LXXXII. L'effraction.

LXXXII

The Break-in.

The day after the conversation we have just reported, the Count of Monte Cristo had in fact left for Auteuil with Ali, several servants, and some horses he wished to try out. What had chiefly determined this departure, which he had not even thought of the day before, and which Andrea no more thought of than he, was the arrival of Bertuccio, who, returned from Normandy, brought news of the house and the corvette. The house was ready, and the corvette, arrived eight days previously and at anchor in a small cove where she lay with her crew of six men, having fulfilled all the required formalities, was already in a state to put to sea again.

The count commended Bertuccio's zeal and invited him to prepare for a prompt departure, his stay in France not to be prolonged beyond a month.

"Now," he said to him, "I may need to go from Paris to Le Tréport in a single night; I want eight relays stationed along the road that will allow me to cover fifty leagues in ten hours."

"Your Excellency had already expressed this wish," replied Bertuccio, "and the horses are ready. I bought them and stationed them myself at the most convenient spots, that is to say, in villages where no one ordinarily stops."

"That is well," said Monte Cristo, "I am staying here a day or two; arrange accordingly."

As Bertuccio was about to leave to order all that concerned this stay, Baptistin opened the door; he held a letter on a vermeil tray.

"What have you come here for?" asked the count, seeing him covered with dust, "I did not ask for you, it seems to me?"

Baptistin, without answering, approached the count and presented the letter.

"Important and urgent," said he.

The count opened the letter and read:

"M. de Monte Cristo is warned that this very night a man will introduce himself into his house on the Champs-Élysées, to remove papers he believes locked in the desk of the dressing room: it is known that M. the Count of Monte Cristo is brave enough not to resort to the intervention of the police, an intervention which could seriously compromise the one who gives this warning. M. the count, either by an opening that will give from the bedroom into the cabinet, or by hiding in the cabinet, may do himself justice. Many people and apparent precautions would certainly deter the wrongdoer, and would make M. de Monte Cristo lose this occasion of knowing an enemy whom chance has revealed to the person who gives this warning to the count, a warning which she might perhaps not have the occasion to renew if, this first enterprise failing, the wrongdoer were to renew another."

The count's first impulse was to believe in a thieves' trick, a clumsy trap that signaled him a slight danger to expose him to a graver one. He was therefore about to send the letter to a police commissioner, despite the recommendation, and perhaps even because of the anonymous friend's recommendation, when suddenly the idea came to him that it could indeed be some private enemy of his, whom he alone could recognize and from whom, should the case arise, he alone could profit, as Fiesque had done with the Moor who had wished to assassinate him. The count is known to us; we need not say, then, that it was a mind full of boldness and vigor that braced itself against the impossible with that energy which alone makes superior men. By the life he had led, by the resolution he had taken and held to of recoiling before nothing, the count had come to savor unknown enjoyments in the struggles he sometimes undertook against nature, which is God, and against the world, which may well pass for the devil.

"They do not wish to rob me of my papers," said Monte Cristo, "they wish to kill me; these are not thieves, they are assassins. I do not want M. the Prefect of Police to meddle in my private affairs. I am rich enough, faith, to relieve his administration's budget of this burden."

The count recalled Baptistin, who had left the room after bringing the letter.

"You are going back to Paris," he said, "you will bring back here all the servants who remain. I need all my people at Auteuil."

"But will no one then remain at the house, M. le Comte?" asked Baptistin.

"Yes, the concierge."

"M. le Comte will reflect that it is far from the lodge to the house."

"Well?"

"Well, one could ransack the whole dwelling without his hearing the least noise."

"Who?"

"Why, thieves."

"You are a fool, M. Baptistin; were thieves to ransack the whole dwelling, they would never cause me the annoyance that a poorly done service would cause me."

Baptistin bowed.

"You understand me," said the count, "bring back your comrades from the first to the last; but let everything remain in its usual state; you will close the shutters of the ground floor, that is all."

