ANDRÉ FAILS TO DECIDE
ONSLOW had the advantage of André in his intimate knowledge of the
essential facts of the situation; and he had not been for ten years an
agent of the secret service, in daily peril of his life, in hourly need
of having to decide at once on a course of action, without learning all
that an able and desperate man can learn from pitting his wits against
the wits of men and women as unscrupulous and desperate as himself.
“Good-evening, Vicomte,” he now said, bowing politely. “I could not
have wished for a more opportune meeting. As a proof, there are my
pistols,” he tossed them ostentatiously on to the table.
André drew the curtains behind him, threw off his cloak, and advanced
into the centre of the room.
“You killed the Chevalier?” he demanded briefly.
“Certainly. Shall I tell you why? Because he had betrayed me; because,
rather, he was the lover of the woman who betrayed me. That woman is
the ‘No. 101’ you have sought for so long, who has baffled you before
and has baffled you again to-night. She is a liar as well as a wanton.”
André quietly shrugged his shoulders.
“Let us come to business,” Onslow said coolly. “The secret despatch,
I regret to say, is not in my possession. It would have been in ten
minutes, but it is still in the keeping of the charming spy, who is
probably now on her way to the frontier. Madame de Pompadour will hear
more of it before long, but that does not concern you. What does,” he
held out a paper, “is this letter in the handwriting of the Comte de
Mont Rouge.”
Onslow’s tone had the calmness of conviction, and if he spoke the truth
André knew he had failed miserably. It was more than probable that “No.
101” had again baffled him. For the despatch was more important to her
than to Onslow.
“Well?” André said, to gain time for his mind to work.
“If you have this letter, Vicomte, you can ruin your enemies to-morrow.
Let me tell you that Mademoiselle Denise was by loaded dice, the device
of another beautiful wanton and her accomplice, the writer of this
letter,” he held it out, “yes, Mademoiselle Denise was chosen to steal
the despatch in order that she, as well as you, might be destroyed. I
see you did not know that. It is worth having, that letter.”
Onslow recognised at once he had struck the right chord. André’s face
would have terrified the Comtesse des Forges, and it surprised himself
as he caught a glimpse of it in the glass. Men in the white heat of
wrath and baffled revenge so seldom see what their faces express.
“You can kill me, of course,” Onslow went on easily. “I am an English
spy. But you will not get the letter nor the despatch in that way. Why?
Because I haven’t the one, and before you can run me through the letter
will be in the fire.”
“Stop!” André commanded, for Onslow was very near the stove and the
letter was very precious.
“For five minutes only,” Onslow retorted. “Give me your word of honour
that you will let me go free and you shall have the letter--or I
destroy it and fight for my life as best I can. Make up your mind,
Vicomte.”
The clock ticked very loud and clear while André weighed the issues.
The letter was precious; it was there, which the despatch was not; time
was more precious still, for there remained “No. 101” to be dealt with.
Onslow’s life was of no value to Denise or himself. André studied the
secret agent’s calm face for three silent minutes.
“Give me the letter,” he said at last, “you shall go free, on my word
of honour.”
“I thank you. But you have decided wisely.” Onslow placed the letter
on the table. “And now,” he buttoned up his cloak, “kindly write me a
pass, for I must leave your accursed city before dawn.”
“The password at the Barrier of the Hospital of St. Louis is, ‘_La
santé du Roi_,’” André answered. “That will take you through in safety.”
Onslow bowed. “My compliments, Vicomte; your precautions devised at
such short notice do you infinite credit. I fancy we shall meet again,
but not in the salon of ‘the Princess’ either in Paris or London.”
André had moved towards the writing-table. “I had better write you
a pass after all,” he said, very politely, “the police are not so
scrupulous as I am about a pledge of honour.”
Onslow fell into the trap. Like many clever men who find a lie succeed
beyond their expectations, he wholly misunderstood the motives that
had persuaded the other to accept for truth what he feared was untrue.
André had turned his back to write, but he had hardly scrawled three
words when he wheeled with incredible swiftness.
“No!” he cried, “you don’t stab two men in the back unawares in one
night, traitor and spy.”
For that was what Onslow had, dagger in hand, stealthily crept up to
do, inspired by the sight of André’s apparently defenceless position
at the writing-table and by the desire to wipe out a long score. But a
chair hurled with terrible force met him full in the stomach, and when
he had recovered he was facing the sword point of the finest swordsman
in Paris. He had lost his pistols, and the death his lies had averted
so skilfully was at hand.
