"'A very dangerous man. Wanted by the police. Letters follows.'
"'A very dangerous man. Wanted by the police. Letters follows.'
"At once de Chagny came to a decision and the day before yesterday, in the morning, he telephoned to the police. When the inspector arrived, he was too late. D'Estreicher had fled."
"Doubtless through the window of a pantry which looks down on the ravine?" said Dorothy.
"Yes, and down a fissure in the face of the cliff. How did you know?"
"It was the way Saint-Quentin and I took to get at d'Estreicher."
And forthwith, cutting short any questions, she added:
"Well, what was the information you got about him?"
"Extremely serious. Antoine d'Estreicher, formerly a naval officer, was dismissed the service for theft. Later, prosecuted for being an accomplice in a case of murder, he was released for lack of evidence. At the beginning of the war he deserted. Evidence of it has come to hand and a fortnight ago an inquiry into the matter was begun. During the war he borrowed the personality of one of his relations, who had been dead some years; and it is actually under his new name of Maxime d'Estreicher that the police are hunting for him."
"What a pity! A scoundrel like that! To have him in one's hands and let him go!"
"We will find him again."
"Yes: always providing that it isn't too late."
Raoul quickened their pace. They were going at a fair rate, running through the villages without slackening their pace and bumping over the cobbles of the towns. The night was beginning to fall when they reached Nantes, where they had to stop to buy petrol.
"Still an hour's journey," said Raoul.
On the way she made him explain to her the exact topography of Hillocks Manor, the direction of the road which ran through the orchard to the house, the position of the hall and staircase. Moreover, he had to give her full information about his grandfather's habits, about the old man's age (he was seventy-five), and his dog Goliath—a huge beast, terrible to look at, with a terrific bark, but quite harmless and incapable of defending his master.
At the big market-town of Clisson, they entered La Vendée. When they had nearly reached the Manor Raoul would have liked to make a detour through the village where they would find the servants. They could take with them a couple of farm-laborers. Dorothy would not hear of it.
"But, after all," he exclaimed, "what are you afraid of?"
"Everything," she replied. "From that man—everything. We have no right to lose a minute."
They left the main road and turned down a lane which was more like a deep-rutted cart-track.
"There it is, over yonder," he said. "There is a light in the window of his room."
Almost at once he stopped the car and jumped out of it. A turreted gateway, relic of a far-removed epoch, rose in the high wall which encircled the estate. The gate was shut. While Raoul was engaged in opening it, they heard, dominating the dull noise of the engine, the barking of a dog.
From the clearness of the sound and the direction from which it came Raoul declared that Goliath was not inside the Manor, but outside it, at the foot of the steps, also that he was barking in front of a shut-up house.
"Well, are you never going to open that gate?" cried Dorothy.
He came back hurriedly to her.
"It's very disquieting. Some one has shot the bolt and turned the key in the lock."
"Don't they always?"
"Never. Some stranger has done it.... And then you hear that barking."
"Well?"
"There's another gate two hundred yards further on."
"And suppose that's locked too. No: we must act at once."
She moved to the steering-wheel and drove the car close under the wall a little higher up, to the right of the gateway. Then she piled the four cushions on the seat and stood on the top of them.
"Montfaucon!" she called.
The Captain understood. In half-a-dozen movements he climbed up Dorothy's back and stood upright on her shoulders. With that advantage his hands touched the top of the wall. Clinging to it, with Dorothy's help, he pulled himself up. When he was astride it, Raoul threw a rope to him. He tied one end round his waist, Dorothy held the other. In a few seconds the child touched the ground on the other side of the wall, and Raoul had barely got back to the gate before the key grated in the lock and the bolts were drawn.
Raoul did not get back to the car. He dashed across the orchard, followed by Dorothy and the Captain. As she ran she said to the child:
"Go round the house and if you see a ladder against it, pull it down!"
As they expected, they found Goliath on the steps scratching at the closed door. They made him stop barking and in the silence they heard above them outcries and the sound of a struggle.
Instantly, to frighten the assailant, Raoul fired off his revolver. Then with his latch-key he opened the door; and they ran up the stairs.
One of the rooms facing them was lighted by two lamps. On the floor, face downwards, Raoul's grandfather was writhing and uttering faint, hoarse cries.
Raoul dropped on his knees beside him. Dorothy seized one of the lamps and ran into the room on the opposite side of the corridor. She had noticed that the door of it was open.
The room was empty; through the open window stuck the top of a ladder.
She leant out:
"Montfaucon!"
"Here I am, mummy," the child replied.
"Did you see any one come down the ladder and run away?"
"From a distance, mummy—as I came round the corner of the house."
"Did you recognize the man?"
"The man was two, mummy."
"Ah, there were two, were there?"
"Yes ... another man ... and the nasty gentleman."
Raoul's grandfather was not dead; he was not even in any danger of dying. From certain details of the conflict it looked as if d'Estreicher and his confederate had tried by threats and violence to force the old man to reveal what he knew, and doubtless to hand over the gold piece. In particular his throat showed red finger-marks where they had gripped it. Had the ruffian and his confederate succeeded at the last moment?
The servants were not very late getting back. The doctor was summoned and declared that there was no fear of any complications. But in the course of the next day they found that the old man did not answer any questions, did not appear to understand them, and only expressed himself by an incomprehensible stuttering.
The agitation, terror, and suffering had been too much for him.... He was mad.
In the flat country, in which stands Hillocks Manor, a deep gorge has been hollowed out by the river Maine. This gorge rings round the meadows and orchards and buildings of the Manor. Hillocks, humped with rocks and covered with fir-trees, rise in a semicircle at the back of the estate, and a backwater of the Maine, cutting the ring and isolating the hillocks, has formed a pleasant lake, which reflects the dark stones and red bricks and tiles of the ancient building.
To-day that building is by way of being a farm. Part of the ground-floor is used for storerooms and barns, evidence of a wider cultivation, formerly flourishing, but very much fallen off since the days when Raoul's grandfather made it his business in life.
The old Baron, as they called him, had a right to the title and to the apostrophe since the property, before the Revolution, formed the barony d'Avernoie. A great sportsman, a fine figure of a man, and fond of wine and women, he had very little liking for work; and his son, Raoul's father, inheriting this distaste, had in his manner of life shown an equal lack of care for the future.
"I have done what I could, once I was demobilized," Raoul confided to Dorothy, "to restore prosperity here; and up-hill work it has been. But what would you? My father and my grandfather lived their lives in the assurance, which evidently sprang from those legends you have heard of: 'One of these days we shall be rich. So why worry?' And they did not worry. Actually we are in the hands of a money-lender who has bought up all our debts; and I have just heard that during my stay at Roborey my grandfather signed a bill of sale which gives that money-lender the power to turn us out of the house in six weeks."
