An Historical Mystery (The Gondreville Mystery)

“No one, I suppose, has the key of this box?” said the cynical Peyrade, questioning the family as much by the movement of his huge red nose as by his words.

The Provencal noticed, not without fear, that the guards were no longer present; he and Corentin were alone with the family. The younger man drew a small dagger from his pocket, and began to force the lock of the box. Just then the desperate galloping of a horse was heard upon the road and then upon the pavement by the lawn; but most horrible of all was the fall and sighing of the animal, which seemed to drop all at once at the door of the middle tower. A convulsion like that which a thunderbolt might produce shook the spectators when Laurence, the trailing of whose riding-habit announced her coming, entered the room. The servants hastily formed into two lines to let her pass.

In spite of her rapid ride, the girl had felt the full anguish the discovery of the conspiracy must needs cause her. All her hopes were overthrown! she had galloped through ruins as her thoughts turned to the necessity of submission to the Consular government. Were it not for the danger which threatened the four gentlemen, and which served as a tonic to conquer her weariness and her despair, she would have dropped asleep on the way. The mare was almost killed in her haste to reach the chateau, and stand between her cousins and death. As all present looked at the heroic girl, pale, her features drawn, her veil aside, her whip in her hand, standing on the threshold of the door, whence her burning glance grasped the whole scene and comprehended it, each knew from the almost imperceptible motion which crossed the soured and bittered face of Corentin, that the real adversaries had met. A terrible duel was about to begin.

Noticing the box, now in the hands of Corentin, the countess raised her whip and sprang rapidly towards him. Striking his hands with so violent a blow that the casket fell to the ground, she seized it, flung it into the middle of the fire, and stood with her back to the chimney in a threatening attitude before either of the agents recovered from their surprise. The scorn which flamed from her eyes, her pale brow, her disdainful lips, were even more insulting than the haughty action which treated Corentin as though he were a venomous reptile. Old d’Hauteserre felt himself once more a cavalier; all his blood rushed to his face, and he grieved that he had no sword. The servants trembled for an instant with joy. The vengeance they had called down upon these men had come. But their joy was driven back within their souls by a terrible fear; the gendarmes were still heard coming and going in the garrets.

The spy– noun of strength, under which all shades of the police are confounded, for the public has never chosen to specify in language the varieties of those who compose this dispensary of social remedies so essential to all governments – the spy has this curious and magnificent quality: he never becomes angry; he possesses the Christian humility of a priest; his eyes are stolid with an indifference which he holds as a barrier against the world of fools who do not understand him; his forehead is adamant under insult; he pursues his ends like a reptile whose carapace is fractured only by a cannonball; but (like that reptile) he is all the more furious when the blow does reach him, because he believed his armor invulnerable. The lash of the whip upon his fingers was to Corentin, pain apart, the cannonball that cracked the shell. Coming from that magnificent and noble girl, this action, emblematic of her disgust, humiliated him, not only in the eyes of the people about him, but in his own.

Peyrade sprang to the hearth, caught Laurence’s foot, raised it, and compelled her, out of modesty, to throw herself on the sofa, where she had lately lain asleep. The scene, like other contrasts in human things, was burlesque in the midst of terror. Peyrade scorched his hand as he dashed it into the fire to seize the box; but he got it, threw it on the floor and sat down upon it. These little actions were done with great rapidity and without a word being uttered. Corentin, recovering from the pain of the blow, caught Mademoiselle de Cinq-Cygne by both hands, and held her.

“Do not compel me to use force against you,” he said, with withering politeness.

Peyrade’s action had extinguished the fire by the natural process of suppressing the air.

“Gendarmes! here!” he cried, still occupying his ridiculous position.

“Will you promise to behave yourself?” said Corentin, insolently, addressing Laurence, and picking up his dagger, but not committing the great fault of threatening her with it.

“The secrets of that box do not concern the government,” she answered, with a tinge of melancholy in her tone and manner. “When you have read the letters it contains you will, in spite of your infamy, feel ashamed of having read them – that is, if you can still feel shame at anything,” she added, after a pause.

The abbe looked at her as if to say, “For God’s sake, be calm!”

