"Such was my thought, indeed."
"Perhaps you were right. If so, they learned all they needed to know."
"Except possibly the precise location of your strong box."
"They may have learned even that."
"How, madame?"
"I don't know; but if they were what you suspect they were, they were
clever people, far more clever than poor provincials like us." She took
a moment for thought. "But I am puzzled by their harping on the subject
of--I think they called him the Lone Wolf. Now why should they do
that?"
Duchemin was constrained to take refuge in another shrug. "Who knows?"
he iterated. "If they were as clever as we assume, doubtless they were
clever enough to have a motive even for that."
"He really existed, this Lone Wolf? He was more than a creature of
fable?"
"Assuredly, madame. For years he was the nightmare and the scourge of
people of wealth in every capital of Europe."
"Why did they call him the Lone Wolf, do you know?"
"I believe some imaginative Parisian journalist fixed that sobriquet on
him, in recognition of the theory upon which, apparently, he operated."
"And that was--?"
"That a criminal, at least a thief, to be successful must be absolutely
anonymous and friendless; in which case nobody can betray him. As
madame probably understands, criminals above a certain level of
intelligence are seldom caught by the police except through the
treachery of accomplices. The Lone Wolf seems to have exercised a fair
amount of ingenuity and prudence in making his coups; and inasmuch as
he had no confederates, not a living soul in his confidence, there was
no one who could sell him to the authorities."
"Still, in the end--?"
"Oh, no, madame. He was never caught. He simply ceased to thieve."
"I wonder why..."
"I believe because he fell in love and considered good faith with the
object of his affections incompatible with a career of crime."
"So he gave up crime. How romantic! And the woman: did she appreciate
the sacrifice?"
"While she lived, yes, madame. Or so they say. Unfortunately, she
died."
"And then--?"
"So far as is known the converted enemy to Society did not backslide;
the Lone Wolf never prowled again."
"An extraordinary story."
"But is not every story that has to do with the workings of the human
soul? What one of us has not buried in him a story quite as strange?
Even you--"
"Monsieur deceives himself. I am simply--what you see."
"But what I see is not simple, but complex and intriguing beyond
expression. A woman of your sort walling herself up in a wilderness,
renouncing the world, renouncing life itself in its very heyday--!"
"But hardly that, monsieur."
"Then I am stupid..."
"I will explain." The sleekly coiffured brown head bent low over hands
that played absently with their jewels. "To a woman of my sort,
monsieur, life is not life without love. I lived once for a little
time, then love was taken out of my life. When my sorrow had spent
itself, I knew that I must find love again if I were to go on living.
What was I to do? I knew that love is not found through seeking. So I
waited..."
"Such philosophy is rare, madame."
"Philosophy? No: I will not call it that. It was knowledge--the heart
wise in its own wisdom, surpassing mine, telling me that if I would but
be patient love would one day seek me out again, wherever I might wait,
and give me once more--life."
She rose and went to the window, paused there, turning back to Duchemin
a face composed but fairer for a deepened flush.
"But this is not writing to my bankers, monsieur," she said in a
changed but steady voice. "I must do that at once if I am to get the
letter in to-day's post."
"If madame will accept the advice of one not without some
experience..."
"What else does monsieur imagine I am doing?"
"Then you will write privately and burn your blotting paper; after
which you will post the letter with your own hands, letting nobody see
the address."
"And when shall I say I will make the journey?"
"As soon as your bankers can send their people to the Château de
Montalais."
"That will be in three days..."
"Or less."
"As soon as your bankers can send their people to the Château de
Montalais."
"That will be in three days..."
"Or less." "But you will not be strong enough to leave us within
another week."
"What has that to do--?"
"This: that I refuse positively to go away while you are our guest,
monsieur. Somebody must watch over you and see that you come to no
harm."
"But madame--!"
"No: I am quite resolved. Monsieur has too rare a genius for getting in
the way of danger. I shall not leave the château before you do. So I
shall set this day week for the date of my journey."
