III
Thrice during the next twenty-four hours Cleek, who seemed to havebecome so attached to the mongrel dog that he kept it under his armcontinually, had reason to leave the house, and thrice was he seized bymadame's henchmen, bundled unceremoniously into a convenient room, andsearched to the very skin before he was suffered to pass beyond thethreshold. And if so much as a pin had been hidden upon his person, itmust have been discovered.
"You see, monsieur, how hopeless it is!" said the Count despairfully."One dare not rebel: one dare not lift a finger, or the woman speaks andhis Majesty's ruin falls. Oh, the madness of that boast of yours! Onlyanother twenty-four hours--only another day--and then God help hisMajesty!"
"God has helped him a great deal better than he deserves, Count,"replied Cleek. "By to-morrow night at ten o'clock be in the square ofthe Aquisola, please. Bring with you the passports of madame and hercompanions, also a detachment of the Royal Guard, and his Majesty'scheque for the reward I am to receive."
"Monsieur! You really hope to get the things? You really do?"
"Oh, I do more than 'hope,' Count--I have succeeded. I knew last nightwhere both pearl and letter were. To-morrow night--ah, well, letto-morrow tell its own tale. Only be in the square at the hour Imention, and when I lift a lighted candle and pass it across the salonwindow, send the guard here with the passports. Let them remainoutside--within sight, but not within range of hearing what is said anddone. You are alone to enter--remember that."
"To receive the jewel and the letter?" eagerly. "Or, at least, to haveyou point out the hiding-place of them?"
"No; we should be shot down like dogs if I undertook a mad thing likethat."
"Then, monsieur, how are we to seize them? How get them into ourpossession, his Majesty and I?"
"From my hand, Count; this hand which held them both before I went tobed last night."
"Monsieur!" The Count fell back from him as if from some supernaturalpresence. "You found them? You held them? You took possession of themlast night? How did you get them out of the house?"
"I have not done so yet."
"But can you? Oh, monsieur, wizard though you are, can you get them pasther guards? Can you, monsieur--can you?"
"Watch for the light at the window, Count. It will not be waved unlessit is safe for you to come and the pearl is already out of the house."
"And the letter, monsieur--the damning letter?"
Cleek smiled one of his strange, inscrutable smiles.
"Ask me that to-morrow, Count," he said. "You shall hear something, youand madame, that will surprise you both," then twisted round on his heeland walked hurriedly away.
And all that day and all that night he danced attendance upon madame,and sang to her, and handed her bedroom candle to her as he had done thenight before, and gave back jest for jest and returned her merrybadinage in kind.
Nor did he change in that when the fateful to-morrow came. From morningto night he was at her side, at her beck and call, doing nothing thatwas different from the doings of yesterday, save that at evening helocked the mongrel dog up in his room instead of carrying him about. Andthe dog, feeling its loneliness, or, possibly, famishing--for he hadgiven it not a morsel of food since he found it--howled and howled untilthe din became unbearable.
"Monsieur, I wish you would silence that beast or else feed it," saidmadame pettishly. "The howling of the wretched thing gets on my nerves.Give it some food for pity's sake."
"Not I," said Cleek. "Do you remember what I said, madame? I am gettingit hungry enough to eat one--or perhaps all--of Clopin's wretched littleparakeets."
"You think they have to do with the hiding of the paper or the pearl,cher ami? Eh?"
"I am sure of it. He would not carry the beastly little things about fornothing."
"Ah, you are clever--you are very, very clever, monsieur," she madeanswer, with a laugh. "But he must begin his bird-eating quickly, thatnuisance-dog, or it will be too late. See, it is already half-past nine;I retire to my bed in another hour and a half, as always, and then yourlast hope he is gone--z-zic! like that; for it will be the end of thesecond day, monsieur, and your promise not yet kept. Pestilence,monsieur," with a little outburst of temper, "do stop the little beasthis howl. It is unbearable! I would you to sing to me like last night,but the noise of the dog is maddening."
