"Var shocken, indeed!" cried the Abbé, who piqued himself on speaking English. "Terrible shocken great!"
"Well," continued Mrs. Darlington, "that very evening, I left that eye-glass upon the table in the drawing-room; and you remember, I dare say, that I lost all my plate and jewels--indeed, the loss of various things was incalculable--but, however, that glass was among the rest; and as it was a sort of pet, I went into a shop the other day to see if I could find any thing like it. Well, the jeweler finding out I was English--though how he did so, I am sure I do not know, for I believe I speak French tolerably--"
"Oh, var excellent much!" said the Abbé, who was listening with his most acute ear bent subserviently to Mrs. Darlington's story. "As one Frenchwoman."
Mrs. Darlington smiled, nodded, and went on. "Well, the man found out that I was an Englishwoman--by the carriage, I suppose; and would talk nothing but English all the time, though he spoke it badly enough. On my describing what I wanted, he said that he had got the very thing; fresh arrived from England three days before. I told him that what I wanted was French; he declared that I must be mistaken, and produced my own eye-glass, with I. D., Isabella Darlington" ("What pretty name!" cried the Abbé) "on the medallion. I bought it, as you see, and the jeweler assured me that he had purchased it three days before from an English gentleman with black hair and large whiskers."
"Although the description is very exact," answered Beauchamp, smiling, "I can assure you, my dear madam, that I was not the thief--but as it has long struck me that there has been something very mysterious indeed in the whole business of the fire at your house, I should like much to know the name of the jeweler; and if you will favor me with it, will delay my departure for a day or two, in order to make farther inquiries."
Mrs. Darlington thanked Beauchamp warmly for the interest he took in the matter; and the address being given and put down, the young Englishman declared he would go that night and take the first steps toward investigating the business fully. Accordingly taking his leave, he sauntered out into the Place Vendome, and thence into one of the principal streets in the neighborhood of the Tuileries, where, entering the shop of the jeweler, he bought some trifling article, as a fair excuse for indulging in that sort of gossip which he thought most likely to elicit some facts.
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 eye-glass; 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 articles for sale. "While I was examining what the stranger brought," continued the jeweler, "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 that 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 jeweler. "He was very fair, too, with fine light hair, tall, and well made too. Do you think it could be the assassin, monsieur?"