Complete weird tales of.., p.216
Complete Weird Tales of Robert W Chambers, page 216
“What about me?” repeated Tric-Trac, in an offended tone. “Am I to live in fear of the Flics?”
The Lizard laughed again, and Tric-Trac, disgusted, stood up, settled his cap over his wide ears, humming a song as he loosened his trousers-belt:
“Si vous t’nez à vot’ squelette
Ne fait’ pas comme Bibi!
Claquer plutôt dans vot’ lit
Que de claquer à la Roquette!” —
“Who are you gaping at?” he added, abruptly. “Bon; c’est ma geule. Et après? Drop that box!”
“Come,” replied the Lizard, coldly, placing the box on the moss, “you’d better not quarrel with me.”
“Oh, that’s a threat, is it?” sneered Tric-Trac. He walked over to the steel box, lifted it, placed it in the iron-edged case, and sat down on the case.
“I want you to comprehend,” he added, “that you have pushed your nose into an affair that does not concern you. The next time you come here to sell your snared pheasants, come like a man, nom de Dieu! and not like a cat of the Glacière! — or I’ll find a way to stop your curiosity.”
The dull-red color surged into the poacher’s face and heavy neck; for a moment he stood as though stunned. Then he dragged out his knife. 248
Tric-Trac sat looking at him insolently, one hand thrust into the bosom of his greasy coat.
“I’ve got a toy under my cravate that says ‘Papa!’ six times — pop! pop! pop! pop! pop! pop! Papa!” he continued, calmly; “so there’s no use in your turning red and swelling the veins in your neck. Go to the devil! Do you think I can’t live without you? Go to the devil with your traps and partridges and fish-hooks — and that fagot-knife in your fist — and if you try to throw it at me you’ll make a sad mistake!”
The Lizard’s half-raised hand dropped as Tric-Trac, with a movement like lightning, turned a revolver full on him, talking all the while in his drawling whine.
“C’est çà! Now you are reasonable. Get out of this forest, my friend — or stay and join us. Eh! That astonishes you? Why? Idiot, we want men like you. We want men who have nothing to lose and — millions to gain! Ah, you are amazed! Yes, millions — I say it. I, Tric-Trac of the Glacière, who have done my time in Noumea, too! Yes, millions.”
The young ruffian laughed and slowly passed his tongue over his thin lips. The Lizard slowly returned his knife to its sheath, looked all around, then deliberately sat down on the moss cross-legged. I could have hugged him.
“A million? Where?” he asked, vacantly.
“Parbleu! Naturally you ask where,” chuckled Tric-Trac. “Tiens! A supposition that it’s in this box!”
“The box is too small,” said the Lizard, patiently.
Tric-Trac roared. “Listen to him! Listen to the child!” he cried, delighted. “Too small to hold gold enough for you? Very well — but is a ship big enough?”
“A big ship is.”
Tric-Trac wriggled in convulsions of laughter.
“Oh, listen! He wants a big ship! Well — say a ship as big as that ugly, black iron-clad sticking up out of the sea yonder, like a Usine-de-gaz!”
“I think that ship would be big enough,” said the poacher, seriously.
Tric-Trac did not laugh; his little eyes narrowed, and he looked steadily at the poacher.
“Do you mean what I mean?” he asked, deliberately.
“Well,” said the Lizard, “what do you mean?”
“I mean that France is busy stitching on a new flag.”
“Black?”
“Red — first.”
“Oh-h!” mused the poacher. “When does France hoist that new red flag?”
“When Paris falls.”
The poacher rested his chin on his doubled fist and leaned forward across his gathered knees. “I see,” he drawled.
“Under the commune there can be no more poverty,” said Tric-Trac; “you comprehend that.”
“Exactly.”
“And no more aristocrats.”
“Exactly.”
“Well,” said Tric-Trac, his head on one side, “how does that programme strike you?”
“It is impossible, your programme,” said the poacher, rising to his feet impatiently.
