The Trail of the Serpent by Mary Elizabeth Braddon

INSCRIBED on the card which the lounger leaves on the table of Mademoiselle de Cevennes, or Madame de Lancy, is the name of Raymond Marolles. The lounger, then, is Raymond Marolles, and it is he whom we must follow, on the morning after the stormy interview in the pavilion.

He occupies a charming apartment in the Champs Élysées; small, of course, as befitting a bachelor, but furnished in the best taste. On entering his rooms there is one thing you could scarcely fail to notice; and this is the surprising neatness, the almost mathematical precision, with which everything is arranged. Books, pictures, desks, pistols, small-swords, boxing-gloves, riding-whips, canes, and guns -- every object is disposed in an order quite unusual in a bachelor's apartment. But this habit of neatness is one of the idiosyncrasies of Monsieur Marolles. It is to be seen in his exquisitely-appointed dress; in his carefully-trimmed moustache; it is to be heard even in the inflexions of his voice, which rise and fall with rather monotonous though melodious regularity, and which are never broken by anything so vulgar as anger or emotion.

At ten o'clock this morning he is still seated at breakfast. He has eaten nothing, but he is drinking his second cup of strong coffee, and it is easy to see that he is thinking very deeply.

"Yes," he mutters, "I must find a way to convince her; she must be thoroughly convinced before she will be induced to act. My first blows have told so well, I must not fail in my masterstroke. But how to convince her -- words alone will not satisfy her long; there must be ocular demonstration."

He finishes his cup of coffee, and sits playing with the teaspoon, clinking it with a low musical sound against the china teacup. Presently he hits it with one loud ringing stroke. That stroke is a note of triumph. He has been working a problem and has found the solution. He takes up his hat and hurries out of the house; but as soon as he is out of doors he slackens his step, and resumes his usual lounging gait. He crosses the Place de la Concorde, and makes his way to the Boulevard, and only turns aside when he reaches the Italian Opera House. It is to the stage-door he directs his steps. An old man, the doorkeeper, is busy in the little dark hall, manufacturing a _pot à feu_, and warming his hands at the same time at a tiny stove in a corner. He is quite accustomed to the apparition of a stylish young man; so he scarcely looks up when the shadow of Raymond Marolles darkens the doorway.

"Good morning, Monsieur Concierge," says Raymond; "you are very busy, I see."

"A little domestic avocation, that is all, monsieur, being a bachelor."

The doorkeeper is rather elderly, and somewhat snuffy for a bachelor; but he is very fond of informing the visitors of the stage-door that he has never sacrificed his liberty at the shrine of Hymen. He thinks, perhaps, that they might scruple to give their messages to a married man.

"Not too busy, then, for a little conversation, my friend? " asks the visitor, slipping a five-franc piece into the porter's dingy hand.

"Never too busy for that, monsieur; " and the porter abandons the _pot à feu_ to its fate, and dusts with his coloured handkerchief a knock-kneed-looking easy-chair, which he presents to monsieur.

Monsieur is very condescending, and the doorkeeper is very communicative. He gives monsieur a great deal of useful information about the salaries of the principal dancers; the bouquets and diamond bracelets thrown to them; the airs and graces indulged in by them; and divers other interesting facts. Presently monsieur, who has been graciously though rather languidly interested in all this, says -- "Do you happen to have amongst your supernumeraries or choruses, or any of your insignificant people, one of those mimics so generally met with in a theatre?"

"Ah," says the doorkeeper, chuckling, "I see monsieur knows a theatre. We have indeed two or three mimics; but one above all -- a chorus-singer, a great man, who can strike off an imitation which is life itself; a drunken, dissolute fellow, monsieur, or he would have taken to principal characters and made himself a name. A fellow with a soul for nothing but dominoes and vulgar wine-shops; but a wonderful mimic."

"Ah! and he imitates, I suppose, all your great people -- your prima donna, your basso, your tenor -- " hazards Monsieur Raymond Marolles.

"Yes, monsieur. You should hear him mimic this new tenor, this Monsieur Gaston de Lancy, who has made such a sensation this season. He is not a bad-looking fellow, pretty much the same height as De Lancy, and he can assume his manner, voice, and walk, so completely that -- -- "

"Perhaps in a dark room you could scarcely tell one from the other, eh?"

"Precisely, monsieur."

"I have rather a curiosity about these sort of people; and I should like to see this man, if -- -- " he hesitates, jingling some silver in his pocket.

"Nay, monsieur," says the porter; "nothing more easy; this Moucée is always here about this time. They call the chorus to rehearsal while the great people are lounging over their breakfasts. We shall find him either on the stage, or in one of the dressing-rooms playing dominoes. This way, monsieur."

Raymond Marolles follows the doorkeeper down dark passages and up innumerable flights of stairs; till, very high up, he stops at a low door, on the other side of which there is evidently a rather noisy party. This door the porter opens without ceremony, and he and Monsieur Marolles enter a long low room, with bare white-washed walls, scrawled over with charcoal caricatures of prima donnas and tenors, with impossible noses and spindle legs. Seated at a deal table is a group of young men, shabbily dressed, playing at dominoes, while others look on and bet upon the game. They are all smoking tiny cigarettes which look like damp curl-papers, and which last about two minutes each.