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"May I present my husband, Monsieur Vauvenarde." Monsieur Vauvenarde and I exchanged bows. I noticed at once that he wore the Frenchman's costume when he pays a visite de ceremonie, frock-coat and gloves, and that a silk hat lay on the table. I was glad that he paid her this mark of respect. "I have had the pleasure of meeting you before, Monsieur," said he, "in circumstances somewhat different."
It is a trite metaphor, I know; but it is none the less excellent. I repeat, therefore, unblushingly you could have knocked me down with a feather. I gasped. The little man wiped his eyes. He was the tearfullest adult I have ever met, and I once knew an Italian prima donna with a temperament. "Captain Vauvenarde? The man with the shoebrush hair and the rolls of fat at the back of his neck?
I rapidly sketched the whole absurd history, from my encounter with Anastasius Papadopoulos in Marseilles to my parting with him on the previous night. I softened down, as much as I could, the fleshiness of Captain Vauvenarde and the rolls of fat at the back of his neck, but I portrayed the villainous physiognomies of his associates very neatly.
Vauvenarde, it is true, did not adorn this grey world, but he drew the breath of life, and, through my jesting agency, it was cut off. Anastasius Papadopoulos, had he not come under my malign influence would have lived out his industrious, happy and dream-filled days. Lesser, but still great price, too, has been paid.
"I saw him several times in Marseilles with the carissima signora." "Then how was it he did not recognise you to-night?" "I was then but an acquaintance of Madame; not her intimate friend, counsellor, champion, as I am now. I did not have the honour of being presented to Captain Vauvenarde. I went to-night to make sure of my man, to play the first card in my gigantic combination but, alas!
I sought him in the Alphabetical Repertory of Colonial Troops, in the list of officers hors cadre, in the lists of seniority, in the list of his regiment, wherever he was likely or unlikely to be. There is no person in the French army by the name of Vauvenarde. I went straight to Lola Brandt with the hideous volume and the unwelcome news. Together we searched the pages.
A French bookseller has telegraphed to Paris for the Annuaire Officiel de l'Armee Francaise, the French Army List. It locates every officer in the French army, and as the Chasseurs d'Afrique generally chase in Africa, it will tell me the station in Algeria or Tunisia which Captain Vauvenarde adorns.
I might have given her the sound advice to find healthy occupation in training crocodiles to sit up and beg; but an idea which advanced thinkers might classify as more suburban was beginning to take shape in my mind. "Has it occurred to you," I said, "that now you have assumed the qualifications imposed by Captain Vauvenarde for bearing his name?" "I don't understand."
He shrieked and shrank and hid his face in Lola's dress. When he was forced to speak he declared that the dead man was not Captain Vauvenarde. Captain Vauvenarde was at the Cercle Africain. He, himself, was seeking him. He would take the gendarmes there, and they could arrest the Captain for the murder of Sultan of which his papers contained indubitable proofs.
I say to him, 'What has become of Captain Vauvenarde of the Chasseurs d'Afrique? I say it carelessly as if the Captain were an old friend of mine. The secretary laughs. 'Haven't you heard? The Captain was chased from the regiment " "The deuce he was!" I interjected. "On account of something," said Anastasius. "The secretary could not tell what. Perhaps he cheated at cards. The officers said so.
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