He swung round with that, crossed to the press, turned the key, and threw open the double doors, revealing a safe immediately behind them. He knelt down to examine the lock. Then from one of his pockets he took a chamois-skin bundle. He unrolled it and placed it on the floor beside him, displaying an array of bright steel implements. From another pocket he took a bunch of skeleton keys, and proceeded to make a selection.
For a moment, Elphinstone stood watching the man’s cool, expert address in amazement. At last he roused himself, shuddered again as his eye fell upon that thing on the floor, and he sidled away towards the door.
“I think I’ll be going,” he said. With his hand on the knob he checked. “Someone may have seen me come in, and may see me going out again.”
“That’ll be all right,” said the burglar, without turning. “They’ll know nothing about this until morning.” By a jerk of the thumb over his shoulder he indicated the body. “And it’ll look like burglary by then. It’ll look uncommonly like burglary by the time I’m through. You needn’t make a secret of having visited him. No one can say that this didn’t happen after you had left. It will certainly look like it. You’re quite safe. Good night!”
“Ah!” said Elphinstone, and on that he went out.
To his terrified, conscience-stricken imagination the night seemed alive with watching eyes. He dared not shut the front door of that house lest the bang should draw attention to his departure. Leaving it ajar, he slunk fearfully away, and as he went his panic so grew upon him that by the time he had turned the corner into Piccadilly he was persuaded that by leaving as he had done he had determined his own doom, walked into some trap unperceived by himself but quite clear to that incredibly cool burglar whom he had left behind. Already he saw himself arraigned and sentenced for the murder of Kauffmann. A sick giddiness of terror overtook him; his teeth chattered and his legs so trembled that he was scarcely able to walk. And then suddenly, upon the utter stillness of the night, rang a loud metallic sound that brought him shuddering to a standstill. It was the ring of a police inspector’s baton, striking the pavement to call the constable of the beat.
For a moment Elphinstone’s disordered mind connected the summons with himself and the thing he had left behind him. Then inspiration flashed upon his mind. There was a clear course that by definitely fastening the guilt elsewhere would make him absolutely safe. That burglar must be caught in the act by the police.
He ran forward in the direction whence the sound had reached him, and a moment later he was breathlessly delivering himself to a stalwart inspector.
“...Over there, in Park Gardens,” he heard himself saying, “a house is being burgled. I saw a man entering a window from the balcony over the porch.”
Two constables joined them as he was speaking. There was a brief exchange of question and answer, and then the four of them went back together at the double. Elphinstone pointed out the house, and the inspector was intrigued to find the door ajar.
“Looks as if we were too late already,” he commented, and ordering his men to go up with Elphinstone, himself remained there to keep an eye upon the street.
They went softly upstairs to the study, burst into it and surprised the burglar still at his work. The safe was standing open, and there was a litter of its contents on the floor; among these were half-a-dozen small showcases containing the collection of jewels of which Kauffmann had been so proud. One of the constables shouted to the inspector below before the pair of them sprang at the burglar and overpowered him. Even as they did so, and the man offered no resistance, Elphinstone moving round the table almost fell over the professor’s body.
The policemen heard his outcry; they saw him reel back, appalled. He was really acting very well.
“Look here!” he called to them, and dropped on his knees beside the dead man. “Lord! He’s dead! Dead!” He looked up at them blankly. “We’re too late,” he said.
“We’ve got the murderer, anyhow,” he was gruffly answered by one of the constables, who, leaving the handcuffed man in the care of his colleague, came round himself to view the body at closer quarters.
Elphinstone looked at the burglar, and the burglar’s eyes met the glance. The fellow appeared to have lost none of his cool masterfulness and none of his cynicism, for as his eyes met Elphinstone’s, his lip curled in contempt of the fellow who had made him a defenceless scapegoat.
“I had the idea,” he said without resentment, “that this was what you would do.”
And then the inspector came in. “What’s this?” he asked as he entered.