“You think so? Wait a few days! Wait, my friend,” cried Tric-Trac, eagerly; “and say! — come back here next Monday! There will be a few of us here — a few friends. And keep your mouth shut tight. Here! Wait. Look here, friend, don’t let a little pleasantry stand between comrades. Your fagot-knife against my little flute that sings pa-pa! — that leaves matters balanced, eh?”
The young ruffian had followed the Lizard and caught him by his stained velvet coat. 250
“Voyons,” he persisted, “do you think the commune is going to let a comrade starve for lack of Badinguet’s lozenges? Here, take a few of these!” and the rascal thrust out a dirty palm full of twenty-franc gold pieces.
“What are these for?” muttered the Lizard, sullenly.
“For your beaux yeux, imbecile!” cried Tric-Trac, gayly. “Come back when you want more. My comrade, Citizen Buckhurst, will be glad to see you next Monday. Adieu, my friend. Don’t chatter to the Flics!”
He picked up his box and the packet of provisions, dropped his revolver into the side-pocket of his jacket, cocked his greasy cap, blew a kiss to the Lizard, and started off straight into the forest. After a dozen steps he hesitated, turned, and looked back at the poacher for a moment in silence. Then he made a friendly grimace.
“You are not a fool,” he said, “so you won’t follow me. Come again Monday. It will really be worth while, dear friend.” Then, as on an impulse, he came all the way back, caught the Lizard by the sleeve, raised his meagre body on tip-toe, and whispered.
The Lizard turned perfectly white; Tric-Trac trotted away into the woods, hugging his box and smirking.
The Lizard and I walked back together. By the time we reached Paradise bridge I understood him better, and he understood me. And when we arrived at the circus tent, and when Speed came up, handing me a telegram from Chanzy refusing my services, the Lizard turned to me like an obedient hound to take my orders — now that I was not to re-enter the Military Police.
I ordered him to disobey the orders from Lorient and from the mayor of Paradise; to take to the woods as though to avoid the conscription; to join Buckhurst’s franc-company of ruffians, and to keep me fully informed. 251
“And, Lizard,” I said, “you may be caught and hanged for it by the police, or stabbed by Tric-Trac.”
“Bien,” he said, coolly.
“But it is a brave thing you do; a soldierly thing!”
He was silent.
“It is for France,” I said.
He shrugged his shoulders.
“And we’ll catch this Tric-Trac red-handed,” I suggested.
“Ah — yes!” His eyes glowed as though lighted up from behind. “And another who is high in the police, and a friend of this Tric-Trac!”
“Was it that man’s name he whispered to you when you turned so white?” I said, suddenly.
The Lizard turned his glowing eyes on me.
“Was the man’s name — Mornac?” I asked, at a hopeless venture.
The Lizard shivered; I needed no reply, not even his hoarse, “Are you the devil, that you know all things?”
I looked at him wonderingly. What wrong could Mornac have done a ragged outcast here on the Breton coast? And where was Mornac? Had he left Paris in time to avoid the Prussian trap? Was he here in this country, rubbing elbows with Buckhurst?
“Did Tric-Trac tell you that Mornac was at the head of that band?” I demanded.
“Why do you ask me?” stammered the Lizard; “you know everything — even when it is scarcely whispered!”
The superstitious astonishment of the man, his utter collapse and his evident fear of me, did not suit me. Treachery comes through that kind of fear; I meant to rule him in another and safer manner. I meant to be absolutely honest with him.
It was difficult to persuade him that I had only guessed the name whispered; that, naturally, I should think of Mornac as a high officer of police, and particularly so since I knew him to be a villain, and had also divined his relations with Buckhurst.
I drew from the poacher that Tric-Trac had named Mornac as head of the communistic plot in Brittany; that Mornac was coming to Paradise very soon, and that then something gay might be looked for.
And that night I took Speed into my confidence and finally Kelly Eyre, our balloonist.
And we talked the matter over until long after midnight.