"And those of the first floor?"

"You know they are never closed. Go."

The count sent word that he would dine alone at home and wished to be served only by Ali.

He dined with his habitual tranquility and sobriety, and after dinner, motioning to Ali to follow him, he went out by the small door, made his way to the Bois de Boulogne as if taking a walk, took without affectation the road to Paris, and at nightfall found himself opposite the house on the Champs-Élysées.

All was dark; only a faint light shone in the concierge's lodge, some forty paces from the house, as Baptistin had said.

Monte Cristo leaned against a tree, and, with that eye which so rarely deceived him, sounded the double avenue, examined the passersby, and plunged his gaze into the neighboring streets, to see if anyone were lying in wait. At the end of ten minutes, he was convinced that no one was watching him. He ran at once to the small door with Ali, entered precipitately, and, by the service stairs, of which he had the key, re-entered his bedroom, without opening or disturbing a single curtain, without the concierge himself suspecting that the house, which he believed empty, had recovered its principal occupant.

Arrived in the bedroom, the count motioned to Ali to stop, then passed into the cabinet, which he examined; all was in its usual state: the precious desk in its place, and the key in the desk. He locked it with a double turn, took the key, returned to the bedroom door, removed the double staple of the bolt, and went back in.

Meanwhile Ali brought onto a table the arms the count had asked of him, that is to say a short carbine and a pair of double pistols, whose superimposed barrels allowed one to aim as surely as with target pistols. Thus armed, the count held the lives of five men in his hands.

It was about half past nine; the count and Ali hastily ate a piece of bread and drank a glass of Spanish wine; then Monte Cristo slid one of those movable panels that allowed him to see from one room into another. He had within reach his pistols and his carbine, and Ali, standing near him, held in his hand one of those small Arab axes that have not changed shape since the crusades.

Through one of the bedroom windows, parallel to that of the cabinet, the count could see into the street.

Two hours passed thus; it was the deepest darkness, and yet Ali, thanks to his wild nature, and the count, thanks no doubt to an acquired quality, distinguished in that night even the faintest oscillations of the courtyard trees.

For a long time the small light of the concierge's lodge had gone out.

It was to be presumed that the attack, if there were indeed a projected attack, would take place by the ground-floor stairs and not by a window. In Monte Cristo's mind, the wrongdoers were after his life and not his money. It was therefore his bedroom they would attack, and they would reach his bedroom either by the hidden stairs or by the cabinet window.

He placed Ali before the stair door and continued to watch the cabinet.

A quarter to twelve sounded at the Invalides clock; the west wind brought on its damp gusts the lugubrious vibration of the three strokes.

As the last stroke died away, the count thought he heard a slight noise from the cabinet side; this first noise, or rather this first creak, was followed by a second, then a third; at the fourth, the count knew where he stood. A firm and practiced hand was occupied in cutting the four sides of a pane with a diamond.

The count felt his heart beat more rapidly. However inured to danger men may be, however well warned of peril, they always comprehend, by the fluttering of their heart and the shivering of their flesh, the enormous difference that exists between dream and reality, between project and execution.

However, Monte Cristo made only a sign to warn Ali; the latter, understanding that the danger was on the cabinet side, took a step to draw nearer his master.

Monte Cristo was eager to know against what enemies and how many enemies he had to deal.

The window where work was going on was opposite the opening through which the count plunged his gaze into the cabinet. His eyes therefore fixed toward that window: he saw a shadow outline itself thicker upon the darkness; then one of the panes became quite opaque, as if someone were pasting a sheet of paper on it from outside, then the pane cracked without falling. Through the opening made, an arm passed which sought the latch; a second later the window turned on its hinges, and a man entered.

The man was alone.

"There is a bold knave," murmured the count.

At this moment he felt Ali gently touch his shoulder; he turned round: Ali was showing him the window of the room they were in, which looked out on the street.

