The Helmet of Navarre Part 42

"Speak, rascal," Lucas cried. "Am I Comte de Mar?"

"No," the maitre answered in low, faltering tones. He was at the last point of pain and fear. "No, monsieur officer, it is as he says. He is not the Comte de Mar."

"Who is he, then?"

"I know not," the maitre stammered. "He came here last night. But it is as he says--he is not the Comte de Mar."

"Take care, mine host," the officer returned; "you're lying."

I could not wonder at him; if I had not been in a position to know otherwise, I had thought myself the maitre was lying.

"If you had spoken at first I might have believed you," the captain said, bestowing a kick on him. "Get out of here, old a.s.s, before I cram your lie down your throat. And clear your people away from this door.

I'll not walk through a mob. Send every man Jack about his business, or it will be the worse for him. And every woman Jill, too."

"M. le Capitaine," Maitre Menard quavered, rising unsteadily to his feet, "you make a mistake. On my sacred word, you mistake; this is not--"

"Get out!" cried the captain, helping him along with his boot. Maitre Menard fell rather than walked out of the door.

A gray hue came over Lucas's face. His first fright had given way to fury at perceiving himself the victim of a mistake, but now alarm was born in his eyes again. Was it, after all, a mistake? This obstinate disbelief in his a.s.sertion, this ordering away of all who could swear to his ident.i.ty--was it not rather a plot for his ruin? He swallowed hard once or twice, fear gripping his throat harder than ever the dragoon's fingers had gripped mine. Certainly he was not the Comte de Mar; but then he was the man who had killed Pontou.

"If this is a plot against me, say so!" he cried. "If you have orders to arrest me, do so. But arrest me by the name of Paul de Lorraine, not of etienne de Mar."

"The name of etienne de Mar will do," the captain returned; "we have no fancy for aliases at the Bastille."

"It is a plot!" Lucas cried.

"It is a warrant; that is all I know about it"

"But I am not Comte de Mar," Lucas repeated.

His uneasy conscience had numbed his wits. In his dread of a plot he had done little to dissipate an error. But now he pulled himself together; error or intention, he would act as if he knew it must be error.

"My captain, you have made a mistake likely to cost you your shoulder-straps. I tell you I am not Mar; the landlord, who knows him well, tells you I am not Mar. Ask those who know M. de Mar; ask these inn people. They will one and all tell you I am not he. Ask that boy there; even he dares not say to my face that I am."

His eyes met mine, and I could see that, even in the moment of challenging me, he repented. He believed that I would give the lie. But the dragoon who was bending over him, relieving him of his sword-belt, spared me the necessity.

"Captain, you need give yourself no uneasiness; this is the Comte right enough. I live in the Quartier Marais, and I have seen this gentleman a score of times riding with M. de St. Quentin."

Lucas, at this unexpected testimony, looked so taken aback that the captain burst out laughing.

"Yes, my dear monsieur, it is a little hard for M. de Mayenne's nephew--you are a nephew, are you not?--to explain how he comes to ride with the Duc de St. Quentin."

It was awkward to explain. Lucas, knowing well that there was no future for him who betrayed the Generalissimo's secrets, cried out angrily:

"He lies! I never rode out with M. de St. Quentin."

"Oh, come now. Really you waste a great deal of breath," the captain said. "I regret the cruel necessity of arresting you, M. de Mar; but there is nothing gained by bl.u.s.tering about it. I usually know what I am about."

"You do not know! Nom de dieu, you do not know. Felix Broux, speak up there. If you have told him behind my back that I am etienne de Mar, I defy you to say it to my face."

"I know nothing about it, messieurs." I repeated my little refrain.

"Monsieur captain, remember, if you please, I never saw him till yesterday; he may be Paul de Lorraine for all I know. But he did not call himself that yesterday."

"You h.e.l.l-hound!" Lucas cried.

"Go tell Louis to drive up to the cabaret door, Gaspard," bade the captain.

Lucas gazed at him as if to tear out of him the truth of the matter. I think he was still a prey to suspicion of a plot in this, and it paralyzed his tongue. He so reeked with intrigue that he smelled one wherever he went. He was much too clever to believe that this arresting officer was simply thick-witted.

"I say no more," he cried. "You may spare yourself your lies, the whole crew of you. I go as your prisoner, but I go as Paul of Lorraine, son of Henry, Duke of Guise."

He said it with a certain superbness; but the young captain, bourgeois of the bourgeois, did not mean to let himself be put down by any sprig of the n.o.blesse.

"Certainly, if it is any comfort to you," he retorted. "But you are very dull, monsieur, not to be aware that your ident.i.ty is known perfectly to others besides your lackey here and my man. I did not come to arrest you without a minute description of you from M. de Belin himself."

"Ventre bleu!" Lucas shouted. "I wrote the description. I myself lodged information against Mar. I came here to make sure you took him. Carry me before Belin; he will know me."

I trembled lest the officer could not but see that the man spoke truth.

But I had no need to fear; there is a combination of stupidity and vanity which nothing can move.

"I have no orders to take you to M. de Belin," he returned calmly. "So you wrote the description, did you? Perhaps you will deny that it fits you?"

He read from the paper:

"'Charles-Andre-etienne-Marie de St. Quentin, Comte de Mar. Age, three-and-twenty; figure, tall and slender; was dressed yesterday in black with a plain falling-band; carries his right arm in a sling--"

"Is my arm in a sling?" Lucas demanded.

"No, in a handcuff," the captain laughed, at the same moment that his dragoon exclaimed, "His right wrist is bandaged, though."

"That is nothing! It is a mere scratch. I did it myself last night by accident," Lucas shouted, striving with his hampered left hand to pull the folds apart to show it. But he could not, and fell silent, wide-eyed, like one who sees the net of fate drawing in about him. The captain went on reading from his little paper:

[Ill.u.s.tration: "HE WAS DEPOSITED IN THE BIG BLACK COACH."]

"'Fair hair, gray eyes, aquiline nose'--I suppose you will still tell us, monsieur, that you are not the man?"

"I am not he. The Comte de Mar and I are nothing alike. We are both young, tall, yes; but that is all. He is slashed all up the forearm; my wrist is but scratched with a knife-edge. He has yellow hair; mine is brown. His eyes--"

"It is plain to me, monsieur," the officer interrupted, "that the description fits you in every particular." And so it did.

I, who had heard M. etienne described twenty times, had yesterday mistaken Lucas for him; the same items served for both. It was the more remarkable because they actually looked no more alike than chalk and cheese. Lucas had set down his catalogue without a thought that he was drawing his own picture. If ever hunter was caught in his own gin, Lucas was!

"You lie!" he cried furiously. "You know I am not Mar. You lie, the whole pack of you!"

"Gag him, Ravelle," the captain commanded with an angry flush.

"I demand to be taken before M. de Belin!" Lucas shouted.

The next moment the soldier had twisted a handkerchief about his mouth.