Chapter 5

"In that case," laughed Merton, "circumstances--"

"Monsieur does not desire me to enter the house."

I said promptly that we did not. Alphonse seemed relieved, and Merton went on to state with care his own plan. Alphonse listened with the joy of an expert, adding suggestions and twice making very good comments on our arrangements. It would be necessary he thought, to wait for a stormy night, but already it was overclouded.

Alphonse went away to see his mother and to make his own preparations for the share assigned to him in an adventure to which I looked forward with keen interest and with small satisfaction.

Not so Merton. When the valet left us, the captain said: "We are utterly in the hands of that man."

"Yes," I returned thoughtfully.

"If he knew," said Merton, "he might--"

"No. That he did not want to know what these papers are was an expression of his own doubt concerning the extent to which he might trust himself. I think we must trust him."

"Yes," returned the captain. "Whether or not we have been wise to use him, I rather doubted, but now I do not. The limitations of the moral code of a man like Alphonse are strange enough. It is hard to guess beforehand what he will do and what he will not. However, we are in for it. You have a revolver?"

"No."

"I will lend you mine."

I said I should be glad to borrow it, but I may say that I took care, before we set out, to see that the barrels were not loaded. I might use it to threaten, but was resolute not to fire on any one, even if not to do so involved failure of our purpose. I, too, had my moral limitations.

We lost a day, but on the following night there was such a storm as satisfied us to the full.

XII

About eight o'clock we drove to a little restaurant in the Bois de Boulogne, dined quietly, and about nine set out on foot to walk to the villa. There was a brief lull in the storm, but very soon the rain fell again heavily, and as, of course, we took no umbrellas, we were soon wet to the skin.

Making sure that we were not followed, we approached the garden cautiously through the wood, the rain falling in torrents. At the edge of the forest, near a well known fountain, beyond the house, we met by appointment my man, Alphonse. He was dressed as an old woman and had an empty basket on his arm. Together we moved through the wood and shrubbery until we were opposite the side of the garden and about a hundred feet from where the wall turned at a right angle.

Here, facing an avenue, the wall was broken midway by the arch of the entrance gateway. The wind blew toward us, and we could hear now and then the sound of voices.

Alphonse said: "Two; there are two at the gate."

"Hush," said I, as a man came around the angle and along the narrow way between us and the garden wall.

"Wait, monsieur; he will come again." In some ten minutes he reappeared, as before.

"Now," said Merton, and in a pour of wildly driven rain Alphonse disappeared. He found his way through the wood and in to the main avenue, which in front of the gate turned to the left and passed around the farther side of the grounds. Then he walked up to the gate. Before long we heard words of complaint. Would the guards tell her--This was all gleefully related afterward. She had lost her way. Yes, a little glass of absinthe--only one. She was not used to it. And she had the money for her market sales, and alas! so she was all wrong and must go back. The guards laughed. No doubt it was the absinthe. The old woman was reeling now and then. Wouldn't one of them show her the way? No. And was it down the avenue? Yes. With this she set off unsteadily along the road to the left. They called out that it was the wrong way, and then, laughing, dismissed her.

When once around the remote angle of the wall, Alphonse slipped aside into the forest, got rid of gown and basket, and moving through the wood, took up his station on the side of the main avenue of approach to the villa, and out of sight of the guards. Here he waited until a few minutes later he was joined by the captain.

Meanwhile I stood in the wood with Merton. I think he enjoyed it. I did not. A first attempt at burglary is not in all its aspects heroic, and I was wet, chilled, and anxious.

"First actor on," murmured Merton. "Should like to have seen that interview. Can't be actor and audience both."

I hazily reflected that for myself I was both, and that the actor had just then a sharp fit of stage-scare. I let him run on unanswered, while the rain poured down my back.

At last he said: "I think Alphonse has had time enough."

