I spoke calmly and even mildly, my fury mastered for the while.
“Dismiss your carriage,” I said, “and come with me. We must pay a visit.”
“Is it necessary that I should accompany you?” he asked; and I new full well what was in his craven mind.
“I can trust to no other companion; go alone I may not; yet, if I do not go, the King will still be alive to-morrow, and our chance will be lost.”
“What is it,” he enquired.
“Treason!” I answered fiercely; “black, dastardly treason. But never fear, I shall be in time to choke it before any harm is done. Come!”
In silence he walked along beside me for some ten minutes, during which he appeared lost in his musings. So lost, that he marked not the way I led him; until, as we entered the Rue de l’Epée, he suddenly lifted up his head.
“Ho there! Eugène, whither are we bound?” he cried, recognising the street.
“But a few steps further,” I answered abruptly, and paced on until we stood before a door, upon which the number “24” was just discernible in the light of a lamp hard by.
“We are arrived,” I said, stopping and turning to face him.
“But this, if I mistake not, is the house of Mademoiselle de Troiscantins.”
“Precisely,” I answered with a laugh, “and it is here that the treason, the damnable treason whereof I spoke, was hatched. The die is cast, most noble cousin; you and that woman have made an Orléaniste of me; I may not go back, for you have duped me too far, therefore I go on. To-night, I set out to join the Duke of Orléans in Lorraine, but before I go, there will be a reckoning.”
I faced him now, and my breath was hot and my eyes ablaze with the fury that possessed me. His jaw fell, and his handsome face grew ashen, as he caught the meaning of my words.
“I do not understand,” he stammered.
“You will understand everything in a few minutes,” I answered derisively, “for we are taught that in death all is made clear. You will understand how you duped me, and how I, in my turn, have duped you to accompany me hither so that justice may be done.”
I laughed, and at the sound he recoiled as if I had struck him.
“You are mistaken,” he gasped, trembling in every limb.
I flung down my hat and cloak, and unsheathed my sword as I advanced upon him.
“Draw! Traitor! Hound! Judas! Draw!” I thundered, flashing my blade before his eyes.
“You are mistaken,” he repeated feebly, shrinking from me.
“What!” I jeered, “Can one so bold to plot be so slow to draw? Is there no manhood in you, that you stand there trembling like one smitten with the ague? Or has the sight of steel struck terror into your woman’s heart?”
He threw back his head at the taunt; then, with a muttered oath, he drew and fell on guard.
Mortdieu! how I toyed with him! The hour was late, and none came that way to interrupt us. For full ten minutes I humoured his blundering swordplay, and mocked him the while with a recitation of his sins, asking him how it felt to die unshriven. He saw his death in my eyes, heard it in my voice, felt it in my wrists. The sweat burst into great beads upon his forehead, and in that ten minutes he suffered twenty agonies.
A fearful shriek burst from his lips; he writhed for a second on my point like a wounded worm; then fell forward, and was dead before I had turned him over.
Seizing him, I dragged him from the middle of the road where we had fought, to the door of Mademoiselle’s house. With his own dagger I pinned a slip of paper to his breast, whereon I had written: “An offering of her dupe, ‘the second Ravaillac,’ to Mademoiselle de Troiscantins.”
Her coach was coming down the street as I completed my revengeful task; so, sheathing my sword and straightening my cloak, I moved swiftly away, leaving that carrion across her doorstep to greet her with its ghastly message.
THE LOCKET
London Magazine, March 1904
“Shall we cut again?” enquired M. de Noailles, with a smile of polite insouciance.
For over an hour already the game had resolved itself into a duel ‘twixt him and me. One by one the others had dropped out to become — some amused and some interested — spectators at the pitiable plucking of a fool. That fool was I. As the hour advanced, Noailles’ lips had closed tighter in their sinister determination. For once that he lost, thrice would he win, and thus the gods of chance made cat and mouse of us, allotting to me the meaner role. Once, when in a frenzy I had doubled the stakes and won the cut, young Labresque, who was a cadet in my regiment, set a restraining hand upon my sleeve.
“Come, M. de Lescure,” he murmured, “let that suffice you; see, the day is breaking.”
