II
The Man in Grey, quiet and perfectly deferential, stood before Mme. la Marquise de Plélan and in a few words explained the duty that lay before him.
"By order of His Majesty's Minister of Police," he added firmly.
Mme. la Marquise waived aside his explanations with a quick gesture of her slender, aristocratic hand.
"I know, Monsieur, I know," she said calmly. "French men and women now are little better than slaves. Their very homes, their privacy, have ceased to be sacred in the eyes of the State which should be their protector, rather than their tyrant."
A search in a private house in those days was no small matter. Ordered by the Minister of Police or his accredited representative, it consisted in a thorough and rigid examination of every nook and cranny, of every corner wherein compromising papers might be hidden. The high-born gentlemen and ladies, suspected of furthering the Cause of the exiled Bourbon princes by aiding and abetting the Chouans in their nefarious practices, were known to be past masters in the art of concealing every proof of their own guilt or that of their friends; the women especially, who reckoned on a certain amount of chivalry on the part of police officers, were the chief custodians of the papers and records belonging to those organised bands of marauding freebooters.
Madame la Marquise had only thrown one glance on the hated enemy when first he entered the room, but already she had appraised him in her mind: "Relentless in the exercise of duty," she thought. "Cold and dispassionate; no mercy or consideration could be expected from him. If only Constance has burned everything that was compromising—there was the tin box and papers which related to the agency at Jersey—and many more records which might mean the guillotine for some of us if they were found——"
Madame noticed that the moment the agent entered the room he cast one rapid look in the direction of the hearth, where the fire was half-smothered beneath a heap of burned paper. On this, however, he made no comment; only his glance appeared to harden and the orders to his men became more peremptory and more sharp. He asked Madame for her keys. She took a bunch from her basket and gave them up to him without remark beyond the curt statement:
"My daughter has the others."
The Man in Grey opened the desk and the drawers of other pieces of furniture in the room, then he left his men to do their work. Madame sat beside the fire, quietly knitting. When she was respectfully asked to move she did so with lips tightly pressed, as if determined not to give vent to her indignation. Cushions and stuffings of chairs and sofas were searched through and through; three men were busy in this room, others were dispersed throughout the house. They tested the wainscotings and the window recesses; they climbed up the chimneys and tapped on the ceilings and the walls. The calm, colourless eyes of the Man in Grey appeared to be everywhere. Even Mme. la Marquise felt a hot flush rising to her pale cheeks when she encountered that searching gaze, which seemed to probe her very thoughts.
"If only Constance would return!" she sighed to herself impatiently.
The shades of evening were beginning to draw in. The police were now busy in other parts of the house; only the secret agent was still in the room. His fingers were wandering over the elaborate carving of the wainscoting. Madame was silent, her ear strained to catch the sound of Constance's footfall on the corridor outside.
Suddenly she heard the familiar light footstep, and, strangely enough, the young girl's voice, clear as a bird's and exquisitely trained, singing an old French chanson. The next moment the door was opened and Constance stood under the lintel. She had changed her plain morning dress for a clinging gown of soft silk, embroidered in tiny, coloured rosebuds; her neck and arms were bare, and round her shoulders she had wound a diaphanous scarf of old lace. Her golden hair was dressed high in the prevailing fashion of the day; her cheeks and lips were slightly rouged, her eyes shone with intense excitement. It was obvious that she had been at pains to enhance her great personal attraction. Even the perfume of sweet peas which emanated from her was intended to intoxicate, and of a truth she presented an altogether adorable picture of youth and beauty, as well as of gay and childlike spirits.
Madame smothered the exclamation of astonishment which at sight of her daughter had risen to her lips, whilst the Man in Grey turned from his engrossing occupation and was gazing at the exquisite apparition in the doorway, offering it that tribute of silent admiration which no man—however hidebound—will ever grudge to a beautiful woman.
"Ah, Monsieur!" said Constance gaily, as with perfect unconcern she stepped into the room and turned a pair of appealing blue eyes to the impassive secret agent, "I entreat you, come to the rescue! Your sergeant insists that he must turn out all the things in my bedroom. Oh, he is a very worthy man!" she added, and a light of saucy mischief began to dance in her eyes; "but he—he tells me that he is not a married man, and—and he is too young—Monsieur, I pray you—must he look over my things?—my—my—you understand? Why, it is not convenable! Is it, maman?"
"Constance!" came involuntarily from Madame, together with a look of horror and reproach.
Even the Man in Grey appeared slightly embarrassed. The young girl ran up to him and suddenly linking her hands around his arm tried to drag him towards the door.
"Monsieur," she entreated and, under the charm of her gaiety and her girlishness, the icy reserve of the police agent already seemed to thaw. "I can trust you—I don't know if you are married, but—but I feel that you are more respectable than your sergeant—I entreat you, come! If my—my—you understand—are to be turned over by rough masculine hands, I feel that I could endure it if those hands were yours."
