 Section 11 of Library of the World's Best Mystery and Detective Stories, Volume 2. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Stephen Carney. Library of the World's Best Mystery and Detective Stories, Volume 2 by Julian Hawthorne, Editor. Section 11. The Baron's Quarry. The Baron's Quarry by Edgerton Castle. Oh no, I assure you, you are not bothering Mr. Marshfield, said this personage himself and his gentle voice, that curious voice that could flow on for hours, promulgating profound and startling theories on every department of human knowledge or conducting paradoxical arguments without a single inflection or pause of hesitation. I am, on the contrary, much interested in your hunting talk to paraphrase a well-worn quotation somewhat widely, nihil humanum ame elienum est. Even hunting stories may have their point of biological interest. The philologist sometimes pricks his ear to the jargon of the chase, or over, I am not incapable of appreciating the subject matter itself. This seems to excite some derision. I admit I am not much of a sportsman to look at nor either indeed by instinct, yet I have had some out-of-the-way experiences in that line, generally when intent on other pursuits. I doubt, for instance, if even you, Major Travers, notwithstanding your well-known exploits against man and beast, notwithstanding that doubtful smile of yours, could match the strangeness of a certain hunting adventure in which I played an important part. The speaker's small, deep-set black eyes that never warmed to anything more human than a purely speculative scientific interest in his surroundings, here wandered round a skeptical yet expectant circle with bland amusement. He stretched out his bloodless fingers for another of his host's superfine cigars and proceeded, with only such interruptions as were occasioned by the lighting and careful smoking of the latter. I was returning home after my prolonged stay in Petersburg, intending to linger on my way and test with mine own ears, certain among the many dialects of Eastern Europe, an end which there is a symmetrical little cluster of philological naughty points. It is my modest intention one day to unravel. However, that is neither here nor there. On the road to Hungary, I bethought myself, opportunely, of proving the once pressingly offered hospitality of the Baron Koselski. You may have met the man, Major Travers. He was a tremendous sportsman, if you like. I first came across him at McNeil's Palace in remote Ireland. Now, being in Bokoana, within measurable distance of his Carpathian abode, and curious to see a Polish lord at home, I remembered his invitation. It was already of long standing, but it had been warm, born, in fact, of a sudden fit of enthusiasm for me. Here, a half-mocking smile quivered an instant under the speaker's black mustache, which, as it was characteristic, I may as well tell you about. It was on the day of, or rather to be accurate, on the day after my arrival, toward the small hours of the morning, in the smoking room at Rathstrom. Our host was peacefully snoring over his empty pipe and his seventh glass of whiskey, also empty. The rest of the men had slunk off to bed. The Baron, who all unknown to himself, had been a subject of most interesting observation to me the whole evening, being now practically alone with me, condescended to turn an eye as wide awake as a foxes, albeit slightly bloodshot, upon the contemptible white-faced person who had preferred spending the raw hours over his papers, within the radius of a glorious fire's warmth, to creeping slyly over treacherous quagmires in a pursuit of timid bog creatures. Snipeshooting had been the order of the day. The Baron, I say, became aware of my existence and entered into conversation with me. He would no doubt have been much surprised could he have known that he was already mapped out, craniologically and physiognomically cataloged with care and neatly laid by in his proper ethnological box, in my private type museum. That, as I sat and examined him from my different coins of vantage in library, in dining and smoking room that evening, not a look of his, not a gesture went forth, but had significance for me. You, I had thought, with your broad shoulders and deep chest, your massive head that should have gone with a tall stature, not with those short, sturdy limbs, with your thick red hair that should have been black, for that matter, as should your wide-set yellow eyes. You would be a real puzzle to one who did not recognize in you equal mixtures of the fair, stalwart and muscular slob, with a billious sanguine, thick-set, wiry terrainian. Your pedigree would no doubt bear me out. There is as much of the magyar as of the pole in your anatomy, athlete and yet a tangle of nerves, a ferocious root at bottom, I daresay, for your broad forehead inclines to flatness. Under your bristling beard your jaw must protrude, and the base of your skull is ominously thick. And with all that capable of dealing transports, when that girl played and sang tonight I saw the swelling of your eyelid veins and how that small tenacious claw-like hand of yours twitched. You would be a fine leader of men, but God helped the wretches in your power. So I had mused upon him, yet I confess that when we came in closer contact with each other, even I was not proof against the singular courtesy of his manner and his unaccountable personal charm. Our conversation soon grew interesting, to me as a matter of course, and evidently to him also. A few general words led to interchange remarks upon the country we were both visitors in, and so to national characteristics, pole and Irishmen have not a few in common, both in their nature and history. An observation which he made, not without a certain flash in his light eyes and a transient uncovering of teeth, on the Irish type of female beauty suddenly suggested to me a stanza of an ancient Polish ballad with a very full of milk and blood imagery of alternating ferocity and voluptuousness. This I quoted to the astounded foreigner in the vernacular, and this it was that a metamorphose to his mere perfection of civility into sudden warmth, and in fact procured me the invitation in question. When I left Rathdram, the Baron's last words to me were that if I ever thought of visiting his country otherwise and in books, he held me bound to make Yanni his Galatian seat, my headquarters of study. From Zerniewicz, therefore, where I stopped some time, I wrote, received in due time a few lines of pretty worded reply, and ultimately entered my sled in the nearest town to, yet at a most forbidding distance from Yanni, and started on my journey thither. The undertaking meant many long hours of undulation and skidding over the November snow to the somniferous bell jangle of my dirty little horses, the only impression of interest being a weird gypsy concert I came in for at a miserable drinking booth half buried in the snow, where we halted for the refreshment of man and beast. Here I remember I discovered a very definite connection between the characteristic run of the symbol, the peculiar bite of the Zinniger's bow on his fiddle string, and some distinctive point of Turanian tongues. In other countries in Spain, for instance, your gypsy speaks differently on his instrument, but oddly enough, when I later attempted to put this observation on paper, I could find no word to express it. A few of our company evinced signs of sleepiness, but most of us who knew Marshfield and that he could, unless he had something novel to say, be as silent and retiring as he now evinced signs of being copious, awaited further developments with patience. He has his own deliberate way of speaking, which he evidently enjoys greatly, though it be occasionally trying to his listeners. On the afternoon of my second day's drive, the snow which till then had fallen fine and continuous ceased, and my Yehu, suddenly interrupting himself in the midst of some exciting wolf story quite in keeping with the time of year and the wild surroundings, pointed to a distant spot against the grey sky to the northwest, between two wood-covered folds of ground, the first eastern spurs of the great Carpathian chain. There stands Yanni, said he, I looked at my far off goal with interest. As we drew nearer, the sinking sun just dipping behind the hills tinged the now distinct frontage with a cold copper-like gleam, but it was only for a minute. The next, the building became nothing more to the eye than a black irregular silhouette against a crimson sky. Before we entered the long, steep avenue of poplars, the early winter darkness was upon us, rendered all the more depressing by grey mists, which gave a ghostly aspect to such objects as the sheen of the snow rendered visible. Once or twice there were feeble flashes of light, looming in iridescent halos as we passed the little clusters of hovels, but for which I should have been induced to fancy that the grey taff stood alone in the wilderness, such was the deathly stillness around. But even as the tall square building rose before us, above the vapour, yellow-lighted in various stories, and mighty in height and breadth, there broke upon my ear a deep-mouthed menacing bay, which gave at once almost alarming reality to the eerie surroundings. His lordships bore and wolfhounds, coath my charioteer calmly, unmindful of the regular ammonium of howls and barks, which ensued as he skillfully turned his horses through the gateway, and flogged the tired beasts into a sort of shambling canter that we might land with glory before the house door. A weakness, common, I believe, to drivers of all nations. I alighted in the court of honour, and while awaiting an answer to my tug at the bell, stood, broken