THERE had been a caller, there had been parish matters, there had been endless things through endless hours which he had been unable to avoid—except in mind. He had attended to them subconsciously, as it were; his mind had never for an instant left Henri Mentone. And it was beginning to take form now, a plan whereby he might effect the other's escape.
Sitting at his desk, he looked at his watch as he heard Valérie and her mother go upstairs. It was a quarter past three. Later on in the afternoon, in another hour or thereabouts Madame Lafleur would take Henri Mentone for a few steps here and there about the green, or sit with him for a little fresh air on the porch of thepresbytère. Raymond smiled ironically. As jailor he had delegated the task to Madame Lafleur—since, as he had told both Valérie and her mother at the noonday meal, he was going out to make pastoral visits that afternoon. Meanwhile—he had just looked into Henri Mentone's room—the man was lying on his bed asleep. If he worked quickly now—while Valérie and her mother were upstairs, and the man was lying on his bed!
He picked up a pen, and drew a piece of paper toward him. Everything hinged on his being able to procure a confederate. He, the curé of St. Marleau, must procure a confederate by some means, and naturally without the confederate knowing that Monsieur le Curé was doing so—and, almost as essential, a confederate who had no love for Monsieur le Curé! It was not a very simple matter! That was the problem with which he had racked his brains for the last three days. Not that the minor details were lacking in difficulties either; he, as the curé, must not appear even remotely in the plan; he, as the curé, dared not even suggest escape to Henri Mentone—but he could overcome all that if only he could secure a confederate. That was the point upon which everything depended.
His pen poised in his hand, he stared across the room. Yes, he saw it now—a gambler's chance. But the time was short now, short enough to make him welcome any chance. He would go to Mother Blondin's. He might find a man there such as he sought, one of those who already had offended the law by frequenting the dissolute old hag's illicit still. He could ask, of course, who these men were without exciting any suspicion, and if luck failed him that afternoon he would do so, and it would be like a shot still left in his locker; but if, in his rôle of curé, he could actually trap one of them drinking there, and incense the man, even fight with him, it would make success almost certain. Yes, yes—he could see it all now—clearly—afterwards, when it grew dark, he would go to the man in a far different rôle from that of a curé, and the man would be at his disposal. Yes, if he could trap one of them there—but before anything else Henri Mentone must be prepared for the attempt.
Raymond began to write slowly, in a tentative sort of way, upon the paper before him. Henri Mentone, remembering nothing of the events of that night, must be left in no doubt as to the genuineness and good faith of the note, or of the vital necessity of acting upon its instructions. At the expiration of a few minutes, Raymond read over what he had written. He scored out a word here and there; and then, on another sheet of paper, in a scrawling, illiterate hand, he wrote out a slangy, ungrammatical version of the original draft. He read it again now:
“The memory game won't go, Henri. They've got you cold, but they don't know there was two of us in it at the old woman's that night, so keep up your nerve, for I ain't for laying down on a pal. I got it fixed for a getaway for you to-night. Keep the back window open, and be ready at any time after dark—see? Leave-the rest to me. If that mealy-mouthed priest gets in the road, so much the worse for him. I'll take care of him so he won't be any trouble to any one except a doctor, and mabbe not much to a doctor—get me? I'd have been back sooner, only I had to beat it for you know where to get the necessary coin. Here's some to keep you going in case we have to separate in a hurry to-night.——Pierre.”
Raymond nodded to himself. Henri Mentone might not relish the suggestion of any violence offered to the “mealy-mouthed priest,” for he had come to look upon Father François Aubert as his only friend, and, except in his fits of fury, to cling dependently upon him; but then there would be no violence offered to Father François Aubert, and the suggestion supplied a final touch of authenticity to the note, since Henri Mentone would realise that escape was impossible unless in some way the curé could be got out of the road.
Raymond destroyed the original draft, and took out his pocketbook. He smiled curiously, as he examined its contents. It was the gold of the Yukon, the gold of Ton-Nugget Camp, that he had changed into banknotes of large denominations. He selected two fifty-dollar bills. It was not enough to carry the man far, or to take care of the man until he was on his feet, nor were fifty-dollar bills the most convenient denomination for a man under the present circumstances; but that was not their purpose—they would act as a guarantee of one “Pierre” and “Pierre's” plan, and to-night he would give the man more without stint, and supplement it with some small bills from his roll of “petty cash.” He folded the money in the note, found a small piece of string in one of the drawers of the desk, stood up, took his hat, tiptoed softly across the room, out into the hall, and from the hall to the front porch.
Here, he stood quietly for a moment, looking about him; and then, satisfied that he was unobserved, that neither Valérie nor her mother had noticed his exit, he walked quickly around to the back of the house—and paused again, this time beneath the open window of Henri Mentone's room. Here, too, but even more sharply now, he looked about him—then stooped ana picked up a small stone. He tied the note around this, and, crouched low by the window, called softly: “Henri! Henri!”
He heard a rustle, the creak of the bed, as though the man, startled and suddenly roused, were jerking himself up into an upright position.
“It is Pierre!” Raymond called again. “Courage, mon vieux!Have no fear! All is arranged for tonight. But do not come to the window—we must be careful. Here—voici!”—he tossed the note in over the sill. “Until dark—tu comprends, Henri? I will be back then. Be ready!”
He heard the man cry out in a low voice, and the creak of the bed again, and the man's step on the floor—and, stooping low, Raymond darted around the corner of the house.
A moment later he was standing again in the hallway of thepresbytère.
“Oh, Madame Lafleur!” he called up the stairs. “It is only to tell you that I am going out now.”
“Yes, Monsieur le Curé—yes. Very well, Monsieur le Curé,” she answered.
Raymond closed the front door behind him, and, walking sedately across the green and past the church, gained the road. It was Mother Blondin's now, but he would not go by the station road—further along the village street, where the houses thinned out and were scattered more apart, he could climb up the little hill without being seen, and by walking through the woods would come out on the path whose existence had once already done him such excellent service. And the path, as an approach to Mother Blondin's this afternoon, offered certain very important strategical advantages.
