Asie, without its being known to Contenson and Peyrade, had been asked by Madame du Val–Noble to come and help her cook.
As they sat down to table, Peyrade, who had given Madame du Val–Noble five hundred francs that the thing might be well done, found under his napkin a scrap of paper on which these words were written in pencil,
“The ten days are up at the moment when you sit down to supper.”
Peyrade handed the paper to Contenson, who was standing behind him, saying in English:
“Did you put my name here?”
Contenson read by the light of the wax-candles this “Mene, Tekel, Upharsin,” and slipped the scrap into his pocket; but he knew how difficult it is to verify a handwriting in pencil, and, above all, a sentence written in Roman capitals, that is to say, with mathematical lines, since capital letters are wholly made up of straight lines and curves, in which it is impossible to detect any trick of the hand, as in what is called running-hand.
The supper was absolutely devoid of spirit.
Peyrade was visibly absent-minded.
Of the men about town who give life to a supper, only Rastignac and Lucien were present.
Lucien was gloomy and absorbed in thought; Rastignac, who had lost two thousand francs before supper, ate and drank with the hope of recovering them later.
The three women, stricken by this chill, looked at each other.
Dulness deprived the dishes of all relish.
Suppers, like plays and books, have their good and bad luck.
At the end of the meal ices were served, of the kind called plombieres.
As everybody knows, this kind of dessert has delicate preserved fruits laid on the top of the ice, which is served in a little glass, not heaped above the rim.
These ices had been ordered by Madame du Val–Noble of Tortoni, whose shop is at the corner of the Rue Taitbout and the Boulevard.
The cook called Contenson out of the room to pay the bill.
Contenson, who thought this demand on the part of the shop-boy rather strange, went downstairs and startled him by saying:
“Then you have not come from Tortoni’s?” and then went straight upstairs again.
Paccard had meanwhile handed the ices to the company in his absence.
The mulatto had hardly reached the door when one of the police constables who had kept watch in the Rue des Moineaux called up the stairs:
“Number twenty-seven.”
“What’s up?” replied Contenson, flying down again.
“Tell Papa that his daughter has come home; but, good God! in what a state.
Tell him to come at once; she is dying.”
At the moment when Contenson re-entered the dining-room, old Peyrade, who had drunk a great deal, was swallowing the cherry off his ice.
They were drinking to the health of Madame du Val–Noble; the nabob filled his glass with Constantia and emptied it.
In spite of his distress at the news he had to give Peyrade, Contenson was struck by the eager attention with which Paccard was looking at the nabob.
His eyes sparkled like two fixed flames.
Although it seemed important, still this could not delay the mulatto, who leaned over his master, just as Peyrade set his glass down.
“Lydie is at home,” said Contenson, “in a very bad state.”
Peyrade rattled out the most French of all French oaths with such a strong Southern accent that all the guests looked up in amazement.
Peyrade, discovering his blunder, acknowledged his disguise by saying to Contenson in good French:
“Find me a coach — I’m off.”
Every one rose.
“Why, who are you?” said Lucien.
“Ja — who?” said the Baron.
“Bixiou told me you shammed Englishman better than he could, and I would not believe him,” said Rastignac.
“Some bankrupt caught in disguise,” said du Tillet loudly. “I suspected as much!”
“A strange place is Paris!” said Madame du Val–Noble. “After being bankrupt in his own part of town, a merchant turns up as a nabob or a dandy in the Champs–Elysees with impunity!
— Oh! I am unlucky! bankrupts are my bane.”
“Every flower has its peculiar blight!” said Esther quietly. “Mine is like Cleopatra’s — an asp.”
“Who am I?” echoed Peyrade from the door.
“You will know ere long; for if I die, I will rise from my grave to clutch your feet every night!”
He looked at Esther and Lucien as he spoke, then he took advantage of the general dismay to vanish with the utmost rapidity, meaning to run home without waiting for the coach.
In the street the spy was gripped by the arm as he crossed the threshold of the outer gate. It was Asie, wrapped in a black hood such as ladies then wore on leaving a ball.
“Send for the Sacraments, Papa Peyrade,” said she, in the voice that had already prophesied ill.
A coach was waiting. Asie jumped in, and the carriage vanished as though the wind had swept it away.
There were five carriages waiting; Peyrade’s men could find out nothing.
On reaching his house in the Rue des Vignes, one of the quietest and prettiest nooks of the little town of Passy, Corentin, who was known there as a retired merchant passionately devoted to gardening, found his friend Peyrade’s note in cipher.