THE CROSS-EXAMINATION
"Let's bolt!" again said Saint-Quentin, who had sunk down on to a trunk
and would have been incapable of making a single step.
"A splendid idea!" said Dorothy in a low voice. "Harness One-eyed
Magpie; let's all five of us hide ourselves in the caravan and hell for
leather for the Belgian frontier!"
She gazed steadfastly at her enemy. She felt that she was beaten. With
one word he could hand her over to justice, throw her into prison, and
render vain all her threats. Of what value are the accusations of a
thief?
Box in hand, he balanced himself on one foot then on the other with
ironical satisfaction. He had the appearance of waiting for her to
weaken and become a suppliant. How he misjudged her! On the contrary
she maintained an attitude of defiance and challenge as if she had had
the audacity to say to him:
"If you speak, you're lost."
He shrugged his shoulders and turning to the inspector who had seen
nothing of this by-play, he said:
"We may congratulate ourselves on having got it over, and entirely to
mademoiselle's advantage. Goodness, what a disagreeable job!"
"You had no business to set about it at all," said the Countess, coming
up with the Count and Raoul Davernoie.
"Oh yes, I had, dear cousin. Your husband and I had our doubts. It was
just as well to clear them up."
"And you've found nothing?" said the Count.
"Nothing ... less than nothing--at the most an odd trifle with which
Mr. Montfaucon was playing, and which Mademoiselle Dorothy had been
kind enough to give me. You do, don't you, Mademoiselle?"
"Yes," said Dorothy simply.
He displayed the card-board box, round which he had again drawn the
rubber ring, and handing it to the Countess:
"Take care of that till to-morrow morning, will you, dear lady?"
"Why should I take care of it and not you?"
"It wouldn't be the same thing," said he. "To place it in your hands is
as it were to affix a seal to it. To-morrow, at lunch, we'll open it
together."
"Do you make a point of it?"
"Yes. It's an idea ... of sorts."
"Very good," said the Countess. "I accept the charge if mademoiselle
authorizes me to do so."
"I ask it, madame," replied Dorothy, grasping the fact that the danger
was postponed till the morrow. "The box contains nothing of importance,
only white pebbles and shells. But since it amuses monsieur, and he
wants a check on it, give him this small satisfaction."
There remained, however, a formality which the inspector considered
essential in inquiries of this kind. The examination of identification
papers, delivery of documents, compliance with the regulations, were
matters which he took very seriously indeed. On the other hand, if
Dorothy surmised the existence of a secret between the Count and
Countess and their cousins, it is certain that her hosts were not
less puzzled by the strange personality which for an hour or two had
dominated and disturbed them. Who was she? Where did she come from?
What was her real name? What was the explanation of the fact that this
distinguished and intelligent creature, with her supple cleverness
and distinguished manners, was wandering about the country with four
street-boys?
She took from a locker in the caravan a passport-case which she carried
under her arm; and when they all went into the orangery which was now
empty, she took from this case a sheet of paper black with signatures
and stamps and handed it to the inspector.
"Is this all you've got?" he said almost immediately.
"Isn't it sufficient? The secretary at the mayor's office this morning
was satisfied with it."
"They're satisfied with anything in mayors' offices," he said
scornfully. "And what about these names?... Nobody's named Castor and
Pollux?... And this one ... Baron de Saint-Quentin, acrobat!"
Dorothy smiled:
"Nevertheless it is his name and his profession."
"Baron de Saint-Quentin?"
"Certainly he was the son of a plumber who lived at Saint-Quentin and
was called Baron."
"But then he must have the paternal authorization."
"Impossible."
"Why?"
"Because his father died during the occupation."
"And his mother?"
"She's dead too. No relations. The English adopted the boy. Towards the
end of the war he was assistant-cook in a hospital at Bar-le-Duc, where
I was a nurse. I adopted him."
The inspector uttered a grunt of approval and continued his examination.
"And Castor and Pollux."
