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Updated: June 4, 2025
She gave herself exactly two minutes wherein to compose herself, after which she dried her eyes and turned the full artillery of her bewitching glance upon me. "Monsieur Ratichon," she began, even before I had taken my accustomed place at my desk and assumed that engaging smile which inspires confidence even in the most timorous; "Monsieur Ratichon, they tell me that you are so clever, and oh!
He was pleasant and urbane as usual, but to my anxious query after Theodore he only gave me the old reply: "No trace of him can be found." Then he added: "We must therefore take it for granted, my good M. Ratichon, that your man of all work is of his own free will keeping out of the way. The murder theory is untenable; we have had to abandon it.
"Monsieur Hector Ratichon," he said unctuously, "it is with much gratification that I bring you the joyful news." Joyful news! to me! Ah, Sir, the words struck at first with cruel irony upon mine ear. But not so a second later, for the Jewish gentleman went on speaking, and what he said appeared to my reeling senses like songs of angels from paradise. At first I could not grasp his full meaning.
What, Sir, would you have done in my place? I believe that never until this hour had Hector Ratichon reached to such a sublimity of manner. I bowed with perfect dignity in token of obedience to the fair creature, Sir; then without a word I offered her my arm.
Then, Sir, I brought upon the perilous situation that presence of mind for which the name of Hector Ratichon will for ever remain famous.
"None of my friends," he replied nonchalantly, "would care to undertake so scrubby a task as I would assign to you." "I pray you to be more explicit," I retorted with unimpaired dignity. Once more he paused. Obviously he was a born mountebank, and he calculated all his effects to a nicety. "You, M. er Ratichon," he said curtly at last, "will have to take the duenna off my hands."
Then he raised a gold-rimmed eyeglass to his right eye with a superlatively elegant gesture, and surveyed me critically for a moment or two ere he said: "I am told, my good M. Ratichon, that you are a trustworthy fellow, and one who is willing to undertake a delicate piece of business for a moderate honorarium."
Well, my good M. Ratichon, obviously you would have been more active in the matter if you had not known exactly where and when and how to lay your hands upon the document, for the recovery of which my sister had offered you ten thousand francs." I groaned. I had not been quite so circumspect as I ought to have been, but who would have thought
"The Englishmen were three faithful servants who threw dust not only in your eyes, my dear M. Ratichon, but in those of the customs officials, while the packs contained harmless personal luggage which was taken by your friend and his gendarmes to the customs station at Mijoux, and there, after much swearing, equally solemnly released with many apologies to M. Fournier, who was allowed to proceed unmolested on his way, and who arrived here safely this afternoon, whilst Maman divested herself of her fat and once more became the slender Mme.
The whole thing was, of course, a swift and vengeful blow dealt to me by that cowardly Rochez. But how, in the name of thunder, had he got to work so quickly? But, of course, there was no time now for reflection. The gruff voice was going on more peremptorily and more insistently: "Is Hector Ratichon here?" I was dumb. My throat had closed up, and I could not have uttered a sound to save my life.
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