"Oh, if it annoys you like that, madame," said Cleek, "I'll take himround to the stable and tie him up there, so we may have the songundisturbed. Your men will not want to search me of course, when I ammerely popping out and popping in again like that, I am sure?"
Nevertheless they did, for although they had heard and did not stir whenhe left the room and ran up for the dog, when he came down with it underhis arm and made to leave the house, he was pounced upon, dragged intoan adjoining apartment by half a dozen burly fellows, stripped to thebuff, and searched, as the workers in a diamond mine are searched,before they suffered him to leave the house. There was neither a sign ofa pearl nor a scrap of a letter to be found upon him--they made sure ofthat before they let him go.
"An enterprising lot, those lackeys of yours, madame," he said, when hereturned from tying the dog up in the stable and rejoined her in thesalon. "It will be an added pleasure to get the better of them, I canassure you."
"Oui! if you can!" she answered, with a mocking laugh. "Clopin, cherami, your poor little parakeets are safe for the night--unless monsieurgrows desperate and eats them for himself."
"Even that, if it were necessary to get the pearl, madame," said Cleek,with the utmost sang-froid. "Faugh!" looking at his watch, "a goodtwenty minutes wasted by the zealousness of those idiotic searchers ofyours. Ten minutes to ten! Just time for one brief song. Let us make haywhile the sun lasts, madame, for it goes down suddenly in Mauravania;and for some of us--it never comes up again!" Then, throwing himselfupon the piano-seat, he ran his fingers across the keys and broke intothe stately measures of the national anthem. And, of a sudden, while thesong was yet in progress, the clock in the corridor jingled its musicalchimes and struck the first note of the hour.
He jumped to his feet and lifted both hands above his head.
"Mauravania!" he cried. "Oh, Mauravania! For you! For you!" Then jumpedto the mantelpiece, and catching up a lighted candle, flashed it twiceacross the window's width, and broke again into the national hymn.
"Monsieur," cried out madame, "monsieur, what is the meaning of that?Have you lost your wits? You give a signal! For what? To whom?"
"To the guards of Mauravania's king, madame, in honour of his safeescape from you!" he made reply; then twitched back the window curtainsuntil the whole expanse of glass was bared. "Look! do you see them--doyou, madame? His Majesty of Mauravania sends Madame Tcharnovetski acommand to leave his kingdom, since he no longer has cause to fear awasp whose sting has been plucked out."
Her swift glance flashed to the fireplace, then to the corner whereClopin still sat with his jabbering parakeets, then flashed back toCleek, and--she laughed in his face.
"I think not, monsieur," she said, with a swaggering air. "Truly, Ithink not, my excellent friend."
"What a pity you only think so, madame! As for me--Ah, welcome, Count,welcome a thousand times. The paper, my friend; you have brought it?Good! Give it to me. Madame, your passport--yours and your associates'.You leave Mauravania by the midnight train, and you have but little timeto pack your effects. Your passport, madame, and--your bedroom candle.Oh, yes, the paper is still round it--see!" slipping off a sheet of notepaper that was wrapped round the full length of the candle from top tobottom, "but if you will examine it, madame, you will find it is blank.I burned the real letter the night before last when I put this in itsplace."
"You what?" she snapped; then caught the tube-shaped covering he hadstripped from the candle, uncurled it, and--screamed.
"Blank, madame, quite blank, you see," said Cleek serenely. "For one soclever in other things, you should have been more careful. A littlepinch of powder in the punch at dinner-t
ime--just that--and on the firstnight, too! It was so easy afterward to get into your room, remove thereal paper, and wrap the candle in a blank piece while you slept."
"You--you dog!" she snapped out viciously. "You drugged me?"
