“Did I not know for a certainty that she was present till midnight at
the party given by Madame de Grandmaison, I should suspect her, by God!”
exclaimed the Intendant, as he paced up and down his private room in
the Palace, angry and perplexed to the uttermost over the mysterious
assassination at Beaumanoir. “What think you, Cadet?”
“I think that proves an alibi,” replied Cadet, stretching himself lazily
in an armchair and smoking with half-shut eyes. There was a cynical,
mocking tone in his voice which seemed to imply that although it proved
an alibi, it did not prove innocence to the satisfaction of the Sieur
Cadet.
“You think more than you say, Cadet. Out with it! Let me hear the worst
of your suspicions. I fancy they chime with mine,” said the Intendant,
in quick reply.
“As the bells of the Cathedral with the bells of the Recollets,” drawled
out Cadet. “I think she did it, Bigot, and you think the same; but I
should not like to be called upon to prove it, nor you either,--not for
the sake of the pretty witch, but for your own.”
“I could prove nothing, Cadet. She was the gayest and most light-hearted
of all the company last night at Madame de Grandmaison's. I have made
the most particular inquiries of Varin and Deschenaux. They needed no
asking, but burst out at once into praise and admiration of her gaiety
and wit. It is certain she was not at Beaumanoir.”
“You often boasted you knew women better than I, and I yielded the point
in regard to Angélique,” replied Cadet, refilling his pipe. “I did not
profess to fathom the depths of that girl, but I thought you knew her.
Egad! she has been too clever for you, Bigot! She has aimed to be the
Lady Intendant, and is in a fair way to succeed! That girl has the
spirit of a war-horse; she would carry any man round the world. I wish
she would carry me. I would rule Versailles in six weeks, with that
woman, Bigot!”
“The same thought has occurred to me, Cadet, and I might have been
entrapped by it had not this cursed affair happened. La Pompadour is a
simpleton beside Angélique des Meloises! My difficulty is to believe her
so mad as to have ventured on this bold deed.”
“'Tis not the boldness, only the uselessness of it, would stop
Angélique!” answered Cadet, shutting one eye with an air of lazy
comfort.
“But the deceitfulness of it, Cadet! A girl like her could not be so
gay last night with such a bloody purpose on her soul. Could she, think
you?”
“Couldn't she? Tut! Deceit is every woman's nature! Her wardrobe is not
complete unless it contains as many lies for her occasions as ribbons
for her adornment!”
“You believe she did it then? What makes you think so, Cadet?” asked
Bigot eagerly, drawing near his companion.
“Why, she and you are the only persons on earth who had an interest in
that girl's death. She to get a dangerous rival out of the way,--you to
hide her from the search-warrants sent out by La Pompadour. You did
not do it, I know: ergo, she did! Can any logic be plainer? That is the
reason I think so, Bigot.”
“But how has it been accomplished, Cadet? Have you any theory? SHE can
not have done it with her own hand.”
“Why, there is only one way that I can see. We know she did not do the
murder herself, therefore she has done it by the hand of another.
Here is proof of a confederate, Bigot,--I picked this up in the secret
chamber.” Cadet drew out of his pocket the fragment of the letter torn
in pieces by La Corriveau. “Is this the handwriting of Angélique?” asked
he.
Bigot seized the scrap of paper, read it, turned it over and scrutinized
it, striving to find resemblances between the writing and that of every
one known to him. His scrutiny was in vain.
“This writing is not Angélique's,” said he. “It is utterly unknown to
me. It is a woman's hand, but certainly not the hand of any woman of my
acquaintance, and I have letters and billets from almost every lady in
Quebec. It is proof of a confederate, however, for listen, Cadet! It
arranges for an interview with Caroline, poor girl! It was thus she was
betrayed to her death. It is torn, but enough remains to make the sense
clear,--listen: 'At the arched door about midnight--if she pleased to
admit her she would learn important matters concerning herself--the
Intendant and the Baron de St. Castin--speedily arrive in the Colony.'
That throws light upon the mystery, Cadet! A woman was to have an
interview with Caroline at midnight! Good God, Cadet! not two hours
before we arrived! And we deferred starting in order that we might rook
the Signeur de Port Neuf! Too late! too late! Oh cursed word that ever
seals our fate when we propose a good deed!” and Bigot felt himself a
man injured and neglected by Providence.
“'Important matters relating to herself,'” repeated Bigot, reading
again the scrap of writing. “'The Intendant and the Baron de St.
