THE DELIGHTS OF CAPUA
The _Nonchalante_ was a barge in no way distinguished from any other
barge. It was fairly old; its paint had faded; but it was well polished
and kept very clean by a bargeman of the name Delâtre and his wife.
From the outside there was very little to see of the _Nonchalante’s_
cargo, a few cases, some old baskets, and three or four casks. But if
you had slipped down the ladder into the hold, you would have seen at a
glance that she carried absolutely nothing whatever. The whole of the
inside had been divided into three rooms of moderate size, uncommonly
comfortable and exceedingly well-kept--two staterooms opening into a
saloon.
There Ralph and Josephine lived for a month. Monsieur and Madame
Delâtre seemed to be morose; and they were certainly silent. Several
times Ralph tried in vain to get into conversation with them. They
acted as cook and butler. From time to time a small tug came to tow the
_Nonchalante_ up a reach of the Seine.
The whole course of the charming river in this way unrolled itself
before their eyes in delightful landscapes through which they wandered,
Ralph’s arm round Josephine’s waist ... the Brotonne Forest, the
ruins of Jumièges, Saint George’s Abbey, the hills of Bouille, Rouen,
Pont-de-l’Arche.
They were weeks of intense happiness. During those delightful hours
Ralph expended a wealth of gaiety and enthusiasm. The wonderful
views, the beautiful Gothic churches, the sunsets and the moonlight,
everything served him as pretexts for impassioned declarations of his
love. Josine, more silent, smiled as in a happy dream. Every day drew
her closer to her lover. If at the beginning she had acted from a mere
caprice, she now found herself under the yoke of the law of love which
quickened her pulses and taught her the danger and the pain of loving
too much.
Of the past, of her secret life, never a word. Once however they did
exchange a few sentences on this subject. As Ralph was chaffing her
about what he called the miracle of her eternal youth, she said:
“A miracle? I don’t understand what people mean by a miracle. For
example, the other day we drove sixty miles.... You cried out that it
was a miracle. But if you’d kept your eyes a little wider open, you
would have perceived that that distance was covered not by two horses
but by four, for Leonard took the pair which had been drawing it out
of the carriage and harnessed another pair in their places in that
farm-yard at Doudeville, where a relay was waiting for us.”
“You have me there!” exclaimed the young man cheerfully.
“Another example,” she went on: “No one in the world knows that your
name is Lupin. But I assure you that that very night you rescued me
from death, I knew you as Arsène Lupin and nothing else. A miracle?
Not a bit of it. You know that everything that concerns Cagliostro
interests me extremely; and when fourteen years ago I heard talk of the
disappearance of the Queen’s necklace from the house of the Duchess of
Dreux-Soubise, I made the most minute enquiry into the circumstances.
That brought me first of all to little Ralph d’Andresy and then to the
son of Theophrastus Lupin. Later I found traces of your handiwork in
several jobs. I knew where I was.”
Ralph reflected thoughtfully for a good half-minute; then he said very
seriously:
“At that date Josine, darling, either you were twelve years old, and
it certainly is miraculous that a little girl of that age should have
succeeded in an enquiry in which the rest of the world failed, or
you were as old as you are to-day, which is even more miraculous, O
daughter of Cagliostro!”
She frowned. His jesting did not seem at all to her taste. She said
even more seriously than he:
“We won’t talk about that, Ralph--if you don’t mind.”
“I’m sorry,” said Ralph, a little annoyed at having been discovered
to be Lupin and desiring to score off her in turn. “Nothing in the
world interests me more strongly than the problem of your age and the
different exploits you have performed during the last hundred years.
I’ve got some ideas of my own on the matter which are really worthy of
consideration.”
“Keep them to yourself,” she said sharply.
“Wouldn’t you like me to tell you about them?”
She gazed at him, curious in spite of her reluctance to discuss the
matter. He took advantage of her hesitation to continue in a faintly
mocking tone:
“My train of reasoning rests on two axioms: the first is, as you have
pointed out, there are no miracles; the second is that you are your
mother’s daughter.”
