Part 14 (1/2)
”And Monsieur is so simple as to believe him?”
”Why should I not?”
”Because he is jealous and cunning. You will see. He will never introduce you to his wife. He will come here and say he cannot find her, and promise another time.”
”I think I see him approaching, with my friend. No--there is no lady with him.”
”I told you so. You will wait a long time for that happiness, if it is never to reach you except through his hands. In the meantime, you had better not let him see you so near me. He will suspect that we have been talking of his wife; and that will whet his jealousy and his vigilance.”
I thanked my unknown friend in the mask, and withdrawing a few steps, came, by a little ”circ.u.mbendibus,” upon the flank of the Count. I smiled under my mask as he a.s.sured me that the d.u.c.h.ess de la Roqueme had changed her place, and taken the Countess with her; but he hoped, at some very early time, to have an opportunity of enabling her to make my acquaintance.
I avoided the Marquis d'Harmonville, who was following the Count. I was afraid he might propose accompanying me home, and had no wish to be forced to make an explanation.
I lost myself quickly, therefore, in the crowd, and moved, as rapidly as it would allow me, toward the Galerie des Glaces, which lay in the direction opposite to that in which I saw the Count and my friend the Marquis moving.
Chapter XV
STRANGE STORY OF THE DRAGON VOLANT
These _fetes_ were earlier in those days, and in France, than our modern b.a.l.l.s are in London. I consulted my watch. It was a little past twelve.
It was a still and sultry night; the magnificent suite of rooms, vast as some of them were, could not be kept at a temperature less than oppressive, especially to people with masks on. In some places the crowd was inconvenient, and the profusion of lights added to the heat. I removed my mask, therefore, as I saw some other people do, who were as careless of mystery as I. I had hardly done so, and began to breathe more comfortably, when I heard a friendly English voice call me by my name. It was Tom Whistlewick, of the --th Dragoons. He had unmasked, with a very flushed face, as I did. He was one of those Waterloo heroes, new from the mint of glory, whom, as a body, all the world, except France, revered; and the only thing I knew against him, was a habit of allaying his thirst, which was excessive at b.a.l.l.s, _fetes_, musical parties, and all gatherings, where it was to be had, with champagne; and, as he introduced me to his friend, Monsieur Carmaignac, I observed that he spoke a little thick. Monsieur Carmaignac was little, lean, and as straight as a ramrod. He was bald, took snuff, and wore spectacles; and, as I soon learned, held an official position.
Tom was facetious, sly, and rather difficult to understand, in his present pleasant mood. He was elevating his eyebrows and s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g his lips oddly, and fanning himself vaguely with his mask.
After some agreeable conversation I was glad to observe that he preferred silence, and was satisfied with the _role_ of listener, as I and Monsieur Carmaignac chatted; and he seated himself, with extraordinary caution and indecision, upon a bench, beside us, and seemed very soon to find a difficulty in keeping his eyes open.
”I heard you mention,” said the French gentleman, ”that you had engaged an apartment in the Dragon Volant, about half a league from this. When I was in a different police department, about four years ago, two very strange cases were connected with that house. One was of a wealthy _emigre_, permitted to return to France by the Em--by Napoleon. He vanished. The other--equally strange--was the case of a Russian of rank and wealth. He disappeared just as mysteriously.”
”My servant,” I said, ”gave me a confused account of some occurrences, and, as well as I recollect, he described the same persons--I mean a returned French n.o.bleman and a Russian gentleman. But he made the whole story so marvelous--I mean in the supernatural sense--that, I confess, I did not believe a word of it.”
”No, there was nothing supernatural; but a great deal inexplicable,”
said the French gentleman. ”Of course, there may be theories; but the thing was never explained, nor, so far as I know, was a ray of light ever thrown upon it.”
”Pray let me hear the story,” I said. ”I think I have a claim, as it affects my quarters. You don't suspect the people of the house?”
”Oh! it has changed hands since then. But there seemed to be a fatality about a particular room.”
”Could you describe that room?”
”Certainly. It is a s.p.a.cious, paneled bedroom, up one pair of stairs, in the back of the house, and at the extreme right, as you look from its windows.”
”Ho! Really? Why, then, I have got the very room!” I said, beginning to be more interested--perhaps the least bit in the world, disagreeably.
”Did the people die, or were they actually spirited away?”
”No, they did not die--they disappeared very oddly. I'll tell you the particulars--I happen to know them exactly, because I made an official visit, on the first occasion, to the house, to collect evidence; and although I did not go down there, upon the second, the papers came before me, and I dictated the official letter dispatched to the relations of the people who had disappeared; they had applied to the government to investigate the affair. We had letters from the same relations more than two years later, from which we learned that the missing men had never turned up.”
He took a pinch of snuff, and looked steadily at me.
”Never! I shall relate all that happened, so far as we could discover.