Castin--speedily to arrive in the Colony.' No one knew but the sworn
Councillors of the Governor that the Baron de St. Castin was coming out
to the Colony. A woman has done the deed, and she has been informed of
secrets spoken in Council by some Councillor present on that day at the
Castle. Who was he? and who was she?” questioned Bigot, excitedly.
“The argument runs like water down hill, Bigot! but, par Dieu! I would
not have believed that New France contained two women of such mettle as
the one to contrive, the other to execute, a masterpiece of devilment
like that!”
“Since we find another hand in the dish, it may not have been Angélique
after all,” remarked Bigot. “It is hard to believe one so fair and
free-spoken guilty of so dark and damnable a crime.” Bigot would
evidently be glad to find himself in error touching his suspicions.
“Fairest without is often foulest within, Bigot,” answered Cadet,
doggedly. “Open speech in a woman is often an open trap to catch fools!
Angélique des Meloises is free-spoken and open-handed enough to deceive
a conclave of cardinals; but she has the lightest heels in the city.
Would you not like to see her dance a ballet de triomphe on the broad
flagstone I laid over the grave of that poor girl? If you would, you
have only to marry her, and she will give a ball in the secret chamber!”
“Be still, Cadet! I could take you by the throat for suggesting it! But
I will make her prove herself innocent!” exclaimed Bigot, angry at the
cool persistence of Cadet.
“I hope you will not try it to-day, Bigot.” Cadet spoke gravely now.
“Let the dead sleep, and let all sleeping dogs and bitches lie still.
Zounds! we are in greater danger than she is! you cannot stir in this
matter without putting yourself in her power. Angélique has got hold of
the secret of Caroline and of the Baron de St. Castin; what if she clear
herself by accusing you? The King would put you in the Bastile for the
magnificent lie you told the Governor, and La Pompadour would send you
to the Place de Grève when the Baron de St. Castin returned with the
bones of his daughter, dug up in your Château!”
“It is a cursed dilemma!” Bigot fairly writhed with perplexity. “Dark
as the bottomless pit, turn which way we will. Angélique knows too much,
that is clear; it were a charity, if it were a safe thing, to kill her
too, Cadet!”
“Not to be thought of, Bigot; she is too much in every man's eye, and
cannot be stowed away in a secret corner like her poor victim. A dead
silence on every point of this cursed business is our only policy, our
only safety.” Cadet had plenty of common sense in the rough, and Bigot
was able to appreciate it.
The Intendant strode up and down the room, clenching his hands in a
fury. “If I were sure! sure! she did it, I would kill her, by God! such
a damnable cruel deed as this would justify any measure of vengeance!”
exclaimed he, savagely.
“Pshaw! not when it would all rebound upon yourself. Besides, if you
want vengeance, take a man's revenge upon a woman; you can do that!
It will be better than killing her, much more pleasant, and quite as
effectual.”
Bigot looked as Cadet said this and laughed: “You would send her to the
Parc aux cerfs, eh, Cadet? Par Dieu! she would sit on the throne in six
months!”
“No, I do not mean the Parc aux cerfs, but the Château of Beaumanoir.
But you are in too ill humor to joke to-day, Bigot.” Cadet resumed his
pipe with an air of nonchalance.
“I never was in a worse humor in my life, Cadet! I feel that I have a
padlock upon every one of my five senses; and I cannot move hand or foot
in this business.”
“Right, Bigot, do not move hand or foot, eye or tongue, in it. I tell
you the slightest whisper of Caroline's life or death in your house,
reaching the ears of Philibert or La Corne St. Luc, will bring them to
Beaumanoir with warrants to search for her. They will pick the Château
to pieces stone by stone. They will drag Caroline out of her grave, and
the whole country will swear you murdered her, and that I helped you,
and with appearances so strong against us that the mothers who bore us
would not believe in our innocence! Damn the women! The burying of that
girl was the best deed I did for one of the sex in my life, but it will
be the worst if you breath one word of it to Angélique des Meloises, or
to any other person living. I am not ready to lose my head yet, Bigot,
for the sake of any woman, or even for you!”
The Intendant was staggered by the vehemence of Cadet, and impressed by
the force of his remarks. It was hard to sit down quietly and condone
such a crime, but he saw clearly the danger of pushing inquiry in
any direction without turning suspicion upon himself. He boiled with
indignation. He fumed and swore worse than his wont when angry, but
Cadet looked on quietly, smoking his pipe, waiting for the storm to calm
down.
“You were never in a woman's clutches so tight before, Bigot,” continued
Cadet. “If you let La Pompadour suspect one hair of your head in this
matter, she will spin a cart-rope out of it that will drag you to the
Place de Grève.”