He was an excellent young fellow, a trifle slow-witted, rather awkward in manner, but of an upright disposition, serious and thoughtful. The charm of Dorothy had made an instant conquest of him, and in spite of an invincible timidity which had always prevented him from putting into words his deeper feelings, he did not hide either his admiration or the fact that she had robbed him of his peace of mind. Everything that she said charmed him. Everything that she bade him do was done.
Following her advice he made no secret of the assault of which his grandfather had been the victim and lodged a complaint against this unknown criminal. To the people about him he talked openly about the fortune which he expected to come to him shortly and of the investigations on foot to discover a gold medal, the possession of which was the first condition of obtaining it. Without revealing Dorothy's name, he did not conceal the fact that she was a distant cousin, or the reasons which brought her to the Manor.
Three days later, having screwed double stages out of One-eyed Magpie, Saint-Quentin arrived in company with Castor and Pollux. Dorothy would not hear of any abode but her beloved caravan, which was installed in the middle of the court-yard; and once more the five comrades settled down to their happy, careless life. Castor and Pollux fought with less vigor. Saint-Quentin fished in the lake. The captain, always immensely consequential, took the old baron under his care and related to him and to Goliath interminable yarns.
As for Dorothy, she was observing. They found that she wore an air of mystery, keeping her thoughts and proceedings to herself. She spent hours playing with her comrades superintending their exercises. Then, her eyes fixed on the old baron, who, accompanied by his faithful dog, with tottering gait and dulled eyes, would go and lean against a tree in the orchard, she watched everything which might be a manifestation of instinct in him or of a survival of the past. At other times Raoul surprised her in some corner, motionless and silent. It seemed to him then as if the whole affair was confined to her brain, and that it was there, much more than on the estate of Hillocks Manor that she was looking for the guiding clue.
Several days in succession she spent the hours in the loft of a granary where there were some bookshelves, and on them, old newspapers, bundles of papers, pamphlets, printed during the last century, histories of the district, communal reports, and parish records.
"Well," asked Raoul, laughing. "Are we getting on? I have an impression that your eyes are beginning to see more clearly."
"Perhaps. I won't say that they aren't."
The eyes of Dorothy! In that combination of charming things her face, it was they above everything which held one's attention. Large, almond-shaped and lengthened in the shadow of their black lashes, they surprised one by the inconceivable diversity of their coloring and expression: of the blue which changed like the blue of the sea according to the hour and the light; of a blue which seemed to vary with the successive thoughts which changed her expression. And these eyes, so delightful that it seemed that they must always be smiling or laughing, were in moments of meditation the gravest eyes that ever were, when she half-closed and fixed them on some image in her mind.
Raoul, now, only saw through them, and was only really interested in what they expressed. The fabulous story of the treasure and the medal was wholly summed up for him in the charming spectacle afforded by two beautiful eyes observant or thoughtful, troubled or joyful. And perhaps Dorothy allowed herself to be observed with a certain satisfaction. The love of this big, shy young fellow touched her by its respectfulness, she who had only known hitherto the brutal homage of desire.
One day she made him take a seat in the little boat which was moored to the shore of the lake, and letting it drift with the current she said to him:
"We are drawing near."
"Near what?" he asked, startled.
"The hour which so many things have so long foretold."
"You believe?"
"I believe that you made no mistake the day on which you saw in your grandfather's hands that gold medal in which all the traditions of the family seem to be summed up. Unfortunately the poor man lost his reason before you were put in possession of the facts; and the thread which bound the past to the future has been broken."
"Then what do you hope for, if we do not find that medal? We've searched everywhere, his room, his clothes, the house, the orchard, and found nothing."
"It is impossible that he should keep to himself forever the answer to the enigma. If his reason is dead, his instincts survive. And what an instinct that is that centuries have been forming! Doubtless he has put the coin within reach, or within sight. You may be sure that he has hidden it in such a way that no execrable piece of bad luck could rob him of it without his being aware of it. But don't worry: at the appointed hour some unconscious gesture will reveal the truth to us."
Raoul objected.
"But what if d'Estreicher took it from him?"
"He did not. If he had, we should not have heard the noise of the struggle. Your grandfather resisted to the end; and it was only our coming which put d'Estreicher to flight."
"Oh, that ruffian! If only I had him in my hands!" exclaimed Raoul.
The boat was drifting gently. Dorothy said in a very low voice, barely moving her lips:
"Not so loud! He can hear us."
"What! What do you mean?"
"I say that he is close by and that he doesn't lose a single word of what we say," she went on in the same low voice.
Raoul was dumfounded.
"But—but—what does it mean? Can you see him?"
"No. But I can feel his presence; and he can see us."
"Where from?"
"From some place among the hillocks. I have been thinking that this name of Hillocks Manor pointed to some inpenetrable hiding-place, and I've discovered a proof of it in one of those old books, which actually speaks of a hiding-place where the Vendéans lay hid, and says that it is believed to be in the neighborhood of Tiffauges and Clisson."
"But how should d'Estreicher have learnt of it?"
"Remember that the day of the assault your grandfather was alone, or believed himself to be alone. Strolling among the hillocks, he would have disclosed one of the entrances. D'Estreicher was watching him at the time. And since then the rascal had been using it as a refuge.
"Look at the ground, all humps and ravines. On the right, on the left, everywhere, there are places in the rock for observations, so to speak, from which one can hear and see everything that takes place inside the boundaries of the estate. D'Estreicher is there."
"What is he doing?"
"He's searching and, what's more, he is keeping an eye on my investigations. He also—for all that I can't guess exactly the reason—wants the gold medal. And he is afraid that I shall get it before him."
"But we must inform the police!"
"Not yet. This underground hiding-place should have several issues, some of which perhaps run under the river. If we give the ruffian warning, he will escape."
"Then what's your plan?"
"To get him to come out of this lair and trap him."
"How?"
"I'll tell you at the appointed time, and that will not be long. I repeat: the hour draws near."
"What proof have you?"
"This," she said. "I have seen the money-lender, Monsieur Voirin, and he showed me the bill of sale. If by five o'clock on July 31st Monsieur Voirin, who has desired all his life to acquire the Manor, has not received the sum of three hundred thousand francs in cash or government securities, the Manor becomes his property."
"I know," said he. "And it will break my heart to go away from here."
She protested:
"There's no question of your going away from here."