But now for the moment he was in the heart of the village, and from the doorways and garden patches of the little squat, curved-roof, whitewashed houses of rough-squared logs that flanked the road on either side, voices called out to him cheerily as he walked along. He answered them—all of them. He was even conscious, in spite of the worry of his mind, of a curious and not altogether unwelcome wonder. They were simple folk, these people, big-hearted and kindly, free and open-handed with the little they had, and they appeared to have grown fond of him in the few days he had been in St. Marleau, to look up to him, to trust him, to have faith in him, and to accept him as a friend, offering a frank friendship in return.
His hands were clasped behind his back as he walked along, and suddenly his fingers laced tightly over one another. The pleasurable wonder of it was gone. He was playing well this rôle of saint! He was a gambler—Three-Ace Artie of Ton-Nugget Camp; a gambler—too unclean even for the Yukon. But he was no hypocrite! He would have liked to have torn these saintly trappings from his body, wrenched off hissoutaneand hurled it in the faces of these people, and bade them keep their friendship and their trust—tell them that he asked for nothing that they gave because they believed him other than he was. He was no hypocrite—he was a man fighting desperately for that for which every one had a right to fight, for which instinct bade even an insect fight—his life! He did not despise this proffered friendship, the smile of eye and lip, the ring of genuine sincerity in the voices that called to him—but they were not his, they were not meant for Three-Ace Artie, they were not meant for Raymond Chapelle. Somehow—it was a grotesque thought—he envied himself in the rôle of curé for these things. But they were not his. It was strange even that he, in whose life there had been naught but riot and ruin, should still be able to simulate so well the better things, to carry through, not the rôle of priest, that was a matter of ritual, a matter of keeping his head and his nerve, but the far kindlier and intimate rôle offatherto the parish! Yes, it was very strange, and——
“Bon jour, Monsieur le Curé!”
Raymond halted. It was Madame Bouchard, the carpenter's wife. With a sort of long-handled wooden paddle, she was removing huge loaves of bread from the queer-looking outdoor oven which, though built of a mixture of stone and brick, resembled very much, through being rounded over at the top, an exaggerated beehive. A few yards further in from the edge of the road Bouchard himself was at work upon a boat in front of his shop. Above the shop was the living quarters of the family, and here, on a narrow veranda, peering over, a half dozen scantily clad and very small children clung to the railings.
Raymond sniffed the air luxuriously.
“Tiens, Madame Bouchard!” he cried. “Your husband is to be envied! The smell of the bread is enough to make one hungry!”
The carpenter laid down his tools, and looked up, laughing.
“Salut, Monsieur le Curé!” he called.
“If Monsieur le Curé would like one”—Madame Bouchard's cheeks had grown a little rosy—“I—I will send one to thepresbytèrefor him.”
Raymond had eaten of St. Marleau bread before. The taste was sour, and it required little short of a deftly wielded axe to make any impression upon the crust.
“You are too good, too generous, Madame Bouchard,” he said, shaking his forefinger at her chidingly. “And yet”—he smiled broadly—“if there is enough to spare, there is nothing I know of that would delight me more.”
“Of course, she can spare it!” declared the carpenter heartily, coming forward. “Stanislaus will carry you two presently. And,tiens, Monsieur le Curé, you like to row a boat—eh?”
Raymond, on the point of shaking his head, checked himself. A boat! One of these days—soon, if this devil's trap would only open a little—there was his own escape to be managed. He had planned that carefully... a boating accident... the boat recovered... the curé's body swept out somewhere in those twenty-five miles of river breadth that stretched away before him now, and from there—who could doubt it!—to the sea.
“Yes,” he said; “I am very fond of it, but as yet I have not found time.”
“Good!” exclaimed the carpenter. “Well, in two or three days it will be finished, the best boat in St. Marleau—and Monsieur le Curé will be welcome to it as much as he likes. It is a nice row to the islands out there—three miles—to gather the sea-gull eggs—and the islands themselves are very pretty. It is a great place for a picnic, Monsieur le Curé.”
“Excellent!” said Raymond enthusiastically. “That is exactly what I shall do.” He clapped the carpenter playfully upon the shoulder. “So—eh, Monsieur Bouchard,—you will lose no time in finishing the boat!” He turned to Madame Bouchard. “Au revoir, madame—and very many thanks to you. I shall think of you at supper to-night, I promise you!” He waved his hand to the children on the veranda, and once more started along the road.
Madame Bouchard's voice, speaking to her husband, reached him. The words were not intended for his ears, and he did not catch them all. It was something about—“the good, young Father Aubert.”
A wan smile crept to Raymond's lips. For the moment at least, he was in a softened, chastened mood. “The good, young Father Aubert”—well, let it be so! They would never know, these people of St. Marleau. Somehow, he was relieved at that. He did not want them to know. Somehow, he, too, wanted for himself just what they would have—a memory—the memory of a good, young Father Aubert.
At a bend in the road, where the road edged in against the slope of the hill, hiding him from view, Raymond clambered up the short ascent. In a clump of small cedars at the top, he paused and looked back. The great sweep of river, widening into the Gulf of St. Lawrence, with no breath of air to stir its surface, shimmered like a mirror under the afternoon sun. A big liner, outward bound, and perhaps ten miles from shore, seemed as though it were painted there. To the right, close in, was the little group of islands, with bare, rounded, rocky peaks, to which the carpenter had referred. About him, from distant fields, came the occasional voice of a man calling to his horses, the faint whir of a reaper, and a sort of pervading, drowsy murmur of insect life. Below him, nestled along the winding road, were the little whitewashed houses, quiet, secure, tranquil, they seemed to lie there; and high above them all, as though to typify the scene, to set its seal upon it, from the steeple of the church there gleamed in the sunlight a golden cross, the symbol of peace—such as he wore upon his breast!