with fatigue, depressed, chilled and aching, questioning the wisdom of my proceedings and the amount of comfort, physical and moral that was likely to await me in the tetatet visit, with a well-mannered savage in his own home. The unkempt tribe of stable retainers who began to gather round me and my rough vehicle in a gloom, with their evil-smelling sheepskins and their resigned battered visages, were not calculated to reassure me. It when the door opened, there stood a smart chasseur and a solemn major domo, who might but just have stepped out to be fair, and there was displayed a spreading vista of warm, deep-coloured halls, with here a statue and there a stuffed bear, and underfoot pile carpets strewn with the rarest skins. Marvelling, yet comforted with all, I followed the solemn butler, who received me with a deference due when expected guest, and expressed a master's regret for his enforced absence till dinnertime. I traversed vast rooms, each more sumptuous guest, feeling the strangeness of the contrast between the outer desolation and this cyberrhythmic excess of luxury growing ever more strongly upon me, caught a glimpse of a picture gallery, where peculiar yet admirably executed latter-day French pictures hung side by side with ferocious borehounds of snider and such skin. And at length was ushered into a most cheerful room, modern to excess in its comfortable promise, where, in addition to the tall stove necessary for warmth, there burned an open hearth, a vastly pleasant fire of resinous logs, and where, on a low table, awaited me a dainty service of fragrant Russian tea. My impression of utter novelty seemed somehow enhanced by this unexpected refinement in the heart of the solitudes and in such a rugged shell, and yet, when I came to reflect, it was only characteristic of my cosmopolitan host, but another surprise was in store for me. When I had recovered a bodily warmth and a mental equilibrium in my downy-armed chair, before the roaring logs and during delicious absorption of my second glass of tea, I turned my attention to the French valet, evidently the Baron's own man, who was deftly unpacking my portmanteau, and who, unless my practised eye deceived me, asked for nothing better than to entertain me with a greeble conversation the while. Your master is out, then? called I, knowing that the most trivial remark would suffice to start him. True, Montignor was out, he was desolated in despair. This was the national amiable and imaginative instinct, but it was doubtless important business. M. LaBaron had the visit of his factor during the mid-Aimeal, had left the table hurriedly, and had not been seen since. Madame LaBaron had been a little suffering, but she would receive Monsieur. Madame, exclaimed I, astounded, is your master then married? Since when? Visions of a fair charter fit mate for my Baron, immediately springing somewhat alluringly before my mental vision, but the answer dispelled the picturesque fancy. Oh, yes, said the man with a somewhat peculiar expression. Yes, Montignor is married. Did Monsieur not know, and yet it was from England that Montignor brought back his wife? An Englishwoman! My first thought was one of pity. An Englishwoman alone in this wilderness, two days is dry from even a railway station, and at the mercy of Kosovsky? But the next minute I reversed my judgment. Probably she adored her Rufus Lord, took his veneer curiosity, a veneer of most exquisite polish, I grant you, but perilously thin, for the very perfection of chivalry. Or, perchanted, was his inner savageness itself that charmed her. The most refined women often amaze one by the fascination which the preponderance of the brute in the opposite sex seems to have for them. I was anxious to hear more. Is it not dull for the lady here at this time of the year? The valet raised his shoulders with a gesture of despair that was almost passionate. Dull! Ah, Monsieur could not conceive to himself the dullness of it, that poor Madame Labarron, not even a little child to keep her company on the long, long days when there was nothing but snow in the heaven and on the earth and the howling of the wind and the dogs to cheer her. At the beginning indeed it had been different when the master first brought home his bride. The house was gay enough. It was all redecorated and refurnished to receive her. Monsieur should have seen it before. A mere rendezvous de chasse, for the matter of that, so were all the country houses in these parts. Ah, that was a good time. There were visits month after month, parties, laying, dancing, trips to St. Petersburg and Vienna. But this year it seemed they were to have nothing but bores and wolves. How, madame, could stand it? Well, it was not for him to speak, and have a deeping sigh he delicately inserted my white tie around my collar, and with a flourish twisted it into an irreproachable bow beneath my chin. I did not think it right to cross-examine the willing talker any further, especially as, despite his last asseveration, there were evidently volumes he still wished to pour forth. But I confess that as I made my way slowly out of the room along the noiseless length of passage, I was conscious of an unwanted, not to say vulgar, curiosity concerning the woman who had captivated such a man as the Baron Kosowski. In a fit of speculative abstraction I must have taken the wrong turning, for I presently found myself in a long, narrow passage. I did not remember. I was retracing my steps when there came the sound of rapid footfalls upon stone flags. A little door flew open in the wall close to me, and a small, thick-set man huddled in a rough sheepskin of the Galatian peasant, with a mangy fur cap on his head nearly ran headlong into my arms. I was about condescendingly to interpolate him in my best polish when I caught the gleam of an angry yellow eye and noted the bristle of a red beard. Kosowski! Amazed, I fell back a step in silent. With a growl like an uncouth animal disturbed, he drew his filthy cap over his brow with a savage gesture and pursued his way down the corridor at a sort of wild-bore trot. This first meeting between host and guest was so odd, so incongruous, that it afforded me plenty of food for a fresh line of conjecture as I traced my way back to the picture gallery, and from thence, successfully to the drawing room, which as the door was a jar, I could not this time mistake. It was large and lofty and dimly lit by shaded lamps. Through the rosy gloom I could at first only just make out a slender figure by the hearth. But as I advanced, this was resolved into a singularly graceful woman in clinging for a trimmed velvet gown who, with one hand resting on the high mantelpiece, the other hanging listlessly by her side, stood gazing down at the crumbling wood fire as if in a dream. My friends are kind enough to say that I have a cat-like tread. I know not how that may be. At any rate, the carpet I was walking upon was thick enough to smother a heavier footfall. Not until I was quite close to her did my hostess become aware of my presence. Then she started violently and looked over her shoulder at me with thy leading eyes. Evidently a nervous creature. I saw the pulse in her throat, strained by her attitude, flutter like a terrified bird. The next instant she had stretched out her hand with sweet English words of welcome, and the face which I had been comparing in my mind to that of Guido-Chenchi became transformed by the arch and exquisite smile of a grus. For more than two years I had had no intercourse with any of my nationality. I could conceive the sound of his native tongue under such circumstances, moving a man in a curious unexpected fashion. I babbled some commonplace reply, after which there was silence while we stood opposite each other. She looked at me expectantly. At length, with a sigh checked by a smile and an overtone of sadness and a voice had yet tried to be sprightly, am I then so changed, Mr. Marshfield, she asked, and all at once I knew her. The girl whose nightingale throat had redeemed the desolation of the evenings at Rathdrom, whose sunny beauty had seemed, even to my celebrated cold-blooded aestheticism, worthy to haunt a man's dreams. Yes, there was a subtle curve of the waist, the warm line of the throat, the dainty foot, the slender tip-tilted fingers, witty fingers as I had classified them, which I now shook like a true Briton, instead of availing myself of the privilege the country gave me at kissing her slender wrist. But she was changed, and I told her so with unconventional frankness, studying her closely as I spoke. I am afraid, I said gravely, that this place does not agree with you. She shrank from my scrutiny, with a nervous movement and flushed to the roots of her red-brown hair. Then she answered coldly that I was wrong, that she was in excellent health, but that she could not expect any more than other people to preserve perennial youth. I rapidly calculated she might be two-and-twenty, though indeed with a little forced laugh it was scarcely flattering to hear one had altered out of all recognition. Then, without allowing me time to reply, she plunged into a general topic of conversation which, as I should have been obtuse indeed not to take the hint, I did my best to keep up. But while she talked to Vienna and Warsaw of her distant neighbors and last year's visitors, it was evident that her mind was elsewhere. Her eye wandered, she lost the thread of her discourse, answered me at random, and smiled her piteous smile incongruously. However lonely she might be in her solitary splendor, the company of a countryman was evidently no such welcome diversion. After a little while she seemed to feel herself that she was lacking in cordiality, and bringing