CHAPTER XIV
SOME PLAIN SPEAKING
I took three steps toward her and stood still. For this was Jacqueline; but it was not my Jacqueline. It might have been Jacqueline's grandmother when she was a girl—this haughty belle with her high waist and side curls, and her flounced skirt and aspect of cold recognition.
She did not stir as I approached her, but stood still, framed in the door-way, looking at me as though I were an unwelcome stranger. My outstretched arms fell to my sides. I halted three paces in front of her. There was no answering welcome on her face, only a cold little smile that showed she knew me.
"Jacqueline!" I cried. "It is I, Paul! You know me, Jacqueline?"
Jacqueline inclined her head. "Oh, yes; I know you, monsieur," she answered. "Why have you come here?"
"To see you, Jacqueline! To save you, Jacqueline!"
She made me a mocking courtesy. "I am infinitely obliged to you, monsieur, for your good will," she said; "but I do not need your aid. I am with friends now, M.—M. Paul!"
I withdrew a little way and leaned my hand against the table for support, breathing heavily. Behind me I heard the click, click of the roulette-ball as it pursued its course around the wheel. The old dotard had already forgotten me, and was playing with his right hand against his left again.
"Do you not want to see me, Jacqueline?" I asked, watching her through a whirling fog.
"No, monsieur," she answered chillingly. "No, monsieur!"
"Do you wish me to go?"
She said nothing, and I walked unsteadily toward the door. She followed me slowly. I went out of the room and pulled the door to behind me. I knew that after it had closed I should never see Jacqueline again.
She opened it and stood confronting me; and then burst into a flood of impassioned speech.
"Why have you followed me here to persecute me?" she cried. "Are you under the illusion that I am helpless? Do you think the friends who rescued me from you have forgotten that you exist? You took advantage of my helplessness. I do not want to see you. I hate you!"
"You told me that you loved me, and I believed you, Jacqueline," I answered miserably, watching the colour flame to her lovely face. And I could see she remembered that.
"When I was ill you used me for your own base schemes," she went on with cutting emphasis. "And you—you followed me here. Do you think that I am unprotected, and that you are dealing only with an old man and a helpless woman? Why, I have friends who would come in and kill you if I but raised my voice!"
"Raise your voice, mademoiselle. I am ready for your friends," I answered.
She looked less steadily at me and seemed to waver.
"What have you come for?" she asked. "Have you not had money enough? Do you want more?"
I seized her by the wrists. Thus I held her at arm's length, and my fingers tightened until I saw the flesh grow white beneath them. The intensity of my rage beat hers down and made it a puny thing.
"Jacqueline! You take me for an adventurer?" I cried. "Is that what they told you? Why do you think I brought you so near your home when you were, as you said, helpless? Only a few nights ago you said you loved me; that you would never send me away until I wished to go. What is it that has happened to change you so, Jacqueline?"
I had her in my arms. She struggled fiercely, and I let her go.
"How dare you, monsieur!" she panted. "Go at once, or I shall call for aid!"
So I went into the passage; and as I left the room I could still hear the hellish click of the ivory ball in the roulette-wheel. I was utterly confounded.
But before I reached the end of the little hall Jacqueline came running back to me.
"Monsieur!" she gasped. "M. Paul! For the sake of—of what I once thought you, I do not want you to be seen. You are in dreadful danger. Come back!"
"Never mind the danger, madame," I answered, and I saw her flinch at the word and look at me in dazed bewilderment. "Never mind my danger."
"It is for your own sake, monsieur," she said more gently.
"No, Mme. d'Epernay," I answered; and she winced again, as though I had struck her across the face.
"For my sake," she pleaded, catching at my arm, and at that moment I heard a door slam underneath and heavy footsteps begin slowly to ascend the stairs.
"No, madame," I answered, trying to release my arm from her clasp. Her face was full of fear, and I knew it was fear of the man below, not me.
"Then for the sake of—our love, Paul!" she gasped.
I suffered her to lead me back into the room. In truth, I was in no hurry to go. As she drew me back and closed the door behind us I heard the footsteps pause and turn along the corridor.
I knew that heavy gait as well as though I already saw Leroux's hard face before my eyes.
Jacqueline pushed me inside the room behind her father's chair and closed, but did not hasp, the door. The room was completely dark, and I did not know whether it connected with other rooms or was a mere closet, but the freshness of the air in it inclined me to the former view.
Over my head the torrent roared, and I had to stand very close to the door to hear what passed.
I heard Leroux tramp in and his voice mingling with the click-click of the ball in the roulette-wheel.
"Who is here?" he demanded.
"I am," answered Jacqueline.
"I thought I heard Lacroix," said Leroux thickly.
"I have not seen M. Lacroix to-day," Jacqueline returned.
Leroux stamped heavily about the room and then sat down. I heard the legs of his chair scratch the wooden floor as he drew it up to the table.
"Maudit!" he burst out explosively. "Where is d'Epernay? I am tired of waiting for him!"
"I have told you many times that I do not know," answered Jacqueline; and there followed the click-click of the ball inside the wheel again.
"How long will you keep up this pretense, madame?" cried Leroux angrily. "What have you to gain by concealing the knowledge of your husband from me?"
"M. Leroux, why will you not believe that I remember nothing?" answered Jacqueline.
"How can you have forgotten? Why did you run away after marrying him? What were you doing in New York? Who was the man who accompanied you to the Merrimac?" he shouted.
Through the chink of the door I saw the old man look up in mild protest at the disturbing sounds. I clenched my fists, and the temptation to make an end of Leroux was almost too strong for my restraint.
But to Jacqueline the insult conveyed no meaning, and Leroux continued in more moderate tones.
"Come, madame, why do you not play fair with me?" he asked. "Who is that man Hewlett, and why did he accompany you so far toward your château? Before God, I know your husband and he have been plotting with Tom Carson against me, but why he should thus place himself in my power I cannot understand."
"Ah, you have spoken of a Tom Carson many times," said Jacqueline. "Soon, monsieur, I shall begin to believe that such a person really exists."
"Tell me where you met Hewlett."
"I tell you for the last time, monsieur, that I do not remember. But what I do remember I shall tell you. After my father had turned M. Louis d'Epernay out of his home, whither he had come to beg money to pay his gambling debts, you brought him back. You made my father take him in. He wanted to marry me. But I refused, because I had no love for him. But you insisted I should marry him, because he had gained you the entrance to the seigniory and helped you to acquire your power over my father. Oh, yes, monsieur, let us be frank with each other, as you have expressed the desire to be."
"Go on," growled Leroux, biting his lips. "Perhaps I shall learn something."
"Nothing that you do not already know, monsieur," she flashed out with spirit. "My father came here, long ago, a political fugitive, in danger of death. You knew this, and you played upon his fears. You brought your friends and encouraged him to gamble and waste his money in his old age, when his mind had become enfeebled.
"Yes, you played on the old gambling instinct which had laid dormant in him for forty years. You made him think he was acting the grand seigneur, as his father had done in earlier days, in his other home at St. Boniface.
"You drained him of his last penny, and then you offered him ten thousand dollars to gamble with in Quebec, telling him of the delights of the city and promising him immunity," the girl went on remorselessly. "And for this he was to assign his property to Louis, thinking, of course, that he could soon make his fortune at the tables. And Louis was to marry me, and in turn sell the seigniory to you. And so I married Louis under threat of death to my father.
"Oh, yes, monsieur, the plan was simple and well devised. And I knew nothing of it. But Louis d'Epernay blurted it all out to me upon our wedding night. I think the shame of knowing that I had been sold to him unhinged my mind, for I ran out into the snows.
"Now you know all, monsieur, for I remember nothing more until I found myself travelling back with M. Hewlett in the sleigh. You say I was in New York. Well, I do not remember it.
"And as for Louis d'Epernay, I know nothing of him—but I will die before he claims me as his wife!"
She had grown breathless as she proceeded with her scathing denunciation and now stood facing him with an aspect of fearless challenge on her face. And then I had the measure of Leroux. He laughed, and he beat down her scorn with scorn.
"You have underestimated your price, madame," he sneered. "Since you have learned so much, I will tell you more. You have cost me twenty thousand dollars, and not ten; for besides the ten thousand paid to your father, Louis got ten thousand also, upon the signing of the marriage contract. So swallow that, and be proud of being priced so high! And the seigniory is already his, and I am waiting for him to return and sell me the ground rights for twenty-five thousand more, and if I know Louis d'Epernay he will not wait very long to get his fingers round it."
Jacqueline stood watching him with supreme indifference.
The man's coarse gibes had flown past her without wounding her, as they would have hurt a lower nature.
"No doubt he will return," she answered quietly. "If he would take ten thousand for me, surely he will take twenty-five thousand for the seigniory. You have us in your power."
"Then why the devil doesn't he come?" roared Leroux. "If he is intriguing with Carson, by God, I know enough to shut him up in jail the rest of his life. And so, madame," he ended quietly, "it will perhaps be worth your while to tell me why Tom Carson sent this Hewlett back to the château; for no doubt the wolves have picked him pretty clean by now."
"Listen to me, Simon Leroux," said Jacqueline, standing up before him, as indomitable in spirit as he. "All your plots and schemes mean nothing to me. My only aim is to take my father away from here, from you and M. d'Epernay, and let you wrangle over your spoil. There are more than four-legged wolves, M. Leroux; there are human ones, and, like the others, when food is scarce they prey upon each other."
"I like your spirit!" exclaimed Simon, staring at her with frank admiration.
And Jacqueline's head drooped then. Unwittingly Simon had pierced her defences.
But he never knew, for before he had time to know the grey-beard rose upon his feet and rubbed his thin hands together, chuckling.
"Never mind your money, Simon," he said. "I'm going to be richer than any of you. Do you know what I did with that ten thousand? I gave it to my little daughter, and she has gone to New York to make our fortunes at Mr. Daly's gaming-house. No, there she is!" he suddenly exclaimed. "She has come back!"
Leroux wheeled round and looked from one to the other.
"So that was the purpose of your visit to New York?" he asked the girl. "So—you have not quite forgotten that, madame! Your price was not too vile a thing for you to take it to New York with you! Your shame was not too great for you to remember that your father had ten thousand dollars!"
"It was not mine," she flashed back at Leroux. "My father would have lost it again to you. I took it to New York because I thought that I could make enough to give him a home during the rest of his days. Do you think I would have touched a penny of it, monsieur?"
"I don't know," answered Leroux. "But we will soon find out. Where is that money, madame?"
Jacqueline's lips quivered. I saw her glance involuntarily toward the door behind which I was standing.
And suddenly the last phase of the problem became clear to me. Jacqueline thought I had robbed her.
I stepped from behind the door and faced Leroux. "I have that money," I said curtly.
I saw his face turn white. He staggered back, and then, with a bull's bellow, rushed at me, his heavy fists aloft. I think he could have beaten out my brains with them.
But he stopped short when he saw my automatic pistol pointing at his chest. And he saw in my face that I was ready to shoot to kill.
"You thief—you spy—you treacherous hound, I'll murder you!" he roared.
The dotard, who had been looking at me, came forward.
"No, no, I won't have him murdered, Simon," he protested, laying a trembling hand on Leroux's shoulder. "He has almost as good a roulette system as I have."
CHAPTER XV
WON—AND LOST
We must have stood confronting each other for fully a minute. Then Leroux dropped his hands and smiled sourly at me.
"You seem—temporarily—to have the advantage of me, M. Hewlett," he said. "I respect your pertinacity, and now at last I am content in having discovered the motive of your enterprise. I thought you were hired by Carson. If you had been frank with me we might have come to an understanding long ago.
"So, since you have managed to come thus far, and since I am a man of business, the best thing we can do is to talk over our difficulties and try to adjust them. You will recall that on the occasion of our meeting in New York I asked you what your price was. But of course you were not then prepared to answer me, since you had your price already. Well, have you come here to get more?"
There was an indescribable insolence in his tone. In spite of the fact that I had him at my mercy, the man's force and courage almost made him my master then.
"You may leave us, Mme. d'Epernay," he said to Jacqueline. "No doubt your absence will spare your feelings, for we are going to be frank in our speech."
"I thank you for your consideration, M. Leroux," replied Jacqueline, and walked quietly out of the room. It occurred to me that Leroux could hardly be more frank than he had been, but I sat down and waited. The ball was clicking round the wheel again, and very faintly, through the roar of the cataracts, I heard the sound of the fiddle below.
Leroux sat down heavily.
"I will put down my cards," he said. "I have you here in my power. I have four men with me. This dotard"—he glanced contemptuously at old Duchaine—"has no bearing on the situation. You can, of course, kill me; but that would not help you. You are in possession of some money belonging to Mme. d'Epernay, and also of certain information that I shall be glad to receive. There is no law in this valley except my will. Give me the information I want, keep your money, and go."
I waited.
"In the first place, are you, or are you not, in Carson's pay? I shall believe your answer because, if you are, I shall offer you a better price to join me, and therefore it will not pay you to lie. But you will not be able to deceive me by pretending to be."
"I am not," I answered.
"Then why did he send you here?"
"I left his employ three days before I met Mme. d'Epernay. If you were in New York you must have seen that I was not there."
"Good. Second, where is Louis d'Epernay?"
"I have never seen the man," I replied.
Leroux glanced incredulously at me.
"Then your meeting with madame was purely an accident?" he inquired. "Your only desire, then, was to get the money you knew she was carrying with her? But how did you know that she was carrying that money?"
I shrugged my shoulders. How was it possible for us to reach an understanding?
"I don't know why you are lying to me," he said. "It is not to your advantage. You must have known that she was in New York; Louis must have told Carson, and he must have told you. And Louis must have told you the secret of the entrance, unless——"
"Listen to me!" I cried furiously. "I will not be badgered with any more questions. I have told you the truth. I met Mme. d'Epernay by accident, and I escorted her toward the château, and followed her after you kidnapped her, to protect her from you."
He grunted and glanced at me with an inscrutable expression upon his hard features.
"You are in love with her?" he asked.
"Put it that way if you choose," I answered.
He scowled at me ferociously, and then he began studying my face. I returned stare for stare. Finally he banged his big fist down upon the table.
"Well, it doesn't matter," he said, "because, whatever your purpose, you cannot do any harm. And you understand that she is a married woman. So you will, no doubt, agree to take your money and depart?"
"I shall go if she tells me to go," I answered; but even while I spoke my heart sank, for I had little hope.
"That is easily settled," answered Leroux. "I will bring her back and you shall hear the decision from her own lips."
He left the room, and I sat there alone beside the dotard, listening to the click of the ball and the chink of the coins, and the roar of the twin cataracts above.
In truth, I had no further excuse for staying. I knew what Jacqueline's reply must be.
But there had been a sinister smoothness in Leroux's latest mood. I did not trust the man, for all his bluntness. I suspected something, and I did not intend to relax my guard.
A gentle touch upon the elbow made me leap round in my chair. Old Charles Duchaine had ceased to play and was watching me out of his mild eyes. His fingers stroked my coat-sleeve timidly, as though he were afraid of me.
"Don't go away!" he said with a shrewd leer. "Don't go away!"
"Eh?" I exclaimed, startled at this answer to my own self-questioning.
"Simon is a bad man," whispered the greybeard, putting his nodding head close down to mine. "He won't let you go away. He never lets anyone go when they have come here. He didn't know my little daughter was going, but I was too clever for him, because he wasn't here. They think I am a silly old man, but I know more than they think. Simon thinks he has got me in his power, but he hasn't."
"How is that?" I inquired, startled at the man's sincerity. I fancied that he must have been pretending to be half imbecile for reasons of his own.
"I have a system," leered the dotard. "I can win thousands and millions with it. I have been perfecting it for years. I have sent my little daughter to New York to play. Then I shall put Simon out of the house and we shall all be happy in Quebec together."
I turned from him in disgust, and, after ineffectually tapping my arm for a few moments, he went back to his wheel. But, though I was disappointed to discover that my surmise as to his playing a part was incorrect, his words set me thinking. An imbecile old person is often a fair reader of character. Was Simon plotting something?
He came back with Jacqueline before I could decide.
"If you bid him, madame, M. Hewlett is willing to take his departure," said Leroux to her. "Is it your wish that he remain or go?"
"Oh, I want you to go, monsieur," said Jacqueline, clasping her hands pleadingly. Her eyes were full of tears, which trickled down her cheeks, and she turned her head away. "There is no reason why you should remain, monsieur," she said.
"Are you saying this of your free will, Jacqueline?" I cried.
She nodded, and I saw Simon's evil face crease with suppressed mirth.
I rose up. "Adieu, then, madame," I said. "But first permit me to restore the money that I have been keeping for you." And I took out my pocketbook.
Simon stared at me incredulously.
"I do not understand you in the least, now, M. Hewlett," he exclaimed. "You are to keep the money. I do not go back upon my bargains."
"It is not, however, your money," I retorted, though I knew that it soon would be. "I shall return it to Mme. d'Epernay, who entrusted me with it. Beyond that I care nothing as to its ultimate destination, though perhaps I can guess. Naturally I do not carry eight thousand dollars about with me——"
"Ten thousand!" shouted Simon.
"Mme. d'Epernay gave me eight thousand," I said. "I do not know anything about ten thousand. Probably Mr. Daly has the rest. But, as I was saying, I shall give you a check——"
Leroux burst into loud laughter and slapped me heartily upon the shoulder.
"Paul Hewlett," he said, with genuine admiration, "you are as good as a play. My friend, it would have paid you to have accepted my own offer. However, you declined it and I shall not renew it. Well, let us take your check, and it shall be accepted in full settlement." He winked at me and thrust his tongue into his cheek.
I was too sick at heart to pay attention to his buffoonery. I sat down at the table and, taking up a pen which lay there, wrote a check for eight thousand dollars, making it out to Jacqueline d'Epernay. This I handed to her.
"Adieu, madame," I said.
"Adieu, monsieur," she answered almost inaudibly, her head bent low.
I went out of the room, still gripping my pistol, and I took care to let Simon see it as we descended the stairs side by side. The noisy laughter in the ballroom had ceased, but I heard Raoul and Jean Petitjean quarrelling, and their thick voices told me that they were in no condition to aid their master.
Then there were only Leroux and Philippe Lacroix to deal with. I could have saved the situation.
What a fool I had been! What an irresolute fool! I never learned.
As we reached the bottom of the stairs Philippe Lacroix came out of the ballroom carrying a candle. I saw his melancholy, pale face twist with surprise as he perceived me.
"Philippe, this is M. Paul Hewlett," said Leroux. "To-morrow you will convey him to the cabin of Père Antoine, where he will be able to make his own plans. You will go by way of le Vieil Ange."
Lacroix started violently, muttered something, and passed up the stairs, often turning to stare, as I surmised from the brief occasions of his footsteps.
"Now, M. Hewlett, I shall show you your sleeping-quarters for to-night," Leroux continued to me, and conducted me out into the fenced yard. A number of Eskimo-dogs were lying there, and one of them came bounding up to me and began to sniff at my clothes, betraying every sign of recognition.
This I knew to be the beast that I had taken to the home. How it had managed to make its escape I could not imagine; but it had evidently come northward with hardly a pause; and not only that, but had accompanied us on our journey from St. Boniface at a distance, like the half-wild creature that it was.
Two sleighs were standing before the huts. Leroux led me past them and knocked at the door of the largest cabin.
"Pierre Caribou!" he shouted.
He was facing the door and did not see what I saw at the little window on the other side. I saw the face of the old Indian, distorted with a grimace of fury as he eyed Leroux.
Next moment he stood cringing before him, his features a mask. Looking in, I saw a huge stove which nearly filled the interior, and seated beside it the middle-aged squaw.
"This gentleman will sleep here to-night," said Leroux curtly. "In the morning at sunrise harness a sleigh for him and M. Lacroix. Adieu, M. Hewlett," he continued, turning to me. "And be sure your check will never be presented."
There was something so sinister in his manner that again I felt that thrill of fear which he seemed able to inspire in me.
He was less human than any man I had known. He impressed me always as the incarnation of resolute evil. That was his strength—he was both bad and resolute. If bad men were in general brave, evil would rule the world as he ruled his. He swung upon his heel and left me.
