CHAPTER XXI
A MIST DIMS THE SHINING STAR
Ste. Marie remained in his room all the rest of that day, and he did not see Mlle. O'Hara again, for Michel brought him his lunch and the old Justine his dinner. For the greater part of the time he sat in bed reading, but rose now and then and moved about the room. His wound seemed to have suffered no great inconvenience from the morning's outing. If he stood or walked too long it burned somewhat, and he had the sensation of a tight band round the leg, but this passed after he had lain down for a little while, or even sat in a chair with the leg straight out before him, so he knew that he was not to be crippled very much longer, and his thoughts began to turn more and more keenly upon the matter of escape.
He realised of course that now, since he was once more able to walk, he would be guarded with unremitting care every moment of the day, and quite possibly every moment of the night as well, though the simple bolting of his door on the outside would seem to answer the purpose save when he was out of doors. Once he went to the two east windows and hung out of them testing, as well as he could with his hands, the strength and tenacity of the ivy which covered that side of the house. He thought it seemed strong enough to give hand and foothold without being torn loose, but he was afraid it would make an atrocious amount of noise if he should try to climb down it, and besides he would need two very active legs for that.
At another time a fresh idea struck him, and he put it at once into action. There might be just a chance, when out one day with Michel, of getting near enough to the wall which ran along the Clamart road to throw something over it when the old man was not looking. In one of his pockets he had a cardcase with a little pencil fitted into a loop at one edge, and, in the case, it was his custom to carry postage stamps. He investigated, found pencil and stamps. Of course he had nothing but cards to write upon, and they were useless. He looked about the room and went through an empty chest of drawers in vain, but at last, on some shelves in the closet where his clothes had hung, he found several large sheets of coarse white paper: the shelves were covered with it loosely for the sake of cleanliness. He abstracted one of these sheets and cut it into squares of the ordinary note paper size, and he sat down and wrote a brief letter to Richard Hartley, stating where he was, that Arthur Benham was there, the O'Haras and, he thought, Captain Stewart. He did not write the names out, but put instead the initial letters of each name, knowing that Hartley would understand. He gave careful directions as to how the place was to be reached, and he asked Hartley to come as soon as possible by night to that wall where he himself had made his entrance, to climb up by the cedar-tree, and to drop his answer into the thick leaves of the lilac bushes immediately beneath – an answer naming a day and hour, preferably by night, when he could return with three or four to help him, surprise the household at La Lierre, and carry off young Benham.
Ste. Marie wrote this letter four times, and each of the four copies he enclosed in an awkwardly fashioned envelope, made with infinite pains so that its flaps folded in together, for he had no gum. He addressed and stamped the four envelopes, and put them all in his pocket to await the first opportunity.
Afterwards he lay down for awhile and, as, one after another, the books he had in the room failed to interest him, his thoughts began to turn back to Mlle. Coira O'Hara and his hour with her upon the old stone bench in the garden. He realized all at once that he had been putting off this reflection as one puts off a reckoning that one a little dreads to face, and rather vaguely he realised why.
The spell that the girl wielded – quite without being conscious of it: he granted her that grace – was too potent. It was dangerous, and he knew it. Even imaginative and very unpractical people can be in some things surprisingly matter-of-fact, and Ste. Marie was matter-of-fact about this. The girl had made a mysterious and unprecedented appeal to him at his very first sight of her, long before, and ever since that time she had continued, intermittently at least, to haunt his dreams. Now he was in the very house with her. It was quite possible that he might see her and speak with her every day, and he knew there was peril in that.
He closed his eyes and she came to him, dark and beautiful, magnetically vital, spreading enchantment about her like a fragrance. She sat beside him on the moss-stained bench in the garden, holding out her hand cupwise, and a sunbeam lay in the hand like a little golden fluttering bird. His thoughts ran back to that first morning when he had narrowly escaped death by poison. He remembered the girl's agony of fear and horror. He felt her hands once more upon his shoulders, and he was aware that his breath was coming faster and that his heart beat quickly. He got to his feet and went across to one of the windows, and he stood there for a long time frowning out into the summer day. If ever in his life, he said to himself with some deliberation, he was to need a cool and clear head, faculties unclouded and unimpaired by emotion, it was now in these next few days. Much more than his own well-being depended upon him now. The fates of a whole family and quite possibly the lives of some of them were in his hands. He must not fail and he must not, in any least way, falter.
