King of the Castle (42 page)

Then I remembered the key and I told him how I had discovered it.

“I was hoping to present you with your long lost emeralds,” I said.

“If this is the key to them I’ll present them to you,” he told me.

“Do you think this key really does open wherever they are?”

“We can find out.”

“When?”

“Now. The two of us. Yes, we’ll go exploring together.”

“Where do you think?”

“I think in the dungeons. There are fleursdelis in one

of the cages exactly like this. It may well be that one of them will give us the clue. You would like to go now? “

I was suddenly aware of others besides ourselves. Jean Pierre searching in the chateau for the emeralds. we must find them before he did, for if he found them, he would steal them and bring disgrace on his family.

“Yes, please,” I said.

“Now.”

He led the way to the stables, where he found a lantern;

he lighted this and we made our way to the dungeons.

“I think I know where we will find the lock,” he told me.

“It’s coming back now. I remember years ago when I was a boy there was an examination of the dungeons and this cage with the fleur-delis decorations was discovered. It was noticed because it was so unusual.

A dado of fleursdelis around the cage. It seemed such a strange idea to decorate such a place. Evidently there was a purpose. “

“Didn’t they look to see if there was a locked hiding-place?”

“Evidently there was no sign of that. The theory was that some poor prisoner had somehow managed to make them no one knew how and fit them on the wall of his cage. How he worked in the gloom was a mystery.”

We reached the dungeons and he swung open the iron-studded door. How different it was entering that dark and gloomy place with him; all fear was gone. I felt in a way it was symbolic. Whatever happens, if we’re together, I can face it, I thought.

With one hand he held the lantern high; with the other he took my hand.

“The cage is somewhere here,” he said.

The smell of decay and dampness was in the close atmosphere; my foot touched one of those iron rings to which a rusting chain was attached.

Horrible! And yet I was not afraid.

He gave a sudden exclamation.

“Come and look here.”

I was beside him and here I saw theli^-‘16;115, There were twelve of them placed at intervili‘0’”” I the cage about six inches from the ground. , He gave me the lantern and crouchi10^”He the” to push aside the first of the flowers butil^011111”01 move because it was so firmly attached to tli^11,1 watchea him touch them in turn. At the sixth hif1180 , ” Just a minute,” he said.

“This one seili’ oose:

He gave an exclamation; I lifted thel^”I hlghe1’ and saw him push the flower aside. Beneadi’^,^100 The key fitted, and actually turned in^ lock-can you see a door here?” he asked. , . “There must be something,” I answtl-‘ e there. ” I tapped the wall.

“There is a cavity behind this wall,” II^”’ j He threw his weight against the sidei^ cage and ^ our excitement there was a groaning sr an so part of the wall appeared to move.

“It is a door,” I said. ‘ll1 a He tried again. A small door swung AdA and I heard him exclaim in triumph. i. r I went to stand beside him, the lanttf^ bobbing in my hand. , . I saw what was like a cupboard as^115? ^ about two feet by two and inside it a casket^” mlght have been silver.

He lifted it out and looked at me. , , “It looks,” he said, ‘as though we’ve fo^”the emeralds” Open it,” I cried. 1.1.1, Like the door, it offered some resist^’ but there mey were the rings, bracelets, girdle, nc^” and tlara which I had restored to colour on the y^B,1 , And as we stood there looking at ^ other over mat casket I realized that he was looking atl^f not the stones, , j , , (-hateau, he said. So you have restored the treasure to the” And I knew he wasn’t thinking of the

^meralds-339 That was the happiest moment I was to know for a long time. It was like reaching the top of a mountain and having done so suddenly being flung down into despair.

Was it a creak of that iron-studded door? Was it a movement in the gloom?

The thought of danger came to us both simultaneously. We knew that we were not alone.

The Comte drew me quickly to his side and put an arm about me.

“Who is there?” he shouted.

A figure loomed out of the darkness.

“So you found them?” said Philippe.

I looked into his face and was terrified, for the dim light of the lantern which I still held showed me a man I had never seen before.

Philippe’s features, yes, but gone was the lassitude, the air of delicate effeminacy. Here was a desperate man, a man with one grim purpose.

