The Modern Library Children's Classics

by Kenneth Grahame

  Having ascertained that there were five vacant rooms in the inn, Athos proposed that each retire.

  “D’Artagnan needs to be alone to mourn, to find calm and to go to sleep. I promise to take charge of everything; I promise you I know what I am doing.”

  Lord Winter seemed somewhat taken aback.

  “If there are certain measures to be taken against Lady Clark, it concerns me too, Monsieur. She is my sister-in-law—”

  “I have a prior and more valid claim,” Athos said coldly. “She is my wife!”

  D’Artagnan smiled. He understood that to reveal so horrible a secret, Athos must be certain of his prey. Porthos and Aramis exchanged another of those quizzical glances that enigmatic statements from Athos invariably aroused. As for Lord Winter, he was convinced Athos was completely mad.

  “Pray retire then, gentlemen, and let me act. You must perceive that, I being the lady’s husband, the affair is wholly my concern. But look here, D’Artagnan: if you have not lost it, give me the paper that dropped from that man’s hat—you recall, it bore the name of a village—the village of—”

  “Ah! that name—in her handwriting …”

  “Ay, D’Artagnan, that village.” Athos bowed to his companion. “As you see, D’Artagnan, God is in His Heaven!”

  LXIV

  THE MAN IN THE RED CLOAK

  When Athos first looked down upon Madame Bonacieux writhing in agony, he was seized with a despair which he concealed by speaking with the utmost phlegm. Then the implications of what had occurred concentrated his grief and heightened the lucidity of his thought. One thing alone moved him now. He had made a promise and assumed a heavy responsibility. That alone mattered.

  He was therefore careful to retire only after he had made sure his companions were safe in their rooms. Next, he begged the landlord to bring him a map of the province and studying every line traced upon it, he ascertained that four different roads connected Béthune with Armentières. Then he sent for the lackeys.

  Planchet, Grimaud, Mousqueton and Bazin appeared successively and received clear, positive and ironclad instructions. They were to set out at daybreak and to proceed to Armentières, each by a different road. Planchet, the most intelligent of the four, was to take the road followed by the carriage upon which their masters had fired that evening.

  A thorough strategist, Athos put the lackeys into the field first because he had had occasion to appreciate their individual talents and to size up each of them. Besides on the highway, when a lackey asks a stranger for directions or information, he is more likely to find help than his master would be. In the third place, Milady knew the four friends but she knew none of the lackeys who, for their part, knew her perfectly.

  The lackeys, each proceeding according to directions, were to meet again at eleven o’clock on the morrow. If by then they had discovered Milady’s hiding place, three would mount guard and the fourth report back to Béthune.

  The lackeys having been thoroughly briefed, Athos rose from his chair, clasped on his sword, wrapped himself in his cloak, and left the inn. It was ten o’clock. In the provinces, as we all know, the streets are little frequented at that hour, yet Athos combed them, apparently looking for someone to question. Finally, encountering a belated passer-by, he accosted him and whispered a few words. The man, drawing back in terror, replied with a gesture of the hand. Athos offered him half a pistole to accompany him, but he shook his head.

  Athos then started down the street which the man had pointed out but, reaching a square where four roads crossed, was visibly embarrassed. However, since the crossroads offered him the best chance of meeting somebody, he walked. Indeed within a few moments a night watchman passed. Athos repeated the same question he had asked the first man. The patrolman evinced the same terror, refused in his turn to accompany Athos, and merely pointed his finger toward the road Athos was to take.

  Following the direction indicated, Athos reached the outskirts of the city diametrically opposite to those where he and his companions lodged. Then once again, anxious and at a loss, he stopped for the third time. Fortunately a beggar passed and, accosting him, implored alms. Athos offered him a crown on condition he accompany him to his destination. The mendicant hesitated at first but the sight of the silver coin shining through the half-darkness was too much for him. Bracing himself up, he nodded consent and set out ahead of Athos.

