II
THE LIBERTY OF THE LITTLE RED MAN
Coq le Roi, the highwayman, started up in his bed when the great bell of Notre Dame struck midnight. Silently, and with a waking man's curiosity, he counted the strokes, nodding his head at each one, and thinking to himself that it would be five or six of the morning, and time for him to be about. But when the clock went on to tell the hour of twelve, an exclamation burst from his lips.
“Mort Christ!” said he to himself, “I have not slept an hour. I might know that by the music below. Saint Paul! what throats they have!”
No man cares to be deceived with the tricks of sleep; nor was Coq le Roi,—otherwise the Little Red Man, otherwise Jacques Cabot, the notorious scourge of the highways about Paris, and one of the most successful robbers that ever set spurs to a horse,—an exception to the rule. He concluded that he had a personal grievance against the night for thus cheating him. He began to tell himself that he was thirsty, and would do well to draw on his boots and venture out to a cabaret for a cup of wine. Then he remembered that he was not in the habit of losing his sleep because a few cut-throats bawled beneath the window of his garret. Some strange sound, some unusual omen of the night, must have troubled his ears while he slept, he said. And for the first time for many a day he began to remember that the guards of the new Lieutenant of Police were then hunting for him out in the woods beyond Fontenay.
“Sang bleu!” he cried, springing suddenly from his bed, and going to the window of his garret that he might look down thence to the narrow street below, “am I a woman that I should start at shadows on the wall? What a thing to tell—at the house of the Red Cock too!”
He put his head out of the window, and the moving panorama of the slum below reassured him. There, in the heart of the thieves' quarter of the Paris of 1761, he might well think himself safe even from the early energies of Monsieur de Sartines who had just come to be Lieutenant of Police. Though the day had begun with driving sleet and bitter wind, few of the beggars in that Rue St. Sauveur thought of sleep, or indeed of anything but their pleasures. Regularly, when night fell, these rogues whom Coq le Roi now looked down upon with satisfaction, hastened to quit the church doors and the gates of the hotels, and hurried to the labyrinth of filthy lanes and tottering houses which had marked their kingdom behind Rue Mauconseil almost since Paris had risen about the islands of the marshes. A motley group they were; blind men counting their sous; lepers washing off their sham sores; lame men carrying their crutches; orphans cursing their fathers and mothers, who cursed them back again; venders of oranges with their cry, “Portugal, Portugal;” rogues whom the gibbet long had claimed in vain. Weary with the labours of the unbefriending day, eager for the shelter of the cabaret, ripe for quarrel, or drink, or play, they now rioted in the security of the alleys behind the markets, and so hid from the night of the greater Paris, the cankering sore, which was her reproach by day.
Coq le Roi permitted the bitter wind to blow upon his face for some minutes, then he drew back his head, for he remembered his intention to drink a cup of wine at the nearest cabaret, and he found the idea a very good one.
”Bah!” said he to himself, as he tugged at his long boots and looked to his pistols, which lay, ready for priming, upon the table by his ragged bed, a what have I to do with woman's tattle here? Guards in the Rue St. Sauveur! what a day that would be! I should like to see it.”
The notion amused him, and he chuckled to himself pleasantly; but of a sudden the laugh died down upon his lips, and he sat upon the bed like one petrified. He had become aware, in that instant, of the presence of another in the room,—a gaunt figure dressed from head to foot in black, and masked so closely that even his eyes were not visible. Noiselessly, with no drawing of bolt or creak of foot, the apparition had come to his bed- side. The robber feared nothing human—but now he trembled so that the whole bed shook, and the sweat fell in icy cold drops from his brow down upon his naked chest.
“God have pity, who are you?” he asked, not daring so much as to raise his hand to the pistol beside him.
The stranger laughed merrily, and crossing before the robber, he sat himself down upon a rough oak bench which was the only seat, other than the bed, in the miserable attic. Coq le Roi could see by the little light which fell through the lattice that the visitor wore very good clothes, and that the hilt of his sword was a-glitter with diamonds.
“Bon soir, Monsieur Jacques Cabot,” said the man, leaning back against the wall, and crossing his legs for comfort,—“Bon soir; or perhaps I should say rightly, Bon jour. The clock has just gone twelve, I think.”
Coq laughed nervously. He was ashamed now that he should have so carried himself. “I thought you were the devil,” said he.
The man neglected to see that he was unanswered.
“You are an early riser, Monsieur Cabot,” he continued playfully, “to be out of your bed at midnight. What a monk you would make!”
The robber shrugged his shoulders, and since he feared his visitor no longer, he stretched out a hand and took up one of his pistols. In the same moment the man in the mask gave a sharp lunge with his foot, and so cleverly was it done that the pistol went flying up to the roof and there exploded with a crash like that of cannon.
“Imbecile,” said he, “would you fire upon one who comes to save your neck?”
Coq le Roi sank back upon the bed with a sigh. After all, he said to himself, there was something uncanny about the coming of this mask.
“Well,” he asked doggedly, “and what next?”
The man rose and opened the window.
“This is no time for words,” said he; “let your ears tell you the tale.”