"I don't know where they come from. In 1918, during the German push
towards Châlons, they were caught in the storm and picked up on a road
by some French soldiers who gave them their nicknames. The shock was
so great that they've lost all memory of the years before those days.
Are they brothers? Were they acquaintances? Where are their families?
Nobody knows. I adopted them."
"Oh!" said the inspector, somewhat taken aback. Then he went on: "There
remains now Sire Montfaucon, captain in the American army, decorated
with the Croix de guerre."
"Present," said a voice.
Montfaucon drew himself stiffly upright in a soldierly attitude, his
heels touching, and his little finger on the seam of his enormous
trousers.
Dorothy caught him on to her knee and gave him a smacking kiss.
"A brat, about whom also nobody knows anything. When he was four he
was living with a dozen American soldiers who had made for him, by way
of cradle, a fur bag. The day of the great American attack, one of the
twelve carried him on his back; and it happened that of all those who
advanced, it was this soldier who went furthest, and that they found
his body next day near Montfaucon hill. Beside him, in the fur bag, the
child was asleep, slightly wounded. On the battle-field, the colonel
decorated him with the Croix de guerre, and gave him the name and
rank of Captain Montfaucon of the American army. Later it fell to me
to nurse him at the hospital to which he was brought in. Three months
after that the colonel wished to carry him off to America. Montfaucon
refused. He did not wish to leave me. I adopted him."
Dorothy told the child's story in a low voice full of tenderness. The
eyes of the Countess shone with tears and she murmured:
"You acted admirably--admirably, mademoiselle. Only that gave you four
orphans to provide for. With what resources?"
Dorothy laughed and said:
"We were rich."
"Rich?"
"Yes, thanks to Montfaucon. Before he went his colonel left two
thousand francs for him. We bought a caravan and an old horse.
Dorothy's Circus was formed."
"A difficult profession to which you have to serve an apprenticeship."
"We served our apprenticeship under an old English soldier, formerly a
clown, who taught us all the tricks of the trade and all the wheezes.
And then I had it all in my blood. The tight-rope, dancing, I was
broken in to them years ago. Then we set out across France. It's rather
a hard life, but it keeps one in the best of health, one is never dull,
and taken all round Dorothy's Circus is a success."
"But does it comply with the official regulations?" asked the inspector
whose respect for red tape enabled him to control the sympathy he was
feeling for her. "For after all this document is only valuable from
the point of view of references. What I should like to see is your own
certificate of identity."
"I have that certificate, inspector."
"Made out by whom?"
"By the Prefecture of Châlons, which is the chief city of the
department in which I was born."
"Show it to me."
The young girl plainly hesitated. She looked at Count Octave then at
the Countess. She had begged them to come just in order that they might
be witnesses of her examination and hear the answers she proposed to
give, and now, at the last moment, she was rather sorry that she had
done so.
"Would you prefer us to withdraw?" said the Countess.
"No, no," she replied quickly. "On the contrary I insist on your
knowing."
"And us too?" said Raoul Davernoie.
"Yes," she said smiling. "There is a fact which it is my duty to
divulge to you. Oh, nothing of great importance. But ... all the same."
She took from her case a dirty card with broken corners.
"Here it is," she said.
The inspector examined the card carefully and said in the tone of one
who is not to be humbugged:
"But that isn't your name. It's a _nom de guerre_ of course--like those
of your young comrades?"
"Not at all, inspector."
"Come, come, you're not going to get me to believe...."
"Here is my birth certificate in support of it, inspector, stamped with
the stamp of the commune of Argonne."
"What? You belong to the village of Argonne!" cried the Count de Chagny.
"I did, Monsieur le Comte. But this unknown village, which gave its
name to the whole district of the Argonne, no longer exists. The war
has suppressed it."
"Yes ... yes ... I know," said the Count. "We had a friend there--a
relation. Didn't we, d'Estreicher?"
"Doubtless it was Jean d'Argonne?" she asked.