  Reaching a street corner, he pointed to a small house in the distance, isolated, lonely and dismal. Athos approached it while the beggar, having received his reward, ran off as fast as his legs could carry him.

  Athos walked around the house before he could distinguish the door from amid the reddish paint with which its walls were daubed. No light glimmered through the cracks of the shutters, no sound gave reason to suppose the house was inhabited. All was dark and silent as the tomb.

  Athos knocked twice without receiving an answer. At his third knock he heard footsteps within. Presently the door swung ajar and a tall, very pale man with black hair and a black beard, thrust his neck forward.

  Athos and the man exchanged a few whispered words, then the man motioned Athos to enter. Athos immediately complied and the door closed behind him.

  The man Athos had come so far to seek and had found with such difficulty ushered him into his laboratory where he was engaged in lashing the rattling bones of a skeleton with wire to make them fast. The torso was already reconstituted but the skull lay wobbling on a table.

  The rest of the furnishings indicated that the occupant of the house was interested in the natural sciences. There were jars filled with snakes, labeled according to their species; dried lizards, set in large frames of black wood, shone like cut emeralds; and bunches of wild odoriferous herbs Athos had never seen hung down from the ceiling. Athos found no signs of a family or a servant; undoubtedly the tall man lived quite alone.

  Athos surveyed the laboratory with a cold indifferent glance and, at the other’s invitation, sat down. The tall man remained standing. Athos then explained the reason for his visit and the favor he requested; but he had barely finished when the stranger recoiled with terror, shaking his head in refusal. Athos then drew from his pocket a small piece of paper containing two lines accompanied by a signature and a seal, and handed it to the man who had given such premature signs of repugnance. The tall man read the two lines, noticed the signature and recognized the seal; then he bowed to indicate that he had no longer any objection to make and that he was ready to obey.

  Athos required no more. He rose, bowed, left the house, returned as he had come, and went up to his room. At dawn D’Artagnan entered, asking what they were to do.

  “We have but to wait,” Athos replied mechanically.

  Two hours later Aramis came back from the convent where he had called on the Mother Superior. The burial, he said, was to take place at noon. Of the poisoner, there were no tidings. She must have escaped by way of the garden, for her footprints were evident on the damp gravel; the garden gate was locked; the key had disappeared.

  At the appointed hour, Lord Winter and the four friends repaired to the convent. The bells were tolling; the chapel was open. At the chapel door D’Artagnan felt his courage fail anew and turned to look for Athos. But Athos had disappeared. Within, the grating of the choir was closed. In the middle of the choir, the body of the victim, clothed in her novitiate dress, made a white blur against the dark woodwork. The entire community of the Carmelite nuns was assembled on either side of the choir, behind the gratings opening out onto the convent; the sisters followed the divine service from there, without seeing the profane and unseen by them but mingling their chant with the chant of the priests.

  Faithful to the avenging mission he had undertaken, Athos had slipped away and requested to be taken to the garden. There over the damp gravel, he followed the light tracks of the woman who left a trail of horror wherever she passed. Reaching the gate which led to the wood he had it opened and plunged into the thicket.

  All his suspi
cions then found confirmation. The road by which the carriage had disappeared circled the forest. Athos followed this road for a time, his eyes fastened on the ground; slight bloodstains coming from a wound inflicted either on the courier or on one of the horses, speckled the road. About a mile further on some hundred odd yards from the hamlet of Festubert, he distinguished a much larger patch, marking what had been a pool of blood. Here the earth bore traces of the tramping of horses. A little beyond the wood and a few feet short of the churned earth, Athos detected the same footprints he had followed through the garden. Obviously Milady had emerged from the wood and entered the carriage here.

  Satisfied with this discovery which confirmed all his suspicions, Athos returned to the inn, where he found Planchet awaiting him impatiently.

