This last blow re-doubled the uneasiness of Count and Countess; and they took counsel in a low voice for a moment with their cousins d'Estreicher and Raoul Davernoie.
Saint-Quentin on hearing Dorothy reveal the events in the ravine and the hiding-place of the man in the blouse had fallen back among the cushions of the great easy chair on which he was sitting. She was going mad! To set them on the trail of the man in the blouse was to set them on their own trail, his and Dorothy's. What madness!
She, however, in the midst of all this excitement and anxiety remained wholly calm. She appeared to be following a quite definite course with her goal clearly in view, while the others, without her guidance, stumbled in a panic.
"Mademoiselle," said the Countess, "your revelations have upset us considerably. They show how extraordinarily acute you are; and I cannot thank you enough for having given us this warning."
"You have treated me so kindly, madame," she replied, "that I am only too delighted to have been of use to you."
"Of immense use to us," agreed the Countess. "And I beg you to make the service complete."
"How?"
"By telling us what you know."
"I don't know any more."
"But perhaps you could learn more?"
"In what way?"
The Countess smiled:
"By means of that skill in divination of which you were telling us a little while ago."
"And in which you do not believe, madame."
"But in which I'm quite ready to believe now."
Dorothy bowed.
"I'm quite willing.... But these are experiments which are not always successful."
"Let's try."
"Right. We'll try. But I must ask you not to expect too much."
She took a handkerchief from Saint-Quentin's pocket and bandaged her eyes with it.
"Astral vision, on condition of being blind," she said. "The less I see the more I see."
And she added gravely:
"Put your questions, madame. I will answer them to the best of my ability."
"Remaining in a state of wakefulness all the time?"
"Yes."
She rested her two elbows on the table and buried her face in her hands. The Countess at once said:
"Who has been digging? Who has been making excavations under the fountain and under the sun-dial?"
A minute passed slowly. They had the impression she was concentrating and withdrawing from all contact with the world around her. At last she said in measured tones which bore no resemblance to the accents of a pythoness or a somnambulist.
"I see nothing on the esplanade. In that quarter the excavations must already be several days old, and all traces are obliterated. But in the ravine——"
"In the ravine?" said the Countess.
"The slab is standing on end and a man is digging a hole with a mattock."
"A man? What man? Describe him."
"He is wearing a very long blouse."
"But his face?..."
"His face is encircled by a muffler which passes under a cap with turned-down brim.... You cannot even see his eyes. When he has finished digging he lets the slab fall back into its place and carries away the mattock."
"Nothing else?"
"No. He has found nothing."
"Are you sure of that?"
"Absolutely sure."
"And which way does he go?"
"He goes back up the ravine.... He comes to the iron gates of the château."
"But they're locked."
"He has the key. He enters.... It is early in the morning.... No one is up.... He directs his steps to the orangerie.... There's a small room there."
"Yes. The gardener keeps his implements in it."
"The man sets the mattock in a corner, takes off his blouse and hangs it on a nail in the wall."
"But he can't be the gardener!" exclaimed the Countess. "His face? Can you see his face?"
"No ... no.... It remains covered up."
"But his clothes?"
"His clothes?... I can't make them out.... He goes out.... He disappears."
The young girl broke off as if her attention were fixed on some one whose outline was blurred and lost in the shadow like a phantom.
"I do not see him any longer," she said. "I can see nothing any longer.... Do I?... Ah yes, the steps of the château.... The door is shut quietly.... And then ... then the staircase.... A long corridor dimly lighted by small windows.... However I can distinguish some prints ... galloping horses ... sportsmen in red coats.... Ah! The man!... The man is there, on his knees, before a door.... He turns the handle of the door.... It opens."
"It must be one of the servants," said the Countess in a hollow voice. "And it must be a room on the first floor, since there are prints on the passage walls. What is the room like?"
"The shutters are closed. The man has lit a pocket-lamp and is hunting about.... There's a calendar on the chimney-piece.... It's to-day, Wednesday.... And an Empire clock with gilded columns...."
"The clock in my boudoir," murmured the Countess.
"The hands point to a quarter of six.... The light of the lamp is directed to the other side of the room, on to a walnut cupboard with two doors. The man opens the two doors and reveals a safe."
They were listening to Dorothy in a troubled silence, their faces twitching with emotion. How could any one have failed to believe the whole of the vision the young girl was describing, seeing that she had never been over the château, never crossed the threshold of this boudoir, and that nevertheless she was describing things which must have been unknown to her.