For enemies he had a band of desperate adventurers, and the very boy himself, the centre and reason for the whole plot, had been, in some incomprehensible way, so played upon that he too was against him.
The man standing by the window forced himself quite deliberately to look the plain facts in the face. He compelled himself to envisage this beautiful girl with her tragic eyes for just what his reason knew her to be – an adventuress, a decoy, a lure to a callow impressionable foolish lad, the tool of that arch-villain Stewart and of the lesser villain her father. It was like standing by and watching something lovely and pitiful vilely befouled. It turned his heart sick within him, but he held himself to the task. He brought to aid him the vision of his lady in whose cause he was pursuing this adventure. For strength and determination he reached eye and hand to her where she sat enthroned, calm-browed, serene.
For the first time since the beginning of all things his lady failed him, and Ste. Marie turned cold with fear.
Where was that splendid frenzy that had been wont to sweep him all in an instant into upper air – set his feet upon the stars? Where was it? The man gave a sudden voiceless cry of horror. The wings that had such countless times upborne him fluttered weakly near the earth and could not mount. His lady was there: through infinite space he was aware of her, but she was cold and aloof and her eyes gazed very serenely beyond, at something he could not see.
He knew well enough that the fault lay somewhere within himself. She was as she had ever been, but he lacked the strength to rise to her. Why? Why? He searched himself with a desperate earnestness, but he could find no answer to his questioning. In himself, as in her, there had come no change. She was still to him all that she ever had been – the star of his destiny, the pillar of fire by night, of cloud by day, to guide him on his path. Where then the fine pure fervour that should, at thought of her, whirl him on high and make a god of him?
He stood wrapped in bewilderment and despair, for he could find no answer.
In plain words, in commonplace black and white, the man's anguish has an over-fanciful, a wellnigh absurd look, but to Ste. Marie the thing was very real and terrible: as real and as terrible as, to a half-starved monk in his lonely cell, the sudden failure of the customary exaltation of spirit after a night's long prayer.
He went after a time back to the bed and lay down there, with one upflung arm across his eyes to shut out the light. He was filled with a profound dejection and a sense of hopelessness. Through all the long week of his imprisonment he had been cheerful, at times even gay. However evil his case might have looked, his elastic spirits had mounted above all difficulties and cares, confident in the face of apparent defeat. Now at last he lay still, bruised, as it were, and battered and weary. The flame of courage burnt very low in him. From sheer exhaustion he fell after a time into a troubled sleep, but even there the enemy followed him and would not let him rest. He seemed to himself to be in a place of shadows and fear. He strained his eyes to make out above him the bright clear star of guidance, for so long as that shone he was safe, but something had come between – cloud or mist – and his star shone dimly in fitful glimpses.
On the next morning he went out once more, with old Michel, into the garden. He went with a stronger heart, for the morning had renewed his courage, as bright fresh mornings do. From the anguish of the day before he held himself carefully aloof. He kept his mind away from all thought of it, and gave his attention to the things about him. It would return doubtless in the slow idle hours; he would have to face it again, and yet again; he would have to contend with it: but for the present he put it out of his thoughts, for there were things to do.
It was no more than human of him – and certainly it was very characteristic of Ste. Marie – that he should be half glad and half disappointed at not finding Coira O'Hara in her place at the rond point. It left him free to do what he wished to do – make a careful reconnaissance of the whole garden enclosure – but it left him empty of something he had, without conscious thought, looked forward to.