her absent gaze to bear upon me with a puzzled strain-look. I fear you will find it very dull, she said. My husband is so wrapped up in this winter in his country life and his sport. You are the first visitor we have had. There is nothing but guns and horses here, and you do not care for these things. The door creaked behind us, and the Baron entered in faultless evening-dress. Before she turned toward him, I was sharp enough to catch again the unpleaping of a quick dread in her eyes, not even so much dread perhaps I thought afterwards as horror, the horror we notice in subanimals at the nearing of a beast of prey. It was gone in a second, and she was smiling, but it was a revelation. Perhaps he beat her in Russian fashion, and she, as an Englishwoman, was narrow-minded enough to resent this, or perhaps merely I had the misfortune to arrive during a matrimonial misunderstanding. The Baron would not give me leisure to reflect. He was so very effusive in his greeting, not a hint of our previous meeting, unlike my hostess, all in all to me, eager to listen to reply, almost affectionate, full of references to old times and genial illusions. No doubt when he chose he could be the most charming of men. There were moments when, looking at him in his quiet smile and restrained gesture, the almost exaggerated politeness of his manner to his wife, whose fingers he had kissed with pretty old-fashioned gallantry upon his entrance, I asked myself, could that encounter in the passage been a dream? Could that savage in the sheepskin be my courteous entertainer? Just as I came in, did I hear my wife say there was nothing for you to do in this place? He said presently to me, then turning to her. You do not seem to know, Mr. Marshfield. Whoever he can open his eyes, there is for him something to see which might not interest other men. He will find things in my library which I will have no notion of. He will discover objects for scientific observations in all the members of my household, not only in the good looking maids, though he could, I have no doubt, tell their points as I could those of a horse. We have maidens here of several distinct races, Marshfield. We have also witches and Jew leeches and holy daft people. In any case, Yanni, with all its dependencies, material, male and female, are at your disposal for what you can make out of them. It is good, he went on Cayley, that you should happen to have this happy disposition, for I fear that no later than tomorrow I may have to absent myself from home. I have heard that there are news of wolves. They threaten to be a greater pest than usual this winter, but I am going to drive them on, quite a new plan, and it will go hard with me if I don't come even with them. Well, for you, by the way, Marshfield, that you did not pass within their scent to-day. Then musingly, I should not give much for the life of a traveller who happened to wander in these parts just now. Here he interrupted himself hastily and went to his wife, who had sunk back on her chair, livid, seemingly on a point of swooning. His gaze was devouring, so might a man look at the woman he adored in his anxiety. What! Faint! Violet alarmed! His voice was subdued, yet there was an unmistakable thrill of emotion in it. Shaw, thought I to myself, the man is a model husband. She clenched her hands, and by sheer force of will seemed to pull herself together. These nervous women have often an unfund of strength. Come, that is well, said the Baron with a flickering smile. Mr. Marshfield will think you but badly acclimatized to Poland if a little wolf scare could upset you. My dear wife is so soft-hearted, he went on to me, that she is capable of making herself quite ill over the sad fate that might have but has not overcome you, or perhaps he added in a still gentler voice, her fear is that I may expose myself to danger for the public wheel. She turned her head away, but I saw her set her teeth as if to choke a sob. The Baron chuckled in his throat, and seemed to luxuriate in the pleasant thought. At this moment, folding doors were thrown open, and supper was announced. I offered my arm, she rose, and took it in silence. This silence she maintained during the first part of the meal, despite her husband's brilliant conversation, and almost uproarious spirits. But by and by, a bright color mounted to her cheeks was horribly unpoetical if I add that she drank several glasses of champagne one after the other, a fact which perhaps may account for the change. At any rate, she spoke and laughed and looked lovely, and I did not wonder that the Baron could hardly keep his eyes off her. But whether it was her wifely anxiety or not, it was evident her mind was not at ease through it at all, and I fancied that her brightness was feverish, her merriment slightly hysterical. After my visit, when it was, we adjourned together in foreign fashion to the drawing-room. The Baron threw himself into a chair, and somewhat with the air of a pasha demanded music. He was flushed, the veins of his forehead were swollen and stood out like cords. The wine drunk at table was potent, even through my phlegmatic frame it ran hotly. She hesitated a moment or two, then docilely sat down to the piano. That she could sing, I have already made good sing, with what pathos passion as well as perfect art I had never realized before. When the song was ended, she remained for a while, with eyes lost in distance, very still, save for her quick breathing. It was clear she was moved by the music. Indeed, she must have thrown her whole soul into it. End of Section 11 Read by Stephen Carney Section 12 of Library of the World's Best Mystery and Detective Stories Volume 2 This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org Recording by Stephen Carney Library of the World's Best Mystery and Detective Stories Volume 2 by Julian Hawthorne, Editor Section 12 The Baron's Quarry, Part 2 by Edgerton Castle At first, we, the audience, paid her the rare compliment of silence. Then the Baron broke forth into loud applause. Bravo! Bravo! That was really said con amore, a delicious love song. Delicious! But French, you must sing one of our Slav melodies from Marshfield before you allow us to go and smoke. She started from her reverie with a flush applause, struck slowly a few simple chords, then began one of those strangely sweet, yet intensely pathetic Russian airs which gave one a curious revelation of the profound, endless melancholy lurking in the national mind. What do you think of it? asked the Baron of me when it ceased. What I have always thought of such music it is that of a hopeless people poetical, crushed, and resigned. He gave a loud laugh. He heard the analyst, the blog. Why, man, it is a love song. Is it possible that we, uncivilized, are true realists and are hyper-coachered western neighbors? Have we gone to the root of the matter in our simple way? The Baroness got up abruptly. She looked white and spent. There were bister circles round her eyes. I am tired, she said, with dry lips. You will excuse me, Mr. Marshfield. I must really go to bed. Go to bed, go to bed! cried her husband gaily. Then, quoting in Russian from the song she had just sung, sleep, my little soft white dove, my little innocent tender lamb, she hurried from the room. The Baron laughed again, and taking me familiarly by the arm, led me to his own set of apartments for the promised smoke, placed cigars of every description and a Turkish pipe ready to my hand, and a little table on which stood cut-glass flasks and beakers and tempting array. After I set my cigar with some precautions, I glanced at him over a careless remark and was startled to see a sudden alteration in his whole look and attitude. You will forgive me, Marshfield, he said as he caught my eye, speaking with spasmodic politeness. It is more than probable that I shall have to set out upon this chase I spoke of tonight, and I must now go and change my clothes that I may be ready to start at any moment. This is the hour when it is most likely these hell beasts are to be caught at. You have all you want, I hope. Interrupting an outbreak of ferocity by an effort after his former courtesy, it was curious to watch the man of the world struggling with the primitive man. But Baron said I, I do not at all see the fun of sticking at home like this. You know my passion for witnessing everything new, strange and outlandish. You will surely not refuse me such an opportunity for observation as a midnight wolf-raid. I will do my best not to be in the way if you will take me with you. At first it seemed as if he had some difficulty in realizing the drift of my words. He was so engrossed by some inner thought. But as I repeated them, he gave vent to a loud cacination. By heaven I'd like your spirit, he exclaimed, clapping me strongly on the shoulder. Of course you shall come. You shall, he repeated, and I promise you a sight, a hunt such as you never heard or dreamed of. You will be able to tell them in the sort of thing we can do here in that line. Such wolves are rare quarry, he added, looking slyly at me. And I have a new plan for getting at them. There was a long pause, and then there rose in the stillness the unearthly howling of the Baron's hounds, a cheerful sound which only their owner's somewhat loud converse of the evening had kept from becoming excessively obtrusive. Hark at them, the beauties! cried he, showing his short, strong teeth pointed like a dog's wide grin of anticipitude delight. They have been kept on pretty short commons, poor things. They're hungry. By the way, Marsfield, you can sit tight to a horse, I trust. If you were to roll off, you know, these splendid fellows, they would chop you up in a second. They would chop you