He grasped the other's hand fervently as a passing guard threw them a curt "En voiture, messieurs!" and seemed on the point of kissing him farewell. There was some confusion attendant upon his entering the compartment, owing to the excessive haste of a man muffled in a heavy overcoat and with a slouch hat pulled well over his eyes, who arrived at the last moment and persisted in scrambling in, at the very instant chosen by Monsieur Sigard. The latter immediately reappeared at the window, and, as the train began to move, shouted a few final acknowledgments at his benefactor.
"B'en, au r'voir, vieux! And I will write thee from below there, thou knowest. A thousand thanks. Fear not for thy blue paper—what? Thou shalt have it back, sou for sou, name of a name!"
He was almost out of hearing now, his face a cream-colored splotch against the deep maroon of the railway carriage, and, drawing out a gaudy handkerchief, he waved it several times in token of farewell.
"I shall never forget thee, never!" he cried, as a kind of afterthought and valedictory in one.
"Ah, ça!" said Monsieur Fresque to himself, as Arsène's face went out of sight, "that I well believe!"
Yet, so inconstant is man, the promised letter from "below there" never reached him. Another did, however, and it was this which he might have been observed reading to a friend, with every evidence of the liveliest satisfaction, one week later, at a rear table before the Taverne Royale. One would hardly have recognized the plainly, almost shabbily dressed comrade of Arsène, with his retiring manners and his furtive eyes, in this extremely prosperous individual, in polished top hat, white waistcoat and gaiters, and gloves of lemon yellow. His companion was equally imposing in appearance, and it was apparent that he derived as much amusement from listening to Monsieur Fresque's epistle as did the latter from reading it aloud, which he did with the most elaborate emphasis, calling the other's attention to certain sentences by tapping him lightly upon the arm and repeating them more slowly.
The letter was in Italian, and ran as follows:—
Milan, April 20, 1901.
My good Ercole,—I am leaving here today for Rome, where the case of the government against the Marchese degli Abbraccioli is to come on next week, but before I do so I must write you of the last act in the little comedy of Arsène Sigard. I never lost sight of him from the moment we left Paris, and when he found I was also on my way to Italy, he became confidential, and, in exchange for certain information which I was able to give him about Milan, etc., told me a long story about himself and his affairs, which I found none the less amusing for knowing it to be a tissue of lies. The time passed readily enough, but I was relieved when we started over the St. Gothard, because I knew then that the game was as good as played. We arrived at Chiasso on time (two o'clock) and I found Sassevero on the platform when I jumped out. He had come on from Rome the night before, and was in a positive panic because Palmi, who had been watching old Michel there, had lost him somehow and nobody knew where he'd gone. He might have come through on any train, of course, and Sassevero didn't even know him by sight.
Naturally, our little business with Sigard was soon done. Cagliacci is still chief of customs at Chiasso, and he simply confiscated the trunk and everything in it, though, of course, the government wasn't after anything but the picture. There were two hours of argument over the disposition of Sigard, but it seemed best to let him go and nothing further said, which he was only too glad to do. The Old Man is shy of diplomatic complications, it appears, and he had told Sassevero to frighten the chap thoroughly and then let him slip off.
Here comes in the most remarkable part of all. Just as Sigard was marching out of the room, in came the Lucerne express, and our friend walks almost into the arms of an oldish gentleman who had jumped out of a carriage and was hurrying into the customs room.
"Bon Dieu!" said this individual, "what does this mean?"
"What does what mean?" put in Sassevero like a flash, and the other was so taken by surprise that, before he had time to think what he was saying, the secret was out.
"That's my valet de chambre!" he said.
"Really?" said Sassevero. "Bravo! Then you're the gentleman with the Marchese degli Abbraccioli's second Titian in the false bottom of his trunk!"
Could anything have been more exquisite? The old chap is out some hundred thousand lire on the transaction, because, of course, Cagliacci confiscated it like the other. It was a sight to remember,—the two pictures side by side in his room, and Michel and Sigard cursing each other above them! We all went on to Milan by the next train, except Sigard, who did the prudent thing on the appearance of his padrone, and disappeared, but Michel's appeal to the French consulate was of no effect. The consul told him flat that he was going directly against the law in trying to get old works of art over the frontier, and that he couldn't plead ignorance after the detail of the false bottom.
Sassevero says the Old Man is immensely pleased with the way you handled your end of the affair. The funny part of it is that Sigard apparently hadn't the most remote suspicion of your being in any way involved in his catastrophe.
Your most devoted,
Cavaletto.
