Part 30 (1/2)
”Why, all that you've said, of course, all that you've been silly enough to say. How could he doubt the story? You have explained it all to me so fully.”
Therese took her by the shoulders:
”Yes, but I'll explain other things to him at the same time, Germaine, things that concern you. If I'm ruined, so shall you be.”
”You can't touch me.”
”I can expose you, show your letters.”
”What letters?”
”Those in which my death was decided on.”
”Lies, Therese! You know that famous plot exists only in your imagination.
Neither Jacques nor I wished for your death.”
”You did, at any rate. Your letters condemn you.”
”Lies! They were the letters of a friend to a friend.”
”Letters of a mistress to her paramour.”
”Prove it.”
”They are there, in Jacques' pocket-book.”
”No, they're not.”
”What's that you say?”
”I say that those letters belonged to me. I've taken them back, or rather my brother has.”
”You've stolen them, you wretch! And you shall give them back again,” cried Therese, shaking her.
”I haven't them. My brother kept them. He has gone.”
Therese staggered and stretched out her hands to Renine with an expression of despair. Renine said:
”What she says is true. I watched the brother's proceedings while he was feeling in your bag. He took out the pocket-book, looked through it with his sister, came and put it back again and went off with the letters.”
Renine paused and added,
”Or, at least, with five of them.”
The two women moved closer to him. What did he intend to convey? If Frederic Astaing had taken away only five letters, what had become of the sixth?
”I suppose,” said Renine, ”that, when the pocket-book fell on the s.h.i.+ngle, that sixth letter slipped out at the same time as the photograph and that M. d'Ormeval must have picked it up, for I found it in the pocket of his blazer, which had been hung up near the bed. Here it is. It's signed Germaine Astaing and it is quite enough to prove the writer's intentions and the murderous counsels which she was pressing upon her lover.”
Madame Astaing had turned grey in the face and was so much disconcerted that she did not try to defend herself. Renine continued, addressing his remarks to her: