Despite the haste they made, it was nearly ten o'clock when M.
Plantat and his guests quitted the chateau of Valfeuillu.Instead of taking the high road, they cut across a pathway which ran along beside Mme.de Lanascol's park, and led diagonally to the wire bridge; this was the shortest way to the inn where M.Lecoq had left his slight baggage.As they went along, M.Plantat grew anxious about his good friend, M.Courtois.
"What misfortune can have happened to him?" said he to Dr.Gendron.
"Thanks to the stupidity of that rascal of a servant, we learned nothing at all.This letter from Mademoiselle Laurence has caused the trouble, somehow."They had now reached the Faithful Grenadier.
A big red-faced fellow was smoking a long pipe at the door, his back against the house.He was talking with a railway employee.
It was the landlord.
"Well, Monsieur Plantat," he cried, "what a horrible affair this is!
Come in, come in; there are several folks in the hall who saw the assassins.What a villain old Bertaud is! And that Guespin; ah, Iwould willingly trudge to Corbeil to see them put up the scaffold!
"A little charity, Master Lenfant; you forget that both these men were among your best customers."Master Lenfant was confused by this reply; but his native impudence soon regained the mastery.
"Fine customers, parbleu!" he answered, "this thief of a Guespin has got thirty francs of mine which I'll never see again.""Who knows?" said Plantat, ironically."Besides, you are going to make more than that to-night, there's so much company at the Orcival festival."During this brief conversation, M.Lecoq entered the inn for his night-gown.His office being no longer a secret, he was not now welcomed as when he was taken for a simple retired haberdasher.
Mme.Lenfant, a lady who had no need of her husband's aid to show penniless sots the door, scarcely deigned to answer him.When he asked how much he owed, she responded, with a contemptuous gesture, "Nothing." When he returned to the door, his night-gown in hand, M.Plantat said:
"Let's hurry, for I want to get news of our poor mayor."The three hastened their steps, and the old justice of the peace, oppressed with sad presentiments, and trying to combat them, continued:
"If anything had happened at the mayor's, I should certainly have been informed of it by this time.Perhaps Laurence has written that she is ill, or a little indisposed.Madame Courtois, who is the best woman in the world, gets excited about nothing; she probably wanted to send her husband for Laurence at once.You'll see that it's some false alarm."No; some catastrophe had happened.A number of the village women were standing before the mayor's gate.Baptiste, in the midst of the group, was ranting and gesticulating.But at M.Plantat's approach, the women fled like a troop of frightened gulls.The old man's unexpected appearance annoyed the placid Baptiste not a little, for he was interrupted, by the sudden departure of his audience, in the midst of a superb oratorical flight.As he had a great fear of M.Plantat, however, he dissimulated his chagrin with his habitual smile.
"Ah, sir," cried he, when M.Plantat was three steps off, "ah, what an affair! I was going for you - ""Does your master wish me?"
"More than you can think.He ran so fast from Valfeuillu here, that I could scarcely keep up with him.He's not usually fast, you know;but you ought to have seen him this time, fat as he is!"M.Plantat stamped impatiently.
"Well, we got here at last," resumed the man, "and monsieur rushed into the drawing-room, where he found madame sobbing like a Magdalene.
He was so out of breath he could scarcely speak.His eyes stuck out of his head, and he stuttered like this - 'What's-the-matter?
What's the-matter?' Madame, who couldn't speak either, held out mademoiselle's letter, which she had in her hand."The three auditors were on coals of fire; the rogue perceived it, and spoke more and more slowly.
"Then monsieur took the letter, went to the window, and at a glance read it through.He cried out hoarsely, thus: 'Oh!' then he went to beating the air with his hands, like a swimming dog; then he walked up and down and fell, pouf! like a bag, his face on the floor.
That was all."
"Is he dead?" cried all three in the same breath.
"Oh, no; you shall see," responded Baptiste, with a placid smile.
M.Lecoq was a patient marl, but not so patient as you might think.
Irritated by the manner of Baptiste's recital, he put down his bundle, seized the man's arm with his right hand, while with the left he whisked a light flexible cane, and said:
Look here, fellow, I want you to hurry up, you know."That was all he said; the servant was terribly afraid of this little blond man, with a strange voice, and a fist harder than a vice.He went on very rapidly this time, his eye fixed on M.Lecoq's rattan.
"Monsieur had an attack of vertigo.All the house was in confusion;everybody except I, lost their heads; it occurred to me to go for a doctor, and I started off for one - for Doctor Gendron, whom Iknew to be at the chateau, or the doctor near by, or the apothecary - it mattered not who.By good luck, at the street corner, I came upon Robelot, the bone-setter - 'Come, follow me,' said I.He did so; sent away those who were tending monsieur, and bled him in both arms.Shortly after, he breathed, then he opened his eyes, and then he spoke.Now he is quite restored, and is lying on one of the drawing-room lounges, crying with all his might.He told me he wanted to see Monsieur Plantat, and I - ""And - Mademoiselle Laurence?" asked M.Plantat, with a trembling voice.Baptiste assumed a tragic pose.