“I will tell you where you can find the secret despatch,” the spy
pleaded, “if you will let me go.”
“I am not going to kill you,” André answered. “A De Nérac’s sword is
not to be soiled with the carrion blood of an English hireling and
assassin. The public executioner will deal with you, not I.”
He whistled sharply. Three of the guards swung themselves in by the
balcony.
“Disarm and bind that scoundrel,” was the brief order, and in three
minutes a wounded prisoner had been securely tied hand and foot. Five
minutes later George Onslow was on his way to a police cell, and André
was standing alone in the beautiful salon, with the secret despatch and
Mont Rouge’s damning letter in his possession.
He walked up and down trying to believe that his amazing good fortune
was really true. The terrible strain of the last twelve hours had at
last begun to tell, and, instead of the triumphant joy that he had
imagined would be his should he achieve the impossible and recover
the despatch, he was only conscious of complete mental and physical
exhaustion, of a strange and utter weariness. The power of his mind
seemed broken. His ambition had melted away. He had no doubt saved
Madame de Pompadour, the King’s secret would remain a secret, and
Denise would emerge scathless from the awful ordeal into which she
had been plunged. The love for which he had plotted, schemed, and
worked would be his now. Yes, he had gained all of which ambition
had inspired him to dream, more than all, for he had only to put into
Madame de Pompadour’s hands that guilty letter, and the men and women
who had dabbled in treason to sate their jealousy and their lust for
vengeance would be condemned to pass from the Salon de Vénus and the
Œil de Bœuf to the scaffold.
Success! a Croix de St. Louis, a Cordon Bleu already! To-morrow he
might be Minister for War, in the years to come he might share with
the _bourgeoise_ mistress of his Sovereign the rule of France. But at
what a cost? As Madame de Pompadour had done and must always do, by
sleepless intrigue and scheming, by playing on the fears and fancies,
the bigotry and animal passions of the King, by checkmating or
degrading the _noblesse_ into an odious and reluctant submission. He
had won power so far by such ways. It could only be kept at Versailles
by the same hateful, sordid scuffling, and he, the man, must daily
train himself to keep his place by trading on the weakness of women,
from the kitchen wenches to the mistress of the robes, by trafficking
in the selfish plans of gamblers as ambitious and unscrupulous as
himself. Versailles was there, the King was there; Louis was what he
would always be, an impenetrable sensualist and the despot of France.
More bitter still, the life of the Court as he and she knew it was what
he must ask Denise now to share and to lead. The first offering of
their marriage feast would be the disgrace, perhaps the blood, of the
men of his own order who had been his friends, by whose side he had
fought for France, and of the women to whom--. Bah! it was a revolting
thought. Little, indeed, had he foreseen when he rode down the hill
from the Castle of Beau Séjour, and swore that at all costs and by all
means he would win Denise, what success might and did mean. Well, ah
well! he had learned it at last.
Ah! in this bitter hour, if it had not been for Denise, he would have
flung despatch and letter into the fire, and left Paris to cast its
mystic spell of tears and laughter on other men, and let him go free,
deaf to the siren song of the ambitions born of their mother, the
enchantress of cities.
Success! Yet had he succeeded after all? Surely not. “No. 101” had
escaped. Futile to seek her now. Her papers had been destroyed. She
was doubtless provided with a pass. Proof against her there was none.
And the mystery with which his search had begun was as great as it had
ever been. Yvonne had vanished, the Chevalier de St. Amant was dead,
and the woman herself had passed triumphantly into the moonlit autumn
night. How strange and puzzling it all was. Yet, had not indeed the
Chevalier put him on the track, had she herself not delivered that
assassin and spy into his power? In a few days not even Onslow--and
who would believe Onslow?--would be able to reveal what he knew. The
secret whose fascination lured men to their ruin would remain a secret,
and the little he had discovered would be buried in the tombs of the
De Néracs. This girl had matched herself against all the brains and
resources of a great government and had defeated King, mistress, and
ministers, not once, but every time. Worse, far worse, what she had
done in the past she could repeat in the future. That eternal struggle
for power at Versailles which was to be his and Denise’s life from
to-day would be haunted and poisoned, perhaps thwarted and brought to
ruin, by the same strange treachery. The blood of the Chevalier would
taint the life of Denise and himself and of Madame de Pompadour and the
King for ever.
The clock on the mantelpiece chimed out four. André stopped his pacing.
