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Updated: June 4, 2025
The sportsman's instinct which, in my robust youth, had led me to crawl miles on my belly over wet heather in order to get a shot at a stag, I found, somewhat to my alarm, was urging me on this chase after Captain Vauvenarde. He was my quarry. I resented interference. Deer-stalking then, and man-stalking now, I wanted no petticoats in the party.
I've had the reverse of pleasure in meeting Captain Vauvenarde, and I regret to say, though he is still misguided, he can scarcely be termed honourable. The term 'gentleman' has still to be accurately defined." She made a writhing movement of impatience. "Tell me straight out what he's doing in Algiers. You're trying to make things easy for me. It's the way of your class. It isn't the way of mine.
It was only when I found myself at the table with the dwarf and his broken-nosed friend that I collected my wits sufficiently to realise the probable reason of his presence in Marseilles. The grotesque little creature had actually kept his ridiculous word. He, too, had come south in search of the lost Captain Vauvenarde. We were companions in the Fool Adventure.
Then Vauvenarde, with a ghastly face, reeled sideways and collapsed in a heap on the ground. Of what happened immediately afterwards I have but a confused memory. I remember that Lola and I both fell on our knees beside the stabbed man, and I remember his horrible staring eyes and open mouth. I remember that, though she was white and shaky, she neither shrieked, went into hysterics, nor fainted.
I have said good-bye to Lola. The astonishing woman burst into tears and kissed my hands and said something about my being the arbiter of her destiny a Gallic phrase which she must have picked up from Captain Vauvenarde. Then she buried her face in the bristling neck of Adolphus, the Chow dog, and declared him to be her last remaining consolation.
You, Monsieur, with the high-bred delicacy of the English statesman, have not questioned me about my combination. I appreciate it. But, if you had, though it broke my heart, I should not have answered." "I am not going to pry into your schemes," I said, "but there are one or two things I must understand. How do you know the banker was Captain Vauvenarde?"
Her husband was a gentleman, a Captain Vauvenarde in the French Army. He had fallen in love with her when she had first taken Marseilles captive with the prodigiosities of her horse Sultan. His proposals of manifold unsanctified delights met with unqualified rejection by the respectable and not too passionately infatuated Lola.
I wondered whether these important affairs concerned the whereabouts of Captain Vauvenarde; but the dwarf's air of mystery forbade my asking for his confidence. Besides, what should a groom in a circus know of retired Captains of Chasseurs? I said: "You're a very busy man, Monsieur le Professeur." He tapped his domelike forehead. "I am never idle. I carry on here gigantic combinations.
"I am ready to go back to my husband, if he can be found, and, of course, if he will have me." I commended her for a brave women. She smiled rather sadly and shook her head. "Those are two gigantic 'ifs." "Giants before now have been slain by the valiant," I replied. "How is Captain Vauvenarde to be found?" "An officer in the French Army is not like a lost sparrow in London.
The ludicrous scenes of the evening danced before my eyes; the smoke-filled, sordid room, the ignoble faces round the table, the foolish hullaballoo, the collapse of Anastasius, my melodramatic intervention, and the ironical courtesy of the fleshy Captain Vauvenarde. Also, in the small hours of the night, Anastasius's gigantic combinations assumed a less trivial aspect.
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