"Yes, madame; you and the one-eyed man as well! Oh, don't exciteyourself--don't pull at the poor wretch like that. The glass eye willcome out quite easily, but--I assure you there is only a small lump ofbeeswax in the socket now. I removed the Rainbow Pearl from poorMonsieur Clopin's blind eye ten minutes after I burnt the letter,madame, and--it passed out of this house to-night! A clever idea to pickup a one-eyed pauper, madame, and hide the pearl in the empty socket ofthe lost eye, but--it was too bad, you had to supply a glass eye to keepit in, after the lid and the socket had withered and shrunk from so manyyears of emptiness. It worried the poor man, madame; he was alwaysfeeling it, always afraid that the lump behind would force it out; and,what is an added misfortune for your plans, the glass shell did notallow you to see the change when the pearl vanished and the bit ofbeeswax took its place. Madame Tcharnovetski, your passport. I knowenough of the King of Mauravania to be sure that your life will not besafe if you are not past the frontier before daybreak!"
* * * * *
"Monsieur le comte--no! I thank you, but I cannot wait to be presentedto his Majesty, for I, too, leave Mauravania to-night, and, like Madameyonder, return to other and more promising fields," said Cleek, an hourlater, as he stood on the terrace of the Villa Irma and watched the slowprogress down the moonlit avenue of the carriage which was bearingMadame Tcharnovetski and her effects to the railway station. "Give methe cheque, please; I have earned that, and--there is good use for it. Ithank you, Count. Now do an act of charity, my friend: give the littledog in the stable a good meal, and then have a surgeon chloroform himinto a peaceful and merciful death. They will find the Rainbow Pearl inhis intestines when they come to dissect the body. I starved him,Count--starved him purposely, poor little wretch, so that he could behungry enough to snap at anything in the way of food and bolt itinstantly. To-night, when I went up to take him out to the stable, athick smearing of beef extract over the surface of the pearl wassufficient; he swallowed it in a gulp! For a double reason, Count, thereshould be a cur quartered on the royal arms of this country afterto-night."
His voice dropped off into silence. The carriage containing madame hadswung out through the gateway, and its shadow no longer blotted thebroad, unbroken space of moonlit avenue. He turned and looked far out,over the square of the Aquisola, along the light-lined esplanade, to thepalace gates and the fluttering flag that streamed against the sky aboveand beyond them.
"Oh, Mauravania!" he said. "An Englishman's heritage! Dear country, howbeautiful! My love to your Queen--my prayers for you."
"Monsieur!" exclaimed the Count, "monsieur, what juggle is this? Yourface is again the face of that other night--the face that stirs memoryyet does not rivet it. Monsieur, speak, I beg of you. What are you? Whoare you?"
"Cleek," he made answer. "Just Cleek! It will do. Oh, Mauravania, dearland of desolated hopes, dear grave of murdered joys!"
"Monsieur!"
"Hush! Let me alone. There are things too sacred; and this--" His handsreached outward as if in benediction; his face, upturned, was as a facetransfigured, and something that shone as silver gleamed in the cornerof his eye. "Mauravania!" he said. "Oh, Mauravania! My country--mypeople--good-bye!"
"Monsieur! Dear Heaven--_Majesty!_"
Then came a rustling sound, and when Cleek had mastered himself andlooked down, a figure with head uncovered knelt on one knee at his feet.
"Get up, Count," he said, with a little shaky laugh. "I appreciate thehonour, but--your fancy is playing you a trick. I tell you I never setfoot in Mauravania before, my friend."
"I know--I know. How should you. Majesty, when it was as a child atQueen Karma's breast Mauravania last saw--Don't leave like this!Majesty! Majesty! 'God guard the right'--the pearl and the kingdom arehere."
"Wrong, my good friend. The kingdom is there--where you found me--inEngland; and so, too, is the pearl. For there is no kingdom like thekingdom of love, no pearl like a good woman. Good night, Count, and manythanks for your hospitality. You are a little upset to-night, but nodoubt you will be all right again in the morning. I will walk to thestation and--alone, if it is all the same to you."
"Majesty!"
"Dreams, Count, dreams. The riddle is solved, my friend. Good luck toyour country and--good-bye!"
And, setting his back to the palace and the lights and the flutteringflag, and his face to the land that held her, turned and went hisway--to the West--to England--and to those things which are higher thancrowns and better than sceptres and more precious than thrones andermine.
THE END
Cleek: the Man of the Forty Faces Page 41
