Part 25 (2/2)

It was plain that their visit was expected. The great front door of the old pile of masonry was wide open and a flaring, swinging lamp illuminated the entrance hall, the light s.h.i.+ning far across the flagging before the door. As the girl had noted, there seemed no fear here at the chateau of German night raiders, while the village of Clair lay like a black swamp below the hill, not a lamp, even in the hospital, being allowed to s.h.i.+ne from windows or doorways there.

”Will you come in, Mademoiselle?” said the leader of the expedition softly.

One of his companions got out, too, and him they left in the entrance hall, standing grim and silent against the wall like an added piece of ancient armor, of which there were several in sight, while the secret agent and Ruth entered an apartment on the right.

It was a library-a long and lofty room, paneled with carved oak and furnished in a wood quite as dark, the chairs and huge table being ma.s.sive. There were a few fine old pictures; but the bookshelves were almost stripped of volumes. Ruth noted that but a few dozen remained.

The floor, too, was bare; yet by the stain on the boards she saw that once a huge rug must have almost covered the room. Everything remaining gave the apartment a stern and poverty-stricken air.

These things she noted at first glance. The countess was present, and it was the countess who attracted Ruth's almost immediate attention.

She was quite as handsome and graceful as she had seemed when Ruth saw her walking in the road. But now she was angry, and her head was held high and her cheeks were deeply flushed. Her scant skirts swis.h.i.+ng in and out of the candlelight, she walked up and down the room beyond the table, with something of the litheness of the caged tiger.

”And have you come back to repeat these things you have said about Bessie?” she demanded in French of the secret agent.

”But, yes, Madame la Countess. It is necessary that you be convinced,”

he said respectfully.

”I cannot believe it. I resent your accusation of poor Bessie. She has been with me for twenty years.”

”It is so,” said the man gravely. ”And we cast no reflection upon her faithfulness to you, Madame. But have you noted no change in her-of late?”

”Ah, who has not been changed by the war?” murmured the countess, stopping to look at them across the table. Then for the first time she seemed to apprehend Ruth's presence. She bowed distantly. ”Mademoiselle Americaine,” she murmured. ”What is this?”

”I would ask the mademoiselle to tell you what she knows of the connection of your servant with these men we are after,” said the secret agent briefly. Then he gestured for Ruth to speak.

The latter understood now what she had been brought here for. And she was shrewd enough to see, too, that the French secret police thought the countess entirely trustworthy.

Therefore Ruth began at the beginning and told of her suspicions aroused against Legrand and Jose when still she was in America, and of all the events which linked them to some plot, aimed against France, although she, of course, did not know and was not likely to know what that plot was.

The men were proven crooks. They were in disguise. And Ruth was positive that Jose was closely a.s.sociated with the old serving woman whom Ruth had seen with the dog.

At mention of the greyhound the countess and the secret agent exchanged glances. Ruth intercepted them; but she made no comment. She saw well enough that there was a secret in that which she was not to know.

Nor did she ever expect to learn anything more about that phase of the matter, being unblessed with second sight. However, in our next volume, ”Ruth Fielding at the War Front; Or, The Hunt for a Lost Soldier,” she was destined to gain much information on several points connected with the old chateau and its occupants.

Now, however, she merely told the countess what the agent had asked her to tell, including the fact that Bessie had been seen that afternoon riding away from the chateau with the two criminals, Legrand and Jose.

Her testimony seemed to convince the lady of the chateau. She bowed her head and wiped away the tears that moistened her now paling cheeks.

”_Ma foi!_ Who, then, is to be trusted?” she murmured, when the girl had finished. ”Your pardon, Monsieur! But, remember, I have had the poor creature in my service for many years.

”I must accept all your story as true. The American mademoiselle convinces me. This Jose, then, must be Bessie's nephew. I had heard of him. I must thank her, perhaps, that she did not allow him and his a.s.sociate to rob me before she ran away. The apaches!”

”We will get them,” said the agent cheerfully, preparing to depart. ”I leave men in the neighborhood. They will communicate with you-and you can trust them. If the woman reappears alone we must question her. You understand?” and he spoke with some sternness.

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