The Frontier Part 21

"Yes, you will tell us.... But come ... come quick and kiss your mother and rea.s.sure her...."

She dragged him along. They climbed the staircase and, on reaching the terrace, he suddenly found himself in the presence of Suzanne, who was waiting, convulsed with jealousy and hatred. Philippe's emotion was so great that he did not even offer her his hand. Besides, at that moment, Mme. Morestal ran up to him:

"Your father?"

"Alive."

And Suzanne, in her turn:

"Papa?"

"Alive also.... They have both been carried off by the German police, near the frontier."

"What? Prisoners?"

"Yes."

"They haven't hurt them?"

The three women all stood round him and pressed him with questions. He replied, laughing:

"A little calmness, first.... I confess I feel rather dazed.... This makes two exciting nights.... Also, I am simply starving."

His shoes and clothes were grey with dust. There was blood on one of his shirt-cuffs.

"You are wounded!" cried Marthe.

"No ... not I.... I'll explain to you...."

Catherine brought him a cup of coffee, which he swallowed greedily, and he began:

"It was about five o'clock in the morning when I got up; and I certainly had no idea, when I left my room ..."

Marthe was stupefied. Why did Philippe say that he had slept there? Did he not know that his absence had been discovered? But then why tell that lie?

She instinctively placed herself in front of Suzanne and in front of her mother; and, as Philippe had broken off, himself embarra.s.sed by the obvious commotion which he had caused, she asked him:

"So, last evening, you left your father and M. Jorance?..."

"At the Carrefour du Grand-Chene."

"Yes, so Suzanne told us. And you came back straight?"

"Straight."

"But you heard the shots fired?..."

"Shots?"

"Yes, on the frontier."

"No. I must have gone to sleep at once.... I was tired.... Otherwise, if I had heard them ..."

He had an intuition of the danger which he was running, especially as Suzanne was trying to make signs to him. But he had prepared the opening of his story so carefully that, being unaccustomed to lying, he would have been unable to alter a single word of it without losing the little coolness that remained to him. Moreover, himself worn out and incapable of resisting the atmosphere of anxiety and nervousness that surrounded him, how could he have perceived the trap which Marthe unconsciously had laid for him? He, therefore, repeated:

"Once more, when I left my room, I had no idea of what had happened. It was an accident that put me in the way of it. I had reached the Col du Diable and was walking along the frontier-road when, half-way from the b.u.t.te-aux-Loups, I heard moans and groans on my left. I went to the spot where they came from and discovered, among the bracken, a wounded man, covered in blood...."

"The deserter," said Mme. Morestal.

"Yes, a German private, Johann Baufeld," replied Philippe.

He was now coming to the true portion of his story, for his interview with the deserter had really taken place when he was returning from Saint-elophe, at break of day; and he continued, with an easier mind:

"Johann Baufeld had only a few minutes to live. He had the death-rattle in his throat. Nevertheless, he had strength enough left to tell me his name and to speak a few words; and he died in my arms, not, however, before I learnt from him that M. Jorance and my father had tried to protect him on French territory and that the police had turned upon them. I therefore went in search of them. The track was easy to follow.

It took me through the Col du Diable to the hamlet of Torins. There, the inn-keeper made no difficulty about telling me that a squad of police, several of whom were mounted, had pa.s.sed his house on their way to Borsweilen, where they were conveying two French prisoners. One of these was wounded. I could not find out if it was your father, Suzanne, or mine. In any case, the wounds must have been slight, for both prisoners were sitting their horses without a.s.sistance. I felt rea.s.sured and turned back. At the Col du Diable, I met Victor.... You know the rest."

He seemed quite happy at finishing his story and poured himself out a second cup of coffee, with the satisfied air of a man who has got off cheaply.

The three women were silent. Suzanne lowered her head, lest she should betray her emotion. At last, Marthe, who had no suspicions, but who was worrying her head about Philippe's falsehood, resumed:

"At what time did you come in last night?"

"At a quarter to eleven."

"And you went to bed at once?"

"At once."

"Then how is it that your bed has not been touched?"

Philippe gave a start. The question took his breath away. Instead of inventing some pretext or other, he stammered, guilelessly:

"Oh, so you went in ... you saw ..."

He had not thought of this detail, nor, for that matter, of any of those which might make his story appear to clash with the facts; and he no longer knew what to say.

Suzanne suggested:

"Perhaps Philippe spent the night in a chair...."

Marthe shrugged her shoulders; and Philippe, utterly at a loss, trying to make up another version, did not even answer. He remained dumb, like a child caught at fault.

"Come, Philippe," asked Marthe, "what's underneath this? Didn't you come straight back?"

"No," he admitted.

"You came back by the frontier?"