"Why not? There's no reason why I should become rich in a month."
"Yes, there is a reason, the reason which has always sustained your grandfather, the reason which made him act as he did on this occasion, which made him say to old Voirin—I repeat the money-lender's words: 'Don't get bucked about this, Voirin. On the 31st of July I shall pay you in cash.' This is the first time that we are face to face with a precise fact. Up to now words and a confused tradition. To-day a fact. A fact which proves that, according to your grandfather all the legends which turn round these promised riches come to a head on a certain day in the month of July."
The boat touched the bank. Dorothy sprang lightly ashore and cried without fear of being heard:
"Raoul, to-day's the 27th of June. In a few weeks you will be rich; and I too. And d'Estreicher will be hanged high and dry as I predicted to his face."
That very evening Dorothy slipped out of the Manor and furtively made her way to a lane which ran between very tall hedges. After an hour's walking she came to a little garden at the bottom of which a light was shining.
Her private investigations had brought to her knowledge the name of an old lady, Juliet Assire, whom the gossip of the countryside declared to be one of the old flames of the Baron. Before his attack, the Baron paid her a visit, for all that she was deaf, in poor health, and rather feeble-witted. Moreover, thanks to the lack of discretion of the maid who looked after her and whom Saint-Quentin had questioned, Dorothy had learnt that Juliet Assire was the possessor of a medal of the kind they were searching for at the Manor.
Dorothy had formed the plan of taking advantage of the maid's weekly evening out to knock at the door and question Juliet Assire. But Fortune decided otherwise. The door was not locked, and when she stepped over the threshold of the low and comfortable sitting-room, she perceived the old lady asleep in the lamplight, her head bent over the canvas which she was engaged in embroidering.
"Suppose I look for it?" thought Dorothy. "What's the use of asking her questions she won't answer?"
She looked round her, examined the prints hanging on the wall, the clock under its glass case, the candlesticks.
Further on an inner staircase led up to the bedrooms. She was moving towards it when the door creaked. On the instant she was certain that d'Estreicher was about to appear. Had he followed her?... Had he by any chance brought her there by a combination of machinations? She was frightened and thought only of flight.... The staircase? The rooms on the first floor.... She hadn't the time! Near her was a glass door.... Doubtless it led to the kitchen.... And from there to the back door through which she could escape.
She went through it and at once found out her mistake. She was in a dark closet, a cupboard rather, against the boards of which she had to flatten herself before she could get the door shut. She found herself a prisoner.
At that moment the door of the room opened, very quietly. Two men came cautiously into it; and immediately one of them whispered:
"The old woman's asleep."
Through the glass, which was covered by a torn curtain, Dorothy easily recognized d'Estreicher, in spite of his turned-up coat-collar and the flaps of his cap, which were tied under his chin. His confederate in like manner had hidden half his face in a muffler.
"That damsel does make you play the fool," he said.
"Play the fool? Not a bit of it!" growled d'Estreicher. "I'm keeping an eye on her, that's all."
"Rot! You're always shadowing her. You're losing your head about her.... You'll go on doing it till the day she helps you to lose it for good."
"I don't say, no. She nearly succeeded in doing it at Roberey. But I need her."
"What for?"
"For the medal. She's the only person capable of laying her hands on it."
"Not here—in any case. We've already searched the house twice."
"Badly, without a doubt, since she is coming to it. At least when we caught sight of her she was certainly coming in this direction. The chatter of the maid has sent her here; and she has chosen the night when the old woman would be alone."
"You are stuck on your little pet."
"I'm stuck on her," growled d'Estreicher. "Only let me lay my hands on her, and I swear the little devil won't forget it in a hurry!"
Dorothy shivered. There was in the accents of this man a hate and at the same time a violence of desire which terrified her.
He was silent, posted behind the door, listening for her coming.
Several minutes passed. Juliet Assire still slept, her hand hanging lower and lower over her work.
At last d'Estreicher muttered:
"She isn't coming. She must have turned off somewhere."
"Ah well, let's clear out," said his accomplice.
"No."
"Have you got an idea?"
"A determination—to find the medal."
"But since we've already searched the house twice——"
"We went about it the wrong way. We must change our methods.... All the worse for the old woman!"
He banged the table at the risk of waking Juliet Assire.
"After all, it's too silly! The maid distinctly said: 'There's a medal in the house, the kind of thing they're looking for at the Manor.' Then let's make use of the opportunity, what? What failed in the case of the Baron may succeed to-day."
"What? You'd——"
"Make her speak—yes. As I tried to make the Baron speak. Only, she's a woman, she is."
D'Estreicher had taken off his cap. His evil face wore an expression of savage cruelty. He went to the door, locked it, and put the key in his pocket. Then he came back to the arm-chair in which the good lady was sleeping, gazed at her a moment and of a sudden fell upon her, gripping her throat, and thrust her backwards against the back of the chair.
His confederate chuckled:
"You needn't give yourself all that trouble. If you squeeze too hard, you'll kill the poor old thing."
D'Estreicher opened his fingers a little. The old woman opened her eyes wide and uttered a low groan.
"Speak!" d'Estreicher commanded. "The Baron intrusted a medal to you. Where have you put it?"
Juliet Assire did not clearly understand what was happening to her. She struggled. Exasperated, he shook her.
"Will you prattle? Hey? Where's your old sweetheart's medal? He gave it to you all right. Don't say he didn't, you old hag! Your maid's telling everybody who cares to listen to her. Come, speak up. If you don't——"
He picked one of the iron fire-dogs with copper knobs from the hearthstone and brandished it crying:
"One ... two ... three.... At twenty I'll crack your skull!"
The door behind which Dorothy was hiding herself shut badly. Having pushed it to gently, she not only saw but heard everything that took place, except that the face of Juliet Assire remained hidden from her. The ruffian's threat did not trouble her much, for she knew that he would not put it into execution. In fact d'Estreicher counted up to twenty without the old woman having uttered a word. But her resistance infuriated him to such a degree that, dropping the mass of iron, he seized the hand of Juliet Assire and twisted it violently. Juliet Assire yelled with pain.
"Ah, you're beginning to understand, are you?" he said. "Perhaps you'll answer.... Where is the medal?"
She was silent.
He gave her hand another twist.
The old woman fell on her knees and begged for mercy incoherently.
"Speak!" he cried. "Speak! I'll go on twisting till you speak!"
She stammered several syllables.
"What's that you say? Speak more distinctly, will you? Do you want me to give it another twist?"
"No ... no," she implored. "It's there ... at the Manor ... in the river."