  Everything had taken place as Athos had foreseen. Planchet, having followed the road as Athos had just done, noticed the bloodstains and noted the spot where the horses had stopped. But he pushed on farther than Athos had. Stopping at a tavern in the village of Festubert, he did not even have to ask of news; his fellow-drinkers volunteered the information that the evening before at half past eight, a wounded man and a lady had driven up to the inn. Apparently the man could go no further. The accident was attributed to robbers who had held up the chaise in the forest. The man remained in the village, the woman had hired a relay of horses and continued her journey.

  Planchet sought out the postillion who had driven the chaise and found him. He had taken the lady as far as Fromelles; from Fromelles she had set out for Armentières. Planchet took the crossroad and by seven in the morning he was at Armentières.

  There was only one inn at Armentières, the Hôtel de la Coste. Planchet presented himself there as a lackey out of work. He had not spoken ten minutes with the people at the inn before ascertaining that a woman had arrived at eleven o’clock the previous evening, had sent for the innkeeper and told him she intended to stay in the neighborhood for some time.

  This was all Planchet needed to learn. Speeding to the appointed meeting place, he found his three colleagues at their posts, placed them as sentries at each exit of the inn and sped back to Béthune. Just as Planchet finished his report, the others returned from the convent. They were a sad, gloomy group; even the gentle countenance of Aramis looked down and almost harsh.

  “What now?” D’Artagnan asked curtly.

  “We must wait.”

  Without protest or comment each of them withdrew to his room. At eight o’clock that evening, Athos ordered the horses to be saddled and sent word to Lord Winter and to his friends that they would be leaving soon. The party was ready in a few moments. Each of them examined his arms and put them in order. Athos, the last to come downstairs, found D’Artagnan already mounted and chafing at the delay.

  “Patience, my friend,” he said coolly. “One of our party is still missing.”

  His companions looked about in surprise, wondering who this other person might be. Just then Planchet brought out Athos’ horse and the musketeer leaped lightly into the saddle.

  “Wait for me,” he said. “I will be back in a moment!” and he galloped off.

  Within a quarter of an hour he returned, accompanied by a tall man who wore a mask over his eyes and was swathed in a vast red cloak. Lord Winter and the musketeers exchanged questioning glances. None could enlighten the others; none had the faintest notion who the stranger might be. But they trusted Athos and, since Athos had so arranged, they would not question or demur. At nine o’clock, guided by Planchet, the little cavalcade started off along the road the carriage had taken.

  These six men presented a melancholy sight as they rode forward in silence, each deep in his own thoughts, dark as despair and gloomy as retribution.

  LXV

  DAY OF JUDGMENT

  It was a dark, tempestuous night. Vast tenebrous clouds raced across the heavens, obscuring the light of the stars. The moon would not be rising until about midnight. Now and then, thanks to a flash of lightning on the horizon, the cavalcade could see the road stretching out before them, white and solitary. Then, the flash spent, the riders were plunged into murky darkness.

  Time and again Athos had to call D’Artagnan back to his place in the cavalcade; obsessed by one thought, to speed forward fast as he could, the Gascon kept pushing on too far in advance of his comrades.

  They passed in silence through the hamlet of Festubert, where the wounded courier lay; they skirted the forest of Richebourg, and at Herber, Planchet who led the column, turned to the left. Lord Winter or Porthos or Aramis tried several times to engage in conversation with the red-cloaked stranger. At each effort they made he merely bowed, without replying. Realizing from his attitude that he must have some mysterious but compelling reason for his silence, they abandoned all thoughts of sociability.

  The storm increased in intensity, flash succeeded ever more rapidly on flash, the thunder growled ominously and the wind, forerunner of a hurricane, whistled through the feathers of the horsemen’s hats and through their hair.

  They broke into a fast trot.

  A little beyond Fromelles the storm burst in great fury and the horsemen put on their greatcoats. They still had some ten miles to cover, which they did under torrents of rain. D’Artagnan, who alone had not put on his greatcoat, now took off his hat; he enjoyed letting the cold rain beat down on his burning brow and trickle refreshingly over his feverish body.

