Part 72 (1/2)
”Why did you not change your doublet at the Louvre, since you returned there?” asked the queen.
”Ah!” said La Mole, ”because some one was in my room.”
”Some one in your room?” said Marguerite, whose eyes expressed the greatest astonishment; ”who was in your room?”
”His highness.”
”Hus.h.!.+” interrupted Marguerite.
The young man obeyed.
”_Qui ad lecticam meam stant?_” she asked La Mole.
”_Duo pueri et unus eques_.”
”_Optime, barbari!_” said she. ”_Dic, Moles, quem inveneris in biculo tuo?_”
”_Francisc.u.m ducem_.”
”_Agentem?_”
”_Nescio quid_.”
”_Quoc.u.m?_”
”_c.u.m ignoto._”[8]
”That is strange,” said Marguerite. ”So you were unable to find Coconnas?” she continued, without evidently thinking of what she was saying.
”So, madame, as I have had the honor of telling you, I am really dying of anxiety.”
”Well,” said Marguerite, sighing, ”I do not wish to detain you longer in your search for him; I do not know why I think so, but he will find himself! Never mind, however, go, in spite of this.”
The queen laid a finger on her lips. But as beautiful Marguerite had confided no secret, had made no avowal to La Mole, the young man understood that this charming gesture, meaning only to impose silence on him, must have another significance.
The procession resumed its march, and La Mole, intent on following out his investigation, continued to ascend the quay as far as the Rue Long Pont which led him to the Rue Saint Antoine.
Opposite the Rue Jouy he stopped. It was there that the previous evening the two duennas had bandaged his eyes and those of Coconnas. He had turned to the left, then he had counted twenty steps. He repeated this and found himself opposite a house, or rather a wall, behind which rose a house; in this wall was a door with a shed over it ornamented with large nails and loop-holes.
The house was in the Rue Cloche Percee, a small narrow street beginning in the Rue Saint Antoine and ending in the Rue Roi de Sicile.
”By Heaven!” cried La Mole, ”it was here--I would swear to it--in extending my hand, as I came out, I felt the nails in the door, then I descended two steps. The man who ran by crying 'Help!' who was killed in the Rue Roi de Sicile, pa.s.sed just as I reached the first. Let us see, now.”
La Mole went to the door and knocked. The door opened and a mustached janitor appeared.
”_Was ist das?_” (Who is that?) asked the janitor.
”Ah! ah!” said La Mole, ”we are Swiss, apparently.” ”My friend,” he continued, a.s.suming the most charming manner, ”I want my sword which I left in this house in which I spent the night.”
”_Ich verstehe nicht_,” (I do not understand,) replied the janitor.