Part 10 (1/2)

It was a terrible predicarity and reputation, in which to find himself; but Papa Mosenstein was both tenacious and vindictive His daughter, driven to desperation at last, and terrified that M le Marquis had indeed been foully murdered by M de Naquet, had made a clean breast of the whole affair to her father, and he in his turn had put the minions of the law in full possession of all the facts; and since M le Co no manner of trace or clue of his person behind hi a victim, fell back on an innocent man Fortunately, Sir, that innocence clear as crystal soon shi+nes through every calunities and all the tortures which base ingratitude can inflict upon a sensitive heart

Such ingratitude as I am about to relate to you has never been equalled on this earth, and even after all these years, Sir, you see me overcome with emotion at the remembrance of it all I was under arrest, ree, but, conscious of mine own innocence and of my unanswerable systee d'instruc-tion with exenity and patience I knew, you see, that at my very first confrontation with my supposed victim the latter would at once say:

”Ah! but no! This is not the man who assaulted ly successful, had been this

On thepawned the emeralds, and obtained the money for them, was to deposit that money in his own nao to the office in the Rue Daunou

There he would be met by Theodore, ould bind him comfortably but securely to a chair, put a shawl around his o to his mother's and there reain

It had been thought inadvisable for hbourhood of the Rue Daunou, but that perfidious reptile Theodore ran no risks in doing what he was told To begin with he is a pasthi seen, and in this case it was his business to exercise a double measure of caution And secondly, if by some unlucky chance the police did subsequently connect hirity and repute, prepared to swear that the man had been in my company at the other end of Paris all the while that M le Marquis de Fir use of my office in the Rue Daunou, which I had lent hireed between us that when M le Marquis would presently be questioned by the police as to the appearance of the man who had assaulted and robbed hiliche in countenance Now I possess--as you see, Sir--all the finest characteristics of the Latin race, whilst Theodore looks like nothing on earth, save perhaps a cross between a rat and a monkey

I wish you to realize, therefore, that no one ran any risks in this affair excepting myself I, as the proprietor of the apartment where the assault was actually supposed to have taken place, did run a very grave risk, because I could never have proved an alibi Theodore was such a disreputable mudlark that his testimony on my behalf would have been valueless But with sublime sacrifice I accepted these risks, and you will presently see, Sir, hoas repaid for my selflessness I pined in a lonely prison-cell while these two limbs of Satan concocted a plot to rob

Well, Sir, the day came when I was taken fro confronted with the ine, I was perfectly cal to our plan the confrontation would be theme free at once

I was conveyed to the house in the Rue de Gra for soe d'instruction went in to prepare M le Marquis, as still far from well Then I was introduced into the sick-room I looked about me with the perfect composure of an innocent azed on the face of the sick nificent bed, propped up with pillows

I e d'instruction placed the question to him in a solemn and earnest tone:

”M le Marquis de Firmin-Latour, will you look at the prisoner before you and tell us whether you recognize in him the man who assaulted you?”

And that perfidious Marquis, Sir, raised his eyes and looked me squarely--yes! squarely--in the face and said with incredible assurance:

”Yes, Monsieur le Juge, that is the nize him”

To h the ceiling and exploded at ratitude, the abominable treachery, completely deprived me of speech I felt choked, as if some poisonous effluvia--the poison, Sir, of that ot into my throat That state of inertia lasted, I believe, less than a second; the next I had uttered a hoarse cry of noble indignation

”You vampire, you!” I exclaimed ”You viper! You”

I would have thrown lee, but that the ed me away out of the hateful presence of that traitor, despite ine s when I found myself once more in a prison-cell, ainst that perfidious Judas Can you wonder that it took hts sufficiently to review my situation, which no doubt to the villain himself who had just played me this abominable trick must have seemed desperate indeed? Ah!

I could see it all, of course! He wanted to> see me sent to New Caledonia, whilst he enjoyed the fruits of his unpardonable backsliding In order to retain the miserable hundred thousand francs which he had proe up to the neck in this heinous conspiracy

Yes, conspiracy! for the very next day, when I was once e d'instruction, another confrontation awaited ue Theodore He had been suborned by M le Marquis to turn against the hand that fed him What price he was paid for this Judas trick I shall never know, and all that I do know is that he actually swore before the juge d'instruction that M le Marquis de Firmin-Latour called at my office in the late forenoon of the tenth of October; that I then ordered hio all the way over to Neuilly with a e to someone who turned out to be non-existent He went on to assert that when he returned at six o'clock in the afternoon he found the office door locked, and I--his ereatly upset him, because he was supposed to sleep on the pre for it but to accept the inevitable, he went round to his mother's rooms at the back of the fish- to hear from me

That, Sir, was the tissue of lies which that jailbird had concocted forwell that I could not disprove the to keep an eye on M le Marquis whilst he went to the Mont de Piete first, and then to MM

Raynal Freres, the bankers where he deposited the uise, which I had not discarded till later in the day, and thus was unable to disprove satisfactorily the monstrous lies told by that perjurer

Ah! I can see that sympathy for my unmerited misfortunes has filled your eyes with tears No doubt in your heart you feel that my situation at that hour was indeed desperate, and that I--Hector Ratichon, the confidant of kings, the benefactor of the oppressed--did spend the next few years of my life in a penal settlement, where those arch-malefactors themselves should have been But no, Sir! Fate ues ! It is brains that conquer in the endbrains backed by righteousness and by justice

Whether I had actually foreseen the treachery of those two rattlesnakes, or whether my habitual caution and acumen alone prompted me to take those measures of precaution of which I am about to tell you, I cannot truthfully remember Certain it is that I did take those precautions which ulti me for inal plan that, on the day i the tenth of October, I, in my own capacity as Hector Ratichon, who had been absent from my office for twenty-four hours, would arrive there in the , find the place locked, force an entrance into the apartht After which I would, of course, immediately notify the police of the mysterious occurrence

That had been the role which I had intended to play M le Marquis approved of it and had professed hi to endure a twenty-four-hours' martyrdom for the sake of half a million francs But, as I have just had the honour to tell you, so which I will not attempt to explain prompted me at the last ht it too soon to go back to the Rue Daunou within twenty-four hours of our well-contrived coup, and I did not altogether care for the idea of going myself to the police in order to explain to theed and bound in my office

The less one has to do with these ed the possibility of being accused of assault and robbery, but I did not wish to take, as it were, the very first steps ht call this a matter of sentiment or of prudence, as you wish