IX
BLIND MAN'S BUFF
In short, Monsieur Duchemin considered convalescence at the Chateau de
Montalais one of the most agreeable of human estates, and counted the
cost of admission thereunto by no means dear; and with all his grousing
(in respect of which he was conscientious, holding it at once a duty
and a perquisite of his disability) he was at heart in no haste
whatever to be discharged as whole and hale. The plain truth is, the
man malingered shamelessly and even took a certain pride in the low
cunning which enabled him to pose on as the impatient patient when he
was so very well content to take his ease, be waited on and catered to,
and listen for the footsteps of Eve de Montalais and the accents of her
delightful voice.
These last he heard not often enough by half. Still, he seldom lacked
company in the long hours when Eve was busy with the petty duties of
her days, and left him lorn. Madame de Sévénié had taken a flattering
fancy to him, and frequently came to gossip beside his bed or chair. He
found her tremendously entertaining, endowed as she was with an
excellent and well-stored memory, a gift of caustic characterization
and a pretty taste in the scandal of her bygone day and generation, as
well as with a mind still active and better informed on the affairs of
to-day than that of many a Parisienne of the haute monde and half her
age.
During the first bedridden week, Georges d'Aubrac visited Duchemin at
least once each day to compare wounds and opinions concerning the
inefficiency of the local gendarmerie. For that body accomplished
nothing toward laying by the heels the authors of the attacks on
d'Aubrac and Duchemin, but (for all Duchemin can say to the contrary)
is still following "clues" with the fruitless diligence of so many
American police detectives on the trail of a bank messenger accused of
stealing bonds.
A decent, likable chap, this d'Aubrac, as reticent as any Englishman
concerning his part in the Great War. Duchemin had to talk round the
subject for days before d'Aubrac confessed that his record in the
French air service had won him the title of Ace; and this only when
Duchemin found out that d'Aubrac was at present, in his civilian
capacity, managing director of an establishment manufacturing
airplanes.
At the end of that week he left to go back to his business; and Louise
de Montalais replaced him at Duchemin's side, where she would sit by
the hour reading aloud to him in a voice as colourless as her unformed
personality. Nevertheless Duchemin was grateful, and with the young
girl as guide for the _nth_ time sailed with d'Artagnan to Newcastle
and rode with him toward Belle Isle, with him frustrated the
machinations of overweening Aramis and yawned over the insufferable
virtues of that most precious prig of all Romance, Raoul, Vicomte de
Bragelonne.
But the third week found Duchemin mending all too rapidly; the time
came too soon when the word "to-morrow" held for him all the dread
significance, he assured himself, that it holds for a condemned man on
the eve of execution.
To-morrow the detectives commissioned by Madame de Montalais's bankers
would arrive. To-morrow Eve would set out on her journey to Paris.
To-morrow André Duchemin must walk forth from the Château de Montalais
and turn his back on all that was most dear to him in life.
On that last day he saw even less of Eve than usual. She was naturally
busy with preparations for her trip, a trifle excited, too; it would be
only the third time she had left the château for as long as overnight
since returning to it after her husband's death. When Duchemin did see
her, she seemed at once exhilarated and subdued, and he thought to
detect in her attitude toward him a trace of apprehensiveness.
She knew, of course; Duchemin at thirty-eight was too well versed in
lore of women to dream he had succeeded in keeping his secret from the
fine intuition of one of thirty. But--he told himself a bit
bitterly--she ought to know him well enough by this time to know more,
that she need not fear he would ever speak his heart to her. The social
gulf that set their lives apart was all too wide to be spanned but by a
miracle of love requited; and he had too much humility and naivété of
soul to presume that such a thing could ever come to pass. And even if
it should, there remained the insuperable barrier of her fortune, in
the face of which the pretensions of a penniless adventurer could only
seem silly....
He was permitted to be about the house in the afternoon and to dine
with Eve and Louise in the draughty, shadow-haunted dining hall. Madame
de Sévénié was indisposed and kept to her room; she suffered from time
to time from an affection of the heart, nothing remarkable in one of
her advanced age and so no excuse for unusual misgivings. But the
presence of the young girl in some measure, and the emotions of the
others in greater, lent the conversation a constraint against which
Duchemin's attempts at levity could not prevail. The talk languished
and revived fitfully only when some indifferent, impersonal topic
offered itself. The weather, for example, enjoyed unwonted vogue. It
happened to be drizzling; Eve was afraid of a rainy morrow. She
confessed to a minor superstition, she did not really like to start a
journey in the rain...