Monte Cristo took three steps toward that window, he knew the exquisite delicacy of the faithful servant's senses. Indeed, he saw another man detach himself from a door, and, mounting a boundary stone, seemed to try to see what was passing in the count's house.

"Good!" said he, "they are two: one acts, the other watches!"

He signed to Ali not to lose sight of the man in the street, and returned to the one in the cabinet.

The glazier had entered and was orienting himself, arms stretched forward.

At last he appeared to have taken account of everything; there were two doors in the cabinet, he went to bolt both.

As he approached the bedroom one, Monte Cristo thought he was coming in, and prepared one of his pistols; but he merely heard the noise of bolts sliding in their brass rings. It was a precaution, that was all; the nocturnal visitor, ignorant of the care the count had taken to remove the staples, could henceforth believe himself at home and act in full tranquility.

Alone and free in all his movements, the man then drew from his wide pocket something the count could not distinguish, placed this something on a guéridon, then went straight to the desk, felt it at the lock, and perceived that, contrary to his expectation, the key was missing.

But the glazier was a man of precaution who had foreseen everything; the count soon heard that rustling of iron against iron produced, when one stirs it, by that bunch of misshapen keys which locksmiths bring when sent for to open a door, and to which thieves have given the name of nightingales, no doubt because of the pleasure they feel in hearing their nocturnal song, when they creak against the bolt of the lock.

"Ah! ah!" murmured Monte Cristo with a smile of disappointment, "it is only a thief."

But the man, in the darkness, could not choose the proper instrument. He then had recourse to the object he had placed on the guéridon; he sprang a catch, and at once a pale light, but lively enough however to be seen, sent its golden reflection upon the hands and face of this man.

"Why!" suddenly said Monte Cristo, starting back with a movement of surprise, "it is...."

Ali raised his axe.

"Do not move," said Monte Cristo in a low voice, "and leave your axe there, we have no need of arms here."

Then he added a few words, lowering his voice still more, for the exclamation, faint though it was, which surprise had wrung from the count, had sufficed to make the man start, who had remained in the pose of an ancient knife-grinder. It was an order the count had just given, for at once Ali moved away on tiptoe, detached from the alcove wall a black garment and a three-cornered hat. Meanwhile Monte Cristo rapidly removed his frock coat, his waistcoat and his shirt, and one could, thanks to the ray of light filtering through the panel slit, recognize upon the count's chest one of those supple and fine tunics of steel mail, of which the last, in this France where one no longer fears daggers, was perhaps worn by King Louis XVI, who feared the knife for his breast, and who was struck with an axe on the head.

This tunic soon disappeared under a long cassock as the count's hair under a tonsured wig; the three-cornered hat, placed on the wig, completed the change of the count into an abbé.

Meanwhile the man, hearing nothing more, had risen, and during the time Monte Cristo was effecting his metamorphosis, had gone straight to the desk, whose lock began to creak under his nightingale.

"Good!" murmured the count, "who was no doubt relying upon some locksmith's secret that was to be unknown to the door-picker, clever as he might be—good! you have some minutes' work." And he went to the window.

The man he had seen mount on a boundary stone had got down, and was still walking in the street; but, singular thing, instead of concerning himself with those who might come, either by the Champs-Élysées avenue or by the Faubourg Saint-Honoré, he seemed occupied only with what was passing in the count's house, and all his movements had for their object to see what was going on in the cabinet.

Monte Cristo, suddenly, struck his forehead and let a silent laugh wander on his half-open lips.

Then drawing near Ali:

"Remain here," he said to him in a low voice, "hidden in the darkness, and whatever noise you hear, whatever happens, do not enter and do not show yourself unless I call you by your name."

Ali nodded that he understood and would obey.

Then Monte Cristo drew from a wardrobe a lighted candle, and at the moment the thief was most occupied with his lock, he gently opened the door taking care that the light he held in his hand fell full upon his face.

The door turned so softly that the thief did not hear the noise. But, to his great astonishment, he suddenly saw the room light up.

He turned round.

