Chapter 18

THE LITTLE DAGGER

Leroux staggered back against the wall and stood there, scowling like a devil. It was evident that my answer had been totally unexpected. I had never seen him under the influence of any overwhelming emotion, and I did not at the time understand the cause of his consternation.

Jacqueline was clinging to her father, and the old man looked from one to the other of us in bewilderment, and shook his white head and mumbled.

"Did you--know this, _madame_?" cried Leroux fiercely to Jacqueline.

"Yes," she replied.

"So this is why you pretended to have forgotten. You remembered everything?"

"Yes."

"You lied to shield yourself?"

"No, to shield him," she cried. "Because he was my only friend when I was helpless in a strange city. You did not steal my money, did you, Paul?" she added, turning swiftly upon me. "No, you have paid me. You were keeping it for me."

"You lie!" yelled Leroux, and he struck her across the mouth as he had struck me.

I writhed in my bonds. I pulled the heavy table after me as I tried impotently to crawl toward him, sending the wheel flying and all the papers whirling through the air. I cursed Leroux as blasphemously as he was cursing Jacqueline. I saw a trickle of blood on her cut lip, and the proud smile upon her face as she defied him.

And at the door was the pale face of Philippe Lacroix.

Leroux turned on me and kicked me savagely, and dragged the table to the far end of the room, and struck me repeatedly, while I struggled like a madman. The oaths and execrations that streamed from my lips seemed to be uttered by another man, for I heard them indifferently, or rather something that was I, deep in the maze of my personality, heard them--not that pitiful, puny, goaded thing that fought in its bonds until it ceased, panting and exhausted.

There followed a long silence, while Leroux strode furiously about the room. At last he stopped; he seemed to have made up his mind.

"I understand now," he said, nodding his head. "So you are the man who took this woman to the Merrimac. And then to your home, and Louis d'Epernay followed you there, and, naturally, you killed him. Well, it is intelligible. You were not acting for Carson after all, but were infatuated with this woman. Well--but----" He wheeled and turned to Jacqueline. "I will marry you still!"

She did not deign to answer him nor to wipe away the blood that trickled down her chin.

"Do you know why?" he bawled.

She raised her eyes indifferently to his. I saw that, though her spirit was unbroken, she was weary to death.

"Because you become part heir of the seigniory by your husband's death!" he shouted; and then he took Charles Duchaine by the arm and began shaking him violently.

"Listen, you old fool!" he cried. "Your son-in-law is dead--Louis d'Epernay!"

Charles Duchaine looked at Leroux in his mild way. He had put one arm round his daughter, and he seemed to understand that Simon was maltreating her, and to wish to defend her; but his wits were still wandering, and I saw that he understood only a little of what was passing.

"Louis d'Epernay is dead!" cried Simon, shaking the old man again.

"Well, well!" answered Duchaine, stroking his long beard with his free hand. "So Louis is dead! Did you kill him, Simon?"

"No, I didn't kill him," Simon sneered. "Wake up a little more, Duchaine. Do you know what happens now he is dead?"

"I expect you to get some more money, Simon," answered the old man with an ingenuousness that made the reply more stinging than any intended irony.

Leroux burst into a mirthless laugh.

"You are quite right, Duchaine," he answered. "And I am not going to mince matters. I have a hold over you, and you will do my bidding. You will assign your share to me as your son-in-law."

I saw Jacqueline looking at me. I would not meet her gaze, but at last her persistence compelled me. Then I saw her glance toward the wall.

The two broadswords hung there, within arm's reach, above the broken mirror. My heart leaped up at the thought of her valour. She had no mind to yield!

But I shook my head imperceptibly in answer, and looked down at my bonds.

"I don't want you to marry my daughter, Simon," said old Duchaine mildly. "I saw you strike her in the face just now. No gentleman would do that. Come, Simon, you know you are not a gentleman; you ought not to think of such a thing. Jacqueline would not be happy with you. What does she say?"

"I don't care what she says," snarled Leroux. "I will take care of that."

I had been trying hard to devise some method of freeing myself. My struggles had relaxed the ropes around my wrists sufficiently to allow my hands two or three inches of movement, and I hoped, by hard work, to loosen them sufficiently to enable me to get at least one hand free.

Then I felt that something hard was pressing into my back, just within reach of my right thumb and forefinger. My fur coat, which was still round me, was twisted, so that the inside breast-pocket was behind me, and I fancied that the hard object was something that I had placed in this receptacle.