"In the river? What nonsense! You threw it into the river? You're laughing at me!"
He held her down with one knee on her chest, their hands clenched round one another. From her post of observation Dorothy watched them, horror-stricken, powerless against these two men, but nevertheless unable to resign herself to inaction.
"Then I'll twist it, what?" growled the ruffian. "You prefer it to speaking?"
He made a quick movement which drew a cry from Juliet Assire. And all at once she raised herself, showed her face convulsed with terror, moved her lips, and succeeded in stuttering:
"The c—c—cupboard ... the cupboard ... the flagstones."
The sentence was never finished, though the mouth continued to move, but a strange thing happened: her frightful face little by little grew calm, assumed an ineffable serenity, became happy, smiling; and of a sudden Juliet Assire burst out laughing. She no longer felt the torture of her twisted wrist and she laughed gently, not jerkily, with an expression of beatitude.
She was mad.
"You've no luck," said his confederate in a mocking tone. "Directly you try to make people speak, they collapse—the Baron, cracked; his sweetheart, mad as a hatter. You're doing well."
The exasperated d'Estreicher thrust away the old woman who stumbled and turning fell down behind an arm-chair quite close to Dorothy, and cried furiously.
"You're right, my luck's out. But this time perhaps we've found a lode. Before her brain gave she spoke of a cupboard and flagstones. Which? This one or that? They're both paved with flags?"
He pointed first to the kind of closet in which Dorothy was hiding and then to a cupboard on the other side of the fireplace.
"I'll begin with this cupboard. You start on that one," he said. "Or rather, no—come and help me; we'll go through this one thoroughly first."
He knelt down near the fireplace, opened the cupboard door, and with the poker got to work on one of the cracks between the flags of its floor which his accomplice tried to raise.
Dorothy lost no time. She knew that they were coming to the closet and that she was lost if she did not fly. The old woman, stretched out close to her, was laughing gently and then grew silent as the men worked on.
Hidden by the arm-chair, Dorothy slipped noiselessly out of the cupboard, took off the lace cap which covered the hair of Juliet Assire and put it on her own head. Then she took her spectacles, then her shawl, put it round her shoulders, and succeeded in hiding her figure with a big table-cloth of black serge. At that moment Juliet fell silent. On the instant Dorothy took up her even, joyous laughter. She rose, and stooping like an old woman, ambled across the room.
D'Estreicher growled: "What's the old lunatic up to? Mind she doesn't get away."
"Howcanshe get away?" asked his confederate. "You've got the key in your pocket."
"The window."
"Much too high. Besides she doesn't want to leave the cottage."
Dorothy slipped in front of the window, the sill of which, uncommonly high up, was on a level with her eyes. The shutters were not closed. With a slow movement she succeeded in turning the catch. Then she paused. She knew that directly it was opened the window would let in the fresh air and the noises outside, and give the ruffians warning. In a few seconds she calculated and analyzed the movements she would need to make. Sure of herself and relying on her extraordinary agility, she took a look at her enemies; then swiftly, without a single mistake or a second's hesitation, she threw the window wide, jumped on to the sill, and from it into the garden.
There came two shouts together, then a hubbub of cries. But it took the two men time to understand, to stumble upon the body of the real Juliet and discover it was she, to unlock the door. Dorothy made use of it. Too clever to escape down the garden and through the gate, she ran round the cottage, jumped down a slope, scratched herself among the thorns of a hedge, and came out into the fields.
As she did so pistol-shots rang out. D'Estreicher and his confederate were firing at the shadows.
When Dorothy had rejoined Raoul and the children, who, alarmed by her absence, were waiting for her at the door of the caravan, and had told them briefly about her expedition, she ended:
"And now we're going to make an end of it. The final hand will be played in exactly a week from to-day."
These few days were very sweet to the two young people. While still remaining shy, Raoul grew bolder in his talks with her and let her see more clearly the depths of his nature, at once serious and impassioned. Dorothy abandoned herself with a certain joy to this love, of the sincerity of which she was fully conscious. Deeply disturbed, Saint-Quentin and his comrades grew uncommonly gloomy.
The captain tossed his head and said:
"Dorothy, I think I like this one less than the nasty gentleman, and if you'd listen to me...."
"What should we do, my lamb?"
"We'd harness One-eye' Magpie and go away."
"And the treasure? You know we're hunting for treasure."
"You're the treasure, mummy. And I'm afraid that they'll take you away from us."
"Don't you worry, my child. My four children will always come first."
But the four children did worry. The sense of danger weighed on them. In this confined space, between the walls of Hillocks Manor they breathed a heavy atmosphere which troubled them. Raoul was the chief danger: but another danger was little by little taking form in their minds: twice they saw the outline of a man moving stealthily among the thickets of the hillocks in the dusk.
On the 30th of June, Dorothy begged Raoul to give all his staff a holiday next day. It was the day of the great religious fête at Clisson. Three of the stoutest of the servants, armed with guns, were ordered to come back surreptitiously at four in the afternoon and wait near a little inn, Masson Inn, a quarter of a mile from the Manor.
Next day Dorothy seemed in higher spirits than ever. She danced jigs in the court-yard and sang English songs. She sang others in the boat, in which she had asked Raoul to row her, and then behaved so wildly, that several times they just missed capsizing. In this way it came about that in juggling with three coral bracelets she let one of them fall into the water. She wanted to recover it, dipped her bare arm in the water as high as the shoulder, and remained motionless, her head bent over the lake, as if she was considering carefully something she saw on its bottom.
"What are you looking at like that?" said Raoul.
"There has been no rain for a long while, the lake is low, and one can see more distinctly the stones and pebbles on the bottom. Now I've already noticed that some of the stones are arranged in a certain pattern. Look."
"Undoubtedly," he said. "And they've hewn stones, shaped. One might fancy that they formed huge letters. Have you noticed it?"
"Yes. And one can guess the words that those letters form: 'In robore fortuna.' At the mayor's office I've studied an old map of the neighborhood. Here, where we are, was formerly the principal lawn of a sunken garden, and on this very lawn one of your ancestors had this device inscribed in blocks of stone. Since then some one has let in the water of the Maine over the sunken garden. The pool has taken the place of the lawn. The device is hidden."
And she added between her teeth:
"And so are the few words and the figures below the device, which I have not yet been able to see. And it's that which interests me. Do you see them?"
"Yes. But indistinctly."
"That's just it. We're too near them. We need to look at them from a height."
"Let's climb up on the hillocks."
"No use. The slope—the water would blur the image."
"Then," said he, laughing, "we must mount above them in an aëroplane."