With a quick intake of his breath, a snarl smothered in a low, confused cry, as he glanced involuntarily downward at his crucifix, he gathered up the skirts of hissoutane, and, as though to vent his emotion in physical exertion, began to force his way savagely through the bushes and undergrowth.
He had other things to do than waste time in toying with visionary sentiment! There was one detail in that scene ofpeacehe had not seen—that man in the rear room of thepresbytèrewho was going to trial for the murder of Théophile Blondin, because he was decked out in the clothes of one Raymond Chapelle, alias Henri Mentone. It would be well perhaps for Raymond Chapelle to remember that, and to remember nothing else for the remainder of the afternoon!
He went on through the woods, heading as nearly as he could judge in a direction that would bring him out at the rear of the tavern. And now he laughed shortly to himself. Peace! There would be a peace that would linger long in somebody's memory at Mother Blondin's this afternoon, if only luck were with him! He was on a priestly mission—to console, bring comfort to the old hag for the loss of her son—and, quite incidentally, to precipitate a fight with any of the loungers who might be burying their noses in Mother Blondin's home-madewhiskey-blanc!He laughed out again. St. Marleau would talk of that, too, and applaud the righteousness of the good, young Father Au^ bert—but he would attain the object he sought. He, the good, young Father Aubert, the man with a rope around his neck, whose hands were against everyman's, had too many friends in St. Marleau—he needed anenemynow! It was the one thing that would make the night's work sure.
He reached the edge of the wood to find himself even nearer the tavern than he had expected—and to find, too, that he would not have to lie long in wait for a visitor to Mother Blondin's. There was one there already. So far then, he could have asked for no better luck. He caught the sound of voices—the old hag's, high-pitched and querulous; a man's, rough and domineering. Looking cautiously through the fringe of trees that still sheltered him, Raymond discovered that he was separated from Mother Blondin's back door by a matter of but a few yards of clearing. The door was open, and a man, heavy-built, in a red-checkered shirt, a wide-brimmed hat of coarse straw, was forcing his way past the shrivelled old woman. As the man turned his head sideways, Raymond caught a glimpse of the other's face. It was not a pleasant face. The eyes were black, narrow and shifty under a low brow; and a three days' growth of black stubble on his jaws added to his exceedingly dirty and unkempt appearance.
Mother Blondin's voice rose furiously.
“You will pay first!” she screamed. “I know you too well, Jacques Bourget! Do you understand? The money! You will pay me first!”
“Or otherwise you will tell the police, eh?” the man guffawed contemptuously. He pushed his way inside the house, and pushed a table that stood in the centre of the room roughly back against the wall. “You shut your mouth!” he jeered at her—and, stooping down, lifted up a trap door in the floor. “Now trot along quick for some glasses, so you can keep count of all we both drink!”
“You are a thief, a robber, acrapule, a—” she burst into a stream of blasphemous invective. Her wrinkled face grew livid with ungovernable rage. She shook a bony fist at him. “I will show you what you will get for this! You think I am alone—eh? You think I am an old woman that you can rob as you like—eh? You think my whisky is for your guzzling throat without pay—eh? Well, I will show you, you——”
The man made a threatening movement toward her, and she retreated back out of Raymond's sight—evidently into an inner room, for her voice, as virago-like as ever, was muffled now.
“Bring me a glass, and waste no time about it!” the man called after her. “And if you do not hold your tongue, something worse will happen to you than the loss of a drop out of your bottle!”
The man turned, and descended to the cellar through the trapdoor.
“Yes,” said Raymond softly to himself. “Yes, I think Monsieur Jacques Bourget is the man I came to find.”
He stepped out from the trees, walked noiselessly across to the house, and, reaching the doorway, remained standing quietly upon the threshold. He could hear the man moving about in the cellar below; from the inner room came Mother Blondin's incessant mutterings, mingled with a savage rattling of crockery. Raymond smiled ominously—and then Raymond's face grew stern with well-simulated clerical disapproval.
The man's head, back turned, showed above the level of the floor. Into the doorway from the inner room came Mother Blondin—and halted there, her withered old jaw sagging downward in dumfounded surprise until it displayed her almost toothless gums. The man gained his feet, turned around—and, with a startled oath, dropped the bottle he was carrying. It crashed to the floor, broke, and the contents began to trickle back over the edge of the trapdoor.
“Sacristi!” shouted the man, his face flaring up into an angry red. He thrust his head forward truculently from his shoulders, and glared at Raymond. “Sacré nom de Dieu, it is the saintly priest!” he sneered.
“My son,” said Raymond gravely, “do not blaspheme! And have respect for the Church!”
“Bah!” snarled the man. “Do you think I care for you—or your church!” He looked suddenly at Mother Blondin. “Hah!”—he jumped across the room toward her. “So that is what you meant by not being alone—eh? I did not understand! You would trick me, would you! You would sell me out for the price of a drink—and—ha, ha—to a priest! Well”—he had her now by the shoulders—“I will take a turn at showing you what I will do! Eh—why did you not warn me he was here?” He caught her head, and banged it brutally against the wall. “Eh—why did——”
Raymond, too, was across the room. It was strange! Most strange! He had intended to seek an occasion to quarrel. The occasion was made for him. He had no longer any desire to quarrel—he was possessed of an overwhelming desire to get his fingers around the throat of this cur who banged that straggling, dishevelled gray hair against the wall. He was not quite sure that it was himself who spoke. No, of course, it was not! It was Monsieur le Curé—the good, young Father Aubert. He was between them now, only Mother Blondin had fallen to the floor.
“My son,” he said placidly, “since you will not respect the Church for one reason, I will teach you to respect it for another.” He pointed to old Mother Blcndin, who, more terrified than hurt perhaps, was getting to her knees, moaning and wringing her hands. “You have heard, though I fear you may have forgotten it, of the Mosaic law. An eye for an eye, my son. I intend to do to you exactly what you have done to this woman.”