up, he repeated anxiously. Snap, crunch, gobble, and there would be an end of you. If I could not ride a decent horse without being thrown, I retorted a little stung by his manner. After my recent three months' torture with regard, Cossacks, I should indeed be a hopeless subject. Do not think of frightening me from the exploit, but say frankly if my company would be displeasing. But, he said, waving his hand impatiently, it is your affair. I have warned you. Go and get ready if you want to come. Time presses. I was determined to be of the fray. My blood was up. I have hinted that the Baron's toky had stirred it. I went to my room and hurriedly dawned to close, more suitable for me. My last care was to slip into my pockets. A brace of double-barreled pistols which formed part of my traveling kit. When I returned, I found the Baron already booted and spurred this without metaphor. He was stretched full length on the divan, and did not speak as I came in or even look at me. Chewing an unlit cigar with eyes fixed on the ceiling, he was evidently following some absorbing train of ideas. The silence was profound. Time went by. It grew massive. At length, wearied out, I fell over my chavoke into a doze filled with puzzling visions out of which I was awakened with a start. My companion had sprung up very lightly to his feet. In his throat was an odd half-suppressed cry gruesome to hear. He stood on tiptoe with eyes fixed as though looking through the wall and I distinctly saw his ear's point in the intensity of his listening. After a moment with hasty, noiseless energy and without the slightest ceremony, he blew the lamps out, drew back the heavy curtains, and threw the tall window wide open. A rush of icy air and the bright rays of the moon—give us, I remember, in her third quarter—filled the room outside the mist had condensed and the view was unrestricted over the white plains at the foot of the hill. The bear instead motionless in the open window, calloused to the cold in which after a minute I could hardly keep my teeth from chattering, his head bent forward, still listening. I listened, too, with all my ears but could not catch a sound. Indeed, the silence over the great expanse of snow might have been called awful, even the dog's remute presently far, far away came a faint tinkle of bells, so faint at first that I thought it was but fancy but then distincter. It was even more eerie than the silence I thought, though I knew it could come but from some passing sleigh all at once that ceased and again my duller senses could perceive nothing, though I saw by my host's craning neck that he was more on the alert than ever but at last I too heard once more this time not bells, but as it were the tread of horses muffled by the snow, intermittent and dull yet drawing near and then in the inner silence of the great house it seemed to me I caught the noise of closing doors but here the hounds as of suddenly becoming alive to some disturbance raised the same fearsome concert of yells and barks with which they had greeted my arrival and listening became useless, I had risen to my feet my host turning from the window seized my shoulder with a fierce grip and bade me hold my noise for a second or two I stood motionless under his iron talons then he released me with an exultant whisper now for our chase and made for the door with a spring hastily gulping down the mouth full of a rack from one of the bottles on the table I followed him and guided by the sound of his footsteps before me groped my way through the passages as black as Arabus after a time which seemed a long one a small door was flung open in front and I saw Kosowski glide into the moonlit courtyard and cross the square when I too came out he was disappearing into the gaping darkness of the open stable door and there I overtook him a man who seemed to have been sleeping in a corner jumped up at our entrance and let out a horse ready saddled in obedience to a gruff order from his master as a ladder mounted he then brought forward another which he had evidently thought to ride himself and held the stirrup for me we came delicately forth and the Cossack hurriedly barred the great door behind us I caught a glimpse of his worn scarred face by the moonlight as he peeped after us for a second before shutting himself in it was stricken with terror the Baron trotted briskly toward the kennels from whence there was now issuing a truly infernal clanger and as my steed followed suit of his own accord I could see how he proceeded dexterously to unbolt the gates without dismounting while the beasts within dashed themselves against them and tore the ground in their fury of impatience he smiled as he swung back the barriers at last and his beauties came forth seven or eight monstrous brutes hounds of a kind unknown to me fulvis and sleek of coat tall on their legs square headed long tailed deep chested with terrible jaws slobbering in eagerness they leaped around and up at us much to our horses his distaste Kosowski still smiling lashed at them unsparingly with his hunting whip and they responded not with yells of pain but with snarls of fury managing his restless steed and his cruel whip with consummate ease my host drove the unruly crew from before him out of the precincts then halted and bent down from his saddle to examine some slight prince in the snow which led not the way I had come but toward another avenue in a second or two the hounds were gathered round this spot their great snake like tails quivering nose to the earth yelping with excitement I had some adieu to manage my horse and my eyesight was far from being as keen as the barons but I had then no doubt he had come already upon wolf tracks and I shuddered mentally thinking of those sleigh bells suddenly Kosowski raised himself from his strained position under his low cap his face with its fixed smile looked scarcely human in the white light and then we broke into a hand canter just as the hounds dashed in a compact body along the trail but we had not gone more than a few hundred yards before they began to falter then straggled stopped and ran back and about with dismal cries it was clear to me they had lost ascent my companion reigned in his horse and mine luckily a well trained brute halted of himself and in a broad avenue of furs and larches and just where we stood and where the hounds ever returned and met nose to nose in front a conclave the snow was trampled and soiled and a little farther on plained in a great sweep as if by a turning sleigh beyond was a double furrowed track of skates and regular hoof prints leading far away before I had time to reflect upon the bearing of this unexpected interruption Kosowski as of suddenly possessed by a devil fell upon the hounds with his whip flogging them upon the new track uttering the while the most savage cries I have ever heard issue from human throat the disappointed beasts were nothing loath to seize upon another trail after a second of hesitation they had understood and were off upon it at a tearing pace we after them at the best speed of our horses some unformed idea that we were going to escort or rescue but knighted travelers flickered dimly in my mind as I gallops through the night air but when I managed to approach my companion and call out to him for explanation he only turned half round and grinned at me before us lay now the white plain scintillating under the high moon's rays that light is deceptive I could be sure of nothing upon the white expanse but of the dark leaping figures of the hounds already spread out in a straggling line some right ahead others just in front of us in a short time also the icy wind cutting my face mercilessly as we increased our pace well nigh blinded me with tears of cold I can hardly realize how long this pursuit after an unseen prey lasted I can only remember that I was getting rather faint with fatigue and anonymously held on to my pommel when all of a sudden the black outline of a sleigh merged into sight in front of us I rubbed my smarting eyes with my benumbed hand we were gaining upon it second by second two of those hellhounds on the barons were already within a few leaps of it soon I was able to make out two figures one standing up and urging the horses on with whip and voice the other clinging to the back seat and looking toward us in an attitude of terror a great fear crept into my half frozen brain were we not bringing deadly danger instead of help to these travelers great god did the baron mean to use them as a bait for his new method of wolf hunting I would have turned upon Kosovsky with the cry for a vision or warning but he urging on his hounds as he galloped on their flank howling and gesticulating like a veritable hun passed me by like a flash and all at once I knew Marshfield paused for a moment and sent his pale smile round upon his listeners who now showed no signs of sleepiness he knocked the ash from the cigar twisted the ladder round in his mouth and added dryly and I confess it seemed to me a little strong even for a baron or pathians the travelers were our query but the reason why the lord of Yanni had turned a manhunter I was yet to learn just and I had to direct my energies to frustrating his plans I used my spurs mercilessly while I drew up even with him I saw the two figures in a sleigh changed places he who had hitherto driven now faced back while his companion took the reins there was the pale blue sheen of a revolver under the moonlight followed by a yellow flash and the nearest hound rolled over in the snow with an oath the baron twisted round in his saddle to call up and urge on the remainder my horse had taken fright at the report and dashed irresistibly forward bringing me at once almost level with