Max Pemberton - Murder Mysteries Boxed-Set - 40+ Books in One Edition

There was no good arguing with him, for he was set upon it, and, to cut a long story short, we were in Brittany and at madame's château on the following Tuesday morning. I said at once that a prettier place never was; nor one with such green hills and sweeping forests. Mile after mile we drove from the station through woods which man never seemed to tread. There were mazy paths and leafy groves, turn where you would. The house itself was like an old shire mansion, low and gabled, with a white spire at the north end of it, and lawns smooth as billiard tables before its windows. The company, so far as names went, was beyond talk; and by far the best ornament to be found the whole house through was Mme. Pauline, who looked for all the world like a pretty schoolgirl broken out of bounds to enjoy herself. Think as I would, I could find no fair reason to quarrel with my quarters or the woman who found them for me; nevertheless I had my doubts about the journey from the start—could make nothing of it, in fact, and was the more suspicious on that account.

"What's her game?" I kept asking myself. "What is she doing down here with a company like this, when all the world is going back to Paris? If she was just in love with him, why not finish the business in town? He was willing enough."

This I said, turning the thing over and over in my mind, the very first night we came to the Château de l'Epee, which was her place.

I should tell you that they had lodged me with two or three more gentlemen's gentlemen in a little pavilion standing out in the park, about two hundred yards from the big house itself. I was never one that cared for society in a servants' hall, especially when that society was French down to the finger-tips; and when I had made sure that none of the others knew more than I did, either about Mme. Pauline or her party, I left them alone and went my own ways. So it came about, on the second night after we arrived at the house, that eleven o'clock struck and found me walking in the great park which surrounded the château. It was dark enough then for any thing, the cloud hanging low over the woods, and a warm south wind promising rain. But the blinds were up in most of the lower rooms, and I had not taken ten steps to cross the lawn when I solved my mystery. Mme. Pauline's guests were playing roulette.

"Halloa!" said I, standing stock still, and laughing to think how simple it was, "so this is your game, is it, my lady? You brought him here to dance on the green, eh? And he's fool enough to come up smiling, like a lamb to be sheared. I wonder if you heard that he picked up money at Vienna—it looks like it, any way."

Certainly, it did look like it, for there he was, hanging over the cloth like a boy over a rail; and throwing the money away, I did not doubt, just like a man pitching pebbles into the sea. As for the others, they were as deep in it as they could be; old Marmontel sitting with a pile of gold at his elbow, and young Lord Beyton throwing the notes about as though they were spills. Yet—this was curious—madame herself was not playing. She was sitting at the piano strumming a waltz; and though I watched her for nearly an hour, never once did I see her turn her eyes toward the table. She was acting the simple little girl still—and right well did she play the part.

Now, when you have looked for something really deep and surprising in a puzzle, it does not please you to find that its solution is plain enough for a schoolboy. For the matter of that, once I saw the ball spinning in the Château de l'Épée, the only thing that remained for me to know was the name of madame's partner in the deal. That she had a partner, probably the man who kept bank, was certain. They went shares, I said, in what they could win from the pigeons they had caged. Probably, too, the thing was square enough, or an old bird like Marmontel would not be throwing his money away so cheerfully. Tricks would not pay in that house of rooks. If my master walked out of the château a beggar, he would have his own luck to blame. And that he would walk out a beggar, I felt sure from the start.

I had come to this conclusion, standing in the park of the château, and smoking my pipe under the shadow of a great elm-tree on the lawn before the drawing-room windows. It was not a conclusion to put me in good spirits, or to send me to bed in a cheerful mood—and so far as that goes, I found myself presently thinking very much about it, and strolling through the ground as I did so. For one thing, you see—money to be made or money to be lost, I saw no chance of my coming into the business. If Sir Nicolas was bitten both by the woman and the cloth, Heaven knew how long he would stay at the house. That he had any other danger to fear I did not then believe. The mystery had proved the cheapest affair possible; there could be nothing behind it.

It was curious, upon my life, but these words were hardly off my lips when I saw something in the grounds of the Château de l'Épée which altered in a moment my whole opinion of our situation, and set my brain itching with curiosity. My walk had carried me perhaps a mile from the house. Thinking of nothing but Mme. Pauline's prettiness and of her schemes, I looked up presently to find myself in a clearing of a wood, and almost at the door of a little pavilion built in the heart of the thicket. There were no lights in the windows of this strange little house, nor any thing to tell that any one lived in it— but all in a moment, while I was standing in the shadow of the trees, a man crossed the grass before the door, and let himself into the pavilion with a latchkey. For ten seconds at the most I saw him, and though there was nothing but a fitful play of the moonlight between the rolling clouds, I recognized him at once. He was Mme. Pauline's brother—the man who passed in Paris as the Comte de Faugère.

"Come," said I to myself, stepping back into the thicket, "what are you doing here, young man, and why don't you show yourself in the house? She gave it out that you had gone back to your seminary, or whatever you call it. How does it happen that you can't show your mug in public? It's a queer state of things, any way."

Queer it appeared to be, look at it how you like. Here was a boy, who, according to madame's story, was being trained for a priest,—one whom we all thought to be in Paris,—masquerading at midnight in the woods of the château. More than that, he was not masquerading alone, for I had not watched the pavilion for ten minutes when I saw another lad, slim and rather short, and wearing a soft felt shooting hat, slip out of the shelter of the trees, and knock three times upon the door of the little building. The door was opened at once; but, although there were now two of them in the house, not a light did I see. Back and front, the place was as dark as the grave, and as mysterious. Not a sound of any thing human was to be heard. You might have passed the pavilion a hundred times and never have known that a living thing occupied it. You might have walked for a month in the park and yet have been ignorant that such a nest was a part of it. Whatever were his reasons, the Comte de Faugère had a roosting-ground which many a hunted man might have envied.

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I have written it above that this discovery altered my opinion of the Château de l'Épée and of its mistress just about as suddenly as a man's opinion could be altered. It is one thing to believe that you're asked to a house to play cards; it is another to wake up to the fact that you are the guest of queer folks who can't afford to be seen in the daylight, and whose object in lying low doesn't altogether explain itself. That the Comte de Faugère was lying low, I never had a doubt from the start of it. And yet this continued to be the puzzle—that he was at the château, while they gave it out that he was in Paris.