LXIX. Les informations.

LXIX

The Information.

M. de Villefort kept his word to Mme Danglars, and above all to himself, by seeking to learn how M. le Comte de Monte-Cristo had been able to discover the history of the house at Auteuil.

He wrote that same day to a certain M. de Boville, who, after having formerly been an inspector of prisons, had been attached, in a higher capacity, to the security police, asking for the information he desired; and the latter requested two days in which to ascertain precisely from whom one might obtain such information.

When the two days had expired, M. de Villefort received the following note:

"The person called M. le Comte de Monte-Cristo is known particularly to Lord Wilmore, a wealthy foreigner, whom one sees occasionally in Paris and who is there at this moment; he is likewise known to the Abbé Busoni, a Sicilian priest of great reputation in the East, where he has performed many good works."

M. de Villefort replied with an order to obtain the swiftest and most precise information concerning these two foreigners; the next evening his orders were executed, and here are the particulars he received:

The abbé, who was in Paris for only a month, lived, behind Saint-Sulpice, in a small house consisting of a single floor above the ground floor; four rooms, two above and two below, made up the whole lodging, of which he was the sole tenant.

The two lower rooms consisted of a dining room with a table, two chairs and a walnut sideboard, and a wainscoted salon painted white, without ornaments, without carpet and without clock. It was evident that, for his own part, the abbé confined himself to objects of strict necessity.

It is true that the abbé preferred to occupy the salon on the first floor. That salon, furnished entirely with books of theology and parchments, amid which he might be seen, said his valet, burying himself for whole months at a time, was in reality less a salon than a library.

This valet scrutinized visitors through a sort of wicket, and when their faces were unknown to him or displeased him, he would answer that M. l'abbé was not in Paris, a reply with which many were content, knowing that the abbé traveled often and sometimes remained away on his travels for very long periods.

Moreover, whether he was at home or not, whether he was in Paris or in Cairo, the abbé always gave alms, and the wicket served as a turn for the charities which the valet distributed unceasingly in his master's name.

The other chamber, situated near the library, was a bedroom. A bed without curtains, four armchairs and a settee of yellow Utrecht velvet formed, with a prie-Dieu, all its furnishings.

As for Lord Wilmore, he lived in the rue Fontaine-Saint-Georges. He was one of those English tourists who consume their whole fortune in traveling. He rented, furnished, the apartment he occupied, in which he came to spend only two or three hours a day, and where he seldom slept. One of his manias was an absolute refusal to speak the French language, which he nevertheless wrote, it was said, with considerable purity.

The day after these valuable particulars reached the king's attorney, a man who alighted from a carriage at the corner of the rue Férou came and knocked at a door painted olive green and asked for the Abbé Busoni.

"M. l'abbé went out early this morning," answered the valet.

"I might not be satisfied with that answer," said the visitor, "for I come on behalf of a person for whom one is always at home. But be so good as to give the Abbé Busoni..."

"I have already told you he is not here," repeated the valet.

"Then, when he returns, give him this card and this sealed paper. This evening at eight o'clock will M. l'abbé be at home?"

"Oh, certainly, sir, unless M. l'abbé is at work, and then it is as if he were out."

"I shall return this evening at the appointed hour, then," said the visitor.

And he withdrew.

In fact, at the hour indicated, the same man returned in the same carriage, which this time, instead of stopping at the corner of the rue Férou, stopped before the green door. He knocked, the door was opened, and he entered.

From the signs of respect with which the valet was prodigal toward him, he understood that his letter had produced the desired effect.

"Is M. l'abbé at home?" he asked.

"Yes, sir, he is working in his library; but he is expecting you," replied the servant.

The stranger climbed a rather steep staircase, and, before a table whose surface was flooded with the light concentrated by a wide lampshade, while the rest of the apartment remained in shadow, he perceived the abbé, in ecclesiastical dress, his head covered with those hoods beneath which the scholars of the Middle Ages buried their skulls.

"Have I the honor of speaking to M. Busoni?" asked the visitor.

"Yes, sir," replied the abbé, "and you are the person whom M. de Boville, former intendant of prisons, sends me on behalf of M. le Préfet de Police?"

"Exactly, sir."

"One of the agents charged with the security of Paris?"

"Yes, sir," answered the stranger with a kind of hesitation, and above all a slight reddening.