"It was. Jean d'Argonne died at the hospital at Clermont from the
effects of a wound ... Lieutenant the Prince of Argonne. You knew him."
"I knew him."
"Where? When? Under what conditions?"
"Goodness! Under the ordinary conditions in which one knows a person
with whom one is closely connected."
"What? There were ties between you and Jean d'Argonne ... the ties of
relationship?"
"The closest ties. He was my father."
"Your father! Jean d'Argonne! What are you talking about? It's
impossible! See why ... Jean's daughter was called Yolande."
"Yolande, Isabel, Dorothy."
The Count snatched the card which the inspector was turning over and
over again, and read aloud in a tone of amazement:
"Yolande Isabel Dorothy, Princess of Argonne!"
She finished the sentence for him, laughing:
"Countess Marescot, Baroness de la Hêtraie, de Beaugreval, and other
places."
The Count seized the birth certificate with no less eagerness, and more
and more astounded, read it slowly syllable by syllable:
"Yolande Isabel Dorothy, Princess of Argonne, born at Argonne, on the
14th of October, 1900, legitimate daughter of Jean de Marescot, Prince
of Argonne, and of Jessie Varenne."
Further doubt was impossible. The civil status to which the young girl
laid claim was established by proofs, which they were the less inclined
to challenge since the unexpected fact explained exactly everything
which appeared inexplicable in the manners and even in the appearance
of Dorothy.
The Countess gave her feelings full play:
"Yolande? You are the little Yolande about whom Jean d'Argonne used to
talk to us with such fondness."
"He was very fond of me," said the young girl. "Circumstances did not
allow us to live always together as I should have liked. But I was as
fond of him as if I had seen him every day."
"Yes," said the Countess. "One could not help being fond of him. I
only saw him twice in my life, in Paris, at the beginning of the war.
But what delightful recollections of him I retain! A man teeming with
gayety and lightheartedness! Just like you, Dorothy. Besides, I find
him again in you ... the eyes ... and above all the smile."
Dorothy displayed two photographs which she took from among her papers.
"His portrait, madame. Do you recognize it?"
"I should think so! And the other, this lady?"
"My mother who died many years ago. He adored her."
"Yes, yes, I know. She was formerly on the stage, wasn't she? I
remember. We will talk it all over, if you will, and about your own
life, the misfortunes which have driven you to live like this. But
first of all, how came you here? And why?"
Dorothy told them how she had chanced to see the word Roborey, which
her father had repeated when he was dying. Then the Count interrupted
her narration.
He was a perfectly commonplace man who always did his best to invest
matters with the greatest possible solemnity, in order that he might
play the chief part in them, which his rank and fortune assigned to
him. As a matter of form he consulted his two comrades, then, without
waiting to hear their answers, he dismissed the inspector with the lack
of ceremony of a grand seignior. In the same fashion he turned out
Saint-Quentin and the three boys, carefully closed the two doors, bade
the two women sit down, and walked up and down in front of them with
his hands behind his back and an air of profound thoughtfulness.
Dorothy was quite content. She had won a victory, compelled her hosts
to speak the words she wanted. The Countess held her tightly to
her. Raoul appeared to be a friend. All was going well. There was,
indeed, standing a little apart from them, hostile and formidable, the
bearded nobleman, whose hard eyes never left her. But sure of herself,
accepting the combat, full of careless daring, she refused to bend
before the menace of the terrible danger which, however, might at any
moment crush her.
"Mademoiselle," said the Count de Chagny with an air of great
importance. "It has seemed to us, to my cousins and me, since you are
the daughter of Jean d'Argonne, whose loss we so deeply deplore--it
has seemed to us, I say, that we ought in our turn, to enlighten you
concerning events of which he was cognizant and of which he would
have informed you had he not been prevented by death ... of which he
actually desired, as we know, that you should be informed."
