Chapter X

[Henry Gastonard writes to Paddy O’Connell a letter concerning his search for Mimi the Simpleton.]

Hôtel St. Paul, Paris,
July 15th, 1905.

Dear Paddy,--The calamity of your sudden departure from Paris is in no way mitigated by the sad news I have to tell you. Mimi is not found, nor have I any clue to her whereabouts other than a pitiful little letter from her, posted three days ago at Raincy, a suburb of Paris, and evidently a sincere expression of her determination not to return to me.

That Lea d’Alençon is at the bottom of it all I have not the smallest doubt. But there are subsidiary reasons, and one of them your own frankness before Mimi concerning my fortune and my future. The idea has come to her that I am lost if I remain in Paris. She is madly jealous of the other woman, and would have me leave France that I may also be quit of the fascinating Lea. Such is the truth, Paddy; such is the naïve confession of one whom few would credit with so sure an instinct or so faithful an affection.

Meanwhile, as I need not tell you, who stood by me during the dark of the day, that my efforts to find her and to bring her back are unceasing, and pursued with all the advantage my fortune can bestow. Recently I revisited the old haunts at Neuilly, which we re-discovered together before your sister’s unfortunate illness recalled you from Paris. The quest of the lion-tamer, this horrible monster of a Cassadore, was rewarded with success some days ago, when I found him in a booth at Conflans, and was immediately admitted to his august presence. But he knows nothing of Mimi, nor is it reasonable to suppose that even her resolution would carry her again to scenes so reminiscent of the phantoms of her childhood.

I say that he knows nothing of Mimi, but this is not to believe that he would not hear of her gladly, and press her joyfully to his grimy bosom if any opportunity occurred. A truly heroic figure, vast and proud and formidable, I found him in a wooden shed behind a crazy circus, taking a _plat du jour_ of black bread and ancient beef, and making frequent applications to a green bottle which contained an unknown but, I doubt not, potent liquor. Upon either side were lions, which so delight the simple people of the fêtes and fairs about Paris. They were shut off from the passage in which he sat by huge beams of timber; but these stood so wide apart that a paw could pass at half a dozen places--and you, Paddy, will understand how much I enjoyed that interview. For there were lions at the front of me and lions at the back of me, and, although some of them seemed half asleep, there were others very wide awake indeed, and so playful that I wonder I came away with any flesh upon my bones at all.

We spoke between the roaring--no pleasant sound at any time, and doubly fearful when you have a lion within a foot of you. I found Cassadore quite frank, both about Mimi and his business. The lions, he admitted, were half-drugged when he put them through their paces. It was true that the great African brute Salambo had eaten his keeper, “Sammy,” when he, Cassadore, was away in Paris; but, after all, you cannot make Christians of lions by burning them with red-hot irons, nor was the “Sammy” aforesaid quite sober when he entered the cage. In a voice resounding with dramatic tones, the man described how he had returned to find his servant eaten to the very neck--“mais, monsieur, the eyes were wide open and staring, and the head was untouched.”

Of Mimi the fellow told me much. He had bought her of an old woman at Orleans. There was no other word for it. He saw the child capering before a dirty home, and was struck by the readiness and the wit with which she answered his questions. Assuming her to be a waif and stray entrusted by callous parents to a mercenary hag, he made a bargain on the spot, and took Mimi away with him. His further assurance that he loved her as his own daughter, uttered between lengthy draughts from a capacious bottle, carried less conviction than his story. He had, so he said, spent large sums upon her education, and taught her himself those charming accomplishments which she displayed at the many fêtes her presence graced. Having in turn sold her to me (for it came to that), he asked if I thought he had no sense of honour, no finer feeling than to play the part of a mean kidnapper, taking young women from respectable homes? This I answered immediately in the negative--for who would contradict a showman with half a dozen lions at his back!

Admit, my dear Paddy, that this quest is not a little pitiful, when you remember the object of it. Consider what my acquaintances would say of me if they heard that my latest occupation is to search the booths about Paris for a child who was capering with a tambourine a few months ago, and may now be returned to that employment. With these I myself should not argue. There is a day in every man’s life when he must stand outside the world’s conventions, break with all common tradition, and write the page of action for himself. Such a day is mine--I am indifferent to all else but its issue.

