The Patriot Part 20

CHAPTER IV

THE HAND WITHIN THE GLOVE

The Engineer-in-Chief noticed nothing, and two days later, the term of his leave having expired, he went away peacefully in his boat, wrapped in his great, grey travelling cloak, and accompanied by Cia, the housekeeper. Ten days pa.s.sed without further developments, and Franco and Luisa concluded that a trap had been set for them, and that, after all, the police would not appear. On the evening of the first of October they played _tarocchi_ merrily with Puttini and Pasotti, and then, their guests having left early, they went to bed. When Luisa kissed the child, who was sleeping, she noticed that her flesh was hot. She felt of her hands and legs. "Maria is feverish," she said.

Franco took up the candle and looked at her. Maria was sleeping with her little head drooping towards her left shoulder as usual. The lovely little face which always wore a frown when she was asleep, was slightly flushed, and the breathing rather quick. Franco was alarmed, and at once thought of scarlet fever, the measles, gastric, and brain fever. Luisa, who was more calm, thought of worms, and prepared a dose of santonine, which she placed ready on the pedestal. Then both father and mother went noiselessly to bed, put out the light and lay listening anxiously to the little one's short, quick breathing. At last they dozed, but towards midnight they were aroused by Maria, who was crying. They lighted the candle and Maria became quiet and took the santonine. Then presently she began to cry again, and wanted to be taken into the big bed, between mamma and papa, and finally went to sleep there; but her sleep was uneasy and often interrupted by sobs.

Franco kept the candle burning that he might watch her more closely. He and his wife were bending over their darling when two knocks sounded in quick succession on the street-door. Franco started up in bed. "Did you hear?" said he. "Hush!" said Luisa, grasping his arm, and listening. Two more knocks sounded, louder still, and Franco exclaimed: "The Police!"

and sprang to the floor. "Go, go!" Luisa begged in a low tone. "Don't let them take you! Go by the little courtyard! Climb over the wall!" He did not answer, but hastily threw on some clothes and rushed from the room, heedless of danger, and determined never of his own free will to leave his Luisa and his sick child.

He dashed down the stairs. "Who is there?" he inquired, without opening the door. "The Police!" some one answered. "Open at once."

"At this hour I open to no one I do not see."

A short dialogue ensued in the street. The voice he had heard first said: "You speak to him," and the voice that spoke next was very familiar to Franco.

"Open, Signor Maironi."

It was the Receiver. Franco threw the door open. A gentleman, dressed in black and wearing spectacles, entered, and was followed by the mastiff; after the mastiff came a gendarme with a lantern, then three other armed gendarmes, two of whom were subalterns while the other was of higher rank, and carried a large leathern bag. Some one remained outside.

"Are you Signor Maironi?" said the man in spectacles, a police-adjunct, or detective from Milan. "Come upstairs with me." And the whole party started upstairs, with the thud of heavy steps and the rattling of military trappings.

They had not yet reached the first floor when a light fell on the stairs from above, and sobs and groans were heard on the second floor.

"Is that your wife?" asked the detective.

"Do you fancy it is?" Franco retorted ironically. The Receiver murmured: "It is probably the servant." The detective turned and gave an order; two gendarmes started forward and went rapidly up to the second floor.

More sharply than before the adjunct asked Franco: "Is your wife in bed?"

"Of course."

"Where? She must get up."

The door of the alcove-room was thrown open, and Luisa appeared in her dressing-gown, with flowing hair, and bearing a candle in her hand. At the same moment a gendarme leaned over the banisters on the upper floor, and said that the servant had nearly fainted away, and could not come down. The detective ordered him to leave his companion with the woman, and to descend. Then he saluted the lady, who did not reply. In the hope that Franco had fled, she had hastened to leave the room in order to detain and, if possible, deceive the police. She now saw her husband and shuddered, her heart beating wildly, but she composed herself at once.

The detective stepped forward to enter the room. "No!" Franco exclaimed.