His wounded leg was stronger and more flexible than on the day before: it burnt and prickled less, and could be bent a little at the knee with small distress, so he led the old Michel at a good pace down the length of the enclosure, past the rose gardens – a tangle of unkempt sweetness – and so to the opposite wall. He found the gates there, very formidable-looking, made of vertical iron bars connected by cross pieces and an ornamental scroll. They were fastened together by a heavy chain and a padlock. The lock was covered with rust, as were the gates themselves, and Ste. Marie observed that the lane outside upon which they gave was overgrown with turf and moss and even with seedling shrubs, so he felt sure that this entrance was never used. The lane, he noted, swept away to the right, towards Fort d'Issy and not towards the Clamart road. He heard, as he stood there, the whirr of a tram from far away at the left – a tram bound to or from Clamart – and the sound brought to his mind what he wished to do. He turned about and began to make his way round the rose gardens, which were partly enclosed by a low brick wall some two or three feet high. Beyond them the trees and shrubbery were not set out in orderly rows as they were near the house, but grew at will without hindrance or care. It was like a bit of the Meudon wood.
He found the going more difficult here for his bad leg, but he pressed on and in a little while saw before him that wall which skirted the Clamart road. He felt in his pocket for the four sealed and stamped letters, but just then the old Michel spoke behind him.
"Pardon, monsieur! Il n'est pas permis."
"What is not permitted?" demanded Ste. Marie, wheeling about.
"To approach that wall, monsieur," said the old man with an incredibly gnome-like and apologetic grin.
Ste. Marie gave an exclamation of disgust.
"Is it believed that I could leap over it?" he asked. "A matter of five metres? Merci non! I am not so agile. You flatter me."
The old Michel spread out his two gnarled hands.
"Pas de ma faute. I have orders, monsieur. It will be my painful duty to shoot if monsieur approaches that wall." He turned his strange head on one side and regarded Ste. Marie with his sharp and bead-like eye. The smile of apology still distorted his face, and he looked exactly like the Punchinello in a street show.
Ste. Marie slowly withdrew from his pocket two louis d'or, and held them before him in the palm of his hand. He looked down upon them and Michel looked too, with a gaze so intense that his solitary eye seemed to project a very little from his withered face. He was like a hypnotised old bird.
"Mon vieux," said Ste. Marie. "I am a man of honour."
"Sûrement! Sûrement, monsieur!" said the old Michel politely, but his hypnotised gaze did not stir so much as a hair's-breadth.
"Ça va sans le dire."
"A man of honour," repeated Ste. Marie. "When I give my word I keep it. Voila! I keep it."
"And," said he, "I have here forty francs. Two louis. A large sum. It is yours, my brave Michel, for the mere trouble of turning your back just thirty seconds."
"Monsieur," whispered the old man, "it is impossible. He would kill me – by torture."
"He will never know," said Ste. Marie, "for I do not mean to try to escape. I give you my word of honour that I shall not try to escape. Besides, I could not climb over that wall, as you see.
"Two louis, Michel! Forty francs!"
The old man's hands twisted and trembled round the barrel of the carbine, and he swallowed once with some difficulty. He seemed to hesitate but in the end he shook his head. It was as if he shook it in grief over the grave of his firstborn.
"It is impossible," he said again. "Impossible." He tore the bead-like eye away from those two beautiful glowing golden things, and Ste. Marie saw that there was nothing to be done with him just now. He slipped the money back into his pocket with a little sigh, and turned away towards the rose gardens.
"Ah well," said he. "Another time perhaps. Another time. And there are more louis still, mon vieux. Perhaps three or four. Who knows?" Michel emitted a groan of extreme anguish, and they moved on.
But a few moments later Ste. Marie gave a sudden low exclamation and then a soundless laugh, for he caught sight of a very familiar figure seated in apparent dejection upon a fallen tree trunk and staring across the tangled splendour of the roses.
CHAPTER XXII
A SETTLEMENT REFUSED
Captain Stewart had good reason to look depressed on that fresh and beautiful morning when Ste. Marie happened upon him beside the rose gardens. Matters had not gone well with him of late. He was ill and he was frightened, and he was much nearer than is agreeable to a complete nervous breakdown.