She smiled and murmured: “It certainly begins well.”
“You are your mother’s daughter,” Ralph repeated. “That means that
there was in the first place a Countess of Cagliostro. At the age of
twenty-five or thirty, she dazzled all the Paris of the end of the
Second Empire with her beauty and excited the liveliest curiosity at
the Court of Napoleon III. With the aid of the young man she called
her brother--it doesn’t matter whether he was her brother, her friend,
or her lover--she had worked up the story of her relationship to
Cagliostro and prepared the forged documents of which the police made
use when they gave Napoleon III the information about the daughter of
Josephine Beauharnais and that great thaumaturge. Expelled from France,
she went to Italy, then to Germany, then disappeared--to come to life
again twenty-two years later in the person of her adorable daughter,
her exact image, the second Countess of Cagliostro, here present. Do we
agree so far?”
Josine did not answer; she gazed at him with inexpressive eyes in an
impassive face.
He went on: “Between the mother and the daughter the resemblance was
perfect--so exact that the affair began, quite naturally, all over
again. Why should there be two Countesses? There will only be one, a
single one, the unique and genuine Countess, she who has inherited the
secrets of her father, Joseph Balsamo, the Count of Cagliostro. And
when Beaumagnan sets about making his enquiry, it inevitably happens
that he discover the documents which have already sent the police of
Napoleon astray, and the series of portraits and miniatures which bear
witness to the identity of the ever youthful woman and carries her
origin back to the virgin of Luini to whom chance has given her such an
astonishing resemblance.
“Moreover there is a living witness: the Prince of Arcola. The Prince
of Arcola in the old days knew the Countess of Cagliostro. He conducted
her to Modena. He saw her at Versailles. When he saw her a few years
ago the exclamation escapes from him: ‘It is she! And not a day older
than she was!’
“Thereupon you overwhelm him with a world of proofs. You repeat the
actual words exchanged at Modena between him and your mother, the
actual words which you read in the very minute diary which your mother
kept even of her least important doings and sayings. There is the
complete explanation of the affair. And it is extraordinarily simple. A
mother and a daughter who are exactly like one another and whose image
recalls a picture of Luini.
“There is besides the Marquise de Belmonte. But I expect that the
resemblance of that lady to you is fairly vague and that the strong
prepossession and deranged brain of Beaumagnan were necessary to mix
the two of you up. To sum up, there is nothing dramatic about it. It is
merely an amusing and admirably managed intrigue. That’s my account of
the business.”
He was silent. It appeared to him that Josine had lost some of her
color and that she was frowning. She must be annoyed in her turn; and
it made him laugh.
“I’ve hit the right nail on the head? What?” he said cheerfully.
She shrank away from him, saying coldly: “My past is my business and my
age concerns nobody but myself. You can believe exactly what you like
about them.”
He caught hold of her and kissed her furiously.
“I believe that you are four hundred years old, Josephine Balsamo,
and that there is nothing more delightful to kiss than a centenarian.
When I think that you have perhaps known Robespierre and perhaps Louis
XVI----”
They did not discuss the matter again, for Ralph was so clearly aware
of Josephine’s irritation at the slightest indiscreet attempt to probe
her secret, that he did not dare to question her again. Besides, did he
not know the exact truth?
Certainly he knew it and not a doubt remained in his mind. Nevertheless
the young woman retained a mysterious prestige, which impressed him
in spite of himself and rather annoyed him. He thought, seeing her
withdrawn and aloof, of those Gods of Olympus who enveloped themselves
in a thick mist. So round Josephine there were on every side impassable
spaces in the midst of which she disappeared from his sight. Why also
did she refuse to discuss the candlestick with seven branches and the
enterprise of Beaumagnan? Was not that the affair which had brought
them together and in a way associated them in a common task of conquest
and vengeance?
* * * * *
At the end of the third week Leonard reappeared. Again Ralph saw the
barouche with the little lean horses in it; and the Countess drove away
in it.