He paused, delighted with his preamble. On occasions like this he loved
to indulge in a pomposity of diction employing only the most select
vocabulary, striving to observe the rules of grammar, and fearless of
subjunctives. He went on:
"Mademoiselle, my father, François de Chagny, my grandfather,
Dominique de Chagny, and my great-grandfather, Gaspard de Chagny,
lived their lives in the sure conviction that great wealth would
be ... how shall I put it? ... would be offered to them, by reason of
certain unknown conditions of which each of them was confident in
advance that he would be the beneficiary. And each of them took the
greater joy in the fact and indulged in a hope all the more agreeable
because the Revolution had ruined the house of the Counts de Chagny
from the roof-tree to the basement. On what was this conviction based?
Neither François, nor Dominique, nor Gaspard de Chagny ever knew. It
came from vague legends which described exactly neither the nature of
the riches nor the epoch at which they would appear, but all of which
had this in common that they evoked the name of Roborey. And these
legends could not have gone very far back since this château, which
was formerly called the Château de Chagny, only received the name of
Chagny-Roborey in the reign of Louis XVI. Is it this designation which
brought about the excavations that were made from time to time? It is
extremely probable. At all events it is a fact that at the very moment
the war broke out I had formed the resolution of restoring this Château
de Roborey, which had become merely a shooting-box and definitely
settling down in it, for all that, and I am not ashamed to say it, my
recent marriage with Madame de Chagny had enabled me to wait for these
so-called riches without excessive impatience."
The Count smiled a subtle smile in making this discreet allusion to
the manner in which he had regilded his heraldic shield, and continued:
"It is needless to tell you, I hope, that during the war the Count de
Chagny did his duty as a good Frenchman. In 1915, as lieutenant of
light-infantry, I was in Paris on leave when a series of coincidences,
brought about by the war, brought me into touch with three persons with
whom I had not previously been acquainted, and whose ties of kin-ship
with the Chagny-Roborey I learnt by accident. The first was the father
of Raoul Davernoie, Commandant Georges Davernoie, the second Maxime
d'Estreicher, the last Jean d'Argonne. All four of us were distant
cousins, all four on leave or recovering from wounds. And so it came
about that in the course of our interviews, that we learnt, to our
great surprise, that the same legend had been handed down in each of
our four families. Like their fathers and their grandfathers Georges
Davernoie, d'Estreicher, and Jean d'Argonne were awaiting the fabulous
fortune which was promised them and which was to settle the debts
which this conviction had led them on to contract. Moreover, the same
ignorance prevailed among the four cousins. No proof, no indication----"
After a fresh pause intended to lead up to an impressive effect, the
Count continued: "But yes, one indication, however: Jean d'Argonne
remembered a gold medal the importance of which his father had formerly
impressed on him. His father died a few days later from an accident
in the hunting-field without having told him anything more. But Jean
d'Argonne declared that this medal bore on it an inscription, and
that one of these words, he did not recall it at once, was this word
Roborey, on which all our hopes are undoubtedly concentrated. He
informed us then of his intention of ransacking the twenty trunks or
so, which he had been able in August, 1914, to bring away from his
country seat before its imminent pillage, and to store in a shed at
Bar-le-Duc. But before he went, since we were all men of honor, exposed
to the risks of war, we all four took a solemn oath that all our
discoveries relative to the famous treasure, should be common property.
Henceforth and forever, the treasure, should Providence decide to grant
it to us, belonged to all the four; and Jean d'Argonne, whose leave
expired, left us."
"It was at the end of 1915, wasn't it?" asked Dorothy. "We passed a
week together, the happiest week of my life. I was never to see him
again."
"It was indeed towards the end of 1915," the Count agreed. "A month
later Jean d'Argonne, wounded in the North, was sent into hospital at
Chartres, from which he wrote to us a long letter ... never finished."
The Countess de Chagny made a sudden movement. She appeared to
disapprove of what her husband had said.
"Yes, yes, I will lay that letter before you," said the Count firmly.
