Some twenty years or so before the opening of the present story, Monsieur Arnold Beroldy, a native of Lyons, arrived in Paris accompanied by his pretty wife and their little daughter, a babe. Monsieur Beroldy was a junior partner in a firm of wine merchants, a man, fond of the good things of life, to his charming wife, and altogether unremarkable in every way. The firm in which Monsieur Beroldy was a partner was a small one, and although doing well, it did not yield a large income to the junior partner. The Beroldys had a small apartment and lived in a very modest fashion to begin with.
But unremarkable though Monsieur Beroldy might be, his wife was with the brush of Romance. Young and good looking, and gifted withal with a singular charm of manner, Madame Beroldy at once created a stir in the quarter, especially when it began to be whispered that some interesting mystery surrounded her birth. It was that she was the illegitimate daughter of a Russian Grand Duke. Others asserted that it was an Austrian Archduke, and that the union was legal, though morganatic. But all stories agreed upon one point, that Jeanne Beroldy was the centre of an interesting mystery. Questioned by the curious, Madame Beroldy did not deny these . On the other hand she let it be clearly understood that, though her “lips” were “sealed,” all these stories had a foundation in fact. To intimate friends she unburdened herself further, of political , of “papers,” of obscure dangers that threatened her. There was also much talk of Crown jewels that were to be sold secretly, with herself as the go-between.
Amongst the friends and acquaintances of the Beroldys was a young lawyer, Georges Conneau. It was soon evident that the fascinating Jeanne had completely enslaved his heart. Madame Beroldy encouraged the young man in a fashion, but being always careful to affirm her complete devotion to her middle-aged husband. Nevertheless, many spiteful persons did not hesitate to declare that young Conneau was her lover—and not the only one!
When the Beroldys had been in Paris about three months, another personage came upon the scene. This was Mr. Hiram P. Trapp, a native of the United States, and extremely wealthy. Introduced to the charming and mysterious Madame Beroldy, he fell a prompt victim to her . His was obvious, though respectful.
About this time, Madame Beroldy became more in her confidences. To several friends, she declared herself greatly worried on her husband’s behalf. She explained that he had been into several schemes of a political nature, and also referred to some important papers that had been to him for safekeeping and which concerned a “secret” of far reaching European importance. They had been entrusted to his to throw pursuers off the track, but Madame Beroldy was nervous, having recognized several important members of the Revolutionary Circle in Paris.
On the 28th day of November, the blow fell. The woman who came daily to clean and cook for the Beroldys was surprised to find the door of the apartment wide open. Hearing faint moans issuing from the bedroom, she went in. A terrible sight met her eyes. Madame Beroldy lay on the floor, bound hand and foot, uttering feeble moans, having managed to free her mouth from a gag. On the bed was Monsieur Beroldy, lying in a pool of blood, with a knife driven through his heart.
Madame Beroldy’s story was clear enough. Suddenly from sleep, she had discerned two masked men bending over her. her cries, they had bound and gagged her. They had then demanded of Monsieur Beroldy the famous “secret.”
But the wine merchant refused point-blank to to their request. Angered by his refusal, one of the men incontinently stabbed him through the heart. With the dead man’s keys, they had opened the safe in the corner, and had carried away with them a mass of papers. Both men were heavily bearded, and had worn masks, but Madame Beroldy declared that they were Russians.
The affair created an immense sensation. It was referred to variously as “the Nihilist Atrocity,” “Revolutionaries in Paris,” and the “Russian Mystery.” Time went on, and the mysterious bearded men were never traced. And then, just as public interest was beginning to die down, a startling development occurred. Madame Beroldy was arrested and charged with the murder of her husband.
The trial, when it came on, aroused widespread interest. The youth and beauty of the accused, and her mysterious history, were sufficient to make of it a cause célèbre. People ranged themselves wildly for or against the prisoner. But her received several severe checks to their enthusiasm. The romantic past of Madame Beroldy, her royal blood, and the mysterious intrigues in which she had her being were shown to be mere fantasies of the imagination.
It was proved beyond doubt that Jeanne Beroldy&............