“Murder,” cried Elphinstone stridently, “that’s what it is — robbery and murder. And there’s the murderer. Caught absolutely red-handed. Caught in the very act.”
“In the act of burgling — not murdering,” was all the prisoner said, quite gently.
The inspector stooped over the body. He met the eye of the constable who had been making an examination, and the subordinate nodded with ominous eloquence.
“A clear case,” said the inspector. “Fetch him along, and...”
The inspector looked full at the burglar, and quite suddenly he checked, stiffened, and stood to attention.
“Beg pardon, sir,” said he with a quite extraordinary deference. “Didn’t know as how it was you. What’s this, sir?” indicating the body. “Had an accident?”
“No. It’s murder all right as that fellow says, and he should know, for he’s the murderer. It was he who killed Professor Kauffmann. I saw the whole thing from behind those curtains. I gave him his chance to get away. Very wrong of me, of course; but I didn’t want any publicity on my own methods. Besides,” he added slyly, “I thought it very likely he would come back with the police, and so save me all trouble. He would naturally imagine that a burglar could have nothing to say in his own defence.”
“I see, Mr. Scott-Drummond. Very good sir,” was the inspector’s respectful answer, and he came forward with quick concern to remove the handcuffs from the prisoner.
It was then that Elphinstone roused himself at last from his horrified amazement.
“Scott-Drummond! Scott-Drummond!” he repeated, foolishly.
The burglar stooped to pick up a slender case of japanned tin, which he had dropped when the constables seized him. The lid had been wrenched off and the edges of a sheaf of blue tracing papers protruded.
“We had good reason,” he said, “to suspect Professor Kauffmann of being an agent of the German Government, and I came to get hold of evidence. I’ve found what I was looking for — more even than I expected — so I’ll be going.”
He glanced across at the stricken Elphinstone standing limply between the two constables.
“You’d better take that fellow to Vine Street,” he said quietly. “I’ll forward my report. Good night, inspector.”
OUT OF THE DICE BOX
Royal Magazine, October 1900
The dice rattled merrily upon the table, and the two men bent over to watch the issue of the throw, their faces white with eagerness.
At last the rattle ceased — it had been one of those impetuous, half-angry throws which send the dice rolling across the board — the cubes came to a standstill, and with bated breath the men counted the fateful black dots. Then with a half-stifled oath, Stanislas de Gouville — the younger player — sank back into his chair. The muscles of his livid face were contracted for a moment as though he had been beset by physical pain — for a moment and no more. He had been a gamester too long not to have learnt how to lose like a gentleman, with smiling countenance, even though — as in the present instance — the loss might be total, irreparable and pauperising.
It was with a smile — albeit a ghastly one — that he turned again to his companion.
“I pray you forget my momentary excitement,” he said wearily. “It was unworthy of me; but what would you, my dear La Fosse? I am like Francis the First after the battle of Pavia — I have lost all save honour.”
La Fosse wore a look of p
olite contrition. There is a weighty responsibility in having diced every night for a month with a man, and in having during that time won first his money, then — steadily, yard by yard and acre by acre — the land of his estate, and, finally, his very château with all the treasures it contains. It is, perchance, a thing to be merry at, but decency forbids this mirth to be indulged in the presence of the vanquished. And so, albeit happy enough at heart, La Fosse’s breeding compelled him to look glum and pained. He was anxious to quit Gouville’s society; but here again politeness interfered, for the house was his, and he might not order Gouville to leave.
Stanislas de Gouville, on the other hand, showed scant eagerness to be gone, He sat in his chair, toying listlessly with the dice-box, which he had not relinquished since his last disastrous throw, and wondering vaguely how he might live henceforth — or whether he would live at all. He thought too — and this was the bitterest thought that could beset him — of the beautiful and queenly Mademoiselle de Grandcourt, and of how he must now abandon all hope of ever winning her for his wife.
He tilted the dice-box upwards, and gazed for a moment into it with vacant eye; then flinging the cursed thing that had wrought his ruin, on to the table, he gave vent to a mirthless laugh.