The man, drawn back, eyed him first in angry bewilderment, and then with profound contempt.
“You'd better get out of here!” he said roughly.
“Presently—when I have thrown you out”—Raymond was calmly tucking up the skirts of hissoutane. “And”—the flat of his hand landed with a stinging blow across the other's cheek—“you see that I do not take even you off your guard.”
The man reeled back—and then, with a bull-like roar of rage, head down, rushed at Raymond.
It was not Monsieur le Curé now—it was Raymond Chapelle, alias Arthur Leroy, alias Three-Ace Artie, cold, contained, quick and lithe as a panther, and with a panther's strength. A crash—a lightning right whipped to the point of Bourget's jaw—and Bourget's head jolted back quivering on his shoulders like a tuning fork. And like a flash, before the other could recover, a left and right smashed full again into Bourget's face.
With a scream, Mother Blondin crawled and scuttled into the doorway of the inner room. The man, bellowing with mad dismay, his hands outstretched, his fingers crooked to tear at Raymond's flesh if they could but reach it, rushed again.
And now Raymond, wary of the other's strength and bulk, gave ground; and now he side-stepped and swung, battering his blows into Bourget's face; and now he ran craftily from the other. Chairs and table crashed to the floor; their heels crunched in the splinters of the broken bottle. The man's face began to bleed profusely from both nose and a cut lip. They were not tactics that Bourget understood. He clawed, he kept his head down, he rushed in blind clumsiness—and always Raymond was just beyond his reach.
Again and again they circled the room, Bourget, big, lumbering, awkward, futilely expending his strength, screaming oaths with gasping breath. And again and again, springing aside as the man charged blindly by, Raymond with a grim fury rained in his blows. It was something like that other night—here in Mother Blon-din's. She was shrieking again now from the doorway:
“Kill him! Themisérable!Hah, Jacques Bourget, are you a jack-in-the-box only to bob your head backward every time you are hit! I did not bring the priest here!Sacré nom, you cannot blame me! I had nothing to do with it!Sacré nom—sacré nom—sacré nom—kill him!”
Kill who? Who did she mean—the man or himself? Raymond did not know. She was just a blurred object of rage and tumbled hair dancing in a frenzy up and down there in the doorway. He ran again. Bourget, like a stunned fool, was covering his face with his arms as he dashed forward. Ah, yes, Bourget was trying to crush him back into the corner there, and—no!—the maniacal rush had faltered, the man was swaying on his feet. And then Raymond, crouched to elude the man, sprang instead at the other's throat, his hands closed like a vise, and with the impact of his body both lurched back against the wall by the rear doorway.
“My son,” panted Raymond, “you remember—an eye for an eye”—he smashed the man's head back against the wall—and then, gathering all his strength, flung the other from him out through the open door.
The fight was out of the man. For a moment he lay sprawled on the grass. Then he raised himself up, and got upon his knees. His face was bruised and blood-stained almost beyond recognition. He shook both fists at Raymond.
“By God, I'll get you for this!”—the man's voice was guttural with unbridled passion. “I'll get you, you censer-swinging devil! I'll twist your neck with the chain of your own crucifix! Damn you to the pit! You're not through with me!”
“Go!” said Raymond sternly. “Go—and be glad that I have treated you no worse!”
He shut the door in the man's face; and, turning abruptly, walked across the floor to where Mother Blondin, quiet for the moment, gaped at him from the threshold of the other room.
“He will not trouble you any more, Madame Blondin, I imagine,” he said quietly. “See, it is over!” He smiled at her reassuringly—he needed to know now only where the man lived. “I should be sorry to think he was one of my parishioners. Where does he come from?”
“He is a farmer, and he lives in the house on the point a mile and a quarter up the road”—the answer had come automatically; she was listening, without looking at Raymond, to the threats and oaths that Jacques Bourget, as he evidently moved away for his voice kept growing fainter, still bawled from without. And then hate and sullen viciousness was in her face again. Her hair had tumbled to her shoulders and straggled over her forehead. She jabbed at it with both hands, sweeping it from her eyes, and leered at him fiercely. “You dirty spy!” she croaked hoarsely. “I know you—I know all of you priests! You are all alike! Sneaks! Sneaks! Meddlers and sneaks! But you'll get to hell some day—like the rest of us! Ha, ha—to hell! You can't fool the devil! I know you. That's what you sneaked up here for—to spy on me, to find something against me that the police weren't sharp enough to find, so that you could get rid of me, get me out of St. Marleau! I know! They've been trying that for a long time!”
“To turn you over to the police,” said Raymond gently, “would never save you from yourself. I came to talk to you a little about your son—to see if in any way I could help you, or be of comfort to you.”
She stared at him for an instant, wondering and perplexed; and then the snarl was on her lips again.
“You lie! No priest comes here for that! I am anexcommuniée.”
“You are a woman in sorrow,” Raymond said simply.
She did not answer him—only drew back into the other room.
Raymond followed her. It was the room where he had fought that night—with Théophile Blondin. His eyes swept it with a hurried glance. There was thearmoirefrom which Théophile Blondin had snatched the revolver—and there was the spot on the floor where the dead man had fallen. And here was the old hag with the streaming hair, as it had streamed that night, who had run shrieking into the storm that he had murdered her son. And the whole scene began to live itself over again in his mind in minute detail. It seemed to possess an unhealthy fascination that bade him linger, and at the same time to fill him with an impulse to rush away from it. And the impulse was the stronger; and, besides, it would be evening soon, and there was that man in thepresbytère, and there was much to do, and he had his confederate now—one Jacques Bourget.
“I shall not stay now”—he smiled, as he turned to Mother Blondin, and held out his hand. “You are upset over what has happened. Another time. But you will remember, will you not, that I would like to help you in any way I can?”