He held up his hand warningly, bidding the other to listen; and while the two stood there at the little casement a strange sound arose above the hum of the city life. It was a sound neither of beggars brawling nor of rogues at their play. When it had continued a little while, there was added to it the loud rattle of musketry, the clash of swords, and the tramp of many feet; while clear above all, and resounding like the note of a trumpet, was the cry, “The guards, the guards!”
“You hear,” exclaimed the unknown, drawing back from the window, “our friends, the cut-throats, are welcoming the guards of the new Lieutenant of Police. Shall I tell you, Monsieur Cabot, how many years it is since a dragoon dared to pass the Virgin's statue? You have no love for history, you say. Saint Denis, I do not wonder at it, since it is for you that Monsieur de Sartines has brought about this pretty play and come into this den of beasts.”
Coq le Roi, quickened by the danger, began to prime his second pistol. His natural courage had returned to him now. Little man that he was, little and with a face like a young girl's, he had made danger so good a bedfellow that surprise was rather pleasant than alarming to him.
“Bah!” cried he, “that Sartines should be such a fool as to look for me at the house of the Red Cock. Oh, we shall have a merry night, comrade—yet who you are and why you are here, the devil take me if I can say.”
He buttoned his cloak around his shoulders with itching fingers, convinced, though he did not say so, that this man who had come to him so mysteriously had come as a friend. Meanwhile, the whole quarter without was thundering with the clamour of the mob—hell itself seemed to have been loosed in that labyrinth of crime and squalor.
Coq le Roi was sure that his liberty was a matter of moments.
“Look you, my friend,” he continued to the unknown, who had watched him with some amusement and perhaps a little malice, “I am now going upstairs to get some fresh air upon the roof. But I shall not forget that you, whoever you may be, warned me of to-night's affair. I wish you good-night, monsieur. When we meet again it may be your turn to thank me and to tell me how you got into this house. I hope it will be so.”
The stranger laughed aloud, insolently indifferent to the haste of the other.
“You are going on the roof, Monsieur Cabot?” he exclaimed mockingly; “surely that is very thoughtless of you.”
“And why, monsieur?”
“You shall be the judge of that when I tell you that five of Sartine's men are there before you.”
Coq le Roi swore a full-mouthed oath. He even thought for a moment that this man had betrayed him; but he was too wise to act upon his suspicions.
“I shall see for myself,” said he, and with that he quitted the room, only to return a moment later with a face white with fear.
“Monsieur,” said he, trying to force a jest, “you reckon well. There are exactly five of Sartines' men above us. How many there may be in the street below, I will not venture to hazard. Nor will I dispute with you any longer. If you come here to aid me, this is the time to do your work; but if you are upon any other errand—then God help you, for I will certainly blow out your brains.”
The stranger laughed again.
“I do not keep my brains in the ceiling of your garret,” said he. “Upon my word you are a very impertinent fellow, Monsieur Cabot. I am half of the mind to leave you to Sartines, who has sworn to dig up the stones of Paris rather than lose the pleasure of your company.”
“He has sworn that?” muttered Coq le Roi, beginning to tremble again.
“As I say. Did you not stop the coach of Madame Geoffrin but a week ago and wound two of her lacqueys? Very well, Madame Geoffrin complained to the king and the king to Monsieur de Sartines. And now, you see, the dragoons are coming to beat in the door of your house. Oh, the lieutenant knows well that he could only take you with dragoons. What a man he is—to trap you here like a bear in a cage! For you are trapped, Monsieur Cabot. Yon street is as full of police as an orange of pips. And hark, there are the troopers themselves.”
The clamour without, a clamour in which were commingled the hoarse cries of men, the shrieks of women, the ringing of hoofs upon the flags, the clash of steel, the loud note of command now rose up from the street below them. Coq le Roi listened to the hubbub and his knees quaked under him; but the unknown, who had timed his play to the ultimate moment, seemed at last to turn from his humour and to take pity on the trembling robber.
“Come,” said he, “follow me and ask nothing. You have a lantern there—bring it.”
The hunted man was now as clay in the hands of this maker of mysteries. He lighted his lantern mechanically; mechanically he followed the stranger down the dark and narrow stairs of the house of the Red Cock. He could hear those without beating already upon his door; but he trembled no longer. The man who went before him seemed to fill him with a new courage, as a measure is filled with wine. He did not ask, “Whence does he come, whither does he go?” He said only, “He will save me.” And when at length he found himself out in the narrow, high-walled courtyard which was called by courtesy his garden, he was like a child obeying a father, and trusting him unquestioningly.
“Monsieur,” he exclaimed with humble civility, “there is no door to the street here.”
“You lie,” said the stranger, curtly; “give me your lantern.”
Coq le Roi watched him with amazement now. When he had taken the lantern in his hand, he walked straight to the mouth of the old well, which was the one conspicuous thing in that filthy and deserted court. Then he unwound a long coil of thin rope, and attaching the lantern to this, he lowered it into the orifice. Coq le Roi, looking over his shoulder timidly, watched him as one watches a conjuror at his tricks.
