We crossed the narrow road and stood below the garden wall. He gave me the aid of his bent knee and then his shoulder, and I was at once lying flat on the garden wall. My repeater rang 10:15, and then, as I lay, I heard voices. This time there were two men. They paused on the road just below me to light cigarettes. One of them consigned the weather to a place where it might have proved more agreeable. The other said Jean had a pleasanter station in the house. This was not very reassuring news, but I was in for it and wildly eager to be through with a perilous adventure.
As they disappeared, I dropped from the wall into the garden and fell with an alarming crash, rolling over on a pile of flower-pots. There was such a clatter as on any quiet night must have been surely heard. For a moment I lay still, and then, hearing no signals of alarm, I rose and groped along the wall to the door of the conservatory. It was not locked. Pausing on the step outside for a moment, I took off my shoes and secured them by tying them to a belt I wore for this purpose. Then I went in. I found the door of the house ajar, and entering, knew that I was in the drawing-room. I moved with care, in the gloom, through the furniture, and, aided by a flash of lightning, found my way into the hall. Before me, to left, across the hall, was a small room. The door was open. I smelled very vile pipe-smoke and heard footfalls overhead, but no sound of voices. I became at once hopeful that I should have to deal with but one man. I opened cautiously a window in the little room and sat down to listen and wait. I had been given a half-hour. My repeater at last struck 10:45. Meanwhile the clouds broke in places, and there were now gleams of unwelcome moonlight and now gusts of wind-driven rain.
I rose and shut to a crack the door of the room and waited. Beyond the wall, to my right, I heard of a sudden a wild shriek of “Murder! murder! Help! help!” shrill, feminine, convincing. Then came a pistol-shot, then another, and in a moment a third more remote, and, far away, the cries of men.
My time had come. That the gate guards would make for the direction of the sound we had felt sure, but what would happen in regard to the house guard was left to chance. At all events, he would be isolated for a time. To my relief, the ruse answered. I shut the window noiselessly as I heard my host running down the stairway.
He opened the hall door in haste and was dimly seen from my window hurrying toward the gate. I rushed into the hall, bolted the hall door, and ran up-stairs. The old nurse had been prepared for my coming and met me on the first landing.
“Quick,” I said. “You expected me. The boudoir.” She had her good Yankee wits about her, and in a minute I was kneeling, wildly anxious, and groping in the ashes. Thrusting the package of paper within my shirt-bosom, I ran down-stairs, and as she came after, I cried that I had locked the hall door, and to unlock it when I was gone. “Be quick,” I added, “and lock the conservatory door behind me. No one has been seen by you. Go to your own room.” Pausing to put on my shoes, I fled across the garden, neither hearing nor seeing the guard who must have joined his fellows outside.
XIII
I had an awful five minutes in my efforts to climb the wall. We had forgotten that. For a minute I was in despair, and then I fell over a garden chair. I dragged it to the wall and somehow scrambled up, and, panting, lay still for a moment, listening. I suppose that, becoming suspicious, they had returned, for two of the men passed by below me, talking fast, and if they had been less busy over the pistol-shots and had merely looked up from a few feet away, I should have been caught. I waited, breathing hard. A few minutes passed. They seemed to be hours. The noises ceased. I saw dimly through the torrents of rain my house guard returning to his post. He went in, and at once I turned over, dropped, and in a moment was deep in the wood. I was drenched and as tired of a sudden as if I had walked all day. I suppose it was due to the intense anxiety and excitement of my adventure. I went on for a half-mile, keeping my hand on the package. It was now after eleven, and I sat down in the wood and rested for a while. I knew Paris well. I had been there two years. I walked on for nearly an hour, and then within one of the barriers, remote from the Bois, I caught a cab and drove to the Rue Rivoli, where I left the man and walked to our legation in the Rue de Presbourg. We kept there a night-watchman, and both he and the concierge must have been amazed at my appearance. I went up to my own room, had a roaring fire kindled, locked the door, found a smoking-jacket, and then, with a glass of good rye and a cigar, sat down, feeling a delightful sense of joy and security. Next I turned to examine the value of my prize. The ashes fell about as I laid the packet on the table.