Part 82 (1/2)
Bernadine accepted the challenge.
”It is not I, alas! who may call myself Caesar,” he replied, ”although it is certainly you who are about to die.”
Sogrange turned to the man who stood behind his chair.
”If I might trouble you for a little dry toast?” he inquired. ”A modern but very uncomfortable ailment,” he added, with a sigh. ”One's digestion must march with the years, I suppose.”
Bernadine smiled.
”Your toast you shall have, with pleasure, Marquis,” he said, ”but as for your indigestion, do not let that trouble you any longer. I think that I can promise you immunity from that annoying complaint for the rest of your life.”
”You are doing your best,” Peter declared, leaning back in his chair, ”to take away my appet.i.te.”
Bernadine looked searchingly from one to the other of his two guests.
”Yes,” he admitted, ”you are brave men. I do not know why I should ever have doubted it. Your pose is excellent. I have no wish, however, to see you buoyed up by a baseless optimism. A somewhat remarkable chance has delivered you into my hands. You are my prisoners. You, Peter, Baron de Grost, I have hated all my days. You have stood between me and the achievement of some of my most dearly-cherished tasks. Always I have said to myself that the day of reckoning must come. It has arrived. As for you, Marquis de Sogrange, if my personal feelings towards you are less violent, you still represent the things absolutely inimical to me and my interests. The departure of you two men was the one thing necessary for the successful completion of certain tasks which I have in hand at the present moment.”
Peter pushed away his plate.
”You have succeeded in destroying my appet.i.te, Count,” he declared. ”Now that you have gone so far in expounding your amiable resolutions towards us, perhaps you will go a little further and explain exactly how, in this eminently respectable house, situated, I understand, in an eminently respectable neighborhood, with a police station within a mile, and a dozen or so witnesses as to our present whereabouts, you intend to expedite our removal?”
Bernadine pointed toward the woman who sat facing him.
”Ask the Baroness how these things are arranged.”
They turned towards her. She fell back in her chair with a little gasp.
She had fainted. Bernadine shrugged his shoulders. The butler and one of the footmen, who during the whole of the conversation had stolidly proceeded with their duties, in obedience to a gesture from their master took her up in their arms and carried her from the room.
”The fear has come to her, too,” Bernadine murmured, softly. ”It may come to you, my brave friends, before morning.”
”It is possible,” Peter answered, his hand stealing around to his hip pocket, ”but in the meantime, what is to prevent--”
The hip pocket was empty. Peter's sentence ended abruptly. Bernadine mocked him.
”To prevent your shooting me in cold blood, I suppose,” he remarked.
”Nothing except that my servants are too clever. No one save myself is allowed to remain under this roof with arms in their possession.
Your pocket was probably picked before you had been in the place five minutes. No, my dear Baron, let me a.s.sure you that escape will not be so easy! You were always just a little inclined to be led away by the fair s.e.x. The best men in the world, you know, have shared that failing, and the Baroness, alone and unprotected, had her attractions, eh?”
Then something happened to Peter which had happened to him barely a dozen times in his life. He lost his temper and lost it rather badly.
Without an instant's hesitation, he caught up the decanter which stood by his side and flung it in his host's face. Bernadine only partly avoided it by thrusting out his arms. The neck caught his forehead and the blood came streaming over his tie and collar. Peter had followed the decanter with a sudden spring. His fingers were upon Bernadine's throat and he thrust his head back. Sogrange sprang to the door to lock it, but he was too late. The room seemed full of men-servants. Peter was dragged away, still struggling fiercely.
”Tie them up!” Bernadine gasped, swaying in his chair. ”Tie them up, do you hear? Carl, give me brandy.”
He swallowed half a winegla.s.sful of the raw spirit. His eyes were red with fury.
”Take them to the gun room,” he ordered, ”three of you to each of them, mind. I'll shoot the man who lets either escape.”
But Peter and Sogrange were both of them too wise to expend any more of their strength in a useless struggle. They suffered themselves to be conducted without resistance across the white stone hall, down a long pa.s.sage, and into a room at the end, the window and fireplace of which were both blocked up. The floor was of red flags and the walls whitewashed. The only furniture was a couple of kitchen chairs and a long table. The door was of stout oak and fitted with a double lock. The sole outlet, so far as they could see, was a small round hole at the top of the roof. The door was locked behind them. They were alone.
”The odd trick to Bernadine!” Peter exclaimed hoa.r.s.ely, wiping a spot of blood from his forehead. ”My dear Marquis, I scarcely know how to apologize. It is not often that I lose my temper so completely.”