The abbé readjusted the large spectacles which covered not only his eyes but also his temples, and, reseating himself, made a sign to the visitor to seat himself in turn.

"I am listening, sir," said the abbé with a most pronounced Italian accent.

"The mission with which I have charged myself, sir," resumed the visitor, weighing each of his words as though they came with difficulty, "is a mission of confidence both for him who fulfills it and for him near whom it is fulfilled."

The abbé bowed.

"Yes," the stranger went on, "your probity, M. l'abbé, is so well known to M. le Préfet de Police, that he wishes to learn from you, as from a magistrate, a matter which concerns that public security in the name of which I am deputed to you. We hope, then, M. l'abbé, that there will be neither ties of friendship nor human consideration that could engage you to disguise the truth from justice."

"Provided, sir, that the things it imports you to know touch in no way upon the scruples of my conscience. I am a priest, sir, and the secrets of confession, for example, must remain between myself and the justice of God, and not between myself and human justice."

"Oh, be at ease, M. l'abbé," said the stranger, "in any case we shall place your conscience beyond reach."

At these words the abbé, pressing down on the lampshade in his turn, raised that same shade on the opposite side, so that, while flooding the stranger's face with light, his own remained always in shadow.

"Pardon, M. l'abbé," said the envoy of M. le Préfet de Police, "but this light fatigues my sight horribly."

The abbé lowered the green cardboard.

"Now, sir, I am listening; speak."

"I come to the point. You know M. le Comte de Monte-Cristo?"

"You mean M. Zaccone, I presume?"

"Zaccone!... Does he not then call himself Monte-Cristo?"

"Monte-Cristo is a name of land, or rather a name of rock, and not a family name."

"Well, be it so; let us not quibble over words, and since M. de Monte-Cristo and M. Zaccone are the same man..."

"Absolutely the same."

"Let us speak of M. Zaccone."

"Very well."

"I was asking if you knew him?"

"Very well."

"What is he?"

"He is the son of a wealthy shipowner of Malta."

"Yes, I know that, it is what is said; but, as you understand, the police cannot content itself with a hearsay."

"However," resumed the abbé with a most affable smile, "when that hearsay is the truth, one must needs content oneself with it, and the police must do as everyone else."

"But are you sure of what you say?"

"How! if I am sure!"

"Observe, sir, that I in no way suspect your good faith. I say to you: Are you sure?"

"Listen, I knew M. Zaccone the father."

"Ah! ah!"

"Yes, and as a child I played ten times with his son in their building yards."

"But nevertheless that title of count?"

"You know, it is bought."

"In Italy?"

"Everywhere."

"But those riches which are immense, as is always said..."

"Oh, as for that," answered the abbé, "immense is the word."

"How much do you think he possesses, you who know him?"

"Oh, he has a good hundred fifty to two hundred thousand livres of income."

"Ah, that is reasonable," said the visitor, "but people speak of three, of four millions!"

"Two hundred thousand livres of income, sir, make exactly four millions of capital."

"But people spoke of three to four millions of income!"

"Oh, that is not credible."

"And you know his island of Monte-Cristo?"

"Certainly; any man who has come by sea from Palermo, Naples or Rome to France knows it, since he has passed beside it and seen it as he passed."

"It is an enchanting retreat, so it is said."

"It is a rock."

"And why then did the count buy a rock?"

"Precisely to be a count. In Italy, to be a count, one still needs a county."

"You have no doubt heard tell of the adventures of M. Zaccone's youth."

"The father?"

"No, the son."

"Ah! here begin my uncertainties, for here I lost sight of my young companion."

"He saw military service?"

"I believe he served."

"In what branch?"

"In the navy."

"Come now, you are not his confessor?"

"No, sir; I believe him a Lutheran."

"How, Lutheran?"

"I say I believe it; I do not affirm it. Besides, I thought freedom of worship was established in France."

"No doubt, and it is not his beliefs that occupy us at this moment, it is his actions; in the name of M. le Préfet de Police, I summon you to state what you know."

"He passes for a very charitable man. Our holy father the pope made him a knight of Christ, a favor he scarce accords but to princes, for the eminent services he has rendered to the Christians of the East; he has five or six grand cords conferred by like services rendered to princes or to states."

"And does he wear them?"

"No, but he is proud of them; he says he likes better the rewards accorded to the benefactors of humanity than those accorded to the destroyers of men."