Dumfounded, the Countess exclaimed:
"The safe was unlocked!... I'm certain of it ... I shut it after putting my jewels away ... I can still hear the sound of the door banging!"
"Shut—yes. But the key there."
"What does that matter? I have muddled up the letters of the combination."
"Not so. The key turns."
"Impossible!"
"The key turns. I see the three letters."
"The three letters! You see them!"
"Clearly—an R, an O, and a B, that is to say the first three letters of the word Roborey. The safe is open. There's a jewel-case inside it. The man's hand gropes in it ... and takes...."
"What? What? What has he taken?"
"Two earrings."
"Two sapphires, aren't they? Two sapphires?"
"Yes, madame, two sapphires."
Thoroughly upset and moving jerkily, the Countess went quickly out of the room, followed by her husband, and Raoul Davernoie. And Dorothy heard the Count say:
"If this is true, you'll admit, Davernoie, that this instance of divination would be uncommonly strange."
"Uncommonly strange indeed," replied d'Estreicher who had gone as far as the door with them.
He shut the door on them and came back to the middle of the drawing-room with the manifest intention of speaking to the young girl.
Dorothy had removed the handkerchief from her eyes and was rubbing them like a person who has come out of the dark. The bearded nobleman and she looked at one another for a few moments. Then, after some hesitation, he took a couple of steps back towards the door. But once more he changed his mind and turning towards Dorothy, stroked his beard at length, and at last broke into a quiet, delighted chuckle.
Dorothy, who was never behind-hand when it came to laughing, did as the bearded nobleman had done.
"You laugh?" said he.
"I laugh because you laugh. But I am ignorant of the reason of your gayety. May I learn it?"
"Certainly, mademoiselle. I laugh because I find all that very amusing."
"What is very amusing?"
D'Estreicher came a few steps further into the room and replied:
"What is very amusing is to mix up into one and the same person the individual who was making an excavation under the slab of stone and this other individual who broke into the château last night and stole the jewels."
"That is to say?" asked the young girl.
"That is to say, to be yet more precise, the idea of throwing beforehand the burden of robbery committed by M. Saint-Quentin——"
"Onto the back of M. d'Estreicher," said Dorothy, ending his sentence for him.
The bearded nobleman made a wry face, but did not protest. He bowed and said:
"That's it, exactly. We may just as well play with our cards on the table, mayn't we? We're neither of us people who have eyes for the purpose of not seeing. And if I saw a black silhouette slip out of a window last night. You, for your part, have seen——"
"A gentleman who received a stone slab on his head."
"Exactly. And I repeat, it's very ingenious of you to try to make them out to be one and the same person. Very ingenious ... and very dangerous."
"In what way is it dangerous?"
"In the sense that every attack provokes a counter-attack."
"I haven't made any attack. But I wished to make it quite clear that I was ready to go to any lengths."
"Even to the length of attributing the theft of this pair of earrings to me?"
"Perhaps."
"Oh! Then I'd better lose no time proving that they're in your hands."
"Be quick about it."
Once more he stopped short on the threshold of the door and said:
"Then we're enemies?"
"We're enemies."
"Why? You're quite unacquainted with me."
"I don't need to be acquainted with you to know who you are."
"What? Who I am? I'm the Chevalier Maxime d'Estreicher."
"Possibly. But you're also the gentleman who, secretly and without his cousins' knowledge, seeks ... that which he has no right to seek. With what object if not to steal it?"
"And that's your business?"
"Yes."
"On what grounds?"
"It won't be long before you learn."
He made a movement—of anger or contempt? He controlled himself and mumbled:
"All the worse for you and all the worse for Saint-Quentin. Good-bye for the present."
Without another word he bowed and went out.
It was an odd fact, but in this kind of brutal and violent duel, Dorothy had kept so cool that hardly had the door closed before, following her instincts of a street Arab, she indulged in a high kick and pirouetted half across the room. Then, satisfied with herself and the way things were going, she opened a glass-case, took from it a bottle of smelling-salts, and went to Saint-Quentin who was lying back in his easy chair.
"Smell it, old chap."
He sniffed it, began to sneeze, and stuttered:
"We're lost!"
"You're a fine fellow, Saint-Quentin! Why do you think we're lost?"