the fugitives and the next instant the revolver was turned menacingly toward me there was no time to explain my pistol was already drawn and as another of the brutes bounded up almost under my weight I loosed it upon him I must have let off both barrels at once for the weapon flew out of my hand but the hound's back was broken I presume the traveler understood at any rate he did not fire at me in moments of intense excitement like these strangely enough the mind is extraordinarily open to impressions I shall never forget that man's countenance in the sledge as he stood upright and defied us in his mortal danger it was young very handsome the features not distorted but set into a sort of desperate stony calm and I knew it beyond all doubt for that of an Englishman and then I saw his companion it was the baron's wife and I understood why the bells had been removed it takes a long time to say this it only required an instant to see it the loud explosion of my pistol had hardly ceased to ring before the baron with the fearful implication was upon me first he lashed at me with his whip as we went side by side and then I saw him wind the reins round his off-arm and bend over and I felt his angry fingers closed tightly on my right foot the next instant I should have been lifted out of my saddle but there came another shot from the sledge the baron's horse plunged and stumbled and the baron hanging onto my foot with a fierce grip was wrenched from his seat his horse however was up again immediately and I was released and then I caught a confused glimpse of the frightened and wounded galloping wildly away to the right leaving a black track of blood behind him in the snow his master entangled in the reins running with incredible swiftness by his side and endeavoring to vault back into the saddle and now came to pass a terrible thing which in his savage plans my host had doubtless never anticipated one of the hounds that had during this short check recovered lost ground coming across this hot trail of blood turned away from his course and with a joyous yell darted after the running man in another instant the remainder of the pack was upon the new scent as soon as I could stop my horse I tried to turn him in the direction the new chase had taken but just then through the night air over the receding sound of the horse's scamper and the sobbing of the pack in full cry there came a long scream and after that a sickening silence and I knew that somewhere yonder under the beautiful moonlight the Baron Kosowski was being devoured by his starving dogs I looked round with a sweat on my face vaguely and for some human being to share the horror of the moment and I saw a gliding away far away in the white distance the black silhouette of the sledge well said we in diverse tones of impatience curiosity or horror according to our diverse temperaments he grinned across his legs and gazed at us in mild triumph with all the air of having said his say and satisfactorily proved his point well repeated he what more do you want to know it will interest you but slightly I am sure to hear how I found my way back to the Hough or how I told as much as I deemed prudent of the evenings gruesome work to the Baron's servants who by the way to my amazement displayed the profoundest and most unmistakable sorrow at the tidings and sallied forth at their head the Cossack who had seen us depart to seek for his remains excuse the unpleasantness of the remark I fear the dogs must have left very little of him he had died to them so carefully however since it was to have been a case of chop crunch and gobble as a Baron had it I preferred that that particular fate should have overtaken him rather than me or for that matter either of those two country people of ours in the sledge nor am I going to inflict upon you continued Marshfield after draining his glass a full account of my impressions when I found myself once more in that immense deserted and stricken house so luxuriously prepared for the mistress who had fled from it how I philosophized over all this according to my want the conjectures I made as to the first acts of the drama the untold sufferings my country woman must have endured for the moment her husband first grew jealous till she determined on this desperate first step as to how and when she had met her lover how they communicated and how the Baron had discovered the intended flitting in time to concoct his characteristic revenge one thing you may be sure of I had no mind to remain at Yanni an hour longer than necessary I even contrived to get well clear of the neighborhood before the lady's absence was discovered luckily for me or I might have been taxed with connivance though not seemed to know what suspicion was and accepted my account with childlike credence very typical and very convenient to me at the same time but how do you know said one of us that the man was her lover he might have been her brother or some other relative that said Marshfield with his little flat laugh I happen to have ascertained and curiously enough only a few weeks ago it was at the play between the acts for my comfortable seat the first row in the pit I was looking leisurely around the house when I caught sight of a woman in a box close by whose head was turned from me and who presented the somewhat unusual spectacle of a young neck and shoulders of the most exquisite contour and perfectly grey hair and not dolbray but rather of a pleasing tint like frosted silver this aroused my curiosity I brought my glasses to a focus on her and waited patiently till she turned round and I no longer wondered at the young hair being white yet she looked placid and happy strangely so it seemed to me under the sudden reviving in my memory of such scenes as I have now described but presently I understood further beside her in close attendance was the man of the sledge a handsome fellow with much of a military air about him during the course of the evening as I watched I saw a friend of mine come into the box and I slipped out into the passage to catch him as he came out who was a woman with a white hair, I asked then in the fragmentary style approved of by ultra-fashionable young men this earnest, languid mode of speech presents curious similarities in all languages he told me most charming couple in London awful pretty, wasn't she she had been in the guards at a shea at Vienna once they adored each other white hair, devilish queer, wasn't it suited her somehow then she had been married to a Russian or something somewhere in the wilds and their names were well, do you know, said Marshfield interrupting himself, I think I had better let you find that out for yourselves if you care End of Section 12 Recording by Stephen Carney Section 13 of Library of the World's Best Mystery and Detective Stories Volume 2 this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org Recording by Leonard Wilson Library of the World's Best Mystery and Detective Stories Volume 2 Julian Hawthorne Editor Section 13 The Foul in the Pot an episode adapted from the memoir Self-Maximillion to Bétonne Duke of Sully by Stanley J. Wayman What I am going to relate may seem to some merely to be curious and on a party with the diverting story of Monsieur of Waarows which I have sat down in an earlier part of my memoirs but among the calamities of those who have never ceased to attack me since the death of the late king the statement that I kept from his majesty things which should have reached his ears has always had a prominent place though a thousand times refuted by my friends and those who from an intimate acquaintance with events could judge how faithfully I labored to deserve the confidence with which my master honored me Therefore I take it in hand to show by an example trifling in itself the full knowledge of affairs which the king had and to prove that in many matters which were never permitted to become known to the idlers of the court he took a personal share worthy as much of Haroun as of Alexander It was my custom before I entered upon those negotiations with the Prince of Condé which terminated in the recovery of the estate of Vibon where I now principally reside to spend a part of the autumn and winter at Roigny On these occasions I was in the habit of leaving Paris with a considerable train of Swiss pages, valleys and grooms together with the maids of honour and waiting women of the Duchess We halted to take dinner at Poissy and generally contrived to reach Roigny toward nightfall so as to sup by the light of Flambeau in a manner enjoyable enough though devoid of that state which I have ever maintained and enjoined upon my children as at once the privilege and bourbon of rank At the time of which I am speaking I had for my favourite charger the Sorrel Horse which the Duke of Mercleur presented to me with a view to my good offices at the time of the King's entry into Paris and which I honestly transferred to his majesty in accordance with the principal laid down in another place The King insisted on returning it to me and for several years I wrote it on these annual visits to Roigny What was more remarkable was that on each of these occasions it cast a shoe about the middle of the afternoon and always when we were within a short league of the village of Aubeige-en-Ville though I never had with me less than half a score of land horses I had such an affection for the Sorrel that I preferred to wait until it was shod rather than accommodate myself to a nag of less easy paces and would allow my household to precede me staying behind myself with at most a guard or two my valet and a page The forge at Aubeige-en-Ville was kept by a smith of some skill a cheerful fellow whom I always remembered to reward considering