THE CARREFOUR DE ST. ANTOINE NO. 3
ANDRÉ saw in a moment from the Chevalier’s position as he lay face
downwards on the bare boards what had happened. The unhappy boy had
been stabbed from behind; and he bore plain signs of having been
searched after he had been stabbed, for his clothes were rumpled, his
boots wrenched off, his stockings ripped up, his shirt torn open. The
searcher had then calmly left him to bleed to death. Had the Chevalier
been the robber of the escritoire? If so had the secret despatch been
taken from him and the second thief escaped with it? Who could say?
André kneeled down and gently lifted the prostrate body on to the sofa.
“Go, two of you, at once to Versailles,” he cried to his men, “and
bring a doctor. Ride for your lives.”
He returned to the couch, but as he did so his boot kicked against
something that jingled. An English guinea! George Onslow had been here,
then. André recognised with the intuition that is stronger than proof
that Onslow was the second thief, as well as the man who had stabbed
the Chevalier in the back.
The Chevalier was not dead! A low moan from the couch had echoed
through the room, and André poured brandy down his throat, stanched the
wound, and waited with feverish passion, for the Chevalier’s lips were
moving. His eyes opened--he saw who it was at his side.
“Marie,” came the faint words, “Marie--the Carrefour”--his head fell
back.
André waited, overwhelmed by a wave of passion, repentance, remorse.
The Chevalier was no foe--he was trying to tell him something,
something of vital importance to both of them; would he have the
strength to do it? Denise’s and his own fate hung on that.
“Marie,” trickled the feeble words, “Carrefour de St. Antoine No. 3--”
again he swooned, but André had learned almost enough. It was time
to leave him, cruel as it seemed, for every half-hour now would be
precious.
“Marie--paper--save her--Onslow,” the Chevalier was making a great
effort; André guessed the rest. But the Chevalier’s hand moved
pleadingly. He was asking for a promise--“save her,” he repeated and
his lips ceased to move.
André took the young man’s hand. He scarcely knew what he was saying,
he knew not who Marie was, but in the presence of death, death
inflicted by that dastard stab in the back, a man who was inspired by
love might well feel a great pity, the desire to forgive and atone.
“I promise,” he whispered. “I promise.”
Moved by the beautiful peace that those two words brought into the
young man’s face, André kneeled beside him. No doctor could save the
Chevalier de St. Amant now, but he, too, had loved Denise; he, too, had
charged by the side of the Chevau-légers de la Garde at Fontenoy. And
him at least an assassin’s dagger had delivered from the justice of the
King of France and of Madame de Pompadour.
Sceptic as he was, André whispered a brief prayer, and, as Denise
would have wished him to do, reverently made the sign of the Cross,
commending his soul to the God whose eyes are upon the truth, and whose
mercy is infinite.
As he stepped outside, into that clearing where Yvonne had saved his
own life, a sharp altercation apparently in the outhouses at the back
sent him hurrying thither.
“Curse you, let me go, scum!” were the words he heard, followed by a
sharp scuffle.
“Good-evening, Monsieur le Comte,” André said, with icy sarcasm, “but
the scum will not let you go.”
Mont Rouge’s livid face paled at his rival’s voice. De Nérac least of
all men had he expected to discover at “The Cock with the Spurs of
Gold.”
“You will keep Monsieur le Comte de Mont Rouge a prisoner,” André
commanded the guards who had caught the Count, “until I return, and
you will answer with your heads for his safety.”
“By what right--” Mont Rouge began, savagely.
“That, Monsieur le Comte,” André interrupted, politely, “you will learn
when it suits me. But to-morrow His Majesty will require to know by
what right an exiled gentleman is still at Versailles,” he paused, “and
why a noble of France trades under the title of ‘Lui’ with traitors in
the pay of the English Government.”
It was a bold thrust, but it went home. The mingled fear and rage in
Mont Rouge’s cynical eyes revealed the correctness of André’s guess.
“His Majesty,” André continued, “you will be interested to know, has
returned to Versailles to take summary vengeance on all traitors.”
And as he galloped away he knew that Mont Rouge was unaware of Louis’s
unexpected return. That Mont Rouge was at the inn at all showed that
Onslow and his accomplice had been expected to share the results of
their theft with the noble conspirators against Madame de Pompadour.
* * * * *
No. 3 in the deserted Carrefour de St. Antoine was the house where
Onslow had made love before, and in that very room, with its barred
shutters and tightly drawn curtains, with its thick carpets into
which the foot noiselessly sank, and its blazing candles, the woman
whom André had spied on at “The Cock with the Spurs of Gold” now sat
calmly destroying papers. Every now and then she stopped to listen
attentively; twice at least she opened the door and peered out, but
there was no one, and she placidly resumed her task.
When all the papers were destroyed she surveyed herself in the glass
and smiled sadly. To-night her jewels and her patrician virginal beauty
gave her no pleasure, yet she was dressed with consummate taste and
infinite care, as though she were going to a ball in the Galerie des
Glaces.
The clock struck half-past two. She moved behind the curtains and
unbarred the shutters, carefully pinning them back, thus leaving the
balcony not more than ten feet up from the street quite clear. Then she
blew out all the candles but two and waited patiently.
