Part 9 (1/2)
”The direction of your flight through the Bois confirht, that she was about to go to her well-known little country house andto follohat ht and would have been et the her So far this is in part her account and in part ain indescribably uneasy and took every one who passed for a spy”
”Well,” said I, ”I do not wonder The court is cool to us So on between France and England The English abuse is exhausting their adjectives If they propose intervention in any shape, Mr Adams has instructions of which every American should be proud”
”Good!” cried Merton ”We have not put forth our power, and people over here do not dream of the way in which we could and would rise to meet new foes But here is our own little battle I have yet to tell you what she did and ot her away froh the rain in the darkness to her small chalet beyond the Bois”
”But,” said I, ”why did not the count follow and get there, as he could have done, before her?”
”I do not know He was, you said, a bit dazed and his head cut
Probably he felt it to be needful to secure aid from the police, as he did later”
”Yes, that must have been the case”
”Her old Ae of the chalet At times madame spends a few days there She explained her condition as the result of a carriage accident, and, I fancy, must have taken her nurse into her confidence She did not tell e of dress, she sat down to think She knew that, soon or late, the count must confess his loss, and then that the whole police force of Paris would concentrate its skill first on preventing her fro theular dash for the chalet to conceal the papers, as the count ainst the power, intelligence, and limitless resources of an army
If the count acted with reasonable promptness, the time left her to hide the papers was likely to be short
”She had adopted and dropped one plan after another as she walked through the night Then, as she sat in despair, she had an inspiration The fireplace was kept, after the coested a resource To lessen the size of the package she hastily removed the many envelops of the contained papers and also the thick double outside cover Then she tied the the lessened package on the hearth, far back, piled the cold ashes over it It was safe from combustion Finally, she replaced the cinders and set on top so or two The fire was soon burning brightly For a fewthat sheThree hours had gone by since she left the count In great haste she tore up the thick outside envelops and other covers and hastily scattered theer part of the covers, and only by accident, or rather by reason of her haste, was, as I shall tell you, lucky enough to leave unburned a bit of the outer cover However, she piled on s, and had settled herself by the fire when her nurse entered in company with a man in civilian dress and two of the police They used little ceremony and said siive thee and was indignant Then they made a very complete search, after which two of the, came back in an hour with a woorous personal search of her own and her nurse's garorously At last, returning to her boudoir, she found thebeside the fire She was in an agony of alar at the unconsumed corner of the outer official envelop Without a word, he raked away the fire and a part of the ashes, but seeing there no evidence of interest, contented himself hat proof he had of the destruction of the docuht
The appearance offire, I suppose, helped to confirry protests he replied civilly that it was a matter for his superiors Finally, an officer was left in charge, but she was allowed to send for a carriage and to return home It is clear that they are not satisfied, and the house has been watched ever since Of course, the ments of the official envelop concluded that she had burned the contents But some one else who knows their value will doubt”
”I suppose so They were less clever than usual”
”No; her haste saved her The unburned corner of the envelop fooled the man How could he dream that under a hot fire, cool and safe, were papers worth a fortune?”
”Certainly this time the luck is hers,” said I; ”but this will not satisfy them”
”No More than once since they have been over the house and garden and utterly devastated it, so says her nurse They searched a tool-house and a so there for flowers, but is in the utmost apprehension And now ten days have passed”
”Is that all?”
”No She has been questioned pretty brutally over and over, but as yet they have not searched her town house They are sure that the papers are in the villa”
”Well, what next?” I asked
”She says we et those papers That is our business”
”It will be difficult,” I returned; ”and there should be no delay It must be done, and done soon You or I would have found her cache”
”No, I should not; but if those people are still in doubt, as seems to be the case, and decide that no one but a fool would have burned the docuinative capacity to put himself in her place will find them
”By the way,” added Merton, ”she described the house to me Now let us think it over I shall be here at nine to-hts about it Given a house already watched day and night, how to get a paper out of it? No one will be allowed to leave it without being overhauled The old nurse, you oes to market To coive us no further help and only hurt her It is so grave a matter that the police, after another search, will arrest Marde secretly and, if possible, scare her into confession We have no time to lose
It must be done, too, in some simple way For her sake we must avoid violence, and whatever is done et into the house, even if we enter the garden unseen?”