"Hardly," said I. I did not want to talk. I was longing to do something--to begin. The punctual guard went by twenty feet away, the smoke of his pipe blown toward us.

"I never liked pipe-smoking on the picket-line," said Merton. "You can smell it of a damp night at any distance. Remind me to tell you a story about it. Heavens!" he cried, as a flash of lightning for an instant set everything in noon-day clearness, "I hope we shall not have much of that. Keep down, Greville. Ever steal apples? Strike that repeater." I did so. "It's a good deal like waiting for the word to charge. I remember that once we labeled ourselves for recognition in case we did not come out alive. Just after that I fell ill."

"Hush!" I said. "There he is again."

"All right; give him a moment," said Merton, "and now you have a full half-hour. Come."

We crossed the narrow road and stood below the garden wall. He gave me the aid of his bent knee and then his shoulder, and I was at once lying flat on the garden wall. My repeater rang 10:15, and then, as I lay, I heard voices. This time there were two men. They paused on the road just below me to light cigarettes. One of them consigned the weather to a place where it might have proved more agreeable. The other said Jean had a pleasanter station in the house. This was not very reassuring news, but I was in for it and wildly eager to be through with a perilous adventure.

As they disappeared, I dropped from the wall into the garden and fell with an alarming crash, rolling over on a pile of flower-pots. There was such a clatter as on any quiet night must have been surely heard. For a moment I lay still, and then, hearing no signals of alarm, I rose and groped along the wall to the door of the conservatory. It was not locked. Pausing on the step outside for a moment, I took off my shoes and secured them by tying them to a belt I wore for this purpose. Then I went in. I found the door of the house ajar, and entering, knew that I was in the drawing-room. I moved with care, in the gloom, through the furniture, and, aided by a flash of lightning, found my way into the hall. Before me, to left, across the hall, was a small room. The door was open. I smelled very vile pipe-smoke and heard footfalls overhead, but no sound of voices. I became at once hopeful that I should have to deal with but one man. I opened cautiously a window in the little room and sat down to listen and wait. I had been given a half-hour. My repeater at last struck 10:45. Meanwhile the clouds broke in places, and there were now gleams of unwelcome moonlight and now gusts of wind-driven rain.

I rose and shut to a crack the door of the room and waited. Beyond the wall, to my right, I heard of a sudden a wild shriek of "Murder! murder! Help! help!" shrill, feminine, convincing. Then came a pistol-shot, then another, and in a moment a third more remote, and, far away, the cries of men.

My time had come. That the gate guards would make for the direction of the sound we had felt sure, but what would happen in regard to the house guard was left to chance. At all events, he would be isolated for a time. To my relief, the ruse answered. I shut the window noiselessly as I heard my host running down the stairway.

He opened the hall door in haste and was dimly seen from my window hurrying toward the gate. I rushed into the hall, bolted the hall door, and ran up-stairs. The old nurse had been prepared for my coming and met me on the first landing.

"Quick," I said. "You expected me. The boudoir." She had her good Yankee wits about her, and in a minute I was kneeling, wildly anxious, and groping in the ashes. Thrusting the package of paper within my shirt-bosom, I ran down-stairs, and as she came after, I cried that I had locked the hall door, and to unlock it when I was gone. "Be quick," I added, "and lock the conservatory door behind me. No one has been seen by you. Go to your own room." Pausing to put on my shoes, I fled across the garden, neither hearing nor seeing the guard who must have joined his fellows outside.

