The Four Corners of the World Part 39

"I will myself take you to my mother's room."

I laughed. I said: "That is just what I expected. You will take me to your mother's room and leave your friends here to make any little preparations in the way of burning awkward letters which they may think desirable. Thank you, no! I am not so easily caught."

Mademoiselle Sophie was becoming irritated.

"There are no awkward letters!" she exclaimed.

"That statement, too, I shall put to the test."

I went to the door, and standing so that I could still keep an eye upon the room, I called the corporal.

"You will search the house thoroughly," I said, "and quickly. Bring me word how many people you find in it. You, mademoiselle, will remain in the room with us."

She shrugged her shoulders as I closed the door and came back into the room.

"You were wounded, monsieur," I said to the Frenchman. "Where?"

"In the sortie on Le Bourget."

"And you came here the moment you were released on your parole?"

The wounded officer turned with a smile to Mademoiselle Sophie.

"Yes, for here live my best friends."

He took her hand, and with a Frenchman's grace he raised it to his lips and kissed it. And I was suddenly made acquainted with the relationship in which these two, youth and maid, stood to one another.

Mademoiselle Sophie had cried out on the steps against the possibility that I might have come to claim my prisoner. But though she spoke no word, she was still more explicit now. With the officer that caress was plainly no more than a pretty way of saying thanks; it had the look of a habit, it was so neatly given, and he gave it without carelessness, it is true, but without warmth. She, however, received it very differently. He did not see, because his head was bent above her hand, but I did.

I saw the look of pain in her face, the slight contraction of her shoulders and arms, as if to meet a blow. The kiss hurt her--no, not the kiss, but the finished grace with which it was given, the proof, in a word, that it was a way of saying "Thanks"--and nothing more.

Here was a woman who loved and a man who did not love, and the woman knew. So much was evident to me who looked on, but when the officer raised his head there was nothing for him to see, and upon her lips only the conventional remark:

"We should have been hurt if you had not come."

I resumed my questions:

"Your doctor, monsieur, is in the house?"

"At this hour? No."

"Ah. That is a pity."

The young man lifted his head from his pillow and looked me over from head to foot with a stare of disdain.

"I do not quite understand. You doubt my word, monsieur?"

"Why not?" I asked sharply.

It was quite possible that the cradle, this rug across his legs, the pillow, were all pretences. Many a soldier in those days was pale and worn and had sunken eyes, and yet was sound of limb and could do a day's work of twenty-four hours if there were need. I had my theory and as yet I had come upon nothing to disprove it. This young officer might very well have brought in a cipher message to the Chateau Villetaneuse. Mademoiselle Sophie might very well have waved her lantern at the door to summon a fresh messenger.

"No; why should I not doubt your word?" I repeated.

He turned his face to the old lady. "It is your move, Baronne," he said, and she placed the piece she held upon a square of the board.

Mademoiselle Sophie took her stand by the table between the players, and the game went on just as though there were no intruder in the room. It was uncomfortable for me. I shifted my feet. I tried to appear at my ease; finally I sat down in a chair. They took no notice of me whatever. But that I felt hot upon a discovery, but that I knew if I could bring back to Noisy-le-Grand proof of where the leakage through our lines occurred, I should earn approval and perhaps promotion, I should very deeply have regretted my entrance into the Chateau Villetaneuse. And I was extremely glad when at last the corporal opened the door. He had searched the house--he had found no one but Madame de Villetaneuse and an old servant who was watching by her bed.

"Very well," said I, and the corporal returned to the hall.

Mademoiselle Sophie moved away from the chess-table. She came and stood opposite to me, and though her face was still, her eyes were hard with anger.

"And now perhaps you will tell me to what I owe your visit?" she said.

"Certainly," I returned. I fixed my eyes on her, and I said slowly, "I have come to ask for more news of M. Bonnet's black sow."

Mademoiselle Sophie stared as if she were not sure whether I was mad or drunk, but was very sure I was one or the other. The young Frenchman started upon his couch, with the veins swelling upon his forehead and a flushed face.

"This is an insult," he cried savagely, and no less savagely I answered him.

"Hold your tongue!" I cried. "You forget too often that though you are on parole you are still a prisoner."

He fell back upon the sofa with a groan of pain, and the girl hurried to his side.

"Your leg hurts you. You should not have moved," she cried.

"It is nothing," he said, faintly.

Meanwhile I had been looking about the room for a box or a case where the cipher messages might be hid. I saw nothing of the kind. Of course they might be hidden between the pages of a book. I went from table to table, taking them by the boards and shaking the leaves. Not a sc.r.a.p of paper tumbled out. There was another door in the room besides that which led on to the landing.

"Mademoiselle, what room is that?" I asked.

"My bedroom," she answered, simply, and with a gesture full of dignity she threw open the door.

I carried the mud and snow and the grime of a camp without a scruple of remorse into that neat and pretty chamber. Mademoiselle Sophie followed me as I searched wardrobe and drawer and box. At last I came to one drawer in her dressing-table which was locked. I tried the handle again to make sure. Yes, it was locked. I looked suddenly at the young lady. She was watching me out of the corners of her eyes with a peculiar intentness. I felt at once that I was hot.

"Open that drawer, mademoiselle," I said.

"It contains only some private things."

"Open that drawer or I burst it open."

"No," she cried, as I jerked the handle. "I will open it."

She fetched the key out of another drawer which was unlocked, and fitted it into the lock of the dressing-table. And all the while I saw that she was watching me. She meant to play me some trick, I was certain. So I watched too, and I did well to watch. She turned the key, opened the drawer, and then s.n.a.t.c.hed out something with extraordinary rapidity and ran as hard as she could to the door--not the door through which we had entered, but a second door which gave on to the pa.s.sage. She ran very fast and she ran very lightly, and she did not stumble over a chair as I did in pursuit of her. But she had to unlatch the door and pull it open. I caught her up and closed my arms about her. It was a little, carved, ebony box which she held, the very thing for which I searched.

"I thought so," I cried with a laugh. "Drop the box, mademoiselle.

Drop it on the floor!"

The noise of our struggle had been heard in the next room. The Baroness rushed through the doorway.

"What has happened?" she cried. "Mon Dieu! you are killing her!"