She smoked only one cigarette with Duchemin in the drawing-room after
dinner, then excused herself to wait on Madame de Sévénié and finish
her packing. It was time, too, for Duchemin to remember he was still an
invalid and subject to a régime prescribed by his surgeon: he must go
early to his bed.
"I am sorry, mon ami," the woman said, hesitating after she had left
her chair before the fire; whose play of broken light was, perhaps,
responsible for some of the softness of her eyes as she faced Duchemin
and gave him her hand--"sorry our last evening together must be so
brief. I am in the mood to sit and talk with you for hours to-night..."
"If you could only manage even one, madame!" She shook her head gently,
with a wistful smile. "There will never be another night..."
"I know, I know; and the knowledge makes me very sad. I have enjoyed
knowing you, monsieur, even under such distressing circumstances..."
"My wound? You tempt me to seek another!"
"Don't be absurd." He was still holding her hand, and she made no move
to free it, but seeming forgetful of it altogether, lingered on. "I
shall miss you, monsieur. The château will seem lonely when I return, I
shall feel its loneliness more than I have ever felt it."
"And the world, madame," said Duchemin--"the world into which I must
go--it, too, will seem a lonely place,--a desert, haunted..."
"You will soon forget ... Château de Montalais."
"Forget! when all I shall have will be my memories--!"
"Yes," she said, "we shall both have memories..." And suddenly the
rich, deep voice quoted in English: "'Memories like almighty wine.'"
She offered to disengage her hand, but Duchemin tightened gently the
pressure of his fingers, bowing over it and, as he looked up for her
answer, murmuring: "With permission?" She gave the slightest
inclination of her head. His lips touched her hand for a moment; then
he released it. She went swiftly to the door, faltered, turned.
"We shall see each other in the morning--to say au revoir. With us,
monsieur, it must never be adieu."
She was gone; but she had left Duchemin with a singing heart that would
not let him sleep when he had gone to bed, stared blankly at the last
chapter of Bragelonne for an hour, and put out his candle.
Till long after midnight he tossed restlessly, bedevilled alternately
by melancholy and exhilaration, or lay staring blindly into the
darkness, striving to focus his thoughts upon the abstract, a hopeless
effort; trying to think where to go to-morrow, whither to turn his feet
when the gates of Paradise had closed behind him, and knowing it did
not matter, he did not care, that hereafter one place and another would
be the same to him, so that they were not the place of her abode.
The château was as still as any castle of enchantment; only an old
clock in the drawing room, two floors below, tolled the slow hours; and
through the open windows came the mournful murmur of the river, a voice
of utter desolation in the night.
He heard the clock strike two, and shortly after, in a fit of
exasperation, thinking to discipline his mind with reading, lighted the
candle on the bedside stand, found his book, and fumbled vainly in the
little silver casket beside the candlestick for a cigarette.
Now a sincere smoker can do without smoking for hours on end, as long
as the deprivation is voluntary. But let him be without the wherewithal
to smoke if he have the mind to, and he must procure it instantly
though the heavens fall. It was so then with Duchemin. And what greater
folly could there be than to want a cigarette and do without one when
there were plenty in the drawing-room, to be had for the taking?
He rose, girdled about him his dressing-gown, took up the candlestick,
opened his door. The hallway was as empty and silent as he had expected
to find it. He had no fear of disturbing the household, for his
slippers were of felt and silent and the stairs were of stone and
creakless.
Shielding the candle flame with his hand, and somewhat dazzled by the
light thus cast into his face, he passed the floor on which the three
ladies of the château had each her separate suite of rooms, and gained
the drawing-room as noiselessly as any ghost.
The fire had died down till only embers glowed, faint under films of
ash, like an old anger growing cold with age.
The cigarettes were not where he had expected to find them, near one
end of a certain table. Duchemin put down the candlestick and moved
toward the other end, discovering the box he sought as soon as his back
was turned to the light. In the same breath this last went out.
