The Kill - Emile Zola [121]
“I’ll send for him,” Larsonneau replied. “He lives close by, on rue Jean Lantier.”
Before ten minutes had passed, a short, shifty-eyed fellow with light-colored hair and red blotches all over his face quietly entered the room, carefully making sure that the door made no sound. He was wearing a shabby black frock coat that was too large for him and shockingly threadbare. Standing at a respectful distance from Saccard, he calmly examined the financier out of the corner of his eye. Larsonneau, who addressed this man as Baptistin, subjected him to an interrogation, to which he responded in monosyllables, showing no sign of becoming rattled. He withstood this grilling without flinching even though his employer felt compelled to accompany each of his questions with epithets such as thief, crook, and scoundrel.
Saccard admired the wretched fellow’s sangfroid. At one point, the expropriation agent leapt from his chair as if to strike him, and he merely retreated a step and narrowed his eyes a bit more in a gesture of humility.
“That’s enough, leave him alone,” the financier said. “So then, sir, you’re asking 100,000 francs to return the papers?”
“Yes, 100,000 francs,” the young man answered.
With that he left the room. Larsonneau seemed unable to get a grip on himself. “The gall! What a scoundrel!” he sputtered. “Did you see his shifty eyes? . . . Fellows like that look timid, but for twenty francs they’d kill a man for you.”
Saccard, however, interrupted him: “Bah! He’s nothing to be afraid of. I think we’ll be able to make a deal with him. . . . I came about something far more worrisome. . . . You were right to distrust my wife, my good friend. She’s selling her share of the property to M. Haffner. She says she needs money. Her friend Suzanne must have put her up to it.”
Larsonneau abruptly quit sighing. He listened, the color having drained from his face, and adjusted his starched collar, which had curled in his wrath.
“This sale,” Saccard went on, “will ruin our hopes. If M. Haffner becomes your partner, not only will our profits be compromised, but I’m awfully afraid we may find ourselves in a very unpleasant situation, as the gentleman is quite meticulous and may insist on going over the accounts.”
The expropriation agent began pacing the room in an agitated manner, his patent-leather boots creaking on the carpet. “You see what predicaments you get yourself into by doing favors for people,” he muttered. “But if I were you, my friend, I’d do everything in my power to prevent my wife from making such a foolish move. I’d beat her before I’d allow such a thing to happen.”
“Really?” the financier said with a sly smile. “I have no more influence over my wife than you seem to have over this scoundrel Baptistin.”
Larsonneau stopped short in front of Saccard, who had not stopped smiling, and appraised him carefully. Then he resumed his pacing, but with a slower, more measured step. He went over to a mirror, tightened the knot of his necktie, and continued walking, having regained his customary elegance. Suddenly he blurted out, “Baptistin!”
The short, shifty-eyed fellow reentered the room, but this time through a different door. He no longer had his hat and was rolling a quill pen between two fingers.
“Go get the ledger,” Larsonneau ordered.
When he had left, Larsonneau discussed the sum he was to be paid. In the end he said bluntly, “Do this for me.”
Saccard then agreed to pay 30,000 francs out of the future profits on the Charonne affair. He reckoned that even at that price he would still be escaping the usurer’s gloved clutches relatively cheaply. Larsonneau, continuing the charade to the end, insisted that the promissory note be made out in his name, saying that he would be accountable to the young man for the 30,000 francs. Saccard chuckled with relief as he burned the ledger in the fireplace, one page at a time. When he was done, he vigorously shook Larsonneau’s hand and left with these parting words: “You’ll be at Laure’s tonight, won’t you?