"It's Piquette, Monsieur," she repeated, prodding at him and shaking his
shoulders.
This time his eyelids opened wider, and he looked at her vaguely. But
his lips muttered her name.
"You mus' rouse yourself--you mus'! We are going out of here--at once."
With an effort he struggled up to a sitting posture while she supported
him, pinching his shoulders and arms. Then she saw for the first time an
earthen pitcher on a stool nearby. There was still some water in it,
and she threw it in his face. He sputtered and choked, but she silenced
him.
"Quiet--for your life! Dey're upstairs, aren't dey?"
"Yes--upstairs. I--I'm weak as a cat."
"Naturally, but you've got to 'elp yourself. I can't carry you."
"Carry me--no----" He toppled sideways and would have fallen, but she
caught him and held him, shaking and pinching him again.
"No. You've _got_ to wake up. Do you hear?" she whispered desperately.
"They may come down 'ere at any moment."
A dim notion of what she was talking about seemed to come to him, for
with an effort he threw off the heaviness that was coming over him
again.
"You--Piquette--How did you----?"
"By an old passage from dis cellar to de river. You mus' go out dat
way. Do you on'erstand me?"
He nodded feebly. "River----" he muttered.
There was another struggle against the drug and another, but at last she
got him to understand. He was very weak, but managed to support himself
with an effort, sitting upright, while Piquette ran over toward the foot
of the steps and listened intently, for if Tricot and the Englishman
were listening, they must surely have heard something of the commotion
she had made. But there was no sound.
She went back to the injured man. Would he be able to walk? She shook
him again and pointed to the way by which she had come.
"It is dere--in de corner--the way of escape. You mus' make de effort."
She helped him struggle to his knees, one of his arms around her
shoulders, but when she attempted to get him to his feet, his knees gave
out and he fell, dragging her down with him.
It was at this moment of failure, that a sudden clamor of knocking at
the street door upstairs came, with terrifying clearness, to her ears.
And the sound of a masculine voice calling the name of Tricot. There
was no time to be lost, yet what was she to do? She was strong, but she
could not lift the American bodily and he had collapsed again upon the
floor. For an agonized moment she listened. A long silence and then the
knocking was renewed, followed by the sound of another voice upstairs
and the tread of heavy feet going toward the door. Desperate now, and
aware that only the American's own efforts could save him, she lifted
him again by sheer strength to his knees.
"Dey'll be down 'ere in a moment," she stammered in his ear. "You've
got to help yourself. You've got to. Crawl--on your knees--toward de
corner beyond de pillar. I will 'elp you."
He seemed to understand and struggled a few feet, paused in weakness,
then struggled on again. And all the while Piquette was listening to
the sounds upstairs, the voices which now seemed to be near the head of
the stairway, coming to her ears distinctly.
"We've got to get him away from here--out into the country
somewhere--and lose him." Harry Horton's voice.
"Why?" growled a voice in English.
"Moira Quinlevin knows the truth."
An oath from Tricot as the other translated.
"Who told her?"
"No one. She guessed it."
"Parbleu! We shall take no chances then."
"You must take him away--a cab--out into the country," said Harry's
voice again.
"And leave him to recover and set the police on us? Not much. He'll
have to go the long road."
"My God! No. Not that!" cried Harry.
"The river!" growled Tricot.
And then the other voice.
"You started this thing. And it's got to be finished. Did you bring the
money?"
"To-morrow. But--I can't----"
There was the beginning of a violent discussion in which Tricot's advice
seemed to prevail. Harry's opinions wouldn't matter much to these
precious villains.
But Piquette had heard enough. It seemed that they were about to
descend the stairs to the prisoner, and glancing backward she labored
with the injured man until they reached the shadows of the pillar into
which she pushed and dragged him until they were both hidden from the
light of the lantern. But the steps into the passage were still ten
feet away. Already there were footsteps on the stair, where one of the
men stood, still arguing with Harry Horton. With a final effort, she
urged the drugged man toward the opening and then tumbled him down into
the darkness.
She heard the steps coming down the stairs, heard them pause and a voice
again raised in argument. But she listened no more. The situation was
desperate, for in a few seconds at the least, the escape of the prisoner
would be discovered, so forgetting caution, she pinched and shook him,
by main strength of her strong young arms, urging him forward.
Something of the imminence of his danger seemed to come to him, for he
crawled to the corner and then stumbled in some fashion to his feet,
clinging to her. The air beyond the turn in the passage seemed to
revive him and in a moment, swaying and struggling against his weakness,
he stood outside the opening upon the river-bank, leaning against the
wall, while Piquette thrust the boards across the opening.
She heard a cry now from beyond the passage and with the injured man's
arm around her shoulders, led the way down the bank to the landing. He
caught her intention. There was a boat there and she got him into it
and pushed off from the shore into the stream. She was almost exhausted
by this time, but managed to get out the oars and make some progress
down the river before the timbers fell from before the opening in the
wall and three men appeared--Tricot, Harry and the Englishman. She saw
their shapes dimly in the shadow of the wall.
