CHAPTER XIX
[Falfani again.]
When that audacious and intemperate English Colonel so far forgot himself as to assault my lord the Right Honourable the Earl of Blackadder at Culoz Station in the open light of day before us all, I greatly rejoiced; for, although horror-stricken at his ruffianly conduct, I knew that he would get his deserts at last. The French authorities would certainly not tolerate brawling in the precincts of the railway station, and justice must promptly overtake the sole offender. The blackguard Colonel, the cause and origin of the disturbance, would, of course, be at once arrested and removed.
The fracas had naturally attracted general attention. One or two porters ran up and endeavoured, with Tiler and myself, to rescue my lord from his cowardly assailant. A crowd quickly gathered around us, many passengers and a number of idlers, who drop from nowhere, as it might be, all drawn to the spot by overmastering curiosity. Everybody talked at the same time, asking questions, volunteering answers, some laughing shamelessly at my lord's discomfiture, a few expressing indignation, and declaring that such a scandal should not be permitted, and the guilty parties held strictly to account.
The gendarmes on duty—a couple of them are always at hand in a French railway station—soon appeared, and, taking in the situation at the first glance, imposed silence peremptorily.
"Let some one, one person only, speak and explain." The brigadier, or sergeant, addressed himself to me, no doubt seeing that I had assumed a prominent place in the forefront, and seemed a person of importance.
"Monsieur here," I said, pointing to the Colonel, who, in spite of all we could do, still held my lord tight, "was the aggressor, as you can see for yourselves. Oblige him, I pray you, to desist. He will do my lord some serious injury."
"Is one an English milord, hein? Who, then, is the other?"
"An abominable vaurien," I answered with great heat. "A rank villain; one who outrages all decency, breaks every law, respects no rank—"
"Bus, bus," cried the Colonel, in some language of his own, as he put me aside so roughly that I still feel the pain in my shoulder. "That'll do, my fine fellow. Let me speak for myself, if you please. Pardon, M. le brigadier," he went on, saluting him politely. "Here is my card. I am, as you will perceive, an officer of the English army, and I appeal to you as a comrade, for I see by your decorations, no doubt richly deserved, that you are an ancien militaire. I appeal to you for justice and protection."
"Protection, forsooth!" I broke in, contemptuously. "Such as the wolf and the tiger and the snake expect from their victim."
It made me sick to hear him currying favour with the gendarme, and still worse that it was affecting the old trooper, who looked on all as pekins, mere civilians, far inferior to military men.
"Protection you shall have, mon Colonel, if you have a right to it, bien entendu," said the sergeant, civilly but cautiously.
"I ask it because these people have made a dead set at me. They have tried to hustle me and, I fear, to rob me, and I have been obliged to act in my own defence."
Before I could protest against this shameless misrepresentation of the fact, my lord interposed. He was now free, and, gradually recovering, was burning to avenge the insults put upon him.
"It is not true," he shouted. "It is an absolute lie. He knows it is not true; he is perfectly well aware who I am, Lord Blackadder; and that he has no sort of grievance against me nor any of my people. His attack upon me was altogether unprovoked and unjustifiable."
"Let the authorities judge between us," calmly said the Colonel. "Take us before the station-master, or send for the Commissary from the town. I haven't the slightest objection."
"Yes, yes, the Commissaire de police, the judge, the peace officer. Let us go before the highest authorities; nothing less than arrest, imprisonment, the heaviest penalties, will satisfy me," went on my lord.
"With all my heart," cried the Colonel. "We'll refer it to any one you please. Lead on, mon brave, only you must take all or none. I insist upon that. It is my right; let us all go before the Commissary."
"There is no Commissary here in Culoz. You must travel to Aix-les-Bains to find him. Fifteen miles from here."
"Well, why not? I'm quite ready," assented the Colonel, with an alacrity I did not understand. I began to think he had some game of his own.
"So am I ready," cried his lordship. "I desire most strongly to haul this hectoring bully before the law, and let his flagrant misconduct be dealt with in a most exemplary fashion."
I caught a curious shadow flitting across my comrade Tiler's face at this speech. He evidently did not approve of my lord's attitude. Why?
I met his eye as soon as I could, and, in answer to my inquiring glance, he came over to me and whispered:
"Don't you see? He," jerking his finger toward the Colonel, "wants us to waste as much time as possible, while my lady slips through our fingers and gets farther and farther on her road."
"Where is she?"
"Ah, where? No longer here, anyway."
The train by which we had come from Geneva was not now in the station. It had gone on, quite unobserved by any of us during the fracas, and it flashed upon me at once that the incident had been planned for this very purpose of occupying our attention while she stole off.