"He's off to denounce us."
"Undoubtedly he's off to buck up the inquiries about us. But as for denouncing us, for telling what he saw this morning, he daren't do it. If he does, I tell in my turn what I saw."
"All the same, Dorothy, there was no point in telling them of the disappearance of the jewels."
"They were bound to discover it sooner or later. The fact of having been the first to speak of it diverts suspicion."
"Or turns it on to us, Dorothy."
"In that case I accuse the bearded nobleman."
"You need proofs."
"I shall find them."
"How you do detest him!"
"No: but I wish to destroy him. He's a dangerous man, Saint-Quentin. I have an intuition of it; and you know that I hardly ever deceive myself. He has all the vices. He is betraying his cousins, the Count and Countess. He is capable of anything. I wish to rid them of him by any means."
Saint-Quentin strove to reassure himself:
"You're amazing. You make combinations and calculations; you act; you foresee. One feels that you direct your course in accordance with a plan."
"In accordance with nothing at all, my lad. I go forward at a venture, and decide as Fortune bids."
"However...."
"I have a definite aim, that's all. Four people confront me, who, there's no doubt about it, are linked together by a common secret. Now the word 'Roborey,' uttered by my father when he was dying, gives me the right to try to find out whether he himself did not form part of this group, and if, in consequence, his daughter is not qualified to take his place. Up to now the four people hold together and keep me at a distance. I have vainly attempted the impossible to obtain their confidence in the first place and after it their confessions, so far without any result. But I shall succeed."
She stamped her foot, with an abruptness in which was suddenly manifest all the energy and decision which animated this smiling and delicate creature, and she said again:
"I shall succeed, Saint-Quentin. I swear it. I am not at the end of my revelations. There is another which will persuade them perhaps to be more open with me."
"What is it, Dorothy?"
"I know what I'm doing, my lad."
She was silent. She gazed through the open window near which Castor and Pollux were fighting. The noise of hurrying footsteps reëchoed about the château. People were calling out to one another. A servant ran across the court at full speed and shut the gates, leaving a small part of the crowd and three or four caravans, of which one was Dorothy's Circus, in the court-yard.
"The p-p-policemen! The p-p-policemen!" stammered Saint-Quintin. "There they are! They're examining the Rifle-Range!"
"And d'Estreicher is with them," observed the young girl.
"Oh, Dorothy, what have you done?"
"It's all the same to me," she said, wholly unmoved. "These people have a secret which perhaps belongs to me as much as to them. I wish to know it. Excitement, sensations, all that works in my favor."
"Nevertheless...."
"Pipe, Saint-Quentin. To-day decides my future. Instead of trembling, rejoice ... a fox-trot, old chap!"
She threw an arm round his waist, and propping him up like a tailor's dummy with wobbly legs, she forced him to turn; climbing in at the window, Castor and Pollux, followed by Captain Montfaucon, started to dance round the couple, chanting the air of the Capucine, first in the drawing-room, then across the large hall. But a fresh failure of Saint-Quentin's legs dashed the spirits of the dancers.
Dorothy lost her temper.
"What's the matter with you now?" she cried, trying to raise him and keep him upright.
He stuttered:
"I'm afraid ... I'm afraid."
"But why on earth are you afraid? I've never seen you in such a funk. What are you afraid of?"
"The jewels...."
"Idiot! But you've thrown them into the clump!"
"No."
"You haven't?"
"No."
"But where are they then?"
"I don't know. I looked for them in the basket as you told me to. They weren't there any longer. The little card-board box had disappeared."
During his explanation Dorothy grew graver and graver. The danger suddenly grew clear to her.
"Why didn't you tell me about it? I should not have acted as I did."
"I didn't dare to. I didn't want to worry you."
"Ah, Saint-Quentin, you were wrong, my lad."
She uttered no other reproach, but added:
"What's your explanation?"
"I suppose I made a mistake and didn't put the earrings in the basket ... but somewhere else ... in some other part of the caravan.... I've looked everywhere without finding them.... But those policemen—they'll find them."
The young girl was overwhelmed. The earrings discovered in her possession, the theft duly verified meant arrest and jail.
"Leave me to my fate," groaned Saint-Quentin. "I'm nothing but an imbecile.... A criminal.... Don't try to save me.... Throw all the blame on me, since it is the truth."
At that moment a police-inspector in uniform appeared on the threshold of the hall, under the guidance of one of the servants.