"Some one is ill in there." Luisa clutched the handle of the closed door, looking the man straight in the face.

"Who is ill?" asked the detective.

"A little girl."

"Well, what harm do you suppose we shall do her?"

"Pardon me," said Luisa almost defiantly, and giving the handle a nervous shake, "must you all go in?"

"All of us."

At the sound of voices and the rattling of the door-handle little Maria had begun to cry in a weary and forlorn voice that was heart-rending.

"Luisa," said Franco, "let these _gentlemen_ do their work."

The detective was a fashionably-dressed young man, with a refined but cruel face. He threw Franco a sinister glance. "Obey your husband, Signora," said he, glad of an opportunity to retaliate. "I think he is prudent."

"Less prudent than you are, who bring a whole army as escort," Luisa retorted, opening the door. He glanced at her, shrugged his shoulders, and pa.s.sed in, followed by the others.

"Open everything here," said he roughly, in a loud voice, pointing to the writing-desk. Franco's big, blue eyes flashed. "Speak softly!" said he. "Do not frighten my child."

"Silence, you!" the detective thundered, bringing his fist down upon the desk. "Open!"

At that noise the child began to sob violently. Franco, who was furious, flung the key upon the desk.

"Open it yourself," said he.

"You are under arrest!" cried the detective.

"Very well."

While Franco was answering thus, Luisa, who had bent low over her baby, trying to pacify her, raised her face impetuously.

"I also have a right to that honour," said she, in her fine, ringing voice.

The detective did not deign to reply, but ordered a gendarme to open all the drawers of the writing-desk, and he himself searched them, removing all the letters, examining them rapidly, throwing some on the floor, and tossing others into the great leathern bag. After the writing-desk it was the turn of the chests of drawers, where everything was turned upside down. Then Maria's little bed was inspected. The detective ordered Luisa to remove the child from the big bed, which he also intended to examine.

"Then put the little bed in order for me," Luisa replied, quivering with rage. Up to this moment, the mastiff, Carlascia, had stood silent and stiff behind his moustaches, as if this operation, which he had perhaps desired in the abstract, were proving not entirely to his taste, now that it was being put into practice. He came forward and began arranging the mattresses and sheets of the little bed with his great ugly paws.

Luisa placed the child in it, and then the large bed was torn to pieces and examined, but without any result. Maria had stopped crying, and was staring at the scene of confusion with wide eyes.

"Now follow me, both of you," said the adjunct. Luisa, who believed she was to be led away with her husband, demanded that the servant be summoned, that she might give the child into her care. At the idea that Luisa was under arrest, that the sick child was to be deprived of her mother also, Franco, beside himself with rage and grief, uttered a protesting cry--

"This is not possible! Say it is not so!"

The detective did not vouchsafe a reply, but ordered that the servant be brought in. The maid, half dead with fright, entered between two gendarmes, groaning and sobbing.

"Fool!" Franco muttered between his teeth.

"The woman will stay here with the child," said the adjunct. "Both of you will come with me. You must be present when the rest of the house is searched." He sent for some lights, left a gendarme in the alcove-room, and went into the hall, followed by the other gendarmes, Bianconi, Franco, and Luisa.

"Before continuing the search," said he, "I will ask you a question I should have asked before had your conduct been more correct. Tell me whether you have any weapons, or seditious publications, or papers either printed or in ma.n.u.script, which are hostile to the Imperial and Royal Government."

Franco answered, in a loud tone--

"No."

"That is what we shall see," said the detective.

"Do as you like."

While the adjunct was causing furniture to be moved away from the wall, and was searching and peering everywhere, Luisa remembered that eight or ten years before her uncle had shown her in the chest of drawers of a room on the second floor, an old sabre that had lain there ever since 1812. It had belonged to another Pietro Ribera, a lieutenant of cavalry, who had fallen at Malojaroslavetz. No one ever slept in that room above the kitchen and it was seldom entered; it was as if it did not exist.