Pimpernel and Rosemary, Baroness Orczy [i have read the book a hundred times .txt] 📗

stump of his cigar away and, picking up one of the tunics, he felt it all over scrupulously⁠—all over, and with both hands, until in one spot his sensitive fingers felt something that had a slightly crackling, crisp sound about it when handled.

Whereupon Lucien l’Américain drew a deep breath, and in his deep-set eyes there came a quick flash of triumph. One by one, more quickly now and more surely he picked up the tunics and felt each one in turn all over until his fingers encountered the something crisp and crackling which appeared hidden between the cloth and the lining, and while he did so his face, never prepossessing, looked positively hideous; a cruel, almost animal look distorted it, the lips drew back against the gums, showing white teeth, sharp and gleaming like those of a wolf.

“That’s it, is it?” he muttered once or twice. “Not bad for a woman. Did she think of it, I wonder.”

Suddenly his sharp ears detected the sound of Alice’s tired footstep coming up the cellar stairs. He laid the tunics back upon the table in a neat pile, then he went to the window, drew the curtain slightly aside and gave a low, prolonged whistle, which was almost immediately answered by another from somewhere out in the darkness.

Alice came in, carrying a bottle of wine and a mug. There was a scared look in her eyes as she entered, and her glance swept quickly, anxiously round the room first and then over the pile of tunics. Seeing them neatly folded, she appeared relieved, and set the bottle and mug down upon the table. She took a corkscrew from the table-drawer and proceeded to draw the cork, whilst Lucien watched her with a smile round his lips which the girl hardly dared to interpret. Now he lolled across to her. His hands were in his pockets. She had succeeded in drawing the cork, and was pouring the wine into the mug, when with a swift movement Lucien’s arm shot out and closed round her throat, whilst his other hand was clapped firmly against her mouth.

She had not the time to scream. The bottle of wine fell out of her hand, crashing on the floor and the wine flowed in a stream along the cracks of the worm-eaten wood in the direction of the door. Her eyes, dilated with horror, stared into vacancy, her hands with fingers outspread were stretched out straight before her. Lucien l’Américain never uttered a word; he just held her in a grip of iron, smothering any attempt she might make to scream. Less than twenty seconds went by whilst he held the woman thus, and she passed from an excess of horror into semi-consciousness. Then from the outer passage there came the sound of stealthy footsteps, and the next moment two men dressed in rough peasant clothes came into the room. Lucien l’Américain motioned to them with a glance, and silently, almost noiselessly, they closed in around the woman and in a moment had her secure between them and marched her out of the room, she going like a sleepwalker with eyes closed and lips tightly pressed together, her face a reflex of the horror which had invaded her soul.

Lucien l’Américain, left alone in the room, took up one of the tunics and with Alice’s scissors he carefully undid a few stitches in the lining. His deft fingers then groped in the aperture, until they came in contact with something crisp and crackling, which he drew out and examined. It was a small sheet of thin paper closely covered with minute handwriting, and then folded into as small a compass as had been possible. By the flickering light of the oil-lamp the Yank tried to decipher some of the writing; his face had become expressionless as marble. It seemed as if with the unmasking of the woman, his interest in the event had ceased.

The paper contained information which would have been of enormous importance to the Germans. Having skimmed the written matter through, Lucien folded up the paper again and slipped it in a pocketbook, which he carried next to his skin. After that he took up the tunics one by one, and still with the aid of Alice’s scissors he extracted the same message which was concealed in the selfsame way between the lining and the cloth of each tunic, and these also he put away in his pocketbook.

He had only just finished his task when from down the village street there rose the joyful sound of lusty throats singing “Tipperary!” and a minute or two later half a dozen boys in khaki made noisy irruption into the house.

At once there was loud shouting of “Alice! Alice, where art thou? What ho, my Alice!” And one of the boys started singing “The Roses of Picardy.”

“Hallo, Yank!” came from another of them, who had just caught sight of Lucien. “What the ⸻ have you done with Alice?”

“She’ll be back directly,” Lucien shouted in response. “I’ve promised to meet her, so can’t stop. S’long!”

He dashed out of the house, and in a moment the darkness had swallowed him up.

II

Three days later. Half an hour after the break of dawn. In a moderately well-furnished room in the town hall of Lille an elderly man was sitting over a scanty petit-déjeuner. He had an intellectual face, with high-bred features and sparse grey hair carefully brushed across his cranium so as to hide the beginnings of baldness. From time to time he cast eager eyes at the door opposite to where he was sitting or anxious ones at the clock upon the mantelshelf.

Suddenly his whole face brightened up with eager expectancy. He had just perceived the sound of a harsh voice coming from the next room, and demanding peremptorily to speak with M. de Kervoisin.

A servant entered, but de Kervoisin was too impatient to allow him to speak.

“Number Ten is it?” he queried sharply, and at once added, “Show