"Not a word," murmured Dorothy. "I forbid you to utter a single word."
The inspector came forward:
"Mademoiselle Dorothy?"
"I'm Mademoiselle Dorothy, inspector. What is it you want?"
"Follow me. It will be necessary...."
He was interrupted by the entrance of the Countess who hurried in, accompanied by her husband and Raoul Davernoie.
"No, no, inspector!" she exclaimed. "I absolutely oppose anything which might appear to show a lack of trust in mademoiselle. There is some misunderstanding."
Raoul Davernoie also protested. But Count Octave observed:
"Bear in mind, dear, that this is merely a formality, a general measure which the inspector is bound to take. A robbery has been committed, it is only right that the inquiry should include everybody——"
"But it was mademoiselle who informed of the robbery," interrupted the Countess. "It is she who for the last hour has been warning us of all that is being plotted against us!"
"But why not let her be questioned like everybody else? As d'Estreicher said just now, it's possible that your earrings were not stolen from your safe. You may have put them in your ears without thinking to-day, and then lost them out-of-doors ... where some one has picked them up."
The inspector, an honest fellow who seemed very much annoyed by this difference of opinion between the Count and Countess, did not know what to do. Dorothy helped him out of the awkward situation.
"I quite agree with you, Count. My part in the business may very well appear suspicious to you; and you have the right to ask how I know the word that opens the safe, and if my talents as a diviner are enough to explain my clairvoyance. There isn't any reason then for making an exception in my favor."
She bent low before the Countess and gently kissed her hand.
"You mustn't be present at the inquiry, madame. It's not a pleasant business. For me, it's one of the risks we strolling entertainers run; but you would find it painful. Only, I beg you, for reasons which you will presently understand, to come back to us after they have questioned me."
"I promise you I will."
"I'm at your service, inspector."
She went off with her four companions and the inspector of police. Saint-Quentin had the air of a condemned criminal being led to the gallows. Captain Montfaucon, his hands in his pockets, the string round his wrist, dragged along his baggage-wagon and whistled an American tune, like a gallant fellow who knows that all these little affairs always end well.
At the end of the court-yard, the last of the country folk were departing through the open gates, beside which the gamekeeper was posted. The showmen were grouped about their tents and in the orangery where the second policeman was examining their licenses.
On reaching her caravan, Dorothy perceived d'Estreicher talking to two servants.
"You then are the director of the inquiry, monsieur?" she said gayly.
"I am indeed, mademoiselle—in your interest," he said in the same tone.
"Then I have no doubt about the result of it," she said; and turning to the inspector, she added: "I have no keys to give you. Dorothy's Circus has no locks. Every thing is open to the world. Empty hands and empty pockets."
The inspector seemed to have no great relish for the job. The two servants did their best and d'Estreicher made no bones about advising them.
"Excuse me, mademoiselle," he said to the young girl, taking her on one side. "I'm of the opinion that no effort should be spared to make your complicity quite out of the question."
"It's a serious business," she said ironically.
"In what way?"
"Well, recall our conversation. There's a criminal: if it isn't me, it's you."
D'Estreicher must have considered the young girl a formidable adversary, and he must have been frightened by her threats, for while he remained quite agreeable, gallant even, jesting with her, he was indefatigable in his investigation. At his bidding the servants lifted down the baskets and boxes, and displayed her wretched wardrobe, in the strongest contrast to the brilliantly colored handkerchiefs and shawls with which the young girl loved to adorn herself.
They found nothing.
They searched the walls and platform of the caravan, the mattresses, the harness of One-eyed Magpie, the sack of oats, and the food. Nothing.
They searched the four boys. A maid felt Dorothy's clothes. The search was fruitless. The earrings were not to be found.
"And that?" said d'Estreicher, pointing to the huge basket loaded with pots and pans which hung under the vehicle.
With a furtive kick on the ankle Dorothy straightened Saint-Quentin who was tottering.
"Let's bolt!" he stuttered.
"Don't be a fool. The earrings are no longer there."
"I may have made a mistake."
"You're an idiot. One doesn't make a mistake in a case like that."
"Then where is the card-board box?"
"Have you got your eyes stuffed up?"
"You can see it, can you?"
"Of course I can see it—as plainly as the nose in the middle of your face."
"In the caravan?"
"No."
"Where?"
"On the ground ten yards away from you, between the legs of the bearded one."