It seemed to him that perils beset him upon every side: perils both seen and unseen. He felt like a man who is hunted in the dark, hard pressed until his strength is gone and he can go no farther. He imagined himself to be that man shivering in the gloom in a strange place, hiding eyes and ears lest he see or hear something from which he cannot escape. He imagined the morning light to come very slow and cold and grey, and in it he saw round about him a silent ring of enemies, the men who had pursued him and run him down. He saw them standing there in the pale dawn, motionless, waiting for the day, and he knew that at last the chase was over and he was done for.
Crouching alone in the garden with the scent of roses in his nostrils, he wondered with a great and bitter amazement at that madman – himself of only a few months ago – who had sat down deliberately, in his proper senses, to play at cards with Fate, the great winner of all games. He wondered if, after all, he had been in his proper senses, for the deed now loomed before him gigantic and hideous in its criminal folly. His mind went drearily back to the beginning of it all, to the tremendous debts which had hounded him day and night; to his fear to speak of them with his father, who had never had the least mercy upon gamblers. He remembered, as if it were yesterday, the afternoon upon which he learnt of young Arthur's quarrel with his grandfather, old David's senile anger, and the boy's tempestuous exit from the house, vowing never to return. He remembered his talk with old David later on about the will, in which he learnt that he was now to have Arthur's share under certain conditions. He remembered how that very evening, three days after his disappearance, the lad had come secretly to the Rue du Faubourg St. Honoré, begging his uncle to take him in for a few days, and how, in a single instant that was like a lightning flash, the Great Idea had come to him.
What gigantic and appalling madness it had all been! And yet, for a time, how easy of execution. For a time. Now … He gave another quick shiver, for his mind came back to what beset him and compassed him round about. Perils seen and hidden.
The peril seen was ever before his eyes. Against the light of day it loomed a gigantic and portentous shadow, and it threatened him – the figure of Ste. Marie who knew. His reason told him that, if due care were used, this danger need not be too formidable, and indeed in his heart he rather despised Ste. Marie as an individual; but the man's nerve was broken and, in these days, fear swept wave-like over reason and had its way with him. Fear looked up to this looming portentous shadow, and saw there youth and health and strength, courage and hopefulness, and (best of all armours) a righteous cause. How was an ill and tired and wicked old man to fight against these? It became an obsession, the figure of this youth: it darkened the sun at noonday, and at night it stood beside Captain Stewart's bed in the darkness and watched him and waited, and the very air he breathed came chill and dark from its silent presence there.
But there were perils unseen as well as seen. He felt invisible threads drawing round him, weaving closer and closer, and he dared not even try how strong they were lest they prove to be cables of steel. He was almost certain that his niece knew something or at the least suspected. As has already been pointed out, the two saw very little of each other, but on the occasions of their last few meetings it had seemed to him that the girl watched him with a strange stare, and tried always to be in her grandfather's chamber when he called to make his inquiries. Once, stirred by a moment's bravado, he asked her if M. Ste. Marie had returned from his mysterious absence, and the girl said —
"No. He has not come back yet, but I expect him soon now – with news of Arthur. We shall all be very glad to see him, grandfather and Richard Hartley and I."
It was not a very consequential speech, and to tell the truth it was what, in the girl's own country, would be termed pure "bluff," but to Captain Stewart it rang harsh and loud with evil significance, and he went out of that room cold at heart. What plans were they perfecting among them? What invisible nets for his feet?
And there was another thing still. Within the past two or three days he had become convinced that his movements were being watched. (And that would be Richard Hartley at work, he said to himself.) Faces vaguely familiar began to confront him in the street, in restaurants and cafés. Once he thought his rooms had been ransacked during his absence at La Lierre, though his servant stoutly maintained that they had never been left unoccupied save for a half-hour's marketing. Finally, on the day before this morning by the rose gardens, he was sure that as he came out from the city in his car he was followed at a long distance by another motor. He saw it behind him after he had left the city gate, the Porte de Versailles, and he saw it again after he had left the main route at Issy, and entered the little Rue Barbes which led to La Lierre. Of course he promptly did the only possible thing under the circumstances. He dashed on past the long stretch of wall, swung into the main avenue beyond and continued, through Clamart, to the Meudon wood, as if he were going to St. Cloud. In the labyrinth of roads and lanes there he came to a halt, and after a half-hour's wait ran slowly back to La Lierre.