“Monsieur,” cried he, “you cannot hide me in the well.”
The unknown laughed scornfully.
“St. Denis,” exclaimed he, “that a man should live five years in a house and yet know nothing of its resources! Do you follow the path of that light, my friend? Well, tell me what you see.”
“The light shows me walls green with slime and fungus,” said the robber. “I see great gaps where bricks have been; there are lizards of strange shapes, and rats feeding—and now I see the water. Holy Virgin!—you would not send me down there, monsieur?”
“Look again,” cried the other, unmoved at the plea, “upon the right-hand side of the well at a little distance above the water's edge,—what see you now?”
Coq le Roi stretched out his neck and searched the foetid depths with eager eyes. The twinkle of the light below was like a star seen through a black tube. The rats fled at its light; stones fell with resounding splashes while they ran; cold air oozed up and seemed to freeze the robber's face.
“Mon Dieu!” said he, “you have discovered something, monsieur; there is a little tunnel running into the well, and the water does not cover its mouth.”
“You have said well,” answered the unknown; “through that tunnel we shall pass to our friends. After you, Monsieur Cabot. The rope which holds the bucket will bear the weight of three men. Trust your life to it rather than to your friends without. I wait for you.”
Coq le Roi shuddered.
“Holy Virgin!” said he, “I dare not go down there.”
“You dare not—do you hear those blows? They are from the sabres of the guards who beat in your door. Shall I leave you to receive your guests? I give you one minute.”
He folded his arms and waited. Coq le Roi, now wringing his hands, or running to and fro in his distress, or peering with a horrid fear into the well below, was like a woman distracted.
“God have pity,” cried he; “I cannot—I cannot.”
“The half of a minute is gone,” answered the unknown in a voice hard as iron.
“Do you wish to kill me, Monsieur?” moaned the robber.
“You have ten seconds yet,” cried the unknown.
“You torture me,” wailed the robber.
“The guards are just beating in your door,” replied the unknown.
It was as he said. The great iron-bound gate was giving way to the crashing blows which fell upon it. Coq le Roi listened for one long instant—and then, reeling, staggering toward the well, he clutched the rope and began to descend.
“When you come to the tunnel, kick against the wall, and that will swing you in,” cried the masked man, bending over to watch him; “leave the lantern until I follow.”
“You will find my Body,” howled the Robber.
“You will find my body,” howled the robber from the darkness.
Lowering himself hand under hand, Coq le Roi descended to the well. The unknown waited until he had reached the light, and had entered the dark hole above the water. Then he, too, clutched the rope—but he could not keep back the laugh from his lips.
“Ventrebleu! Sartines,” said he to himself, “a merry night to you, and a merrier day to-morrow. To be fooled by a woman at your time of life! Oh, you amuse us finely.”
“Are you coming, monsieur,” roared Coq le Roi below, “Oh, for pity's sake, be quick!”
The unknown hesitated no longer, but swung himself cleverly upon the rope and so disappeared into the darkness of the well.
Five minutes later a terrible cry, like a cry of victory, arose suddenly from the ranks of the sweltering mob gathered in the narrow alley before the house of the Red Cock. From lane to lane, and street to street, it spread until it was echoed in long-drawn hooting even across the frilling waters of the Seine.
“Coq le Roi has escaped! Holà! Holà! Holà! Coq le Roi is free. Long life to the little red man. Viva! Down with the guard. À bas, Sartines! Hola! Hola!”
Loud, terrible, long sustained was the cry. Exhilarated at these unexpected tidings, spurred to new courage by the joyous news, the mob fell upon the sulking troopers with any weapon that came to its hand; and in the stifling courts and alleys there was soon to be heard the shrieks of dying men, the booming of muskets, the shriller wailing of the women. Yet it was not until dawn broke that the beggars began to number their dead, and to forget that Coq le Roi was free.
Monsieur de Sartines had supped well, as he always did at the Hôtel Beutreillis. Though he declared that the gloomy old house in the Rue St. Paul was more forbidding than the Bastille where its exterior was concerned, there was no one readier to admit that Mademoiselle Corinne de Montesson, its mistress, was the cleverest woman in Paris and the most fascinating. Besides, was she not the particular patron of all the rogues and vagabonds in the thieves' quarter, and could she not, if she would, be of more service to the court in general and to himself, Monsieur de Sartines in particular, than a squadron of dragoons? It was a big “if,” since mademoiselle's charity and large-heartedness were traditions in the city; but the lieutenant still hoped—and supped.
On this particular evening, the excellent man had much need of consolation, and of the rich red wine which added the lustre of the ruby to the sparkling Venetian glass in which Corinne's guests were always served. For it was the evening of the day when Coq le Roi had slipped through his fingers in so miraculous a manner; and in escaping had set the whole city laughing at her Lieutenant of Police. Nor had the good Sartines secured at that time the reputation which in after years brought him fame beyond the fame of any who had occupied the office which he glorified. He had yet to prove himself; and in proving himself he had begun with this disastrous and long-remembered fiasco.