She glanced at the wagon of Captain Montfaucon which the child had abandoned to play with a doll, and the little packages from which, miniature bags and trunks and parcels, lay on the ground beside d'Estreicher's heels.
One of these packages was nothing else than the card-board box which contained the earrings. Captain Montfaucon had that afternoon added it to what he called his haulage material.
In confiding her unexpected discovery to Saint-Quentin, Dorothy, who did not suspect the keenness of the subtlety and power of observation of the man she was fighting, committed an irreparable imprudence. It was not on the young girl that d'Estreicher was keeping watch from behind the screen of his spectacles, but on her comrade Saint-Quentin whose distress and feebleness he had been quick to notice. Dorothy herself remained impassive. But would not Saint-Quentin end by giving some indication?
That was what happened. When he recognized the little box with the red gutta-percha ring round it, Saint-Quentin heaved a great sigh in his sudden relief. He told himself that it would never occur to any one to untie these child's toys which lay on the ground for any one to pick up. Several times, without the slightest suspicion, d'Estreicher had brushed them aside with his feet and stumbled over the wagon, winning from the Captain this sharp reprimand:
"Now then, sir! What wouldyousay, if you had a car and I knocked it over?"
Saint-Quentin raised his head with a cheerful air. D'Estreicher followed the direction of his gaze and instinctively understood. The earrings were there, under the protection of Fortune and with the unwitting complicity of the captain. But in which of the packages? The card-board box seemed to him to be the most likely. Without a word he bent quickly down and seized it. He drew himself up, opened it with a furtive movement, and perceived, among some small white pebbles and shells, the two sapphires.
He looked at Dorothy. She was very pale.
"Let's bolt!" again said Saint-Quentin, who had sunk down on to a trunk and would have been incapable of making a single step.
"A splendid idea!" said Dorothy in a low voice. "Harness One-eyed Magpie; let's all five of us hide ourselves in the caravan and hell for leather for the Belgian frontier!"
She gazed steadfastly at her enemy. She felt that she was beaten. With one word he could hand her over to justice, throw her into prison, and render vain all her threats. Of what value are the accusations of a thief?
Box in hand, he balanced himself on one foot then on the other with ironical satisfaction. He had the appearance of waiting for her to weaken and become a suppliant. How he misjudged her! On the contrary she maintained an attitude of defiance and challenge as if she had had the audacity to say to him:
"If you speak, you're lost."
He shrugged his shoulders and turning to the inspector who had seen nothing of this by-play, he said:
"We may congratulate ourselves on having got it over, and entirely to mademoiselle's advantage. Goodness, what a disagreeable job!"
"You had no business to set about it at all," said the Countess, coming up with the Count and Raoul Davernoie.
"Oh yes, I had, dear cousin. Your husband and I had our doubts. It was just as well to clear them up."
"And you've found nothing?" said the Count.
"Nothing ... less than nothing—at the most an odd trifle with which Mr. Montfaucon was playing, and which Mademoiselle Dorothy had been kind enough to give me. You do, don't you, Mademoiselle?"
"Yes," said Dorothy simply.
He displayed the card-board box, round which he had again drawn the rubber ring, and handing it to the Countess:
"Take care of that till to-morrow morning, will you, dear lady?"
"Why should I take care of it and not you?"
"It wouldn't be the same thing," said he. "To place it in your hands is as it were to affix a seal to it. To-morrow, at lunch, we'll open it together."
"Do you make a point of it?"
"Yes. It's an idea ... of sorts."
"Very good," said the Countess. "I accept the charge if mademoiselle authorizes me to do so."
"I ask it, madame," replied Dorothy, grasping the fact that the danger was postponed till the morrow. "The box contains nothing of importance, only white pebbles and shells. But since it amuses monsieur, and he wants a check on it, give him this small satisfaction."
There remained, however, a formality which the inspector considered essential in inquiries of this kind. The examination of identification papers, delivery of documents, compliance with the regulations, were matters which he took very seriously indeed. On the other hand, if Dorothy surmised the existence of a secret between the Count and Countess and their cousins, it is certain that her hosts were not less puzzled by the strange personality which for an hour or two had dominated and disturbed them. Who was she? Where did she come from? What was her real name? What was the explanation of the fact that this distinguished and intelligent creature, with her supple cleverness and distinguished manners, was wandering about the country with four street-boys?