XIII

I had an awful five minutes in my efforts to climb the wall. We had forgotten that. For a minute I was in despair, and then I fell over a garden chair. I dragged it to the wall and somehow scrambled up, and, panting, lay still for a moment, listening. I suppose that, becoming suspicious, they had returned, for two of the men passed by below me, talking fast, and if they had been less busy over the pistol-shots and had merely looked up from a few feet away, I should have been caught. I waited, breathing hard. A few minutes passed. They seemed to be hours. The noises ceased. I saw dimly through the torrents of rain my house guard returning to his post. He went in, and at once I turned over, dropped, and in a moment was deep in the wood. I was drenched and as tired of a sudden as if I had walked all day. I suppose it was due to the intense anxiety and excitement of my adventure. I went on for a half-mile, keeping my hand on the package. It was now after eleven, and I sat down in the wood and rested for a while. I knew Paris well. I had been there two years. I walked on for nearly an hour, and then within one of the barriers, remote from the Bois, I caught a cab and drove to the Rue Rivoli, where I left the man and walked to our legation in the Rue de Presbourg. We kept there a night-watchman, and both he and the concierge must have been amazed at my appearance. I went up to my own room, had a roaring fire kindled, locked the door, found a smoking-jacket, and then, with a glass of good rye and a cigar, sat down, feeling a delightful sense of joy and security. Next I turned to examine the value of my prize. The ashes fell about as I laid the packet on the table.

I was by degrees becoming warm, and although wet, for I had had no complete change of garments, I was so elated that I hardly gave a thought to my condition. As I sat, the unopened papers before me, I began to consider, as others have done, the ethical aspects of the matter. A woman had stolen the documents now on the table. To have returned them would have convicted her. We were on the verge of war with two great nations. One of them had us in a net of spies. War, which changes all moral obligations, was almost on us. I would leave it to my chief. No more scrupulous gentleman was ever known to me. I undid the knotted ribbon with which Madame Bellegarde had hastily tied the papers together and turned to consider them.

My own doubts did, I fear, weaken as, turning over the documents, I saw revealed the secrets of my country's enemies. In the crisis we were facing they were of inestimable value. Some of the papers were original letters; others were copies of letters from the French embassy in London. Among them was a draft of a letter of Drouyn de Lhuys, the Minister for Foreign Affairs, and on this and on others were sharp comments in the emperor's well-known hand, giving reasons for acknowledging the Confederacy without delay. There were even hints at intervention by the European powers as desirable. I sat amazed as at last I tied up the papers, and placing them again within my waistcoat, lay down on a lounge before the fire to rest, for sleep was not for me. I lay quiet, thinking of what had become of Merton and Alphonse, and wondering at the amazing good fortune of my first attempt at burglary.

XIV

At seven in the morning I sent a guarded note to our chief, and at eight he appeared. I need not dwell upon his surprise as he listened to the full relation of my encounter with Le Moyne, about which and our subsequent difficulty he already knew something. When I quietly told him the rest of the story and, untying the ribbon, laid the dusty package on the table, he became grave. He very evidently did not approve of our method of securing the papers, but whatever he may have felt as to the right or wrong of what we had done was lost in astonishment as he saw before him the terribly plain revelation of all we had been so long dreading. Here was the hatching of an international conspiracy. As he sat, his kindly face grew stern while I translated to him the emperor's comments.

"It is evident," he said, "that a résumé of certain of these papers should go to Berlin and Russia in cipher, but this may wait. The originals must as soon as possible reach our minister in London."

While Mr. Dayton considered the several questions involved, the first secretary, who had been sent for, arrived. The minister at once set before him the startling character of the papers on the table, and my story was briefly retold. Upon this there was a long consultation concerning the imminence of the crisis they suggested, and in regard to the necessity of the originals being placed as soon as possible in the hands of Mr. Adams, our able representative at the court of St. James. No one for a moment seemed to consider the documents as other than a lawful prize. We could not burn them. To admit of our having them was to convict Madame Bellegarde; and not to use them was almost treason to our country. So much I gathered from the rapid interchange of opinions. When the method of sending them to Mr. Adams came before us, the first secretary said shrewdly enough:

"If they were sure these papers were in the villa,--and they were, I fancy,--I wonder they did not accidentally burn the house."

"That would have been simple and complete," said the chief, smiling, "but there are original letters here which it was very desirable to keep, and I presume them to have felt sure soon or late of recovering them."