At lunch-time they parted. After the meal, Raoul superintended the departure of thechar-à-bancs, which were taking all the staff of the Manor to Clisson, then he took his way to the pool where he saw Dorothy's little troupe hard at work on the bank. The captain, always the man of affairs, was running to and fro somewhat in the manner of a Gugusse. The others were carrying out exactly Dorothy's instructions.
When it was all over, a sufficiently thick iron wire was stretched above the lake at a height of ten or twelve feet, fastened at one end to the gable of a barn, at the other to a ring affixed to a rock among the hillocks.
"Hang it all!" he said. "It looks to me as if you'd made preparations for one of your circus turns."
"You're right," she replied gayly. "Having no aëroplane I fall back on my aërial rope-walking."
"What? Is that what you intend to do?" he exclaimed in anxious accents. "But you're bound to fall."
"I can swim."
"No, no. I refuse to allow it."
"By what right?"
"You haven't even a balancing-pole."
"A balancing-pole?" she said, running off. "And what next? A net? A safety-rope?"
She climbed up the ladder inside the barn and appeared on the edge of the roof. She was laughing, as was her custom when she began her performance before a crowd. She was dressed in a silk frock, with broad white and red stripes, a scarlet silk handkerchief was crossed over her chest.
Raoul was in a state of feverish excitement.
The captain went to him.
"Do you want to help mummy, Dorothy?" he said in a confidential tone.
"Certainly I do."
"Well, go away, monsieur."
Dorothy stretched out her leg. Her foot, which was bare in a cloth sandal divided at the big toe, tried the wire, as a bather's foot tries the coldness of the water. And then she quickly stepped on to it, made several steps, sliding, and stopped.
She saluted right and left, pretending to believe herself in the presence of a large audience, and came sliding forward again with a regular, rhythmic movement of her legs and a swaying of her bust and arms which balanced her like the beating of the wings of a bird. So she arrived above the pool. The wire, slackened, bent under her weight and jerked upwards. A second time she stopped, when she was over the middle of the pool.
This was the hardest part of her undertaking. She was no longer able to hook, so to speak, her gaze on a fixed point among the hillocks, and lend her balance the support of something stable. She had to lower her eyes and try to read, in the moving and glittering water, repelling the fascination of the sun's reflection, the words and the figures. A terribly dangerous task! She had to essay it several times and to rise upright the very moment she found herself bending over the void. A minute or two passed, minutes of veritable anguish. She brought them to an end by a salute with both arms, stretching them out with even gracefulness, and a cry of victory; then she at once walked on again.
Raoul had crossed the bridge which spans the end of the pool and he was already on a kind of platform among the hillocks, at which the wire ended. She was struck by his paleness and touched by his anxiety on her account.
"Goodness," she said, gripping his hand. "Were you as frightened as that on my account?... If I'd only known!... And yet, no": she went on. "Even if I had known, I should have made the experiment, so certain was I of the result."
"Well?" he said.
"Well, I read the device distinctly, and the date under it, which we couldn't make out—the 12th of July, 1921. We know now that the 12th of July of this year is the great day foretold so many years ago. But there's something better, I fancy."
She called Saint-Quentin to her and said some words to him in a low voice. Saint-Quentin ran to the caravan and a few minutes came out of it in his acrobat's tights. He stepped into the boat with Dorothy, who rowed it to the middle of the pool. He slipped quickly into the water and dived. Twice he came up to receive more exact instructions from Dorothy. At last, the third time he came up, he cried:
"Here it is, mummy!"
He tossed into the boat a somewhat heavy object. Dorothy snatched it up, examined it, and when they reached the bank, handed it to Raoul. It was a metal disc, of rusted iron or copper, of the size of a saucer, and convex—like an enormous watch. It must have been formed of two plates joined together, but the edges of these plates had been soldered together so that one could not open it.
Dorothy rubbed one of its faces and pointed out to Raoul with her finger the deeply engraved word: "Fortuna."
"I was not mistaken," she said, "and poor old Juliet Assire was speaking the truth, in speaking first of the river. During one of their last meetings the Baron must have thrown in here the gold medal in its metal case."
"But why?"
"Didn't you write to him from Roborey, after I left, to be on his guard?"
"Yes."
"In that case what better hiding-place could he find for the medal till the day came for him to use it than the bottom of the pool? The first boy who came along could fish it out for him."
Joyously she tossed the disc in the air and juggled with it and three pebbles. Then she caught hold of the shivering Saint-Quentin, very scraggy in his wet tights, and with the other three boys danced round the platform, singing the lay of "The Recovered Medal."
At the end of his breath the captain made the observation that there was a fête at Clisson and that they might very well go there to celebrate their success.
"Let's harness One-eye' Magpie."
Dorothy approved of it.
"Excellent! But One-eyed Magpie's too slow. What about your car, Raoul?"
They hurried back to the Manor. Saint-Quentin went to change his costume. Raoul set his engine going and brought the car out of the garage. While the three boys were getting into it, he went to Dorothy, who had sat down at a little table on the terrace which ran the length of the building.
"Are you ready?" he asked.
She said:
"But I never had any intention of going with you. To-day you're going to be nursemaid."
He was not greatly surprised. Since early morning he had had an odd feeling that everything that happened was not quite natural. The incidents followed one another in such perfect sequence and with a logic and exactness foreign to actuality. One might have said that they were scenes in a too-well-made play, of which it would have been easy, with a little experience of the playwright's art, to analyze the construction and the tricks. Certainly, without knowing Dorothy's game, he guessed the dénouement she proposed to bring about—the capture of d'Estreicher. But by means of what stratagem?
"Don't question me," she said. "We are watched. So no heroics, no remonstrances. Listen."
She was amusing herself by spinning the disk on the table and quite calmly she outlined her plan and her maneuvers.
"It's like this. A day or two ago I wrote, in your name, to the Public Prosecutor, advising him that our friend d'Estreicher, for whom the police are hunting, guilty of attempts to murder Baron Davernoie and Madame Juliet Assire, would be at Hillocks Manor to-day. I asked him to send two detectives who would find you at Masson Inn at four o'clock. It's now a quarter to four. Your three servants will be there too. So off you go."
"What am I to do?"
"Come back quickly with the two detectives and your three servants, not by the main road, but by the paths Saint-Quentin and the three boys will point out to you. At the end of them you will find ladders ready. You will set them up against the wall. D'Estreicher and his confederate will be there. You will cover them with your guns while the detectives arrest them."
"Are you sure that d'Estreicher will come out of the hillocks—if it's the fact that the hillocks are his hiding-place?"
