“And you looked after him yourself?”
“Myself. And, according to your instructions, I took the opportunity of questioning him whenever he seemed at all clear in his head. But I could never get more than an inarticulate stammering out of him.”
The prince muttered thoughtfully:
“Dead! … So Pierre Leduc is dead? … The whole Kesselbach case obviously turned on him, and now he disappears … without a revelation, without a word about himself, about his past. … Ought I to embark on this adventure, in which I am still entirely in the dark? It’s dangerous. … I may come to grief. …”
He reflected for a moment and exclaimed:
“Oh, who cares? I shall go on for all that. It’s no reason, because Pierre Leduc is dead, that I should throw up the game. On the contrary! And the opportunity is too tempting! Pierre Leduc is dead! Long live Pierre Leduc! … Go, Doctor, go home. I shall ring you up before dinner.”
The doctor went out.
“Now then, Philippe,” said Sernine to his last remaining visitor, a little gray-haired man, dressed like a waiter at a hotel, a very tenth-rate hotel, however.
“You will remember, governor,” Philippe began, “that last week, you made me go as boots to the Hôtel des Deux-Empereurs at Versailles, to keep my eye on a young man.”
“Yes, I know. … Gérard Baupré. How do things stand with him?”
“He’s at the end of his resources.”
“Still full of gloomy ideas?”
“Yes. He wants to kill himself.”
“Is he serious?”
“Quite. I found this little note in pencil among his papers.”
“Ah!” said Sernine, reading the note. “He announces his suicide … and for this evening too!”
“Yes, governor, he has bought the rope and screwed the hook to the ceiling. Thereupon, acting on your instructions, I talked to him. He told me of his distress, and I advised him to apply to you: ‘Prince Sernine is rich,’ I said; ‘he is generous; perhaps he will help you.’ ”
“All this is first-rate. So he is coming?”
“He is here.”
“How do you know?”
“I followed him. He took the train to Paris, and he is walking up and down the boulevard at this minute. He will make up his mind from one moment to the other.”
Just then the servant brought in a card. The prince glanced at it and said to the man:
“Show M. Gérard Baupré in.”
Then, turning to Philippe:
“You go into the dressing-room, here; listen and don’t stir.”
Left alone, the prince muttered:
“Why should I hesitate? It’s fate that sends him my way. …”
A few minutes later a tall young man entered. He was fair and slender, with an emaciated face and feverish eyes, and he stood on the threshold embarrassed, hesitating, in the attitude of a beggar who would like to put out his hand for alms and dares not.
The conversation was brief:
“Are you M. Gérard Baupré?”
“Yes … yes … that is my name.”
“I have not the honor …”
“It’s like this, sir. … Someone told me …”
“Who?”
“A hotel servant … who said he had been in your service. …”
“Please come to the point. …”
“Well! …”
The young man stopped, taken aback and frightened by the haughty attitude adopted by the prince, who exclaimed:
“But, sir, there must be some …”
“Well, sir, the man told me that you were very rich … and very generous. … And I thought that you might possibly …”
He broke off short, incapable of uttering the word of prayer and humiliation.
Sernine went up to him.
“M. Gérard Baupré, did you not publish a volume of poetry called The Smile of Spring?”
“Yes, yes,” cried the young man, his face lighting up. “Have you read it?”
“Yes. … Very pretty, your poems, very pretty. … Only, do you reckon upon being able to live on what they will bring you?”
“Certainly … sooner or later. …”
“Sooner or later? Later rather than sooner, I expect! And, meantime, you have come to ask me for the wherewithal to live?”
“For the wherewithal to buy food, sir.”
Sernine put his hand on the young man’s shoulder and, coldly:
“Poets do not need food, monsieur. They live on rhymes and dreams. Do as they do. That is better than begging for bread.”
The young man quivered under the insult. He turned to the door without a word.
Sernine stopped him:
“One thing more, monsieur. Have you no resources of any kind?”
“None at all.”
“And you are not reckoning on anything?”
“I have one hope left: I have written to one of my relations, imploring him to send me something. I shall have his answer today. It is my last chance.”
“And, if you have no answer, you have doubtless made up your mind, this very evening, to …”
“Yes, sir.”
This was said quite plainly and simply.
Sernine burst out laughing:
“Bless my soul, what a queer young man you are! And full of artless conviction, too! Come and see me again next year, will you? We will talk about all this … it’s so curious, so interesting … and, above all, so funny! … Ha, ha, ha, ha!”
And, shaking with laughter, with affected bows and gestures, he showed him the door.
“Philippe,” he said, admitting the hotel-servant, “did you hear?”
“Yes, governor.”
“Gérard Baupré is expecting a telegram this afternoon, a promise of assistance. …”
“Yes, it’s his last hope.”
“He must not receive that telegram. If it comes, intercept it and tear it up.”
“Very well, governor.”
“Are you alone at your hotel?”
“Yes, with the cook, who does not sleep in. The boss is away.”
“Good. So we are the masters. Till this evening, at eleven. Be off.”
Prince Sernine went to his room and rang for his servant:
“My hat, gloves, and stick. Is the car there?”
“Yes, sir.”
He dressed, went out, and sank into a large, comfortable limousine, which took him to the Bois de Boulogne, to the Marquis and Marquise de Gastyne’s, where he was engaged for lunch.
At half-past two he took leave of his hosts, stopped in the Avenue Kléber, picked up two of his friends and a doctor, and at five minutes to three arrived at the Parc des Princes.
At three o’clock he fought a sword duel with the Italian Major Spinelli, cut his adversary’s
