The officer apparently did not require anything else, for he left the quarter, without delay, stepped into a taxi, and was driven to the railway station.
[CHAPTER XIV]
THE JUDGMENT OF GOD
Some hours later Captain d'Haumont was back again in the de la Boulays' country house.
He had left it with the firm determination never to return to it whatever it might cost him. And now he was strolling once more through the avenues of the park with a secret satisfaction which he made no attempt to conceal. He must have been impelled by a powerful motive, doubtless, to set at naught so quickly a line of conduct which he had ruthlessly marked out for himself, but it was a motive which, in all sincerity, he had no cause to regret.
It would have needed very little persuasion to induce Captain d'Haumont to confess that he blessed the startling occurrences the outcome of which was that he beheld once more the faces and places which filled so large a part in his heart.
An imperative duty impelled him to cross that garden gate. He had nothing to reproach himself with. Treason lay concealed in that house; and he had to unmask it.
Since he had all but fallen a prey to the mysterious gang who had pursued him so far as the neighborhood of the Hotel d'Or, the Captain was convinced that the scheme which his villainous aggressors were carrying out was planned at M. de la Boulays' house. It was the only place where the hidden enemy might have overheard something to indicate the importance of the secret mission with which he had been charged. In a word, Captain d'Haumont believed that the Château de la Boulays was the center of a spy system. He called to mind that, as he left M. de la Boulays' study the night before, he almost stumbled over Schwab, whose attitude had always seemed suspicious. Some few minutes later, at the moment of leaving the house, he caught a glimpse of two dark forms in conversation in the park, one of whom was undoubtedly Schwab and the other curiously suggestive of de Gorbio. The incident had made no great impression on him at the time, but how prominently it stood out in his thoughts to-day!
He reached the house after lunch. The men were at the other side of the park practicing firing with Count de Gorbio. From the sounds of the shots and the exclamations which followed he gathered that he was quite close to the butts. He heard the voice of Françoise:
"Well done, Count. That was a wonderful shot. What a pity the Boches are not up against your pistol!"