“To cut it short, Greville,
she refused to be questioned, and, I fancy, lied rather
more plainly than she was willing to admit to me.
He went away furious and reasonably sure, or so I think,
that she had the papers.”
“I see,” said I.
“He had been careless. Of course, he hesitated
for a day or two to confess his loss. But what
about those papers? Where are they? She
ought to have taken them at once to the legation.”
“Yes, but that is easily explained.
The count called early, and after that she felt sure
that she would be promptly arrested. He was too
ashamed to go at once to any such length. He must
be an indecisive man. At all events, he took
no positive action until after our encounter and her
escape, when he became still more sure where she was
going and why. You see, he lacked the good sense
to confess instantly to the head of his office.
Arrest would have been instantaneous. He waited,
ashamed to confess, and I presume did not fully inform
the police he called in. Now, I suppose, he has
had to confess his loss to his superiors.”
“But these papers?” said I.
“Well, don’t hurry me.
When she got home that night and read the papers she
had well, taken, she saw their enormous
value to our government. Their importance increased
her alarm, and the count’s visit added to her
sense of need to conceal somewhere the proofs of her
guilt. After her first fatal delay of the next
morning, she was afraid to carry the papers to the
legation. She could trust no one. She believed
the Emperor’s minister would act at once.
She knew that, soon or late, her town house would
be searched. To keep the papers about her would
not do. She must hide them at once, and then we
must hear of them; and no letters would serve her
purpose. She was panic-stricken. I fancy
the count, having been careless, was as anxious, but
told no one that day. This gave her a chance until
luck played her a trick. The count’s interview
in the morning, while it frightened her, had not helped
him. The next day his superiors would have to
be told, and I have no doubt have been.
“Then, as you know, it came
his turn to have a bit of good fortune. Walking
in haste to escape a ducking, he must have turned into
the Rue du Roi de Rome to get a cab, and was just
in time to see her enter your carriage. Very
likely he did not see you at all. Indeed, we may
be sure that he did not. When, too, the count
saw that, in place of turning homeward, she was being
driven toward the Bois, his suspicions were at once
aroused. I ought to say that, to avoid using her
own carriage, she had set out to walk. She was
not yet watched, though she may have thought she was,
and her plan was a good one. Curious and troubled,
he caught a cabriolet and followed, as was natural
enough.
“The direction of your flight
through the Bois confirmed his suspicions. He
may have guessed, and he was right, that she was about
to go to her well-known little country house and meant
to hide the papers. I am trying to follow what
must have been his course of thought and would have
been mine. He would catch her and get them, even
at the cost of arresting her. So far this is in
part her account and in part my inferences. As
we talked thus at length, she was again indescribably
uneasy and took every one who passed for a spy.”
“Well,” said I, “I
do not wonder. The court is cool to us. Something
hostile to our country is going on between France and
England. The English abuse is exhausting their
adjectives. If they propose intervention in any
shape, Mr. Adams has instructions of which every American
should be proud.”
“Good!” cried Merton.
“We have not put forth our power, and people
over here do not dream of the way in which we could
and would rise to meet new foes. But here is
our own little battle. I have yet to tell you
what she did and my further reflections. After
you got her away from the count, and Alphonse guided
her, she walked through the rain in the darkness to
her small chalet beyond the Bois.”
“But,” said I, “why
did not the count follow and get there, as he could
have done, before her?”
“I do not know. He was,
you said, a bit dazed and his head cut. Probably
he felt it to be needful to secure aid from the police,
as he did later.”
“Yes, that must have been the case.”
“Her old American nurse has
charge of the chalet. At times madame spends
a few days there. She explained her condition
as the result of a carriage accident, and, I fancy,
must have taken her nurse into her confidence.
She did not tell me. A fire was made in her boudoir,
and, with some change of dress, she sat down to think.
She knew that, soon or late, the count must confess
his loss, and then that the whole police force of
Paris would concentrate its skill first on preventing
her from using the papers, and finally on securing
them. They would at once suspect that she had
made her singular dash for the chalet to conceal the
papers, as the count must have inferred. She was
one woman against the power, intelligence, and limitless
resources of an army. If the count acted with
reasonable promptness, the time left her to hide the
papers was likely to be short.
“She had adopted and dropped
one plan after another as she walked through the night.
Then, as she sat in despair, she had an inspiration.
The fireplace was kept, after the common American way,
full of unremoved wood ashes. It suggested a resource.
To lessen the size of the package she hastily removed
the many envelops of the contained papers and also
the thick double outside cover. Then she tied
them together, raked away the newly made fire, and
setting the lessened package on the hearth, far back,
piled the cold ashes over it. It was safe from
combustion. Finally, she replaced the cinders
and set on top some burning twigs and a small log
or two. The fire was soon burning brightly.
For a few minutes she sat thinking that she must burn
the envelops. It was now late. The gate-bell
rang. Three hours had gone by since she left
the count. In great haste she tore up the thick
outside envelops and other covers and hastily scattered
them on the flames. She did succeed in burning
the larger part of the covers, and only by accident,
or rather by reason of her haste, was, as I shall
tell you, lucky enough to leave unburned a bit of the
outer cover. However, she piled on more twigs,
and had settled herself by the fire when her nurse
entered in company with a man in civilian dress and
two of the police. They used little ceremony and
said simply that she was believed to have certain
papers. Best to give them up and save trouble.
Of course, she denied the charge and was indignant.
Then they made a very complete search, after which
two of them remained with her, and the other, leaving,
came back in an hour with a woman who went with her
to her room and there made a very rigorous personal
search of her own and her nurse’s garments.