"But, one moment, Ludovic, that train was going to Maçon and Paris. My lady was travelling the other way—this way. You came with her yourself. Why should she run back again?"
"Ah! Why does a woman do anything, and particularly this one? Still there was a reason, a good one. She must have caught sight of my lord, and knew that she was caught."
"That's plausible enough, but I don't understand it. She started for Italy; what turned her back when you followed her, and why did she come this way again?"
"She only came because I'd tracked her to Amberieu, and thought to give me the slip," said Tiler.
"May be. But it don't seem to fit. Anyway, we've got to find her once more. It ought not to be difficult. She's not the sort to hide herself easily, with all her belongings, the nurse and the baby and all the rest. But hold on, my lord is speaking."
"Find out, one of you," he said briefly, "when the next train goes to Aix. I mean to push this through to the bitter end. You will be careful, sergeant, to bring your prisoner along with you."
"Merci bien! I do not want you or any one else to teach me my duty," replied the gendarme, very stiffly. It was clear that his sympathies were all with the other side.
"A prisoner, am I?" cried the Colonel, gaily. "Not much. But I shall make no difficulties. I am willing enough to go with you. When is it to be?"
"Nine fifty-one; due at Aix at 10.22," Tiler reported, and we proceeded to pass the time, some twenty minutes, each in his own way. Lord Blackadder paced the platform with feverish footsteps, his rage and disappointment still burning fiercely within him. The Colonel invited the two gendarmes to the buvette, and l'Echelle followed him. I was a little doubtful of that slippery gentleman; although I had bought him, as I thought, the night before, I never felt sure of him. He had joined our party, had travelled with us, and seemed on our side in the recent scuffle, here he was putting himself at the beck and call of his own employer. My lord had paid him five hundred francs. Was the money thrown away, and his intention now to go back on his bargain?
Meanwhile Tiler and I thought it our pressing duty to utilize these few moments in seeking news of our lady and her party. Had she been seen? Oh, yes, many people, officials, and hangers-on about the station had seen her. Too much seen indeed, for the stories told were confusing and conflicting. One facteur assured us he had helped her into the train going Amberieu way, but I thought his description very vague, although Tiler swallowed the statement quite greedily. Another man told me quite a different story; he had seen her, and had not the slightest doubt of it, in the down train, that for Aix-les-Bains, the express via Chambery, Modane, and the Mont Cenis tunnel for Italy. This was the true version, I felt sure. Italy had been her original destination, and naturally she would continue her journey that way.
Why, then, Tiler asked, had she gone to Amberieu, running back as she had done with him at her heels? To deceive him, of course, I retorted. Was it not clear that her real point was Italy? Why else had she returned to Culoz by the early train directly she thought she had eluded Tiler? The reasoning was correct, but Ludovic was always a desperately obstinate creature, jealous and conceited, tenacious of his opinions, and holding them far superior to those who were cleverer and more intelligent than himself.
Then we heard the whistle of the approaching train, and we all collected on the platform. L'Echelle, as he came from the direction of the buvette, was a little in the rear of the Colonel and the gendarmes. I caught a look on his face not easy to interpret. He was grinning all over it and pointing toward the Colonel with his finger, derisively. I was not inclined to trust him very greatly, but he evidently wished us to believe that he thought very little of the Colonel, and that we might count upon his support against him.
CHAPTER XX
There were seven of us passengers, more than enough to fill one compartment, so we did not travel together. My lord very liberally provided first-class tickets for the whole of the party, but the Colonel took his own and paid for the gendarmes. He refused to travel in the same carriage with the noble Earl, saying openly and impudently that he preferred the society of honest old soldiers to such a crew as ours. L'Echelle, still sitting on the hedge, as I fancied, got in with the Colonel and his escort.
On reaching Aix-les-Bains, we found the omnibus that did the service de la ville, but the Colonel refused to enter it, and declared he would walk; he cared nothing for the degradation of appearing in the public streets as a prisoner marching between a couple of gendarmes. He gloried in it, he said; his desire was clearly to turn the whole thing into ridicule, and the passers-by laughed aloud at this well-dressed gentleman, as he strutted along with his hat cocked, one hand on his hip, the other placed familiarly on the sergeant's arm.
He met some friends, too,—one was a person rather like himself, with the same swaggering high-handed air, who accosted him as we were passing the corner of the square just by the Hôtel d'Aix.
"What ho! Basil my boy!" cried the stranger. "In chokey? Took up by the police? What've you done? Robbed a church?"
"Come on with us and you'll soon know. No, really, come along, I may want you. I'm going before the beak and may want a witness as to character."
