AT HOME WITH A CIPHER
MIDNIGHT had struck, the same night, more than an hour ago; the black
and squalid Carrefour of St. Antoine was deserted; the houses that
fringed it lay in darkness, yet in the main salon of one of them,
though they could not be discerned by a passer-by, the lights still
blazed, for the shutters were closed and bolted, the thick double
curtains were drawn tight. On the table in the centre of the room
were ample traces that two persons had recently supped, and supped
sumptuously. But there was only one now in the room, a woman copying
from a roll of manuscript, and absorbed in her task. Save for the
monotonous tick of the clock, and a curious muffled murmur which
trickled through a door that faced the main entry, the silence in the
strangely brilliant glare of the numerous candelabra was oppressively
eery. Presently the woman threw down her pen and walked with a quick
but graceful step in front of one of the many long mirrors that lined
the walls. She inspected herself with a charmingly insolent cynicism.
The glass, with truthful admiration, flashed back the reflection of a
supple and exquisitely moulded figure, fair hair, bright blue eyes, and
a skin on face, neck, and shoulders amazingly delicate in its blended
tints of snow and rose. A young woman this, in the heyday of health
and beauty, noble of birth, too, if the refinement of her features,
and the ease and dignity of her carriage, did not strangely lie; and
at every movement the costly jewels in her hair and on her breast, in
her artfully simple dress, and on her fingers, only heightened the
challenge to the homage claimed by her youth and beauty. Very soon,
however, she ceased to find pleasure in looking at herself. A soft
pathos swept over the artificial audacity of her eyes and lips. She
sat down, her elbows on her knees, then stretched her arms wearily and
sighed that most pathetic of all sighs, a sigh from a young woman’s
heart.
Suddenly she sprang up, and, after listening attentively, seized a
hand lamp and left the room. When she returned, it was with a man, who
flung off his cloak and stood blinking now at her, now at the brilliant
lights.
“So it is you they have sent?” she said contemptuously; “you!”
“I volunteered,” George Onslow answered, “because I wanted to come.”
His gaze lingered hungrily on her. “And, by God! I am glad. You,” he
laughed wearily, “you pretend you are not?”
“What does it matter to me whom your accursed government sends? Any
man is better than a woman, such women, at least, as they employed last
time.”
His eyes roamed from her jewels to the supper table.
“You have had company to-night, Enchantress?” he asked in a flash of
jealousy.
“Yes,” she answered over her shoulder, “two can make very good
company--sometimes. But here is what you wanted. Take it and go.”
He scanned the roll of manuscript eagerly, his eyes sparkling.
“You have not signed,” he remarked, half jestingly.
The woman opened a penknife and pushed back the lace which fringed her
splendid arm at the shoulder.
“Don’t!” cried Onslow, in genuine pain. “I can’t bear----”
“Pooh!” With the few drops of blood produced by the knife she made a
symbol with her pen on the roll. “From as near my heart as any man will
ever get anything,” she said, replacing the lace again. “And now my
pay, please.”
Onslow handed her a small bag of gold, which she locked in a drawer.
“You will drink,” she continued, pouring out two glasses of wine. “Your
health, skulking spy, and damnation to Louis XV. and all his crew of my
fascinating sex!”
“To your trade and mine, _ma mignonne_, to yourself and--to the
damnation of Louis XV.!” He drained his glass, refilled it, and drained
it again. “You are a witch,” he cried, tapping the roll. “How do you
do it?”
“Come this way and I will show you.”
She opened the side door, revealing a small room lit by a single
candle. On the bed lay a man bound hand and foot, and gagged. One boot
was off, showing whence the despatch had been taken. “A confidential
messenger of the King whose damnation you have just drunk,” she
explained, with careless calm, “and like all secret agents the prey
of his passions. He went from my supper table--or rather I carried
him--like that. There will be a pother in Versailles to-morrow or next
day. It is not only at the palace, you see, that a beautiful woman can
ruin a kingdom.”
She slammed the door behind her and admired herself in the mirror,
while George Onslow’s glowing eyes gloated on the superb picture that
the mirror and she made under the blazing candles.
“You are a wonderful woman,” he said softly.
“I am not a woman, I am only a number.”
“As I think I told you when I saw you last in London.”
She wheeled suddenly. “And because you were such a fool as to show you
had discovered it,” she retorted, “I could send you to-night, or any
night, to be broken on the executioner’s wheel. Exactly.”
“It baffles me why you do it,” he muttered, ignoring the remark.
“Well, I will tell you. For three hundred and sixty days in the year
I am a cipher, a sexless vagrant, unknown and a mystery; but for five
days maybe I wear my jewels and am a woman rejoicing in my health and
my beauty. These are my woman’s hours, glorious hours. That is one
reason; the other is--revenge!”
“Ah!” He rubbed his hands appreciatively.
“And you?” she asked, with a faint smile of the most tempting
provocation.
“For love,” he spoke with a hint of pain. “To the world you are a
mysterious number, but to me you are the most beautiful, most splendid
woman on earth, without whose love I cannot live. Had you not by chance
crossed my path I would have dropped this dirty felon’s game, but I go
on and shall go on, taking my chance of the wheel, the halter, or the
footpad’s death in the gutter, till you are mine, wholly mine.”