I went in with Pierre Caribou, and the squaw glided out of the cabin. There were two couches of the kind they used to call ottomans inside, which had evidently once formed part of the château furnishings for their faded splendour accorded little with the decrepit interior of the hut.
I looked at my watch. I had thought it must be midnight, and it was only eight. Within three hours I had won Jacqueline and lost her forever. With Leroux in my power, I had yielded and gone away.
And on the morrow I should arrive at Père Antoine's hut just when he expected me.
Surely the mockery of fate could go no further!
I sank down on one of the divans and buried my face in my hands, while Pierre Caribou busied himself preparing food over the stove.
CHAPTER XVI
TEE OLD ANGEL
Presently the Indian touched me on the shoulder and I looked up. He had a plateful of steaming stew in his hands, and set it down beside me.
"Eat!" he said in English.
I was too dispirited and dejected to obey him at first. But soon I managed to fall to, and I was surprised to discover how ravenous I was. I had eaten hardly anything for days, and only a few mouthfuls since morning.
As I was eating there came a scratching at the door, and the Eskimo-dog pushed its way into the cabin and came bounding to my side. I stroked and petted it, and gave it the remnants of my meal, while Pierre watched us.
"You know him dog?" he asked.
"I saw it in New York," I answered. "It brought me to Mlle. Jacqueline."
My mind was very much alert just then. It was as though some hidden monitor within me had taken control to guide me through a maze of unknown dangers. It was that inner prompting which had forbidden me to say "Mme. d'Epernay."
I had a consciousness of some impending horror. And I was shaking and all a sweat—with fear, too—gripping fear!
Yet the old name sounded as sweet as ever to my lips.
The Indian drew the stool near me and sat down. "You meet Mlle. Jacqueline in New York?" he asked.
"I brought her back," I answered.
"I know," the Indian answered. "I meet Simon; drive him from St. Boniface to château. He want shoot you. I say no, you blind man, him leave you die in snow. I take Ma'm'selle Jacqueline to St. Boniface when she run 'way. Simon not here then or I be 'fraid. Simon bad man. He give my gal to Jean Petitjean. My gal good gal till Simon give her to Jean Petitjean. Simon bad man. Me kill him one day."
I saw a glimmer of hope now, though of what I hardly knew; or perhaps it was only the desire to talk of Jacqueline and hear her name upon my lips and Pierre's.
"Pierre Caribou," I said, "wouldn't you like to have the old days back when M. Duchaine was master and there was no Simon Leroux?"
He did not answer me, but I saw his face-muscles twitch. Then he pulled a pipe from his pocket and stuffed it with a handful of coarse tobacco. He handed it to me and struck a match and held it to the bowl.
When the tobacco was alight he took another pipe and began smoking also.
I had not smoked for days, and I inhaled the rank tobacco-fumes through the old pipe gratefully. I was smoking, with an Indian, and that meant what it has always meant. A black cloud seemed to have been lifted from my mind. And I was not trembling any more.
But how warily I was reaching out toward my companion.
"Pierre, I came here to save Mlle. Jacqueline," I said.
"No can save him," he answered. "No can fight against Simon."
"What, in the devil's name, is his power, then?" I cried.
"Le diable," he replied. He may have misunderstood me, but the answer was apt. "No use fight him," he said. "All finish now. Old times, him finish, and my gal, too. Soon Pierre Caribou, him finish. No can fight Simon. Perhaps old Pierre kill him, nobody else." He looked steadily at me. "I poison him dogs," he added.
"What?" I exclaimed.
"Simon, him tell me long ago nobody come to château. So you finish, too, maybe. What he tell you, you go?"
"Lacroix is going to take me to Père Antoine's cabin to-morrow morning," I answered.
The Indian grunted. "Simon no mean to let you go," he said. "He mean kill you. You know too much. Sometime he kill me, too, or I kill him. Once I live in old château at St. Boniface with old M'sieur Duchaine. Good days then, not like how. Hunt plenty game. Fine people come from Quebec, not like Simon. M'sieur Charles small boy then. All finish now."
"Pierre," I said, taking him by the arm, "what is the Old Angel—le Vieil Ange?"
He stared stolidly at me.
"Why you ask that?" he said.
"Because Lacroix has been instructed to take me by that route," I answered.
Pierre said not a word, but smoked in silence. I sat upon the couch waiting. His face was quite impassive, but I knew that my question was of tremendous import to me.
At last he shook the ashes out of his pipe and rose. "Come with me," he said. "I show you—because you frien' of Ma'm'selle Jacqueline. Come."
I followed him out of the hut. A large moon was just rising out of the east, but it was not yet high enough to cast much light.
Still Pierre seemed in deadly terror of Simon, for he motioned me to creep, as he was creeping, out of the enclosure, bending low beside the fence, so that a watcher from the château might not detect our silhouettes against the snow-covered lake.
When we were clear of the château, or, rather, the lit portion of it, Pierre began to run swiftly, still in a crouching position, and in this way we gained the tunnel entrance.
He took me by the arm, for it was too dark for me to follow him by sight, and we traversed, perhaps, a mile of outer blackness. Then I began to see a gleam of moonlight in front of me, and, though I had not been conscious of making any turn, I discovered that we must have retraced our course completely, for I heard the roar of the cataracts again.