There was no further sign of the other car, the pursuer, if so it had been; but he passed two or three men on bicycles and others walking, and what one of these might not be a spy paid to track him down?
It had frightened him badly, that hour of suspense and flight, and he determined to remain at La Lierre for at least a few days, and wrote to his servant in the Rue du Faubourg to forward his letters there under the false name by which he had hired the place.
He was thinking very wearily of all these things as he sat on the fallen tree trunk in the garden and stared unseeing across tangled ranks of roses. And after awhile his thoughts, as they were wont to do, returned to Ste. Marie – that looming shadow which darkened the sunlight, that incubus of fear which clung to him night and day. He was so absorbed that he did not hear sounds which might otherwise have roused him. He heard nothing, saw nothing, save that which his fevered mind projected, until a voice spoke his name.
He looked over his shoulder thinking that O'Hara had sought him out. He turned a little on the tree trunk to see more easily, and the image of his dread stood there a living and very literal shadow against the daylight.
Captain Stewart's overstrained nerves were in no state to bear a sudden shock. He gave a voiceless, whispering cry, and he began to tremble very violently so that his teeth chattered. All at once he got to his feet and began to stumble away backwards, but a projecting limb of the fallen tree caught him and held him fast. It must be that the man was in a sort of frenzy. He must have seen through a red mist just then, for when he found that he could not escape his hand went swiftly to his coat pocket, and in his white and contorted face there was murder, plain and unmistakable.
Ste. Marie was too lame to spring aside or to dash upon the man across intervening obstacles and defend himself. He stood still in his place and waited. And it was characteristic of him that at that moment he felt no fear, only a fine sense of exhilaration. Open danger had no terrors for him. It was secret peril that unnerved him, as in the matter of the poison a week before.
Captain Stewart's hand fell away empty and Ste. Marie laughed.
"Left it at the house?" said he. "You seem to have no luck, Stewart. First the cat drinks the poison and then you leave your pistol at home. Dear! dear! I'm afraid you're careless."
Captain Stewart stared at the younger man under his brows. His face was grey and he was still shivering, but the sudden agony of fear, which had been after all only a jangle of nerves, was gone away. He looked upon Ste. Marie's gay and untroubled face with a dull wonder, and he began to feel a grudging admiration for the man who could face death without even turning pale. He pulled out his watch and looked at it.
"I did not know," he said, "that this was your hour out of doors." As a matter of fact he had quite forgotten that the arrangement existed. When he had first heard of it he had protested vigorously, but had been overborne by O'Hara with the plea that they owed their prisoner something for having come near to poisoning him, and Stewart did not care to have any further attention called to that matter: it had already put a severe strain upon the relations at La Lierre.
"Well," observed Ste. Marie, "I told you you were careless. That proves it. Come! Can't we sit down for a little chat? I haven't seen you since I was your guest at the other address – the town address. It seems to have become a habit of mine, doesn't it? being your guest." He laughed cheerfully, but Captain Stewart continued to regard him without smiling.
"If you imagine," said the elder man, "that this place belongs to me you are mistaken. I came here to-day to make a visit." But Ste. Marie sat down at one end of the tree trunk and shook his head.
"Oh, come, come!" said he. "Why keep up the pretence? You must know that I know all about the whole affair Why, bless you, I know it all – even to the provisions of the will. Did you think I stumbled in here by accident? Well, I didn't, though I don't mind admitting to you that I remained by accident." He glanced over his shoulder towards the one-eyed Michel, who stood near by regarding the two with some alarm.
Captain Stewart looked up sharply at the mention of the will, and he wetted his dry lips with his tongue. But after a moment's hesitation he sat down upon the tree trunk, and he seemed to shrink a little together, when his limbs and shoulders had relaxed, so that he looked small and feeble, like a very tired old man. He remained silent for a few moments, but at last he spoke without raising his eyes. He said —
"And now that you – imagine yourself to know so very much, what do you expect to do about it?" Ste. Marie laughed again.
