An Historical Mystery, Honoré de Balzac [management books to read .TXT] 📗

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."

"What does the horse look like?"

"He's brown, turning rather to black; white stockings above the hoofs, thin, all nerves like an Arab."

"Did you ever see an Arab?"

"In Egypt--last year. I've ridden the horses of the mamelukes. We have to serve twelve years in the cavalry, and I was on the Rhine under General Steingel, after that in Italy, and then I followed the First Consul to Egypt. I'll be a corporal soon."

"When I get to Michu's house go to the stable; if you have served twelve years in the cavalry you know when a horse is blown. Let me know the condition of Michu's beast."

"See! that's where our corporal was thrown," said the man, pointing to a