An uglier place could not be imagined. The dark groves of stupendous trees, the silent pool, the remote situation of the habitation, affected me strangely. I was convinced by this time that my nephew had fallen into a trap, and that we should be lucky men if we found him alive. Even the imperturbable Bardot could not put a good face upon it. He showed his pistol to the coachman and commanded him to stay where he was. Then he followed me down the grove towards the house.
I have told you that it was hidden in the trees; but this will give you but a poor idea of its situation. We saw upon nearer approach that the pool or lake was fed by a winding river, upon an island of which the house was built, so that it was entirely surrounded by water, which a mediæval drawbridge spanned.
The building itself had all the air of the keep of an ancient castle, being no more than a great round tower built upon the island, with a miserable outhouse at its foot and a barn-like structure to the south, which served, I doubt not, for a stable. Save for a glimmer of light which showed through a considerable loophole above the drawbridge, there was no evidence of occupation either above or below. The place seemed as silent as the grave; our own footsteps upon the sward were a heavy sound upon the silence of that summer's night.
To be sure, we approached very cautiously. We must have been at least fifty paces from the water's edge when Bardot went down flat upon his stomach and began to crawl towards the river.
"If I whistle," he said, "come to me."
I answered that I would; and after an interminable interval of waiting I heard his signal. When I came up to his side he pointed to the figure of a man who stood sentry beyond the bridge.
"Look," he said. "The fellow is drunk. They are all drunk in this cursed country. If we sounded the réveillé he would not hear us. We must go over and tell him so. You can swim, of course?"
I shook my head, for the truth was I could not swim a stroke. When I discovered that he was in a like predicament, the tragic irony of our position began to be realised for the first time. There we were, fifty paces from the door, behind which poor Léon might already be in jeopardy. I knew now that the girl Valerie had not written the letter, and this was just the trap I had supposed it to be. Yet there we stood, as helpless as any child from a woodlander's hut. Even Bardot could make nothing of it.
"If I had known!" he would say, just as though it had been in my power to tell him. Such folly angered me. I got up regardless of the risk of discovery, and began to make my way back to the carriage. The man should gallop back to Moscow, said I, and we would return within the hour with a troop of cavalry, and this time we would bring our own bridge.
This was in my mind, though the despair of it needs no apology.