第75章

I shook my head. "We might be detained for doing murder. We have no proof yet of their intentions -I think - " An idea flashed suddenly across my mind. "Go back to your room, Ganymede," I bade him. "Lock yourself in, and do not stir until I call you. I do not wish their suspicions aroused."I opened the door, and as Ganymede obediently slipped past me and vanished down the passage "Monsieur l'Hote," I called. "Ho, there, Gilles!""Monsieur," answered the landlord.

"Monseigneur," replied Gilles; and there came a stir below.

"Is aught amiss?" the landlord questioned, a note of concern in his voice.

"Amiss?" I echoed peevishly, mincing my words as I uttered them.

"Pardi! Must I be put to it to undress myself, whilst those two lazy dogs of mine are snoring beneath me? Come up this instant, Gilles. And," I added as an afterthought, "you had best sleep here in my room.""At once, monseigneur," answered he, but I caught the faintest tinge of surprise in his accents, for never yet had it fallen to the lot of sturdy, clumsy Gilles to assist me at my toilet.

The landlord muttered something, and I heard Gilles whispering his reply. Then the stairs creaked under his heavy tread.

In my room I told him in half a dozen words what was afoot. For answer, he swore a great oath that the landlord had mulled a stoup of wine for him, which he never doubted now was drugged. I bade him go below and fetch the wine, telling the landlord that I, too had a fancy for it.

"But what of Antoine?" he asked. "They will drug him.""Let them. We can manage this affair, you and I, without his help.

If they did not drug him, they might haply stab him. So that in being drugged lies his safety."As I bade him so he did, and presently he returned with a great steaming measure. This I emptied into a ewer, then returned it to him that he might take it back to the host with my thanks and our appreciation. Thus should we give them confidence that the way was clear and smooth for them.

Thereafter there befell precisely that which already you will be expecting, and nothing that you cannot guess. It was perhaps at the end of an hour's silent waiting that one of them came. We had left the door unbarred so that his entrance was unhampered. But scarce was he within when out of the dark, on either side of him, rose Gilles and I. Before he had realized it, he was lifted off his feet and deposited upon the bed without a cry; the only sound being the tinkle of the knife that dropped from his suddenly unnerved hand.

On the bed, with Gilles's great knee in his stomach, and Gilles's hands at his throat, he was assured in unequivocal terms that at his slightest outcry we would make an end of him. I kindled a light. We trussed him hand and foot with the bedclothes, and then, whilst he lay impotent and silent in his terror, I proceeded to discuss the situation with him.

I pointed out that we knew that what he had done he had done at Saint-Eustache's instigation, therefore the true guilt was Saint-Eustache's and upon him alone the punishment should fall.

But ere this could come to pass, he himself must add his testimony to ours - mine and Rodenard's. If he would come to Toulouse and do that make a full confession of how he had been set to do this murdering - the Chevalier de Saint-Eustache, who was the real culprit, should be the only one to suffer the penalty of the law.

If he would not do that, why, then, he must stand the consequences himself - and the consequences would be the hangman. But in either case he was coming to Toulouse in the morning.

It goes without saying that he was reasonable. I never for a moment held his judgment in doubt; there is no loyalty about a cut-throat, and it is not the way of his calling to take unnecessary risk.

We had just settled the matter in a mutually agreeable manner when the door opened again, and his confederate - rendered uneasy, no doubt, by his long absence - came to see what could be occasioning this unconscionable delay in the slitting of the throats of a pair of sleeping men.

Beholding us there in friendly conclave, and no doubt considering that under the circumstances his intrusion was nothing short of an impertinence, that polite gentleman uttered a cry - which I should like to think was an apology for having disturbed us and turned to go with most indecorous precipitancy.

But Gilles took him by the nape of his dirty neck and haled him back into the room. In less time than it takes me to tell of it, he lay beside his colleague, and was being asked whether he did not think that he might also come to take the same view of the situation.

Overjoyed that we intended no worse by him, he swore by every saint in the calendar that he would do our will, that he had reluctantly undertaken the Chevalier's business, that he was no cut-throat, but a poor man with a wife and children to provide for.

And that, in short, was how it came to pass that the Chevalier de Saint-Eustache himself, by disposing for my destruction, disposed only for his own. With these two witnesses, and Rodenard to swear how Saint-Eustache had bribed them to cut my throat, with myself and Gilles to swear how the attempt had been made and frustrated, Icould now go to His Majesty with a very full confidence, not only of having the Chevalier's accusations, against whomsoever they might be, discredited, but also of sending the Chevalier himself to the gallows he had so richly earned.