"Mademoiselle," protested the Man in Grey, who was making somewhat feeble efforts to disengage his arm, "I——"
"Oh, you won't refuse!" she pleaded with tender reproach.
Her lovely face was very close to his; the subtle scent of sweet peas rose to his nostrils and somewhat clouded his usually cool and discerning mind. Moreover, no male creature living could have withstood for long the appeal of those shimmering blue eyes. After all, she was not asking very much. Only that he should himself perform a duty which the clumsy sergeant might perhaps not have performed quite efficiently.
She was still clinging to his arm, still pleading with her eyes. After a brief hesitation, more assumed than real, he assented coldly.
"I am at Mademoiselle's service."
She gave a cry of pleasure, and he followed her out of the room.
Madame la Marquise was left bewildered, half-thinking that she must have been asleep and dreaming when she saw that dainty and puzzling apparition just now—Constance, her daughter, putting forth her powers of fascination to please that odious and vulgar creature! It was unbelievable!
Charles, the footman, entered with the lamp. Madame did not speak; she was wrapt in moody contemplation. Gradually a strange expression of disquietude and then of weird misgiving spread over her pale face, and once or twice she put a handkerchief to her lips as if to crush a cry.
Gradually the commotion in the house became stilled. A while ago Madame had heard the tramp of those hateful police creatures going down the stairs in the direction of the offices and servants' quarters; then for a time all was still in that part of the château. But presently, as Madame sat pondering and listening, she heard a sound which—though familiar and reassuring enough—caused her to jump to her feet in an access of abject horror. Her knees shook under her—she could hardly stand.
"My God!" she murmured. "Not that—— Don't let her do that——"
All that the Marquise had heard was the soft strain of a spinet and a young girl's pure, fresh voice singing an old French ditty.
Mme. de Plélan stood rigid, as if turned to stone. The dim light of the lamp shone upon her face, which was the colour of pure snow. Then she slowly went to the door and out of the room. She walked along the corridor and up the stairs. Her daughter's rooms gave on the landing immediately above. Madame had to cling to the banisters as she went up, or she would have fallen. An icy horror gripped her heart; she was only conscious of a wild desire to interfere, to place herself at once and by any means athwart those schemes taking shape in Constance's turbulent brain.
The door of Mademoiselle de Plélan's boudoir was wide open. Opposite the door was the spinet at which the young girl sat, playing and singing. The light from the lamp gleamed through the soft tendrils of her golden hair, and the pure lines of her delicate profile were silhouetted against the glow. Not far from her stood the agent of His Impérial Majesty's Minister of Police, the most bitter enemy her friends and kindred had ever known. Constance was looking at him as she sang, and his deep-set eyes, usually so colourless, were fixed with a gaze of ardent admiration on the beautiful singer. On a table at his elbow was the tin box, with its lid thrown open. Only a few papers remained at the bottom of the box; the others he had in his hand.
Mme. de Plélan tottered as if ready to fall. An extraordinary emotion, born of a nameless terror, was paralysing her limbs. In trying to cross the landing she felt faint and all but measured her length on the ground. A weak cry escaped her lips. In an instant Constance ceased playing and, seeing her mother, ran to her side. The next moment her arms were round Madame's shoulders, and she almost carried her back into the room.
The Man in Grey had also made a movement as if to run to Madame's assistance; then he stood by, looking confused and awkward, as men are apt to do when women are ill. However, he helped Constance presently to lead Madame to a chair, and the girl immediately threw him a grateful look.
"Maman is over-fatigued," she said softly. "She has gone through a great deal this afternoon."
Her tone of tender reproach and the glance which she cast him from the depths of her blue eyes completed the confusion of the Man in Grey. He stammered an apology, feeling that he was an unmitigated brute. At once Constance stretched out her hand to him.
"I did not mean to complain," she said gently. "You have been so kind—so considerate—I——"
Her voice broke in a sob. The secret agent, deeply moved, took her hand and pressed it to his lips. Then, hurriedly, he gathered up the remaining papers out of the tin box, slipped them into his pocket and left the room.
By and by his firm voice was heard giving orders to his men to mount.
But as soon as his slim, grey-clad figure had disappeared across the landing, Constance ran to the door and closed it with a bang. For a moment she stood quite still, gazing in the direction whence came the sound of the enemy's retreating footsteps. An unmistakable look of triumph and satisfaction filled her eyes. The next instant, however, she was down on her knees beside her mother, half-sobbing, half-laughing, her cheeks flushed even beneath the rouge. "There was nothing in the tin box, maman," she cried somewhat wildly. "Only a few worthless letters, with nothing in them to compromise any of us seriously. Oh, but I have got him, maman! I have got him as surely as he got Monsieur de Saint-Tropèze. In a month from now I shall be able to twist him round my little finger—and then—and then——"
But Mme. de Plélan did not hear the girl's strange, half-hysterical ravings. She was lying unconscious, her pale face looking ghostlike against the silk cushion of her chair.