No. 3 in the deserted Carrefour de St. Antoine was the house where Onslow had made love before, and in that very room, with its barred shutters and tightly drawn curtains, with its thick carpets into which the foot noiselessly sank, and its blazing candles, the woman whom André had spied on at “The Cock with the Spurs of Gold” now sat calmly destroying papers. Every now and then she stopped to listen attentively; twice at least she opened the door and peered out, but there was no one, and she placidly resumed her task.
When all the papers were destroyed she surveyed herself in the glass and smiled sadly. To-night her jewels and her patrician virginal beauty gave her no pleasure, yet she was dressed with consummate taste and infinite care, as though she were going to a ball in the Galerie des Glaces.
The clock struck half-past two. She moved behind the curtains and unbarred the shutters, carefully pinning them back, thus leaving the balcony not more than ten feet up from the street quite clear. Then she blew out all the candles but two and waited patiently.
Ten minutes passed. This time when she rose she carefully locked both side doors leading off the salon, and when she returned from the passage she was accompanied by Onslow. Unobserved, she locked that door, too. There was no exit now from the room save by the balcony.
Onslow’s sleuth-hound features wore a careworn look, the look of the hunted man; his cloak and boots were splashed with mud; he was breathing quickly, for he had ridden hard.
“I was expecting you,” she surprised him by saying quietly. “Why did you not bring the Chevalier with you?”
“The Chevalier was obliged to stay at the inn,” was the grim reply. “You forget ‘Lui,’” he added hastily, for her penetrating eyes were searching his face. “Some one had to deal with the fool, and,” with a laugh, “he will be astonished, will be ‘Lui.’”
“He will,” she said with such emphasis that Onslow gave a guilty start. “‘Lui’ I expect at this moment is in the hands of your friend and mine, the Vicomte de Nérac.”
The oath that came from Onslow’s lips as he whipped out a pistol, the look that accompanied it, were more eloquent than an hour’s speech.
“De Nérac, I warned you, was an abler head than yours, my friend; he was concealed in the room when you and I arranged our little plan.”