She reached out her hand mechanically to take his that was extended to her, and suddenly, muttering, jerked it back—and Raymond, appearing not to notice, smiled again, and, crossing the room, went out through the front door.
He went slowly across the little patch of yard, and on along the road in the direction of the village, and now his lips thinned in a grim smile. Yes, St. Marleau would hear of this, his chivalrous protection of Mother Blondin—and place another halo on his head! The devil's sense of humour was of a brand all its own!
The more he twisted and squirmed and wriggled to get out of the trap, desperate to the extent that he would hesitate at nothing, the more he became—the good, young Father Aubert! Even that dissolute old hag, whose hatred for the church and all pertaining to it was the most dominant passion in her life, was not far from the point where she would tolerate a priest—if the priest were the good, young Father Aubert!
He reached the point where the road began to descend the hill, and, pausing, looked back. Yes—even Mother Blondin, theexcommuniée!She was standing in the doorway, dirty, unkempt, disreputable, and, shading her eyes with her hand, was gazing after him. Yes, even she—whose son had been killed in a fight with him.
And Raymond, fumbling suddenly with his hat, lifted it to Mother Blondin, and went on down the hill.
IT was late, a good half hour after the usual supper time, when Raymond returned to thepresbytère. He had done a very strange thing. He had gone into the church, and sat there in the silence and the quiet of the sacristy—and twilight had come unnoticed. It was the quiet he had sought, respite for a mind that had suddenly seemed nerve-racked to the breaking point as he had come down the hill from Mother Blondin's. It had been dim, and still, and cool, and restful in there—in the church. There was still Valerie, still the priest who had not died, still his own peril and danger, and still the hazard of the night before him; all that had not been altered; all that still remained—but in a measure, strangely, somehow, he was calmed. He was full of apologies now to Madame Lafleur, as he sat down to supper.
“But it is nothing!” she said, placing a lamp upon the table. She sat down herself; and added simply, as though, indeed, no reason could be more valid: “I saw you go into the church, Monsieur le Curé.”
“Yes,” said Raymond, his eyes now on Valerie's empty seat. “And where is Mademoiselle Valerie? Taking ourpauvreMentone his supper?”
“Oh, no!” she answered quickly. “I took him his supper myself a little while ago—though I do not know whether he will eat it or not. Valerie went over to her uncle's about halfpast five. She said something about going for a drive.”
Raymond cut his slice of cold pork without comment. He was conscious of a dismal sense of disappointment, a depression, a falling of his spirits again. The room seemed cold and dead without Valérie there, without her voice, without her smile. And then there came a sense of pique, of irritation, unreasonable no doubt, but there for all that. Why had she not included him in the drive? Fool! Had he forgotten? He could not have gone if she had—he had other things to do than drive that evening!
“Yes,” said Madame Lafleur, significantly reverting to her former remark, as she handed him his tea, “yes, I do not know if the poor fellow will eat anything or not.”
Raymond glanced at her quickly. What was the matter? Had anything been discovered! And then his eyes were on his plate again. Madame Lafleur's face, whatever her words might be intended to convey, was genuinely sympathetic, nothing more.
“Not eat?” he repeated mildly. “And why not, Madame Lafleur?”
“I am sure I do not know,” she replied, a little anxiously. “I have never seen him so excited. I thought it was because he was to be taken away to-morrow morning. And so, when we went out this afternoon, I tried to say something to him about his going away that would cheer him up. And would you believe it, Monsieur le Curé, he just stared at me, and then, as though I had said something droll, he—fancy, Monsieur le Curé, from a man who was going to be tried for his life—he laughed until I thought he would never stop. And after that he would say nothing at all; and since he has come in he has not been for an instant still. Do you not hear him, Monsieur le Curé?”
Raymond heard very distinctly. His ears had caught the sounds from the moment he had entered thepresbytère. Up and down, up and down, from that back room came the stumbling footfalls; then silence for a moment, as though from exhaustion the man had sunk down into a chair; and then the pacing to and fro again. Raymond's lips tightened in understanding, as he bent his head over his plate. Like himself, the man in there was waiting—for darkness!
“He is over-excited,” he said gravely. “And being still so weak, the news that he is to go to-morrow, I am afraid, has been too much for him. I have no doubt he was verging on hysteria when he laughed at you like that, Madame Lafleur.”
“I—I hope we shall not have any trouble with him,” said Madame Lafleur nervously. “I mean that I hope he won't be taken sick again. He did not look at the tray at all when I took it in; he kept his eyes on me all the time, as though he were trying to read something in my face.”
“Poor fellow!” murmured Raymond.
Madame Lafleur nodded her gray head in sympathetic assent.
“Ah, yes, Monsieur le Curé—the poor fellow!” she sighed. “It is a terrible thing that he has done; but it is also terrible to think of what he will have to face. Do you think it wrong, Monsieur le Curé, to wish almost that he might escape?”
Escape! Curse it—what was the matter with Madame Lafleur to-night? Or was it something the matter with himself?
“Not wrong, perhaps,” he said, smiling at her, “if you do not connive at it.”
“Oh, but, Monsieur le Curé!” she exclaimed reprovingly. “What a thing to say! But I would never do that! Still, it is all very sad, and I am heartily glad that I am not to be a witness at the trial like you and Valérie. And they say that Madame Blondin, and Monsieur Labbée, the station agent, and a lot of the villagers are to go too.”
“Yes, I believe so,” Raymond nodded.
Madame Lafleur, in quaint consternation, suddenly changed the subject.
“Oh, but I forgot to tell you!” she cried. “The bread! Madame Bouchard sent you two loaves all fresh and hot. Do you like it?”
The bread! He had been conscious neither that the bread was sour, nor that the crust was unmanageable. He became suddenly aware that the morsel in his mouth was not at all like the baking of Madame Lafleur.
“You are all too good to me here in St. Marleau,” he protested.
