"The rarest dog shall not defy me," was the cool answer.
"That's all very well, if it had been your own dog," said the Count, still peevish.
"Oh, as to that, we are quits now. Your dog to-day pays for my man you killed last week."
"Pish, it's easy enough to find rascals like that by the score. Not so, dogs like this. Well, talking won't make him live again—Good morning, Monsieur. Where is your comrade, Monsieur de Pepicot?"
I could only answer that on waking I had been disappointed of seeing either Monsieur de Pepicot or his baggage. "Nor have I beheld him since, though I have been looking about."
"That is very strange,—that he should take his baggage from the room," said the Count, exchanging a look of surprise with the Captain. He then called two servants and gave them orders quietly, which must have been to search the house and grounds for Monsieur de Pepicot. As we returned to the hall, the Count questioned me, watching me sharply the while. I was perfectly safe in telling the literal truth, though not all of it: how Monsieur de Pepicot was a stranger to me, how I had never spoken to him before yesterday, how I knew nothing of his business, and so forth. Of course I said nothing of his midnight walk or of having conversed with him at all after going to bed. The Count's mystification and annoyance were manifest, the more so when, after some time, the servants returned to say that the missing man could not be found. When he had heard their report, the Count was very angry.
"Name of the devil, then, how did he get out? There is treachery somewhere, and somebody shall pay for it," he screeched, and then despatched a man to the cabaret to see if Monsieur de Pepicot had taken his horse away. The man came back saying the horse was gone, but nobody had seen the owner take it.
"It is certainly odd that the gentleman should depart secretly like that, when he might have waited for day and gone civilly," said I, to evince my simplicity.
"You are right, very right," said the Count. "Well, at least you remain to play a game of chess with me. What I am thinking is, the man must have had some private reason for obtaining entrance to my house."
"Possibly, Monsieur," I replied, bearing the searching gaze of both the Count and the Captain well enough.