“La Fosse,” he cried in a voice that was curiously playful, “has your good fortune made you dumb? St. Gris, but you are the dullest fellow I ever sat with.”
“What would you?” deprecated La Fosse with a shrug.
“What would I? I would see you merry. In Heaven’s name, let us have more Armagnac. That bottle has stood empty for the last half-hour.”
La Fosse mumbled an apology for his abstraction, and more wine was brought, of which he drank half a goblet. Gouville finished the bottle quietly, unconsciously, and babbling away at scraps of court gossip the while. And gradually as he drank, the ice of misery that had gathered round his heart was thawed, and he became again the merry, reckless Stanislas to whom it was said, belonged the wittiest tongue and sharpest sword at the court of Louis XIV.
Bottle followed bottle, and at last, as midnight was striking from the belfry of St. Jacques, Gouville staggered to his feet, and passing his hand across his forehead mumbled something about having drunk over-much, As he rose, André de La Fosse, who had sat silent and pensive for the last quarter of an hour, rose also.
“Let me express my regret, Stanislas,” he murmured not unkindly, “at the scurvy treatment you have suffered at the hands of fortune. Come, mon ami, better luck next time!”
Stanislas gazed vacantly round the richly furnished room, then laughed.
“Too late, La Fosse, too late,” he answered. “There will be no next time. This,” he added, taking up his sword from a chair, and holding it aloft by the baldrick— “is my last and only possession. It is the only piece of value saved from the wreck of my fortunes, and, I take it, La Fosse,” he concluded flippantly, “that you are not in want of a rapier.”
La Fosse answered nothing for a moment. Then with a quick exclamation, such as escapes a man who is suddenly smitten by a great idea —
“God knows I am!” he cried. “I am in want of a rapier — of your rapier, Stanislas.”
Gouville stared at him for a moment, incredulous.
“Then, by the Mass, there it is,” and he dropped it with a clatter on the table. “How much will you stake against it? Say fifty pistoles — the hilt alone is worth as much— ’twas chiselled by Le Cannu.”
La Fosse went white to the lips.
“Not fifty pistoles, but fifty thousand. Nay more — I’ll stake everything that I have won from you during the past month. Every acre of your estate in Normandy will I lay against that sword of yours on a single throw.”
Stanislas drew his hand across his brow, as if to brush aside some unseen mist that clogged his understanding, and stared with drunken solemnity at his companion.
“And yet, La Fosse,” he said in a puzzled tone, “it did not seem to me that you drank over much to-night. But perchance I did not notice.”
“Oh, I’m sober enough, Gouville, never fear.”
“You are, eh? Then, by my life, I must be more drunk than I had thought. Did you say something just now about dicing for my sword?”
In a voice that shook with excitement, La Fosse repeated his preposterous offer.
“Perdition take me if I understand how a sword can be of such value to you.”
“Not a sword, Stanislas, but your sword. Your sword with your unerring arm and brain to guide it.”
“Peste! I understand. You have an enemy.”
La Fosse nodded.
“Well — you wear a sword yourself.”
“Aye, but a useless one in this matter. Sit down and listen to me,” he cried excitedly. “To begin with I am in love.”
“You are wasting words, La Fosse. It goes without saying, that in a case of this character there must be a woman. And wherever there is a woman it is a forgone conclusion that you love her. Your susceptibilities are proverbial, mon cher.”
“Possibly,” said La Fosse — too eager now to entertain resentment. “But the present affair is no jest. It is my intention to make Mademoiselle — er — the lady in question, my wife. Unfortunately, that accursed bully, the Marquis de Belcourt, is of a like mind touching the same lady, and to gain his ends he will, if necessary, have recourse to violence. Would you credit it de Gouville, that here in this very room not a fortnight ago he had the effrontery to threaten me that if I ever dared to wed her, he would send me a challenge before I left the altar?”
“What was your answer?”
“I vouchsafed him none. I ordered him from the house.”
“That was well done. And now?”