"Right oh! There are some more of us here from the old shop—Jack Tyrrell, Bobus Smith—all Mars and Neptune men. They'll speak for a pal at a pinch. Where shall we come?"
"To the town hall, the mairie," replied the Colonel, after a brief reference to his escort. "I've got a particular appointment there with Monsieur le Commissaire, and the Right Honourable the Earl of Blackadder."
"Oh! that noble sportsman? What's wrong with him? What's he been doing to you or you to him?"
"I punched his head, that's all."
"No doubt he deserved it; anyhow, Charlie Forrester will be pleased. By-by, you'll see me again, and all the chaps I can pick up at the Cercle and the hotels near."
Then our procession passed on, the Colonel and gendarmes leading, Tiler and I with l'Echelle close behind.
We found my lord awaiting us. He had driven on ahead in a fiacre and was standing alone at the entrance to the police office, which is situated on the ground floor of the Hôtel de Ville, a pretty old-fashioned building of gray stone just facing the Etablissement Thermale, the home of the far-famed baths from which Aix-les-Bains takes its name.
"In here?" asked my lord; and with a brief wave of his hand he would have passed in first, but the officers of the law put him rather rudely aside and claimed precedence for their prisoner.
But when M. le Commissaire, who was there, seated at a table opposite his greffier, rose and bowed stiffly, inquiring our business, my lord pushed forward into the front and began very warmly, in passable French:
"I am an aggrieved person seeking justice on a wrong-doer. I—demand justice of you—"
"Pardon, monsieur, je vous prie. We must proceed in order, and first allow me to assure you that justice is always done in France. No one need claim it in the tone you have assumed."
The Commissary was a solemn person, full of the stiff formality exhibited by members of the French magistracy, the juniors especially. He was dressed in discreet black, his clean-shaven, imperturbable face showed over a stiff collar, and he wore the conventional white tie of the French official.
"Allow me to ask—" he went on coldly.
"I will explain in a few words," began my lord, replying hurriedly.
"Stay, monsieur, it is not from you that I seek explanation. It is the duty of the officers of the law now present, and prepared, I presume, to make their report. Proceed, sergeant."
"But you must hear me, M. le Commissary; I call upon and require you to do so. I have been shamefully ill-used by that man there." He shook his finger at the Colonel. "He has violently assaulted me. I am Lord Blackadder, an English peer. I am entitled to your best consideration."
"Every individual, the poorest, meanest, is entitled to that in republican France. You shall have it, sir, but only as I see fit to accord it. I must first hear the story from my own people. Go on, sergeant."
"I protest," persisted my lord. "You must attend to me—you shall listen to me. I shall complain to your superiors—I shall bring the matter before the British ambassador. Do you realize who and what I am?"
"You appear to be a gentleman with an uncontrollable temper, whose conduct is most improper. I must ask you to behave yourself, to respect the convenances, or I shall be compelled to show you the door."
"I will not be put down in this way, I will speak; I—I—"
"Silence, monsieur. I call upon you, explicitly, to moderate your tone and pay proper deference to my authority." With this the commissary pulled out a drawer, extracted a tricolour sash and slowly buckled it round his waist, then once more turned interrogatively to the sergeant:
"It is nothing very serious, M. le Commissaire," said the treacherous gendarme. "A simple brawl—a blow struck, possibly returned—a mere rixe."
"Between gentlemen? Fi donc! Why the commonest voyous, the rôdeurs of the barrière, could not do worse. It is not our French way. Men of honour settle their disputes differently; they do not come to the police correctionnelle."
"Pray do not think it is my desire," broke in the Colonel, with his customary fierceness. "I have offered Lord Blackadder satisfaction as a gentleman, and am ready to meet him when and how he pleases."
"I cannot listen to you, sir. Duels are in contravention of the Code. But I recommend you to take your quarrels elsewhere, and not to waste my time."
"This is quite unheard of," cried my lord, now thoroughly aroused. "You are shamefully neglecting your duty, M. le Commissaire, and it cannot be tolerated."
"I am not responsible to you, sir, and will account for my action à qui de droit, to those who have the right to question me. The case is dismissed. Gendarmes, release your prisoner, and let everyone withdraw."
We all trooped out into the square, where a number of persons had assembled, evidently the Colonel's friends, for they greeted him uproariously.
"The prisoner has left the court without a stain upon his character," the Colonel shouted in answer to their noisy inquiries.
"But what was it? Why did they run you in?" they still asked.
"I refer you to this gentleman, Lord Blackadder. Perhaps some of you know him. At any rate you've heard of him. We had a difference of opinion, and I was compelled to administer chastisement." A lot of impudent chaff followed.
