Read Ebook: The man in grey Being episodes of the Chovan [i.e. Chouan] conspiracies in Normandy during the First Empire. by Orczy Emmuska Orczy Baroness

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is's agent, and who held it thenceforward and administered it with unswerving loyalty, in the name of his former master. Leclerc with his wife and family had settled down in the ch?teau, and together they looked after the house, the park and the estate during the Marquis's prolonged absence abroad. They always appeared plentifully supplied with money, which no doubt came to them through one of the many agencies in Jersey, and when M. le Marquis returned to France some five years ago he found his house in perfect order; and it is supposed that he rewarded his faithful steward generously, for the latter retired with his family to a little estate close by, where they continued to live in undiminished affluence.

M. le Marquis de Tr?vargan had obviously not brought a fortune back from exile; nevertheless, he and Madame la Marquise kept up a good deal of style at the ch?teau. They also went to Paris and made their obeisance to the Emperor at Versailles, and hitherto not the slightest suspicion of disloyalty to the new r?gime had attached to them.

The discovery of the outrageous plot against the life of the Emperor during the latter's visit to Caen the previous month, had left the Tr?vargans unscathed, even though close upon a score of their personal friends were implicated in the affair. It was only three weeks later that M. le Marquis learned that the one foolish letter he had written in the whole course of his cautious career had fallen into the hands of the police. He had written to his friend the Comte de Romorantin, urging him to keep aloof from the conspirators until he was sure that the Corsican had really been sent to Hades.

Unfortunately, M. de Romorantin had not destroyed the letter. He had it in his pocket at the very moment when the police made the raid on the house in the Rue aux Juifs and arrested the Chouan conspirators red-handed. The letter was seized, together with every other paper which happened to be in the possession of the prisoners, and it was that same highly compromising letter which Hippolyte Darnier was taking to Paris when he died so mysteriously in the private room of the "Cheval Blanc" at M?zidon.

Investigation at the ch?teau on the day following the discovery of the plot had led to no result. M. le Marquis watched with lofty indifference and disdain the turning over of his private papers and belongings by the heedless hands of the police. Except for that one letter, he had never committed an indiscretion or written an unguarded word in his life. But there was the letter! And it was this very search which, coming as a bolt from the blue, had assured him that he was no longer immune from suspicion.

The day following the death of Hippolyte Darnier, M. le Marquis de Tr?vargan received another visit from the police, this time in the person of M. Carteret, the commissary, whom he knew personally, and who came accompanied by a small, insignificant-looking personage dressed in grey. Once more, secure in the knowledge that nothing that could in any way compromise him existed inside his ch?teau, the Marquis received his visitors with condescending hauteur.

"Ah, ?a, my good Carteret," he said to the commissary somewhat tartly, "when am I and Madame la Marquise to be free from this insolent interference? Since when are the loyal subjects of His Majesty to be treated as if they were criminals?"

The worthy M. Carteret felt hot and cold all over. He had an enormous regard for M. le Marquis de Tr?vargan and a wholesome terror of the Minister's secret agent, and between the two he did not know to which saint he should pray for protection.

"Loyalty is a matter of degree," here interposed the Man in Grey in his usual monotone; "as Monsieur le Marquis well knows."

"A forged letter, Monsieur le Marquis?" interposed the Man in Grey with a smile. "Monsieur de Romorantin has owned to its authenticity."

"Monsieur de Romorantin was scared out of his wits," rejoined the Marquis, "or he never would have been taken in by such a clumsy forgery. And," he added haughtily, "I challenge you to produce it, so that at least I might have a chance of proving the truth of what I say."

"It is just because the letter has been stolen," stammered M. Carteret, "and the messenger murdered that we are here to-day, Monsieur le Marquis."

While he spoke a door at the farther end of the room opened, and a tall, handsome woman appeared upon the threshold. When the commissary finished speaking, she broke into a ringing laugh.

