Castanier had gone himself to shut the door which opened on to a staircase that led to the parlor occupied by the two bankers on the first floor of their hotel.This done, he had sat down at his desk again, and for a moment he gazed at a little collection of letters of credit drawn on the firm of Watschildine of London.Then he had taken up the pen and imitated the banker's signature on each.NUCINGEN he wrote, and eyed the forged signatures critically to see which seemed the most perfect copy.
Suddenly he looked up as if a needle had pricked him."You are not alone!" a boding voice seemed to cry in his heart; and indeed the forger saw a man standing at the little grated window of the counting-house, a man whose breathing was so noiseless that he did not seem to breathe at all.Castanier looked, and saw that the door at the end of the passage was wide open; the stranger must have entered by that way.
For the first time in his life the old soldier felt a sensation of dread that made him stare open-mouthed and wide-eyed at the man before him; and for that matter, the appearance of the apparition was sufficiently alarming even if unaccompanied by the mysterious circumstances of so sudden an entry.The rounded forehead, the harsh coloring of the long oval face, indicated quite as plainly as the cut of his clothes that the man was an Englishman, reeking of his native isles.You had only to look at the collar of his overcoat, at the voluminous cravat which smothered the crushed frills of a shirt front so white that it brought out the changeless leaden hue of an impassive face, and the thin red line of the lips that seemed made to suck the blood of corpses; and you can guess at once at the black gaiters buttoned up to the knee, and the half-puritanical costume of a wealthy Englishman dressed for a walking excursion.The intolerable glitter of the stranger's eyes produced a vivid and unpleasant impression, which was only deepened by the rigid outlines of his features.The dried-up, emaciated creature seemed to carry within him some gnawing thought that consumed him and could not be appeased.
He must have digested his food so rapidly that he could doubtless eat continually without bringing any trace of color into his face or features.A tun of Tokay vin de succession would not have caused any faltering in that piercing glance that read men's inmost thoughts, nor dethroned the merciless reasoning faculty that always seemed to go to the bottom of things.There was something of the fell and tranquil majesty of a tiger about him.
"I have come to cash this bill of exchange, sir," he said.Castanier felt the tones of his voice thrill through every nerve with a violent shock similar to that given by a discharge of electricity.
"The safe is closed," said Castanier.
"It is open," said the Englishman, looking round the counting-house.
"To-morrow is Sunday, and I cannot wait.The amount is for five hundred thousand francs.You have the money there, and I must have it.""But how did you come in, sir?"
The Englishman smiled.That smile frightened Castanier.No words could have replied more fully nor more peremptorily than that scornful and imperial curl of the stranger's lips.Castanier turned away, took up fifty packets each containing ten thousand francs in bank-notes, and held them out to the stranger, receiving in exchange for them a bill accepted by the Baron de Nucingen.A sort of convulsive tremor ran through him as he saw a red gleam in the stranger's eyes when they fell on the forged signature on the letter of credit.
"It...it wants your signature..." stammered Castanier, handing back the bill.
"Hand me your pen," answered the Englishman.
Castanier handed him the pen with which he had just committed forgery.
The stranger wrote JOHN MELMOTH, then he returned the slip of paper and the pen to the cashier.Castanier looked at the handwriting, noticing that it sloped from right to left in the Eastern fashion, and Melmoth disappeared so noiselessly that when Castanier looked up again an exclamation broke from him, partly because the man was no longer there, partly because he felt a strange painful sensation such as our imagination might take for an effect of poison.
The pen that Melmoth had handled sent the same sickening heat through him that an emetic produces.But it seemed impossible to Castanier that the Englishman should have guessed his crime.His inward qualms he attributed to the palpitation of the heart that, according to received ideas, was sure to follow at once on such a "turn" as the stranger had given him.
"The devil take it; I am very stupid.Providence is watching over me;for if that brute had come round to see my gentleman to-morrow, my goose would have been cooked!" said Castanier, and he burned the unsuccessful attempts at forgery in the stove.
He put the bill that he meant to take with him in an envelope, and helped himself to five hundred thousand francs in French and English bank-notes from the safe, which he locked.Then he put everything in order, lit a candle, blew out the lamp, took up his hat and umbrella, and went out sedately, as usual, to leave one of the two keys of the strong room with Madame de Nucingen, in the absence of her husband the Baron.
"You are in luck, M.Castanier," said the banker's wife as he entered the room; "we have a holiday on Monday; you can go into the country, or to Soizy.""Madame, will you be so good as to tell your husband that the bill of exchange on Watschildine, which was behind time, has just been presented? The five hundred thousand francs have been paid; so I shall not come back till noon on Tuesday.""Good-bye, monsieur; I hope you will have a pleasant time.""The same to you, madame," replied the old dragoon as he went out.He glanced as he spoke at a young man well known in fashionable society at that time, a M.de Rastignac, who was regarded as Madame de Nucingen's lover.
"Madame," remarked this latter, "the old boy looks to me as if he meant to play you some ill turn.""Pshaw! impossible; he is too stupid."