Depressed by the reflection, gloomy, and not a little irritable, he had gone to Mademoiselle de Montesson's house, scarce daring to hope that she would aid him; convinced, none the less, that she would amuse him. He had found her, to his satisfaction, alone save for the presence of her wonder-loving old physician, Antonio, and of her young kinsman, Bénôit, who was said to be the finest swordsman in Paris. The supper had been unsurpassable, as it was always at the Hôtel Beautreillis; and when it was done, mademoiselle carried her guest to the great music-room, and there caused her servants to bring the delicious coffee of the East. And this being served, Hatrin, her harpist, began to touch the strings of his instrument caressingly; while mademoiselle herself, sharing a rest-giving lounge with the gloomy lieutenant, endeavoured to play wittily upon his melancholy.
“I read your thoughts, my dear friend,” said she.
“They would make a dull book, mademoiselle,” replied the other.
“Oh, not at all; such a book has yet to be finished. Gloom is the seasoning which gives joy its savour. Monsieur de Sartines—just as failure is the salt which provokes the appetite for success.”
“Of what are you thinking, my dear lady?”
“I—of what should I think but the happiness of my friends? And you are not happy, monsieur. Indeed, you are the picture of misery.”
“And you are of merriment, mademoiselle—and of beauty.”
The lieutenant bowed pompously when he uttered the compliment. Mademoiselle herself laughed a rippling girlish laugh—she had lived but twenty-three years, and the fountain of her youth still played abundantly.
“Ho, ho,” she cried, “a compliment from Monsieur de Sartines. I shall look for the question next. You will spare me the torture of the boot, monsieur.”
“It would have to be a very pretty boot, dear lady.”
“Another compliment. Oh, surely, Monsieur de Sartines is about to put the question.”
“How! You think that I have something to ask—of you?”
“And why not? There would be stranger questions.”
“You must prove that before I admit it.”
“Certainly, I will prove it in a word. You came here to-night to speak about Coq le Roi.”
Monsieur de Sartines, when he heard this, sat straight up like a man who has been hit in the back with the flat of a sword.
“Pardieu!” cried he, “what do you know about Coq le Roi?”
She laughed at him girlishly and very sweetly.
“I know much more than the Lieutenant of Police,” she said.
“You are pleased to jest, mademoiselle.”
“I—to jest—what an accusation!”
“Then convince me that you do not.”
“With the greatest pleasure possible—for instance, you would like to learn—”
The lieutenant laughed savagely.
“I would like to learn where the man is at this moment,” exclaimed he.
“Is that all—surely, nothing could be more simple. I will summon Antonio.”
“Oh! it is Antonio who is the friend of assassins, then?”
“Certainly, he is a brother to them all. Does that shock you, dear Monsieur de Sartines? If so, we will not trouble him.”
“By no means,” cried the lieutenant, who was boiling over with curiosity; “at least he will amuse me.”
“I promise that,” replied Corinne.
Sartines had expected that she would rise from her seat to summon the physician as she had promised; but she did not so much as move a finger; and when some minutes had passed the lieutenant became impatient.
“Well,” he said, “are you not going to exhibit this godfather of assassins?”
“Surely, since he is here now.”
It was as she said. The old doctor, Antonio, had entered the room during their talk; and the lieutenant felt a cold chill run down his spine, when suddenly he became aware that a strange figure stood at his side. Whence the apparition had come; from the shelter of what trap, or panel, or hiding-place, Sartines could not tell. He knew only that the old man was before him, clad in his Geneva gown, wearing a full-bottomed wig, the curls of which almost touched his elbows.
“Ciel!” cried he, “you have a light foot, doctor.”
Antonio bowed with the grace of a prince-bishop.
“At your service, lieutenant,” said he. “If all report be true, you will need many light feet for your work in Paris.”
Sartines bit his lip. The physician's words seemed a reflection upon his mishap with Coq le Roi.
“Come,” said he, “let us talk of other things. Mademoiselle has promised that you will amuse me—”
“I am here to obey my mistress,” said the old man,—“what is your pleasure, lieutenant?”
“Oh, my pleasure is not in question, but mademoiselle has said—”
“I have said that you will tell him what the highwayman named Coq le Roi, is doing to-night,” cried Corinne, interrupting suddenly; “there is nothing more simple than that, eh, Antonio?”
“It is a child's task, mademoiselle.”
Sartines, who had begun by treating the whole thing as an elaborate jest, listened to this talk incredulously. While he told himself that Antonio's claim was absurd, preposterous, ridiculous, nevertheless the idea that he should put the physician to the trial was strong and fascinating. He felt like one in the presence of a conjuror. He would watch the trick closely—perhaps learn something from it. Besides, if he should get any information about Coq le Roi—but that, he said, was impossible.
Antonio, meanwhile, had crossed the great room and had seated himself before a little table upon which was an astrolabe in brass, a lamp with a green shade, and a large sheet of drawing-paper, all scrawled over with hieroglyphics and strange lettering like the lettering of an Eastern manuscript. When he had turned back the long sleeves of his gown, and had taken a pair of compasses in his hand, the doctor bade the others come near.
