I.
It's a very short time ago, yesterday as it were, that one Sunday afternoon about four o'clock, the whole Quartier du Marais was in an uproar.
Rumor asserted that one of the most respectable merchants in the Hue Boi-de-Sicile had disappeared, and all efforts to find him continued fruitless.
The strange event was discussed in all the shops in the neighborhood; there were groups at the doors of all the fruit-sellers, every moment some terrified housewife arrived, bringing fresh particulars.
The grocer on the corner had the best and latest news, the most reliable, too, for he received his information from the lips of the cook who lived in the house.
"So," said he, "yesterday evening, after dinner, our neighbor, Monsieur Jandidier, went down to his cellar to get a bottle of wine, and was never seen again. He disappeared, vanished, evaporated!"
It occasionally happens that mysterious disappearances are mentioned. The public becomes excited, and prudent people buy sword-canes.
Policemen hear absurd reports, and shrug their shoulders. They know the wrong side of the carefully embroidered canvas. They investigate, and find, instead of artless falsehoods, the truth; instead of romances, sorrowful fol stories. Yet, up to a certain point, the grocer of the Rue Saint Louis told the truth.
M. Jandidier, manufacturer of imitation jewelry, had not been at home for the last twenty-four hours.
M. Theodore Jandidier was a man fifty-eight years old, very stout and very bald, who had made a large fortune in business. He was supposed to have a considerable income from stocks and bonds, and his business brought him annually, on an average, fifty thousand francs. He was be-loved and respected in his neighborhood, and justly so; his honesty was above suspicion, his morality rigid. Married late in life to a penniless relative, he had made her perfectly happy. He had an only daughter, a pretty, graceful girl, named Thérèse, whom he worshiped. She had been engaged to the eldest son of Schmidt the banker—member of the firm Schmidt, Gubenheim & Worb—M. Gustave; but the match was broken off, nobody knew why, for the young people were desperately in love with each other. It was said by Jandidier's acquaintances that Schmidt senior, a perfect skinflint, had demanded a dowry far beyond the merchant's means.
Notified by public rumor, which hourly exaggerated the story, the commissary of police went to the home of the man already called "the victim," to obtain more exact information.
He found Mme. and Mile. Jandidier in such terrible grief that it was with great difficulty he gleaned the truth. At last he learned the following details:
The day before, Saturday, M. Jandidier had dined with his family as usual, though his appetite was not good, owing, he said, to a violent headache.
After dinner he went to his stores, gave some orders, and then entered his office.
At half past six he came upstairs again, and told his wife he was going to walk.
And he had not been seen since!
After carefully noting these particulars, the commissary requested Mme. Jandidier to let him speak with her alone a few minutes. She made a sign of assent, and Mile. Thérèse left the room.
"Pardon the question I am about to ask, madame," said the police officer. "Do you know whether your husband—again I beg you to excuse me—had any ties outside of his own family?"
Mme. Jandidier started up; anger dried her tears.
"I have been married twenty-three years, monsieur, and my husband has never returned home later than ten o'clock."
"Was your husband in the habit of going to any club or café, madame?" continued the officer.
"Never; I wouldn't have allowed it."
"Did he usually carry valuables on his person?"
"I don't know; I attended to my housekeeping and didn't trouble myself about business matters."
It was impossible to get anything more from the haughty wife, who was fairly bewildered by sorrow.
Having performed his duty, the commissary thought he ought to give the poor woman a little commonplace consolation.
But on withdrawing, after an examination of the house, he felt very anxious, and began to suspect that a crime had been committed.
That very evening one of the most skillful members of the detective force, Rétiveau, better known in the Rue de Jerusalem under the name of Maitre Magloire, was put on M. Jandidier's track, supplied with an excellent photograph of the merchant.
II.
The very day after M. Jandidier's disappearance, Maitre Magloire appeared at the Palais de justice to report what he had done to the magistrate in charge of the affair.
"Ah! there you are, Monsieur Magloire," said the magistrate; "so you've discovered something?"
"I am on the trail, monsieur."
"Speak."
"To begin with, Monsieur Jandidier did not leave home at half past six o'clock, but precisely seven."
"Precisely?"
"Precisely. I ascertained that from a clock-maker in the Rue Saint Denis, who is sure of it, because while passing his shop, Monsieur Jandidier took out his watch to see if it was exactly like the clock over the door. He held an unlighted cigar in his mouth. Having discovered this last circumstance, I said to myself, 'I have it! He'll light his cigar somewhere.' I reasoned correctly; he went into a retail shop on the Boulevard du Temple, whose mistress knows him very well. The fact was impressed on the woman's memory because he always smoked sou cigars, and this time bought London ones."
"How did he appear?"
"Absent-minded, the shop-keeper told me. It was from her I found out that he often went to the Café Ture. I entered it, and was told that he had been there Saturday evening. He took two small glasses of brandy, and talked with his friends. He seemed dull. 'The gentleman talked all the time about life insurance policies,' the waiter told me. At half past eight o'clock our man left the with one of his friends, a merchant in the neighborhood, Monsieur Blandureau. I instantly went to this gentleman, who informed me that he walked up the boulevard with Monsieur Jandidier, who left him at the corner of the Rue Richelieu, pleading a business engagement. He was not in his usual spirits, and seemed to be assailed by the gloomiest presentiments."
"Very well, so far," murmured the magistrate.
"On leaving Monsieur Blandureau, I went to the Rue Roi-de-Sicile to ascertain from somebody in the house whether Monsieur Jandidier had any customers or friends in the Rue Richelieu, but no one lived there except his tailor. I therefore proceeded hap-hazard to the tailor. He saw our man Saturday. Monsieur Jandidier called on him after nine o'clock to order a pair of trousers. While his measure was being taken, he noticed that one of his vest buttons was nearly off, and asked to have it sewed on. He was obliged to take off his overcoat while the trifling repair was made, and as at the same time he removed the contents of the side pocket, the tailor noticed several hundred-franc bank-bills."
