In my room I told him in half a dozen words what was afoot. For answer, he swore a great oath that the landlord had mulled a stoup of wine for him, which he never doubted now was drugged. I bade him go below and fetch the wine, telling the landlord that I, too had a fancy for it.
“But what of Antoine?” he asked. “They will drug him.”
“Let them. We can manage this affair, you and I, without his help. If they did not drug him, they might haply stab him. So that in being drugged lies his safety.”
As I bade him so he did, and presently he returned with a great steaming measure. This I emptied into a ewer, then returned it to him that he might take it back to the host with my thanks and our appreciation. Thus should we give them confidence that the way was clear and smooth for them.
Thereafter there befell precisely that which already you will be expecting, and nothing that you cannot guess. It was perhaps at the end of an hour’s silent waiting that one of them came. We had left the door unbarred so that his entrance was unhampered. But scarce was he within when out of the dark, on either side of him, rose Gilles and I. Before he had realized it, he was lifted off his feet and deposited upon the bed without a cry; the only sound being the tinkle of the knife that dropped from his suddenly unnerved hand.
On the bed, with Gilles’s great knee in his stomach, and Gilles’s hands at his throat, he was assured in unequivocal terms that at his slightest outcry we would make an end of him. I kindled a light. We trussed him hand and foot with the bedclothes, and then, whilst he lay impotent and silent in his terror, I proceeded to discuss the situation with him.
I pointed out that we knew that what he had done he had done at Saint-Eustache’s instigation, therefore the true guilt was Saint-Eustache’s and upon him alone the punishment should fall. But ere this could come to pass, he himself must add his testimony to ours – mine and Rodenard’s. If he would come to Toulouse and do that make a full confession of how he had been set to do this murdering – the Chevalier de Saint-Eustache, who was the real culprit, should be the only one to suffer the penalty of the law. If he would not do that, why, then, he must stand the consequences himself – and the consequences would be the hangman. But in either case he was coming to Toulouse in the morning.
It goes without saying that he was reasonable. I never for a moment held his judgment in doubt; there is no loyalty about a cut-throat, and it is not the way of his calling to take unnecessary risk.
We had just settled the matter in a mutually agreeable manner when the door opened again, and his confederate – rendered uneasy, no doubt, by his long absence – came to see what could be occasioning this unconscionable delay in the slitting of the throats of a pair of sleeping men.
Beholding us there in friendly conclave, and no doubt considering that under the circumstances his intrusion was nothing short of an impertinence, that polite gentleman uttered a cry – which I should like to think was an apology for having disturbed us and turned to go with most indecorous precipitancy.
But Gilles took him by the nape of his dirty neck and haled him back into the room. In less time than it takes me to tell of it, he lay beside his colleague, and was being asked whether he did not think that he might also come to take the same view of the situation. Overjoyed that we intended no worse by him, he swore by every saint in the calendar that he would do our will, that he had reluctantly undertaken the Chevalier’s business, that he was no cut-throat, but a poor man with a wife and children to provide for.
And that, in short, was how it came to pass that the Chevalier de Saint-Eustache himself, by disposing for my destruction, disposed only for his own. With these two witnesses, and Rodenard to swear how Saint-Eustache had bribed them to cut my throat, with myself and Gilles to swear how the attempt had been made and frustrated, I could now go to His Majesty with a very full confidence, not only of having the Chevalier’s accusations, against whomsoever they might be, discredited, but also of sending the Chevalier himself to the gallows he had so richly earned.
CHAPTER XXI LOUIS THE JUST
“For me,” said the King, “these depositions were not necessary. Your word, my dear Marcel, would have sufficed. For the courts, however, perhaps it is well that you have had them taken; moreover, they form a valuable corroboration of the treason which you lay to the charge of Monsieur de Saint-Eustache.”
We were standing – at least, La Fosse and I were standing, Louis XIII sat – in a room, of the Palace of Toulouse, where I had had the honour of being brought before His Majesty. La Fosse was there, because it would seem that the King had grown fond of him, and could not be without him since his coming to Toulouse.
His Majesty was, as usual, so dull and weary – not even roused by the approaching trial of Montmorency, which was the main business that had brought him South that even the company of this vapid, shallow, but irrepressibly good-humoured La Fosse, with his everlasting mythology, proved a thing desirable.
“I will see,” said Louis, “that your friend the Chevalier is placed under arrest at once, and as much for his attempt upon your life as for the unstable quality of his political opinions, the law shall deal with him – conclusively.” He sighed. “It always pains me to proceed to extremes against a man of his stamp. To deprive a fool of his head seems a work of supererogation.”
I inclined my head, and smiled at his pleasantry. Louis the just rarely permitted himself to jest, and when he did his humour was as like unto humour as water is like unto wine. Still, when a monarch jests, if you are wise, if you have a favour to sue, or a position at Court to seek or to maintain, you smile, for all that the ineptitude of his witless wit be rather provocative of sorrow.
“Nature needs meddling with at times,” hazarded La Fosse, from behind His Majesty’s chair. “This Saint-Eustache is a sort of Pandora’s box, which it is well to close ere–”
“Go to the devil,” said the King shortly. “We are not jesting. We have to do justice.”
“Ah! Justice,” murmured La Fosse; “I have seen pictures of the lady. She covers her eyes with a bandage, but is less discreet where the other beauties of her figure are in question.”
His Majesty blushed. He was above all things a chaste-minded man, modest as a nun. To the immodesty rampant about him he was in the habit of closing his eyes and his ears, until the flagrancy or the noise of it grew to proportions to which he might remain neither blind nor deaf.
“Monsieur de la Fosse,” said he in an austere voice, “you weary me, and when people weary me I send them away – which is one of the reasons why I am usually so much alone. I beg that you will glance at that hunting-book, so that when I have done with Monsieur de Bardelys you may give me your impressions of it.”
La Fosse fell back, obedient but unabashed, and, moving to a table by the window, he opened the book Louis had pointed out.
“Now, Marcel, while that buffoon prepares to inform me that the book has been inspired by Diana herself, tell me what else you have to tell.”
“Naught else, Sire.”
“How naught? What of this Vicomte de Lavedan.”
“Surely Your Majesty is satisfied that there is no charge – no heedful charge against him?”
“Aye, but there is a charge – a very heedful one. And so far you have afforded me no proofs of his innocence to warrant my sanctioning his enlargement.”
“I had thought, Sire, that it would be unnecessary to advance proofs of his innocence until there were proofs of his guilt to be refuted. It is unusual, Your Majesty, to apprehend a gentleman so that he may show cause why he did not deserve such apprehension. The more usual course is to arrest him because there are proofs of his guilt to be preferred against him.”
Louis combed his beard pensively, and his melancholy eyes grew thoughtful.
“A nice point, Marcel,” said he, and he yawned. “A nice point. You should have been a lawyer.” Then, with an abrupt change of manner, “Do you give me your word of honour that he is innocent?” he asked sharply.