Peyrade rose. The bottom of the box, which had been nearly burned through, left a mark upon the floor; the lid was scorched and the sides gave way. The grotesque Scaevola, who had offered to the god of the Police and Terror the seat of his apricot breeches, opened the two sides of the box as if it had been a book, and slid three letters and two locks of hair upon the card-table. He was about to smile at Corentin when he perceived that the locks were of two shades of gray. Corentin released Mademoiselle de Cinq-Cygne’s hands and went up to the table to read the letter from which the hair had fallen.

Laurence rose, moved to the table beside the spies, and said: – “Read it aloud; that shall be your punishment.”

As the two men continued to read to themselves, she herself read out the following words: —

Dear Laurence, – My husband and I have heard of your noble conduct on the day of our arrest. We know that you love our dear twins as much, almost, as we love them ourselves. Therefore it is with you that we leave a token which will be both precious and sad to them. The executioner has come to cut our hair, for we are to die in a few moments; he has promised to put into your hands the only remembrance we are able to leave to our beloved orphans. Keep these last remains of us and give them to our sons in happier days. We have kissed these locks of hair and have laid our blessing upon them. Our last thought will be of our sons, of you, and of God. Love them, Laurence.

Berthe de Cinq-Cygne. Jean de Simeuse.

Tears came to the eyes of all the household as they listened to the letter.

Laurence looked at the agents with a petrifying glance and said, in a firm voice: —

“You have less pity than the executioner.”

Corentin quietly folded the hair in the letter, laid the letter aside on the table, and put a box of counters on the top of it as if to prevent its blowing away. His coolness in the midst of the general emotion was horrible.

Peyrade unfolded the other letters.

“Oh, as for those,” said Laurence, “they are very much alike. You hear the will; you can now hear of its fulfilment. In future I shall have no secrets from any one.”

1794, Andernach. Before the battle.

My dear Laurence, – I love you for life, and I wish you to know it. But you ought also to know, in case I die, that my brother, Paul-Marie, loves you as much as I love you. My only consolation in dying would be the thought that you might some day make my brother your husband without being forced to see me die of jealousy – which must surely happen if, both of us being alive, you preferred him to me. After all, that preference seems natural, for he is, perhaps, more worthy of your love than I —

Marie-Paul.

“Here is the other letter,” she said, with the color in her cheeks.

Andernach. Before the battle.

My kind Laurence, – My heart is sad; but Marie-Paul has a gayer nature, and will please you more than I am able to do. Some day you will have to choose between us – well, though I love you passionately —

“You are corresponding with emigres,” said Peyrade, interrupting Laurence, and holding the letters between himself and the light to see if they contained between the lines any treasonable writing with invisible ink.

“Yes,” replied Laurence, folding the precious letters, the paper of which was already yellow with time. “But by virtue of what right do you presume to violate my dwelling and my personal liberty?”

“Ah, that’s the point!” cried Peyrade. “By what right, indeed! – it is time to let you know it, beautiful aristocrat,” he added, taking a warrant from his pocket, which came from the minister of justice and was countersigned by the minister of the interior. “See, the authorities have their eye upon you.”

“We might also ask you,” said Corentin, in her ear, “by what right you harbor in this house the assassins of the First Consul. You have applied your whip to my hands in a manner that authorizes me to take my revenge upon your cousins, whom I came here to save.”

At the mere movement of her lips and the glance which Laurence cast upon Corentin, the abbe guessed what that great artist was saying, and he made her a sign to be distrustful, which no one intercepted but Goulard. Peyrade struck the cover of the box to see if there were a double top.

“Don’t break it!” she exclaimed, taking the cover from him.

She took a pin, pushed the head of one of the carved figures, and the two halves of the top, joined by a spring, opened. In the hollow half lay miniatures of the Messieurs de Simeuse, in the uniform of the army of Conde, two portraits on ivory done in Germany. Corentin, who felt himself in presence of an adversary worthy of his efforts, called Peyrade aside into a corner of the room and conferred with him.

“How could you throw that into the fire?” said the abbe, speaking to Laurence and pointing to the letter of the marquise which enclosed the locks of hair.

For all answer the young girl shrugged her shoulders significantly. The abbe comprehended then that she had made the sacrifice to mislead the agents and gain time; he raised his eyes to heaven with a gesture of admiration.