She did not return till the evening. Leonard carried on to the barge
two bundles wrapped in napkins which he slipped into a cupboard, of
whose existence Ralph had been ignorant.
That night Ralph, having succeeded in opening the cupboard, examined
the two bundles. They contained admirable lace and valuable vestments.
The next day there was another expedition. The result, was
sixteenth-century tapestry.
On those days Ralph was exceedingly bored. Therefore at Mantes, finding
himself once more alone, he hired a bicycle and for some hours rode
about the country. After having lunched at an inn, he saw on the
outskirts of a small country town a great mansion, the garden of which
was swarming with people. He went to it. They were selling by auction
some beautiful furniture and plate.
Idly he strolled round the house. The garden at the end of one of the
wings was empty and against the wall was a thick shrubbery. Without
considering what impulse urged him to the act, Ralph, seeing a ladder
hanging against the garden wall, set it up against the house, climbed
it, and slipped a leg over the sill of an open window.
There came a faint cry from inside the room; and he saw the startled
face of Josephine. She recovered herself on the instant and said in a
perfectly composed voice:
“Oh, it’s you, Ralph, is it? I was just admiring a collection of
beautifully bound little books. Wonders! And of an extraordinary
rarity!”
That was all they said. Ralph examined the books and slipped three
Elzevirs into his pocket while the Countess without Ralph’s perceiving
it, helped herself to some coins from a glass case.
They went down the main staircase and took their departure. In all that
crowd no one took any notice of them. Three hundred yards down the road
the carriage was waiting for them.
After that, at Pointoise, at Saint Germain, at Paris, where the
_Nonchalante_, moored to the quay in front of the prefecture of police,
continued to serve them as an abode, they “operated” together. Together
but in such a fashion that neither could see the other’s actions. “Let
us turn our eyes away and say nothing about it,” Josephine Balsamo had
said. A supreme modesty which spared them the sight of a mean action.
If the reserved nature and the enigmatic soul of the Countess de
Cagliostro found a perfectly natural expression in the accomplishment
of these tasks, the impulsive nature of Ralph little by little gained
the upper hand; and every time the operation finished in bursts of
laughter. Success provoked in him veritable fits of hilarity.
“Since I’ve turned my back on the path of virtue, I may just as well
take it lightly as not, and certainly not in the funereal way in which
you do, Josine,” he said airily.
At every new essay he discovered in himself unexpected talents and
resources of which he had never dreamt. Sometimes, in a shop, on a
race-course, at the theater, his companion heard a gentle murmur of joy
and saw a watch in her lover’s hands, or a new pin in his cravat--and
always the same coolness, always the serenity of an innocent man whom
no danger can threaten.
But that did not prevent him taking the manifold precautions demanded
by Josephine. They only left the barge in the dress of barge-folk. In a
neighboring street, the old barouche with a single horse harnessed to
it was waiting for them. In it they changed their clothes. Josephine
always hid her face under a beautiful, flowered lace veil.
All these facts and a great many others fully informed Ralph about the
real life of his mistress. He had no doubt whatever that she was at
the head of a well organized band of confederates, with whom she held
communication by means of Leonard. But also he had no doubt that she
was prosecuting her search for the Candlestick with Seven Branches and
keeping a close watch on the actions of Beaumagnan and his friends.
A double life, which often awoke in Ralph a dull irritation against
Josephine, as she herself had foreseen. Forgetting his own actions,
he was angry with her for acting in a manner which was not in accord
with the ideas which in spite of everything, he retained about that
matter of honesty. A mistress who was a thief and leader of a band of
thieves shocked him. Now and again there was a collision between them
with regard to quite insignificant matters. Their two personalities, so
definite and so powerful, came into conflict.
So, when some trifle brought them into conflict, for all that they were
confronting common enemies, they learned how much a love like theirs
can, at certain moments, contain of rancor, pride, and hostility.