"Eh! good evening, dear M. Caderousse," said Monte Cristo, "what the devil have you come to do here at such an hour!"

"Abbé Busoni!" cried Caderousse.

And not knowing how this strange apparition had come to him, since he had bolted the doors, he let fall his bunch of false keys, and remained motionless and as if struck with stupor.

The count went and placed himself between Caderousse and the window, thus cutting off from the terrified thief his only means of retreat.

"Abbé Busoni!" repeated Caderousse, fixing upon the count wild eyes.

"Well, yes, Abbé Busoni," resumed Monte Cristo, "himself in person, and I am glad you recognize me, my dear M. Caderousse, that proves we have a good memory, for, if I am not mistaken, it is some ten years since we last saw each other."

This calm, this irony, this power, struck Caderousse's mind with a dizzying terror.

"The abbé! the abbé!" he murmured, clenching his fists and chattering his teeth.

"We would then rob the Count of Monte Cristo?" continued the pretended abbé.

"M. l'Abbé," murmured Caderousse, seeking to gain the window which the count pitilessly intercepted, "M. l'Abbé, I do not know... I pray you believe... I swear...."

"A pane cut, a dark lantern, a bunch of nightingales, a desk half forced, it is clear however."

Caderousse was choking with his cravat, he sought a corner to hide in, a hole to disappear through.

"Come," said the count, "I see you are still the same, M. the assassin."

"M. l'Abbé, since you know everything, you know it is not I, it is La Carconte; that was recognized at the trial, since they only condemned me to the galleys."

"You have then finished your time, that I find you about to get yourself sent back?"

"No, M. l'Abbé, I was delivered by someone."

"That someone rendered a charming service to society."

"Ah!" said Caderousse, "I had however promised well...."

"Thus, you are a fugitive from parole?" interrupted Monte Cristo.

"Alas! yes," said Caderousse, very uneasy.

"Bad relapse.... That will lead you, if I am not mistaken, to the Place de Grève. So much the worse, so much the worse, diavolo! as the fine gentlemen of my country say."

"M. l'Abbé, I yield to an impulse...."

"All criminals say that."

"Need...."

"Come now," said Busoni disdainfully, "need may lead to begging alms, to stealing a loaf at a baker's door, but not to coming to force a desk in a house one believes uninhabited. And when the jeweler Joannès had just counted you forty-five thousand francs in exchange for the diamond I had given you, and you killed him to have the diamond and the money, was that need too?"

"Pardon, M. l'Abbé," said Caderousse, "you have already saved me once, save me yet a second time."

"That does not encourage me."

"Are you alone, M. l'Abbé?" asked Caderousse, joining his hands, "or have you gendarmes there all ready to take me?"

"I am alone," said the abbé, "and I shall yet have pity on you and let you go at the risk of the new misfortunes my weakness may bring, if you tell me the whole truth."

"Ah! M. l'Abbé!" cried Caderousse, joining his hands and drawing a step nearer Monte Cristo, "I may well tell you that you are my savior, you!"

"You claim you were delivered from the hulks?"

"Oh! that, word of Caderousse, M. l'Abbé!"

"Who?"

"An Englishman."

"What was his name?"

"Lord Wilmore."

"I know him; I shall therefore know if you lie."

"M. l'Abbé, I speak the pure truth."

"This Englishman protected you then?"

"Not me, but a young Corsican who was my chain companion."

"What was this young Corsican's name?"

"Benedetto."

"That is a Christian name."

"He had no other, he was a foundling."

"Then this young man escaped with you?"

"Yes."

"How?"

"We were working at Saint-Mandrier, near Toulon. Do you know Saint-Mandrier?"

"I know it."

"Well, while they slept, from noon to one o'clock...."

"Convicts who take a siesta! Pity those fellows, then," said the abbé.

"Why, one cannot always work, one is not dogs."

"Fortunately for the dogs," said Monte Cristo.