He checked her reply with a chiding forefinger, and a shake of his head—and presently, the meal at an end, pushed back his chair, and strolled to the window. He stood there for a moment looking out. It was dark now—dark enough for his purpose.
“It is a beautiful night, Madame Lafleur,” he said enthusiastically. “I am almost tempted to go out again for a little walk.”
“But, yes, Monsieur le Curé—why not!” Madame Lafleur was quite anxious that he should go. Madame Lafleur was possessed of that enviable disposition that was instantly responsive to the interests and pleasures of others.
“Yes—why not!” smiled Raymond, patting her arm as he passed by her on his way to the door. “Well, I believe I will.”
But outside in the hall he hesitated. Should he go first to the man in the rear room? He had intended to do so before he went out—to probe the other, as it were, to satisfy himself, perhaps more by the man's acts and looks than by words, that Henri Mentone had entered into the plans for the night. But he was satisfied of that now. Madame Lafleur's conversation had left no doubt but that the man's unusual restlessness and excitement were due to his being on thequi viveof expectancy. No, there was no use, therefore, in going to the man now, it would only be a waste of valuable time.
This decision taken, Raymond walked to the front door and down the steps of the porch. Here he turned, and, choosing the opposite side of the house from the kitchen and dining room, where he might have been observed by Madame Lafleur, yet still moving deliberately as though he were but sauntering idly toward the beach, made his way around to the rear of thepresbytère. It was quite dark. There were stars, but no moon. Behind here, between the back of the house and the shed, there was no possibility of his being seen. The only light came from Henri Mentone's room, and the shades there were drawn.
He opened the shed door silently, stepped inside, and closed the door behind him. He struck a match, held it above his head—and almost instantly extinguished it, as he located the sacristan's overalls, and the old coat and hat.
And now Raymond worked quickly. He stripped off hissoutane, drew on the overalls, turning the bottoms well up over his own trousers, slipped on the coat, tucked the hat into one of the coat pockets, and put on hissoutaneagain. It was very simple—thesoutanehid everything. He smiled grimly, as he, stepped outside again—the Monsieur le Curé who came out, was the Monsieur le Curé who had gone in.
Raymond chose the beach. The village street meant that he would be delayed by being forced to stop and talk with any one he might meet, to say nothing of the possibility of having the ruinous, if well meaning, companionship of some one foisted upon him—while, even if seen, there would be nothing strange in the fact that the curé should be taking an evening walk along the shore.
He started off at a brisk pace along the stretch of sand just behind thepresbytère. It was a mile and a quarter to the point—to Jacques Bourget's. At the end of the sandy stretch Raymond went more slowly—the shore line as a promenade left much to be desired—there was a seemingly interminable ledge of slate rock over which he had need to pick his way carefully. He negotiated this, and was rewarded with another short sandy strip—but only to encounter the slate rocks again with their ubiquitous little pools of water in the hollows, which he must avoid warily.
Sometimes he slipped; once he fell. The grim smile was back on his lips. There seemed to be something ironical even in these minor difficulties that stood between him and the effecting of the other's escape! There seemed to be a world of irony in the fact that he who sought escape himself should plan another's rather than his own! It was the devil's toils, that was all, the devil's damnable ingenuity, and hell's incomparable sense of humour! He had either to desert the man; or stand in the man's place himself, and dangle from the gallows for his pains; or get the man away. Well, he had no desire to dangle from the gallows—or to desert the man! He had chosen the third and only course left open to him. If he got the man away, if the man succeeded in making his escape, it would not only save the man, but he, Raymond, would have nothing thereafter to fear—the Curé of St. Marleau in due course would meet with his deplorable and fatal accident! True, the man would always live in the shadow of pursuit, a thing that he, Raymond, had been willing to accept for himself only as a last resort, but there was no help for that in the other's case now. He would give the man more money, plenty of it. The man should be across the border and in the States early to-morrow, then New York, and a steamer for South America. Yes, it should unquestionably succeed. He had worked out all those details while he was still racking his brain for a “Jacques Bourget,” and he would give the man minute instructions at the last moment when he gave him more money—that hundred dollars was only an evidence of good faith and of the loyalty of one “Pierre.” The only disturbing factor in the plan was the man's physical condition. The man was still virtually an invalid—otherwise the police would have been neither justified in so doing, nor for a moment have been willing to leave him in thepresbytère, as they had. Monsieur Dupont was no fool, and it was perfectly true that the man had not the slightest chance in the world of getting away—alone. But, aided as he, Raymond, proposed to aid the other, the man surely would be able to stand the strain of travelling, for a man could do much where his life was at stake. Yes, after all, why worry on that score! It was only the night and part of the next day. Then the man could rest quietly at a certain address in New York, while waiting for his steamer. Yes, unquestionably, the man, with his life in the balance, would be able to manage that.
Raymond was still picking his way over the ledges, still slipping and stumbling, and now, recovering from a fall that had brought him to his knees, he gave his undivided attention to his immediate task. It seemed a very long mile and a quarter, but at the expiration of perhaps another twenty minutes he was at the end of it, and halted to take note of his surroundings. He could just distinguish the village road edging away on his left; while ahead of him, but a little to his right, out on the wooded point, he caught the glimmer of a light through the trees. That would be Jacques Bourget's house.
He now looked cautiously about him. There was no other house in sight. His eyes swept the road up and down as far as he could see—there was no one, no sign of life. He listened—there was nothing, save the distant lapping of the water far out, for the tide was low on the mud flats.
A large rock close at hand suggested a landmark that could not be mistaken. He stepped toward it, took off hissoutane, and laid the garment down beside the rock; he removed his clerical collar and his clerical hat, and placed them on top of thesoutane, taking care, however, to cover the white collar with the hat—then, turning down the trouser legs of the overalls, and turning up the collar of the threadbare coat, he took the battered slouch hat from his pocket and pulled it far down over his eyes.