"A pretty story indeed!" she said harshly. "A monstrous accusation hurled at Monsieur le Marquis de Tr?vargan! And when he demands to be confronted with proofs of his guilt, these proofs are said to be destroyed, whilst a vague hint of murder goes to swell the iniquitous charge. A pretty pass, indeed!" she continued, as with stately steps she advanced into the room. "Fortunately His Majesty has some friendship for Monsieur le Marquis and myself, and we can appeal to him to punish those who have put this affront upon us."

"Your pardon, Madame la Marquise," answered the Man in Grey, as soon as she had finished her impassioned tirade. "Monsieur le Commissaire said that the letter had been stolen; he did not say that it had been destroyed."

An almost imperceptible shadow seemed to pass as in a flash over the Marquise's handsome face; but the very next second she shrugged her handsome shoulders and said flippantly:

"The same thing, my good man."

"I trust not, Madame la Marquise," rejoined the Man in Grey.

"Oh, we all know," here interrupted M. le Marquis with a sneer, "that in your unavowable profession, Monsieur, you are bound to send a certain number of unfortunates to what you call justice, whether they are guilty or not, or you would lose your highly lucrative employment. Isn't that so?"

"Our employment, Monsieur le Marquis," replied the Man in Grey imperturbably, "is not likely to find favour in your sight."

"Murder, Madame la Marquise!" queried the secret agent with a look of mild astonishment in his colourless eyes. "Who spoke of murder?"

"I thought," parried the Marquise airily, "that some spy or other of yours was murdered and robbed of the forged letter, which was supposed to convict Monsieur le Marquis de Tr?vargan and myself of disloyalty."

"How clumsy of me!" exclaimed Madame in some confusion, whilst the commissary of police, agitated and obsequious, crawled about on his hands and knees, trying to collect the fragments of priceless china which littered the carpet. "Do not trouble, I pray you, Monsieur le Commissaire," said the Marquise with affable condescension. "The servant will clear away the rubbish."

She sank into a chair, as if tired out with the interminable interview, and put her aristocratic hand up to her mouth, smothering a yawn.

"I was not saying anything, Madame la Marquise," rejoined the Man in Grey, smiling.

"Oh! nothing that would interest Monsieur le Marquis," replied the secret agent. "He was stabbed in the hand with a pin steeped in a deadly arrow poison, which in ordinary circumstances would have killed him in less than five minutes. Fortunately for him the assassin was either inexperienced or clumsy, or perhaps the poison had become stale by keeping. At any rate, poor Hippolyte Darnier was nearly killed--but not quite. He is still very ill--half paralysed; but the leech assures me that he will recover."

This time there was no mistaking the shadow which once more passed across the Marquise's handsome face, whilst for the space of a second or two the somewhat high colour of her cheeks changed to a leaden hue. The Marquis instinctively came forward a few steps, obtruding his stately figure between the police agent and his wife. Next moment, however, Madame had regained her composure. She rose from her chair, tall, dignified, unspeakably haughty.

"So much the better for your friend, Monsieur--er--I forget your name," she said coldly. "And now," she added as she walked majestically towards the door, "if you or Monsieur le Commissaire have any more senseless questions to ask, you must be content with the information Monsieur le Marquis condescends to give you. I confess to being weary of this folly."

She pushed open the door and sailed out of the room, as arrogant as any Queen of the old r?gime dismissing an importunate courtier. Then the door fell to behind her and her firm step soon died away along the marble corridor.

The commissary of police was pining to take his leave, and much to his relief the Man in Grey put no further questions to M. le Marquis, and after a few seconds declared himself ready to go. M. de Tr?vargan was quite pleasant to poor M. Carteret, who obviously greatly disapproved of this intrusion on the privacy of the stately ch?teau.

"Do not trouble to do that, my good Monsieur Carteret," interrupted M. de Tr?vargan impatiently. "Your assurances are unnecessary. You were obeying orders: and the man, I suppose, was fulfilling what he believed to be his duty."

