After these reflections and a bottle of Burgundy (I will not apportion the credit) I rose from the table humming a tune and started to go upstairs, conning my scheme in a contented mind. As I passed through the hall the porter handed me a note, saying that a boy had left it and that there was no answer. I opened and read it; it was very short and it ran thus:
I wish never to see you again. ELSA.
Now “Elsa” (and I believe that I have not mentioned the fact before—an evidence, if any were needed, of my discretion) was the Christian name of the Duchess of Saint-Maclou. Picking up her dropped handkerchief as we rambled through the woods, I had seen the word delicately embroidered thereon, and I had not forgotten this chance information. But why—let those learned in the ways of women answer if they can—why, first, did she write at all? Why, secondly, did she tell me what had been entirely obvious from her demeanor? Why, thirdly, did she choose to affix to the document which put an end to our friendship a name which that friendship had never progressed far enough to justify me in employing? To none of these pertinent queries could I give a satisfactory reply. Yet, somehow, that “Elsa” standing alone, shorn of all aristocratic trappings, had a strange attraction for me, and carried with it a pleasure that the uncomplimentary tenor of the rest of the document did not entirely obliterate. “Elsa” wished never to see me again: that was bad; but it was “Elsa” who was so wicked as to wish that: that was good. And by a curious freak of the mind it occurred to me as a hardship that I had not received so much as a note of one line from—“Marie.”
“Nonsense!” said I aloud and peevishly; and I thrust the letter into my pocket, cheek by jowl with the Cardinal’s Necklace. And being thus vividly reminded of the presence of that undesired treasure, I became clearly resolved that I must not be arrested for theft merely because the Duchess of Saint-Maclou chose (from hurry, or carelessness, or what motive you will) to sign a disagreeable and unnecessary communication with her Christian name and nothing more, nor because Mlle. Delhasse chose to vanish without a word of civil farewell. Let them go their ways—I did not know which of them annoyed me more. Notwithstanding the letter, notwithstanding the disappearance, my scheme must be carried out. And then—for home! But the conclusion came glum and displeasing.
The scheme was very simple. I intended to spend the hours of the night in an excursion to the duke’s house. I knew that old Jean slept in a detached cottage about half a mile from the château. Here I should find the old man. I would hand to him the necklace in its box, without telling him what the contents of the box were. Jean would carry the parcel to his master, and deliver with it a message to the effect that a gentleman who had left Avranches that afternoon had sent the parcel by a messenger to the duke, inasmuch as he had reason to believe that the article contained therein was the property of the duke and that the duke would probably be glad to have it restored to him. The significant reticence of this message was meant to inform the duke that Marie Delhasse was not so solitary in her flight but that she could find a cavalier to do her errands for her, and one who would not acquiesce in the retention of the diamonds. I imagined, with a great deal of pleasure, what the duke’s feelings would be in face of the communication. Thus, then, the diamonds were to be restored, the duke disgusted, and I myself freed from all my troubles. I have often thought since that the scheme was really very ingenious, and showed a talent for intrigue which has been notably wanting in the rest of my humble career.
The scheme once prosperously carried through, I should, of course, take my departure at the earliest moment on the following day. I might, or I might not, write a line of dignified remonstrance to the duchess, but I should make no attempt to see her; and I should most certainly go. Moreover, it would be a long while before I accepted any of her harum-scarum invitations again.
“Elsa” indeed! Somehow I could not say it with quite the indignant scorn which I desired should be manifest in my tone. I have never been able to be indignant with the duchess; although I have laughed at her. Now I could be, and was, indignant with Marie Delhasse; though, in truth, her difficult position pleaded excuses for her treatment of me which the duchess could not advance.
As the clock of the church struck ten I walked downstairs from my room, wearing a light short overcoat tightly buttoned up. I informed the waiter that I was likely to be late, secured the loan of a latchkey, and left my good friend under the evident impression that I was about to range the shores of the bay in love-lorn solitude. Then I took the footpath down the hill and, swinging along at a round pace, was fairly started on my journey. If the inference I drew from the next thing I saw were correct, it was just as well for me to be out of the way for a little while. For, when I was still about thirty yards from the main road, there dashed past the end of the lane leading up the hill a carriage and pair, traveling at full speed. I could not see who rode inside; but two men sat on the box, and there was luggage on the top. I could not be sure in the dim light, but I had a very strong impression that the carriage was the same as that which had conveyed Mme. Delhasse out of my sight earlier in the evening. If it were so, and if the presence of the luggage indicated that of its owner, the good lady, arriving alone, must have met with the scantest welcome from the duke. And she would return in a fury of anger and suspicion. I was glad not to meet her; for if she were searching for explanation, I fancied, from glances she had given me, that I was likely to come in for a share of her attention. In fact, she might reasonably have supposed that I was interested in her daughter; nor, indeed, would she have been wrong so far.
Briskly I pursued my way, and in something over an hour I reached the turn in the road and, setting my face inland, began to climb the hill. A mile further on I came on a bypath, and not doubting from my memory of the direction, that this must be a short cut to the house, I left the road and struck along the narrow wooded track. But, although shorter than the road, it was not very direct, and I found myself thinking it very creditable to the topographical instinct of my friend and successor, Pierre, that he should have discovered on a first visit, and without having been to the house, that this was the best route to follow. With the knowledge of where the house lay, however, it was not difficult to keep right, and another forty minutes brought me, now creeping along very cautiously, alertly, and with open ears, to the door of old Jean’s little cottage. No doubt he was fast asleep in his bed, and I feared the need of a good deal of noisy knocking before he could be awakened from a peasant’s heavy slumber.
My delight was therefore great when I discovered that—either because he trusted his fellow-men, or because he possessed nothing in the least worth stealing—he had left his door simply on the latch. I lifted the latch and walked in. A dim lantern burned on a little table near the smoldering log-fire. Yet the light was enough to tell me that my involuntary host was not in the room. I passed across its short breadth to a door in the opposite wall. The door yielded to a push; all was dark inside. I listened for a sleeper’s breathing, but heard nothing. I returned, took up the lantern, and carried it with me into the inner room. I held it above my head, and it enabled me to see the low pallet-bed in the corner. But Jean was not lying in the bed—nay, it was clear that he had not lain on the bed all that night. Yet his bedtime was half-past eight or nine, and it was now hard on one o’clock. Jean was “making a night of it,” that seemed very clear. But what was the business or pleasure that engaged him? I admit that I was extremely annoyed. My darling scheme, on which I had prided myself so much, was tripped up by the trifling accident of Jean’s absence.