“Behold,” said Raymond cynically, “behold Pierre—what is his other name? Well, what does it matter? Pierre—Desforges. Desforges will do as well as any—behold Pierre Desforges!”
He left the beach, went up the little rise of ground that brought him amongst the trees, and made his way through the latter toward the lighted window of the house. Arrived here, he once more looked about him.
The house was isolated, far back from the road; and, in the darkness and the shadows cast by the trees, would have been scarcely discernible, save that it was whitewashed, and but for the yellow glow diffused from the window. He approached the door softly, and listened. A woman's voice, and then a man's, snarling viciously, reached him. “...le sacré maudit curé!”
Raymond laughed low. Jacques Bourget and his wife appeared to have an engrossing topic of conversation, if they had been at it since afternoon! Also Jacques Bourget appeared to be of an unforgiving nature!
There was no veranda, not even a step, the door was on a level with the ground; and, from the little Raymond could see of the house now that he was close beside it, it appeared to be as down-at-the-heels and as shiftless as its proprietor. He leaned forward to avail himself of the light from the window, and, taking out a roll of bills, of smaller denominations than those which he carried in his pocketbook, he counted out five ten-dollar notes.
Jacques Bourget from within was still in the midst of a blasphemous tirade. Raymond rapped sharply on the door with his knuckles. Bourget's voice ceased instantly, and there was silence for a moment. Raymond rapped again—and then, as a chair leg squeaked upon the floor, and there came the sound of a heavy tread approaching the door, he drew quickly back into the shadows at one side.
The door was flung open, and Bourget's face, battered and cut, an eye black and swollen, his lip puffed out to twice its normal size, peered out into the darkness.
“Who's there?” he called out gruffly.
“S-sh! Don't talk so loud!” Raymond cautioned in a guarded voice. “Are you Jacques Bourget?”
The man, with a start, turned his face in the direction of Raymond's voice. Mechanically he dropped his own voice.
“Mabbe I am, and mabbe I'm not,” he growled suspiciously. “What do you want?”
“I want to talk to you if you are Jacques Bourget,” Raymond answered. “And if you are Jacques Bourget I can put you in the way of turning a few dollars tonight, to say nothing of another little matter that will be to your liking.”
The man hesitated, then drew back a little in the doorway.
“Well, come in,” he invited. “There's no one but the old woman here.”
“The old woman is one old woman too many,” Raymond said roughly. “I'm not on exhibition. You come out here, and shut the door. You've nothing to be afraid of—the only thing I have to do with the police is to keep away from them, and that takes me all my time.”
“I ain't worrying about the police,” said Bourget shrewdly.
“Maybe not,” returned Raymond. “I didn't say you were. I said I was. I've got a hundred dollars here that——”
A woman appeared suddenly in the doorway behind Bourget.
“What is it? Who is it, Jacques?” she shrilled out inquisitively.
Bourget, for answer, swore at her, pushed her back, and, slamming the door behind him, stepped outside.
“Well, what is it? And who are you?” he demanded.
“My name is Desforges—Pierre Desforges,” said Raymond, his voice still significantly low. “That doesn't mean anything to you—and it doesn't matter. What I want you to do is to drive a man to the second station from here to-night—St. Eustace is the name, isn't it?—and you get a hundred dollars for the trip.”
“What do you mean?” Bourget's voice mingled incredulity and avarice. “A hundred dollars for that, eh? Are you trying to make a fool of me?”
Raymond held the bills up before the man's face. “Feel the money, if you can't see it!” he suggested, with a short laugh. “That's what talks.”
“Bon Dieu!” ejaculated Bourget. “Yes, it is so! Well, who am I to drive? You? You are running away! Yes, Î understand! They are after you—eh? I am to drive you, eh?”
“No,” said Raymond. He drew the man close to him in the darkness, and placed his lips to Bourget's ear. “Henri Mentone.”
Bourget, startled, sprang back.
“What! Who!” he cried out loudly.
“I told you not to talk so loud!” snapped Raymond. “You heard what I said.”
Bourget twisted his head furtively about.
“No, 'cré nom—no!” he said huskily. “It is too much risk! If one were caught at that—eh?Bien non, merci!”
“There's no chance of your being caught”—Raymond's voice was smooth again. “It is only nine miles to St. Eustace—you will be back and in bed long before daylight. Who is to know anything about it?”
“Yes, and you!”—Bourget was still twisting his head about furtively. “What do I know about you? What have you to do with this?”
“I will tell you,” said Raymond, and into the velvet softness of his voice there crept an ominous undertone; “and at the same time I will tell you that you will be very wise to keep your mouth shut. You understand? If I trust you, it is to make you trust me. Henri Mentone is my pal. I was there the night Théophile Blondin was killed. But I made my escape. I do not desert a pal, only I had no money. Well, I have the money now, and I am back. And I am just in time—eh? They say he is well enough to be taken away in the morning.”
“Mon Dieu, you were there at the killing!” muttered Bourget hoarsely. “No—I do not like it! No—it is too much risk!” His voice grew suddenly sharp with undisguised suspicion. “And why did you come to me, eh? Why did you come to me? Who sent you here?”
“I came because Mentone must be driven to St. Eustace—because he is not strong enough to walk,” said Raymond coolly. “And no one sent me here. I heard of your fight this afternoon. The curé is telling around the village that if he could not change the aspect of your heart, there was no doubt as to the change in the aspect of your face.”
“Sacré nom!” gritted Bourget furiously. “He said that! I will show him! I am not through with him yet! But what has he to do with this that you come here? Eh? I do not understand.”
“Simply,” said Raymond meaningly, “that Monsieur le Curé is the one with whom we shall have to deal in getting Mentone away.”
“Hah!” exclaimed Bourget fiercely. “Yes—I am listening now! Well?”
