Mysteries of Paris Volume II Part 103

repeated she, "gave you this child, and"--she could not finish. Her emotion was too violent; with her hands stretched toward La Chouette, trembling violently, surprise and joy were expressed on her countenance.

"But I did not know you were going to fire up in this manner, my little lady," said the old woman. "Yet it is very plain. Ten years ago, an old acquaintance, Toarnemine, said to me, 'Do you wish to take charge of a little girl that some one wants to get rid of? If she lives or dies, all the same there is a thousand francs to gain; you may do with the child what you please.'"

"Ten years ago?" cried Sarah.

"Ten years."

"Fair?"

"Fair."

"With blue eyes?"

"With blue eyes, blue as bluebells."

"And it is she who, at the farm--"

"We packed up for Saint Lazare. I must say that I did not expect to find her there."

"Oh! heaven!" cried Sarah, falling on her knees, and raising her hands and eyes toward heaven; "your ways are impenetrable. I bow before mysterious Providence. Oh! if such happiness were possible--but no, I cannot believe it; it would be too much--no!" Then, suddenly rising, she said to La Chouette, who looked at her with amazement, "Come."

She walked before the hag with hurried steps. At the end of the alley, she ascended some steps leading to the gla.s.s door of a cabinet, sumptuously furnished.

At the moment when La Chouette was about to enter, Sarah made her a sign to remain without. Then she rung the bell violently. A servant appeared.

"I am not at home to any one--let no one in, do you understand?

absolutely no one."

The domestic retired, and to be more secure the lady locked the door.

La Chouette heard the orders given to the servant, and saw Sarah lock the door. The countess, turning to her, said, "Come in quickly, and shut the door."

La Chouette obeyed. Hastily opening a secretary, Sarah took from it an ebony casket, which she placed on a desk in the middle of the room, and made a sign for La Chouette to come near her. The casket contained many jewel-boxes placed one on the other, inclosing magnificent ornaments.

Sarah was so impatient to reach the bottom of the casket, that she threw out on the table the boxes, splendidly furnished with necklaces, bracelets, and diadems, where rubies, emeralds, and diamonds sparkled with a thousand fires. La Chouette was astonished. She was armed, she was shut up alone with the countess, her flight was easy, secure. An infernal idea crossed the mind of this monster. But to execute this new misdeed, she had to get her poniard from the basket, and draw near to Sarah, without exciting her suspicions. With the cunning of a tiger-cat, who crawls treacherously on its prey, the old woman profited by the pre-occupation of the countess to steal round the bureau which separated her from her victim. She had already commenced this treacherous evolution, when she was obliged to stop suddenly.

Sarah drew a medallion from the bottom of the box, leaned on the table, handed it to La Chouette with a trembling hand, and said, "Look at this portrait."

"It is La Pegriotte!" cried La Chouette, struck with the great likeness; "the little girl who was given to me; I see her as she was when Tournemine brought her to me. There is her thick curly hair which I cut off at once, and sold well, ma foi!"

"You recognize her? Oh! I conjure you do not deceive me!"

"I tell you, my little lady, that it is La Pegriotte; it is as if I could see her before me," said La Chouette, trying to approach Sarah without being remarked; "even now she looks like this portrait. If you saw her, you would be struck with it."

Sarah had experienced no sorrow, no fright on learning that her child had, during ten years, lived miserable and abandoned. No remorse on thinking that she herself had torn her from the peaceful retreat where Rudolph had placed her. This unnatural mother did not at once interrogate La Chouette with terrible anxiety as to the past life of her child. No; ambition with Sarah had for a long time stifled maternal tenderness.

It was not joy at finding her daughter which transported her, it was the certain hope of seeing realized the proud dream of all her life.

Rudolph was interested for this unfortunate creature, had protected without knowing her, what would be his joy when he discovered her to be his child! He was single, the countess a widow--Sarah already saw glisten before her eyes a sovereign's crown. La Chouette, still advancing with cautious steps, had already reached one end of the table, and placed her dagger perpendicularly in her basket, the handle close to the opening, quite ready. She was only a few steps from the countess, when the latter suddenly said, "Do you know how to write?"

And pus.h.i.+ng back with her hand the boxes and jewels, she opened a blotter placed before an inkstand.

"No, madame, I cannot write," answered La Chouette at all hazard.

"I am going to write then, from your dictation. Tell me all the circ.u.mstances attending the abandonment of this little girl." And Sarah, seating herself in an armchair before the desk, took a pen and made a motion for the old woman to draw near to her.

The eyes of La Chouette twinkled. At length she was standing erect alongside of Sarah's seat. She, bending over the table, prepared to write.

"I will read aloud slowly," said the countess, "you will correct my mistakes."

"Yes, madame," answered La Chouette, watching every movement.

Then she slipped her right hand into her basket, so as to take hold of the dagger without being seen. The lady began to write, "I declare that--"

But interrupting herself, and turning toward La Chouette, who already had hold of the handle of her dagger, Sarah added, "At what time was this child delivered to you?"

"In the month of February, 1827."

"By whom?" asked Sarah, with her face still turned toward La Chouette.

"By Pierre Tournemine, now in the galleys at Rochefort. Mrs. Seraphin, housekeeper of the notary, gave the little girl to him."

The countess turned to write and read in a loud voice: "I declare that in the month of February, 1827, a man named--"

La Chouette had drawn out her dagger. Already she raised it to strike her victim between the shoulders. Sarah again turned.

La Chouette, not to be discovered, placed her right arm on the back of the chair, and leaned toward her to answer her new question.

"I have forgotten the name of the man who confided the child to you."

"Pierre Tournemine," answered La Chouette.

"Pierre Tournemine," repeated Sarah, continuing to write--"now in the galleys at Rochefort, placed in my hands a child who had been confided to him by the housekeeper of--"

The countess could not finish. La Chouette, after having softly disenc.u.mbered herself of the basket by dropping it on the ground, had thrown herself on the countess with as much rapidity as fury; with her left hand she caught her by the throat, and holding her face down to the table, she had, with her right hand, planted the dagger between the shoulders.

This horrible deed was executed so quickly that the countess did not utter a single cry or groan. Still seated, she remained with her face on the table. The pen had fallen from her hand.

"The same blow as Fourline gave the little old man in the Rue du Roule," said the monster. "Another one who will talk no more--her account is made."

And gathering in haste the jewels, which she threw into her basket, she did not perceive that her victim still breathed.

The murder and robbery accomplished, the horrible old woman opened the gla.s.s-door, disappeared rapidly in the green alley, went out by the small door, and reached the waste ground. Near the Observatory, she took a cab, which conveyed her to Bras-Rouge's. Widow Martial, Nicholas, Calabash, and Barbillon had, as the reader knows, made an appointment to meet La Chouette in this den, to rob and kill the diamond broker.

CHAPTER x.x.xVII.

THE DETECTIVE.