“Monsieur,” said he to Sartines, “you desire to know in what occupation the man Jacques Cabot, sometimes called Coq le Roi, has been employed during the last twelve hours. If you will be good enough to sit by my side, and to say nothing until the clock shall strike again, I will tell you.”
The lieutenant, assuring himself that he was a fool to take part in such mummery, sat as the physician directed. Corinne took her stand beside him; Antonio, resting his head upon his hands, cried suddenly for less light; and at the words, lacqueys entered the room noiselessly and extinguished the candles. Only the shaded green lamp remained; and from its aureole of light the figure of the old doctor stood out—motionless, stern—the figure of some weird magician risen up from the ages of the past.
Five minutes passed, and nothing was to be heard in the great room but the ticking of the clock. Sartines found himself spellbound; Corinne herself stood like a statue, scarce seeming to breathe. When, at last, Antonio broke the spell, he did so by beginning to speak in a low voice, accompanying the words with the tracing of strange lines upon the paper before him.
“Monsieur,” said he, addressing Sartines, but keeping his eyes upon the paper, “at twelve o'clock to-day Coq le Roi was at Soisy robbing the coach of his lordship, the Duke of Sabran.”
“Dieu!” cried Sartines, rising from his chair, “you say—”
Antonio, without so much as turning his head, continued to draw upon the paper. Corinne touched the lieutenant gently upon the arm, and made a sign to him that he should say nothing.
“At three o'clock,” continued the physician, whose voice was now strong and clear as the note of a bell, “I find that Coq le Roi was at Gros Bois after stopping the coach of the Grand Master of Artillery, the Comte d'Eu, and robbing him of three hundred louis d'or.”
“Ventre bleu!” cried Sartines, while he threw himself back in his chair and laughed heartily, “what a play! Oh, you amuse me very well, my dear doctor.”
Antonio ignored the interruption. His head was now so near to the paper that his eyes almost touched it. His voice was the voice of a man who speaks his thoughts aloud, unconscious that any listen.
“It is six o'clock,” he said, after a long pause, “and the rain falls heavily upon the road to Fontenay. I see a great hill, and at its foot the woods stretch out to meet the waters. One horseman keeps watch in the dark place of the valley. He is waiting for the coming of his highness, the Duke de Nevers—”
“Thousand devils,” cried Sartines, unable to control himself, “you lie, monsieur—”
Antonio turned his head swiftly; Corinne pressed the lieutenant's arm warningly.
“Your pardon,” cried Sartines, nettled at his outburst, and now pale with excitement, “but has not this jest gone far enough?”
“It is as monsieur pleases,” cried the old physician, pushing his paper away from him; “he has asked me what the highwayman known as Coq le Roi has done to-day and I have told him, reading from the signs which have been given to me.”
“Certainly,” replied the lieutenant, “you have amused me very well; but is it not possible, monsieur, that you have not read your signs aright?”
“Oh, indeed, if you think that,” cried Corinne, interrupting quickly, “why not ask Coq le Roi himself?”
“Ask Coq le Roi?”
“As I say. Had you allowed Antonio to finish his work, he would have told you that, after stopping the coach of his highness, the Duke de Nevers, Coq le Roi turned his horse towards Paris; and that, even while we were speaking of him, he entered this house, and is now my guest in the Tower of St. Paul—which, I need not tell you, lieutenant, is still part of the Hôtel Beautreillis.”
Sartines heard her out, and when she had finished, his face was almost as green as the shade of the physician's lamp. The sweat poured from his brow like rain; he gnashed his teeth; he laughed with the hysterical laugh of a woman.
“Am I a child, mademoiselle,” he blurted out at last, “that you should tell me such tales?”
Corinne, holding herself with great dignity, struck a gong at her side; this was her answer to him.
A lacquey answered the summons while the note was still reverberating in the hall.
“Edouard,” she said to the servant, “Monsieur Jacques Cabot, is he in his apartment?”
“He arrived an hour ago, mademoiselle.”
“And now?”
“He is sleeping, mademoiselle.”
Corinne clapped her pretty hands.
“Could anything be better?” she said. “We will have a peep at him and apologise afterwards. Come, Monsieur de Sartines, you shall doubt no more.”
She led the way from the room while the lieutenant was still gaping with his astonishment, and he, not knowing whether he stood upon his head or his heels, followed her into the courtyard of the old house, and thence across a pretty garden, darkened by great chestnut-trees and a labyrinth of bushes. The Hôtel Beautreillis, as Corinne's home was called, formed a part of the once royal palace of St. Paul; and many strange old towers and turrets and pavilions then stood in its beautiful gardens. It was to one of these pavilions that the girl now conducted Sartines; and the excellent lieutenant was not a little surprised to find two sturdy Swiss guards standing sentry at its iron-bound door.
“Parbleu!” cried he, “you watch your guests well, my dear lady.”
“Nay,” she said, “it is the king's wish.”
“How? The king knows that the man is here?”
“Certainly—or rather, he knows that I await him.”