“Reason tells me that what you say is true, Cadet,” replied Bigot,
gloomily.
“To be sure; but is not Angélique a clever witch to bind François Bigot
neck and heels in that way, after fairly outwitting and running him
down?”
Cadet's cool comments drove Bigot beside himself. “I will not stand it;
by St. Maur! she shall pay for all this! I, who have caught women all my
life, to be caught by one thus! she shall pay for it!”
“Well, make her pay for it by marrying her!” replied Cadet. “Par Dieu!
I am mistaken if you have not got to marry her in the end! I would marry
her myself, if you do not, only I should be afraid to sleep nights! I
might be put under the floor before morning if she liked another man
better!”
Cadet gave way to a feeling of hilarity at this idea, shaking his sides
so long and heartily that Bigot caught the infection, and joined in with
a burst of sardonic laughter.
Bigot's laughter was soon over. He sat down at the table again, and,
being now calm, considered the whole matter over, point by point, with
Cadet, who, though coarse and unprincipled, was a shrewd counsellor in
difficulties.
It was determined between the two men that nothing whatever should be
said of the assassination. Bigot should continue his gallantries to
Angélique, and avoid all show of suspicion in that quarter. He
should tell her of the disappearance of Caroline, who had gone away
mysteriously as she came, but profess absolute ignorance as to her fate.
Angélique would be equally cautious in alluding to the murder; she would
pretend to accept all his statements as absolute fact. Her tongue, if
not her thoughts, would be sealed up in perpetual silence on that bloody
topic. Bigot must feed her with hopes of marriage, and if necessary set
a day for it, far enough off to cover all the time to be taken up in the
search after Caroline.
“I will never marry her, Cadet!” exclaimed Bigot, “but will make her
regret all her life she did not marry me!”
“Take care, Bigot! It is dangerous playing with fire. You don't half
know Angélique.”
“I mean she shall pull the chestnuts out of the fire for me with her
pretty fingers, until she burn them,” remarked Bigot, gruffly.
“I would not trust her too far! In all seriousness, you have but the
choice of two things, Bigot: marry her or send her to the Convent.”
“I would not do the one, and I could not do the other, Cadet,” was
Bigot's prompt reply to this suggestion.
“Tut! Mère Migeon de la Nativité will respect your lettre de cachet,
and provide a close, comfortable cell for this pretty penitent in the
Ursulines,” said Cadet.
“Not she! Mère Migeon gave me one of her parlor-lectures once, and I
care not for another. Egad, Cadet! she made me the nearest of being
ashamed of François Bigot of any one I ever listened to! Could you have
seen her, with her veil thrown back, her pale face still paler with
indignation, her black eyes looking still blacker beneath the white
fillet upon her forehead, and then her tongue, Cadet! Well, I withdrew
my proposal and felt myself rather cheapened in the presence of Mère
Migeon.”
“Ay, I hear she is a clipper when she gets a sinner by the hair! What
was the proposal you made to her, Bigot?” asked Cadet, smiling as if he
knew.
“Oh, it was not worth a livre to make such a row about! I only proposed
to send a truant damsel to the Convent to repent of MY faults, that was
all! But I could never dispose of Angélique in that way,” continued the
Intendant, with a shrug.
“Egad! she will fool any man faster than he can make a fool of her! But
I would try Mère Migeon, notwithstanding,” replied Cadet. “She is the
only one to break in this wild filly and nail her tongue fast to her
prayers!”
“It is useless trying. They know Angélique too well. She would turn
the Convent out of the windows in the time of a neuvaine. They are all
really afraid of her,” replied Bigot.
“Then you must marry her, or do worse, Bigot. I see nothing else for
it,” was Cadet's reply.
“Well, I will do worse, if worse can be; for marry her I will not!” said
Bigot, stamping his foot upon the floor.
“It is understood, then, Bigot, not a word, a hint, a look is to be
given to Angélique regarding your suspicions of her complicity in this
murder?”
“Yes, it is understood. The secret is like the devil's tontine,--he
catches the last possessor of it.”
“I expect to be the last, then, if I keep in your company, Bigot,”
remarked Cadet.
Cadet having settled this point to his mind, reclined back in his easy
chair and smoked on in silence, while the Intendant kept walking the
floor anxiously, because he saw farther than his companion the shadows
of coming events.