Then we emerged upon a tiny shelf of rock some forty feet up the face of the wall, and quite invisible from below. It was a little above the level of the château roof, about a hundred yards away. Below me I could see the main entrance to the tunnel.
We had a foothold of about ten feet on the level platform, which was slippery with smooth, black ice, and thundering over us, so near that I could almost have touched it had I stretched out my hand, the whirling torrent plunged into that hell below.
It was a terrific scene. Above us that stream of white water, resembling nothing so much as a high-pressure jet from a fireman's hose magnified a thousand times, curved like a crystal arch, and so compact by reason of its force that not a drop splashed us. It was as strong as a steel girder, and I think it would have cut steel.
Pierre caught my arm as I reeled, sick with the shock of the discovery, and yelled into my ear above the dim.
"Le Vieil Ange!" he cried. "This way Simon mean you to go to-morrow. Lacroix him tell you: 'Get down, we find the road.' He take you up here and push you—so."
He made a graphic gesture with his arm and pointed. I looked down, shuddering, into the black, foam-crested water, bubbling and whirling among the grotesque ice-pillars that stood like sentries upon the brink.
The horror of the plot quite unmanned me. I groped for the shelter of the tunnel, and clung to the rocky wall to save myself from obeying a wild impulse to cast myself headlong into the flood below.
I perceived now that the whole face of the wall was honeycombed with tunnels of natural formation running into the recesses of the limestone. I wondered that the whole structure, undermined thus and pressed down by the weight of millions of tons of ice above where the glacier lay, did not collapse and crumble down in ruin.
Rivulets gushed from the wall everywhere, mingling their contributory waters with those of the twin torrents. The plateau seemed to be the watershed in which the drainage of the entire territory had its origin. Within those connecting caves, if a man knew their secret, he might hide from a regiment.
Pierre followed me to the mouth of the tunnel and gripped me by both arms.
"What you do?" he asked. "You go to Père Antoine to-night? What you do now?"
I took the pistol from my coat pocket.
"Pierre," I answered, "I have two bullets here, and both of them are for Simon. To-night I had him in my power and spared him. Now I am going back, and I shall shoot him down like a dog, whether he is armed or defenceless."
"You no shoot Simon," the Indian grunted. "Le diable him frien'. You had him to-night; why you no shoot him then?"
I did not know. But I was going to find out soon.
"I am going back to kill him now," I repeated. "Afterward I do not know what will happen. But you can go on to the hut of Père Antoine and, if luck is with me, I shall meet you, there—perhaps with Mlle. Jacqueline."
But I had little hope of meeting him with Jacqueline. Only I could not forbear to speak her name again.
Pierre's face was twitching. "You no go back!" he cried. "Simon he kill you. No use to fight Simon. Him time not come yet. When him time come, he die."
"When will it come?" I asked, looking at the man's features, which were distorted with frenzied hate.
"I not know!" exclaimed Pierre. "I try find—cards to tell me. No Indian man in this part country remember how to tell me. In old days many could tell. Now I wait. When his time come, old Indian know. He kill Simon then himself. Nobody else kill Simon. No use you try."
I own that, standing there and thinking upon the man's hellish design, his unscrupulousness, his singular success, I felt the old fear of Leroux in my heart, and with it something of the same superstition of his invulnerability. But my resolution surpassed my fear, and I knew it would not fail me. How often had I resolved—and forgotten. Not again would I forget.
I shook the Indian's hands away and plunged forward into the tunnel again. I heard him calling after me; but I think he saw that I was not to be deterred, for he made no attempt to follow me.
And so I went on and on through the darkness, and with each step toward the château my resolution grew.
I seemed to have been travelling for a much longer period than before. Every moment, straining my eyes, I expected to see the light of the entrance, but the road went on straight apparently, and there was nothing but the darkness.
At last I stood still; and then, just as I was thinking of retracing my steps, I felt a breath of air upon my forehead.
I hurried on again, and in another minute I saw a faint light in front of me. Presently it grew more distinct. I was approaching the tunnel's mouth. But I stopped again. I was waiting for something—to hear something that I did not hear. Then I knew that it was the sound of the waterfalls. In place of them there was only the gurgling of a brook.
My elbow grated against the tunnel wall. I stepped sidewise toward the centre, and ran against the wall opposite. Now, by the stronger light, I could see that I had strayed once again into some byway, for the passage was hardly three feet wide and the low roof almost touched my head.
It narrowed and grew lower still; but the light of the stars was clear in front of me and the cold wind blew upon my face; and I squeezed through into the same scooped-out hollow which I had entered on the same afternoon during the course of my journey toward the château.
I had approached it apparently through a mere fissure in the rocks upon the opposite side and at a point where I had assured myself that there could be no passage. The little river gurgled at my feet, and in front of me I saw a candle flickering in the recesses of a cave, so elfinlike that I could distinguish it only by shielding my eyes against the moon and stars.
I grasped my pistol tightly and crept noiselessly forward. If this should be Leroux, as I was convinced it was, I would not parley with him. I would shoot him down in his tracks.