“Where did they arrest Gothard, whom I hear crying?” she asked him, loud enough to be overheard.

“I don’t know,” said the abbe.

“Did he reach the farm?”

“The farm!” whispered Peyrade to Corentin. “Let us send there.”

“No,” said Corentin; “that girl never trusted her cousins’ safety to a farmer. She is playing with us. Do as I tell you, so that we mayn’t have to leave here without detecting something, after committing the great blunder of coming here at all.”

Corentin stationed himself before the fire, lifting the long pointed skirts of his coat to warm himself and assuming the air, manner, and tone of a gentleman who was paying a visit.

“Mesdames, you can go to bed, and the servants also. Monsieur le maire, your services are no longer needed. The sternness of our orders does not permit us to act otherwise than as we have done; but as soon as the walls, which seem to me rather thick, have been thoroughly examined, we shall take our departure.”

The mayor bowed to the company and retired; but neither the abbe nor Mademoiselle Goujet stirred. The servants were too uneasy not to watch the fate of their young mistress. Madame d’Hauteserre, who, from the moment of Laurence’s entrance, had studied her with the anxiety of a mother, rose, took her by the arm, led her aside, and said in a low voice, “Have you seen them?”

“Do you think I could have let your sons be under this roof without your knowing it?” replied Laurence. “Durieu,” she added, “see if it is possible to save my poor Stella; she is still breathing.”

“She must have gone a great distance,” said Corentin.

“Forty miles in three hours,” she answered, addressing the abbe, who watched her with amazement. “I started at half-past nine, and it was well past one when I returned.”

She looked at the clock which said half-past two.

“So you don’t deny that you have ridden forty miles?” said Corentin.

“No,” she said. “I admit that my cousins, in their perfect innocence, expected not to be excluded from the amnesty, and were on their way to Cinq-Cygne. When I found that the Sieur Malin was plotting to injure them, I went to warn them to return to Germany, where they will be before the telegraph can have guarded the frontier. If I have done wrong I shall be punished for it.”

This answer, which Laurence had carefully considered, was so probable in all its parts that Corentin’s convictions were shaken. In that decisive moment, when every soul present hung suspended, as it were, on the faces of the two adversaries, and all eyes turned from Corentin to Laurence and from Laurence to Corentin, again the gallop of a horse, coming from the forest, resounded on the road and from there through the gates to the paved courtyard. Frightful anxiety was stamped on every face.

Peyrade entered, his eyes gleaming with joy. He went hastily to Corentin and said, loud enough for the countess to hear him: “We have caught Michu.”

Laurence, to whom the agony, fatigue, and tension of all her intellectual faculties had given an unusual color, turned white and fell back almost fainting on a chair. Madame Durieu, Mademoiselle Goujet, and Madame d’Hauteserre sprang to help her, for she was suffocating. She signed to cut the frogging of her habit.

“Duped!” said Corentin to Peyrade. “I am certain now they are on their way to Paris. Change the orders.”

They left the room and the house, placing one gendarme on guard at the door of the salon. The infernal cleverness of the two men had gained a terrible advantage by taking Laurence in the trap of a not uncommon trick.

CHAPTER IX. FOILED

At six o’clock in the morning, as day was dawning, Corentin and Peyrade returned. Having explored the covered way they were satisfied that horses had passed through it to reach the forest. They were now awaiting the report of the captain of gendarmerie sent to reconnoitre the neighborhood. Leaving the chateau in charge of a corporal, they went to the tavern at Cinq-Cygne to get their breakfast, giving orders that Gothard, who never ceased to reply to all questions with a burst of tears, should be set at liberty, also Catherine, who still continued silent and immovable. Catherine and Gothard went to the salon to kiss the hands of their mistress, who lay exhausted on the sofa; Durieu also went in to tell her that Stella would recover, but needed great care.

The mayor, uneasy and inquisitive, met Peyrade and Corentin in the village. He declared that he could not allow such important officials to breakfast in a miserable tavern, and he took them to his own house. The abbey was only three quarters of a mile distant. On the way, Peyrade remarked that the corporal of Arcis had sent no news of Michu or of Violette.

“We are dealing with very able people,” said Corentin; “they are stronger than we. The priest no doubt has a finger in all this.”