my own position rather than his services with a gold lever His joy at receiving what was to him the income of a year was great and never failed to reimburse me In addition to which I took some pleasure in unbending and learning from this simple peasant and loyal man what the taxpayers were saying of me and my reforms a duty I always felt I owed to the king, my master As a man of breeding it would ill become me the only truths I thus learned the conversations of the vulgar are little suited to a nobleman's memoirs but in this I distinguish between the duke of Sully and the king's minister and it is in the latter capacity that I relate what passed on these diverting locations Ho, Simon, I would say encouraging the poor man as he came bowing and trembling before me How goes it, my friend? Badly he would answer very badly until your lordship came this way And how is that, little man? Oh, it is the roads he always replied, checking his bald head as he began to set about his business The roads since your lordship became surveyor general are so good that not one horse in a hundred casts a shoe and then there are so few highwaymen now that not one robber's place do I replace in a twelve-month There is where it is At this I was highly delighted Still, since I began to pass this way times have not been so bad with you, Simon, I would answer There, too, he made one invariable reply No, thanks to Saint-Jean-Vierre venue at your lordship whom we call in this village the poor man's friend I have a fowl in the house I have a fowl in the pot This phrase so pleased me that I repeated it to the king It tickled his fancy also and for some years it was a very common remark of that good and great ruler that he hoped to live to see every peasant with a fowl in his pot But why, I remember I must ask this on his fellow It was on the last occasion of the sorrel following lame there Do you thank Saint-Jean-Vierreve? She is my patron saint, he answered Then you are a parishion Your lordship is always right But does her saintship do you any good, I asked curiously Certainly by your lordship's leave my wife praised to her and she loosens the nails in the sorrel's shoes In fact she pays off an old grudge, I answered for there was a time when Paris liked me little But hark ye master Smith, I am not sure that this is not an act of treason to conspire with Madame Jean-Vierreve against the comfort of the king's minister What, think you you rascal can you pass the justice elm without a shiver? This threw the simple fellow into a great fear which the sight of the lever of gold speedily turned it into joy as stupendous leaving him still staring at his fortune I rode away but when we had gone some little distance the aspect of his face when I charged him with treason or my own unassisted discrimination suggested a clue to the phenomenon Latrap I said to my valet the same who was with me at Cahor What is the name of the innkeeper at Cahor at whose house we are accustomed to dine Andrew, may it please your lordship Andrew I thought so I exclaimed smiling my thigh Simon and Andrew his brother Answer, Nave, and if you have permitted me to be robbed these many times tremble for your ears Is he not brother to the Smith and Aubergin-Vie who has just shot my horse Latrap professed to be ignorant on this point but a groom who had stayed behind with me having sought my permission to speak said it was so adding that master Andrew had risen in the world through large dealings in hay which he was want to take daily into Paris and sell and that he did not now acknowledge or see anything of his brother the Smith though it was believed that he retained a snicking liking for him on receiving this confirmation of my suspicions my vanity as well as my sense of justice led me to act with the promptitude which I have exhibited in greater emergencies I rated Latrap for his carelessness of my interests in permitting this deception to be practiced on me and the main body of my attendance being now in sight I ordered him to take to Swiss and arrest both brothers without delay it wanted yet three hours of sunset and I judged that by hard writing they might reach Rene with the prisoners before bedtime I spent some time while still on the road and considering what punishment I should inflict on the culprits and finally lay it aside the purpose I had at first conceived of putting them to death an infliction they had richly deserved in favor of a plan which I thought might offer me some amusement for the execution of this I depended upon Mignon, my equity, who was a man of lively imagination, being the same who had of his own motion arranged and carried out the triumphal procession in which I was born through Rene after the battle of Ivory before I sat down to supper I gave him his directions and as I had expected news was brought to me while I was at table that the prisoners had arrived Marabane informed the duchess and the company generally for, as was usual, a number of my country neighbors had come to compliment me on my return that there was some sport of a rare kind on foot and we adjourned Mignon, followed by four pages bearing lights leading the way to that end of the terrace which abuts on the Linden Avenue here a score of grooms holding torches aloft had been arranged in a circle so that the impromptu theater thus formed which Mignon had ordered with much taste was as light as in the day. On a sloping bank at one end seats had been placed for those who had supped at my table while the rest of the company found such places of vantage as they could their number indeed amounting with my household to two hundred persons in the center of the open space a small forge fire had been candle the red glow of which added much to the strangeness of the scene and on the anvil beside it were arranged a number of horses and donkeys shoes with a full compliment of the tools used by Smiths all being ready I gave the word to bring in the prisoners and escorted by Latrup and six of my guards they were marched into the arena with their pale and terrified faces and the shaking limbs which could scare support them to their appointed stations I read both the consciousness of guilt and the apprehension of immediate death it was plain that they expected nothing less I was very willing to play with their fears and for some time looked at them in silence while all wondered with lively curiosity what would ensue I then addressed them gravely telling the innkeeper that I knew well he had loosened each year a shoe of my horse in order that his brother might profit by the job of replacing it and went on to reprove the spiff for the ingratitude which had led him to return my bounty by the conception of so maybe chattric upon this they confessed their guilt and flinging themselves upon their knees with many tears and prayers begged for mercy this after a decent interval I permitted myself to grant your lives which are forfeited shall be spared I pronounced but punished you must be I therefore ordain that Simon the smith at once fit nail and properly secure a pair of iron shoes to Andrew's heels and that then Andrew who by that time will have picked up something of the smith's art do the same to Simon so will you both learn to avoid such shooing tricks for the future it may well be imagined that a judgment so whimsical and so justly adapted to the offense charmed all save the culprits and in a hundred ways the pleasure of those present was events to such a degree indeed that Bagnan had some difficulty in restoring silence and gravity to the assemblage this done however Master Andrew was taken in hand and his wooden shoes removed the tools of his trade were placed before the smith who cast glances so piteous first at his brother's feet and then at the shoes on the anvil as again gave rise to a prodigious amount of merriment my pages in particular well-knife forgetting my presence and rolling about in a manner unpardonable at another time however I rebuked them sharply and was about to order the sentence to be carried into effect when the remembrance of the many pleasant simplicities which the smith had uttered to be acting upon a natural disposition to mercy which the most columnius of my enemies have never questioned induced me to give the prisoners escape elicit I said Simon and Andrew your sentence has been pronounced and will certainly be executed unless you can avail yourself of the condition I now offer you shall have three minutes if in that time either of you can make a good joke he shall go free if not let a man attend to the mellows this added a fresh satisfaction to my neighbors who were well assured now that I had not promised them a novel entertainment without good grounds for the grimaces of the two naves thus bidden to jest if they would save their skins were so diverting they would have made a nun laugh they looked at me with their eyes as wide as plates and for the whole of the time of grace never a word could they utter save howls for mercy Simon I said gravely when the time was up have you a joke no Andrew my friend have you a joke no then I was going on to order the sentence to be carried out when the innkeeper flung himself again upon his knees and cried out loudly as much to my astonishment as to the regret of the bystanders who were bent on seeing so strange as shooing feet one word my lord I can give you no joke but I can do a service an imminent service to the king I can disclose a conspiracy I was somewhat taken aback by this sudden and public announcement but I had been too long in the king's employment not to have remarked how strangely things are brought to light on hearing the man's words therefore which were followed by a stricken silence I looked sharply at the faces of such