This spirit, my dear Paddy, is moving me to employ every agency money can command for the recovery of little Mimi. I have just engaged the services of Jules Farman, perhaps the cleverest officer in Paris to-day, and he is with me in this quest. Our latest call was upon the old woman Marie, who lives in a cottage upon the great high road between Blois and Orleans. Here we gleaned but little. The child is the natural daughter of persons unknown. She was left with a sum of money, and a “mother’s care”--do not laugh, Paddy--was bestowed upon her. Farman assured me that this hag would not help us, but on the day following our return to Paris, he carried me suddenly to the suburb of Raincy and declared that he had a clue. Mimi was travelling with a rascally showman named Gondré. A hundred franc note would buy her freedom--that freedom I would have paid not a hundred but ten thousand francs to ensure.

We left for Raincy early in the afternoon and visited the show as any bumpkins ready to gape at aged Pantaloon, or to lay our offerings at the feet of a rouged and battered Columbine.

The tents were pitched in a clearing of the wood near the village--half a dozen of them with sorry spavined hacks grazing round about, and as fine a collection of rascality in charge as all France could show you. I will not dwell upon the shame with which I discovered myself seeking the child in these haunts. I am not easily moved to excitements, Paddy, but when we approached this place and I told myself that little Mimi had left me for such a life as this, that I was about to re-discover her and take her to my house--be sure never to leave it again--then, believe me, I lived one of the truest hours of life that I have ever known.

I say that we walked about the grounds as ordinary bumpkins, but, be sure, our eyes were seeking Mimi everywhere, and the first disappointments came when we discovered nothing whatever that would justify Farman’s optimism. The man Gondré proved to be a veritable clown of the vulgarest kind--a fellow of small physique, mean eyes and jaded energies. He stood upon the platform of a booth supposed to contain an angry panther, who shared a dinner with a white-haired Circassian, and generally displayed tenderness towards her--but when we paid our money and went in, we discovered the panther to be nothing more than a German wolf-hound, while the white-haired Circassian was a lady from the neighbourhood of la Galette, who had resorted with some success to the potentialities of common washing soda.

This did not surprise me, but I was disappointed to find that Farman was well known to these people, and that I had done better to have gone there alone. True, every door opened at his coming, but the suspicion remained that these vulgar wits were being played against his own, and that they understood perfectly well why he had come to Raincy.

From this moment I, myself, despaired of finding Mimi at all. Useless for Farman to tell me that she was hidden somewhere in the neighbourhood of the fête and that he would not leave without her. I began to believe that our coming had been anticipated and Mimi removed. It is true that a gleam of hope came to me after dinner, when my friend asked me to go with him to a cottage a little way from the town and did not hesitate to say that Mimi was there. The place proved to be a tumble-down shanty in the very heart of the wood, a mere cabin reeking of filthy odours and indescribably damp. Here we found the fellow Gondré, and with him a handsome girl, sleek and dark-eyed and of the gipsy blood. They received us civilly, and said that they believed that the young woman was discovered and would be handed over to us. I perceived nothing in their demeanour to awaken suspicion, and for the first time I really dared to believe that Mimi was found.

Farman, upon his part, took the affair a little cautiously. I think that he feared something, both from the lonely situation of the house and the known reputation of those who owned it.

When Farman and I were left alone in the room, no light but that of a coal fire in a broken grate, the doors closed, the silence of the wood all about us, I detected a certain uneasiness, a readiness to set his chair closer to mine and to feel for his revolver, which were some comment upon the gallant reputation he bears in Paris. Unable to hold his tongue, he recited in low tones the story of the man Gondré, his known share in a recent story of crime, the assassinations, robberies and assaults of which the law had failed to convict him--and, as though this were not enough, he began to blame me for seeking Mimi at all.

“She has been bred to this life,” he said, “and nothing will wean her from it. What can you hope--to make her your mistress? Believe me, she would not live with you a month. Much better to leave her to these people and return to London. If she goes with you to-night, she will leave you again. I know her kind--there are ten thousand of them in Paris, and not an honest one among them. You are risking your money, perhaps your life, in this quest. Is the girl worth it, whatever her looks?”

It was difficult to answer this--for be sure the man had the logic of the argument. I could not enter upon the discussion of my reasons, most certainly could not confess to him the whole truth, that I would sooner have parted with every shilling of my fortune than have returned to Paris without Mimi.

Happily the argument terminated before it had begun--I am quoting from you, Paddy--by the sudden appearance in the room of the man Gondré, the gipsy girl, and another young woman apparently of some twenty-five years of age.