"While the others then took their siesta, we moved away a little, we sawed our irons with a file the Englishman had had conveyed to us, and we escaped by swimming."

"And what became of this Benedetto?"

"I know nothing of it."

"You ought however to know."

"No, indeed. We separated at Hyères."

And, to give more weight to his protestation, Caderousse took yet a step toward the abbé who remained motionless in his place, always calm and interrogative.

"You lie!" said Abbé Busoni, with an accent of irresistible authority.

"M. l'Abbé!..."

"You lie! this man is still your friend, and you make use of him perhaps as an accomplice?"

"Oh! M. l'Abbé!..."

"Since you left Toulon, how have you lived? Answer."

"As I could."

"You lie!" resumed the abbé a third time with an even more imperious accent.

Caderousse, terrified, looked at the count.

"You have lived," resumed the latter, "on the money he gave you."

"Well, it is true," said Caderousse, "Benedetto has become a great gentleman's son."

"How can he be a great gentleman's son?"

"A natural son."

"And what name do you give this great gentleman?"

"The Count of Monte Cristo, the very one whose house we are in."

"Benedetto the count's son?" resumed Monte Cristo, astonished in his turn.

"Why, one must believe it, since the count found him a false father, since the count allows him four thousand francs a month, since the count leaves him five hundred thousand francs by his will."

"Ah! ah!" said the false abbé, who was beginning to understand, "and what name does this young man bear meanwhile?"

"He is called Andrea Cavalcanti."

"Then it is this young man whom my friend the Count of Monte Cristo receives at his house, and who is about to marry Mlle Danglars?"

"Exactly."

"And you suffer that, wretch! you who know his life and his stain?"

"Why should I prevent a comrade from succeeding?" said Caderousse.

"That is just, it is not for you to warn M. Danglars, it is for me."

"Do not do that, M. l'Abbé!..."

"And why?"

"Because it is our bread you would make us lose."

"And you believe that, to preserve the bread of wretches like you, I shall make myself the abettor of their ruse, the accomplice of their crimes?"

"M. l'Abbé!" said Caderousse, drawing nearer still.

"I shall tell all."

"To whom?"

"To M. Danglars."

"Thunder of heaven!" cried Caderousse, drawing a fully opened knife from his waistcoat and striking the count in the middle of the chest, "you shall say nothing, abbé!"

To Caderousse's great astonishment, the dagger, instead of penetrating the count's chest, rebounded blunted.

At the same time the count seized the assassin's wrist with his left hand, and twisted it with such force that the knife fell from his stiffened fingers and Caderousse uttered a cry of pain.

But the count, without stopping at this cry, continued to twist the bandit's wrist until, the arm dislocated, he first fell to his knees, then afterward face to the ground.

The count placed his foot on his head and said:

"I know not what stays me from crushing your skull, scoundrel!"

"Ah! mercy! mercy!" cried Caderousse.

The count withdrew his foot.

"Rise!" said he.

Caderousse rose.

"Zounds! what a wrist you have, M. l'Abbé!" said Caderousse, caressing his arm all bruised by the flesh-tongs that had gripped it; "zounds! what a wrist!"

"Silence. God gives me the strength to subdue a ferocious beast like you; it is in the name of that God that I act; remember that, wretch, and to spare you at this moment is still to serve the designs of God."

"Ouf!" said Caderousse, all aching.

"Take this pen and this paper, and write what I shall dictate to you."

"I cannot write, M. l'Abbé."

"You lie, take this pen and write!"

Caderousse, subdued by this superior power, sat down and wrote:

"Sir, the man you receive at your house and to whom you destine your daughter is a former convict escaped with me from the Toulon hulks; he bore the number 59 and I number 58.

"He was named Benedetto; but he himself ignores his true name, having never known his parents."

"Sign!" continued the count.

"But you wish to ruin me?"

"If I wished to ruin you, imbecile, I would drag you to the first guardhouse; besides, at the hour the note is delivered to its address, it is probable you will have nothing more to fear; sign then."