Sartines asked himself for the fifth time what wine he had drunk and from what malady he suffered. Then he stumbled up the narrow stairs; and, while Corinne held aloft the lantern which a servant had given to her, he entered a small and exquisitely furnished room—and there he saw Coq le Roi.
The highwayman was no typical robber. Short to the point of absurdity, with hair as red as the sands of the sea, and clothes which spoke of long hours in the saddle, you might have taken him for a hunchback of Notre Dame or a tailor of the Rue St. Severin. All the city called him the “Little Red Man,” and the title fitted him like a glove. When Sartines then saw him he was sleeping, still dressed, upon a couch; and the light from Mademoiselle's lantern, playing upon his strange little face, lit up features which might have been those of a girl. Beyond this, the man was splashed to his shoulders with mud; and two great pistols he always carried were displayed threateningly upon the table beside the relics of the admirable supper he had just partaken of.
“Dame!” cried Sartines, feasting his eyes upon the motionless figure of the robber, “that is Coq le Roi right enough. I could pick him from a hundred.”
“Certainly you could,” whispered Corinne, drawing back from the room.
“Very well,” cried the lieutenant, “I am content to ask no questions, mademoiselle, but in ten minutes my officers will call for their prisoner.”
“One moment, lieutenant. Be pleased first to read the king's pleasure.”
At this word she held her lantern quite close to the lieutenant's eyes, and showed him a little sheet of parchment which she had brought with her from the music-room. At the foot of this there was the royal seal and the signature of King Louis. Sartines took the document with trembling hands and read these words:—
“Jacques Cabot, sometimes called Coq le Roi, is to be the prisoner of Mademoiselle de Montesson until he shall steal the diamond ring from the finger of Monsieur de Sartines.”
A smile, a terrible smile, played in the eyes of the now thoroughly enraged lieutenant.
“Mademoiselle,” said he, bowing low, “I congratulate you upon the farce you are playing; at the same time his majesty's wish is a command to me. I shall make it my business to see him to-morrow and to alter this.”
“Very well, my dear Monsieur Sartines—but remember, it is half past ten o'clock.”
“Half past ten o'clock—why should I remember that?”
“You will learn presently.”
He turned upon his heel with another stately bow, and the voices of the lacqueys were heard immediately crying for his coach. Two minutes later his horses were galloping furiously toward the Hôtel de Ville; but Corinne de Montesson was still laughing in her garden.
“Oh,” she said, “if only he will go to the king!”
Monsieur de Sartines did not go to the king—that night at any rate. His first act was to call the Captain of the Guard, and to give him precise instructions for the good of Coq le Roi.
“Take a file of men,” said he to the captain, “and surround the pavilion of St. Paul in the garden of the Hôtel Beautreillis. Coq le Roi, the highwayman, is there. Shoot him if he attempts to leave the place. Otherwise, keep the guard posted until you hear from me.”
The captain saluted and withdrew. When he had gone, Sartines called for a cup of white wine and drank it at a draught. Then he took snuff in huge quantities, seeking vainly to compose his thoughts.
“Dame!” said he to himself, “what a tale to tell! That she should be the friend of assassins— And the king supports her. Either I am mad or I have dreamed the things of this night. Jacques Cabot her guest! Holy Virgin—she will burn the Bastille next!”
Long he paced his apartment, his brain burning with his changing thoughts. Twelve o'clock rang out from Notre Dame, one o'clock was told by all the churches of Paris, and still his coach waited to carry him to his own house in the Faubourg St. Germain. At a quarter past one, when sleep had begun to battle with his perplexity, a new clatter of hoofs disturbed the silent courts of the Hôtel de Ville, and awoke him from his stupor. He had scarce started up from his chair to learn the moment of the interruption when a horseman, dripping wet and splashed from head to foot with mud, burst into his room and stood at the salute before him.
“Well,” cried Sartines.
“I have the honour to inform your excellency,” cried the man, “that Monsieur l'Abbé Lamotte was stopped upon the road to Choisy at half past ten to-night and robbed of a hundred crowns by the man called Coq le Roi.”
“What,” roared Sartines, “at half past ten! You lie, rogue—I was with Coq le Roi myself at that hour.”
“It is as I say, sir—I was one of the company, and I could pick the man from a thousand.”
“God deliver me from all devils!” ejaculated the lieutenant; “it was the hour she told me to remember.”
Monsieur de Sartines was, perhaps, as little in love with hag's tales and superstitions as any man in Paris; but the events of that night, the strange mysteries of it, the surprises he had known, confused his brain and distracted him until he had no longer command of his reason. While the messenger was speaking to him, he found himself looking instinctively for the diamond ring upon the third finger of his left hand. It still glistened there, and he chuckled grimly when he saw it.
“Bah!” said he, “it is the king's jest. He has posted his own guards in the Rue St. Paul, and to-morrow he will deliver up Cabot to my charge. His words prove that. “Until he shall steal the diamond ring from the finger of Monsieur de Sartines.' Dame! if the liberty of Coq le Roi depends upon that, he will remain a prisoner until the day of judgment. Steal my ring—Holy Virgin, I would like to see the man who could do it!”