The incident which brought to an end what Ralph called the delights of
Capua was an unexpected meeting one evening with Beaumagnan, the Baron
d’Etigues, and Oscar de Bennetot. They saw the three friends go into
the Theater of Varieties.
“Let’s follow them,” said Ralph.
The Countess hesitated. He insisted.
“What?” he cried. “When such an opportunity presents itself, aren’t we
going to profit by it?”
“What’s the use?” she asked.
“What’s the use?” he answered quickly. “But what a funny question! Are
you afraid of my finding myself face to face with Beaumagnan?”
“No: but----”
“Look here, Josine: you do as you like. But I’m going after them.”
Both of them went into the theater and established themselves at the
back of a box. As they did so, in another box, quite close to the
stage, they just had time to perceive before the attendant drew down
the screen, the figures of Beaumagnan and his two acolytes.
A problem presented itself to them. Why should Beaumagnan, a churchman
and apparently a man of rather ascetic habits, be found straying into a
theater of the boulevards, in which they were playing a revue adorned
with a very scantily dressed chorus, which could not be of the least
interest to him? It was quite evident that there must be a reason of
considerable importance and most probably, seeing who were with him,
connected with the affair of the Candlestick, to bring him to such a
place. To discover that reason was to catch up Beaumagnan in a single
stride at the point he had reached in his investigations.
Ralph pointed out these facts to Josephine. She appeared to take no
interest whatever in them; and her indifference made it clear to him
that she had no intention whatever of taking him into partnership and
that she had definitely decided that she did not desire his assistance
in this mysterious affair.
“Very well,” he said to her firmly. “Where there is a lack of trust,
let each go his own way and each for himself. We shall see who collars
the prize.”
On the stage the girls of the chorus were dancing while the chief
characters passed in front of them. The leading lady, a very pretty
girl with very few clothes on, was taking the part of the spirit of a
water-fall and she justified her name by the cascades of false jewels
which streamed all round her. Round her forehead was a bandeau set with
jewels of many colors, and her hair was lighted up with electric lamps.
During the first two acts the screen in front of the stage box remained
down so that no one could see who were its occupants. But, during the
interval after the second act, Ralph who had strolled round to the door
of that box discovered that it was a little way open. He peeped in. The
box was empty. He enquired of the attendant and learned that the three
gentlemen had left the theater in the middle of the first act.
He went back to Josephine and said: “There’s nothing to be done here.
They’ve cleared out.”
At that moment the curtain rose again. The leading lady once more
appeared on the stage. Her hair drawn a little further back made it
easier to see the bandeau which she was still wearing. He saw that it
was a broad gold ribbon, in which were set large jewels _en cabochon_,
of different colors. There were seven of them.
“Seven!” thought Ralph. “That explains why Beaumagnan came here.”
While Josephine was in the ladies’ cloakroom, he learned from one of
the attendants that the leading lady of the revue, Bridget Rousselin,
lived in an old house in Montmartre and came every day with a faithful
old servant by the name of Valentine, to the rehearsal of the revue
they were putting on next.
Next morning at eleven Ralph left the _Nonchalante_. He lunched in
a restaurant in Montmartre, and soon after twelve, strolling down a
steep, winding street, he passed in front of a small narrow house with
a court-yard in front enclosed by a wall, and next door to a house
divided into unfurnished flats. The curtainless windows of the top flat
made it quite clear that it was vacant.
Forthwith, with his usual quickness, he formed one of those plans,
which, directly it was formed, he put into execution almost
mechanically. The situation of the house was uncommonly convenient for
his purpose; and he was delighted to think that in a very short time
he would know something which Josephine did not know and which would
enable him to tease her. At the same time he made up his mind, as a
loyal partner, to give her the benefit of his discoveries.
He strolled up and down with the air of a man who was waiting for
someone. Of a sudden, taking advantage of the fact that the janitor
of the flats was busy mopping the pavement in front of the house, he
slipped behind her back into it, ran up the stairs to the top, forced
the door of the empty flat, opened one of the windows which looked down
on the roof of the house next door, made sure that no one could see
him, and slipped out on to the roof.