She took from a locker in the caravan a passport-case which she carried under her arm; and when they all went into the orangery which was now empty, she took from this case a sheet of paper black with signatures and stamps and handed it to the inspector.
"Is this all you've got?" he said almost immediately.
"Isn't it sufficient? The secretary at the mayor's office this morning was satisfied with it."
"They're satisfied with anything in mayors' offices," he said scornfully. "And what about these names?... Nobody's named Castor and Pollux?... And this one ... Baron de Saint-Quentin, acrobat!"
Dorothy smiled:
"Nevertheless it is his name and his profession."
"Baron de Saint-Quentin?"
"Certainly he was the son of a plumber who lived at Saint-Quentin and was called Baron."
"But then he must have the paternal authorization."
"Impossible."
"Why?"
"Because his father died during the occupation."
"And his mother?"
"She's dead too. No relations. The English adopted the boy. Towards the end of the war he was assistant-cook in a hospital at Bar-le-Duc, where I was a nurse. I adopted him."
The inspector uttered a grunt of approval and continued his examination.
"And Castor and Pollux."
"I don't know where they come from. In 1918, during the German push towards Châlons, they were caught in the storm and picked up on a road by some French soldiers who gave them their nicknames. The shock was so great that they've lost all memory of the years before those days. Are they brothers? Were they acquaintances? Where are their families? Nobody knows. I adopted them."
"Oh!" said the inspector, somewhat taken aback. Then he went on: "There remains now Sire Montfaucon, captain in the American army, decorated with the Croix de guerre."
"Present," said a voice.
Montfaucon drew himself stiffly upright in a soldierly attitude, his heels touching, and his little finger on the seam of his enormous trousers.
Dorothy caught him on to her knee and gave him a smacking kiss.
"A brat, about whom also nobody knows anything. When he was four he was living with a dozen American soldiers who had made for him, by way of cradle, a fur bag. The day of the great American attack, one of the twelve carried him on his back; and it happened that of all those who advanced, it was this soldier who went furthest, and that they found his body next day near Montfaucon hill. Beside him, in the fur bag, the child was asleep, slightly wounded. On the battle-field, the colonel decorated him with the Croix de guerre, and gave him the name and rank of Captain Montfaucon of the American army. Later it fell to me to nurse him at the hospital to which he was brought in. Three months after that the colonel wished to carry him off to America. Montfaucon refused. He did not wish to leave me. I adopted him."
Dorothy told the child's story in a low voice full of tenderness. The eyes of the Countess shone with tears and she murmured:
"You acted admirably—admirably, mademoiselle. Only that gave you four orphans to provide for. With what resources?"
Dorothy laughed and said:
"We were rich."
"Rich?"
"Yes, thanks to Montfaucon. Before he went his colonel left two thousand francs for him. We bought a caravan and an old horse. Dorothy's Circus was formed."
"A difficult profession to which you have to serve an apprenticeship."
"We served our apprenticeship under an old English soldier, formerly a clown, who taught us all the tricks of the trade and all the wheezes. And then I had it all in my blood. The tight-rope, dancing, I was broken in to them years ago. Then we set out across France. It's rather a hard life, but it keeps one in the best of health, one is never dull, and taken all round Dorothy's Circus is a success."
"But does it comply with the official regulations?" asked the inspector whose respect for red tape enabled him to control the sympathy he was feeling for her. "For after all this document is only valuable from the point of view of references. What I should like to see is your own certificate of identity."
"I have that certificate, inspector."
"Made out by whom?"
"By the Prefecture of Châlons, which is the chief city of the department in which I was born."
"Show it to me."
The young girl plainly hesitated. She looked at Count Octave then at the Countess. She had begged them to come just in order that they might be witnesses of her examination and hear the answers she proposed to give, and now, at the last moment, she was rather sorry that she had done so.
"Would you prefer us to withdraw?" said the Countess.
"No, no," she replied quickly. "On the contrary I insist on your knowing."
"And us too?" said Raoul Davernoie.
"Yes," she said smiling. "There is a fact which it is my duty to divulge to you. Oh, nothing of great importance. But ... all the same."
She took from her case a dirty card with broken corners.
"Here it is," she said.
The inspector examined the card carefully and said in the tone of one who is not to be humbugged:
"But that isn't your name. It's anom de guerreof course—like those of your young comrades?"
"Not at all, inspector."