of those present as it was possible to suspect but failed to observe any sign of confusion or dismay or anything more particular than so abrupt a statement was calculated to produce doubting much whether the man was not playing with me I addressed him sternly warning him to beware of his anxiety to save his heels by falsely accusing others he should lose his head for that if his conspiracy should prove to be an invention of his own I should certainly consider it my duty to hang him forthwith he hurt me out but nevertheless persisted in his story adding desperately it is a plot by lord to assassinate you and the king on the same day this statement struck me a blow for I had good reason to know that at that time the king had alienated many by his infatuation for Madame de Verneuil which I had always to reckon firstly with all who hated him and secondly with all whom I pursued of his interests injured either in reality or appearance I therefore immediately directed that the prisoner should be led in close custody to the chamber adjoining my private closet and taking the precaution to call my guards about me since I knew not what attempt despair might not breed I withdrew myself making such apologies to the company as the nature of the case permitted I ordered Simon the smith to be first brought to me and in the presence of Mignon only I severely examined him as to his knowledge of any conspiracy he denied however that he had ever heard of the matters referred to by his brother and persisted so firmly in the denial that I was inclined to believe him in the end he was taken out and Andrew was brought in the innkeeper's demeanor was such as I have often observed in intrigues brought suddenly to book he averred the existence of the conspiracy and that its objects were those which he had stated he also offered to give up his associates but conditioned that he should do this in his own way undertaking to conduct me and one other person but no more lest the alarm should be given to a place in Paris on the following night where we could hear the plotters state their plans and designs in this way only he urged could proof positive be obtained I was much startled by this proposal and inclined to think it a trap but further consideration dispelled my fears the innkeeper had held no parley with anyone save his guards and myself since his arrest and could neither have warned his accomplices nor acquainted them with any design the execution of which he should depend on his confession to be I therefore accepted his terms with a private reservation that I should have help at hand and before daybreak next morning left Rony which I had only seen by torchlight with my prisoner and a select body of Swiss we entered Paris in the afternoon in three parties with as little parade as possible and went straight to the arsenal once as soon as evening fell I hurried with only two armed attendants to the Louvre a return so sudden as expected was as great a surprise to the court as to the king and I was not slow to mark with an inward smile the discomposure which appeared very clearly on the faces of several as the crowd in the chamber fell back for me to approach my master I was careful however to remember that this might arise from other causes than guilt the king received me with his wanted affection and dividing at once that I must have something to communicate with drew with me to the farther end of the chamber where we were out of your shot of the court I there related the story to his majesty keeping back nothing he shook his head saying merely the fish to escape the frying pan grandmaster will jump into the fire and human nature save in the case of you and me who can trust one another is very fishy I was touched by this gracious compliment but not convinced you have not seen the man sire I said and I have had that advantage and believe him in part I answered with caution so far at least as to be assured that he thinks to save his skin which he will only do if he be telling the truth may I beg you sire I had at hastily seeing the direction of his glance I looked so fixedly at the Duke of Epernon he grows uneasy conscience makes you know the rest naysire with submission I replied I will answer for him if he be not driven by fear to do something reckless good I take your warranty Duke of Sunni the king said with easy grace which came so natural to him but now in this matter you have me do double your guard sire for tonight that is all I will answer for the Bastille and the Arsenal and holding these we hold Paris but thereupon I found that the king had come to a decision which I felt it by duty to come back with all my influence he had conceived the idea of being the one to accompany me to the rendezvous I am tired of the dice I think of tennis at which I know everybody's strength Madame de Vanouy is at Fontainebleau the queen is unwell Ah surely I would the old days were back when we had Narac for our Paris and knew the saddle better than the armchair the king must think of his people I reminded him the fowl in the pot to be sure so I will tomorrow be plied and in the end he would be obeyed I took my leave of him as if for the night and retired leaving him at play with the Duke of Apier-Nôme but an hour later toward 8 o'clock his majesty who had made an excuse to withdraw to his closet met be outside the eastern gate of the Louvre he was masked and attended only by coquet his master I too wore a mask and was esquired by Mignon under whose orders were four Swiss whom I had chosen because they were unable to speak French guarding the prisoner Andrew I banned Mignon follow the innkeeper's directions and we proceeded in two parties through the streets on the left bank of the river past the Châtelet and Bastille until we reached an obscure streets near the water so narrow that the decrepit wooden houses shut out well and I all view of the sky here the prisoner halted and called upon me to fulfill the terms of my agreement I banned Mignon therefore to keep with the Swiss at a distance of fifty paces but to come up should I whistle or otherwise give the alarm and myself with the king and Andrew proceeded onward in the deep shadow of the houses I kept my hand on my pistol which I had previously shown to the prisoner intimating that on the first sign of treachery I should blow out his brains however despite precaution I felt uncomfortable to the last degree I blamed myself severely for allowing the king to expose himself and the country to this unnecessary danger while the meanness of the locality defeated there the darkness of the night which was wet and tempestuous and the uncertainty of the event lowered my spirits and made every splash in the kennel and stumble on the reeking slippery pavements matters over which the king grew buried seemed no light troubles to me arriving at a house which if we might judge in the darkness seemed to be a rather greater pretensions than its fellows our guide stopped and whispered to us to mount some steps to a raised wooden gallery which intervened between the lane and the doorway on this besides the door a couple of unglazed windows looked out the shutter of one was ajar and showed us a large bare room lighted by a couple of rush lights directing us to place ourselves close to this shutter the innkeeper knocked at the door in a peculiar fashion and almost immediately entered going at once into the lighted room peering cautiously through the window we were surprised to find that the only person within saved the newcomer was a young woman who, crouching over a smoldering fire was crooning a lullaby while she attended to a large black pot good evening, mistress said the innkeeper advancing to the fire fair show of nonchalance good evening, master Andrew the girl replied looking up and nodding but showing no sign of surprise at his appearance Martin is away but he may return at any moment is he still of the same mind? quite and what of Sully is he to die then? he asked they have decided he must the girl answered gloomily it may be believed that I listened with all my ears while the king, by a nudge in my side seemed to rally me on the destiny so cruelly arranged for me Martin says it is no good killing the other unless he goes too they have been so long together but it vexes me sadly, master Andrew she added with a sudden brick in her voice sadly it vexes me I could not sleep last night for thinking of it this Martin runs and I shall sleep less when it is done boo-boo said they rascally innkeeper think less about it things will grow worse and worse if they are let live the king has done harm enough already and he grows old besides that is true said the girl and no doubt the sooner he is put out of the way the better he has chanced sadly I do not say a word for him to die it is killing Suley that troubles me that and the risk Martin runs at this I took the liberty of gently touching the king he answered by an amused grimace then by a motion of his hand he enjoined silence we stoop still farther forward so as better to command the room the girl was rocking herself to and fro in evident distress of mind if we killed the king she continued Martin declares we should be no better off as long as Suley lives both or neither he says but I do not know I cannot bear to think of it it was a sad day when we brought Apernault here master Andrew and one I fear we shall rue as long as we live it was now the king's turn to be moved he grasped my wrist so forcibly that I restrained a cry with difficulty Apernault he whispered harshly in my ear they are Apernault's tools where we shall guaranteed out on thee I confess that I trembled I knew well that the king particular in small courtesies never forgot to call his servants by their correct