My moccasined feet pressed the soft ground without the slightest sound. I gained the entrance to the cave. Within it, his back toward me, a man was stooping down.
As I stepped nearer him my feet dislodged a pebble, which rolled with a splash into the bed of the stream.
The man started and spun around, and I saw before me the pale, melancholy features of Philippe Lacroix.
CHAPTER XVII
LOUIS D'EPERNAY
He uttered an oath and took two steps backward, but I saw that he was unarmed and that he realized his helplessness. He flung his hands above his head and stood facing me, surprise and terror twisting his features into a grimacing grin.
There was no man, next to Leroux, whom I would rather have seen.
"I wanted to see you, M. Hewlett," he babbled.
"I can quite believe that, M. Lacroix," I answered. "You have looked for me before. But this time you have found me."
"I have something of importance to say to you, monsieur," he began again.
"I can believe that, too," I answered. "It is about le Vieil Ange, is it not?"
"By God, I did not mean—I swear to you, monsieur—listen, monsieur, one moment only," he stammered. "Lower your pistol. You see that I am unarmed!"
I lowered it. "Well, say what you have to say," I said to him.
"Leroux is a devil!" he burst out, with no pretended passion. "I want you to help me, M. Hewlett, and I can help you in a way you do not dream of. I am not one of his kind, to take his orders. Why in Quebec he would be like the dirt beneath my feet. He has a hold over me; he tempted me to gamble in one of his houses, and I—well, he has a hold over me. But he shall not drive me into murder. M. Hewlett, how much do you think this seigniory is worth?"
"I am not a financier," I answered. "Some half a million dollars, perhaps."
He came close to me and hissed into my ear: "Monsieur, there is more gold in these rocks than anywhere in the world! Look here! Here!"
He stooped down and began tossing pebbles at my feet. But they were pebbles of pure gold, and each one of them was as large as the first joint of my thumb. And I had misjudged his courage, I think, for it was avarice and not fear that made him tremble.
So that was Lacroix's master-passion! I had always associated it with decrepit old age, as in the case of Charles Duchaine.
I looked into the cave. Lacroix was bending over a great heap of sacks, piled almost to the roof. They were sacks of earth, but the earth was naked with gold, and I saw nuggets glittering in it.
"It is everywhere, monsieur!" cried Lacroix. "In this stream, in these hills, too. You can gather a mortarful of earth anywhere, and it will show colour when it is washed. We found this place together——"
"You and Leroux?"
"No! I and——"
He broke off suddenly and eyed me with furtive cunning.
"Yes, yes, monsieur, Leroux and I. And we two worked here together, with nothing more than picks and shovels and mortars and pestles, Leroux and I. There was nobody else. We slept here when Duchaine thought we were in Quebec. For days and days we washed and dug, and we have hardly scratched the surface. Monsieur, it is the Mother Lode, it is the world's treasure-house! There are millions upon millions here!"
I understood now why the provisions had been stored there. And I had passed by and never known that there was an ounce of gold! But——
"There are three blankets here," I said.
"Yes, yes, monsieur!" cried Lacroix eagerly. "I suffer much from cold. Two of them are mine, and Leroux has only one. It is the richest gold deposit in the world, M. Hewlett, and neither Raoul nor Jean Petitjean knows the secret—only Leroux and I. One cannot light upon this place save by a miracle of chance, such as brought you here. God put this treasure in these hills, and He did not mean it to be found."
I grasped him by the shoulder. "Do you see what this means?" I shouted.
"It means a glorious life!" he cried. "All the wealth in the world——"
"No, it means death!" I answered. "It means that if Leroux succeeds in killing me, he will kill you, too! Don't you see that we must stand together? Do you suppose that he will share his hoard with you?"
"No, M. Hewlett," answered Lacroix quietly. "And that is precisely what I wanted to say to you. You are not a hog like Leroux; I can trust you. And then you are a gentleman, and we gentlemen trust each other. I will give you a share in the gold, and you will get mademoiselle. She has no love for Louis. She left him half an hour after the marriage had been performed. Leroux witnessed the ceremony, and he hurried away with Père Antoine, and then she ran away. She loves you! And Louis will not trouble you!"
"Faugh!" I muttered. "I don't want to hear your views on—on Mlle. Jacqueline, my friend. But it seems to me that our interests are mutual, and, as it happens, I was on my way back to have it out with Leroux when I stumbled upon this place."
"But I can show you the way," he exclaimed. "Come with me, monsieur. I don't know how you got into the wrong passage, but it is simple—straight ahead. Come with me! I will precede you."
I followed him into the darkness, and very soon heard the sound of the cataract again. And then once more I was standing at the tunnel entrance, under a brilliant moon, and the château was before me.
It was all dark now, except for a glimmer of light that came from two windows on the far side, visible indirectly as a reflection from the snowy steeps beyond. That must be Duchaine's room.
Leroux's I did not know, of course, but I surmised that it was one of those on the same story, which I had passed while making my previous tour of discovery. But this ignorance did not cause me much concern. I knew that, once we were face to face together, I should gain the victory over him.
And I would be merciless and not falter.