  Just as the little troop cleared the village of Goskal and drew close to the Post House where relays were stationed, a man sheltered by a tree and rendered invisible by its trunk, stepped out onto the road and held up one arm high over his head. As they halted, he brought one finger to his lips. Athos recognized Grimaud.

  “What is it?” cried D’Artagnan, “Has she left Armentières?”

  Grimaud nodded affirmatively; D’Artagnan gnashed his teeth, and cried: “But look here—”

  “Hush, D’Artagnan!” Athos ordered. “I am in charge of this operation and I shall question Grimaud.” Turning back to Grimaud: “Where is she?” he asked.

  Grimaud pointed toward the River Lys.

  “How far from here?”

  Grimaud merely crooked his finger.

  “Is she alone?”

  Grimaud nodded.

  “Gentlemen,” Athos said, “she is alone, she is half a league from here, somewhere by the river.”

  “Bravo, my good Grimaud, take us there at once,” D’Artagnan ordered.

  Grimaud then led them across some fields toward a brook, some five hundred yards distant, which they forded. Thanks to a flash of lightning they perceived the hamlet of Enguinghem.

  “Is that the place, Grimaud?”

  Grimaud shook his head negatively and the avengers continued on their way. Presently another flash of lightning wreathed its serpentine way across the heavens. Grimaud raised his arm and they perceived a small lonely house on the banks of the river, three hundred feet from the ferry.

  “This is the place,” Athos announced. Just then a man who had been lying in a ditch arose; it was Mousqueton. He pointed to the lighted window.

  “She is in there, gentlemen!” he said.

  “And Bazin?”

  “I have been watching the window,” Mousqueton replied. “He is watching the door.”

  “Good,” said Athos, “my compliments. You are excellent servants.”

  With which he sprang from his horse, tossed the bridle to Grimaud and approached the window, motioning to the others to make for the door.

  The little house was surrounded by a low quickset hedge which Athos hurdled; then he moved toward the window. There were no shutters, but the half-curtains were carefully drawn. Athos stepped on to the outer window-sill in order to peer over the curtains.

  By the light of a lamp within, he distinguished a woman wrapped in a dark colored mantle, seated on a stool close to a dying fire; her elbows rested on a mean table and she held her head in between her hands, white as ivory. He could not make out her face, but a
sinister smile flickered across his lips. There could be no mistake; here was the woman they sought.

  Suddenly one of their horses neighed. Milady looked up toward the window to see the drawn pallid face of Athos, glued to the window pane. Realizing that she had recognized him, Athos pushed the pane in with hand and knee; the glass yielded and fell clattering to the floor. Athos, the very specter of vengeance, leaped into the room.

  Milady rushed to the door and opened it; at the threshold, even paler and more threatening than Athos, stood D’Artagnan.

  Milady recoiled with a cry. D’Artagnan, thinking she had some means of escape, drew a pistol from his belt. But Athos raised his hand in warning.

  “Put back that weapon,” he ordered. “We must judge this woman, not murder her. Be patient for a few moments and you shall find satisfaction.”

  And he invited the others to enter.

  There was something so impersonal, so solemn and so commanding in the attitude of Athos that D’Artagnan could not but obey, meekly as a child. It was as if out of a worldly musketeer some force had suddenly created a justiciar, sent from heaven, to preside with complete equity over an all-too-human lawsuit. Porthos, Aramis, Lord Winter and the man in the red cloak entered the house; the lackeys stood guard at door and window.

  Milady fell back into a chair, her hands outstretched as though to conjure away this terrible apparition. Recognizing her brother-in-law, she uttered a cry of surprise and terror.

  “What do you want?” she screamed.

  “We want Charlotte Backson,” Athos replied impersonally, “who was first called the Comtesse de la Fère and subsequently Lady Clark, Baroness of Sheffield.”

  “Well, here I am!” Milady murmured in a paroxysm of terror. “What do you want of me?”

  “We want to judge you according to your crimes,” Athos replied. “You shall be free to defend yourself and to justify yourself if you can. Monsieur D’Artagnan, it is for you to accuse her first.”