"Oh! really, pray introduce me to his lordship," said one. "Does your lordship propose to make a long stay in Aix? Can we be of any use to you?" "You mustn't mind Basil Annesley; he's always full of his games." "Hope he didn't hurt you. He didn't mean it really;" and I could see that the Earl could hardly contain himself in his rage.
Then, suddenly muttering something about "bounders" and "cads," he forced his way through and hurried off, shouting his parting instructions to us to join him as soon as possible at the Hôtel Hautecombe on the hill.
We followed quickly, and were ushered at once into his private apartment. It was essential to confer and decide upon some plan of action; but when I asked him what he proposed to do next, he received my harmless request with a storm of invective and reproach.
"You miserable and incompetent fools! Don't expect me to tell you your business. Why do I pay you? Why indeed? Nothing you have done has been of the very slightest use; on the contrary, through your beastly mismanagement I have been dragged into this degrading position, held up to ridicule and contempt before all the world. And with it all, the whole thing has failed. I sent you out to recover my child, and what have you done? What has become of that abominable woman who stole it from under your very noses? Blackguards! Bunglers! Idiots! Fat-headed asses!"
"Nay, my lord," pleaded Tiler humbly, for I confess I was so much annoyed by this undeserved reprimand I could not bring myself to speak civilly. "I think I can assure your lordship that matters will soon mend. The situation is not hopeless, believe me. You may rely on us to regain touch with the fugitives without delay. I have a clue, and with your lordship's permission will follow it at once."
I saw clearly that he was set upon the absurd notion he had conceived that the lady had gone westward, and I felt it my duty to warn the Earl not to be misled by Tiler.
"There is nothing in his clue, my lord. It is pure assumption, without any good evidence to support it."
"Let me hear this precious clue," said his lordship. "I will decide what it is worth."
Then Tiler propounded his theory.
"It might be good enough," I interjected, "if I did not know the exact contrary. The lady with her party was seen going in exactly the opposite direction. I know it for a fact."
"And I am equally positive of what I saw," said Tiler.
His lordship looked from one to the other, plainly perplexed and with increasing anger.
"By the Lord Harry, it's pleasant to be served by a couple of such useless creatures who differ so entirely in their views that they cannot agree upon a common plan of action. How can I decide as to the best course if you give me no help?"
"Perhaps your lordship will allow me to make a suggestion?" I said gravely, and I flatter myself with some dignity, for I wished to show I was not pleased with the way he treated us.
"Whether the lady has gone north or south, east or west, may be uncertain; and although I am satisfied in my own mind as to the direction she took, I am willing to await further developments before embarking on any further chase. To my mind the best clue, the real, the only clue, lies here, in our very hands. If we have only a little patience, this Colonel Annesley will act as a sign-post."
"You think that some communication will reach him from the fugitives?"
"Most decidedly I do. I firmly believe that the lady relies upon him greatly, and will in all probability call him to her, or if not that she will wish to let him know how she has got on."
For the first time in this unpleasant interview his lordship looked at me approvingly. He quite changed his tone and dropped his aggressive manner.
"I believe you are entirely right, Falfani, and cordially agree with your suggestion," he said with great heartiness. "Let it be adopted at once. Take immediate steps, if you please, to set a close watch on this pestilent villain Annesley; keep him continually under your eye."
"We've got to find him first," objected Tiler gruffly and despondently.
"It ought not to be difficult, seeing that he was here half an hour ago, and we can hunt up l'Echelle, who will surely know, and who I have reason to hope is on our side."
"Do it one way or another. I look to you for that, and let me know the result without loss of time. Then we will confer again and arrange further. Leave me now."
I accepted my dismissal and moved towards the door, but Tiler hung behind, and I heard him say timidly:
"May I crave your lordship's pardon—and I trust you rely on my entire devotion to your lordship's service—but there is one thing I most earnestly desire to do."
"Go on."
"And that is to follow my own clue, at least for a time. It is the right one I firmly believe, and I am satisfied it would be wrong, criminal even to neglect it. Will you allow me to absent myself if only for a few days? That should suffice to settle the point. If I fail I will return with all speed. If, as I hope and believe, I strike the scent, assuredly you will not regret it."
"There's something in what you say. At any rate that line ought to be looked up," said his lordship. "I am willing to wait a day or two until you return or report, or unless something more definite turns up in the other direction. I suppose he can be spared, Falfani?"
"He will be no manner of use here, it will be better to let him go; let him run after his red herring, he'll precious soon find out his mistake."
"We shall see," said Tiler, elated and cocksure, and I freely confess we did see that he was not quite the fool I thought him.