Ten minutes passed. This time when she rose she carefully locked both
side doors leading off the salon, and when she returned from the
passage she was accompanied by Onslow. Unobserved, she locked that
door, too. There was no exit now from the room save by the balcony.
Onslow’s sleuth-hound features wore a careworn look, the look of
the hunted man; his cloak and boots were splashed with mud; he was
breathing quickly, for he had ridden hard.
“I was expecting you,” she surprised him by saying quietly. “Why did
you not bring the Chevalier with you?”
“The Chevalier was obliged to stay at the inn,” was the grim reply.
“You forget ‘Lui,’” he added hastily, for her penetrating eyes were
searching his face. “Some one had to deal with the fool, and,” with a
laugh, “he will be astonished, will be ‘Lui.’”
“He will,” she said with such emphasis that Onslow gave a guilty start.
“‘Lui’ I expect at this moment is in the hands of your friend and mine,
the Vicomte de Nérac.”
The oath that came from Onslow’s lips as he whipped out a pistol, the
look that accompanied it, were more eloquent than an hour’s speech.
“De Nérac, I warned you, was an abler head than yours, my friend; he
was concealed in the room when you and I arranged our little plan.”
“What?” Onslow sat down in consternation.
“It is as I say. Yvonne, the wench, was his accomplice. She fooled you,
that peasant girl; that is why our programme was so suddenly altered.”
She walked away with her swinging, graceful carriage of head and body.
Had Onslow seen her eyes at that moment it would not have relieved the
fears that haunted his face. But when she turned again she was smiling
seductively.
“You want the paper,” she said. “Here it is. I keep my word, you see.”
She quietly handed him the secret despatch and he pounced on it as a
hungry vulture pounces on carrion.
“But how did you get it?” he demanded.
“I was at the Palace when the Chevalier stole it. Stealing it was not
an easy task, for the Vicomte de Nérac was on the watch, but when I had
got it I came straight here. The Chevalier went back to the inn. It
would have been better,” she added carelessly, watching him closely,
“if he, too, had come here.”
“Perhaps.”
The girl stooped and fastened her shoe, for she knew that she could not
always control her eyes. The shoe fastened she was smiling again at
Onslow’s trembling fingers.
“There is blood upon your boot,” she remarked pleasantly, “you have
been stepping in blood. Whose, I wonder?” She moved towards the
curtain, and listened attentively, while she affected to pull the
string.
“So De Nérac knew of the plan?” Onslow growled out. “That explains a
good deal, but not all.”
“You are right. If De Nérac meets the Chevalier at the inn he may know
more,” was the calm response. She had begun to take off her jewels and
was packing them one by one into a leather case.
“What do you mean?”
“This. The game is up for you, my friend, and for me. There will be no
more richly paid treachery for some time in our lives. The Chevalier
loves me, loves me as his own soul. To save me he will probably betray
what De Nérac does not already know----”
Onslow had risen. He buttoned up his coat over the despatch, while his
eyes glowed with the unholy lust that was corroding his mind and body.
“And,” she continued, “the Chevalier knows that I love him, love him
more dearly than any man. I shall be grateful to his love if it saves
him and saves me, as I think it will. But it cannot save you, I fear.”
“Ah!” his breath came quick. His eyes went round and round like those
of a beast tracked by dogs to its lair.
“Yes, I hope he will confess all.” She faced him. “I tell you now that
he went to the inn to confess all--all.”
“Then,” Onslow answered in a thick voice of brutal exultation, “he will
not do it. He is dead, your Chevalier, your lover--dead.”
She suppressed the cry of horror, of agony, that was wrung from her.
But her great blue eyes fixed on him. “You killed him?” she asked in a
whisper.
“I did.”
She sank into a chair and covered her face with her hands. She was not
crying. This was a sorrow too deep for tears.
Suddenly Onslow darted forward. The girl, too, sprang up. A horse’s
hoofs, several horses’ hoofs, clattering furiously on the stones of the
deserted Carrefour could be heard distinctly for those who had ears to
hear.
“Miserable libertine!” she cried, in a terrible voice, “assassin! Your
hour has come as I told you it would. You will not leave this house
alive, and I am glad, very glad. Stand back!” she said peremptorily,
and she had whipped out a pistol. “The doors are locked, all of them.
Dear God! I could slay you with my own hands, but it is not necessary.”
She had swiftly stolen behind the curtains. There was a moment’s pause
while Onslow in vain tried to force the door by which he had entered.
There was a crash, a wrench, and then the curtains were drawn back.
“Monsieur le Vicomte de Nérac--Monsieur George Onslow,” the girl said
quietly, as if she were introducing two gentlemen in a lady’s salon.
She had flung the window open and André, sword in hand, was standing in
the room, looking about him half dazed but triumphant.
“That man there,” she proceeded in her tearless voice, pointing at
Onslow, “is an English spy. In his pocket is the secret despatch of
Madame de Pompadour which you seek. He is the assassin, by his own
confession, of the Chevalier de St. Amant, and he has also a valuable
letter in the handwriting of the Comte de Mont Rouge. Monsieur le
Vicomte, you will deal with him as and how you please, but if you have
any pity for the blood of the man who sent you to this place you will
have no mercy for a coward, a libertine, and an assassin. Adieu!”
She had swiftly unlocked one of the side doors, glided through it, and
relocked it from the other side, leaving Onslow and André face to face.