Under the Red Robe, Stanley John Weyman [pdf to ebook reader txt] 📗

rang sharply as I entered, and he who had just thrown kept the box over them while he turned, scowling, to see who came in. He was a fair-haired, blonde man, large-framed and florid. He had put off his cuirass and boots, and his doublet showed frayed and stained where the armour had pressed on it. Otherwise he was in the extreme of last year’s fashion. His deep cravat, folded over so that the laced ends drooped a little in front, was of the finest; his great sash of blue and silver was a foot wide. He had a little jewel in one ear, and his tiny beard was peaked A L’ESPAGNOLE. Probably when he turned he expected to see the sergeant, for at the sight of me he rose slowly, leaving the dice still covered.

‘What folly is this?’ he cried, wrathfully. Here, sergeant! Sergeant!—without there! What the—! Who are you, sir?’

‘Captain Larolle,’ I said uncovering politely, ‘I believe?’

‘Yes, I am Captain Larolle,’ he retorted. ‘But who, in the fiend’s name, are you?’ You are not the man we are after!’

‘I am not M. Cocheforet,’ I said coolly. ‘I am merely a guest in the house, M. le Capitaine. I have been enjoying Madame de Cocheforet’s hospitality for some time, but by an evil chance I was away when you arrived.’ And with that I walked to the hearth, and, gently pushing aside his great boots which stood there drying, I kicked the logs into a blaze.

‘MILLE DIABLES!’ he whispered. And never did I see a man more confounded. But I affected to be taken up with his companion, a sturdy, white-moustachioed old veteran, who sat back in his chair, eyeing me with swollen cheeks and eyes surcharged with surprise.

‘Good evening, M. le Lieutenant,’ I said, bowing gravely. ‘It is a fine night.’

Then the storm burst.

‘Fine night!’ the Captain shrieked, finding his voice at last. ‘MILLE DIABLES! Are you aware, sir, that I am in possession of this house, and that no one harbours here without my permission? Guest? Hospitality? Bundle of fiddle-faddle! Lieutenant, call the guard! Call the guard!’ he continued passionately. ‘Where is that ape of a sergeant?’

The Lieutenant rose to obey, but I lifted my hand.

‘Gently, gently, Captain,’ I said. ‘Not so fast. You seem surprised to see me here. Believe me, I am much more surprised to see you.’

‘SACRE!’ he cried, recoiling at this fresh impertinence, while the Lieutenant’s eyes almost jumped out of his head.

But nothing moved me.

‘Is the door closed?’ I said sweetly. ‘Thank you; it is, I see. Then permit me to say again, gentlemen, that I am much more surprised to see you than you can be to see me. For when Monseigneur the Cardinal honoured me by sending me from Paris to conduct this matter, he gave me the fullest—the fullest powers, M. le Capitaine—to see the affair to an end. I was not led to expect that my plans would be spoiled on the eve of success by the intrusion of half the garrison from Auch.’

‘Oh, ho!’ the Captain said softly—in a very different tone, and with a very different face. ‘So you are the gentleman I heard of at Auch?’

‘Very likely,’ I said drily. ‘But I am from Paris, not from Auch.’

‘To be sure,’ he answered thoughtfully. ‘Eh, Lieutenant?’

‘Yes, M. le Capitaine, no doubt,’ the inferior replied. And they both looked at one another, and then at me, in a way I did not understand.

‘I think,’ said I, to clinch the matter, ‘that you have made a mistake, Captain; or the Commandant has. And it occurs to me that the Cardinal will not be best pleased.’

‘I hold the King’s commission,’ he answered rather stiffly.

‘To be sure,’ I replied. ‘But, you see, the Cardinal—’

‘Ay, but the Cardinal—’ he rejoined quickly; and then he stopped and shrugged his shoulders. And they both looked at me.

‘Well?’ I said.

‘The King,’ he answered slowly.

‘Tut-tut!’ I exclaimed, spreading out my hands. ‘The Cardinal. Let us stick to him. You were saying?’

‘Well, the Cardinal, you see—’ And then again, after the same words, he stopped—stopped abruptly, and shrugged his shoulders.

I began to suspect something.

‘If you have anything to say against Monseigneur,’ I answered, watching him narrowly, ‘say it. But take a word of advice. Don’t let it go beyond the door of this room, my friend, and it will do you no harm.’

‘Neither here nor outside,’ he retorted, looking for a moment at his comrade. ‘Only I hold the King’s commission. That is all, and, I think, enough.’

‘Well—for the rest, will you throw a main?’ he answered evasively. ‘Good! Lieutenant, find a glass, and the gentleman a seat. And here, for my part, I will give you a toast The Cardinal—whatever betide!’

I drank it, and sat down to play with him; I had not heard the music of the dice for a month, and the temptation was irresistible. But I was not satisfied. I called the mains and won his crowns—he was a mere baby at the game—but half my mind was elsewhere. There was something here that I did not understand; some influence at work on which I had not counted; something moving under the surface as unintelligible to me as the soldiers’ presence. Had the Captain repudiated my commission altogether, and put me to the door or sent me to the guard-house, I could have followed that. But these dubious hints, this passive resistance, puzzled me. Had they news from Paris, I wondered? Was the King dead? Or the Cardinal ill? I asked them, but they said no, no, no to all, and gave me guarded answers. And midnight found us still playing; and still fencing.