So de Landas had his wounds re-dressed and bandaged; he took the cooling draught which the leech had prepared for him, and then he ordered four of his men to carry him on a stretcher to the Archiepiscopal Palace. But all this show of sickness did not have the effect of softening Monseigneur's mood. He ordered de Landas very curtly to dismiss his stretcher-bearers, then he motioned him to a seat, himself sat down behind his desk and fixed searching eyes upon his young kinsman.
'I have sent for you, José,' he began sternly, 'and for you alone, rather than for the whole of your gang, because you have constituted yourself their leader, and they invariably follow you like so many numskulls, in any mischief which you might devise.'
'Mon cousin——' stammered de Landas, abashed, despite himself, by d'Inchy's dictatorial tone.
'One moment,' broke in the latter harshly. 'Let me tell you at once that explanations and prevarications are useless. I received a hint of what occurred last night primarily from an outside source, but you will understand that a clue once obtained can very easily be followed up. We questioned your varlets, put the night watchmen to the torture; they confessed everything, and you, M. le Marquis de Landas, my kinsman, and half a dozen of your precious friends, stand convicted of an attempt at assassination against the person of a stranger, who happens to be my guest.'
De Landas, feeling himself cornered, made no attempt to deny. It certainly would have been useless. Unfortunately he had allowed his jealousy to get the better of his prudence, and last night had made more than one mistake—such, for instance, as not killing the watchmen outright instead of merely overpowering them, and employing his own men rather than a few paid spadassins, who could not afterwards have been traced. So he sat on, sullen and silent, his arm resting on that of the chair, his chin buried in his hand.
'For that attempted crime,' resumed Monsieur le Baron d'Inchy, after a slight pause, and speaking in a trenchant and staccato tone, 'I have decided to expel you and your five friends out of the city.'
De Landas, forgetting his wounds and his sickness, jumped to his feet as if he had been cut with a lash.
'Expel me——?' he stammered. He could scarcely frame the words. He was grey to the lips and had to steady himself against the table or he would have measured his length on the floor.
'You and your friends,' reiterated d'Inchy with uncompromising severity. 'Would you perchance prefer the block?'
But already de Landas had recovered some of his assurance.