. As for the story about Madame de Lescombat, they thought it advisable to believe merely half of it; but even that was quite enough to make them pity the imprudent man who was about to place himself at the mercy of this wily widow. However, after all, why should she want to marry him, as he was not worth a copper?

      "Are you sure that he is at her house now?" inquired Balmer. "Remember, he may be ill."

      "He lives but a short distance from here, on the Boulevard Haussmann. We might send a messenger there to inquire after him," suggested George.

      "I object to that proposal," said Blanche. "He would imagine that I could not get on without him. Balmer, fill my glass. Gentlemen, I drink to your sweethearts."

      The toast met with no response, for, at that moment, a waiter entered, bearing a salver upon which a blue envelope was lying. "Here is a telegram which has just arrived for Monsieur Dargental," said the attendant. "Shall I lay it beside his plate?"

      "Hand it here!" cried Balmer, seizing hold of the missive. "A telegram is not a letter, and it will certainly do no harm for me to open this one. It will perhaps explain why Pierre has left us in the lurch, after inviting us here." He tore open the envelope as he spoke, and he had scarcely glanced at the contents, than he exclaimed triumphantly: "It is from the countess! You see that he is not at her house."

      "Let me see it," said Blanche, holding out her hand; and, glancing at the missive, she added: "It is from her. Listen, gentlemen: 'My dear Pierre – I should be very sorry to curtail your farewells to your friends of both sexes, but I should be greatly obliged to you if you would come to my house immediately after the lunch.' Both sexes! that is a dig at me. This countess has a very easy style, and she is as prudent as a serpent, for she has merely signed her christian name, Octavia, for fear of compromising herself, I suppose."

      As the actress spoke, she passed the telegram to her left-hand neighbour. Puymirol, on examining it, at once perceived that it was not a genuine telegram, but one of those communications, the sender of which pens as many words as he pleases upon a slip of paper; he then seals the latter up, and it is despatched by the pneumatic tube service to any part of Paris. The handwriting of this particular "telegraphic-note" was therefore the countess's, not a clerk's, and Adhémar noted that it was peculiarly firm and decided in character.

      "Well," said Blanche, "as the countess hasn't kept Pierre a prisoner, I begin to think that he must be playing a trick on us."

      "Unless some misfortune has befallen him," suggested Puymirol.

      "A misfortune will befall him when he marries, there is no doubt of that; but Dargental has no business to treat us like nobodies. If you take my advice, we will each pay a share of the bill and decamp."

      "Speak for yourself, I am still thirsty," growled Balmer. "You can go if you like, but I intend to have my coffee and season it with a few glasses of cognac."

      "Then you can settle the bill, and I will send you my share of it as soon as I learn the amount. I am going. Who loves me, follows me!" said Blanche, rising from table.

      Adhémar and George followed her example. "I shall pass Dargental's door on leaving here, and I will hand his doorkeeper that pneumatic telegram," remarked Adhémar, placing the missive in his pocket beside the pocket-book thrown into the cab.

      Balmer declining to move, the three others now went downstairs together. Blanche then sprang into a cab which stood outside the restaurant and drove off, saying, "Come and see me one of these days. I should like to hear the end of this affair."

      "What do you think of it all?" said Caumont to Adhémar, as soon as the actress had gone.

      "I think," replied Puymirol, "that the countess is an adventuress, Blanche a viper, and Dargental a fool."

      "Why, not long ago, you proclaimed him to be shrewdness personified!"

      "I must confess that that opinion seems erroneous. But let us go to Dargental's place; we shall, perhaps, find the solution of the enigma there. It isn't far off."

      The house in which Dargental lived stood on the Boulevard Haussmann. They soon reached the door, and the house-porter, on being questioned by Adhémar, replied that he believed that M. Dargental was at home. At all events, he had not seen him pass out. Dargental's rooms were situated on the second floor, to which the two friends duly climbed. Puymirol rang, but no one answered the summons, and the bell was pulled three times more, but without any better success. The two friends were, indeed, about to go off disappointed, when a servant in livery, carrying a package under his arm, appeared upon the landing. This servant was Dargental's valet, and he knew Puymirol and Caumont by sight. "I fear that the marquis has gone out," he remarked. On hearing this title, which Dargental had never borne before, the two friends exchanged a smile. "He was to lunch out to-day," continued the valet, "and he was already dressed when he sent me off on an errand at about eleven o'clock."

      "It was with us that he meant to lunch, and we haven't seen anything of him," said Caumont.

      "If you gentlemen would like to come in, I have the key," now suggested the servant.

      "Very well, open the door, then."

      The valet thereupon ushered them into an ante-chamber which they had traversed more than once. "Is there a fire in the house?" inquired Puymirol. "There is a strong smell of smoke here."

      "Of powder, rather," muttered Caumont.

      The valet, apparently quite as surprised by the smell as they were, opened the dining-room door, crossed the threshold, looked in, and then suddenly recoiled, exclaiming, in evident terror: "My God! my master is dead! Monsieur le marquis has killed himself!"

      Puymirol pushed the valet aside, and rushed into the room. It was but dimly lighted by stained glass windows, and Puymirol did not at first perceive Dargental, upon whom the valet's eyes had chanced to fall just as he crossed the threshold. Madame de Lescombat's unfortunate lover was sitting, or rather reclining, in a large arm-chair. Seen from a distance, he seemed to be asleep. Puymirol hastened forward, took hold of his hand, found that it was icy cold, and then perceived that his face was livid, his eyes half closed, and his mouth distorted. "Open the window, quick, quick!" he cried, and Caumont, forestalling the valet, instantly obeyed the order.

      In the full light it was seen that stains of blood tinged Dargental's shirt front, which was torn and scorched by a bullet in the vicinity of the heart; his waistcoat was unbuttoned, the lapels of his coat were pushed back and creased, while on the floor at his feet gleamed the shining barrel of a revolver. СКАЧАТЬ