Caderousse signed.

"The address: _To M. le Baron Danglars, banker, rue de la Chaussée-d'Antin_."

Caderousse wrote the address.

The abbé took the note.

"Now," said he, "that is well, begone."

"By where?"

"By where you came."

"You wish me to go out by this window?"

"You came in by it well enough."

"You are plotting something against me, M. l'Abbé?"

"Imbecile, what can I be plotting?"

"Why not open the door for me?"

"What good to wake the concierge?"

"M. l'Abbé, tell me you do not wish my death."

"I wish what God wishes."

"But swear to me you will not strike me while I descend."

"Fool and coward that you are!"

"What do you mean to do with me?"

"I ask you. I tried to make a happy man of you, and made only an assassin!"

"M. l'Abbé," said Caderousse, "attempt a last trial."

"So be it," said the count. "Listen, you know I am a man of my word?"

"Yes," said Caderousse.

"If you return home safe and sound...."

"Unless it be from you, what have I to fear?"

"If you return home safe and sound, leave Paris, leave France, and wherever you are, as long as you conduct yourself honestly, I will have a small pension passed to you; for if you return home safe and sound, well...."

"Well?" asked Caderousse, shuddering.

"Well, I shall believe God has forgiven you, and I shall forgive you too."

"True as I am a Christian," stammered Caderousse, recoiling, "you are killing me with fear!"

"Come, begone!" said the count, pointing with his finger to the window for Caderousse.

Caderousse, still ill-reassured by this promise, straddled the window and set foot on the ladder.

There, he stopped trembling.

"Now descend," said the abbé, crossing his arms.

Caderousse began to understand that there was nothing to fear from that quarter, and descended.

Then the count approached with the candle, so that one might distinguish from the Champs-Élysées this man descending from a window, lit by another man.

"What are you doing, M. l'Abbé?" said Caderousse; "if a patrol were to pass...."

And he blew out the candle. Then he continued to descend; but it was only when he felt the garden ground beneath his foot that he was sufficiently reassured.

Monte Cristo re-entered his bedroom, and casting a rapid glance from the garden to the street, he first saw Caderousse who, after descending, made a detour in the garden and went to plant his ladder at the end of the wall, in order to get out at a different place from that by which he had entered.

Then, passing from the garden to the street, he saw the man who seemed to be waiting run parallel in the street and place himself behind the very angle near which Caderousse was about to descend.

Caderousse slowly mounted the ladder, and, arrived at the last rungs, passed his head over the coping to assure himself that the street was indeed deserted.

No one was visible, no noise was heard.

One o'clock struck at the Invalides.

Then Caderousse sat astride the threshold, and, drawing the ladder to him, passed it over the wall, then set about descending, or rather letting himself slide along the two uprights, a maneuver he executed with an adroitness that proved his habit of this exercise.

But, once launched on the slope, he could not stop. Vainly he saw a man leap from the shadow at the moment he was halfway down; vainly he saw an arm raise at the moment he touched the ground; before he could put himself on guard, this arm struck him so furiously in the back that he let go the ladder crying:

"Help!"

A second blow came to him almost at once in the side, and he fell crying:

"Murder!"

At last, as he rolled upon the earth, his adversary seized him by the hair and dealt him a third blow in the chest.

This time Caderousse wished to cry out again, but he could utter only a groan, and let flow, groaning, the three streams of blood that issued from his three wounds.

The assassin, seeing he no longer cried, lifted his head by the hair; Caderousse had his eyes closed and his mouth twisted. The assassin believed him dead, let the head fall back and disappeared.

Then Caderousse, feeling him withdraw, raised himself on his elbow, and, in a dying voice, cried with a supreme effort:

"To the assassin! I am dying! Help, M. l'Abbé, help!"

This lugubrious call pierced the shadow of the night. The door of the hidden stair opened, then the small garden door, and Ali and his master ran up with lights.

“Stories of the world, in your language.”