I have told you that there was little light to speak of in this mean hovel. A reddening fire, a guttering candle, showed me immediately that the newcomer was not Mistress Mimi, nor did she resemble her in any way. To be candid, the girl wore an odd and ungainly appearance, and I had scarcely blurted out an impatient exclamation when Farman laughed aloud and asked, not altogether to my astonishment, “Why did you bring that boy here?” Then I perceived the truth--the so-called girl was a young actor from a neighbouring booth, and he still wore the clothes in which he had delighted the bumpkins of the country side.

“Why do you bring that boy here?”

“Mais, monsieur, you are insulting us.”

“Do you wish me to remember your history, Maître Gondré? Now, come, no nonsense. Produce the child, and we will make it worth your while.”

The question was direct and demanded an answer. I realised now the dangers of our situation. These people understood that we had money upon us to ransom Mimi if she could be found. They were determined that we should not leave the cabin with that money upon us if any wit of theirs, or violence, could extort it from us. To this end the young actor had been called from a neighbouring booth. I had no doubt that others were being summoned from other booths, and that our position must soon become desperate. Meanwhile, the fellow Gondré was protesting by the honour of all his ancestors that we had insulted him, doing what he could to detain us and showing his hand most impudently.

“If this young woman is not the person you seek, I am sorry,” he rejoined. “It is not my fault, monsieur. Admit that I have been ready to oblige you. I am sure the young gentleman will wish to recompense me for my trouble. Is it not so, monsieur--you will be ready to pay us for what we have done and for any further information we can bring you? Let that be understood, and I will undertake to find the girl within a week. But naturally we are too poor to work for nothing.”

I was about to make an answer to this when Farman stood up and replied for me. I could see that the situation alarmed him, and that he was employing all his wits to extricate us from it. Agreeing apparently with the man Gondré’s contention, he said that he would speak to me apart and then make them an offer. This, I think, deceived the company for an instant, and before they had time to debate it, we were standing outside in the wood and the door behind us was closed.

“Run!” he said--“run--or, by God, they will murder us!”

I did not ask him a single question, did not even care to know why a man armed with such authority as he possessed should be in danger of his life in such a place as the woods by Raincy. It was very late by this time, and the thicket about us black, dark, and still. We took a path at hazard, and, forcing our way through the brushwood would have reached the town of Raincy itself and the railway station there, but we had not gone fifty paces before the men were on our track, many men, as it appeared by their shouting, and quite open in their pursuit of us. I had a revolver with me, and I need not tell you that Farman had his, but it became clear to me that these would be of little service in such a place. When my companion pulled me from the path and dived into a thicket at the edge of a considerable copse, I would not have wagered a sovereign upon our chances, nor admitted any but the seemingly inevitable conclusion to so sorry an adventure.

We lay in the thicket for a couple of hours, I suppose. If the ridiculous nature of the proceeding occurred to me, be sure I was not willing to admit it. A man does many foolish things in the name of woman, but is not often ready to write about them. And I do believe, Paddy, that we came as near to being knocked on the head for a few francs as any two men that ever set out upon a Quixotic errand and forgot to count the cost of it.

More than once I perceived the slouching figure of the man Gondré, as he thrashed the undergrowth and exhorted his brother ruffians to diligence. The youth who had disguised himself as a girl came into the very place where we lay, and almost stepped upon Jules Farman. This was the finest moment of it all, for, had he discovered us, Farman would have shot him dead and the rest of the gang swarmed into the copse in a moment. I think he was himself afraid of the darkness and not unwilling to escape it. When he had gone, a voice from afar called him to another covert, and we were left alone.

I should tell you, Paddy, that all this happened at a distance, perhaps, of a couple of miles from the town. Had we run for it in the first instance, other showmen would have emerged from other booths and reinforced the gang, who would have murdered us first and robbed us afterwards as cheerfully as they would have gone to the tents to exploit the “white panther” from the Indies. For this reason, and no other, Jules Farman chose to go to ground, and I could not but admire his prudence. When the immediate danger appeared to be abated, he led me through the wood, not toward the town of Raincy itself, but to the main eastern railway line, and there, by a stroke of good fortune, we found a “marchandise” or goods train waiting at a signal cabin, and instantly boarded it and were taken to Paris. It was five in the morning when I made the Gare de l’Est--an hour later when I reached my rooms in the Rue St. Paul and flung myself upon my bed as weary and disappointed a man as any in Paris.

For now it is clear to me that the quest of this child is vain, and that she has determined to separate her lot from mine, cost her or me what it may.--Dear Paddy, yours as ever,

Harry Gastonard.