"Quite sure. Here is the medal. He knows that it is in my hands. How can he help seizing the opportunity of taking it now that we are on the eve of the great event."
She expressed herself with a disconcerting calmness. For all that she was exposing herself alone to all the menace of a combat which promised to be formidable, she had not the faintest air of being in danger. Indeed, such was her indifference to the risk she was running that, when the old Baron went past them and into the Manor, followed by his faithful Goliath, she imparted to Raoul some results of her observations.
"Have you noticed that for the last day or two that your grandfather has been ill at ease? He too is instinctively aware that the great event is at hand, and he wants to act. He is pulling himself together and struggling against the disease which paralyzes him in the very hour of action."
In spite of everything, Raoul hesitated. The idea of leaving her to face d'Estreicher alone was infinitely painful to him.
"One question," he said.
"Only one then, for you've no time to lose."
"You made all your preparations for to-day. The police are informed, the servants warned, the rendezvous fixed. Good. But nevertheless you couldn't know that the discovery of this disc would take place just an hour before that rendezvous."
"Excellent, Raoul; I congratulate you. You've put your finger on the weak point in my explanation. But I can't tell you anything more at the moment."
"Nevertheless——"
"Do as I ask you, Raoul. You know that I don't act at random."
Dorothy's confidence, her boldness, the simplicity of her plan, her quiet smile, all inspired him with such trust in her judgment that he raised no more objections.
"Very well," he said. "I'll go."
"That's right," she said, laughing. "You have faith. In that case make haste and come back quickly, for d'Estreicher will come here not only to get hold of the medal but also for something on which perhaps he is equally keen."
"What's that?"
"Me."
This was a suggestion which hastened the young man's decision. The car started and crossed the orchard. Saint-Quentin opened the big gate and shut it again as soon as the car had gone through it.
Dorothy was alone; and she was to remain alone and defenceless for as long she reckoned, if her calculations were correct, as twelve to fifteen minutes.
Keeping her back turned to the hillocks, she did not stir from her chair. She appeared to be very busy with the disc, testing the soldering, like one who seeks to discover the secret or the weak point of a piece of mechanism. But with her ears, all her nerves on edge, she tried to catch every sound or rustle that the breeze might bring her.
By turns she was sustained by an unshakable certainty, or attacked by discouraging doubts. Yes: d'Estreicher was bound to come. She could not admit to herself that he might not come. The medal would draw him to her with an irresistible enticement.
"And yet, no," she said to herself. "He will be on his guard. My little maneuver is really too puerile. This case, this medal which we find at the fateful moment, this departure of Raoul and the children, and then my staying alone in the empty farm, when my one care on the contrary would be to protect my find against the enemy—all this is really too far-fetched. An old fox like d'Estreicher will shun the trap."
And then the other side of the problem presented itself:
"Hewillcome. Perhaps he has already left his lair. Manifestly the danger will be clear to him, but afterwards, when it is too late. At the actual moment he is not free to act or not to act. He obeys."
So once more Dorothy was guided by her keen insight into the trend of events, in spite of what her reason might tell her. The facts grouped themselves before her intelligence in a logical sequence and with strict method, she saw their accomplishment while they were yet in process of becoming. The motives which actuated other people were always perfectly clear to her. Her intuition revealed them; her quick intelligence instantly fitted them to the circumstances.
Besides, as she had said, d'Estreicher was drawn by a double temptation. If he succeeded in resisting the temptation to try to seize the medal, how could he help succumbing to the temptation to seize that marvelous prize, right within his reach, Dorothy herself?
She sat upright with a smile. The sound of footsteps had fallen on her ears. It must come from the wooden bridge which spanned the end of the pool.
The enemy was coming!
But almost at the same moment she heard another sound on her right and then another on her left. D'Estreicher hadtwoconfederates. She was hemmed in!
The hands of her watch pointed to five minutes to four.
"If they seize me," she thought. "If it's d'Estreicher's intention to kidnap me without more ado, there's nothing to be done. Before I could be rescued, they would carry me off to their underground lair, and from there I don't know where!"
And why should it be otherwise? Master of the medal and of Dorothy, the ruffian had only to fly.
On the instant she saw all the faults of her plan. In order to compel d'Estreicher to risk a sortie that she might capture him during that sortie, she had invented a too subtle ruse, which actual developments of Fortune's spite might turn to her undoing. A conflict which turns on the number of seconds gained or lost is extremely doubtful.
She went quickly into the house and pushed the disc under a heap of discarded things in a small lumber-room. The necessary hunt for it would delay for a while the enemy's flight. But when she came back to go out of the house, d'Estreicher, grimacing ironically behind his spectacles and under his thick beard, stood on the threshold of the front door.
Dorothy never carried a revolver. All her life she never cared to trust to anything but her courage and intelligence. She regretted it at this horrible moment when she found herself face to face with the man who had murdered her father. Her first act would have been to blow out his brains.
Divining her vengeful thought, he seized her arm quickly and twisted it, as he had twisted the arm of old Juliet Assire. Then bending over her, he snapped:
"Where have you put it?... Be quick!"
She did not even dream of resisting, so acute was the pain, and took him to the little room, and pointed to the heap. He found the disc at once, weighed it in his hand, examining it with an air of immense satisfaction and said:
"That's all right. Victory at last! Twenty years of struggle come to an end. And over and above what I bargained for, you, Dorothy—the most magnificent and desirable of rewards."
He ran his hand over her frock to make sure that she was not armed, then seized her round the body, and with a strength which no one would have believed him to possess, swung her over his shoulder on to his back.
"You make me feel uneasy, Dorothy," he chuckled. "What? No resistance? What pretty behavior, my dear! There must be something in the way of a trap under it all. So I'll be off."
Outside she caught sight of the two men, who were on guard at the big gate. One of them was the confederate she knew, from having seen him at Juliet Assire's cottage. The other, his face flattened against the bars of a small wicket, was watching the road.
D'Estreicher called to them:
"Keep your eyes skinned, boys. You mustn't be caught in the sheepfold. And when I whistle, bucket off back to the hillocks."
He himself made for them with long strides without weakening under his burden. She could smell the odor of a damp cellar with which his subterranean lair had impregnated his garments. He held her by the neck with a hard hand that bruised it.
They came to the wooden bridge and were just about to cross it. No more than a hundred yards from it, perhaps, among the bushes and rocks, was one of the entrances to his underground lair. Already the man was raising his whistle to his lips.
With a deft movement, Dorothy snatched the disc, which was sticking up above the top of the pocket into which he had stuffed it, and threw it towards the pool. It ran along the ground, rolled down the bank, and disappeared under the water.