"Yes," said the first secretary, "that is no doubt true. Now the whole affair is changed. I am certain that the house will have been searched and the scattered ashes seen. They will then feel sure that we have the papers."

I had to confess that, in my haste, I had taken no pains about restoring the ashes. My footprints in the garden soil and my want of care would help to make plain that the papers had been removed, and any clever detective would then infer what had been the purpose of the pistol-shots. I had been stupid and had to agree with the secretary that they would now know they had been tricked and see that the game so far had been lost. The legation and all of us would be still more closely watched, and I, for one, was also sure that the messenger to England would never see London with the papers still in his possession.

Meanwhile, as the secretary and our chief discussed the question, my mind was on Merton. About ten, to my relief, he sent in his card. He entered smiling.

"Good morning, Mr. Dayton. All right, Greville?"

I said: "Yes, the papers are here. These gentlemen all know. Had you any trouble?"

"A little. When I fired shot after shot in the air and our man was screaming murder, they all ran toward us like ducks to a decoy. I ran, too, and Alphonse. As I crossed a road, I came upon a big gendarme. I am afraid I hurt him. Oh, not much. After that I had no difficulty. And now perhaps I am in the way." He rose as he spoke.

The minister said: "No. Sit down, captain."

He resumed his seat, and sat a quiet listener to our statement of difficulties. At last he said: "Will you pardon me if I make a suggestion?"

"By all means," said the chief. "It is almost as much your concern as ours."

"I suppose," said Merton, "the despatches to Berlin and St. Petersburg may go in cipher by trusty messengers or any chance tourist, and that there is no need for haste."

"Yes, that is true."

There was a moment's pause in this interesting consultation, the captain evidently waiting to be again invited to state his opinion. At last our chief said: "You have never seen these papers?"

"No, sir."

"Then I had better make clear to you, in strict confidence, that they reveal to us urgent pressure on the part of the emperor to induce England to intervene with France in our sad war. The English cabinet, most fortunately, is not unanimously hostile, and Lord John Russell is hesitating. Our friends are the queen and the great middle class of dissenters, and, strange to say, the Lancashire operatives. The aristocracy, the church, finance, and literature are all our enemies, and at home, you know, things are not altogether as one could wish. Just now no general, no, not the President, is of such moment to us as our minister in London. He has looked to us for information. We could only send back mere echoes of his own fears. And now"--he struck the pile of papers with his hand--"here is the whole story. Mr. Adams must have these without delay. I should like to see his interview with Lord John. You seemed to me to have in mind something further to say. I interrupted only to let you feel the momentous character of this revelation."

"As I understand it," replied Merton, "you assume that the Foreign Office here will be sure these papers are in your hands."

"We may take that for granted. They are not stupid, and the matter as it stands is for them, to say the least, awkward."

"Yes, sir, and they will know what a man of sense should do with these papers and do at once. I may assume, then, that the whole resources of the imperial police will be used, and without scruple, to prevent them from leaving Paris or reaching London."

"Yes," said the chief, "of that we may be certain."

"And if now," said Merton, "some one of note, or two persons, go with them to London, there is a fair probability of the man or the papers being--we may say--mislaid, on the way."

"It is possible," said the minister, "quite possible."

"I think, sir," said I, "that is probable, oh, quite certain, and we cannot accept the least risk of their being lost. No copies will answer."

"No. As you all are aware--as we all know, Captain Merton, affairs are at a crisis. The evidence must be complete, past doubt or dispute, such as to enable Mr. Adams to speak decisively--and he will."

"May I, sir," said Merton, "venture to further suggest that some one, say the first secretary, take a dummy envelop marked 'Important and confidential,' addressed to Mr. Adams, and be not too careful of it while he crosses the Channel?"

"Well," said the minister, smiling, "what next?"

"He will be robbed on the way, or something will happen. It will never get there."