And Jacqueline! If I won, should I not keep her? She was mine, even against her will, by every rule of war. And this was a world of war, where beauty went to the strong, and all rules but that were scratched from the book of life.
I would not even tread softly now, nor slink within the shadows. Nor did I fear Lacroix, although he had fallen out of sight behind me.
I strode steadily across the snow and opened the door in the dark wing, entered the hall and ascended the stairway, took the turn to the right and passed through the little hall. As I had guessed, the light came from Duchaine's room.
I heard Leroux's harsh voice within; and if I stopped outside it was not in indecision, but because I meant to make sure of my man this time.
Through the crack of the door I saw old Charles Duchaine nodding over his wheel. Leroux was standing near him, and in a corner, beside the window, was Jacqueline. She was facing our common enemy as valiantly as she had done before. And he was still tormenting her.
"I want you, Jacqueline," I heard him say, in a voice which betrayed no throb of passion. "And I am going to have you. I always have my way, I am not like that weak fool, Hewlett."
"It was I sent him away, not you," she cried. "Do you think he was afraid of you?"
Leroux looked at her in admiration.
"You are a splendid woman, Jacqueline," he said. "I like the way you defy me. But you are quite at my mercy. And you are going to yield! You will yield your will to mine——"
"Never!" she cried. "I will fling myself into the lake before that shall happen. Ah, monsieur"—her voice took on a pleading tone—"why will you not take all we have and let us go? We are two helpless people; we shall never betray your secrets. Why must you have me too?"
"Because I love you, Jacqueline," he cried, and now I heard an undertone of passion which I had not suspected in the man. "I am not a scoundrel, Jacqueline. Life is a hard game, and I have played it hard. And I have loved you for a long time, but I would not tell you until I had the right as well as the power—but now my love is my law, and I will conquer you!"
He caught her in his arms. She uttered a little, gasping cry, and struggled wildly and ineffectually in his grasp.
I was quite cold, for I knew that was to be the last of his villainies. I entered the room and walked up to the table, my pistol raised, aiming at his heart, and I felt my own heart beat steadily, and the will to kill rise dominant above every hesitation.
Leroux spun round. He saw me, and he smiled his sour smile. He did not flinch, although he must have seen that my hand was as steady as a rock. I could not withhold a certain admiration for the man, but this did not weaken me.
"What, you again, monsieur?" he asked mockingly. "You have come back? You are always coming back, aren't you?"
The truth of the diagnosis struck home to me. Yes, I was always coming back. But this time I had come back to stay.
"Can I do anything further for you, M. Hewlett?" he asked. "Was not your bed comfortable? Do you want something, or is it only habit that has brought you back here where nobody wants you?"
"I have come back to kill you, Leroux," I answered, and pulled the trigger six times.
And each time I heard nothing but the click of the hammer.
Then, with his bull's bellow, Simon was upon me, dashing his fists into my face, and bearing me down. My puny struggles were as ineffective as though I had been fighting ten men. He had me on the floor and was kneeling on my chest, and in a trice the other ruffians had come dashing along the hall.
Jacqueline was beating with her little fists upon Leroux's broad back, but he did not even feel the blows. I heard old Charles Duchaine's piping cries of fear, and then somebody held me by the throat, and I was swimming in black water.
"Bring a rope, Raoul!" I heard Simon call.
Half conscious, I knew that I was being tied. I felt the rope tighten upon my wrists and limbs; presently I opened my aching eyes to find myself trussed like a chicken to two legs of the table. I think it was Jean Petitjean who said something about shooting me, and was knocked down for it. Leroux was yelling like a demoniac. I saw Jacqueline's terrified face and the trembling old man; and presently Leroux was standing over me again, perfectly calm.
He had taken the pistol from my coat pocket and placed it on the table, and now he took it in his hand and held it under my eyes. The magazine was empty.
"Ah, Paul Hewlett, you are a very poor conspirator, indeed," he said, "to try to shoot a man without anything in your pistol. Do you remember how affectionately I put my arm round you when you were sitting in that chair writing your ridiculous check? It was then that I took the liberty of extracting the two cartridges. But I did think you would have had sense to examine your pistol and reload before you returned."
Jacqueline was clinging to him. "Monsieur," she panted, "you will spare his life? You will unfasten him and let him go?"
"But he keeps coming back," protested Leroux, wringing his hands in mock dismay.
"Spare him, monsieur, and God will bless you! You cannot kill him in cold blood," she cried.
"We will talk about that presently, my dear," he answered. "Go and sit down like a good child. I have something more to ask this gentleman before I make my decision."
He picked up a scrap of newspaper from the table and held it before my eyes, deliberately turning up the oil-lamp wick that I might read it. I recognized it at once. It was the clipping from the newspaper, descriptive of the murdered man, which I had cut out in the train and placed in my pocketbook.
"You dropped this, my friend, when you pulled out your check-book," said Simon. "You are a very poor conspirator, Paul Hewlett. Assuredly I would not have you on my side at any price. Well?"
"Well?" I repeated mechanically.
"Who killed him?" he shouted.
He shook the paper before my eyes and then he struck me across the face with it.
"Who killed Louis d'Epernay?" he yelled, and Jacqueline screamed in fear.
"I did," I answered after a moment.