Maurice Leblanc - The Woman of Mystery

All at once she understood that he was speaking seriously; and, without taking her eyes from him, she asked:

"Is it true? Are we free?"

"Absolutely free."

"We're going back to France?"

"Immediately."

"We have nothing more to fear?"

"Nothing."

The tension from which she was suffering sud[Pg 298]denly relaxed. She in her turn began to laugh, yielding to one of those fits of uncontrollable mirth which find vent in every sort of childish nonsense. She could have sung, she could have danced for sheer joy. And yet the tears flowed down her cheeks. And she stammered:

"Free!… it's all over!… Have I been through much?… Not at all!… Oh, you know that I had been shot? Well, I assure you, it wasn't so bad as all that… I will tell you about it and lots of other things… And you must tell me, too… But how did you manage? You must be cleverer than the cleverest, cleverer than the unspeakable Conrad, cleverer than the Emperor! Oh, dear, how funny it is, how funny!…"

She broke off and, seizing him forcibly by the arm, said:

"Let us go, darling. It's madness to remain another second. These people are capable of anything. They look upon no promise as binding. They are scoundrels, criminals. Let's go… Let's go…"

They went away.

Their journey was uneventful. In the evening, they reached the lines on the front, facing Ebrecourt.

The officer on duty, who had full powers, had a reflector lit and himself, after ordering a white flag to be displayed, took Elisabeth and Paul to the French officer who came forward.

The officer telephoned to the rear. A motor car[Pg 299] was sent; and, at nine o'clock, Paul and Elisabeth pulled up at the gates of Ornequin and Paul asked to have Bernard sent for. He met him half-way:

"Is that you, Bernard?" he said. "Listen to me and don't let us waste a minute. I have brought back Elisabeth. Yes, she's here, in the car. We are off to Corvigny and you're coming with us. While I go for my bag and yours, you give instructions to have Prince Conrad closely watched. He's safe, isn't he?"

"Yes."

"Then hurry. I want to get at the woman whom you saw last night as she was entering the tunnel. Now that she's in France, we'll hunt her down."

"Don't you think, Paul, that we should be more likely to find her tracks by ourselves going back into the tunnel and searching the place where it opens at Corvigny?"

"We can't afford the time. We have arrived at a phase of the struggle that demands the utmost haste."

"But, Paul, the struggle is over, now that Elisabeth is saved."

"The struggle will never be over as long as that woman lives."

"Well, but who is she?"

Paul did not answer.

At ten o'clock they all three alighted outside the station at Corvigny. There were no more trains.[Pg 300] Everybody was asleep. Paul refused to be put off, went to the military guard, woke up the adjutant, sent for the station-master, sent for the booking-clerk and, after a minute inquiry, succeeded in establishing the fact that on that same Monday morning a woman supplied with a pass in the name of Mme. Antonin had taken a ticket for Chateau-Thierry. She was the only woman traveling alone. She was wearing a Red Cross uniform. Her description corresponded at all points with that of the Comtesse Hermine.

"It's certainly she," said Paul, when they had taken their rooms for the night at the hotel near the station. "There's no doubt about it. It's the only way she could go from Corvigny. And it's the way that we shall go to-morrow morning, at the same time that she did. I hope that she will not have time to carry out the scheme that has brought her to France. In any case, this is a great opportunity; and we must make the most of it."

"But who is the woman?" Bernard asked again.

"Who is she? Ask Elisabeth to tell you. We have an hour left in which to discuss certain details and then we must go to bed. We need rest, all three of us."

They started on the Tuesday morning. Paul's confidence was unshaken. Though he knew nothing of the Comtesse Hermine's intentions, he felt sure that he was on the right road. And, in fact, they were told several times that a Red Cross nurse, trav[Pg 301]eling first-class and alone, had passed through the same stations on the day before.

They got out at Chateau-Thierry late in the afternoon. Paul made his inquiries. On the previous evening, the nurse had driven away in a Red Cross motor car which was waiting at the station. This car, according to the papers carried by the driver, belonged to one of the ambulances working to the rear of Soissons; but the exact position of the ambulance was not known.

This was near enough for Paul, however. Soissons was in the battle line.

"Let's go to Soissons," he said.

The order signed by the commander-in-chief which he had on him gave him full power to requisition a motor car and to enter the fighting zone. They reached Soissons at dinner-time.

The outskirts, ruined by the bombardment, were deserted. The town itself seemed abandoned for the greater part. But as they came nearer to the center a certain animation prevailed in the streets. Companies of soldiers passed at a quick pace. Guns and ammunition wagons trotted by. In the hotel to which they went on the Grande Place, a hotel containing a number of officers, there was general excitement, with much coming and going and even a little disorder.

Paul and Bernard asked the reason. They were told that, for some days past, we had been successfully attacking the slopes opposite Soissons, on the[Pg 302] other side of the Aisne. Two days before, some battalions of light infantry and African troops had taken Hill 132 by assault. On the following day, we held the positions which we had won and carried the trenches on the Dent de Crouy. Then, in the course of the Monday night at a time when the enemy was delivering a violent counter-attack, a curious thing happened. The Aisne, which was swollen as the result of the heavy rains, overflowed its banks and carried away all the bridges at Villeneuve and Soissons.

The rise of the Aisne was natural enough; but, high though the river was, it did not explain the destruction of the bridges; and this destruction, coinciding with the German counter-attack and apparently due to suspect reasons which had not yet been cleared up, had complicated the position of the French troops by making the dispatch of reinforcements almost impossible. Our men had held the hill all day, but with difficulty and with great losses. At this moment, a part of the artillery was being moved back to the right bank of the Aisne.

Paul and Bernard did not hesitate in their minds for a second. In all this they recognized the Comtesse Hermine's handiwork. The destruction of the bridges, the German attacks, those two incidents which happened on the very night of her arrival were, beyond a doubt, the outcome of a plan conceived by her, the execution of which had been prepared for the time when the rains were bound to swell the river[Pg 303] and proved the collaboration existing between the countess and the enemy's staff.

Besides, Paul remembered the sentences which she had exchanged with Karl the spy outside the door of Prince Conrad's villa:

"I am going to France… everything is ready. The weather is in our favor; and the staff have told me… So I shall be there to-morrow evening; and it will only need a touch of the thumb…"

She had given that touch of the thumb. All the bridges had been tampered with by Karl or by men in his pay and had now broken down.

"It's she, obviously enough," said Bernard. "And, if it is, why look so anxious? You ought to be glad, on the contrary, because we are now positively certain of laying hold of her."

"Yes, but shall we do so in time? When she spoke to Karl, she uttered another threat which struck me as much more serious. As I told you, she said, 'Luck is turning against us. If I succeed, it will be the end of the run on the black.' And, when the spy asked her if she had the Emperor's consent, she answered that it was unnecessary and that this was one of the undertakings which one doesn't talk about. You understand, Bernard, it's not a question of the German attack or the destruction of the bridges: that is honest warfare and the Emperor knows all about it. No, it's a question of something different, which is intended to coincide with other events and give them their full significance. The woman[Pg 304] can't think that an advance of half a mile or a mile is an incident capable of ending what she calls the run on the black. Then what is at the back of it all? I don't know; and that accounts for my anxiety."