"Come, come, you're not going to get me to believe...."
"Here is my birth certificate in support of it, inspector, stamped with the stamp of the commune of Argonne."
"What? You belong to the village of Argonne!" cried the Count de Chagny.
"I did, Monsieur le Comte. But this unknown village, which gave its name to the whole district of the Argonne, no longer exists. The war has suppressed it."
"Yes ... yes ... I know," said the Count. "We had a friend there—a relation. Didn't we, d'Estreicher?"
"Doubtless it was Jean d'Argonne?" she asked.
"It was. Jean d'Argonne died at the hospital at Clermont from the effects of a wound ... Lieutenant the Prince of Argonne. You knew him."
"I knew him."
"Where? When? Under what conditions?"
"Goodness! Under the ordinary conditions in which one knows a person with whom one is closely connected."
"What? There were ties between you and Jean d'Argonne ... the ties of relationship?"
"The closest ties. He was my father."
"Your father! Jean d'Argonne! What are you talking about? It's impossible! See why ... Jean's daughter was called Yolande."
"Yolande, Isabel, Dorothy."
The Count snatched the card which the inspector was turning over and over again, and read aloud in a tone of amazement:
"Yolande Isabel Dorothy, Princess of Argonne!"
She finished the sentence for him, laughing:
"Countess Marescot, Baroness de la Hêtraie, de Beaugreval, and other places."
The Count seized the birth certificate with no less eagerness, and more and more astounded, read it slowly syllable by syllable:
"Yolande Isabel Dorothy, Princess of Argonne, born at Argonne, on the 14th of October, 1900, legitimate daughter of Jean de Marescot, Prince of Argonne, and of Jessie Varenne."
Further doubt was impossible. The civil status to which the young girl laid claim was established by proofs, which they were the less inclined to challenge since the unexpected fact explained exactly everything which appeared inexplicable in the manners and even in the appearance of Dorothy.
The Countess gave her feelings full play:
"Yolande? You are the little Yolande about whom Jean d'Argonne used to talk to us with such fondness."
"He was very fond of me," said the young girl. "Circumstances did not allow us to live always together as I should have liked. But I was as fond of him as if I had seen him every day."
"Yes," said the Countess. "One could not help being fond of him. I only saw him twice in my life, in Paris, at the beginning of the war. But what delightful recollections of him I retain! A man teeming with gayety and lightheartedness! Just like you, Dorothy. Besides, I find him again in you ... the eyes ... and above all the smile."
Dorothy displayed two photographs which she took from among her papers.
"His portrait, madame. Do you recognize it?"
"I should think so! And the other, this lady?"
"My mother who died many years ago. He adored her."
"Yes, yes, I know. She was formerly on the stage, wasn't she? I remember. We will talk it all over, if you will, and about your own life, the misfortunes which have driven you to live like this. But first of all, how came you here? And why?"
Dorothy told them how she had chanced to see the word Roborey, which her father had repeated when he was dying. Then the Count interrupted her narration.
He was a perfectly commonplace man who always did his best to invest matters with the greatest possible solemnity, in order that he might play the chief part in them, which his rank and fortune assigned to him. As a matter of form he consulted his two comrades, then, without waiting to hear their answers, he dismissed the inspector with the lack of ceremony of a grand seignior. In the same fashion he turned out Saint-Quentin and the three boys, carefully closed the two doors, bade the two women sit down, and walked up and down in front of them with his hands behind his back and an air of profound thoughtfulness.
Dorothy was quite content. She had won a victory, compelled her hosts to speak the words she wanted. The Countess held her tightly to her. Raoul appeared to be a friend. All was going well. There was, indeed, standing a little apart from them, hostile and formidable, the bearded nobleman, whose hard eyes never left her. But sure of herself, accepting the combat, full of careless daring, she refused to bend before the menace of the terrible danger which, however, might at any moment crush her.
"Mademoiselle," said the Count de Chagny with an air of great importance. "It has seemed to us, to my cousins and me, since you are the daughter of Jean d'Argonne, whose loss we so deeply deplore—it has seemed to us, I say, that we ought in our turn, to enlighten you concerning events of which he was cognizant and of which he would have informed you had he not been prevented by death ... of which he actually desired, as we know, that you should be informed."