"Is that man then a Quaker?"

"Precisely, he is a Quaker, minus the broad hat and the brown coat, of course."

"Is he known to have friends?"

"Yes, for he has for friends all who know him."

"But finally, he has some enemy?"

"One only."

"What is his name?"

"Lord Wilmore."

"Where is he?"

"In Paris at this very moment."

"And can he give me information?"

"Precious. He was in the Indies at the same time as Zaccone."

"Do you know where he lives?"

"Somewhere in the Chaussée-d'Antin; but I know not the street or number."

"Are you on bad terms with this Englishman?"

"I love Zaccone and he detests him; we are cool with each other on that account."

"M. l'abbé, do you think the Comte de Monte-Cristo ever came to France before the journey he has just made to Paris?"

"Ah, as to that, I can answer you pertinently. No, sir, he never came, since he addressed himself to me, six months ago, for the information he desired. For my part, as I knew not when I myself should return to Paris, I directed him to M. Cavalcanti."

"Andrea?"

"No; Bartolomeo, the father."

"Very well, sir; I have but one thing more to ask of you, and I summon you, in the name of honor, of humanity and of religion, to answer me without evasion."

"Speak, sir."

"Do you know for what purpose M. le Comte de Monte-Cristo bought a house at Auteuil?"

"Certainly, for he told me."

"For what purpose, sir?"

"To make of it an asylum for the insane in the style of that founded by the Baron de Pisani, at Palermo. Do you know that asylum?"

"By reputation, yes, sir."

"It is a magnificent institution."

And thereupon, the abbé bowed to the stranger like a man who wishes it to be understood that he would not be sorry to return to his interrupted work. The visitor, whether he understood the abbé's wish or had come to the end of his questions, rose in his turn.

The abbé conducted him to the door.

"You give rich alms," said the visitor, "and though you are said to be wealthy, I would venture to offer you something for your poor; on your side, will you deign to accept my offering?"

"Thank you, sir, there is but one thing in the world of which I am jealous, and that is that the good I do should come from myself."

"But nevertheless..."

"It is an invariable resolution. But seek, sir, and you will find: alas! upon the path of every rich man there are many miseries to brush against!"

The abbé bowed a last time as he opened the door; the stranger bowed in his turn and went out.

The carriage took him straight to M. de Villefort.

An hour later, the carriage set out again, and this time directed itself toward the rue Fontaine-Saint-Georges. At No. 5 it stopped. That was where Lord Wilmore lived.

The stranger had written to Lord Wilmore to ask for a meeting, which the latter had fixed for ten o'clock. So, as the envoy of M. le Préfet de Police arrived at ten minutes to ten, he was answered that Lord Wilmore, who was punctuality and exactness personified, was not yet returned, but that he would surely be back at the stroke of ten.

The visitor waited in the salon. That salon was in no way remarkable and was like all furnished hotel salons.

A fireplace with two modern Sèvres vases, a clock with a Cupid drawing his bow, a mirror in two pieces; on either side of that mirror an engraving representing, one Homer led by his guide, the other Belisarius begging alms, a gray-on-gray wallpaper, a piece of furniture in red cloth printed with black: such was the salon of Lord Wilmore.

It was lit by ground-glass globes which diffused only a faint light, seemingly tempered expressly for the weary eyes of the envoy of M. le Préfet de Police.

After ten minutes' waiting, the clock struck ten; at the fifth stroke, the door opened, and Lord Wilmore appeared.

Lord Wilmore was a man rather tall than short, with sparse red side-whiskers, a fair complexion and fading blond hair. He was dressed with all English eccentricity, that is to say he wore a blue coat with gilt buttons and a high pinned collar, such as were worn in 1811: a white cassimere waistcoat and nankeen breeches three inches too short, but which garters of the same stuff prevented from riding up to the knees.

His first word on entering was:

"You know, sir, that I do not speak French."

"I know at least that you do not like to speak our language," answered the envoy of M. le Préfet de Police.

"But you can speak it, you," resumed Lord Wilmore, "for if I do not speak it, I understand it."

"And I," resumed the visitor, changing his idiom, "speak English readily enough to sustain a conversation in that tongue. Do not constrain yourself, then, sir."

"Hao!" said Lord Wilmore with that intonation which belongs only to the purest natives of Great Britain.