But a strange thing happened then. For the three figures went flying up
the steps to the Quai and then ran as though for their lives in the
direction of the Pont St. Michel.
But she managed at last to reach the Quai du Louvre, where with the help
of a belated passer-by, she managed to get the man she had rescued into
a _fiacre_ and so to the Boulevard Clichy.
*CHAPTER X*
*THE SAMARITAN*
When Jim Horton came to his senses after his rescue, he found himself in
a small room overlooking a pleasant facade of gray stone, tinted softly
by the pale morning sunlight. It was some moments before he managed to
gather his scattered wits together and out of the haze and darkness in
which he had been groping for two nights and a day, recall the incidents
of his escape. Piquette! He remembered.... But what was this room?
There had been a cab-drive late in the night--he had been carried up a
flight of stairs ... As he turned in the bed he was aware of a figure
which rose from the corner of the room and approached him. It was an
oldish woman in the neat uniform of a maid.
She smiled. "Monsieur is awake?" And then, moving toward the door,
"Madame shall come at once."
But when Piquette entered the small room, attired in a gorgeous pink
lounging robe of silk and lace and wearing a boudoir-cap embroidered
with silken flowers and golden thread, she dazzled him for a moment with
her splendor, and he did not recognize her. She came forward to him
quickly and laid her cool hand on his brow.
"Ah, _mon petit, c'est mieux_." And then, in English, "'Ow do you
feel?"
"Better. But everything doesn't seem--very clear to me yet."
"_Naturellement_. You mus' 'ave some food and de doctor will be 'ere
soon."
Jim Horton glanced about the small room.
"Would you mind telling me where I am?" he asked.
"Dis room is in de hallway adjoining my apartment----"
"You brought me here----?"
"Las' night," she said, with a smile, "an' a beautiful time we had
getting you up de stair----"
"I--I remember--a man with a lantern--and then a struggle--with you
helping--through a passage--to the river--a boat----"
"A _voiture_ an' den--here," she added as he paused.
He put out his hand and fingered the lace of her sleeve.
"Why--why did you do this for me, Piquette?"
She caught his hand, pressed it in hers, and then rose abruptly.
"What does it matter? You s'all talk no more until after de doctor 'as
seen you. Sh----"
Later in the day after Jim Horton had slept again, Piquette visited him,
dressed for the street. In a few words she told him how she had guessed
at the double identity--then confirmed it, and then how she had
discovered the means Harry Horton had employed to get his brother out of
the way. She dwelt lightly on his rescue from the house in the Rue
Charron and explained quite frankly her own relations with the
criminals.
"_C'est la grande vie, Monsieur l'Americain_," she said with an
expressive gesture. "You remember perhaps what Monsieur Valcourt 'as
said. I am still de _vrai gamine_. I know dat _vilain_ Pochard since I
am so high."
"But why have you done this for me, Piquette? When you found out that I
was not my brother----"
"Oh, la, la! Who can tell? Perhaps I like' you a little de night in
Javet's. De thought of de adventure--perhaps, but more dat Tricot and
_Le Singe Anglais_--dey would 'ave t'rown you in de river, Monsieur."
"You saved my life----"
"Yes. You see, Monsieur--Monsieur," she paused in search of a name.
"My name is Jim Horton."
"Jeem! _C'est bon ca_. Jeem 'Orton, dere wasn' anyt'ing else for me to
do. You were a good Americain--who 'ad fought at La Boissiere for
France and for me. An' _he_ had not. It could not be dat you should
die. But dere are many t'ings I do not yet on'erstand. If you would
tell me----?"
Jim Horton was silent a moment, thinking deeply.
"You were a friend of my brother's."
He put it more in the form of a statement than a question.
"Yes, Jeem 'Orton," she said, "before 'e went to de front. Dat does not
matter now, I can assure you. What 'appen' at Boissiere Wood, _mon
ami_? Pochard tol' me what 'Arry 'Orton said----" And she related it
as nearly as possible in Pochard's own words.
Jim Horton listened, smiling slightly, until she had finished. And
then,
"I had intended to keep silent about this thing, Piquette. But I'm not
going to keep silent now. I'm going to tell the truth, whatever happens
to Harry or to me. He would have killed me----"
"No," she broke in. "I t'ink 'Arry was frighten' at what he 'ad
done----"
"He wasn't too frightened to get those chaps to knock me in the head,"
he put in dryly, then broke off with a sudden sense of the situation.
"I hope, Madame, that you do not care for him."
She had been watching him intently and now put her hand over his.
"No--no, Jeem 'Orton," she said carelessly. "But tell me de truth----"
He looked at her for a long moment.
"No one has a better right to know it than you."
And then, without ornamentation, he related the facts from the
unfortunate moment that night when he had put on Harry's uniform and
gone into the fight until he had met his brother in the Rue de Tavennes.
She heard him through to the end.
"You 'ave not told me everyt'ing, Jeem 'Orton," And then, significantly,
"About Madame--Madame 'Orton?"
He frowned and then went on with an assumption of carelessness.
"The situation was impossible, as you will see. I would have gone
away----" he shrugged, "if Harry hadn't saved me the need of it. But
now----"