The thought somewhat comforted him. He determined to go to his own house and to get what sleep he could before dawn broke. He said that this report of a new outrage must be untrue, since Coq le Roi was watched by his own guards in the Rue St. Paul. He remembered that the king was still at Versailles, and that if luck were willing, he would be able to find his Majesty there in the early hours of daylight. As for the stupendous mystery now hovering about the Hôtel Beautreillis and Corinne de Montesson, his tired brain could not grapple with that. He swore when he thought of it. He recalled the days when the people had declared the girl to be a witch. He fell to sleep in his own bed at last only to dream that Coq le Roi had stolen his ring and that the king himself was wearing it.
The sun had been up an hour, when the lieutenant awoke from his troubled sleep. He found his valet standing at his bedside, profuse in apology for the intrusion.
“I am sorry to disturb your excellency,” he said, “but there is a mounted messenger below who has news which will not wait.”
“Send him up,” cried the lieutenant, springing from his bed, and beginning to dress hurriedly. “Does he come from the provost?”
“I know nothing,” said the man, “save that he craves audience.”
A moment later, the messenger, one of the new guard, was saluting his chief.
“I am to tell you, sir,” said he, “that Coq le Roi, the highwayman, was seen this morning in the woods beyond Yères.”
“Oh,” cried the lieutenant, bristling with anger, “you come to tell me that—then tell it to the devil.”
The man crossed himself devoutly.
“God save us all!” said he; “here is your excellency's own guard in the Rue St. Paul declaring that the fellow has slept all night and has never so much as turned in his sleep.”
The lieutenant waited to hear no more. Refusing even the coffee which his servants offered to him, he called for his coach and set out at a gallop for Versailles. No fool under any circumstances, this mystery seemed to be making a fool of him. He told himself while he drove that all Paris would be laughing at him before night fell. He could have wagered his life that he had seen Coq le Roi fast asleep in the turreted pavilion of Corinne's house. He declared either that he had dreamed the thing, or that these new stories were false. The king had made the robber a prisoner in this way for some secret purpose. That purpose he must find out. Perhaps, after all, it was only his Majesty's love for a pair of pretty blue eyes.
He arrived at Versailles at eight o'clock, but learnt to his chagrin that the king had set out to the hunt, and was not to return to the palace until the afternoon. This was an irritating foil to his plans; but he spent the day in seeking audiences of his friends, and endeavouring vainly to glean some hints from which he could forge a key to his perplexity. Disappointed in this, he conceived the notion of walking a little way into the park; and so of catching his Majesty before he was surrounded by the host of idlers and pleasure-seekers who lay waiting to whisper a word into the royal ear.
It was nearly five o'clock in the evening when he set out on this quest; and an unusual stillness reigned in the magnificent gardens of the château. Here and there, daintily coloured lanterns gave dancing light beneath the trees; a few richly dressed fops were making love to pretty women; but the great world of pleasure was resting until the zenith of the night should awake it to new occupations. Sartines, indeed, found himself almost alone, when absorbed in his unending speculations he crossed the gardens where the fountains foamed redly in the glowing rays of the setting sun, and passed down the Avenue de Trianon into the groves of the more open park. This was quite deserted at such an hour. Valets, stablemen, gardeners—all were taking what rest they could, knowing well that the night would have need of them. The silence and the twilight suited the lieutenant's mood well. He began to pace a deserted avenue of yew elms with the slow steps of a man bearing a burden of worry and of doubt. He looked often across the park for the advance guards of the royal party. He believed himself to be alone, and even spoke his thoughts aloud.
“Bah!” said he, remembering still the letter which Corinne had read to him, “when any highwayman shall steal my ring, then will I hang myself from the king's bed-post. What an idea to suggest! It really amuses me—it really—ha, ha!—”
To his surprise, a mocking laugh answered his spoken thoughts. He turned round swiftly, abashed at his words, to find that the intruder was no other than an exceedingly pretty girl, apparently not yet twenty years of age, who was then sitting upon a mouldy stone bench under the shadow of the elms. She was dressed in an exquisite riding habit of green velvet, and the merriment of her laugh, together with the brightness of her eyes and the exceeding suppleness of her figure, completed a picture which arrested even the wandering attention of the Lieutenant of Police.
“A thousand pardons, mademoiselle,” cried he, bowing very low, “have I the honour—?”
“Oh,” said the young girl, laughing again, “the honour is mine, monsieur—to be forgotten by the chief of his Majesty's police.”
“I see so many faces,” pleaded Sartines, gallantly, “but that I should forget your face, mademoiselle—oh, that were impossible.”
“I think not, monsieur—since you do not remember that you met me at the château of the Comte d'Eu.”
The name of the Comte d'Eu sent a shiver down the lieutenant's back. It recalled the old physician and his mystic prophecies.
“Pardieu!” cried he, “I remember, of course. You are a kinswoman of the count's, I doubt not—and that being so, you know something of the misfortune which overtook him yesterday.”
“Indeed, I do,” said the girl, “since I was with him in his coach when he was stopped by the highwayman they call Coq le Roi.”