* * *
XV
FOREWARNED
THE LIONS HAD now begun to give me a great deal of trouble. Timour Melek, the old villain, sat on his chair, snarling and striking at me, but still going through his paces; Empress Khatoun was a perfect devil of viciousness, and refused to jump her hoops; even poor little Aïcha, my pet, fed by me soon after her foster-mother, a big Newfoundland, had weaned her, turned sullen in the pyramid scene. I roped her and trimmed her claws; it was high time.
Oh, they knew, and I knew, that matters had gone wrong with me; that I had, for a time, at least, lost the intangible something which I once possessed — that occult right to dominate.
It worried me; it angered me. Anger in authority, which is a weakness, is quickly discovered by beasts.
Speed’s absurd superstition continued to recur to me at inopportune moments; in my brain his voice was ceaselessly sounding— “A man in love, a man in love, a man in love” — until a flash of temper sent my lions scurrying and snarling into a pack, where they huddled and growled, staring at me with yellow, mutinous eyes.
Yet, strangely, the greater the risk, and the plainer to me that my lions were slipping out of my control, the more my apathy increased, until even Byram began to warn me.
Still I never felt the slightest physical fear; on the contrary, as my irritation increased my disdain grew. It seemed a monstrous bit of insolence on the part of these overgrown cats to meditate an attack on me. Even though I began to feel that it was only a question of time when the moment must arrive, even though I gradually became certain that the first false move on my part would precipitate an attack, the knowledge left me almost indifferent.
That morning, as I left the training-cage — where, among others, Kelly Eyre stood looking on — I suddenly remembered Sylvia Elven and her message to Eyre, which I had never delivered.
We strolled towards the stables together; he was a pleasant, clean-cut, fresh-faced young fellow, a man I had never known very well, but one whom I was inclined to respect and trust.
“My son,” said I, politely, “do you think you have arrived at an age sufficiently mature to warrant my delivering to you a message from a pretty girl?”
“There’s no harm in attempting it, my venerable friend,” he replied, laughing.
“This is the message,’’ I said: “On Sunday the book-stores are closed in Paris.”
“Who gave you that message, Scarlett?” he stammered.
I looked at him curiously, brutally; a red, hot blush had covered his face from neck to hair.
“In case you asked, I was to inform you,” said I, “that a Bretonne at Point Paradise sent the message.”
“A Bretonne!” he repeated, as though scared.
“A Bretonne!”
“But I don’t know any!”
I shrugged my shoulders discreetly.
“Are you certain she was a Bretonne?” he asked. His nervousness surprised me.
“Does she not say so?” I replied. 255
“I know — I know — but that message — there is only one woman who could have sent it—” He hesitated, red as a pippin.
He was so young, so manly, so unspoiled, and so red, that on an impulse I said: “Kelly, it was Mademoiselle Elven who sent you the message.”
His face expressed troubled astonishment.
“Is that her name?” he asked.
“Well — it’s one of them, anyway,” I replied, beginning to feel troubled in my turn. “See here, Kelly, it’s not my business, but you won’t mind if I speak plainly, will you? The times are queer — you understand. Everybody is suspicious; everybody is under suspicion in these days. And I want to say that the young lady who sent that curious message to you is as clever as twenty men like you and me.”
He was silent.
“If it is a love affair, I’ll stop now — not a question, you understand. If it is not — well, as an older and more battered and world-worn man, I’m going to make a suggestion to you — with your permission.”
“Make it,” he said, quietly.
“Then I will. Don’t talk to Mademoiselle Elven. You, Speed, and I know something about a certain conspiracy; we are going to know more before we inform the captain of that cruiser out there beyond Point Paradise. I know Mademoiselle Elven — slightly. I am afraid of her — and I have not yet decided why. Don’t talk to her.”
“But — I don’t know her,” he said; “or, at least I don’t know her by that name.”
After a moment I said: “Is the person in question the companion of the Countess de Vassart?”
“If she is I do not know it,” he replied.
“Was she once an actress?”
“It would astonish me to believe it!” he said. 256
“Then who do you believe sent you that message, Kelly?”
