What little credit the Torre Biancas still possessed had vanished at the banker’s suicide. All the tradespeople knew that Fontenoy was paying most of the bills of the establishment; and obviously, since the Marquis’ income came from his employment in Fontenoy’s office, that too had been cut off.
It was clear to Robledo now that he always found the Marquis in the library because that was his refuge. He was afraid ... he was afraid of even the people in his own house....
Later that day he called Torre up. Elena had just come in, and seemed pleased with the results of her expedition.
“She thinks,” confided the Marquis over the telephone, “that the blow isn’t going to fall right away—that she has gained time, and that’s everything!”
That evening Robledo went back to the Avenue Henri Martin. He had found nothing in the evening papers to justify Torre Bianca’s comparative tranquillity. The allusions to the probable arrest of well-known personages continued, and there was a considerable expenditure of rhetoric about the scandalous and sensational failure.
When he found copies of the same newspapers he had just finished reading lying about on Torre’s library table, he was prepared to find the Marquis dispirited and anxious. There was an odd discrepancy between Federico’s voice, which was calm and cold, and the tenseness of his features. Evidently he had resolved to place all his hopes in the possible results of Elena’s attempts to influence public opinion in his favor. In other words he admitted that only a miracle could save him. And if the miracle did not occur....
Robledo looked about him, staring at the desk, the book shelves. Was there a revolver in that room? Had his friend prepared to this extent for a fatal emergency?
“Are there some people out there?” Torre asked.
As he seemed to be well aware of the annoying callers who had waited throughout the day in the reception hall, Robledo did not ask him to account for his question, but merely shook his head. The Marquis, however, was determined to speak of that invading throng of creditors rushing in on him from all parts of Paris.
“They smell death,” he said. “They are alighting on this house like a flock of crows.... When Elena came in this afternoon, the hall was full of them. But she is wonderful! No one can resist her when she chooses to exert her power over people. She simply talked to them ... and they went away quite satisfied. If she had asked them for a loan I believe they would have given it to her.”