He stood for a moment transfixed in astonishment. There were no windows
open, no draughts that he could feel, nothing to account for the flame
expiring as it had, suddenly, without one flicker of warning. An insane
thing to happen to one, at such an hour, in such a place...
Involuntarily memory harked back to the night of his first dinner in
the château, when the shadows had danced so weirdly, and the strange
notion had come to him that they were like famished spectres, greedy of
the lights, yearning to spring and snatch and feed upon them, as wolves
might snatch at chops.
A mad fancy...
When he turned hack to relight the candle, it was gone.
At least he must have been mistaken as to the exact spot where he had
placed it. Perplexed, he pawed over all that end of the table. But no
candlestick was there.
He straightened up sharply, and stood quite still, listening. No sound...
His vision spent itself fruitlessly against the blackness, which the
closed window draperies rendered absolute but for those dull, sardonic
eyes of dying embers.
In spite of himself he knew a moment when flesh crawled and the hair
seemed to stir upon the scalp; for Duchemin knew he was not alone;
there was something else in the room with him, something nameless,
stealthy, silent, sinister; having knowledge of him, where he stood and
what he was, while he knew nothing of it, only that it was there,
keeping surveillance over him, itself unseen in its cloak of darkness.
Then with a resolute effort of will he mastered his imagination,
reminding himself that spirits gifted in the matter of moving material
objects such as candlesticks, frequent only the booths of seance
mediums.
Without a sound he stepped back one pace, then two to one side, away
from the table. They were long strides; when he paused he was well away
from the spot where he had stood when the light was extinguished and
where, consequently, a hostile move might be expected to develop.
Otherwise his plight was little bettered; he did not quite know where
he was in relation to the doors and the pieces which furnished the
room. That old-time habit of memorising the arrangement of furniture in
a room immediately on entering it had failed through disuse in course
of years. He was acquainted with the plot of this drawing-room in a
general way but by no means with such accuracy as was needed to serve
him now.
So he waited, straining to cheat that opaque pall of night of one
little hint as to his whereabouts who had removed the light.
Resurrecting another old trick, he measured time by pulse-beats, and
stood unstirring and all but breathless for three full minutes. But
perceptions stimulated to extra sensibility by apprehension of danger
detected nothing. And his hearing was so keen, he told himself, no
breath could have been drawn in that time without his having knowledge
of it. Still, he knew he was not alone. Somewhere in that encompassing
murk an alien and inimical intelligence skulked.
Baffled by powers of patience and immobility that mocked his own, he
moved again, edging toward the entrance-hall, a progress so gradual he
could have sworn it must be imperceptible. Yet he had a feeling, a
suspicion, perhaps merely a fear, that he did not stir a finger without
the other's knowledge.
A hand extended about a foot encountered the back of an upholstered
chair, which he identified by touch. Assuming the chair to be occupying
its usual position, he need only continue in a line parallel with the
line of its back to find the entrance-hall in about six paces.
Within three he stopped dead, as if paralysed by sudden instinctive
perception of that other presence close by.
Whether he had drawn near to it, inch by inch, or whether it, seeing
him about to make good his escape, had crept up on him, he could not
say. He only knew that it was there, within arm's-length, waiting,
tense, prepared, and somehow deadly in its animosity.
Digging the nails deep into the palms of his hands, until the pain
relieved his nervous tension, he waited once more, one minute, two,
three.
But nothing ...
Then very slowly he lifted an arm, and swept it before him right and
left. At one point of the arc, a trifle to his left, his finger-tips
brushed something. He thought he detected a stir in the darkness, a
stifled sound, stepped forward quickly, clawing the air, and caught
between his fingers a wisp of some material, like silk, sheer and
glacé, a portion of some garment.
Simultaneously he heard a smothered cry, of anger or alarm, and the
night seemed to split and be rent into fragments by a thousand shooting
needles of coloured flame.
Smitten brutally on the point of the jaw, his head jerked back, he
reeled and fell against a chair, which went to the floor with a muffled
crash.
X
BUT AS A MUSTARD SEED...
Duchemin woke up in his bed, glare of sunlight in his eyes.
From the latter circumstance he reckoned, rather groggily, it must be
about the middle of the forenoon; for not till about that time did the
sun work round to the windows.