"Ah!" that's a clew, "He had a considerable sum of money with him?"
"Considerable, no; but tolerably large. The tailor estimates it at twelve or fourteen hundred francs."
"Go on," said the magistrate.
"While his vest was being repaired, Monsieur Jandidier complained of sudden indisposition, and sent a little boy for a carriage, saying that he was obliged to go to one of his workmen, who lived a long distance off. Unfortunately, the lad had forgotten the number of the carriage. He only recollected that it had yellow wheels, and was drawn by a large black horse. The vehicle was found. A circular sent to all who kept carriages for hire, put me on the track. I learned this morning that it was No. 6007. The driver, on being questioned, distinctly remembered having been stopped Saturday evening, about nine o'clock, in the Rue Richelieu, by a little boy, and waiting ten minutes in front of the Maison Gouin. The description he gave of his fare exactly suits our man, and he recognized the photograph among five different ones I showed him."
Maitre Magloire stopped. He wanted to enjoy the approval visible in the magistrate's expression.
"Monsieur Jandidier," he continued, "ordered the driver to take him to No. 48 Rue d'Arras-Saint-Victor. In this house lives a workman named Jules Tarot, employed by Monsieur Jandidier."
M. Magloire's way of pronouncing this name was intended to rouse the magistrate's attention, and did so.
"You have suspicions?" he asked.
"Not exactly, but this is the story. Monsieur Jandidier dismissed the carriage at the Rue d'Arras and went to Tarot's about ten o'clock. At eleven the employer and workman came out together. The latter did not return until midnight, and here I lose all trace of my man. Of course I didn't question Tarot, for fear of putting him on his guard."
"Who is this Jules Tarot?"
"A workman in mother-of-pearl, a man who polishes shells on a grindstone to make them perfectly iridescent. He's a skillful fellow, and, assisted by his wife, to whom he has taught his trade, can make nearly a hundred francs a week."
"They are in easy circumstances, then?"
"Oh! no. They are both young, they have no children, they are Parisians. Deuce take it, they enjoy themselves. Monday regularly carries away what the other days bring."
III.
Two hours after Maitre Magloire's report, the police went to search Jules Tarot's house.
At sight of the officers, the workman and his wife turned deadly pale, and were seized with a nervous tremor that could not escape Maitre Magloire's practiced eye, Yet the most thorough investigation failed to detect anything suspicious, and the policemen were about to withdraw, when the detective noticed Tarot's wife glance anxiously at a cage hung in the window.
This was a ray of light. In less than an instant Ma-gloire had unhooked and taken down the cage. Between the boards, at the bottom, twelve hundred-franc bank-bills were found.
This discovery seemed to crush the workman. As to his wife, she began to utter piercing shrieks, protesting that both she and her husband were innocent. They were arrested, conveyed to head-quarters, and questioned by the magistrate. Their answers were precisely the same.
They acknowledged having received a visit from their employer Saturday evening. He seemed so ill that they asked him to take something to drink, but he refused. He had come, he said, to give a large order, and proposed that Tarot should undertake it, employing his own workmen. They replied that they had no means to do so, whereupon their employer answered: "No matter, I'll supply the money." And laid twelve hundred-franc bills on the table.
At eleven o'clock M. Jandidier asked his workman to accompany him; he was going to the Faubourg Saint Antoine. Tarot went as far as the Place de la Bastile, crossing the foot-bridge of Constantine, and walking along the canal.
The magistrate asked both husband and wife the very natural question:
"Why did you hide the money?"
They made the same reply.
Monday morning, hearing of M. Jandidier's disappearance, they were seized with terror. Tarot said to his wife: "If it is known that our employer came here, that I crossed the bridge and followed the edge of the canal with him, I shall be seriously compromised. If this money were found in our possession we should be lost."
The wife then wanted to burn the notes, but Tarot opposed the plan, intending to return them to the family.
This explanation was reasonable and plausible, if not probable, but it was merely an explanation. Tarot and his wife were kept under arrest.
IV.
A week after, the magistrate was still greatly perplexed. Three more examinations had not enabled him to come to any fixed conclusion.
Were Tarot and his wife innocent? Were they simply marvelously clever in maintaining a probable story?
The magistrate knew not what to think, when one morning a strange rumor spread abroad. The Maison Jandidier had failed. A detective sent to make inquiries, brought back the most startling news. M. Jandidier, who people supposed to be so rich, was ruined, utterly ruined, and for three years had kept up his credit by all sorts of expedients. There was not a thousand francs in his house, and his notes due at the end of the month amounted to sixty-seven thousand, five hundred francs.
The cautious merchant gambled in stocks at the Boürse, the virtuous husband was unfaithful.
The magistrate had just heard these particulars, when Maitre Magloire appeared, pale and panting for breath.
"You know, monsieur?" he exclaimed on the threshold. "All!"
"Tarot is innocent."
"I think so; and yet, that visit—how do you explain that visit?"
Magloire shook his head mournfully.
"I'm a fool," said he, "and Lecoq has just proved it Monsieur Jandidier talked about life insurance policies at the Café Ture. That was the key to the whole matter. Jandidier was insured for 200,000 francs, and the companies, in France, never pay in case of suicide; do you understand?"
V.
Thanks to M. Gustave Schmidt, who will marry Mile. Thérèse Jandidier next month, the Maison Jandidier did not fail.
Tarot and his wife, on being restored to liberty, were set up in business by the same M. Gustave, and no longer go junketing on Mondays.
But what has become of M. Jandidier? A thousand francs reward for news of him!
THE END.
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