He paused, delighted with his preamble. On occasions like this he loved to indulge in a pomposity of diction employing only the most select vocabulary, striving to observe the rules of grammar, and fearless of subjunctives. He went on:
"Mademoiselle, my father, François de Chagny, my grandfather, Dominique de Chagny, and my great-grandfather, Gaspard de Chagny, lived their lives in the sure conviction that great wealth would be ... how shall I put it? ... would be offered to them, by reason of certain unknown conditions of which each of them was confident in advance that he would be the beneficiary. And each of them took the greater joy in the fact and indulged in a hope all the more agreeable because the Revolution had ruined the house of the Counts de Chagny from the roof-tree to the basement. On what was this conviction based? Neither François, nor Dominique, nor Gaspard de Chagny ever knew. It came from vague legends which described exactly neither the nature of the riches nor the epoch at which they would appear, but all of which had this in common that they evoked the name of Roborey. And these legends could not have gone very far back since this château, which was formerly called the Château de Chagny, only received the name of Chagny-Roborey in the reign of Louis XVI. Is it this designation which brought about the excavations that were made from time to time? It is extremely probable. At all events it is a fact that at the very moment the war broke out I had formed the resolution of restoring this Château de Roborey, which had become merely a shooting-box and definitely settling down in it, for all that, and I am not ashamed to say it, my recent marriage with Madame de Chagny had enabled me to wait for these so-called riches without excessive impatience."
The Count smiled a subtle smile in making this discreet allusion to the manner in which he had regilded his heraldic shield, and continued:
"It is needless to tell you, I hope, that during the war the Count de Chagny did his duty as a good Frenchman. In 1915, as lieutenant of light-infantry, I was in Paris on leave when a series of coincidences, brought about by the war, brought me into touch with three persons with whom I had not previously been acquainted, and whose ties of kin-ship with the Chagny-Roborey I learnt by accident. The first was the father of Raoul Davernoie, Commandant Georges Davernoie, the second Maxime d'Estreicher, the last Jean d'Argonne. All four of us were distant cousins, all four on leave or recovering from wounds. And so it came about that in the course of our interviews, that we learnt, to our great surprise, that the same legend had been handed down in each of our four families. Like their fathers and their grandfathers Georges Davernoie, d'Estreicher, and Jean d'Argonne were awaiting the fabulous fortune which was promised them and which was to settle the debts which this conviction had led them on to contract. Moreover, the same ignorance prevailed among the four cousins. No proof, no indication——"
After a fresh pause intended to lead up to an impressive effect, the Count continued: "But yes, one indication, however: Jean d'Argonne remembered a gold medal the importance of which his father had formerly impressed on him. His father died a few days later from an accident in the hunting-field without having told him anything more. But Jean d'Argonne declared that this medal bore on it an inscription, and that one of these words, he did not recall it at once, was this word Roborey, on which all our hopes are undoubtedly concentrated. He informed us then of his intention of ransacking the twenty trunks or so, which he had been able in August, 1914, to bring away from his country seat before its imminent pillage, and to store in a shed at Bar-le-Duc. But before he went, since we were all men of honor, exposed to the risks of war, we all four took a solemn oath that all our discoveries relative to the famous treasure, should be common property. Henceforth and forever, the treasure, should Providence decide to grant it to us, belonged to all the four; and Jean d'Argonne, whose leave expired, left us."
"It was at the end of 1915, wasn't it?" asked Dorothy. "We passed a week together, the happiest week of my life. I was never to see him again."
"It was indeed towards the end of 1915," the Count agreed. "A month later Jean d'Argonne, wounded in the North, was sent into hospital at Chartres, from which he wrote to us a long letter ... never finished."
The Countess de Chagny made a sudden movement. She appeared to disapprove of what her husband had said.
"Yes, yes, I will lay that letter before you," said the Count firmly.
"Perhaps you're right," murmured the Countess. "Nevertheless——"
"What are you afraid of, madame?" said Dorothy.
"I am afraid of our causing you pain to no purpose, Dorothy. The end of it will reveal to you very painful things."
"But it is our duty to communicate it to her," said the Count in a peremptory tone. And he drew from his pocket-book a letter stamped with the Red Cross and unfolded it. Dorothy felt her heart flutter with a sudden oppression. She recognized her father's handwriting. The Countess squeezed her hand. She saw that Raoul Davernoie was regarding her with an air of compassion; and with an anxious face, trying less to understand the sentences she heard than to guess the end of this letter, she listened to it.