The Maids of Paradise Part 26

For a moment he said nothing, but presently he partly turned his ponderous body towards me and motioned me to a chair.

As I sat down I glanced around and saw my old comrade, Speed, sitting in a dark corner, chewing a cigarette and watching me in alert silence.

"You are present to report?" suggested Colonel Jarras, heavily.

I bowed, glancing across at Speed, who shrugged his shoulders and looked at the floor with an ominous smile.

Mystified, I began my report, but was immediately stopped by Jarras with a peevish gesture: "All right, all right; keep all that for the Chief of Department. Your report doesn't concern me."

"Doesn't concern you!" I repeated; "are you not chief of this bureau, Colonel Jarras?"

"No," snapped Jarras; "and there's no bureau now--at least no bureau for the Foreign Division."

Speed leaned forward and said: "Scarlett, my friend, the Foreign Division of the Imperial Military Police is not in favor just now. It appears the Foreign Division is suspected."

"Suspected? Of what?"

"Treason, I suppose," said Speed, serenely.

I felt my face begin to burn, but the astonishing news left me speechless.

"I said," observed Speed, "that the Foreign Division is suspected; that is not exactly the case; it is not suspected, simply because it has been abolished."

"Who the devil did that?" I asked, savagely.

"Mornac."

Mornac! The Emperor's shadow! Then truly enough it was all up with the Foreign Division. But the shame of it!--the disgrace of as faithful a body of police, mercenaries though they were, as ever worked for any cause, good or bad.

"So it's the old whine of treason again, is it?" I said, while the blood beat in my temples. "Oh, very well, doubtless Monsieur Mornac knows his business. Are we transferred, Speed, or just kicked out into the street?"

"Kicked out," replied Speed, rubbing his slim, bony hands together.

"And you, sir?" I asked, turning to Jarras, who sat with his fat, round head buried in his shoulders, staring at the discolored blotter on his desk.

The old Corsican straightened as though stung: "Since when, monsieur, have subordinates a.s.sumed the right to question their superiors?"

I asked his pardon in a low voice, although I was no longer his subordinate. He had been a good and loyal chief to us all; the least I could do now was to show him respect in his bitter humiliation.

I think he felt our att.i.tude and that it comforted him, but all he said was: "It is a heavy blow. The Emperor knows best."

As we sat there in silence, a soldier came to summon Colonel Jarras, and he went away, leaning on his ivory-headed cane, head bowed over the string of medals on his breast.

When he had gone, Speed came over and shut the door, then shook hands with me.

"He's gone to see Mornac; it will be our turn next. Look out for Mornac, or he'll catch you tripping in your report. Did you find Buckhurst?"

"Look here," I said, angrily, "how can Mornac catch me tripping? I'm not under his orders."

"You are until you're discharged. You see, they've taken it into their heads, since the crucifix robbery, to suspect everybody and anybody short of the Emperor. Mornac came smelling around here the day you left. He's at the bottom of all this--a nice business to cast suspicion on our division because we're foreigners. Gad, he looks like a pickpocket himself--he's got the oblique trick of the eyes and the restless finger movement."

"Perhaps he is," I said.

Speed looked at me sharply.

"If I were in the service now I'd arrest Mornac--if I dared."

"You might as well arrest the Emperor," I said, wearily.

"That's it," observed Speed, throwing away his chewed cigarette.

"n.o.body dare touch Mornac; n.o.body dare even watch him. But if there's a leak somewhere, it's far more probable that Mornac did the dirty work than that there's a traitor in our division."

Presently he added: "Did you catch Buckhurst?"

"I don't want to talk about it," I said, disgusted.

"--Because," continued Speed, "if you've got him, it may save us.

Have you?"

How I wished that I had Buckhurst safely handcuffed beside me!

"If you've got him," persisted Speed, "we'll shake him like a rat until he squeals. And if he names Mornac--"

"Do you think that Mornac would give him or us the chance?" I said.

"Rubbish! He'd do the shaking _in camera_; and it would only be a hand-shaking if Buckhurst is really his creature. And he's rid himself of our division, anyhow. Wait!" I added, sharply; "perhaps that is the excuse! Perhaps that is the very reason that he's abolished the foreign division! We may have been getting too close to the root of this matter; I had already caught Buckhurst--"

"You had?" cried Speed, eagerly.

"But I'm not going to talk about it now," I added, sullenly. "My troubles are coming; I've a story to tell that won't please Mornac, and I have an idea that he means mischief to me."

Speed looked curiously at me, and I went on:

"I used my own judgment--supposing that Jarras was my chief. I knew he'd let me take my own way--but I don't know what Mornac will say."

However, I was soon to know what Mornac had to say, for a soldier appeared to summon us both, and we followed to the temporary bureau which looked out to the east over the lovely Luxembourg gardens.

Jarras pa.s.sed us as we entered; his heavy head was bent, and I do not suppose that he saw either us or our salutes, for he shuffled off down the dark pa.s.sage, tapping his slow way like a blind man; and Speed and I entered, saluting Mornac.

The personage whom we saluted was a symmetrical, highly colored gentleman, with black mustache and Oriental eyes. His skin was too smooth--there was not a line or a wrinkle visible on hand or face, nothing but plump flesh pressing the golden collar of his light-blue tunic and the half-dozen gold rings on his carefully kept, restless fingers. His light, curved sabre hung by its silver chain from a nail on a wall behind him; beside it, suspended by the neck cord, was his astrakhan-trimmed dolman of palest turquoise-blue, and over that hung his scarlet cap.

As he raised his heavy-lidded, insolent eyes to me, I thought I had never before appreciated the utter falseness of his visage as I did at that moment. Instantly I decided that he meant evil to me; and I instinctively glanced at Speed, standing beside me at attention, his clear blue eyes alert, his lank limbs and lean head fairly tremulous with comprehension.

At a careless nod from Mornac I muttered the formal "I have to report, sir--" and began mumbling a perfunctory account of my movements since leaving Paris. He listened, idly contemplating a silver penknife which he alternately snapped open and closed, the click of the spring punctuating my remarks.

I told the truth as far as I went, which brought me to my capture by Uhlans and the natural escape of my prisoner, Buckhurst. I merely added that I had secured the diamonds and had managed to reach Paris via Strasbourg.

"Is that all?" inquired Mornac, listlessly.