Just as the mayor’s wife was ushering her guests into a vast dining-room (without any fire) the lieutenant of gendarmes arrived with an anxious air.

“We met the horse of the corporal of Arcis in the forest without his master,” he said to Peyrade.

“Lieutenant,” cried Corentin, “go instantly to Michu’s house and find out what is going on there. They must have murdered the corporal.”

This news interfered with the mayor’s breakfast. Corentin and Peyrade swallowed their food with the rapidity of hunters halting for a meal, and drove back to the chateau in their wicker carriage, so as to be ready to start at the first call for any point where their presence might be necessary. When the two men reappeared in the salon into which they had brought such trouble, terror, grief, and anxiety, they found Laurence, in a dressing-gown, Monsieur d’Hauteserre and his wife, the abbe and his sister, sitting round the fire, to all appearance tranquil.

“If they had caught Michu,” Laurence told herself, “they would have brought him with them. I have the mortification of knowing that I was not the mistress of myself, and that I threw some light upon the matter for those wretches; but the harm can be undone – How long are we to be your prisoners?” she asked sarcastically, with an easy manner.

“How can she know anything about Michu? No one from the outside has got near the chateau; she is laughing at us,” said the two agents to each other by a look.

“We shall not inconvenience you long,” replied Corentin. “In three hours from now we shall offer our regrets for having troubled your solitude.”

No one replied. This contemptuous silence redoubled Corentin’s inward rage. Laurence and the abbe (the two minds of their little world) had talked the man over and drawn their conclusions. Gothard and Catherine had set the breakfast-table near the fire and the abbe and his sister were sharing the meal. Neither masters nor servants paid the slightest attention to the two spies, who walked up and down the garden, the courtyard or the lawn, returning every now and then to the salon.

At half-past two the lieutenant reappeared.

“I found the corporal,” he said to Corentin, “lying in the road which leads from the pavilion of Cinq-Cygne to the farm at Bellache. He has no wound, only a bad contusion of the head, caused, apparently, by his fall. He told me he had been lifted suddenly off his horse and flung so violently to the ground that he could not discover how the thing was done. His feet left the stirrups, which was lucky, for he might have been killed by the horse dragging him. We put him in charge of Michu and Violette – ”

“Michu! is Michu in his own house?” said Corentin, glancing at Laurence.

The countess smiled ironically, like a woman obtaining her revenge.

“He is bargaining with Violette about the sale of some land,” said the lieutenant. “They seemed to me drunk; and it’s no wonder, for they have been drinking all night and discussing the matter, and they haven’t come to terms yet.”

“Did Violette tell you so?” cried Corentin.

“Yes,” said the lieutenant.

“Nothing is right if we don’t attend to it ourselves!” cried Peyrade, looking at Corentin, who doubted the lieutenant’s news as much as the other did.

“At what hour did you get to Michu’s house?” asked Corentin, noticing that the countess had glanced at the clock.

“About two,” replied the lieutenant.

Laurence covered Monsieur and Madame d’Hauteserre and the abbe and his sister in one comprehensive glance, which made them fancy they were wrapped in an azure mantle; triumph sparkled in her eyes, she blushed, and the tears welled up beneath her lids. Strong under all misfortunes, the girl knew not how to weep except from joy. At this moment she was all glorious, especially to the priest, who was sometimes distressed by the virility of her character, and who now caught a glimpse of the infinite tenderness of her woman’s nature. But such feelings lay in her soul like a treasure hidden at a great depth beneath a block of granite.

Just then a gendarme entered the salon to ask if he might bring in Michu’s son, sent by his father to speak to the gentlemen from Paris. Corentin gave an affirmative nod. Francois Michu, a sly little chip of the old block, was in the courtyard, where Gothard, now at liberty, got a chance to speak to him for an instant under the eyes of a gendarme. The little fellow managed to slip something into Gothard’s hand without being detected, and the latter glided into the salon after him till he reached his mistress, to whom he stealthily conveyed both halves of the wedding-ring, a sure sign, she knew, that Michu had met the four gentlemen and put them in safety.

“My papa wants to know what he’s to do with the corporal, who ain’t doing well,” said Francois.

“What’s the matter with him?” asked Peyrade.