It was only a few steps to a half-open dormer window. He climbed
through it into a garret full of broken furniture, from which one
descended to the floor below through a trap-door. He had some
difficulty in raising it a little way noiselessly and looked down on to
the second-floor landing. There was no ladder.
Below, on the first floor, two women were talking. Listening with all
his ears he learned that Bridget Rousselin was lunching in her boudoir,
and that her servant, apparently the only other person in the house,
was dusting her bedroom and dressing-room in the intervals of waiting
on her.
Then Bridget Rousselin called out: “I’ve finished, Valentine. What a
blessing it is that there’s no rehearsal to-day! I’m going back to bed
till I have to start for the theater!”
This day at home rather upset Ralph’s plans, for he had been expecting
to make a thorough search of the house at his ease during her absence
at rehearsal. Nevertheless he did not lose patience; he just waited
for the luck to turn.
Some minutes passed. Bridget was humming some of the music of the new
revue. Then the front-door bell rang.
“That’s odd, Valentine,” she said. “I wasn’t expecting anyone to-day.
Go and see who it is.”
The maid went downstairs. There came the sound of the opening and
shutting of the front door.
She came upstairs again and said: “It’s a gentleman from the
theater--the manager’s secretary. He brought this letter.”
“Thanks. You showed him into the drawing-room?”
“Yes.”
From the clearness with which he heard her voice Ralph gathered that
Bridget had come out on to the first-floor landing. He heard her tear
open the envelope.
Then she said: “That’s funny. The manager wants me to send him the
bandeau I wear in the show, by his secretary. He wants to get it
copied, and he’ll let me have it back at the theater to-night.”
Ralph swore under his breath: “Hang it!” he thought. “That bandeau is
the chief object of my search. Is this manager also on the trail of it?
And is Bridget Rousselin going to send it along to him?”
Her next words set his mind at rest.
“But I can’t do it,” she said. “I’ve already promised those stones.”
“That’s a pity,” said Valentine. “The manager will be annoyed.”
“I can’t help it. I’ve promised to sell them--and for a big price too,”
said the actress.
“Then what am I to say?” asked Valentine.
“I must write to him,” said Bridget.
She went into her boudoir, wrote the note, and gave it to Valentine.
“By the way, do you know this secretary?” she said carelessly. “Have
you seen him at the theater?”
“No, I haven’t. He must be a new one,” said Valentine.
“Tell him to tell the manager how sorry I am, and that I’ll tell him
all about it at the theater to-night.”
Valentine went downstairs again; Bridget went to the piano and did
two or three voice exercises. They must have drowned the noise of the
shutting of the house-door, for Ralph did not hear it. The minutes
passed.
He felt somewhat uncomfortable. This business seemed to him rather
queer--this secretary they did not know, this request for the jewels
looked to him uncommonly like a trap of some sort.
Then he was reassured by the sound of footsteps on the stairs. They
went to the door of the boudoir.
“Valentine,” he said to himself. “There was nothing in my fancies. The
man has gone.”
But of a sudden the playing stopped short in the middle of a run.
Evidently the actress jumped up so suddenly as to upset the piano
stool, for it banged on the floor. She said in an uneasy voice:
“Who are you?... Oh, of course, you’re Monsieur Lenoir’s new
secretary.... But what is it you want?”
A man’s voice answered: “Monsieur Lenoir gave me the strictest
instructions to bring those jewels back with me; and I must insist on
having them.”
“But I have written to him!” exclaimed Bridget in a yet more uneasy
voice.... “My maid must have given you the letter.... Why hasn’t she
come upstairs? Valentine!”
The door of the boudoir was banged violently. Ralph heard the noise of
a struggle and cries of: “Help! Help!” Then silence.
The moment he had grasped the fact that Bridget Rousselin was in
danger, he had tried to open wide the trap-door, noiselessly. But it
stuck; and he lost precious time in forcing it up. Then he dropped on
to the landing, ran down to the first floor and found three doors, all
closed, to choose from.