“He sits a great deal of the time in the room with Mentone,” explained Raymond, with a callous laugh. “Very well. Mentone has been warned. If this fool of a curé knows no better than to sit there all night tonight, I will find some reason for calling him outside, and in the darkness where he will recognise no one we shall know what to do with him, and when we are through we will tie him and gag him and throw him into the shed where he will not be found until morning. On the other hand, if we are able to get Mentone away without the curé knowing it, you will still not be without your revenge. He is responsible for Mentone, and if Mentone gets away through the curé's negligence, the curé will get into trouble with the police.”
“I like the first plan better,” decided Bourget, with an ugly sneer. “He talks of my face, does he!Nom de Dieu,he will not be able to talk of his own! And a hundred dollars—eh? You said a hundred dollars? Well, if there is no more risk than that in the rest of the plan,sacré nom, you can count on Jacques Bourget”. . .
“There is no risk at all,” said Raymond. “And as to which plan—we shall see. We shall have to be guided by the circumstances, eh? And for the rest—listen! I will return by the beach, and watch thepresbytère. You give me time to get back, then harness your horse and drive down there—drive past thepresbytère. I will be listening, and will hear you. Then after you have gone a little way beyond, turn around and come back, and I will know that it is you. If you drive in behind the church to where the people tie their horses at mass on Sundays, you can wait there without being seen by any one passing by on the road. I will come and let you know how things are going. We may have to wait a while after that until everything is quiet, but in that way we will be ready to act the minute it is safe to do so.”
“All that is simple enough,” Bourget grunted in agreement. “And then?”
“And then,” said Raymond, “we will get Mentone out through the window of his room. There is a train that passes St. Eustace at ten minutes after midnight—and that is all. The St. Eustace station, I understand, is like the one here—far from the village, and with no houses about. He can hide near the station until traintime; and, without having shown yourself, you can drive back home and go to bed. It is your wife only that you have to think of—she will say nothing, eh?”
“Baptême!” snorted Bourget contemptuously. “She has learned before now when to keep her tongue where it belongs! And you? You are coming, too?”
“Do you think I am a fool, Bourget?” inquired Raymond shortly. “When they find Mentone is gone, they will know he must have had an accomplice, for he could not get far alone. They will be looking for two of us travelling together. I will go the other way. That makes it safe for Mentone—and safe for me. I can walk to Tournayville easily before daylight; and in that way we shall both give the police the slip.”
“Diable!” grunted Bourget admiringly. “You have a head!”
“It is good enough to take care of us all in a little job like to-night's,” returned Raymond, with a shrug of his shoulders. “Well, do you understand everything? For if you do, there's no use wasting any time.”
“Yes—I have it all!” Bourget's voice grew vicious again. “Thatsacré maudit curé!Yes, I understand.”
Raymond thrust the banknotes he had been holding into Bourget's hand.
“Here are fifty dollars to bind the bargain,” he said crisply. “You get the other fifty at the church. If you don't get them, all you've got to do is drive off and leave Mentone in the lurch. That's fair, isn't it?”
Bourget shuffled back to the edge of the lighted window, counted the money, and shoved it into his pocket.
“Bon Dieu!” Bourget's puffed lip twisted into a satisfied grin. “I do not mind telling you, my Pierre Desforges, that it is long since I have seen so much.”
“Well, the other fifty is just as good,” said Raymond in grim pleasantry. He stepped back and away from the house. “At the church then, Bourget—in, say, three-quarters of an hour.”
“I will be there,” Bourget answered. “Have no fear—I will be there!”
“All right!” Raymond called back—and a moment later gained the beach again.
At the rock, he once more put on hissoutane; and, running now where the sandy stretches gave him opportunity, scrambling as rapidly as he could over the ledges of slate rock, he headed back for thepresbytère.
It was as good as done! There was a freeness to his spirits now—a weight and an oppression lifted from him. Henri Mentone would stand in no prisoner's dock the day after to-morrow to answer for the murder of Théophile Blondin! And it was very simple—now that Bourget's aid had been enlisted. He smiled ironically as he went along. It would not even be necessary to pommel Monsieur le Curé into a state of insensibility! Madame Lafleur retired very early—by nine o'clock at the latest—as did Valérie. As soon as he heard Bourget drive up to the church, he would go to the man to allay any impatience, and as evidence that the plan was working well. He would return then to thepresbytère—it was a matter only of slipping on and off hissoutaneto appear as Father Aubert to Madame Lafleur and Valérie, and as Pierre Desforges to Jacques Bourget. And the moment Madame Lafleur and Valérie were in bed, he would extinguish the light in the front room as proof that Monsieur le Curé, too, had retired, run around to the back of the house, get Henri Mentone out of the window, and hand him over to Bourget, explaining that everything had worked even more smoothly than he had hoped for, that all were in bed, and that there was no chance of the escape being discovered until morning. Bourget, it was true, was very likely to be disappointed in the measure of the revenge wrecked upon the curé, but Bourget's feelings in the matter, since Bourget then would have no choice but to drive Henri Mentone to St. Eustace, were of little account.
And as far as Henri Mentone was concerned, it was very simple too. The man would have ample time and opportunity to get well out of reach. He, Raymond, would take care that the man's disappearance was not discovered any earlier than need be in the morning! It would then be a perfectly natural supposition—a supposition which he, Raymond, would father—that the man, in his condition, could not be far away, but had probably only gone restlessly and aimlessly from the house; and at first no one would even think of such a thing as escape. They would look for him around thepresbytère, and close at hand on the beach. It would be impossible that, weak as he was, the man had gone far! The search would perhaps be extended to the village by the time Monsieur Dupont arrived for his vanished prisoner. Then they would extend the search still further, to the adjacent fields and woods, and it would certainly be noontime before the alternative that the man, aided by an accomplice, had got away became the only tenable conclusion. But even then Monsieur Dupont would either have to drive three miles to the station to reach the telegraph, or return to Tournayville—and by that time Henri Mentone would long since have been in the United States.
And after that—Raymond smiled ironically again—-well after that, it would be Monsieur Dupont's move!