For that was what Onslow had, dagger in hand, stealthily crept up to do, inspired by the sight of André’s apparently defenceless position at the writing-table and by the desire to wipe out a long score. But a chair hurled with terrible force met him full in the stomach, and when he had recovered he was facing the sword point of the finest swordsman in Paris. He had lost his pistols, and the death his lies had averted so skilfully was at hand.
“I will tell you where you can find the secret despatch,” the spy pleaded, “if you will let me go.”
“I am not going to kill you,” André answered. “A De Nérac’s sword is not to be soiled with the carrion blood of an English hireling and assassin. The public executioner will deal with you, not I.”
He whistled sharply. Three of the guards swung themselves in by the balcony.
“Disarm and bind that scoundrel,” was the brief order, and in three minutes a wounded prisoner had been securely tied hand and foot. Five minutes later George Onslow was on his way to a police cell, and André was standing alone in the beautiful salon, with the secret despatch and Mont Rouge’s damning letter in his possession.
He walked up and down trying to believe that his amazing good fortune was really true. The terrible strain of the last twelve hours had at last begun to tell, and, instead of the triumphant joy that he had imagined would be his should he achieve the impossible and recover the despatch, he was only conscious of complete mental and physical exhaustion, of a strange and utter weariness. The power of his mind seemed broken. His ambition had melted away. He had no doubt saved Madame de Pompadour, the King’s secret would remain a secret, and Denise would emerge scathless from the awful ordeal into which she had been plunged. The love for which he had plotted, schemed, and worked would be his now. Yes, he had gained all of which ambition had inspired him to dream, more than all, for he had only to put into Madame de Pompadour’s hands that guilty letter, and the men and women who had dabbled in treason to sate their jealousy and their lust for vengeance would be condemned to pass from the Salon de Vénus and the Œil de Bœuf to the scaffold.
Success! a Croix de St. Louis, a Cordon Bleu already! To-morrow he might be Minister for War, in the years to come he might share with the bourgeoise mistress of his Sovereign the rule of France. But at what a cost? As Madame de Pompadour had done and must always do, by sleepless intrigue and scheming, by playing on the fears and fancies, the bigotry and animal passions of the King, by checkmating or degrading the noblesse into an odious and reluctant submission. He had won power so far by such ways. It could only be kept at Versailles by the same hateful, sordid scuffling, and he, the man, must daily train himself to keep his place by trading on the weakness of women, from the kitchen wenches to the mistress of the robes, by trafficking in the selfish plans of gamblers as ambitious and unscrupulous as himself. Versailles was there, the King was there; Louis was what he would always be, an impenetrable sensualist and the despot of France. More bitter still, the life of the Court as he and she knew it was what he must ask Denise now to share and to lead. The first offering of their marriage feast would be the disgrace, perhaps the blood, of the men of his own order who had been his friends, by whose side he had fought for France, and of the women to whom—. Bah! it was a revolting thought. Little, indeed, had he foreseen when he rode down the hill from the Castle of Beau Séjour, and swore that at all costs and by all means he would win Denise, what success might and did mean. Well, ah well! he had learned it at last.
Ah! in this bitter hour, if it had not been for Denise, he would have flung despatch and letter into the fire, and left Paris to cast its mystic spell of tears and laughter on other men, and let him go free, deaf to the siren song of the ambitions born of their mother, the enchantress of cities.
Success! Yet had he succeeded after all? Surely not. “No. 101” had escaped. Futile to seek her now. Her papers had been destroyed. She was doubtless provided with a pass. Proof against her there was none. And the mystery with which his search had begun was as great as it had ever been. Yvonne had vanished, the Chevalier de St. Amant was dead, and the woman herself had passed triumphantly into the moonlit autumn night. How strange and puzzling it all was. Yet, had not indeed the Chevalier put him on the track, had she herself not delivered that assassin and spy into his power? In a few days not even Onslow—and who would believe Onslow?—would be able to reveal what he knew. The secret whose fascination lured men to their ruin would remain a secret, and the little he had discovered would be buried in the tombs of the De Néracs. This girl had matched herself against all the brains and resources of a great government and had defeated King, mistress, and ministers, not once, but every time. Worse, far worse, what she had done in the past she could repeat in the future. That eternal struggle for power at Versailles which was to be his and Denise’s life from to-day would be haunted and poisoned, perhaps thwarted and brought to ruin, by the same strange treachery. The blood of the Chevalier would taint the life of Denise and himself and of Madame de Pompadour and the King for ever.
The clock on the mantelpiece chimed out four. André stopped his pacing. He must return to Versailles, but as he crossed the room he caught a glimpse of his haggard, sleepless face and burning eyes in the mirror, and he halted and with trembling fingers turned the clock sharply round. He had spied the reflection of a familiar crest on the reverse of the timepiece. “Dieu Le Vengeur!” He had not been wrong. The words were written round the crest. “Dieu Le Vengeur!”