Somewhat comforted, the commissary went downstairs in the wake of the Man in Grey, who was waiting for him in the vast entrance hall below, and was gazing in rapt admiration at the pictures and statuary which would not have shamed a royal residence.

"It is a rare treat," he was saying to the pompous majordomo who was waiting to usher the visitors out, "for art-lovers to have the opportunity of seeing these priceless treasures. Are they not sometimes shown to the public?"

"Oh, no, Monsieur," replied the majordomo sententiously. "As Monsieur and Madame de Tr?vargan are in residence, it would not be seemly to allow strangers to wander about the ch?teau."

"Ah!" said the Man in Grey, "then my sister was lucky indeed. She saw all these beautiful pictures and statues yesterday!"

"Yesterday, Monsieur?" queried the man, as haughtily as his master and mistress would have done. "I do not understand."

"This would be a pretty story, Monsieur," here broke in the majordomo impatiently, "if it were based on some semblance of truth. Madame la Marquise did not happen to be away all day yesterday."

"Madame la Marquise was indeed very much at home," continued the other with becoming sternness, "seeing that she entertained the children of the Convent School here to d?jeuner at midday and games all the afternoon."

The secret agent now appeared overwhelmed with confusion at his stupid blunder.

"Very likely!" retorted the majordomo with a sneer; and giving the plebeian police agent the supercilious stare which so much impertinence deserved, he finally closed the monumental doors of the ch?teau upon the unwelcome visitors.

"Another snub!" remarked the commissary of police as he descended the steps beside his silent colleague. "And why you trumped up that story about your sister and a maid, I cannot imagine!" he added with withering contempt.

But the Man in Grey apparently did not hear him, He was murmuring under his breath:

"Clever enough to have secured an alibi! I might have guessed it! And such an actress! But, then, how in Heaven's name was it done? How? And by whom?"

The Man in Grey had allowed the commissary of police to return to Caen, but he seemed to find it impossible to tear himself away from the neighbourhood of Tr?vargan. He felt that the lordly ch?teau held a grim secret within its walls, and he could not rest until he had wrung it from them.

All day he hung about the approaches of the park and, as soon as night fell, managed to creep into the depths of the shrubberies before the gates were closed. Here he remained on the watch, peering through the thicket at the stately pile, the windows of which soon became lighted from within, one by one. What he expected to see he could not have told you, but Night is the great guardian of dark mysteries and unavowable deeds, and the secret agent hoped that the gloom would mayhap give him the key to that riddle which had baffled him in broad light of day.

From where he was crouching he commanded a view both of the front of the house and of the path which led to the back. He had been lying in wait for nearly two hours, and a neighbouring church clock had just struck ten, when through the darkness he perceived the figure of a woman, wrapped in a cloak, walking quickly towards the ch?teau. At first he thought it might be one of the maids returning from a walk, but as the figure passed close to him, something vaguely familiar in the poise of the head and the shape of the cloak, caused him suddenly to crawl out of his hiding-place as noiselessly as he could, and to follow the woman until a bend in the avenue afforded him the opportunity which he sought. In one second he had taken off his mantle and, springing on her from behind, he caught her in his arms and threw the mantle over her head, smothering the cry which had risen to her lips. Though he was short and slight, he had uncommon strength, and the woman was small and slender. He lifted her off the ground and carried her along the avenue and down a side-path, until he had reached a secluded portion of the park.

Here he laid his burden down and unwound the mantle which was stifling her. Then he turned the light of his dark lantern upon her.

"Madame Darnier!" he murmured. "Just as I thought!"

Then, as the woman was still lying there almost unconscious, he threw back her cloak and looked at her hands. There was nothing in them. He felt for the pockets in her cloak and in her dress; his hands wandered over the folds of her gown; his ears, attuned to the slightest sound, listened for the crackling that would reveal the presence of papers concealed about her person. But there was nothing, and he frowned in deep puzzlement as he encountered her large, melancholy eyes, which were following his every movement with the look of a trapped animal watching its captor.

"What are you doing here in Tr?vargan?" he asked sternly.

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