“It’s his head – he pitched down hard on the ground,” replied the boy. “For a gindarme who knows how to ride it was bad luck – I suppose the horse stumbled. He’s got a hole – my! as big as your fist – in the back of his head. Seems as if he must have hit some big stone, poor man! He may be a gindarme, but he suffers all the same – you’d pity him.”

The captain of the gendarmerie now arrived and dismounted in the courtyard. Corentin threw up the window, not to lose time.

“What has been done?”

“We are back like the Dutchmen! We found nothing but five dead horses, their coats stiff with sweat, in the middle of the forest. I have kept them to find out where they came from and who owns them. The forest is surrounded; whoever is in it can’t get out.”

“At what hour do you suppose those horsemen entered the forest?”

“About half-past twelve.”

“Don’t let a hare leave that forest without your seeing it,” whispered Corentin. “I’ll station Peyrade at the village to help you; I am going to see the corporal myself – Go to the mayor’s house,” he added, still whispering, to Peyrade. “I’ll send some able man to relieve you. We shall have to make use of the country-people; examine all faces.” He turned towards the family and said in a threatening tone, “Au revoir!”

No one replied, and the two agents left the room.

“What would Fouche say if he knew we had made a domiciliary visit without getting any results?” remarked Peyrade as he helped Corentin into the osier vehicle.

“It isn’t over yet,” replied the other, “those four young men are in the forest. Look there!” and he pointed to Laurence who was watching them from a window. “I once revenged myself on a woman who was worth a dozen of that one and had stirred my bile a good deal less. If this girl comes in the way of my hatchet I’ll pay her for the lash of that whip.”

“The other was a strumpet,” said Peyrade; “this one has rank.”

“What difference is that to me? All’s fish that swims in the sea,” replied Corentin, signing to the gendarme who drove him to whip up.

Ten minutes later the chateau de Cinq-Cygne was completely evacuated.

“How did they get rid of the corporal?” said Laurence to Francois Michu, whom she had ordered to sit down and eat some breakfast.

“My father told me it was a matter of life and death and I mustn’t let anybody get into our house,” replied the boy. “I knew when I heard the horses in the forest that I’d got to do with them hounds of gindarmes, and I meant to keep ‘em from getting in. So I took some big ropes that were in my garret and fastened one of ‘em to a tree at the corner of the road. Then I drew the rope high enough to hit the breast of a man on horseback, and tied it to the tree on the opposite side of the way in the direction where I heard the horses. That barred the road. It didn’t miss fire, I can tell you! There was no moon, and the corporal just pitched! – but he wasn’t killed; they’re tough, them gindarmes! I did what I could.”

“You have saved us!” said Laurence, kissing him as she took him to the gate. When there, she looked about her and seeing no one she said cautiously, “Have they provisions?”

“I have just taken them twelve pounds of bread and four bottles of wine,” said the boy. “They’ll be snug for a week.”

Returning to the salon, the girl was beset with mute questions in the eyes of all, each of whom looked at her with as much admiration as eagerness.

“But have you really seen them?” cried Madame d’Hauteserre.

The countess put a finger on her lips and smiled; then she left the room and went to bed; her triumph sure, utter weariness had overtaken her.

The shortest road from Cinq-Cygne to Michu’s lodge was that which led from the village past the farm at Bellache to the rond-point where the Parisian spies had first seen Michu on the preceding evening. The gendarme who was driving Corentin took this way, which was the one the corporal of Arcis had taken. As they drove along, the agent was on the look-out for signs to show why the corporal had been unhorsed. He blamed himself for having sent but one man on so important an errand, and he drew from this mistake an axiom for the police Code, which he afterwards applied.

“If they have got rid of the corporal,” he said to himself, “they have done as much by Violette. Those five horses have evidently brought the four conspirators and Michu from the neighborhood of Paris to the forest. Has Michu a horse?” he inquired of the gendarme who was driving him and who belonged to the squad from Arcis.

“Yes, and a famous little horse it is,” answered the man, “a hunter from the stables of the ci-devant Marquis de Simeuse. There’s no better beast, though it is nearly fifteen years old. Michu can ride him fifty miles and he won’t turn a hair. He takes mighty good care of him and wouldn’t sell him at any price.”