He must return to Versailles, but as he crossed the room he caught a
glimpse of his haggard, sleepless face and burning eyes in the mirror,
and he halted and with trembling fingers turned the clock sharply
round. He had spied the reflection of a familiar crest on the reverse
of the timepiece. “_Dieu Le Vengeur!_” He had not been wrong. The words
were written round the crest. “_Dieu Le Vengeur!_”
André drew a deep breath, he looked all round the room with a shiver.
What did it-- A rustle of a woman’s dress. The great curtains were
quickly drawn aside. The Princess, as he had seen her first in London
with the blood-red flowers on her breast, was watching him, pale and
beautiful.
“Why should the clock not be there?” she asked, as if she were
continuing a conversation. “Are you so ignorant of Paris, Vicomte, as
not to know that the salon in which you stand once belonged to the
owners of the clock? It is a fine motto and truer than most. ‘_Amour
fait tout_,’ for example.” She had smilingly selected the motto of the
De Néracs. “You don’t agree?”
“I did not come here,” André answered, “to discuss mottoes.”
The appearance of this woman had awakened all his latent anger, his
sense of defeat. She should not escape him again.
“No, but to do my business,” she retorted. “I see you have won your
despatch and your letter”--they were lying on the table--“and I gladly
infer that you have given a scoundrel his deserts. For that I thank
you from the bottom of my heart. One libertine and traitor less in the
world is a blessing even to women such as I am.”
Her perfect calm, the complete absence of fear, the extraordinary
strangeness of their meeting, the crest and motto on the clock, had
reduced André to impotent silence. The Princess and crystal-gazer
quietly sat down. “One question before you go,” she said in a changed
tone--“did Onslow tell the truth when he said that the Chevalier de St.
Amant was dead?”
“Yes.”
She stretched her arms,--the gesture was curiously familiar to
André,--but she said nothing for some minutes. “It is fate,” was her
comment in a tearless voice when she spoke at last. “Fate!” she rose,
“fate, dear God!” She was staring with knitted fingers into the cold
shadows cast by the four flickering candles. And André was more moved
by the sight of her stern, impassive self-restraint than if she had
wept. Surely she had loved the dead man, for he was in the company of a
sorrow too sacred to be fathomed even by herself.
“Why did you come back,” he asked bitterly, “why did you come back?”
She awoke from her reverie. “Where could I go?” she answered. “To ‘The
Cock with the Spurs of Gold’?” She shivered. “To ‘The Gallows and the
Three Crows,’ where your police are now? To the Barriers that are
guarded by your men? I had not the password. The man who would have
given it to me, had I chose to ask it, I have sent to his account.
No, my friend, I prefer to be arrested by a gentleman who will do his
duty like a gentleman, and will not chaffer with me as if I were a
street-walker.”
André wiped the perspiration from his brow. The woman smiled and
approached him.
“Come, Vicomte,” she said. “It is disagreeable, perhaps, for André de
Nérac to arrest a beautiful woman, but you have kept your men waiting
quite long enough in the Carrefour out there. Onslow has gone to the
Bastille? Yes? Then do me the favour of sending me to Vincennes. I
cannot share the same prison as that miscreant murderer.” She walked
towards the curtains. André guessed she was about to signal to the
square.
“Stop,” he cried, in sharp despair, “stop!”
“You have no choice,” she said. “Are you aware that I have been tracked
to this house; that it is known to your police, warned by yourself
four hours ago, that I have not left it? Do you doubt my word? Then
look.” She cautiously drew back a curtain on the panelled wall which
covered a small window. André, with the curtain behind him shutting out
the light, stared into the moonlit court at the back. When he let the
curtain fall his face wore almost the look of the hunted felon.
“Well; you recognised them,” the Princess said calmly. “Four, I think.
Yes? They are Madame de Pompadour’s men,” she added. “She does not
trust you, poor woman; she, too, sent messages from Versailles, and she
will wish to know in the morning the reason why you have not arrested
the impudent hussy who derided her at an inn, who is a traitor into the
bargain, and who was in your power, alone, undefended, and with the
evidence of her guilt staring you in the face.” She quietly touched the
despatch and the letter lying on the table. “Unless, my friend, you
wish to join George Onslow, the Comte de Mont Rouge, and myself in the
cells you had better do your duty.”
André feverishly took up the papers; he looked now towards the great
window into the Carrefour, now towards that hateful little outlook into
the court where he knew the sleuth-hounds of an ambitious woman dogged
their guilty prey.
“It is useless to destroy the papers,” the Princess remarked placidly.