"Perhaps you're right," murmured the Countess. "Nevertheless----"
"What are you afraid of, madame?" said Dorothy.
"I am afraid of our causing you pain to no purpose, Dorothy. The end of
it will reveal to you very painful things."
"But it is our duty to communicate it to her," said the Count in a
peremptory tone. And he drew from his pocket-book a letter stamped
with the Red Cross and unfolded it. Dorothy felt her heart flutter
with a sudden oppression. She recognized her father's handwriting. The
Countess squeezed her hand. She saw that Raoul Davernoie was regarding
her with an air of compassion; and with an anxious face, trying less
to understand the sentences she heard than to guess the end of this
letter, she listened to it.
"My dear Octave,
"I will first of all set your mind at rest about my wound. It is a
mere nothing, no complications to be afraid of. At the most a
little fever at night, which bothers the major; but all that will
pass. We will say no more about it, but come straight to my journey
to Bar-le-Duc.
"Octave, I may tell you without any beating about the bush that it
has not been useless, and that after a patient search I ended by
ferreting out from among a pile of boots and that conglomeration
of useless objects which one brings away with one when one bolts,
the precious medal. At the end of my convalescence when I come to
Paris I will show it to you. But in the meantime, while keeping
secret the indications engraved on the face of the medal, I may
tell you that on the reverse are engraved these three Latin words:
'_In Robore Fortuna_.' Three words which may be thus translated:
'Fortune is in the firm heart,' but which, in view of the presence
of this word 'Robore' and in spite of the difference in the
spelling, doubtless point to the Château de Roborey as the place in
which the fortune, of which our family legends tell will
consequently be hidden.
"Have we not here, my dear Octave, a step forward on our path
towards the truth? We shall do better still. And perhaps we shall
be helped in the matter, in the most unexpected fashion, by an
extremely nice young person, with whom I have just passed several
days which have charmed me--I mean my dear little Yolande.
"You know, my dear friend, that I have very often regretted not
having been the father I should like to have been. My love for
Yolande's mother, my grief at her death, my life of wandering
during the years which followed it, all kept me far away from the
modest farm which you call my country seat, and which, I am sure,
is no longer anything but a heap of ruins.
"During that time, Yolande was living in the care of the people who
farmed my land, bringing herself up, getting her education from the
village priest, or the schoolmaster, and above all from Nature,
loving the animals, cultivating her flowers, light-hearted and
uncommonly thoughtful.
"Several times, during my visits to Argonne, her common sense and
intelligence astonished me. On this occasion I found her, in the
field-hospital of Bar-le-Duc, in which she has, on her own
initiative, established herself as an assistant-nurse, a young
girl. Barely fifteen, you cannot imagine the ascendancy she
exercises over everyone about her. She decides matters like a grown
person and she makes those decisions according to her own judgment.
She has an accurate insight into reality, not merely into
appearances but into that which lies below appearances.
"'You do see clearly,' I said to her. 'You have the eyes of a cat
which moves, quite at its ease, through the darkness.'
"My dear Octave, when the war is finished, I shall bring Yolande to
you; and I assure you that, along with our friends, we shall
succeed in our enterprise----"
The Count stopped. Dorothy smiled sadly, deeply touched by the
tenderness and admiration which this letter so clearly displayed. She
asked:
"That isn't all, is it?"
"The letter itself ends there," said the Count. "Dated the 16th of
January, it was not posted till the 20th. I did not receive it, for
various reasons, till three weeks later. And I learnt later that on the
15th of January Jean d'Argonne had a more violent attack of fever, of
that fever which baffled the surgeon-major and which indicated a sudden
infection of the wound of which your father died ... or at least----"
"Or at least?" asked the young girl.
"Or at least which was officially stated to be the cause of his death,"
said the Count in a lower voice.
"What's that you say? What's that you say?" cried Dorothy. "My father
did not die of his wound?"
"It is not certain," the Count suggested.
"But then what did he die of? What do you suggest? What do you
suppose?"