The others scowled at him who to-day I know was my only friend about that board.
“For shame!” cried one. “Would you have him pause even as fortune smiles? Let him regain his losses, boy. Come, Lescure, it is the turn of the tide.”
The argument sorted well with my inclinations. Again I doubled; again I cut; but this time — alas! — I lost. Noailles gathered in my gold.
“Again?” he enquired with a smile.
My breath came fast, and the fever of the game drew sweat to my brow, for all that the room was chill with the air of that September morn.
“I have,” said I hoarsely, “a little land by Beaugency. If you are interested — ?”
I paused. His face took on an expression of concern.
“A thousand regrets that it should have gone so far, Lescure—”
“Pish,” I broke in irritably, “it is not that. I have no use for that plot of ground.”
Noailles shuffled the cards.
“At your own price,” said he, setting down the pack.
“Five thousand livres?” I asked impatiently. He inclined his head and cut a seven. A deadly stillness followed. The smile faded from Noailles’ lips. Those about craned their necks to see my cut. With hope I put forth my hand. In despair I let the cards flutter from it. I had turned a six.
“Peste!” he deprecated, raising his eyebrows, “fortune scowls on you! But what will you? Lucky at love, mon ami — you know the adage.”
The onlokers grinned. Our rivalry — which, however, we had not allowed to interfere with our relations — was well known, as was the greater favour wherein I stood with Mademoiselle de Trécillac. There was a sneer in his words that angered me. That night at play he had all but ruined me, and ’twas like to go hard with my suit in consequence.
Hotly — and without warrant — I made answer that the love wherein he held me lucky was the only thing he might not strip me of. A frown darkened for a moment his smooth, almost boyish, face, then it passed, and with a smile and a sigh —
“Helas, I wish I might, Lescure,” said he, “I wish I might. But we waste time. Shall we cut again?”
I shrugged my shoulders.
“For to-night, at least, Noailles, we cut no more. You shall have my note of hand for the Beaugency property.”
“Have you lost heart?” he cried.
“No; but I have lost everything negotiable.”
His fingers drummed absently on the table; his brown eyes met mine; his manner was a strange mixture of eagerness and hesitation.
“May I still suggest a stake?” said he. “I fear I am taking a great liberty, but it is prompted to me by something that has been said. You wear a locket set in diamonds, Lescure.”
My face grew hot with anger. “Would you have me risk such a possession?” I cried.
“But why not?” quoth he suavely, “‘Lucky at love’ you said. Let it be the symbol of your love. Have you no faith in symbols? Do you not think that the love you boast is yours will stand your friend?”
To me just then, a prey to all a gamester’s superstitions, the argument seemed specious. Indeed, methought, since he was powerless to win from me the love of Madeline, so, too, would he prove powerless to win from me the symbol of that love — the locket she had given me. Dolt that I was! Fool t
hat I was! I caught at that fancy. I bethought me of my heavy losses, of my father’s anger when he should hear of it — as hear he must — and of my compulsory withdrawal from Paris and my regiment. I bethought me of how my straitened circumstances must perforce hamper my wooing of Madeline, and the inevitable postponement — or worse — of the marriage I so ardently hoped for. All this I saw, and how by one cut of the cards the whole might be righted. ’Twas as much for love of her as for any other reason, I told myself, that I consented.
“What do you stake against it?” I asked hoarsely.
“All that I have won to-night,” said he, his face alight with eagerness.
“I’ll take that wager, Noailles,” I shouted, rising to my feet.
He rose also, and, bowing for answer, he took the pack and cut a five. With a sigh he replaced the cards, and pushed the pack towards me.
“You were well advised, it seems. Your symbol has indeed stood your friend. But cut — for form’s sake.”
Already tasting victory, I put out my hand and lifted half the pack. Noailles was the first to see the card, and a cry of satisfaction escaped him, despite his wonted courtly coolness. I had turned a deuce. In fascinated horror I gazed upon the card, then my fingers relaxed their hold and the paste-boards fluttered from my grasp, and striking in their fall the table’s legs, were strewn upon the ground around me. Trembling, I sank back into my seat.