titles save in two cases when he indicated by this seeming error as once in Marshall B. Roan's affair his intention to promote and degrade them or when he was moved to the depths of his nature and fell into an old habit I did not dare to reply but listened greedily for more information when is it to be done nasty and deeper seeking his voice and glancing round as if we would call special attention to this that depends upon master la revière as a girl answered tomorrow night I understand if master la revière can have stuff ready I met the king's eyes they shone fiercely in the faint light which issuing from the window fell on him of all things he haden treachery most and la revière was his first body physician and at this very time as I well knew was treating him for a slight derangement which the king had brought upon himself by his imprudence this doctor had formerly been in the employment of the Bouillon family who had surrendered his services to the king neither I nor his master had trusted the Bouillon for the last year past so that we were not surprised by this hint that he was privy to the design despite our anxiety not to miss a word an approaching step warned us at this moment to draw back more than once before we had done so to escape the notice of the wayfarer passing up and down but this time I had a difficulty in inducing the king to adopt the precaution yet it was well that I succeeded for the person who came stumbling along toward us did not pass but mounting the steps walked by within touch of us and entered the house the plot thickens buttered the king who is this at the moment he asked I was racking my brain to remember I have a good eye for recollection for faces and this was one I had seen several times the features were so familiar that I suspected the man of being a courtier in disguise and I ran over the names of several persons whom I knew to be Bouillon's secret agents but he was none of these and obeying the king's gesture I bet myself again to the task of listening the girl looked up on the man's entrance but did not rise you were late Barton she said a little the newcomer answered how do you do, master Andrew what cheer what still vexing mistress he added contemptuously to the girl you have too soft a heart for this business she sighed but made no answer you have made up your mind to what I hear said the innkeeper that is it needs must when the devil drives, replied the man gently he had a downcast reckless luckless air yet in his face I thought I still saw traces of a better spirit the devil in this case was a bernon, quote Andrew I cursed him my would I had cut his dainty throat before he crossed my threshold cried the desperado but there it is too late to say that now asked to be done asked to be done how are you going about it poison the mistress says yes but if I had my way the man growled fiercely I would out one of these nights and cut that dog's throat in the kennel you could never escape Barton the girl cried rising in excitement it would be hopeless it would merely be throwing away your own life well it is not to be done that way so there is an end of it give me my supper the devil take the king and sully too he will soon have them on this master Andrew rose and I took his movement toward the door for a signal for us to retire he came out at once shutting the door behind him as he bad the pair within a loud good night he found a standing in the street waiting for him and forthwith fell his knees in the mud and looked up at me the perspiration standing thick on his white face my lord he cried hoarsely I have earned my pardon if you go on I said encouragingly as you have begun I have no fear without more ado I whistled up the Swiss and bad menion go with them and arrest the man and woman with as little disturbance as possible while this was being done we waited without keeping a sharp eye upon the informer whose terror I noted with suspicion seemed to be in no degree diminished he did not however try to escape and menion presently came to tell us that he had executed the arrest without difficulty or resistance the importance of arriving at the truth before Apernau and the greater conspirators should take the alarm was so vividly present to the minds of the king and myself that we did not hesitate to examine the prisoners in their house rather than hazard the delay and observation which their removal to a more fit place must occasion accordingly taking the precaution to post coquet in the street outside and to plant a burly Swiss in the doorway the king and I entered I removed my mask as I did so being aware of the necessity of gaining the prisoners confidence but I begged the king to retain his as I had expected the man immediately recognized me and fell on his knees a nearer view confirming the notion I had previously entertained that his features were familiar to me though I could not remember his name I thought this a good starting point for my examination and bidding menion withdraw I assumed an air of mildness and asked the fellow his name Martin, only place your lordship he answered adding I once I sold you two dogs for the chase and to your lady a lap dog called Dinette no larger than her hand I remembered the nave then as a fashionable dog dealer who had been much about the court in the reign of Henry III and later and I saw it once how convenient a tool he might be made since he could be seen in converse with people of all ranks without arousing suspicion the man's face as he spoke expressed so much fear and surprise that I determined to try what I had often found successful in the case of greater criminals to squeeze him for a confession while still excited by his arrest and before he should have had time to consider what his chances of support at the hands of his confederates might be I charged him therefore solemnly to tell the whole truth as he hoped for the king's mercy he heard me gazing at me piteously but his only answer to my surprise was that he had nothing to confess come come I replied sternly this will avail you nothing if you do not speak quickly rogue and to the point we shall find means to compel you who counseled you to attempt his majesty's life on this he stared so stupidly at me and exclaimed with so real an appearance of horror how I attempt the king's life God forbid that I doubted that we had before us a more dangerous rascal than I had thought and I hastened to bring him to the point what then I cried frowning of the stuff master la revere is to give you to take the king's life tomorrow night oh we know something I assure you be thank you quickly and find your tongue if you would have an easy death I expected to see his self-control breakdown at this proof of our knowledge of his design but he only stared at me with the same look of bewilderment I was about to bid them bring in the informer that I might see the two front to front when the female prisoner who had hitherto stood beside her companion in such distress and terror as might be expected in a woman of that class suddenly stopped her tears and lamentations it occurred to me that she might make a better witness I turned to her but when I would have questioned her she broke into a wild scream of hysterical laughter from that I remember that I learned nothing though it greatly annoyed me but there was one present who did the king he laid his hand on my shoulder gripping it with a force that I read as a command to be silent well he said to the man do you keep the king and Sully and Epeno my friend the king and Sully with a large sleeve said the man quickly with a frightened glance at me are in the kennels at the back of the house but it is not safe to go near them the king is raving mad and the other dog is sickening Epeno we had to kill a month back he brought the disease here and I have had such losses through him as have nearly ruined me please your lordship get up get up man cried the king and tearing off his mask he stamped up and down the room so torn by paroxysms of laughter that he choked himself when again and again he attempted to speak I too now saw the mistake but I could not at first see it in the same light commanding myself as well as I could ordered one of the Swiss to fetch in the innkeeper but to admit no one else but they fell on his knees as soon as he saw me his cheeks shaking like a jelly mercy mercy was all he could say you have dared to play with me I whispered you bad me joke he solved you bad me I was about to say that it would be his last joke in this world for my anger was fully aroused by the king intervening nay he said laying his hands softly on my shoulder it has been the most glorious jest I would not have missed it for a kingdom I command you silly to forgive him thereupon his majesty strictly charged the three that they should not on peril of their lives mentioned the circumstances to anyone nor to the best of my belief or so being so shrewdly scared when they recognized the king that I verily think they never afterwards so much as spoke of the affair to one another my master further gave me on his own part his most gracious promise that he would not disclose the matter even to madame de van wee or the queen and upon these representations he induced me freely to forgive the innkeeper who ended this conspiracy on the diverting details of which I may seem to have dwelt longer than I should but alas in twenty one years of power I investigated many and this one only can I regard with satisfaction the rest were so many warnings and predictions of the fate which despite all my care and fidelity was in store for the great master I served and of section thirteen of library of the best mystery and detective stories volume two recording by Leonard Wilson of springfield Ohio