“Until to-night it was my intention to disregard the threat, and, should my suit prosper — as indeed I have good reason to believe it will — to marry the lady, albeit I might leave her a widow before I took her home. I put myself in the hands of Mathurin, the fencing master; he did his best for me, but it is of no avail; I am a clumsy fool with a rapier, whilst Belcourt is with one exception the best swordsman in Paris.”
“That one exception?”
“Yourself,” he answered, eying the slender, dissipated, and almost effeminate-looking young man before him. “Ah, Gouville,” he went on hurriedly, “I am ashamed to crave your aid in a matter which a gentleman should settle for himself. But life is sweet — at least, it will be sweet if she is kind. You tempted me to-night when you dangled your sword in the air. The temptation has proved too much for me. I offer to stake the fortune I have won from you against this service. Nay more, Gouville, I will do this: I will set the Gouville estates against your sword. If you win, your fortune is restored to you and the matter is ended so far as it concerns you. If you lose, I claim your services to pick a quarrel with Belcourt and rid me of him, and I will give you back your estate so soon as you have fulfilled that part of the bargain. Whichever way the dice fall out they will set you in the position you have lost. Allons, Gouville, accept!”
La Fosse’s accents had well nigh become a whine, and as he stopped, he held out his hands supplicatingly. But Gouville was irresponsive.
“What if by luck or skill Belcourt proves master, and runs me through?” he enquired coldly.
“I’ll take the risk of that.”
“Vraiement! it seems to me that I shall take the risk of that. Tell me, La Fosse,” he added, “why should I not use the sword you covet, against you now? I might choose to be insulted by your proposal, and kill you for it on the spot. What then, my friend? Who would there be to say that I had ever lost the Normandy estates? Tell me; what is to impede me from doing this?”
“You are a man of honour.”
“You acknowledge it, La Fosse, and yet you ask me to do the work of a common bravo? Bah!” he cried, staggering once more from his chair. “Where are the dice? You are taking an infernal advantage of me because I am drunk. But it had best be done now, for there would be no excuse for me were I sober. T
he dice, man, pass the dice!”
La Fosse obeyed him in silence, and with trembling fingers gathered the cubes into the box and handed it to his companion.
“St. Gris, have you got the palsy, La Fosse? Here goes, and may the devil help me, for he is of a certainty in the business.”
He threw quick and carelessly.
“There,” he cried, surveying the three aces with a scowl, “I knew it, Did you ever see ill-luck cling more fondly to a man? Do not give yourself the trouble of throwing, La Fosse. It is not worth the time you’ll waste on it. Be good enough to pass me my hat and call your servant to light me down the stairs. Good-night, La Fosse,” he babbled on. “I am a rich man again, but Pardieu, you have the best of the bargain. Belcourt had better make his peace with Mother Church; he’ll want a shrift presently. Good-night!”
As Gouville walked home he was far from happy with himself. Cloak it as he would, the fact remained that he had accepted a bravo’s task. There was a moment when he was on the point of going back to tell La Fosse that he preferred to starve in honour than to thrive with the stain of an unclean action on his escutcheon. What would Madeleine de Grandcourt say if ever she knew? But on the other hand, how could he press his suit if he were a beggar?
The thought decided him. He must pursue the road upon which Fortune and his friend, La Fosse, had thrust him that night.
Still, during the days that followed, he was loth to bring matters to an issue, and did little towards seeking a quarrel with Belcourt. Most of his time was spent in the Louvre, and — as often as she would tolerate it — at Mademoiselle de Grandcourt’s side. But his wooing wore not a favourable aspect. Did he grow serious, Mademoiselle’s rippling laugh would mock him. Did he wax ardent, did he attempt to speak of what was in his heart, Mademoiselle’s cold glance and curling lip would freeze him into silence.
There were moments when this woman would so sting his spirit with a cruel word or glance that he wondered why he did not hate her. How often did he not register the vow to see her no more? And yet next day would find him at her side again.
Collected Works of Rafael Sabatini Page 480