As chance had it the one he opened was the door of the boudoir: It was
empty and two or three chairs had been knocked over. An inner door led
to the dressing-room. That was empty too. He stepped into the bedroom
whither the actress had fled.
The curtains were drawn. In the dim light he saw a man kneeling over
a woman prone on the carpet, gripping her throat with both hands, and
swearing abominably.
“Hell! You won’t shut your mouth, won’t you? You won’t hand over those
jewels, won’t you? I’ll show you, curse you!”
Ralph flung himself upon him. He loosened his grip on the woman’s
throat and rolled over. Ralph’s head banged against the fireplace with
a violence that dazed him for a moment.
That was unfortunate; and in addition this murderous ruffian was
heavier than he, powerfully built, with muscles of steel. It looked as
if the slender and youthful Ralph had no chance whatever against him.
But there was a sudden groan and the big man rolled over and lay inert,
while Ralph rose lightly to his feet.
He said: “A pretty stroke, wasn’t it, old boy? I got it from the
posthumous instructions of a gentleman named Theophrastus Lupin--from
a chapter which deals with Japanese methods. It transports you to a
better world for a minute or two and renders you as harmless as a lamb.”
Without the loss of a moment he took the curtain cords and bound
together the wrists of his opponent.
He had moved the curtains and was working in a fair light. He turned
the man over to see his face. A sharp cry of amazement burst from his
lips; and he exclaimed:
“Leonard!... Leonard, begad!”
He had never had a really good view of Josephine’s coachman. He had
always seen him crouched on the box of the carriage, with his head
between his shoulders, and so disguising his figure that Ralph believed
him to be almost a hunchback and certainly a weakling. But there was no
mistaking that bony face ending in that gray beard. It was beyond all
doubting Leonard, Josephine’s factotum and right hand man.
He bound his legs together, just to make sure; and then on the carpet
beside him he saw a whistle. He picked it up and was just about to
stick it back in Leonard’s pocket when an idea came to him. He went to
the window and peeped round the edge of the curtain. On the other side
of the street, about twenty yards down it, stood the old carriage.
On the box sat a young man in livery. But inside the carriage there was
surely another confederate. Ralph was sure of it; and now nothing in
the world would have prevented him from carrying the matter through to
the bitter end.
He turned his attention to Bridget, who was moaning faintly, picked her
up, and laid her on the bed. The marks of the ruffian’s fingers were
very red on her throat; but he had been in time to prevent the worst.
She was only suffering from shock and terror. She half-opened her eyes.
He poured some water from the carafe into the tooth-glass, raised her,
and held it to her lips. She swallowed a little, with difficulty. It
seemed to relieve her; and she began to cry.
“Never mind! You’ll be all right presently,” he said gently. “Shut
your eyes and relax. Don’t move till I come back. I’ll relieve you of
the presence of this gentleman. I’ll take him into the next room and
question him. You’re quite safe. I’m a detective; and luckily I was on
his track.”
He was pretty sure that she would keep quiet and give him no trouble.
Probably, in the reaction, she would fall into the profound sleep of
those who have been tortured and badly frightened. He dragged Leonard
into the boudoir and shut the bedroom door. Then he went downstairs.
A glance into the drawing-room showed him Valentine, as he had
expected, in exactly the same condition as he had left Leonard. He
decided that she was best as she was. It left him a freer hand.
“It’s all right, miss,” he said in a reassuring voice. “I’ll loose you
presently. I’m a detective; and the first thing for me to do is to
catch the rest of the gang.”
He went down the passage to the front door. As he had expected, it was
not latched. He opened it an inch or two and looked at the door of the
court-yard. Leonard had left that unlatched also.
Ralph permitted himself a somewhat sardonic smile. Then he went
upstairs, opened the window of the boudoir a little way, and blew the
whistle.
One of two things would happen. Either the whistle would be a warning
to the confederate that things had gone wrong; and she would decamp.