Sometimes he stopped impatiently at the window, beating a tattoo with
his nails on the polished casement as he gazed out upon the beautiful
parterres of autumnal flowers, beginning to shed their petals around the
gardens of the Palace. He looked at them without seeing them. All that
caught his eye was a bare rose-bush, from which he remembered he had
plucked some white roses which he had sent to Caroline to adorn her
oratory; and he thought of her face, more pale and delicate than any
rose of Provence that ever bloomed. His thoughts ran violently in two
parallel streams side by side, neither of them disappearing for a moment
amid the crowd of other affairs that pressed upon his attention,--the
murder of Caroline and the perquisition that was to be made for her in
all quarters of the Colony. His own safety was too deeply involved in
any discovery that might be made respecting her to allow him to drop the
subject out of his thought for a moment.
By imposing absolute silence upon himself in the presence of Angélique,
touching the death of Caroline, he might impose a like silence upon her
whom he could not acquit of the suspicion of having prompted the murder.
But the certainty that there was a confederate in the deed--a woman,
too, judging by the fragment of writing picked up by Cadet--tormented
him with endless conjectures.
Still, he felt, for the present, secure from any discovery on that side;
but how to escape from the sharp inquisition of two men like La Corne
St. Luc and Pierre Philibert? And who knew how far the secret of
Beaumanoir was a secret any longer? It was known to two women, at any
rate; and no woman, in Bigot's estimation of the sex, would long keep a
secret which concerned another and not herself.
“Our greatest danger, Cadet, lies there!” continued the Intendant,
stopping in his walk and turning suddenly to his friend. “La Corne St.
Luc and Pierre Philibert are commissioned by the Governor to search for
that girl. They will not leave a stone unturned, a corner unransacked
in New France. They will find out through the Hurons and my own servants
that a woman has been concealed in Beaumanoir. They will suspect, if
they do not discover who she was. They will not find her on earth,--they
will look for her under the earth. And, by St. Maur! it makes me quake
to think of it, Cadet, for the discovery will be utter ruin! They may
at last dig up her murdered remains in my own Château! As you said, the
Bastile and the Place de Grève would be my portion, and ruin yours and
that of all our associates.”
Cadet held up his pipe as if appealing to Heaven. “It is a cursed reward
for our charitable night's work, Bigot,” said he. “Better you had never
lied about the girl. We could have brazened it out or fought it out with
the Baron de St. Castin or any man in France! That lie will convict us
if found out!”
“Pshaw! the lie was a necessity,” answered Bigot, impatiently. “But who
could have dreamed of its leading us such a dance as it has done! Par
Dieu! I have not often lied except to women, and such lies do not
count! But I had better have stuck to truth in this matter, Cadet. I
acknowledge that now.”
“Especially with La Pompadour! She is a woman. It is dangerous to lie to
her,--at least about other women.”
“Well, Cadet, it is useless blessing the Pope or banning the Devil! We
are in for it, and we must meet La Corne St. Luc and Pierre Philibert as
warily as we can. I have been thinking of making safe ground for us to
stand upon, as the trappers do on the great prairies, by kindling a fire
in front to escape from the fire in the rear!”
“What is that, Bigot? I could fire the Château rather than be tracked
out by La Corne and Philibert,” said Cadet, sitting upright in his
chair.
“What, burn the Château!” answered Bigot. “You are mad, Cadet! No;
but it were well to kindle such a smoke about the eyes of La Corne and
Philibert that they will need to rub them to ease their own pain instead
of looking for poor Caroline.”
“How, Bigot? Will you challenge and fight them? That will not avert
suspicion, but increase it,” remarked Cadet.
“Well, you will see! A man will need as many eyes as Argus to discover
our hands in this business.”
Cadet started, without conjecturing what the Intendant contemplated.
“You will kill the bird that tells tales on us, Bigot,--is that it?”
added he.
“I mean to kill two birds with one stone, Cadet! Hark you; I will tell
you a scheme that will put a stop to these perquisitions by La Corne and
Philibert--the only two men I fear in the Colony--and at the same time
deliver me from the everlasting bark and bite of the Golden Dog!”
Bigot led Cadet to the window, and poured in his ear the burning
passions which were fermenting in his own breast. He propounded a scheme
of deliverance for himself and of crafty vengeance upon the Philiberts
which would turn the thoughts of every one away from the Château of
Beaumanoir and the missing Caroline into a new stream of public and
private troubles, amid the confusion of which he would escape, and his
present dangers be overlooked and forgotten in a great catastrophe that
might upset the Colony, but at any rate it would free Bigot from his
embarrassments and perhaps inaugurate a new reign of public plunder and
the suppression of the whole party of the Honnêtes Gens.