“The gods are very good to me to-night, Lescure,” he murmured deprecatingly. “Another time you shall have your revanche.”
With fingers that seemed numb, I drew the locket from my breast. Passionately I snapped the slender chain that held it. For a moment I gazed upon the sweet face that smiled at me from its glittering setting of diamonds, and in that moment the devil prompted trickery to me. My cheeks burned as I conceived the thought, acting upon which I set myself to open the locket.
“What is it you do?” inquired Noailles.
“Eh?” I returned, with an affected unconcern that was pitiably transparent. “I am removing the picture.”
“What?” he exclaimed. And as I looked up I met his glance black with anger.
“We said the locket, did we not, Noailles!” I asked. “There was no mention of the portrait.”
On every face about me sat a smile, here grim, there scornful, there again pitying.
“Ho, ho! my dear Lescure,” laughed he unpleasantly. “But you could not have misunderstood me. Is it likely I should have staked against those diamonds four times their value in moneys and in land? Or again, when we played for your Beaugency property there was no mention of the trees and tenements that stand upon it, yet such there is no question I have won. And so, too, have I won the locket and its portrait.”
I made a vain, a pitiful, a shameful attempt to bluster it.
“Nay, but this is trickery,” I shouted.
“Trickery!” he echoed in a tone that was the forerunner of a challenge.
“Aye, trickery,” I repeated furiously. “What comparison can lie ‘twixt the trees and tenements of the Beaugency estates and the portrait in this locket? Thoes trees and dwellings are an inseparable part of the property; they are immovables, and therefore included in the wager. But not so this picture; it is no more a part of the locket than your clothes, Monsieur, are a part of your person.”
He was white by now, yet he held the reigns of his anger with an iron hand.
“Monsieur de Lescure,” said he in a voice that was forcedly calm. “I will put the matter to these gentlemen, and it shall be as they decide.”
At that I protested that there was naught to be decided; that the matter was clear. Again I spoke of trickery, and artfully I went to work to pick a quarrel with him. My moneys and my lands I had lost, if not without a pang, at least without a murmur. But ere I parted with this portrait I was mad enough, blind enough, to court a quarrel which — to my shame I write it — must have involved the rending of my honour. But those present intervened, and to such purpose that presently with feelings of shame and rage such as a detected and baffled cheat may experience, I was forced to relinquish the portrait of Madeline which in that evil hour I had staked and lost.
With the portrait it seemed to me then that I had also lost the original; that in my last glance at her beloved face I had made my adieux to Madeline herself.
The use to which Noailles meant to put the locket I could not doubt. He would carry it to the lady; tell her how he had come by it, and thus prove overwhelmingly to my undoing how unworthy was I of its possession. With an aching heart I sat back in my chair, a prey to remorse and grief, and not a little shame at the unworthy trick by which I had sought to cheat him of the picture. I heeded not their cold farewells as they trooped out to leave me alone in my chamber with my sorrow and the dawn.
There sat I, my chin on my ruffles, amid the disorder that told of that night’s play, for some three hours or more. I sat in a strange, waking sleep; my mind active in its poignant grief, my limbs benumbed and powerless.
From that stupor I was at last aroused by my servant, Duboscq, with a letter which had just been brought by a messenger from M. de Sartines.
“Ciel!” I cried, springing up, “what o’clock is it?”
“It has just gone nine, monsieur.”
The note proved to be a brief, peremptory summons to the presence of the Lieutenant-General of Police. With the bitter reflection that unless my father should prove singularly lenient, forgiving and generous, I should soon cease to be troubled with such commands, I went to change my wig and my apparel, and remove, as far as possible, the traces of the night’s sleeplessness from my countenance.
By ten o’clock I stood before M. de Sartines. His impassive, owl-like face, with its wide-set, observant eyes and beaky nose, gave no sign of the impatience with which he had awaited my coming, and which his words betrayed.
“I have been waiting for you, M. de Lescure.”
I made my excuses, ill at ease beneath his inscrutable stare.
“You are looking pale, Lieutenant,” he said. “I propose to send you for a ride into the country that will restore the colour to your cheeks. I am informed,” he continued, “that M. de Noailles left Paris by the barrière d’Enfer two hours ago.”
