The Frenchman was exactly the sort of person with whom one would desire to gossip. He was even more urbane than the editor of the Gentleman's Magazine, fond of a little conversation on any subject--love, war, or politics--with those who came to buy his nick-nacks, and had his small fund of wit, of sentiment, and of anecdotism--not more of either than would have lain conveniently in a vinaigrette, yet quite sufficient to give piquancy to his vivacious nothings. Beauchamp soon led him to the subject of Mrs. Darlington's eyeglass; but he quitted it in a moment, declaring that it was a droll occurrence, but nothing to what had happened since.
He always had Galignani's Messenger on his counter, he said, to amuse the English gentlemen who dealt with him; and the other night, as he was sitting alone, a beau jeune homme who had been there once before, came in to offer him some other article for sale. "While I was examining what the stranger brought," continued the jeweller, "the young Englishman took up the newspaper, and then suddenly laid it down, but after a moment or two, he took it up again; and then I saw that he had just lighted upon the horrible murder, that has been lately committed in your country by a Captain in the Navy. Well, sir, when I looked in his face, he had turned as pale as a table-cloth, and was so agitated that I should have thought he was the assassin himself, had he not been too young to be a Captain in your Navy. He read it out every word, however, though I could clearly see that he was very much disturbed, and I am sure that he was some relation either of the man who was killed, or of the murderer."
"How old was he?" demanded Beauchamp, remembering the extreme youthfulness of Captain Delaware's appearance.
"Oh, he could not be twenty!" answered the jeweller. "He was very fair too, with fine light hair, tall, and well-made too--Do you think it could be the assassin, Monsieur?'"
"Certainly not!" replied Beauchamp, who, though morally convinced that it was Captain Delaware whom the jeweller had seen, was still more convinced that he had nothing to do with the murder. "The man who committed this crime is quite a different person; I know the gentleman who has been here, as you describe, and I wish much to see him. Have you any idea of his address?"
"None whatever, sir!" replied the jeweller, "but I dare say he will be here again soon; for I bought the bijoux he had to sell, and he said that he had more, and would return."
"Well, it is of no great consequence," replied Beauchamp, assuming as much indifference as possible; "but in case he does come, be so good as to tell him that Mr. Henry Burrel is at the Hotel de ----, Rue de la Paix; and would be very glad to see him. Tell him also, that, I shall be at home and alone on every evening during the week, from the hour of seven till the hour of ten."
The jeweller promised to deliver the message punctually; and, to guard against all mistakes, Beauchamp put down in writing his assumed name, and the number of his apartments in the hotel. He then--to do full justice to Mrs. Darlington's business--tried to bring the jeweller back to the story of the eyeglass; but it was all in vain. The man was like one of those birds whose correct ornithological name I do not know, but which boys call water-wagtails, and which go hopping from stone to stone, pausing lightly balanced on each for a moment, and then springing on to another, without ever returning to the same. It was in vain Beauchamp tried to elicit any farther information; he skipped on from subject to subject, and nothing farther could be made of him.
Tired of the endeavour, the young Englishman at length rose and returned to his hotel, bidding the man send the trinkets he had bought. He there reported his ill success to Mrs. Darlington; and taking measures to guard against intrusion at the hour he had promised to be alone on the following nights, he waited anxiously for Captain Delaware's coming, with that degree of uncertainty--as to whether the young officer would ever revisit the jeweller, and whether he would come even if he did receive the message,--which Beauchamp could not endure with that feeling, or rather assumption, of indifference, with which he sometimes cheated himself.
From seven till ten on the two following nights, he paced his little saloon with a degree of anxiety which he had hardly ever felt before. Every step upon the stairs caught his ear--every voice in the anteroom, where he had placed his own servant on guard, made him pause and listen; but it was all in vain; and on both nights he heard ten, and even eleven, strike before he abandoned the consolatory reflection that clocks might differ, and that the object of his expectation might still appear.