A Splendid Hazard Part 40

"No, Laura."

"How can he find his way back without pa.s.sing us?"

"For a desperate man who has thrown his all on this one chance, he will find a hundred ways of returning."

A carriage came round one of the pinnacled _calenches_. It was empty.

M. Ferraud casually noted the number. He was not surprised. He had been waiting for this same vehicle. It was Breitmann's, but the man driving it was not the man who had driven it out of Ajaccio. He was an Evisan. A small b.u.t.terfly fluttered alongside. M. Ferraud jumped out and swooped with his hat. He decided not to impart his discovery to the others. He was a.s.sured that the man from Evisa knew absolutely nothing, and that to question him would be a waste of time. At this very moment it was not unlikely that Breitmann and his confederate were crossing the mountains; perhaps with three or four st.u.r.dy donkeys, their panniers packed with precious metal. And the dupe would go straight to his fellow-conspirators and share his millions. Curious old world!

They saw Evisa at sunset, one of the seven glories of the earth. The little village rests on the side of a mountain, nearly three-thousand feet above the sea, the sea itself lying miles away to the west, V-shaped between two enormous shafts of burning granite. Even the admiral forgot his smoldering wrath.

The hotel was neat and cool, and all the cook had to do was to furnish dishes and hot water for tea. There was very little jesting, and what there was of it fell to the lot of Coldfield and the Frenchman. The spirit in them all was tense. Given his way, the admiral would have gone out that very night with lanterns.

"Folly! To find a given point in an unknown forest at night; impossible! Am I not right, Mr. Cathewe? Of course. Breitmann's man knew Atone from his youth. Suppose," continued M. Ferraud, "that we spend two days here?"

"What? Give him all the leeway?" The admiral was amazed that M.

Ferraud could suggest such a stupidity. "No. In the morning we make the search. If there's nothing there we'll return at once."

M. Ferraud spoke to the young woman who waited on the table. "Please find Carlo, the driver, and bring him here."

Ten minutes later Carlo came in, hat in hand, curious.

"Carlo," began the Frenchman, leaning on his elbows, his sharp eyes boring into the mild brown ones of the Corsican, "we shall not return to Carghese to-morrow but the day after."

"Not return to-morrow?" cried Carlo dismayed.

"Ah, but the _signore_ does not understand. We are engaged day after to-morrow to carry a party to Bonifacio. We have promised. We must return to-morrow."

Fitzgerald saw the drift and bent forward. The admiral fumed because his Italian was an indifferent article.

"But," pursued M. Ferraud, "we will pay you twenty francs the day, just the same."

"We are promised." Carlo shrugged and spread his hands, but the glitter in his questioner's eyes disquieted him.

"What's this about?" growled the admiral.

"The man says he must take us back to-morrow, or leave us, as he has promised to return to Ajaccio to carry a party to Bonifacio," M.

Ferraud explained.

"Then, if we don't go to-morrow it means a week in this forsaken hole?"

"It is possible." M. Ferraud turned to Carlo once more. "We will make it fifty francs per day."

"Impossible, _signore_!"

"Then you will return to-morrow without us."

Carlo's face hardened. "But--"

"Come outside with me," said M. Ferraud in a tone which brooked no further argument.

The two stepped out into the hall, and when the Frenchman came back his face was animated.

"Mr. Ferraud," said the admiral icily, "my daughter has informed me what pa.s.sed between you. I must say that you have taken a deal upon yourself."

"Mr. Ferraud is right," put in Fitzgerald.

"You, too?"

"Yes. I think the time has come, for Mr. Ferraud to offer full explanations."

The b.u.t.terfly-hunter resumed his chair. "They will remain or carry us on to Corte. From there we can take the train back to Ajaccio, saving a day and a half. Admiral, I have a confession to make. It will surprise you, and I offer you my apologies at once." He paused. He loved moments like this, when he could resort to the dramatic in perfect security. "_I_ was the man in the chimney."

The admiral gasped. Laura dropped her hands to the table. Cathewe sat back stiffly. Coldfield stared. Hildegarde shaded her face with the newspaper through which she had been idly glancing.

"Patience!" as the admiral made as though to press back his chair.

"Mr. Fitzgerald knew from the beginning. Is that not true?"

"It is, Mr. Ferraud. Go on."

"Breitmann is the great-grandson of Napoleon. By this time he is traveling over some mountain pa.s.s, with his inheritance snug under his hand. You will ask, why all these subterfuges, this dodging in and out? Thus. Could I have found the secret of the chimney--I worked from memory--none of us would be here, and one of the great conspiracies of the time would have been nipped in the bud. What do you think? Breitmann proposes to go into France with the torch of anarchy in his hand; and if he does, he will be shot. He proposes to divide this money among his companions, who, with their pockets full of gold, will desert him the day he touches France. Do you recollect the scar on his temple? It was not made by a saber; it is the mark of a bullet. He received it while a correspondent in the Balkans. Well, it left a mark on his brain also. That is to say, he is conscious of what he does but not why he does it. He is a sane man with an obsession.

This wound, together with the result of Germany's brutal policy toward him and France's indifference, has made him a kind of monomaniac. You will ask why I, an accredited agent in the employ of France, have not stepped in and arrested him. My evidence might bring him to trial, but it would never convict him. Once liberated, he would begin all over again, meaning that I also would have to start in at a new beginning.

So I have let him proceed to the end, and in doing so I shall save him in spite of himself. You see, I have a bit of sentiment."

Hildegarde could have reached over and kissed his hand.

"Why didn't he tell this to me?" cried the admiral. "Why didn't he tell me? I would have helped him."

"To his death, perhaps," grimly. "For the money was only a means, not an end. The great-grandson of Napoleon: well, he will never rise from his obscurity. And sometime, when the clouds lift from his brain, he will remember me. I have seen in your American cottages the motto hanging on the walls--_G.o.d Bless Our Home_. Mr. Breitmann will place my photograph beside it and smoke his cigarette in peace."

And this whimsical turn caused even the admiral to struggle with a smile. He was a square, generous old sailor. He stretched his hand across the table. M. Ferraud took it, but with a shade of doubt.

"You are a good man, Mr. Ferraud. I'm terribly disappointed. All my life I have been goose-chasing for treasures, and this one I had set my heart on. You've gone about it the best you could. If you had told me from the start there wouldn't have been any fun."

"That is it," eagerly a.s.sented M. Ferraud. "Why should I spoil your innocent pleasure? For a month you have lived in a fine adventure, and no harm has befallen. And when you return to America, you will have an unrivaled story to tell; but, I do not think you will ever tell all of it. He will have paid in wretchedness and humiliation for his inheritance. And who has a better right to it? Every coin may represent a sacrifice, a deprivation, and those who gave it freely, gave it to the blood. Is it sometimes that you laugh at French sentiment?"

"Not in Frenchmen like you," said the admiral gravely.

"Good! To men of heart what matters the tongue?"

"Poor young man!" sighed Laura. "I am glad he has found it. Didn't I wish him to have it?"

"And you knew all this?" said Cathewe into the ear of the woman he loved.

Thinly the word came through her lips: "Yes."

Cathewe's chin sank into his collar and he stared at the crumbs on the cloth.

"But what meant this argument with the drivers?" asked Coldfield.