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

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These were the things that were in my mind the whole night through, and what sleep I got did not come to me until the sun was streaming through the windows and the birds in the park were singing fit to split your ears. I had made up my mind then that the business was beyond me, and that I could only watch and wait and make use of what I had seen when the opportunity came. As for telling my master, the idea was farther from my mind than ever. When I went to his room at eight o'clock, I did my best to look like a man who is thinking of nothing but his breakfast, and who will think of nothing after that but his dinner.

"Good-morning, sir," said I. "Are you ready for me now?"

"The devil a bit!" said he, sitting up in bed and looking very pale; "’tis like a boiled owl I feel."

"You made a night of it, then?" said I.

"Indeed and we did, and I lost fifteen hundred."

"You did, sir?"

"’Tis truth I speak. Fifteen hundred last night and three hundred the night before!"

"That's a heavy bill for two days in the country, sir."

"Faith, too heavy for me. And if ye'd bring me a brandy-and-soda, I'd be the better for it. I've to ride with madame this morning."

I brought him the spirit, and when he had drunk it he seemed more himself.

"Hildebrand," said he, getting up suddenly off the bed, "’tis a beautiful air to breathe, but too strong for me. I think we'd do better in Paris."

"I'm sure of it, sir," said I, glad to hear him talk like that.

"But better or worse, I'll be staying a while yet," said he, after a minute; "there's business that keeps me, and, bedad! 'tis pleasant business too."

I knew what he meant, and there was no need to talk to me in this way. The business that kept him at the château was madame's pretty face. He followed it everywhere, riding with her in the morning, taking tea with her in the arbor by the lake in the afternoon, turning over her music at night, looking into her eyes whenever they met as if he could have eaten her. And all the time she was the wife of another man—and more than that, was as deep down in roguery as any scoundrel out of Newgate. I write that she was deep down in roguery, but that is to get ahead in my story. You want to know, naturally, how I found that out, and I will tell you in a few words. It was the second day after I had seen the strange thing in the woods—a day when I was beginning to say that whatever was the mystery of the château de l'Épée, I should never unravel it. I had spent the morning brushing up my master's clothes; but in the afternoon I carried a message down to the village, and as I was returning through the park I chanced to pass at the back of the little arbor by the lake. Sir Nicolas was sitting there with Mme. Pauline, but instead of making love to her as usual, he was watching her spin a little ball in a basin. This seemed to me such a funny thing that I stopped a minute to watch; and observing that no one was about, I crept quite up to the place presently, and got a better view of what she was doing. I found then that what I had taken to be a basin was nothing but a bit of a roulette board, and that madame was showing him how well she could keep bank.

"Look," she said, and her eyes were as bright as diamonds when she spoke, "I will spin any number you like. Choose one yourself, and try me."

He named the number twelve, and she set the ball rolling. When it stopped, I knew by his exclamation that she had succeeded.

"Faith, it's like a miracle!" cried he. "Was it here that you practised it?"

"Indeed no! I learned it when I used to be tailleur for my husband. They played almost every day then, and I spun the ball so often that I found out at last how to make it go into any hole I pleased. What a fortune I could win if I were dishonest!"

With this she drew quite close to him, and I saw him wind his arm tight round her. Presently she said, and said it very sweet, too;

"Marmontel has won a great deal off you, hasn't he?"

"The matter of four thousand," replied he, very gloomily.

"You would win it back, and more, if I were to spin the ball to-night, and you were my partner," she went on, still very nicely.

"You're mocking me!" said he in French, but his face flushed with the word; "the thing's not possible."

"Not possible!" said she, looking up at him in her saucy way—"not possible, when two of the croupiers at Monaco made a fortune out of it last year. Oh, Sir Nicolas Steele, how simple you are!"

"But it's a new idea to me," said he, and he was excited too. "Will you show it to me once more?"

"What number will you have?" asked she.

"Twenty-seven for luck!" cried he.

I saw her take the little ball in her hand and spin the basin. When at last it stopped, Sir Nicolas gave a great cry and jumped up off his seat.

"There's a fortune in that," said he.

"Without doubt, for those that know how to use it," was her answer.

"You mean——" said he.

But what she meant I never heard, for they had both risen from their seats, and I thought it about time to make off. She was locking the little basin in one of the cupboards of the arbor when I left them, and he was bending over her, earnest in talk. I fancied, however, as I went along, that I could have told him as much as she could, and, truth to tell, the few words I had heard had knocked the bottom clean out of all my speculations.

"Bigg," said I to myself, "if ever you're starving, don't go to think that you'll make a fortune out of keyholes. Why, what's it come to? You've been asking all along who's her confederate, and here she's choosing Nicky himself for the part. If it don't beat cock-fighting, I'm a Dutchman."

Take it as I would, I must say that it did alter in a moment all my theories about the château and its pretty mistress. So long as I had looked to find my master a victim of the woman, so long did I suspect every man and every move in and out of the great house. But once it came home to me that she had invited us there to help her, then the whole game was clear to me. The comte, I was sure, dare not show in the house because some of madame's guests knew him to their cost. Nicky was chosen for the part as a man who wouldn't stand at much, and who would cover madame's tricks. As for her being able to throw what number she liked—well, it's all history that a croupier did it at Monte Carlo last winter. "But," said I, "only the very devil of a woman would have gone so deep"—and that was gospel truth.

It was about five o'clock when I got back to my room, and I did not see Sir Nicolas again until the gong went for dressing. He was silent, as usual, but he did not hide it from me that his nerves were all on the twitch; while the slap-dash way he put on his clothes was a tale in itself. When at last he did go down, he shouted to me that he should want me no more that night, and that possibly we should be going back to Paris next morning—at which I laughed to myself, as well I might.

"You'll go back to Paris with full pockets, Nicky," said I to myself; "but you won't be so pleased when you learn more about the chap yonder, and the kissing he does in the wood. Love's a very pleasant business, but it don't do to take partners."

I was still laughing over the notion when I put his clothes away and went down to my own supper. There was plenty of time before me,—for I meant to see the play in the drawing-room that night,—and it was not until ten o'clock was chimed from the spire of the château that I lighted my pipe and went out into the grounds. But I was doomed to a big disappointment. For the first time since I had been at the house, the shutters of the room were closed. Not a ray of light passed them. You couldn't hear a sound, standing on the lawn as I did. All the folks might have packed up their bags and gone back to the city. The place might have been as deserted as the grave.