“Oh! it has changed hands since then. But there seemed to be a fatality about a particular room.”
“Could you describe that room?”
“Certainly. It is a spacious, panelled bedroom, up one pair of stairs, in the back of the house, and at the extreme right, as you look from its windows.”
“Ho! Really? Why, then, I have got the very room!” I said, beginning to be more interested—perhaps the least bit in the world, disagreeably. “Did the people die, or were they actually spirited away?”
“No, they did not die—they disappeared very oddly. I’ll tell you the particulars—I happen to know them exactly, because I made an official visit, on the first occasion, to the house, to collect evidence; and although I did not go down there, upon the second, the papers came before me, and I dictated the official letter despatched to the relations of the people who had disappeared; they had applied to the government to investigate the affair. We had letters from the same relations more than two years later, from which we learned that the missing men had never turned up.”
He took a pinch of snuff, and looked steadily at me.
“Never! I shall relate all that happened, so far as we could discover. The French noble, who was the Chevalier Château Blassemare, unlike most émigrés, had taken the matter in time, sold a large portion of his property before the revolution had proceeded so far as to render that next to impossible, and retired with a large sum. He brought with him about half a million of francs, the greater part of which he invested in the French funds; a much larger sum remained in Austrian land and securities. You will observe then that this gentleman was rich, and there was no allegation of his having lost money, or being, in any way, embarrassed. You see?”
I assented.
“This gentleman’s habits were not expensive in proportion to his means. He had suitable lodgings in Paris; and for a time, society, the theatres, and other reasonable amusements, engrossed him. He did not play. He was a middle-aged man, affecting youth, with the vanities which are usual in such persons; but, for the rest, he was a gentle and polite person, who disturbed nobody—a person, you see, not likely to provoke an enmity.”
“Certainly not,” I agreed.
“Early in the summer of 1811, he got an order permitting him to copy a picture in one of these salons, and came down here, to Versailles, for the purpose. His work was getting on slowly. After a time he left his hotel, here, and went, by way of change, to the Dragon Volant: there he took, by special choice, the bedroom which has fallen to you by chance. From this time, it appeared, he painted little; and seldom visited his apartments in Paris. One night he saw the host of the Dragon Volant, and told him that he was going into Paris, to remain for a day or two, on very particular business; that his servant would accompany him, but that he would retain his apartments at the Dragon Volant, and return in a few days. He left some clothes there, but packed a portmanteau, took his dressing-case, and the rest, and, with his servant behind his carriage, drove into Paris. You observe all this, Monsieur?”
“Most attentively,” I answered.
“Well, Monsieur, as soon as they were approaching his lodgings, he stopped the carriage on a sudden, told his servant that he had changed his mind; that he would sleep elsewhere that night, that he had very particular business in the north of France, not far from Rouen, that he would set out before daylight on his journey, and return in a fortnight. He called a fiacre, took in his hand a leather bag which, the servant said, was just large enough to hold a few shirts and a coat, but that it was enormously heavy, as he could testify, for he held it in his hand, while his master took out his purse to count thirty-six Napoleons, for which the servant was to account when he should return. He then sent him on, in the carriage; and he, with the bag I have mentioned, got into the fiacre. Up to that, you see, the narrative is quite clear.”
“Perfectly,” I agreed.
“Now comes the mystery,” said Monsieur Carmaignac. “After that, the Count Château Blassemare was never more seen, so far as we can make out, by acquaintance or friend. We learned that the day before the Count’s stockbroker had, by his direction, sold all his stock in the French funds, and handed him the cash it realized. The reason he gave him for this measure tallied with what he said to his servant. He told him that he was going to the north of France to settle some claims, and did not know exactly how much might be required. The bag, which had puzzled the servant by its weight, contained, no doubt, a large sum in gold. Will Monsieur try my snuff?”
He politely tendered his open snuffbox, of which I partook, experimentally.
“A reward was offered,” he continued, “when the inquiry was instituted, for any information tending to throw a light upon the mystery, which might be afforded by the driver of the fiacre ‘employed on the night of’ (so-and-so), ‘at about the hour of half-past ten, by a gentleman, with a black-leather travelling-bag in his hand, who descended from a private carriage, and gave his servant some money, which he counted twice over.’ About a hundred-and-fifty drivers applied, but not one of them was the right man. We did, however, elicit a curious and unexpected piece of evidence in quite another quarter. What a racket that plaguey harlequin makes with his sword!”
“Intolerable!” I chimed in.
The harlequin was soon gone, and he resumed.
“The evidence I speak of, came from a boy, about twelve years old, who knew the appearance of the Count perfectly, having been often employed