His cheeks began to burn again, and he gave me an uncomfortable look. A silence, and he sat down in my dressing-room, his boyish head buried in his hands. After a glance at him I began changing my training-suit for riding-clothes, whistling the while softly to myself. As I buttoned a fresh collar he looked up.
“Mr. Scarlett, you are well-born and — you are here in the circus with the rest of us. You know what we are — you know that two or three of us have seen better days,... that something has gone wrong with us to bring us here,... but we never speak of it,... and never ask questions.... But I should like to tell you about myself;... you are a gentleman, you know,... and I was not born to anything in particular.... I was a clerk in the consul’s office in Paris when Monsieur Tissandier took a fancy to me, and I entered his balloon ateliers to learn to assist him.”
He hesitated. I tied my necktie very carefully before a bit of broken mirror.
“Then the government began to make much of us,... you remember? We started experiments for the army.... I was intensely interested, and ... there was not much talk about secrecy then,... and my salary was large, and I was received at the Tuileries. My head was turned;... life was easy, brilliant. I made an invention — a little electric screw which steered a balloon ... sometimes...” He laughed, a mirthless laugh, and looked at me. All the color had gone from his face.
“There was a woman—” I turned partly towards him.
“We met first at the British Embassy,... then elsewhere,... everywhere.... We skated together at the club in the Bois at that celebrated fête,... you know? — the Emperor was there—” 257
“I know,” I said.
He looked at me dreamily, passed his hand over his face, and went on:
“Somehow we always talked about military balloons. And that evening ... she was so interested in my work ... I brought some little sketches I had made—”
“I understand,” I said.
He looked at me miserably. “She was to return the sketches to me at Calman’s — the fashionable book-store,... next day.... I never thought that the next day was to be Sunday.... The book-stores of Paris are not open on Sunday — but the War Office is.”
I began to put on my coat.
“And the sketches were asked for?” I suggested— “and you naturally told what had become of them?”
“I refused to name her.”
“Of course; men of our sort can’t do that.”
“I am not of your sort — you know it.”
“Oh yes, you are, my friend — and the same kind of fool, too. There’s only one kind of man in this world.”
He looked at me listlessly.
“So they sent you to a fortress?” I asked.
“To New Caledonia,... four years.... I was only twenty, Scarlett,... and ruined.... I joined Byram in Antwerp and risked the tour through France.”
After a moment’s thought I said: “In your opinion, what nation profited by your sketches? Italy? Spain? Prussia? Bavaria? England?... Perhaps Russia?”
“Do you mean that this woman was a foreign spy?”
“Perhaps. Perhaps she was only careless, or capricious,... or inconstant.... You never saw her again?”
“I was under arrest on Sunday. I do not know.... I like to believe that she went to the book-store on Monday,... that she made an innocent mistake,... but I never knew, Scarlett,... I never knew.”
“Suppose you ask her?” I said.
He reddened furiously.
“I cannot.... If she did me a wrong, I cannot reproach her; if she was innocent — look at me, Scarlett! — a ragged, ruined mountebank in a travelling circus,... and she is—”
“An honest woman that a man might care for?”
“That is ... my belief.”
“If she is,” I said, “go and ask her about those drawings.”
“But if she is not,... I cannot tell you!” he flashed out.
“Let us shake hands, Kelly,” I said,... “and be very good friends. Will you?”
He gave me his hand rather shyly.
“We will never speak of her again,” I said,... “unless you desire it. You have had a terrible lesson in caution; I need say no more. Only remember that I have trusted you with a secret concerning Buckhurst’s conspiracy.”
His firm hand tightened on mine, then he walked away, steadily, head high. And I went out to saddle my horse for a canter across the moor to Point Paradise.
It was a gray day, with a hint of winter in the air, and a wind that set the gorse rustling like tissue-paper. Up aloft the sun glimmered, a white spot in a silvery smother; pale lights lay on moorland and water; the sea tumbled over the bar, boiling like a flood of liquid lead from which the spindrift curled and blew into a haze that buried the island of Groix and turned the anchored iron-clad to a phantom.