She, of course, protested vigorously. At last,
returning to her boudoir, she found the man in civilian
dress kneeling beside the fire. She was in an
agony of alarm. The man had gathered the fragments
of half-burned paper, and when she entered was staring
at the unconsumed corner of the outer official envelop.
Without a word, he raked away the fire and a part of
the ashes, but seeing there no evidence of interest,
contented himself with what proof he had of the destruction
of the documents he sought. The appearance of
much burned paper and the brightly blazing fire, I
suppose, helped to confirm his belief. To her
angry protests he replied civilly that it was a matter
for his superiors. Finally, an officer was left
in charge, but she was allowed to send for a carriage
and to return home. It is clear that they are
not satisfied, and the house has been watched ever
since. Of course, the man who found the charred
fragments of the official envelop concluded that she
had burned the contents. But some one else who
knows their value will doubt.”
“I suppose so. They were less clever than
usual.”
“No; her haste saved her.
The unburned corner of the envelop fooled the man.
How could he dream that under a hot fire, cool and
safe, were papers worth a fortune?”
“Certainly this time the luck
is hers,” said I; “but this will not satisfy
them.”
“No. More than once since
they have been over the house and garden and utterly
devastated it, so says her nurse. They searched
a tool-house and a small conservatory. Madame
Bellegarde has been cool enough to go there for flowers,
but is in the utmost apprehension. And now ten
days have passed.”
“Is that all?”
“No. She has been questioned
pretty brutally over and over, but as yet they have
not searched her town house. They are sure that
the papers are in the villa.”
“Well, what next?” I asked.
“She says we must get those papers. That
is our business.”
“It will be difficult,”
I returned; “and there should be no delay.
It must be done, and done soon. You or I would
have found her cache.”
“No, I should not; but if those
people are still in doubt, as seems to be the case,
and decide that no one but a fool would have burned
the documents, some fellow with a little more imaginative
capacity to put himself in her place will find them.
“By the way,” added Merton,
“she described the house to me. Now let
us think it over. I shall be here at nine to-morrow
morning. When I return, you will give me your
own thoughts about it. Given a house already
watched day and night, how to get a paper out of it?
No one will be allowed to leave it without being overhauled.
The old nurse, you may be sure, will be searched and
followed, even when she goes to market. To communicate
with madame would not be easy, and would give
us no further help and only hurt her. It is so
grave a matter that the police, after another search,
will arrest Mme. Bellegarde secretly and, if
possible, scare her into confession. We have no
time to lose. It must be done, too, in some simple
way. For her sake we must avoid violence, and
whatever is done must be done by us.”
“But, Merton, how can we get
into the house, even if we enter the garden unseen?”
“Oh, I forgot to say that she
has said she would contrive to tell her nurse to leave
the conservatory unlocked, and also the door between
it and the house. I told you she has been there
twice. On each occasion she was watched, but
was allowed to enter and pick flowers. She feels
sure of being able to warn the nurse. We must
give her a day. But why do they not arrest her?
That would have been my first move.”
I replied: “Her late husband’s
people are Bonapartists and very influential.
It would have to be explained, and the situation is
an awkward one. The mere destruction of the papers
is not what they most desire; neither do they want
the loss known, and very likely they desire to conceal
it as long as possible from the Emperor. I have
been unable to think of any plan. Has the night
left you any wiser?”
“I? Yes, indeed. I
have a plan a good one and simple.
When I was a boy and coveted apples, one fellow got
over the fence and attracted the attention of the
farmer, while the other secured apples in a far corner
of the orchard. Don’t you see?”
“No, I do not.”
“Well, it is simple. Just
see how easy it is. We attract the attention
of the guards, and then one of us goes into the house.”
“But,” said I, “if he meets there
a resolute guard.”
“And if,” said Merton,
“the guard is met by a more resolute man, let
us say, with a revolver.”
“Merton, it is a thing to be done without violence.”
“Or not at all?” queried
Merton, with what I may call an examining glance.
“No, I did not say that.”
The captain, I suppose, understood
my state of mind, for he said: “I feel
as you do. You are quite right; but if it becomes
needful to use positive means, I say positive
means to get these papers, then ”
I shook my head and he went on, “You may rest
assured that I shall use no violence unless I am obliged
to do so.”
“You will have no chance,”
said I, “because I, as a member of the legation,
must be the one to enter the house. No one else
should. You may readily see why.”
Merton was disappointed, and in fact
said so, while admitting that I was in the right.
He looked grave as he added: “We are playing
a game, you and I, in which, quite possibly, the fate
of our country is involved, and, also, the character
and fate of a woman. If we win, no one can convict
her of having taken these papers. On their side
there will be no hesitation. There should be
none on ours.”
I said nothing to relieve his evident
doubt as to the spirit with which I had undertaken
a perilous venture. I, on my part, simply insisted
that the larger risk must be mine. He finally
assented with a laugh, saying he was sorry to miss
the fun of it. After some careful consideration
of his plan and of our respective shares in carrying
it out, he went away, leaving me to my reflections.
They would, I presume, have amused and surprised the
man who had just left me. I had led a quiet,
studious life, and never once had I been where it was
requisite to face great danger or possible death.
I had often wondered whether I possessed the form
of courage which makes certain men more competent,
the greater the peril. As I sat I confessed to
myself an entire absence of the joy in risks with
which Merton faced our venture, but at the same time
I knew that I was not sorry for a chance to satisfy
myself in regard to an untested side of my own character.
I knew, too, that I should be afraid, but would that
lessen my competence? I had a keen interest in
the matter, and was well aware that there was very
real danger and possible disgrace if we were caught
in a position which we could not afford to explain.