The Mystery of the Lost Dauphin Part 30

"That inflated hen? Competent agent indeed!"

"I commissioned her to reveal the antecedents of the girl's father to the infatuated Marquis. But Love was blind as usual, and the Marquis slipped through our hands and arrived in England just in time to save his prospective father-in-law's life."

"His life? Who threatened his life?"

"Oh, pickpockets! one of those nocturnal encounters so common in London streets. That is an unimportant detail in our narrative. We are reaching the heart of the matter. The girl had captured the Marquis with the aim of establishing in the very camp of French aristocracy a following for her father. The precious doc.u.ments were confided to Rene and a journey to France arranged, the three to meet in Dover."

"And how have you ascertained these particulars, Baron?"

"Should I be doing my duty, did I not gather every particular? My business is to know all things regarding this infernal plot. Volpetti no sooner learned where the confederates were to meet than he arranged to put up at the same inn. He possessed himself of the papers by the cleverest strategy--"

The King, unmindful of his disabled limbs, half jumped from the couch.

"Then we are saved!" he cried. "For Volpetti surely destroyed them at once."

"Your Majesty, I never trust my agents implicitly. I spy upon my spies.

Fruits of research I require to be always delivered into my hands.

Otherwise, they might report to me that d.a.m.ning testimony has been destroyed, and meanwhile retain the deadly weapon, to turn it at any moment against me. No, they have express orders to destroy nothing."

"You were saying that Volpetti obtained possession of the papers."

"Yes; now the imbroglio becomes more complicated. A new power intervenes in the individual's behalf. Can your Majesty guess whom I mean?"

"The Carbonari."

"Precisely; the Carbonari,--the a.s.sociation which plants mines under our feet, and which carries on the Revolution beneath the earth. They have written on their statutes: 'The Bourbons have been brought back by foreigners; the Carbonari will restore to France freedom of choice.'

Your Majesty, this society has members in every department of government; they are numerous in the army; they exist even in the Royal Council. They make it impossible for us to obliterate devotion to Napoleon; they const.i.tute an incessant protest against the established regime."

"How the devil did the Carbonari become the champions of this pretender?"

"A countermine, your Majesty. It happened that in Dover at the same inn were two members of the order having unsettled scores from old Italian days against Jacome Volpetti."

"My friend, the spy who was set upon the individual should have had no unsettled scores pending with members of the Carbonari."

Lecazes winced, tho he was well aware that the words had for their sole object giving annoyance to him. He continued:

"Well, the Carbonari succeeded in murdering the police agent who accompanied our spy. They then despoiled Volpetti of the papers, after which they carried him, tied and gagged, aboard a French vessel, whose captain was also a member of the a.s.sociation. He would have been murdered also, had he not succeeded in freeing himself and leaping into the sea, from which he was rescued by an English schooner. The French vessel gave chase and so riddled the other by cannon b.a.l.l.s, that, unable to defend herself, and being moreover the victim of a fire which--"

"Bravo, Lecazes, redoubtable romancer!" exclaimed the King mockingly.

"Your Majesty, I relate history, beside which romancing is a tame art.

Weil, to resume: in spite of piracy and conflagration, Volpetti reached the coast near Pleneuf. At the same time, unaware of their enemy's salvation, the two Carbonari, de Breze, Naundorff and his daughter disembarked also on French soil."

"How do you explain the coalition of the Carbonari and the pretender?"

"Your Majesty is well aware that, provided they work against the present administration, the a.s.sociation has carte blanche to make such combinations as are considered best. In that branch of the Carbonari known as Knights of Liberty, each member is free to follow his own judgment, to take risks and accept consequences. The Knights of Liberty const.i.tute the germinating centre of crime. Notwithstanding the dispatch with which Volpetti issued warnings that the party be denied entry into Paris, he was outwitted. They arrived. The individual is _here_, beneath the powerful shelter of the a.s.sociation. The doc.u.ments are doubtless well guarded. All efforts to obtain them by violence would be in vain. I have not the slightest clue to their place of concealment."

"Is de Breze with the pretender?"

"Yes, and one of the Carbonari, an Italian."

"Where is the girl?"

"She has been placed for security in the Castle of Picmort. She was guarded by one of the Carbonari, but this man has started on one of those journeys which are characteristic of the society."

"Do you not consider it possible that the girl carries the doc.u.ments?"

"I do not think so. In the first place, de Breze through chivalry,--and he is a Paladin--would never give her a charge of grave peril; besides, the place for those papers is Paris."

"Then peace and happiness to the maiden in her Picmort refuge!" sighed the King.

"The d.u.c.h.ess informs me that the steward of the castle may prove a formidable rival to the Marquis in the affections of the fascinating intriguante."

"My blessing on the sylvan pair! An eclogue, indeed! A peasant lover!"

remarked the King with a Voltairian laugh, after which he hummed:

"In the lap of Phillis Damon streweth flowers Wet with dews of morning."

Lecazes, not heeding the poetical interruption, continued:

"With regard to the doc.u.ments, your Majesty, a subject which seems to bore you, I affirm that they are in Paris, because, among other reasons, the individual would have need of them in order to convince Madame the d.u.c.h.ess, whom it is his intention of addressing--"

"Also Ferdinand, I suppose--"

"Ferdinand is already convinced. Is your Majesty, perchance, ignorant that he recognizes the pretender? But his action is of no moment compared to that of Madame, the Dauphin's prison companion. Madame should be warned."

"What plan do you propose, Lecazes? As for me, I confess myself incompetent to forge methods of outwitting a woman."

"Listen, then. If we might arrange that Madame shall receive the individual--"

"What!" exclaimed the King.

"If she will grant him this secret interview and exact that he deliver to her the doc.u.ments, in order that she may become convinced of his ident.i.ty--"

The King applauded, cordially, sonorously, as tho he were a spectator at a theatrical representation,--the only character, he used to say, that suited him. He rendered homage to his Minister's genius.

"Enough!" he exclaimed. "I comprehend."

"Your Majesty divines the rest?"

"I divine, my friend, but--"

Lecazes radiantly took a pinch of aromatic snuff, and asked:

"But what?"

"But who is to tie the bell on the cat's neck? Who is to persuade my niece--"