"Madame de Lannoy, then, is of opinion that she gave them to Buckingham?"
"She is sure of it."
"How can she be so?"
"In the course of the day Madame de Lannoy, in her quality of tire-woman of the queen, looked for this casket, appeared uneasy at not finding it, and at length asked information of the queen."
"And then the queen?"
"The queen became exceedingly red, and replied that having in the evening broken one of those studs, she had sent it to her goldsmith to be repaired."
"He must be called upon, and so ascertain if the thing be true or not."
"I have just been with him."
"And the goldsmith?"
"The goldsmith has heard nothing of it."
"Well, well! Rochefort, all is not lost; and perhaps--perhaps everything is for the best."
"The fact is that I do not doubt your Eminence"s genius--"
"Will repair the blunders of his agent--is that it?"
"That is exactly what I was going to say, if your Eminence had let me finish my sentence."
"Meanwhile, do you know where the d.u.c.h.esse de Chevreuse and the Duke of Buckingham are now concealed?"
"No, monseigneur; my people could tell me nothing on that head."
"But I know."
"You, monseigneur?"
"Yes; or at least I guess. They were, one in the Rue de Vaugirard, No.
25; the other in the Rue de la Harpe, No. 75."
"Does your Eminence command that they both be instantly arrested?"
"It will be too late; they will be gone."
"But still, we can make sure that they are so."
"Take ten men of my Guardsmen, and search the two houses thoroughly."
"Instantly, monseigneur." And Rochefort went hastily out of the apartment.
The cardinal being left alone, reflected for an instant and then rang the bell a third time. The same officer appeared.
"Bring the prisoner in again," said the cardinal.
M Bonacieux was introduced afresh, and upon a sign from the cardinal, the officer retired.
"You have deceived me!" said the cardinal, sternly.
"I," cried Bonacieux, "I deceive your Eminence!"
"Your wife, in going to Rue de Vaugirard and Rue de la Harpe, did not go to find linen drapers."
"Then why did she go, just G.o.d?"
"She went to meet the d.u.c.h.esse de Chevreuse and the Duke of Buckingham."
"Yes," cried Bonacieux, recalling all his remembrances of the circ.u.mstances, "yes, that"s it. Your Eminence is right. I told my wife several times that it was surprising that linen drapers should live in such houses as those, in houses that had no signs; but she always laughed at me. Ah, monseigneur!" continued Bonacieux, throwing himself at his Eminence"s feet, "ah, how truly you are the cardinal, the great cardinal, the man of genius whom all the world reveres!"
The cardinal, however contemptible might be the triumph gained over so vulgar a being as Bonacieux, did not the less enjoy it for an instant; then, almost immediately, as if a fresh thought has occurred, a smile played upon his lips, and he said, offering his hand to the mercer, "Rise, my friend, you are a worthy man."
"The cardinal has touched me with his hand! I have touched the hand of the great man!" cried Bonacieux. "The great man has called me his friend!"
"Yes, my friend, yes," said the cardinal, with that paternal tone which he sometimes knew how to a.s.sume, but which deceived none who knew him; "and as you have been unjustly suspected, well, you must be indemnified.
Here, take this purse of a hundred pistoles, and pardon me."
"I pardon you, monseigneur!" said Bonacieux, hesitating to take the purse, fearing, doubtless, that this pretended gift was but a pleasantry. "But you are able to have me arrested, you are able to have me tortured, you are able to have me hanged; you are the master, and I could not have the least word to say. Pardon you, monseigneur! You cannot mean that!"
"Ah, my dear Monsieur Bonacieux, you are generous in this matter. I see it and I thank you for it. Thus, then, you will take this bag, and you will go away without being too malcontent."
"I go away enchanted."
"Farewell, then, or rather, AU REVOIR!"
And the cardinal made him a sign with his hand, to which Bonacieux replied by bowing to the ground. He then went out backward, and when he was in the antechamber the cardinal heard him, in his enthusiasm, crying aloud, "Long life to the Monseigneur! Long life to his Eminence! Long life to the great cardinal!" The cardinal listened with a smile to this vociferous manifestation of the feelings of M. Bonacieux; and then, when Bonacieux"s cries were no longer audible, "Good!" said he, "that man would henceforward lay down his life for me." And the cardinal began to examine with the greatest attention the map of La Roch.e.l.le, which, as we have said, lay open on the desk, tracing with a pencil the line in which the famous d.y.k.e was to pa.s.s which, eighteen months later, shut up the port of the besieged city. As he was in the deepest of his strategic meditations, the door opened, and Rochefort returned.
"Well?" said the cardinal, eagerly, rising with a prompt.i.tude which proved the degree of importance he attached to the commission with which he had charged the count.
"Well," said the latter, "a young woman of about twenty-six or twenty-eight years of age, and a man of from thirty-five to forty, have indeed lodged at the two houses pointed out by your Eminence; but the woman left last night, and the man this morning."
"It was they!" cried the cardinal, looking at the clock; "and now it is too late to have them pursued. The d.u.c.h.ess is at Tours, and the duke at Boulogne. It is in London they must be found."
"What are your Eminence"s orders?"
"Not a word of what has pa.s.sed. Let the queen remain in perfect security; let her be ignorant that we know her secret. Let her believe that we are in search of some conspiracy or other. Send me the keeper of the seals, Seguier."
"And that man, what has your Eminence done with him?"
"What man?" asked the cardinal.
"That Bonacieux."