"You little devil!" growled the ruffian throwing her roughly to the ground. "Stir, and I'll break your head!"
He went down the bank and floundered about in the viscid mud of the river, keeping an eye on Dorothy and cursing her.
She did not dream of flying. She kept looking from one to another of the points at the top of the wall above which she expected the heads of the farm-servants or the detectives to rise. It was certainly five or six minutes past the hour, yet none of them appeared. Nevertheless she did not lose hope. She expected d'Estreicher, who had evidently lost his head, to make some mistake of which she could take advantage.
"Yes, yes," he snarled: "You wish to gain time, my dear. And suppose you do? Do you think I'll let go of you? I've got you both, you and the medal; and your bumpkin of a Raoul isn't the man to loosen my grip. Besides, if he does come, it'll be all the worse for him. My men have their orders: a good crack on the head——"
He was still searching; he stopped short, uttered a cry of triumph and stood upright, the disc in his hand.
"Here it is, ducky. Certainly the luck is with me; and you've lost. On we go, cousin Dorothy!"
Dorothy cast a last look along the walls. No one. Instinctively, at the approach of the man she hated, she made as if to thrust him off. It made him laugh—so absurd did any resistance seem. Violently he beat down her outstretched arms, and again swung her on to his shoulder with a movement in which there was as much hate as desire.
"Say good-bye to your sweetheart, Dorothy, for the good Raoul is in love with you. Say good-bye to him. If ever you see him again, it will be too late."
He crossed the bridge and strode in among the hillocks.
It was all over. In another thirty seconds, even if he were attacked, no longer being in sight of the points on the wall at which the men armed with guns were to rise up, he would have time to reach the mouth of the entrance to his lair. Dorothy had lost the battle. Raoul and the detectives would arrive too late.
"You don't know how nice it is to have you there, all quivering, and to carry you away with me, against me, without your being able to escape the inevitable," whispered d'Estreicher. "But what's the matter with you? Are you crying? You mustn't, my dear. After all why should you? You would certainly let yourself be lulled one of these days on the bosom of the handsome Raoul. Then there's no reason why I should be more distasteful to you than he, is there? But—hang it!" he cried angrily, "haven't you done sobbing yet?"
He turned her on his shoulder and caught hold of her head.
He was dumfounded.
Dorothy was laughing.
"What—what's this? What are you laughing at? Is it p-p-possible that you dare to laugh? What on earth do you mean by it?"
This laughter frightened him as a threat of danger? The slut! What was she laughing at? A sudden fury rose in him, and setting her down clumsily against a tree, he struck her with his clenched fist, out of which a ring stuck, on the forehead, among her hair, with such force that the blood spurted out.
She was still laughing, as she stammered:
"You b-b-brute! What a brute you are!"
"If you laugh, I'll bite your mouth, you hussy," he snarled, bending over her red lips.
He did not dare to carry out the threat, respecting her in spite of himself, and even a little intimidated. She was frightened, however, and laughed no more.
"What is this? What is it?" he repeated. "You should be crying, and you're laughing. Why?"
"I was laughing because of the plates," she said.
"What plates?"
"Those which form the case of the medal."
"These?"
"Yes."
"What about them?"
"They're the plates of Dorothy's Circus. I used to juggle with them."
He looked utterly flabbergasted.
"What's this rot you're talking?"
"It is rot, isn't it? Saint-Quentin and I soldered them together; I engraved the motto on them with a knife; and last night we threw them into the pool."
"But you're mad. I don't understand. With what object did you do it?"
"Since poor old Juliet Assire babbled some admissions about the river when you tortured her, I was pretty sure you'd fall into the trap."
"What do you mean? What trap?"
"I wanted to get you to come out of here."
"You knew that I was here then?"
"Rather! I knew that you were watching us fish up the case; and I knew for certain what would happen after that. Believing that this case, found at the bottom of the pool under your very eyes, contained the medal, and seeing moreover that Raoul had gone and I was alone at the Manor, you wouldn't be able to come. But you have come."
He stuttered:
"The g-g-gold medal.... It isn't in this case then?"
"No. It's empty."
"And Raoul?... Raoul?... You're expecting him?"
"Yes."
"Alone?"
"With some detectives. He went to meet them."
He clenched his fists and growled:
"You little beast, you denounced me."
"I denounced you."
Not for a second did d'Estreicher think she might be lying. He held the metal disc in his hand; and it would have been easy enough to force it open with his knife. To what end? The disc was empty. He was sure of it. Of a sudden he grasped the full force of the comedy she had played on the pool; it explained to him the odd uneasiness and disquiet he had felt while he was watching that series of actions the connection of which seemed to him strange.
However he had come. He had plunged blindly, with his head down, into the trap she had audaciously laid for him before his very eyes. Of what miraculous power was she mistress? And how was he going to slip through the meshes of the net which was being drawn tighter and tighter round him?
"Let's be getting away," he said, eager to get out of danger.
But he was suffering from a lassitude of will, and instead of picking up his victim, he questioned her.
"The disc is empty. But you know where the medal is?" he questioned.
"Of course I know," said Dorothy, who only thought of gaining time and whose furtive eyes were scanning the top of the wall.
The man's eyes sparkled:
"Ah, you do, do you?... You must be a fool to admit it!... Since you know, you're going to tell, my dear. If not——"
He drew his revolver.
She said mockingly:
"Just as with Juliet Assire? Twenty's what you count, isn't it? You may as well save your breath; it doesn't work with me."
"I swear, dammit!—--"
"Words!"
No: the battle was certainly not lost. Dorothy, though exhausted, her face smeared with blood, clung to every possible incident with grim tenacity. She felt strongly that, in his fury, d'Estreicher was capable of killing her. But she was quite as clearly aware of his confusion of ideas and of her power over him. He hadn't the strength to depart and abandon the medal for which he had struggled so desperately. If only his hesitation lasted a few minutes longer, Raoul was bound to appear on the scene.
At this moment an incident occurred which appeared to excite her keenest interest, for she leant forward to follow it more closely. The old Baron came out of the Manor, carrying a bag, not dressed, as usual, in a blouse, but in a cloth suit, and wearing a felt hat. That showed that he had made a choice, that is to say, an effort of thought. Then there was another such effort. Goliath was not with him. He waited for him, stamped his foot, and when the dog did come, caught him by the collar, looked about him, and took his way to the gate.
The two confederates barred his path; he muttered some grumbling complaints and tried to get past them. They shoved him back and at last he went off among the trees, without loosing Goliath, but leaving his bag behind him.