"Ah, that would be telling!" he cried. "You see, in one way I have the advantage (though outwardly all the advantage seems to be with your side): I know all about your game. I may call it a game? Yes? But you don't know mine. You don't know what I – what we may do at any moment. That's where we have the better of you."
"It would seem to me," said Captain Stewart wearily, "that since you are a prisoner here and very unlikely to escape, we know with great accuracy what you will do – and what you will not."
"Yes," admitted Ste. Marie. "It would seem so. It certainly would seem so. But you never can tell, can you?" And at that the elder man frowned and looked away. Thereafter another brief silence fell between the two, but at its end Ste. Marie spoke in a new tone, a very serious tone. He said —
"Stewart, listen a moment!" and the other turned a sharp gaze upon him.
"You mustn't forget," said Ste. Marie, speaking slowly as if to choose his words with care – "you mustn't forget that I am not alone in this matter. You mustn't forget that there's Richard Hartley – and that there are others too. I'm a prisoner, yes, I'm helpless here for the present – perhaps – perhaps, but they are not, and they know, Stewart. They know."
Captain Stewart's face remained grey and still, but his hands twisted and shook upon his knees until he hid them.
"I know well enough what you're waiting for," continued Ste. Marie. "You're waiting – you've got to wait, for Arthur Benham to come of age, or, better yet, for your father to die." He paused and shook his head.
"It's no good. You can't hold out as long as that – not by half. We shall have won the game long before. Listen to me! Do you know what would occur if your father should take a serious turn for the worse to-night – or at any time? Do you? Well, I'll tell you. A piece of information would be given him that would make another change in that will just as quickly as a pen could write the words. That's what would happen."
"That is a lie!" said Captain Stewart in a dry whisper. "A lie." And Ste. Marie contented himself with a slight smile by way of answer. He was by no means sure that what he said was true, but he argued that since Hartley suspected or, perhaps by this time, knew so much, he would certainly not allow old David to die without doing what he could do in an effort to save young Arthur's fortune from a rascal. In any event, true or false, the words had had the desired effect. Captain Stewart was plainly frightened by them.
"May I make a suggestion?" asked the younger man. The other did not answer him and he made it.
"Give it up!" said he. "You're riding for a tremendous fall, you know. We shall smash you completely in the end. It'll mean worse than ruin – much worse. Give it up, now, before you're too late. Help me to send for Hartley, and we'll take the boy back to his home. Some story can be managed that will leave you out of the thing altogether, and those who know will hold their tongues. It's your last chance, Stewart. I advise you to take it."
Captain Stewart turned his grey face slowly and looked at the other man with a sort of dull and apathetic wonder.
"Are you mad?" he asked in a voice which was altogether without feeling of any kind. "Are you quite mad?"
"On the contrary," said Ste. Marie, "I am quite sane, and I'm offering you a chance to save yourself before it's too late.
"Don't misunderstand me!" he said. "I am not urging this out of any sympathy for you. I urge it because it will bring about what I wish a little more quickly, also because it will save your family from the disgrace of your smash-up. That's why I'm making my suggestion."
Captain Stewart was silent for a little while, but after that he got heavily to his feet.
"I think you must be quite mad," said he, as before, in a voice altogether devoid of expression. "I cannot talk with madmen." He beckoned to the old Michel, who stood near-by leaning upon his carbine, and when the gardener had approached, he said —
"Take this – prisoner back to his room!"
Ste. Marie rose with a little sigh. He said —
"I'm sorry, but you'll admit I have done my best for you. I've warned you. I shan't do it again. We shall smash you now, without mercy."
"Take him away!" cried Captain Stewart in a sudden loud voice, and the old Michel touched his charge upon the shoulder. So Ste. Marie went without further words. From a little distance he looked back, and the other man still stood by the fallen tree trunk, bent a little, his arms hanging lax beside him, and his face, Ste. Marie thought fancifully, was like the face of a man damned.