Sartines gasped. Such a striking confirmation of the old physician's words he had never looked to hear.
“Mademoiselle,” cried he, very anxiously, “will you permit me to sit a moment while you tell me more of this affair?”
She made way for him readily upon the bench.
“Oh,” she said, “I will tell you anything you please—and I know a good deal more about Coq le Roi than you do, Monsieur de Sartines.”
The lieutenant looked at the girlish figure beside him and laughed a little contemptuously.
“You must convince me of that,” said he.
“Certainly I will—though I ought not to do so. It is dangerous to play with other people's secrets, Monsieur de Sartines.”
“Secrets,” exclaimed the lieutenant, “why—what secrets can there be in a case like this?”
“If I were sure we were alone, I might be tempted to tell you. But look how dark it grows. Upon my word I must not stay any longer, monsieur—another time you shall learn all.”
Sartines' eagerness was now beyond control.
“Indeed,” said he, “I beg you will do me the favour to remain, if it is only for ten minutes. Are you not safe with me?”
“I should be—but you know it is lonely here—and hush, is there not some one coming?”
They both listened a moment, but the murmur of the fountains and the echo of distant music were the only sounds in the darkness of the grove.
“Well,” resumed Sartines, “you see that we are alone—and now, I beg of you—”
The girl sighed—a sigh of regret and hesitation.
“It is very wrong of me,” she said, “and Corinne will never forgive me.”
“Corinne!” ejaculated the lieutenant, “do you refer to Mademoiselle de Montesson?”
“Certainly.”
“And what of her?”
The girl appeared to hesitate, and it was only after a long pause that she said: “Oh, she has been very unkind to you. She made a wager with the king that she would find an actress from the Opéra Comique and pass her off on you as Coq le Roi himself. And she has won, you know!”
“What!” roared Sartines.
“It is as I say. The man you thought you saw in her house last night was not a man at all. It was Mademoiselle Guérin, from the Opéra Comique.”
“Thousand devils,” exclaimed the lieutenant, rising from his seat, “I never thought of that!”
“Of course you did not. You forgot that your robber has the face of a young girl. Corinne, you know, remembered that, and so she tricked you. She has always been the friend of Coq le Roi. She warned him two days ago that spies were in the Rue St. Sauveur, and lent him the disguise in which he escaped. He told her himself what coaches he was going to rob and where. Her old physician helped her with his nonsense and his gown. And now she has set all Paris laughing at you.”
Sartines groaned like a wounded man.
“What, then, in heaven's name means this farce about stealing my ring?” he cried, more to himself than to the pretty creature at his side.
“My dear Monsieur de Sartines, where are your wits?” said the girl. “Don't you see that she wishes to get the king's pardon for her friend? And the king makes this ridiculous condition, meaning that the man shall not be pardoned. Oh, it is all as plain as the Trianon there.”
“Of course it is, of course it is,” snarled the lieutenant, whose hands were trembling with rage and shame.
“I could tell you many more things, monsieur,” continued the girl, “if the sun were not in such a hurry to set—but see how dark it grows. Meanhile, here is a letter which you may keep and read when you return to Paris to-night—it will tell you much.”
She took a letter from the breast of her habit and pressed it into the hand of the lieutenant, allowing her fingers to rest for some moments in his. Sartines, tormented by a thousand reproaches, did not even notice the pressure.
“Do you know,” he asked abstractedly, “in what disguise Coq le Roi left the Rue St. Sauveur?”
“Indeed I do, monsieur; it was in the disguise of a woman of fashion,—in fact, he wore a green velvet riding-habit which Corinne gave to him.”
“A green velvet riding-habit,” repeated Sartines, thinking of anything but the green velvet habit at his side.
“Nothing else,—a green velvet riding-habit and a little three-cornered hat. Oh, they cheated you well—but read that letter, and it will save you being fooled a third time.”
“A third time!” exclaimed the lieutenant, looking round quickly, while the clasp of the girl's pretty fingers was strong upon his left hand, into which she was forcing the letter.
“As I say—a third time,” she explained boisterously. “Corinne has cheated you once in making you believe that a woman is a man; I have cheated you a second time in making you believe that a man is a woman.”
Her words came in a torrent; and even while they were upon her lips, she raised the gloved hand which was free, leaving the other hand still in that of the man; and very dexterously and suddenly she cast the contents of a tiny bottle she had concealed in her palm into the eyes of Monsieur de Sartines. At the same moment she grasped his fingers with a strange twist, and so sprang to her feet. But the lieutenant, whose eyes seemed on fire and who believed himself to be blind, roared like a stricken bull.
“Who, in heaven's name, are you?” he cried.
“I am Jacques Cabot, otherwise Coq le Roi, otherwise the Little Red Man—very much at your service. Bon soir, Monsieur de Sartines. You will see very well in ten minutes. I have your diamond ring upon my left hand.”
The lieutenant uttered a terrible cry and staggered across the path, in a vain endeavour to grapple with the robber. But when the guard at last answered his cries he was quite alone, and the silence of the night reigned in the grove.