I started, whereat the faintest of smiles parted his thin lips.
“A curious coincidence, is it not, that the matter in which I require your services should concern him? M. de Noailles has mixed himself in affairs that he had been well advised to have avoided. His arrest in Paris was fraught with the risk of publicity, and his uncle, the Duke of St. Simon, might have given us trouble. Well, he has left Paris, and now is our opportunity. Two hours ago I requested His Majesty’s permission to employ the most intelligent and discreet officer in his Guards on a business of the greatest delicacy.”
I bowed amazed, and hopeful already that herein I might find a way to mend the night’s disaster.
“My choice, M. de Lescure, fell upon you; not only because I know you to be possessed of these qualities, but also because I think that in this matter you may have interests of your own to serve, which will increase your diligence.”
Amazing indeed were the powers that this man wielded by virtue of his network of espionage.
“M. de Noailles,” he pursued, “took the road to Orleans. Have you an idea whither he has gone?”
The chateau de Trécillac was situated in Berri some fifteen miles south of La Chatre. That that was his destination I did not for a moment doubt.
“I think I know, monsieur,” I replied.
“Good. You will take six men and you will straightway set out to follow and overtake him. Here, M. de Lescure, is a letter of cachet commanding the Governor of the Bastille to receive and hold at His Majesty’s pleasure the person of Stanislas de Noailles. But—” he paused significantly. “I do not wish — His Majesty does not wish — M. de Noailles to be brought to Paris.”
I was bewildered.
“We should much prefer that you induce him to p
ursue his journey south as far as Spain, and that in awe of the imprisonment awaiting him he shall keep out of France for a year or two.”
“You mean that I am to allow him to escape!”
“No doubt,” — and Sartines smiled— “you will find a way, armed with this.” And he placed the letter of cachet in my hand. “But should you fail, should Noailles be deaf to all inducements, and refuse to quit France, then bring him here as quietly as may be. In a word, we wish him to disappear. We desire his removal, but do not wish to be called to account for it to St. Simon and his noisy supporters. You understand?”
I left M. de Sartines’ presence with an elation as great as had been the despondency in which I had answered his summons. I saw a clear way to execute my commission in accordance with the King’s desires and simultaneously serve my own interests.
Speed was of the first importance, and I so well contrived that within an hour of my interview with the Lieutenant-General I was riding down the Rue d’Enfer at the head of a troop of six well-mounted mousquetaires, and so on to the Orleans road. Neither ourselves nor our horses did we spare, and with the magic words of “In the King’s name,” we levied frequent relays along the road. An hour after nightfall we reached Artenay, where our exhausted condition compelled a halt for the night. Confident that we should overtake Noailles on the morrow, I slept tranquil, and cradled by hope. But at Orleans, where we stopped next day, I learnt at the Hotel de l’Epée that a gentleman answering the description of Noailles had arrived there the evening before on horseback, but that hiring a berline he had pushed on, clearly intending to travel all night. The news dismayed me. If Noailles pursued this method of travelling by day in the saddle, and yet again by night resting in a coach, my chance of coming up with him ere he reached Trécillac was indeed slender.
Scarce giving my men pause, I ordered them back to their saddles, and not until we rode into La Motte Beuvron, on horses dropping with exhaustion, did I allow them to draw reign again. That night we lay at Vierzon, and when on the morning of the third day I roused my mousquetaires ar six o’clock, I was greeted with more than one murmur. But deaf to complaints I urged them on. Myself I seemed in my impatience impervious to fatigue. A fever at once consumed and sustained me. We dined at Chateauroux, and crossing the Cher pushed on towards La Chatre. In Berri at last, our journey’s end was in sight. But with every hour of it my anxiety increased. Of de Noailles I could gain no news on the road, save at Chateauroux where the host of the “Pâon” had told me that a gentleman such as I described had arrived there in a berline the morning before. At that my heart sank. If he was a day in front of us now that the goal of our journey was so near I might abandon all hope of coming up with him this side of Trécillac, and although I might arrive in time to execute the royal commission, I should be overlate to serve my own purpose.
Collected Works of Rafael Sabatini Page 495