Still heavy with lees of slumber, his wits occupied themselves
sluggishly with questions concerning the enervation that oppressed him,
the reason for his oversleeping, why he had not been called. Then,
reminded that noon was the hour set for Eve's departure, fear lest she
get away without his bon voyage brought him sharply up in a sitting
position.
He groaned aloud and with both hands clutched temples that promised to
split with pain that crashed between them, stroke upon stroke, like
blows of a mighty hammer.
A neatly fastened bandage held in place, above one ear, a wad of cotton
once saturated with arnica, now dry. Duchemin removed these and with
gingerly fingers explored, discovering a noble swelling on the side of
his head, where the cotton had been placed.
Also, his jaw was stiff, and developed a protesting ache whenever he
opened his mouth.
Then Duchemin remembered ... That is to say, he recalled clearly all
that had led up to that vicious blow from out of the darkness which had
found his jaw with such surprising accuracy; and he was visited by one
or two rather indefinite memories of subsequent events.
He remembered labouring up the stairs, half walking, half supported by
the strong arms of the footman, Jean, who was in shirt, trousers and
slippers only, while in front of them moved the shape of Madame de
Montalais en négligée, carrying a lighted candle and constantly looking
back.
Then he had an impression of being lifted into his bed by Jean, and of
having his head and shoulders raised by the same arms some time later,
so that he might drink a draught of some concoction with a pleasant
aromatic taste and odour, in a glass held to his lips by Eve de
Montalais.
And then (Duchemin had a faint smile of appreciation for a mental
parallel to the technique of the cinema) a singularly vivid and
disturbing memory of her face of loveliness, exquisitely tender and
compassionate, bended so near to his, faded away into a dense blank of
sleep ...
Somewhat to his surprise he found the watch on his wrist ticking away
as callously as though its owner had not experienced a prolonged lapse
of consciousness. It told him that Eve would leave the château within
another hour.
He got up hastily, grunting a bit--though his headache was no longer so
acute; or else he was growing accustomed to it--and ringing for the
valet-de-chambre ordered his petit déjeuner. Before this was served he
spent several thrilling minutes under an icy shower and emerged feeling
more on terms with himself and the world.
The valet-de-chambre brought with his tray the announcement that Madame
de Montalais presented her compliments and would be glad to see
monsieur at his convenience in the grand salon. So Duchemin made short
work of his dressing, his café-au-lait and half a roll, and hurried
down to the drawing-room.
Seated in an easy chair, in the tempered light of an awninged window
which stood open on the terrasse, nothing in her pose--she was waiting
quietly, hands folded in her lap--and nothing in her countenance, in
the un-lined brow, the grave, serene eyes, lent any colour to his
apprehensions. And yet in his heart he had known that he would find her
thus, and alone, no matter what had happened....
Her profound reverie disturbed by his approach, she rose quickly,
advancing to meet Duchemin with both hands offered in sympathy.
"My dear friend! You are suffering--?"
He met this with a smiling denial. "Not now; at first, yes; but since
my bath and coffee, I'm as right as a trivet. And you, madame?"
"A little weary, monsieur, otherwise quite well."
She resumed her chair, signing to Duchemin to take one nearby. He drew
it closer before sitting down.
"But madame is not dressed for her journey!"
"No, monsieur. I have postponed it--" a slight pause prefaced one more
word--"indefinitely."
At this confirmation of the fears which had been haunting him, Duchemin
nodded slightly.
"But the men sent here by your bankers--?"
"They have not yet arrived; we may expect them at any moment now."
"I see," said Duchemin thoughtfully; and then--"May I suggest that we
continue our conversation in English. One never knows who may
overhear..."
Her eyebrows lifted a little, but she adopted the suggestion without
other demur.
"The servants?"
He nodded: "Or anybody."
"Then you have guessed--?"
"Broadly speaking, everything, I fancy. Not in any detail, naturally.
But one puts two and two together ... I may as well tell you to begin
with: I was wakeful last night, and finding no cigarettes in my room,
came down here to get some. I left my candle on the table--there. As
soon as my back was turned, somebody took it away and put it out. A few
minutes later, while I was trying to steal out of the room, I ran into
a fist..."