Part 16 (1/2)
”G.o.d forbid that she should,” said he; and with that we went out together.
The weather at that time was cold and cheerless; a bleak wind swept round the corners of the streets; and the lights which illumined the peristyle of the great building swayed and flickered with lapping tongues of red and yellow. But once inside, the glow of light and color pa.s.sed description. Here, whirling, shouting, dancing, leaping, the maskers rioted, almost drowning with their clamor the blare of the band; the superb entrance hall was ablaze with the flash of tawdry jewels and s.h.i.+ning raiment; kings and queens, knights and courtiers, _calicots_ and clowns, swarmed up the ma.s.sive staircase, struggling, screaming, pus.h.i.+ng, regardless of everything but the madness of the scene within.
It was with the greatest difficulty that I reached Tussal's box, and therefrom looking down upon the wild carnival, seeing at the first but a medley of form and color, a reckless horde of dancers, grisettes, shepherdesses, over whose heads _confetti_ hurtled, or the _spirales_ which the youths love. What with the dust and the scream of voices, and the chatter of the thousand tongues, and the heroic efforts of the fiddlers, it was almost impossible to locate anything or any one; but the Italian, readier than I, pointed out to me at last the one we sought; and I observed her sitting in a box quite close to us, where she seemed to talk with all a girl's _esprit_ to the young sculptor at her side. A fairer spectacle never was than that of this childish creature, quaintly dressed in a simple gown of white and black, with a necklace of pearls about her throat, and a bouquet of roses in her hand; but the very sight of her turned me sick with fear, for she wore upon her arm the cursed topaz, and you could see the light of it half over the house.
The Italian and I perceived the thing at the one time; indeed, we rose from our seats together.
”For the love of Heaven go to her!” said he; ”tell the whole story to both of them; she may not have ten minutes to live.”
He had need to say no more, for I was in the _foyer_ as he spoke; but scarce had I opened the door of Barre's box--which was upon the ground floor, almost at the level of the dancers--when an appalling scream rose up even above the clamor of the throng. For one moment, as I stood quaking with my fears, and sore tempted to draw back, I saw nothing but a haze of white smoke, a vision of lurid faces and black forms, and sharper than them all, the figure of Barre himself bending over the body of the insensible girl. Then, amidst the babbling of voices, and the sobbing of women, and the cry of the man, which was the most bitter cry imaginable, I heard the words, ”Stop the student in the black cloak--he has shot Mademoiselle!”
But the girl lay dead, with a bullet through her heart.
The tragedy at the Opera House was talk for many days in Paris; but the a.s.sa.s.sin was never taken, nor indeed, heard of. The police inclined to the theory that some masquerader had discharged a pistol by accident in the heat of the riot; and to this theory most people inclined. But there was a large sympathy for M. Georges Barre, who lay near to death for many weeks after the shock, and who quitted the capital subsequently to take up his residence in London. I told him the story the Italian had narrated to me so soon as he was well enough to hear it; but, like the police of Paris who had it also, I could see that he did not believe a word of it. He sold me the topaz bracelet, however, and I have it to this day, for I want the courage to sell it.
Of the Italian I never heard again. I saw him last immediately after the drama of the ball, when he lurched away from me, wringing his hands pitifully, begging me to tell his story to the police, and crying that a curse was upon him. But I take it, in conjunction with his confession, as a little curious that a madman, described as an ecclesiastic of Savona, should have thrown himself before a train in the Gare du Nord two days after the death of Mademoiselle Bernier.
THE RIPENING RUBIES.
THE RIPENING RUBIES.
”The plain fact is,” said Lady Faber, ”we are entertaining thieves. It positively makes me shudder to look at my own guests, and to think that some of them are criminals.”
We stood together in the conservatory of her house in Portman Square, looking down upon a brilliant ball-room, upon a glow of color, and the radiance of unnumbered gems. She had taken me aside after the fourth waltz to tell me that her famous belt of rubies had been shorn of one of its finest pendants; and she showed me beyond possibility of dispute that the loss was no accident, but another of those amazing thefts which startled London so frequently during the season of 1893. Nor was hers the only case. Though I had been in her house but an hour, complaints from other sources had reached me. The Countess of Dunholm had lost a crescent brooch of brilliants; Mrs. Kenningham-Hardy had missed a spray of pearls and turquoise; Lady Hallingham made mention of an emerald locket which was gone, as she thought, from her necklace; though, as she confessed with a truly feminine doubt, she was not positive that her maid had given it to her. And these misfortunes, being capped by the abstraction of Lady Faber's pendant, compelled me to believe that of all the startling stories of thefts which the season had known the story of this dance would be the most remarkable.
These things and many more came to my mind as I held the mutilated belt in my hand and examined the fracture, while my hostess stood, with an angry flush upon her face, waiting for my verdict. A moment's inspection of the bauble revealed to me at once its exceeding value, and the means whereby a pendant of it had been s.n.a.t.c.hed.
”If you will look closely,” said I, ”you will see that the gold chain here has been cut with a pair of scissors. As we don't know the name of the person who used them, we may describe them as pickpocket's scissors.”
”Which means that I am entertaining a pickpocket,” said she, flus.h.i.+ng again at the thought.
”Or a person in possession of a pickpocket's implements,” I suggested.
”How dreadful,” she cried, ”not for myself, though the rubies are very valuable, but for the others. This is the third dance during the week at which people's jewels have been stolen. When will it end?”
”The end of it will come,” said I, ”directly that you, and others with your power to lead, call in the police. It is very evident by this time that some person is socially engaged in a campaign of wholesale robbery.
While a silly delicacy forbids us to permit our guests to be suspected or in any way watched, the person we mention may consider himself in a terrestrial paradise, which is very near the seventh heaven of delight.
He will continue to rob with impunity, and to offer up his thanks for that generosity of conduct which refuses us a glimpse of his hat, or even an inspection of the boots in which he may place his plunder.”
”You speak very lightly of it,” she interrupted, as I still held her belt in my hands. ”Do you know that my husband values the rubies in each of those pendants at eight hundred pounds?”
”I can quite believe it,” said I; ”some of them are white as these are, I presume; but I want you to describe it for me, and as accurately as your memory will let you.”
”How will that help to its recovery?” she asked, looking at me questioningly.
”Possibly not at all,” I replied; ”but it might be offered for sale at my place, and I should be glad if I had the means of restoring it to you. Stranger things have happened.”