Or it would be a signal that the coast was clear and that she could
join Leonard in the search for the jewels and any other evidence there
was to be found in Bridget Rousselin’s house.
He waited with a very somber air, his eye on the door of the
court-yard. He was extraordinarily disturbed, horrified indeed. It was
one thing to relieve well-to-do persons of objects of luxury, of which
they had no real need, and which they hadn’t the sense to keep--quite
another to be an accomplice in a cold-blooded murder. Surely the woman
he adored would never go to such lengths. As the horror of it grew
clearer and clearer, his pulse quickened in a feverish anguish. Who
would come through the door of the court-yard?
That door opened; _on the threshold stood Josephine Balsamo_!
Ralph gasped; and for the moment his eyes went blind.
Then he was filled with a bitter fury.
Josephine came quietly through the door, as carelessly as if she were
merely paying a call on a friend, and walked across the court-yard. The
moment Leonard whistled, the way was clear; she had only to go to him.
Ralph was furious but quite calm. He was ready to fight this second
adversary as he had fought the first, and conquer her, but with very
different weapons.
He took the further precaution of locking the door of the
dressing-room. Bridget Rousselin could not interrupt them, even if she
found the strength to do so. There came the sound of a light footfall
on the staircase. The door opened and Josephine entered.
Ralph had formed a very just estimate of Josephine’s power of
self-control. But he did expect that the unexpected scene which met her
eyes and the sudden and unexpected sight of him would shake it. Nothing
of the kind.
She stopped short, gazed round the room, took in the trussed-up Leonard
and Ralph’s indignant face in a glance that lasted perhaps a second and
a half.
Then she pushed up her veil and said in the most casual voice: “What
are you looking at me like that for, dear?”
He stared at her with all his eyes; he did not wish to lose a quiver of
her eyelids, or the faintest twitch of her lips. He said slowly:
“Bridget Rousselin has been murdered.”
“Bridget Rousselin--murdered?” she said under her breath.
“Yes. The actress we saw last night, the one who was wearing the
bandeau of jewels. You’re not going to tell me that you don’t know who
she is, for you’re here, in her house, and you had instructed Leonard
to let you know directly he had done the job.”
Her self-control indeed went. With a horror-stricken face and starting
eyes, she cried:
“Leonard?... Leonard?... He has----”
“Yes,” declared Ralph. “He’s murdered Bridget Rousselin. I caught him
in the very act of throttling her.”
Her legs seemed to fail her; she sank trembling on to a chair and
stammered:
“The b-blackguard.... The b-b-blackguard.... It’s impossible!”
And on a rising inflection in which with each word the note of terror
grew clearer and clearer, she cried:
“He’s committed a murder?... A murder?... It’s impossible!... He swore
to me that he would never kill!... He swore it!... I can’t believe it!”
Was she sincere, or was it all comedy? Had Leonard acted in a sudden
access of madness, or in accordance with instructions which bade him
murder if the ruse failed. Formidable questions to which Ralph could
not give the answer.
She raised her head, saw the accusation in his eyes, jerked herself to
her feet and with hands outstretched towards him cried: “Why are you
looking at me like that, Ralph? Oh, you can’t suspect me of a horrible
crime like that! You can’t!... You can’t believe that I knew of it....
That I ordered or permitted such an abominable crime!... Tell me you
don’t!”
Almost brutally he caught her by the shoulder and forced her on to the
chair again. Then, crossing his arms, he took two or three paces up the
room and back; then, catching her again by the shoulder and glaring
into her eyes, he said slowly in the accents of an inexorable accuser
and even enemy:
“Listen to me, Josine. If you don’t, this very instant, make a clean
breast of it and tell me the whole story of this business and all the
secret machinations which complicate it, I’m going to treat you as
my mortal enemy. I’m going to take you out of this house, by force
if I have to, to the nearest police station and denounce you as the
accomplice of Leonard in the murder of Bridget Rousselin. Then you can
get out of it as best you can. Are you going to tell me, or are you
not?”