About eight o’clock we drove
to a little restaurant in the Bois de Boulogne, dined
quietly, and about nine set out on foot to walk to
the villa. There was a brief lull in the storm,
but very soon the rain fell again heavily, and as,
of course, we took no umbrellas, we were soon wet
to the skin.
Making sure that we were not followed,
we approached the garden cautiously through the wood,
the rain falling in torrents. At the edge of
the forest, near a well known fountain, beyond the
house, we met by appointment my man, Alphonse.
He was dressed as an old woman and had an empty basket
on his arm. Together we moved through the wood
and shrubbery until we were opposite the side of the
garden and about a hundred feet from where the wall
turned at a right angle.
Here, facing an avenue, the wall was
broken midway by the arch of the entrance gateway.
The wind blew toward us, and we could hear now and
then the sound of voices.
Alphonse said: “Two; there are two at the
gate.”
“Hush,” said I, as a man
came around the angle and along the narrow way between
us and the garden wall.
“Wait, monsieur; he will come
again.” In some ten minutes he reappeared,
as before.
“Now,” said Merton, and
in a pour of wildly driven rain Alphonse disappeared.
He found his way through the wood and in to the main
avenue, which in front of the gate turned to the left
and passed around the farther side of the grounds.
Then he walked up to the gate. Before long we
heard words of complaint. Would the guards tell
her This was all gleefully related afterward.
She had lost her way. Yes, a little glass of
absinthe only one. She was not used
to it. And she had the money for her market sales,
and alas! so she was all wrong and must go back.
The guards laughed. No doubt it was the absinthe.
The old woman was reeling now and then. Wouldn’t
one of them show her the way? No. And was
it down the avenue? Yes. With this she set
off unsteadily along the road to the left. They
called out that it was the wrong way, and then, laughing,
dismissed her.
When once around the remote angle
of the wall, Alphonse slipped aside into the forest,
got rid of gown and basket, and moving through the
wood, took up his station on the side of the main avenue
of approach to the villa, and out of sight of the
guards. Here he waited until a few minutes later
he was joined by the captain.
Meanwhile I stood in the wood with
Merton. I think he enjoyed it. I did not.
A first attempt at burglary is not in all its aspects
heroic, and I was wet, chilled, and anxious.
“First actor on,” murmured
Merton. “Should like to have seen that
interview. Can’t be actor and audience both.”
I hazily reflected that for myself
I was both, and that the actor had just then a sharp
fit of stage-scare. I let him run on unanswered,
while the rain poured down my back.
At last he said: “I think
Alphonse has had time enough.”
“Hardly,” said I. I did
not want to talk. I was longing to do something to
begin. The punctual guard went by twenty feet
away, the smoke of his pipe blown toward us.
“I never liked pipe-smoking
on the picket-line,” said Merton. “You
can smell it of a damp night at any distance.
Remind me to tell you a story about it. Heavens!”
he cried, as a flash of lightning for an instant set
everything in noon-day clearness, “I hope we
shall not have much of that. Keep down, Greville.
Ever steal apples? Strike that repeater.”
I did so. “It’s a good deal like waiting
for the word to charge. I remember that once
we labeled ourselves for recognition in case we did
not come out alive. Just after that I fell ill.”
“Hush!” I said. “There he is
again.”
“All right; give him a moment,”
said Merton, “and now you have a full half-hour.
Come.”
We crossed the narrow road and stood
below the garden wall. He gave me the aid of
his bent knee and then his shoulder, and I was at once
lying flat on the garden wall. My repeater rang
10:15, and then, as I lay, I heard voices. This
time there were two men. They paused on the road
just below me to light cigarettes. One of them
consigned the weather to a place where it might have
proved more agreeable. The other said Jean had
a pleasanter station in the house. This was not
very reassuring news, but I was in for it and wildly
eager to be through with a perilous adventure.
As they disappeared, I dropped from
the wall into the garden and fell with an alarming
crash, rolling over on a pile of flower-pots.
There was such a clatter as on any quiet night must
have been surely heard. For a moment I lay still,
and then, hearing no signals of alarm, I rose and
groped along the wall to the door of the conservatory.
It was not locked. Pausing on the step outside
for a moment, I took off my shoes and secured them
by tying them to a belt I wore for this purpose.
Then I went in. I found the door of the house
ajar, and entering, knew that I was in the drawing-room.
I moved with care, in the gloom, through the furniture,
and, aided by a flash of lightning, found my way into
the hall. Before me, to left, across the hall,
was a small room. The door was open. I smelled
very vile pipe-smoke and heard footfalls overhead,
but no sound of voices. I became at once hopeful
that I should have to deal with but one man. I
opened cautiously a window in the little room and
sat down to listen and wait. I had been given
a half-hour. My repeater at last struck 10:45.
Meanwhile the clouds broke in places, and there were
now gleams of unwelcome moonlight and now gusts of
wind-driven rain.
I rose and shut to a crack the door
of the room and waited. Beyond the wall, to my
right, I heard of a sudden a wild shriek of “Murder!
murder! Help! help!” shrill, feminine, convincing.
Then came a pistol-shot, then another, and in a moment
a third more remote, and, far away, the cries of men.
My time had come. That the gate
guards would make for the direction of the sound we
had felt sure, but what would happen in regard to the
house guard was left to chance. At all events,
he would be isolated for a time. To my relief,
the ruse answered. I shut the window noiselessly
as I heard my host running down the stairway.
He opened the hall door in haste and
was dimly seen from my window hurrying toward the
gate. I rushed into the hall, bolted the hall
door, and ran up-stairs. The old nurse had been
prepared for my coming and met me on the first landing.
“Quick,” I said.
“You expected me. The boudoir.”
She had her good Yankee wits about her, and in a minute
I was kneeling, wildly anxious, and groping in the
ashes. Thrusting the package of paper within my
shirt-bosom, I ran down-stairs, and as she came after,
I cried that I had locked the hall door, and to unlock
it when I was gone. “Be quick,” I
added, “and lock the conservatory door behind
me. No one has been seen by you. Go to your
own room.” Pausing to put on my shoes,
I fled across the garden, neither hearing nor seeing
the guard who must have joined his fellows outside.