“You were looking for them too?” asked the Comte.

“You got there before me. So it was you. Mademoiselle Lawson … I was afraid you would.”

The Comte pressed my shoulder.

“Go now,” he began.

But Philippe interrupted.

“Stay where you are. Mademoiselle Lawson.”

“Have you gone mad?” demanded the Comte.

“By no means. Neither of you will leave here.”

The Comte, still gripping me, took a step forward, but stopped short when Philippe raised his hand. He was holding a gun.

“Don’t be a fool, Philippe,” said the Comte.

“You won’t escape this time. Cousin, though you did in the woods.”

“Give me the gun.”

“I need it to kill you.”

With a swift movement the Comte thrust me behind him. Philippe’s short grim laugh echoed oddly in that place.

“You won’t save her. I’m going to kill you both.”

“Listen to me, Philippe.”

“I’ve had to listen to you too often. Now it’s your turn to listen to me.”

“You propose to kill me because you want what is mine, is that it?”

“You’re right. If you’d wanted to live you shouldn’t have planned to marry Mademoiselle Lawson; you shouldn’t have found those emeralds.

You should have left something for me. Thank you, Mademoiselle Lawson, for leading me to them, but they’re mine now. Everything is mine. “

“And you think you’re going to get away with … murder?”

“Yes, I’ve thought it out. I meant to catch you together … like this. I didn’t know Mademoiselle Lawson would be so obliging as to find the emeralds for me first. So it couldn’t be better. Murder and suicide. Oh, not mine, Cousin. I want to live … live in my own right . not under your shadow, for once. Mademoiselle Lawson will have taken a gun from the gun-room, killed you and then herself. You played into my hands so beautifully your reputation being what it is.”

“Philippe, you fool.”

“I’ve done with talking. Now’s the time for action. You first. Cousin we must have it in the right order …”

I saw the gun raised. I tried to move to protect him but he held me firmly behind him. Involuntarily I shut my eyes. I heard the ear-splitting sound. Then after the explosion . silence. Faint with terror I opened my eyes.

Two men were struggling on the floor Philippe and Jean Pierre.

I was past surprise. I was scarcely aware of them. I just knew that I was not going to lose my life in the dungeons, but I was losing everything that would make that life worth living, for on the floor, bleeding from his wounds, lay the man I loved.

34i

Outside the sounds of revelry went on. They did not know, those who celebrated the grape harvest, that the Comte lay on his bed near to death; that Philippe lay in his under the influence of the sleeping draught the doctor had given him; that Jean Pierre and I sat in the library waiting.

Two doctors were with the Comte. They had sent us down here to wait and the waiting seemed endless.

It was not yet eleven o’clock and I seemed to have lived through a lifetime since I had stood in the dungeons with the Comte and suddenly come face to face with death.

And so strangely, there sat Jean Pierre, his face pale, his eyes bewildered as though he too did not understand what he was doing there.

“How long they are,” I said.

“Don’t fret. He won’t die.”

I shook my head.

“No,” said Jean Pierre, almost bitterly.

“He won’t die until he wants to. Doesn’t he always …” A smile twisted his lips.

“Sit down,” he said with a new authority.

“You can do no good by walking up and down.

A second earlier and I’d have saved him. I left it that second too long. “

He had taken on a new authority. Sitting there he might have been the Comte. For the first time I noticed the chateau features an irrelevant detail with which to con cern myself at such a time!

It was Jean Pierre who had dominated that grisly scene. He it was who had sent me to call the doctors, who had planned what we should do.

“We should as yet say little of what has happened in the dungeons,” he

cautioned, ‘for you can be sure that the Comte will want the story told his way. I expect the gun will have gone off accidentally. He wouldn’t want Monsieur Philippe to be accused of attempted murder. We’d better be discreet until we know what he wants. “

I clung to that. Until we know. Then we should know. He would open his eyes and live again.

“If he lives …” I began.

“He’ll live,” said Jean Pierre.