The envoy of the préfet presented his letter of introduction to Lord Wilmore. The latter read it with all Anglican phlegm; then, when he had finished reading:

"I understand," said he in English; "I understand very well."

Then began the interrogations.

They were almost the same as those addressed to the Abbé Busoni. But as Lord Wilmore, in his quality of enemy to the Comte de Monte-Cristo, did not observe the same reserve as the abbé, they were much more extended; he recounted the youth of Monte-Cristo, who, according to him, had, at the age of ten, entered the service of one of those petty sovereigns of India who make war upon the English; it was there that he, Wilmore, had first met him, and that they had fought against each other. In that war, Zaccone had been made prisoner, had been sent to England, put upon the hulks, from which he had escaped by swimming. Then had begun his travels, his duels, his passions; then had come the insurrection of Greece, he had served in the ranks of the Greeks. While he was in their service, he had discovered a silver mine in the mountains of Thessaly, but he had taken good care to speak of this discovery to no one. After Navarino, and when the Greek government was consolidated, he asked King Otho for an exploitation privilege for that mine, which privilege was granted him. Hence that immense fortune which might, according to Lord Wilmore, amount to one or two millions of income, a fortune which nevertheless might suddenly dry up, if the mine itself should fail.

"But," asked the visitor, "do you know why he came to France?"

"He wishes to speculate in railways," said Lord Wilmore; "and then, as he is a skilled chemist and no less distinguished physicist, he has discovered a new telegraph whose application he is pursuing."

"How much does he spend per year, about?" asked the envoy of M. le Préfet de Police.

"Oh, five or six hundred thousand francs, at most," said Lord Wilmore; "he is avaricious."

It was evident that hatred made the Englishman speak, and that, knowing not what fault to lay to the count's charge, he laid avarice to him.

"Do you know anything of his house at Auteuil?"

"Yes, certainly."

"Well, what do you know of it?"

"You ask for what purpose he bought it?"

"Yes."

"Well, the count is a speculator who will certainly ruin himself in experiments and utopias: he pretends that there is, at Auteuil, in the neighborhood of the house he has just acquired, a current of mineral water which may rival the waters of Bagnères, of Luchon and of Cauterets. He means to make of his purchase a _badhaus_ as the Germans say. He has already two or three times turned over his whole garden to find the famous stream; and as he has not been able to discover it, you will see him, within a short time, buy the houses surrounding his own. Now, as I bear him ill will, I hope that in his railway, in his electric telegraph or in his bathing enterprise, he will ruin himself; I follow him in order to enjoy his downfall, which cannot fail to come one day or another."

"And why do you bear him ill will?" asked the visitor.

"I bear him ill will," answered Lord Wilmore, "because, passing through England, he seduced the wife of a friend of mine."

"But if you bear him ill will, why do you not seek to avenge yourself upon him?"

"I have already fought three times with the count," said the Englishman: "the first time with pistols; the second with the sword; the third with the smallsword."

"And the result of those duels was?"

"The first time, he broke my arm; the second time, he pierced my lung; and the third time, he gave me this wound."

The Englishman turned down a shirt collar which rose to his ears, and showed a scar whose redness indicated a recent date.

"So that I bear him much ill will," repeated the Englishman, "and that he will assuredly die by no hand but mine."

"But," said the envoy of the prefecture, "you are not taking the way to kill him, it seems to me."

"Hao!" said the Englishman, "every day I go to the shooting gallery, and every two days Grisier comes to my house."

That was what the visitor wished to know, or rather that was all the Englishman appeared to know. The agent rose, therefore, and, having bowed to Lord Wilmore, who replied with English stiffness and politeness, he withdrew.

For his part, Lord Wilmore, after hearing the street door close behind the visitor, went back into his bedroom, where, in a trice, he lost his blond hair, his red whiskers, his false jaw and his scar, to recover the black hair, the olive complexion and the pearly teeth of the Comte de Monte-Cristo.

It is true that, for his part, it was M. de Villefort, and not the envoy of M. le Préfet de Police, who returned to M. de Villefort's house.

The king's attorney was somewhat reassured by this double visit, which, moreover, had taught him nothing reassuring, but which had taught him nothing alarming either. The result was that, for the first time since the dinner at Auteuil, he slept the following night with some tranquillity.

“Stories of the world, in your language.”