‘Let us remain here a moment, if you please, Monsieur V——. I have something which I wish to say to you.’
Even then it did not at first dawn on me that the whole entertainment had been arranged for the single purpose of enabling Madame Humbert to interview me without attracting the notice of the police, who were already beginning to take an interest in her movements.
‘Let us sit down,’ the custodian of the mysterious millions said with authority. ‘What I have to say to you will take some time.’
Observe, she did not admit the possibility of my objecting to receive her confidences. She had made up her mind that I was the agent necessary for her purpose, and it was only left to me to obey.
I took a seat beside her without speaking. Magnetised by her strange power, it did not occur to me to lay down any conditions in advance.
‘I am going to ask you to undertake a service of an unusual kind. You will run some risks, and I shall be obliged to trust you implicitly.’
‘Madame,’—I began to protest. She silenced me with a superb gesture.
‘I have not asked you for assurances, monsieur. If I have chosen you in preference to any of my friends, even men of the highest honour, like M. des Saintes Roches, depend upon it I know what I am about. Do not interrupt me, but listen. In my safe at this moment I have notes and securities to the value of two hundred millions of francs.’
Two hundred millions! That is to say, in English money, £8,000,000! I stared at her in amazement—almost in disbelief. She went on speaking with the most perfect composure, as if nothing out of the ordinary were being discussed. It was this self-command, this air of the commonplace with which she invested the most fantastic statements, which constituted the secret of her power.
‘This sum, which originally amounted to only one hundred and twenty millions, does not belong to me. It is a sacred deposit, intrusted to me many years ago, since which time the interest has steadily accumulated.’