“If only I could be sure …”

“He wants to live.” He paused for a moment, then went on: “I saw you leave. How could I help it! Monsieur Philippe saw you… why, everyone must have seen, and guessed how things were. I watched you. I followed you to the dungeons … as Philippe did. But the Comte will want to live … and if he wants to, he will.”

“Then Jean Pierre, you will have saved his life.”

He wrinkled his brow.

“I don’t know why I did it,” he said.

“I could have let Philippe shoot him. He’s a first-class shot. The bullet would have gone through his heart. That’s what he was aiming for. I knew it… and I said to myself:

“This is the end of you, Monsieur Ie Comte.” And then . I did it. I sprang on Philippe; I caught his arm. Just that second too late. Half a second, shall we say. If I’d been that half a second earlier the bullet would have hit the ceiling . half a second later and it would have pierced his heart. I couldn’t have got there earlier, though. I wasn’t near enough. I don’t know why I did it. I just didn’t think.

”

“Jean Pierre,” I repeated, ‘if he lived you will have saved his life.

”

“It’s queer,” he admitted.

And there was silence.

I had to talk of something else. I could not bear to think of him lying there unconscious . while his life slowly ebbed away, taking with it all my hopes of happiness.

“You were looking for the emeralds,” I said.

“Yes. I meant to find them and go away. It would not

have been stealing. I had a right to something. Now, of course, I shall have nothing. I shall go to Mermoz and be his slave all my life if he lives, and he will live because of what I did. “

“We shall never forget it, Jean Pierre.”

“You will marry him?”

“Yes.”

“So I lose you too.”

“You never wanted me, Jean Pierre. You wanted only what you thought he did.”

“It’s strange … how he’s always been there … all my life. I hate him, you know. There have been times when I could have taken a gun to him … and to think … if he lives it will be because I saved his life. I wouldn’t have believed it of myself.”

“None of us knows how we’ll act in certain circumstances … not until we come right face to face with them. It was a wonderful thing you did tonight, Jean Pierre.”

“It was a crazy thing. I wouldn’t have believed it. I hated him, I tell you. All my life I’ve hated him. He has all that I want. He is all that I want to be.”

“All that Philippe wanted, too. He hated him as you did. It was envy.

That’s one of the seven deadly sins, Jean Pierre, and I believe, the deadliest. But you triumphed over ) it. I’m so glad, Jean Pierre, so glad. “

“But I tell you it wasn’t meant. Or perhaps it was. Perhaps I never meant it when I thought I’d like to kill him. But I would have stolen the emeralds if I’d had a chance.”

“But you would never have taken his life. You know 1 that now. You would even have married me, perhaps. You might have tried to marry Genevieve….”

His face softened momentarily.

“I might yet,” he said.

“That would upset the noble Comte.”

“And Genevieve? You would use her for your revenge?” i “She’s a

charming girl. Young… and wild…. Like myself perhaps, unaccountable. And she’s the Comte’s daughter. Don’t think I’m a reformed character because I’ve done this crazy thing tonight. I won’t make promises about Genevieve.”

“She’s a young and impressionable girl.”

“She’s fond of me.”

“She must not be hurt. Life has not been easy to her.”

“Do you think I’d hurt her?”

“No, Jean Pierre. I don’t think you’re half as wicked as you like to think you are.”

“You don’t know much about me, Dallas.”

“I think I know a great deal.”

“You’d be surprised if you did. I had my plans … I was going to see that my son was master of the chateau if I could never be.”

“But how?”

“He had plans, you know, before he was going to marry you. He wasn’t marrying again, so he decided he’d bring his mistress here and marry her to Philippe. His son and hers would inherit the chateau. Well, it wasn’t going to be his son but mine.”

“You … and Claude!”

He nodded triumphantly.

“Why not! She was angry because he didn’t notice her. Philippe’s no man, and so … Well, what do you think?”

I was listening for the approach of the doctors. I was only thinking of what was going on in that room above.

The doctors came into the room. There were two of them from the town, and they would know a great deal about us all. It was one of these who had attended the Comte when Philippe had shot him in the woods.

I had stood up and both doctors looked straight at me.

“He’s …” I began.

“He’s sleeping now.”

I looked at them mutely imploring them to give me some hope.