His action was easy to understand; and Dorothy and d'Estreicher alike grasped the fact that the old fellow had wanted to go off on the quest of the treasure. In spite of his madness, he had not forgotten the enterprise. The appointed date was engraved on his memory; and on the day he had fixed, he strapped up his bag and started out like a piece of mechanism which one has wound up and which goes off at the moment fixed.
D'Estreicher called out to his confederates:
"Search his bag!"
Since they found nothing, no medal, no clue, he walked up and down in front of Dorothy for a moment, undecided what course to take and then stopped beside her:
"Answer me. Raoul loves you. You don't love him. Otherwise I should have put a stop to your little flirtation a fortnight ago. But all the same you feel some obligations towards him in the matter of the medal and the treasure; and you've joined forces. It's just foolishness, my dear, and I'm going to set your mind at rest about the matter, for there's a thing you don't know and I'm going to tell it you. After which I'm sure you'll speak. Answer me then. With regard to this medal, you must be wondering how I come to be hunting for it, since, as you very well know, I stole it from your father. What do you suppose?"
"I suppose somebody took it from you."
"You're right. But do you know who it was?"
"No."
"Raoul's father, George Davernoie."
She started and exclaimed:
"You lie!"
"I do not!" he declared firmly. "You remember your father's last letter which cousin Octave read to us at Roborey? The Prince of Argonne related how he heard two men talking under his window and saw a hand slip through it towards the table and sneak the medal. Well, the man who had accompanied the other on the expedition and was waiting below, was George Davernoie. And that rogue, Dorothy, the very next night robbed his comrade."
Dorothy was shaking with indignation and abhorrence:
"It's a lie! Raoul's father take to such a trade? A thief?"
"Worse than that. For the enterprise had not only robbery for its aim.... And if the man who poured the poison into the glass and whose tattooed arm was seen by the Prince of Argonne, does not deny his acts, he doesn't forget that the poison was provided by the other."
"You lie! You lie! You alone are the culprit! You alone murdered my father!"
"You don't really believe that. And look: here's a letter from him to the old Baron, to his father, that is. I found it among the Baron's papers. Read it:
"'I have at last laid my hand on the indispensable gold piece. On my next leave I'll bring it to you.'
"And look at the date. A week after the death of the Prince of Argonne! Do you believe me now, eh? And don't you think that we might come to an understanding between ourselves, apart from this milksop Raoul?"
This revelation had tried Dorothy sorely. However, she pulled herself together and putting a good face on it, she asked:
"What do you mean?"
"I mean that the gold medal, brought to the Baron, intrusted by him to his old flame for a while, then hidden I don't know where, belongs to you. Raoul has no right to it. I'll buy it from you."
"At what price?"
"Any price you like—half the treasure, if you demand it."
Dorothy saw on the instant how she could make the most of the situation. Here again was a way of gaining some minutes, decisive minutes perhaps, a painful and costly way, since she risked handing over to him the key to the treasure. But dare she hesitate? D'Estreicher was nearly at the end of his patience. He was beside himself at the notion of the imminent attack with which he was threatened. Let him get carried away by an access of panic and all would be lost by his taking flight.
"A partnership between us? Never! A sharing of the treasure which would make me your ally? A thousand times, no! I detest you. But an agreement for a few moments? Perhaps."
"Your conditions?" he said. "Be quick! Make the most of my allowing you to impose conditions!"
"That won't take long. You have a double object—the medal and me. You must choose between them. Which do you want most?"
"The medal."
"If you let me go free, I'll give it to you."
"Swear to me on your honor that you know where it is."
"I swear it."
"How long have you known?"
"For about five minutes. A little while ago I did not know. A little fact has just come under my observation which has informed me."
He believed her. It was impossible for him to disbelieve her. Everything that she said in that fashion, looking you straight in the face, was the exact truth.
"Speak."
"It's for you to speak first. Swear that as soon as my promise is fulfilled, I shall be free."
The ruffian blinked. The idea of keeping an oath appeared comic to him; and Dorothy was quite aware that his oath had no value of any kind.
"I swear it," he said.
Then he repeated: "Speak. I can't quite make out what you are faking; but it doesn't strike me as being gospel truth. So I don't put much faith in it; and don't you forget it."
The conflict between them was now at its height; and what gave that conflict its peculiar character was that both of them saw clearly the adversary's game. Dorothy had no doubt that Raoul, after an unforeseen delay, was on his way to the Manor, and d'Estreicher, who had no more doubt of it than she, knew that all her actions were based on her expectation of immediate intervention. But there was one trifling fact which rendered their chances of victory equal. D'Estreicher believed himself to be in perfect security because his two confederates, glued to the wicket, were watching the road for the coming of the car; while the young girl had taken the admirable precaution of instructing Raoul to abandon the car and take the paths which were out of sight of the gate. All her hope sprang from this precaution.
She made her explanation quietly, all the while bearing in mind her keen desire to drag out the interview.
"I've never ceased to believe," she said "—and I'm sure that you are of the same opinion that the Baron has never, so to speak, quitted the medal."
"I hunted everywhere," d'Estreicher objected.
"So did I. But I don't mean that he kept it on him. I meant that he kept it and still keeps it within reach."
"You do?"
"Yes. He has always managed in such a way that he has only to stretch out his hand to grasp it."
"Impossible. We should have seen it."
"Not at all. Only just now you failed to see anything."
"Just now?"
"Yes. When he was going off, compelled by the bidding of his instinct—when he was going off on the very day he had fixed before he fell ill——"
"He was going off without the medal."
"With the medal."
"They searched his bag."
"The bag wasn't the only thing he was taking with him."
"What else was there? Hang it all! You were more than a hundred yards away from him! You saw nothing."
"I saw that he was holding something besides his bag."
"What?"
"Goliath."
D'Estreicher was silent, struck by that simple word and all it signified.
"Goliath," Dorothy went on, "Goliath whonever quitted him, Goliath alwayswithin reach of his hand, and whom he was holding, whom he is holding at this moment. Look at him. His five fingers are clenched round the dog's collar. Do you understand?Round its collar!"
Once more d'Estreicher had no doubt. Dorothy's declaration immediately appeared to him to meet all the circumstances of the case. Once more she threw light on the affair. Beyond that light: nothing but darkness and contradictions.
He recovered all his coolness. His will to act instantly revived; and at the same time he saw clearly all the precautions to be taken to minimize the risks of the attempt.
He drew from his pocket a thin piece of rope, with which he bound Dorothy, and a handkerchief which he tied across her mouth.