“That will only send Mademoiselle de Beau Séjour to join our pleasant
party at the Bastille. Madame de Pompadour is a great and beautiful
woman, but like all really ambitious men and women she has no mercy,
and she naturally does not wish to take our places in the cells.
She is fighting for her life and love as you are. Come, Vicomte, be
reasonable. In five minutes it will be all over and you will return a
hero to Versailles. Remember what awaits you there.”
Every sentence in this calmly terrible speech made André feel more
misery than he could have believed a man could endure.
“Why be in any doubt?” she began again.
“Oh, for God’s sake--” he pleaded. “For God’s sake----”
“No, you must hear me out. The proof of my treachery is here; they,
these men, will find it on me”; she had drawn a paper from her breast.
“Do you know what that is? It is a copy of the secret despatch; it
is addressed to the agent who would convey it to England, and it is
signed.”
[Illustration: “Yvonne, of course; Yvonne of the spotless ankles,” she
lifted her dress a few inches.]
She held it up and in the flickering light André could see the red
mystic sign of the crossed daggers and the cipher number. He
shivered as she replaced it in her bosom. “The game is up for me,” she
said in her impassive voice. “That paper will send me to the scaffold,
and unless you arrest me it will send you too.”
“You are mad,” he cried incoherently, and he really believed what he
said. “You are mad.”
“Was the woman mad who tricked you at Fontenoy, who has tricked and
befooled you at every turn since you came back? I have betrayed your
country, your King, your army, yourself, and yet you, a noble hating
treason, loving France, hesitate to arrest the traitress whom you have
sworn to bring to justice. It is you who are mad, my friend, not I; or
shall I say,” she had dropped her eyes and curtsied, “Monseigneur is
too good?”
“Yvonne!” the exclamation burst from his lips. He was leaning heavily
on a chair and peering dazed into her eyes.
“Yvonne, of course; Yvonne of the Spotless Ankles,” she lifted her
dress a few inches. “Yvonne whom at the bidding of another woman you
were to make your tool. Did you? I think not, for the Vicomte de Nérac
can be more easily tricked by women into doing what they please than
the most unscrupulous libertine in France. But you must take your
revenge on Yvonne now.”
Yvonne! André’s brain reeled. Yvonne, who had saved his life, was a
traitress, the traitress whose crimes merited condign punishment, whom
now, by the devilish device of fate, he must arrest and send to a
felon’s death to save himself and Denise.
He seized her arm. “Who and what are you?” he cried, beside himself,
for the torture of the fascinating riddle racked him beyond endurance.
“That,” she replied with her slow smile, “is my secret and it will
perish with me. Do your duty, Vicomte, and return to Versailles. Madame
de Pompadour awaits you; the blood of the _noblesse_, her foes, will
atone in her eyes. She has triumphed, and so have you. Go back to your
King, take him the proof of his royal intrigues, destroy the noble
traitors who would have destroyed you. Love and revenge, the sweetest
things the world can give a man, are yours. Are they not enough?” She
was coolly taunting him, and out there in the court-yard waited the
police ready to arrest a traitress with the proof of her crime on her
person. Was ever a man in so cruel and tragic a position?
“Why do you waver?” she asked very quietly. “Is it because of Denise?”
He met her gaze. This was not the crystal-gazer, nor the “Princess,”
nor even Yvonne who spoke. It was another woman, from whom all that was
hateful, cynical, insolent, had vanished. André’s hands on his chair
trembled.
“Yes,” he answered, in a low voice, “were it not for Denise and
Denise’s sake alone I would destroy these papers and would take you
past the Barriers myself. You saved my life once, more than once,
for you could have killed me in the cabin at Fontenoy; you and the
Chevalier--God rest his soul--enabled me to save the honour of
Denise--Denise.” He paused for emotion. “You have enabled me to save
my own honour. Why you did these things I do not know. But I would
to-night, and now, take you past the Barrier of St. Louis, and I would
then bid Versailles and you adieu for ever. God alone can judge you,
not I--but Denise--there is Denise----”
“Then Denise herself must decide.”
She was mad after all; stark mad. He stood helplessly picking at the
embroidered upholstery of the chair. Mad, mad; they were all mad.
The woman had glided towards the door on the right. André looked up
exultingly. Ha! She was gone--fled. Then he, too, must escape at once.
He gathered up the papers, seized his cloak, and darted towards the
window, only to start back with a cry.
On the threshold of the doorway stood Denise.
He stood spellbound. Yes, it was Denise.