I let my thumb and finger travel up and down it. It had the form of a tiny knife, with a heavy, rounded handle.

And suddenly I knew what it was. It was the knife with which Louis d'Epernay had been killed!

I must have put it in my breast-pocket at some time, intending to throw it away, and it had slipped through a hole in the lining and gone down as far as the next ridge of fur, where it had become wedged.

I could just get my finger and thumb round the point of the blade. The ropes scored deeply into my wrists as I worked at it, but I felt the lining give, and presently I had worked the blade through and had the knife out by the handle.

But it was made for thrusting more than cutting, and I had to pick the ropes to pieces, strand by strand.

Jacqueline had been imperceptibly edging away from her father and Leroux; she was now standing immediately beneath the rusty swords. And outside the door I still perceived Lacroix, motionless.

It flashed across my mind that he understood the girl's desperate ruse, and that he was waiting for the issue. I picked furiously at the ropes which bound my hands, and a long strand uncoiled and whipped back on my wrist.

Suddenly I heard old Charles Duchaine bring down his fist with a vigorous thud upon the end of the table.

"I'll see you in ---- first, Simon!" was his unexpected remark.

"What?" cried Simon, taken completely aback.

"No, Simon," continued the old man in his mild voice once more. "You are not a gentleman you know, and you are not fit to marry Jacqueline."

Leroux thrust his hard face into the old man's.

"Duchaine, your wits are wandering," he answered. "Listen now! Have you forgotten that the government is searching for you night and day? It was a long time ago that you killed a soldier of the Canadian forces, but not too long ago for the government to remember. It has a long memory and a long arm, too, and at a word from me----"

It was pitiful to see the change that came over Duchaine's face. He shook with fear and stretched out his withered hands appealingly.

"Simon, you wouldn't betray me after all these years of friendship?" he cried. "_Mon Dieu_, I do not wish to hang!"

"Keep calm, Charles, my friend," responded Simon glibly. "I am ready to return friendship for friendship. Will you acknowledge me as your son-in-law and heir?"

"Yes," stammered the old man. "Take everything, Simon; only leave me free."

"Well, that is more reasonable," said Leroux, evidently mollified. "I am not the man to go back on my friends. I shall give you a cash return of ten thousand dollars. You have not forgotten the old times in Quebec?"

"No, Simon," muttered Duchaine, looking up hopefully at him.

"If you had ten thousand dollars, Charles, you could make your fortune in a week. They play high nowadays, and your system would sweep all before it."

"Yes, yes!" cried the dotard eagerly. "If only I had ten thousand dollars I could make my fortune. But I am old now. My little daughter has gone to New York to play for me. You did not know that, Simon, did you?" he added, looking at him with a cunning leer.

"She cannot play as well as you, Charles," said Leroux. "You have played so long, you know; you have the system at your fingers' ends. There is nobody who could stand up against you. Do you remember Louis Street and the fine people who were your friends? How they will welcome you! You could become a man of fashion again, in spite of your long exile in these solitudes. Do you recollect the races, where thousands can be won in a few minutes, when your horse romps home by a neck? And the gaming-tables, where a thousand dollars is but a pinch of dust, and the bright lights and the chink of money--and you winning it all away? You can have horses and carriages again, and all houses will be open to you, for your little error has long ago been forgotten. And you are not an old man, Charles."

"Yes, yes, Simon!" cried the old man, fascinated by the picture. "It is worth it--by gracious, it is!"

Jacqueline swung round on Leroux. I saw her fists clench and her bruised lip quiver.

"Never, Simon Leroux!" she said. "And, what is more, my father is not competent to transfer his property, and I will fight you through every court in the land."

"I was coming to you, _madame_," sneered Simon. "I don't know much about the courts in this part of the country, but you will marry me to save the life of your lover."

"No!" she answered, setting her teeth.

He seized her by the wrists and dragged her across the floor to me.

"Look at him!" he yelled. "Look into his face. Will you marry me if I let him go free?"

"No!" answered Jacqueline.

"I swear to you that he shall be thrown from the top of the cataract unless you give your consent within five minutes."

"Never!" she answered firmly.

"I will denounce your father!"

"You can't frighten me with such stuff. I am not a weak old man!"

"You will think differently after Charles Duchaine has been hanged in Quebec jail," he sneered.

His words received a wholly unexpected answer. The dotard leaped forward, stooped down, and picked up the heavy roulette-wheel.

He raised it aloft and staggered wildly toward Leroux.