Her lip curled. “The wine is getting into your head,” she said, in her
passionless tones. “In your trade and mine that is dangerous. Remember
the fate of all who, knowing what you know, have seen my face; remember
your friend, Captain Statham, who recognised the Princess in the hut
near Fontenoy. Love? Love? You are a strong, vile animal of a man
tempted by mere beauty of body. But I am not an animal, nor a woman as
women are in Paris, London, Vienna. Love? a man’s animal love? Think
you if that was what I could feel or wanted I would be to-day a thief
of state secrets, a cipher, a skulker from justice? No, I would be the
mistress of the King of France and would rule a great kingdom. And
you have the insolence to offer me the caresses of a felon, a spy, a
traitor. You are mad.”
“It is you who made me and keep me mad, thank God!”
She sat down, beckoning him to sit beside her. “Now listen,” she said
calmly. “The game is up. There will be no more papers for a long time.
Why? Because my foes are on my track. The toils are being drawn around
me. My sources of information are being discovered and stopped. And--”
she paused--“and a man worth ten of you, unless I am very careful,
will----”
“The Vicomte de Nérac?” he gasped out. “Curse him!”
“Yes, the Vicomte de Nérac, who balked you at Fontenoy.”
“You let him balk us--you did.”
“And if I did for my own ends, what then?”
“You love him? Answer! Answer or----”
“What is it to you? He is worth a woman’s love. But, my good friend, he
does not love me. Give me your hand!” she suddenly commanded, soothing
him at the same time by a caressing look. “Ah! I thought so. There is
death, a violent death, in that palm of yours, death coming soon. And
yet, my friend, you can avert it. But unless you take my advice and
forget me from this night, unless you cease to be a spy and a traitor,
before long you will have to reckon with the Vicomte de Nérac--it is
written there--and then--” She let his hand drop with icy indifference,
“_c’est fini pour vous!_”
“A fig for your old wives’ fables! I have sworn you shall be mine and
you shall.”
“Stand back!” She sprang up.
“No!” For one minute he faced her and then, with a hunter’s cry on his
prey, he had pinioned her wrist, and in that besotted grip she was
powerless, though she struggled fiercely.
“No, _ma mignonne_, I, too, am strong. You shall learn you are only a
weak woman after all.” He had whipped the dagger from its concealment
by her heart, his arm was about her, his eyes the eyes of a victorious
maniac.
“Kiss me at your will,” she murmured faintly. “See, _mon ami_, I resist
no longer. Yes, you, too, are a man. I was only tempting you. I am not
a number, but a woman. You have my secret, and I am yours!” No man
could have resisted the intoxicating self-surrender in her eyes and
voice, least of all George Onslow in the grip of unholy passion long
thwarted.
Suddenly her released fingers closed like a vise on his throat. In
vain he struggled, for he was choking. Her great natural strength was
duplicated by rage and an insulted womanhood. She forced him on to
the ground, livid, gasping for breath, and put a knee on his chest.
“Mercy!” he faltered, “Mercy!”
With her left hand she tore the lace from her breast, and gagged him
inch by inch. With her right hand still on his throat she produced a
rope from her pocket and tied with practised skill his hands and feet.
Then she rose and calmly rearranged her disordered dress and hair and
quickly searched him for pistols and dagger.
“Carrion! scum!” she whispered, bending over him, “you deserve to die
like the English dog you are. Miserable, insolent libertine!” and she
struck him on the cheek. “No, I will not kill you, for you have my work
to do and you shall do it. But a weak woman has taught you a lesson and
your hour is not yet come. Another shall soil his hands or his sword
with your rascallion blood. Go!”
She dragged him down the passages, loosened the rope on his ankles till
he could just hobble, flung his coat about him, and with her dagger at
his throat pushed him to the open door, where she propped him against
the wall in the damp darkness of the court, and the silent serenity of
the stars.
“It will take you,” she said pleasantly, “twenty minutes to bite
through that cord, and by that time I shall have disappeared for ever
from your sight. But remember my advice, or as sure as you stand
here, before long my secret will die with you.” She drew the lace gag
from his mouth and stuffed it inside his collar. “Cry out now if you
please,” she continued contemptuously, “and my secret will die with you
in two days on the executioner’s wheel. Oh, keep the lace; it came
from a woman’s heart, and on the scaffold will be a pleasant souvenir
of a night of love with a cipher. Adieu!”
The outer door was locked. The woman who was a cipher had disappeared;
whence and whither, who could say?
As George Onslow stood with rage, jealousy, baffled passion,
humiliation, surging within him, he was startled by the sudden
appearance of a stranger.
“Don’t be alarmed,” said the boyish voice of the Chevalier de St.
Amant. “’Tis a friend.” He muttered a reassuring password. “So that
woman has treated you as she treated me?” In a trice he had set the
helpless spy free.
Onslow’s answer was an incoherent growl of gratitude, surprise, and
relief.
“Well,” said the Chevalier, “we are in the same boat. You will hear
from me shortly, I promise you. And then you and I can have our revenge
on her and the Vicomte de Nérac. Revenge, my friend, revenge will be
sweet. Meanwhile have courage, and be careful till our turn comes!”
And then he, too, glided away to be lost in the night that divined and
protected all the treachery and treason, all the dreams of love and
hate, of passion and ambition, the tears and laughter and prayers that
throbbed then, and will always throb, in the heart of Paris.