第76章

My father, who was a distinguished advocate, had resigned his practice in court some years previously, and set up as a financial agent, hoping by that means to make a fortune more rapidly than by the law.His good official connection, his scrupulous probity, his extensive knowledge of the most important questions, and his great capacity for work, had speedily secured him an exceptional position.He employed ten secretaries, and the million and a half francs which my mother and I inherited formed only the beginnings of the wealth to which he aspired, partly for his own sake, much more for his son's but, above all, for his wife's--he was passionately attached to her.Notes and letters found among his papers proved that at the time of his death, he had been for a month previously in correspondence with a certain person named, or calling himself, William Henry Rochdale, who was commissioned by the firm of Crawford, in San Francisco, to obtain a railway concession in Cochin China, then recently conquered, from the French Government.It was with Rochdale that my father had the appointment of which he spoke before he left my mother, M.

Termonde, and myself, after breakfast, on the last fatal morning.

The Instruction had no difficulty in establishing this fact.The appointed place of meeting was the Imperial Hotel, a large building, with a long facade, in the Rue de Rivoli, not far from the Ministere de la Marine.The entire block of houses was destroyed by fire in the Commune; but during my childhood Ifrequently begged Julie to take me to the spot, that I might gaze, with an aching heart, upon the handsome courtyard adorned with green shrubs, the wide, carpeted staircase, and the slab of black marble, encrusted with gold, that marked the entrance to the place whither my father wended his way, while my mother was talking with M.Termonde, and I was playing in the room with them.My father had left us at a quarter-past twelve, and he must have taken a quarter of an hour to walk to the Imperial Hotel, for the concierge, having seen the corpse, recognized it, and remembered that it was just about half-past twelve when my father inquired of him what was the number of Mr.Rochdale's rooms.This gentleman, a foreigner, had arrived on the previous day, and had fixed, after some hesitation, upon an apartment situated on the second floor, and composed of a salon and a bedroom, with a small ante-room, which separated the apartment from the landing outside.From that moment he had not gone out and he dined the same evening and breakfasted the next morning in his salon.The concierge also remembered that Rochdale came down alone, at about two o'clock on the second day; but he was too much accustomed to the continual coming and going to notice whether the visitor who arrived at half-past twelve had or had not gone away again.Rochdale handed the key of his apartment to the concierge, with directions that anybody who came, wanting to see him, should be asked to wait in his salon.

After this he walked away in a leisurely manner, with a business-like portfolio under his arm, smoking a cigar, and he did not reappear.

The day passed on, and towards night two housemaids entered the apartment of the foreign gentlemen to prepare his bed.They passed through the salon without observing anything unusual.The traveler's luggage, composed of a large and much-used trunk and a quite new dressing-bag, were there.His dressing-things were arranged on the top of a cabinet.The next day, towards noon, the same housemaids entered the apartment, and finding that the traveler had slept out, they merely replaced the day-covering upon the bed, and paid no attention to the salon.Precisely the same thing occurred in the evening; but on the following day, one of the women having come into the apartment early, and again finding everything intact, began to wonder what this meant.She searched about, and speedily discovered a body, lying at full length underneath the sofa, with the head wrapped in towels.She uttered a scream which brought other servants to the spot, and the corpse of my father--alas! it was he--was removed from the hiding-place in which the assassin had cunningly concealed it.It was not difficult to reconstruct the scene of the murder.A wound in the back of the neck indicated that the unfortunate man had been shot from behind, while seated at the table examining papers, by a person standing close beside him.The report had not been heard, on account of the proximity of the weapon, and also because of the constant noise in the street, and the position of the salon at the back of the ante-room.Besides, the precautions taken by the murderer rendered it reasonable to believe that he had carefully chosen a weapon which would produce but little sound.The ball had penetrated the spinal marrow and death had been instantaneous.The assassin had placed new unmarked towels in readiness, and in these he wrapped up the head and neck of his victim, so that there were no traces of blood.He had dried his hands on a similar towel, after rinsing them with water taken from the carafe; this water he had poured back into the same bottle, which was found concealed behind the drapery of the mantel-piece.Was the robbery real or pretended? My father's watch was gone, and neither his letter-case nor any paper by which his identity could be proved was found upon his body.An accidental indication led, however, to his immediate recognition.Inside the pocket of his waistcoat was a little band of tape, bearing the address of the tailor's establishment.