"No. They will stop at nothing," said I.

"I ought to tell you," said the minister, "that now Madame Bellegarde is sure to be arrested" (as in fact did occur). "She will be subject to one of those cruel cross-examinations which are so certain to break down a witness. If this should happen before we can act, they will be so secure of what we shall do that--"

Merton interrupted him. "Excuse me. She will never speak. They will get nothing from her. That is an exceptional woman." The minister cast a half-smiling glance at him. He was deeply distressed, as I saw, and added: "You will, I trust, sir, stand by her. They can prove nothing, and she will hold her tongue and resolutely."

"I will do all in my power; rest assured of that. But what next? The papers! Mr. Adams!" He was anxious.

"Might I again venture?"

"Pray do."

"I have or can have an errand in Belgium. Give me the papers. They will reach their destination if I am alive, and, so far, I at least must be entirely unsuspected. My obvious reason for going will leak out and be such as to safeguard my real reason."

"May I ask why you go to Belgium?"

"Yes, I want it known. I have arranged to satisfy a gentleman named Porthos, who thinks himself injured."

"Porthos!" exclaimed the minister. "Why, that is a character in one of Dumas's novels."

"Yes, I beg pardon; we call him Porthos. Mr. Greville will explain later. He is the Baron la Garde. An absurd affair."

"I deeply regret it," said the minister. "I hoped it was settled. But you may be hurt, and, pardon me, killed."

"In that case my second, Lieutenant West of our navy, will have the papers and carry them to London. Count le Moyne is one of the baron's seconds. He will hardly dream that he is an escort of the papers he lost. But, sir, one word more. Madame Bellegarde is an American. You will not desert her?"

"Not I. Rest easy as to that. We owe her too much."

"Then I am at your service."

"I regret, deeply regret this duel," said our chief, "but it does seem to me, if it must take place, a sure means of effecting our purpose." As he spoke, the secretary gathered up the various papers.

"I think, sir," said Merton, "it will be well if one, or, better, two responsible people remain here overnight." This seemed to us a proper precaution.

As we had talked I saw Merton playing with the dusty blue ribbon which, when he entered, lay beside the papers. As we rose I missed it, and knew that he had put it in his pocket. After we had arranged for our passports I left with Merton. As we walked away he said:

"I propose that you say at once to the baron's friends that we will leave for Belgium to-morrow. It is not unusual, and I have a right to choose. You must insist. Porthos is wild for a fight, and--confound it, don't look so anxious. This affair has hurried things a little; I wanted more practice. I should be a fool to say I am a match for Porthos, but he is very big. If I can tire him, or get a scratch such as stops these affairs--somehow it will come to an end, and, at all events, how better could I risk my life for my country? It must be lightly talked about in the clubs to-night." West and I took care that it was.

The next day early we were at the legation. The first secretary was preparing the dummy. "Pity," said Merton, "to leave the enclosure a blank." The secretary laughed and wrote on the inside cover:

Trust you will find this interesting,

Yours,

_Uncle Sam._

We went out, Merton and I looking at our passports and talking loudly. At ten that morning the first secretary and an attaché started for London. To anticipate, he was jostled by two men on the Dover pier that afternoon, and until a few minutes later did not detect his loss of the papers. It was cleverly done. Of course he made a complaint and the police proved useless.

XV

The duel had been duly discussed at the clubs, and it is probable that no one suspected Merton of any other purpose. The baron was eager and Belgium a common resort for duels. On the same day after the secretary's departure for London, Merton took the train for Brussels with Lieutenant West, the baron and his friends, Count le Moyne and the colonel. The captain had the papers fastened under his shirt, and, as I learned later, was well armed. Not the least suspicion was entertained in regard to our double errand, and, as I had talked freely of being one of the seconds, I was able to follow them, as far as I could see, unwatched, except by Alphonse, who promptly reported me to his other employers as having gone to Belgium as one of Merton's friends.