Chapter XLVIII

[In which Henry Gastonard hears of Jules Farman again, and of the criminal known as Bedotte the valet.]

4 (bis), Rue du Quatre Septembre, Paris,
February 21st, 1906.

Monsieur,--I have the honour to report as follows:--

The criminal Henry Bedotte Sanvalier was executed this morning on the public ground between the prisons of La Roquette and Les Jeunes Detenues.

I was privileged to visit the prisoner at five o’clock and spent some minutes alone with him. He was entirely unrepentent, and heard with much satisfaction that his comrade, Gondré, the showman, had received a sentence of ten years’ forced labour. I have, monsieur, seen many men die before the gates of La Roquette, but no man more contemptuous of death or its sequel. Of this, however, you will read in the newspapers.

My questions to Bedotte were few but important. I had to discover (a) if Madame d’Alençon had played any conspicuous part in this affair, and (b) under what circumstances the abduction of Madame Gastonard from the Convent of Orleans was safely accomplished. To both of these I had satisfactory answers.

There was another actor in this drama, monsieur, but he is dead. I refer to the husband of the woman Marie, a man who had been in the service of the Marquis de Saint Faur, who planned the abduction of the child, and who hid her successfully from the police during the active weeks of the pursuit.

Madame, your wife, is speaking but in general terms when she tells us that she has no clear memory of this criminal--nor might we expect it. But it is clear that no convent would be so conducted that children could pass its gates when they chose; and that if any such event had occurred, the police of Orleans would not have failed in their duty.

No, monsieur, Madame Gastonard was cleverly kidnapped from the house during the hour of the children’s recreation. She was carried to the poorer quarter of Orleans, and there hidden for many weeks. In the interval an unforeseen event occurred: the husband--the man who knew the truth--was arrested. The old woman had but a vague notion of it; she carried the child away with her upon a gipsy’s journey, fell in with the showman Gondré, and finally sold her prize to that honest fellow Cassadore. And now, monsieur, the sequel becomes clearer.

When you sent me to make enquiries at Orleans as to the truth of certain stories you had heard concerning the infancy of Madame Gastonard, it chanced that another was similarly occupied for a purpose which will be self-evident. She was Madame Lea d’Alençon, then posing in Paris as your friend. Her acquaintance with Count d’Antoine was slight, but she used it as a clever woman could to extort from him some confession of the truth. Possibly, although this could not be proved in a court of law, she herself set counter agencies to work. She may have betrayed the secret to the man Gondré; if not to him, then to the old woman Marie. The criminals themselves appear, upon this, to have joined forces and arrived at a determination to work together. They did not know where Madame Gastonard was to be found in London; but they followed the Count to her house, and there murdered him--as Bedotte declares--because he threatened them with the police. Their object was to blackmail the Marquis de Saint Faur and the Princess Hélène. But most fortunately this was prevented. The public may have guessed the truth; but many truths are guessed by the public, monsieur, and remain guesses to the end.

Monsieur, the world forgets these things very quickly, and it will not be less willing to blot out this page. If it should be turned once more, you will have Madame d’Alençon to thank. But I shall not fail to frighten her, and fear is the only weapon which will silence a woman’s tongue. In this you may count upon me, not only in your own interests but in those of my esteemed patron, the Marquis de Saint Faur.

I will add, monsieur, that a vast crowd assembled to see Sanvalier die, and that his death was accompanied by that brutal circumstance which unhappily is still favoured by our French law: the man would not receive the priest Abbé Falier nor permit any consolations but those of a glass of brandy and of a cigarette. He smoked when they had bound him, and the cigarette was still between his lips when the head fell. Such was the end of a very evil scoundrel who murdered a noble gentleman and deserved a fate less kind.

I will add that at the moment when the knife descended and struck the head from the body, I heard a shout from the crowd, and perceived there the notorious Jean-le-Mont. This man’s release was necessary, but I regret it. He has returned to the old Lapin Agil on the Butte, where I doubt not that I shall soon have the pleasure of arresting him upon another account.

Be assured, monsieur, of my esteem, and permit me to remain,

Your faithful servant,
Jules Henry Farman.