As it was, we were brought to a stop while one of the wheels was extricated from the kennel, in which it had become wedged. Smiling to think what the King — who, strangely warned by Providence, was throughout his life timid in a coach — would have said to this, I went to open the curtains, and had effected this to some extent, when one of a crowd of idlers who stood on the raised pavement deliberately lifted up his arm and flung a snowball at me.
The missile flew wide of its mark by an inch or two only. That I was amazed at such audacity goes without saying; but doubting of what it might be the preclude — for the breakdown of the coach in that narrow place, the haunt of rufflers and vagrants of every kind, might be part of a concerted plan — I fell back into my place. The coach, as it happened, moved on at that moment with a jerk; and before I had digested the matter, or had time to mark the demeanour of the crowd, we were clear of the bridge, and rolling under the Châtelet.
A smaller man might have stooped to punish, and to cook a sprat have passed all Paris through the net. But remembering the days when I myself attended the College of Burgundy, I set the freak to the credit of some young student, and, shrugging my shoulders, dismissed it from my mind. An instant later, however, observing that the fragments of the snowball were melting on the seat and wetting the leather, I raised my hand to brush them away. In doing so I discovered, to my surprise, a piece of paper lying among the débris.
“Ho, ho!” said I to myself. “A strange snowball this! I have heard that the apprentices put stones in theirs. But paper! Let me see what this means.”
The morsel, though moistened by the snow, remained intact. Unfolding it with care — for already I began to discern that here was something out of the common — I found written on the inner side, in a clerkly hand, the words, “Beware of Nicholas!”
It will be remembered that Simon Nicholas was at this time secretary to the King, and so high in his favour as to be admitted to the knowledge of all but his most private affairs. Gay, and of a jovial wit, he was able to commend himself to Henry by amusing him; while his years, for he was over sixty, seemed warranty for his discretion, and at the same time gave younger sinners a feeling of worth, since they might repent and he had not done so. Often in contact with him, I had always found him equal to his duties, and though too fond of the table, and of the good things of this life, neither given to blabbing nor boasting. In a word, one for whom I had more liking than respect.
A man in his position possesses opportunities for evil so stupendous that as I read the warning I sat aghast. His office gave him at all times that ready access to the King’s person which is the aim of conspirators against the lives of sovereigns; and short of the supreme treachery he was master of secrets which Biron’s associates would give much to gain. When I add that I knew Nicholas to be a man of extravagant habits and careless life, and one who, if rumour did not wrong him, had lost much in that rearrangement of the finances which I had lately effected, it will be seen that those words, “Beware of Nicholas,” were calculated to provoke me to the most profound thought.
Of the person who had conveyed the missive to my hands I had unfortunately seen nothing; though I believed him to be a man, and young. But the circumstances, which seemed to indicate the need of secrecy, gave me a hint as to my conduct. Accordingly, I smoothed my brow, and on the coach stopping at the Arsenal, I descended with my usual face of preoccupation.
At the foot of the staircase my maître-d’hotel met me.
“M. Nicholas, the King’s secretary, is here,” he said. “He has been waiting your return an hour and more, my lord.”
“Lay another cover,” I answered, repressing the surprise I could not but feel at a visit so strangely à propos. “Doubtless he has come to dine with me.”
Staying only to remove my cloak, I went upstairs with an air as easy as possible, and, making my visitor some apologies for the inconvenience I had caused him, I insisted he should sit down with me. This he was not loth to do; though, as presently appeared, his errand was only to submit to me a paper connected with the new tax of a penny in the shilling, which it was his duty to lay before me.
I scolded him for the long period which had elapsed since his last visit, and succeeded so well in setting him at his ease that he presently began to rally me on my lack of appetite; for I could touch nothing but a little game and a glass of water. Excusing myself as well as I could, I encouraged him to continue the attack; and certainly, if appetite waits on a good conscience, I had abundant evidence in his behalf. He grew merry and talkative, and, telling me some free tales, bore himself so naturally that I had begun to deem my suspicions baseless, when a chance word gave me new grounds for entertaining them.
I was on the subject of my morning’s employment. Knowing how easily confidence begets confidence, and that in his position the matter could not be long kept from him, I told him as a secret where I had been.
“I do not wish all the world to know, my friend,” I said. “But you are a discreet man, and it will go no farther. I am just from Du Hallot’s.”
He dropped his napkin and stooped to pick it up with a gesture so hasty that it caught my attention and led me to watch him. More, although my words seemed to call for an answer, he did not speak until he had taken a deep draught of wine; and then he said only, “Indeed!” in a tone of such indifference as might at another time have deceived me, but now was patently assumed.
“Yes,” I replied, affecting to be engaged with my plate: we were eating nuts. “Doubtless you will be able to guess on what subject.”
“I?” he said, as quick to answer as he had before been slow. “No, I think not.”
“La Fin,” I said. “And his disclosures respecting M. de Biron’s friends.”
“Ah!” he replied, shrugging his shoulders. He had contrived to regain his composure, but I noticed that his hand shook, and I saw that he was quite unable to chew the nut he had just put into his mouth. “They tell me he accuses everybody,” he continued, his eyes on his plate. “Even the King is scarcely safe from him. But I have heard no particulars.”
“They will be known by-and-by,” I answered prudently. And after that I did not think it wise to continue, lest I should give more than I got. But as soon as he had finished, and we had washed our hands, I led him to the closet looking on the river, where I was in the habit of working with my secretaries. I sent them away and sat down with him to his paper; but in the position in which I found myself, between suspicion and perplexity, I gathered little or nothing from it; and had I found another doing the King’s service as negligently I had sent him about his business. Nevertheless, I made some show of attention, and had reached the schedule when something in the fairly written summary, which closed the account, caught my eye. I bent more closely to it, and presently making an occasion to carry the parchment into the next room, compared it with the hand-writing on the scrap of paper I had found in the snowball. A brief scrutiny proved that they were the work of the same person!
I went back to M. Nicholas, and after attesting the accounts, and making one or two notes, remarked in a careless way on the clearness of the hand. “I am badly in need of a fourth secretary,” I added. “Your scribe might do for me.”
It did not escape me that once again M. Nicholas looked uncomfortable. His red face took a deeper tinge and his hand went nervously to his pointed grey beard. “I do not think he would do for you,” he muttered.
“What is his name?” I asked, purposely bending over the papers and avoiding his eye.
“I have dismissed him,” he rejoined curtly. “I do not know where he could now be found.”
“That is a pity. He writes well,” I answered, as if it were nothing but a whim that led me to pursue the subject. “And good clerks are scarce. What was his name?”
“Felix,” he said — reluctantly.
I had now all that I wanted. Accordingly I spoke of another matter, and shortly afterwards Nicholas withdrew. He left me in much suspicion; so that for nearly ha
lf an hour I walked up and down the room, unable to decide whether I should treat the warning of the snowball with contempt, as the work of a discharged servant; or on that very account attach the more credit to it. By-and-by I remembered that the last sheet of the roll I had audited bore date the previous day; whence it was clear that Felix had been dismissed within the last twenty-four hours, and perhaps after the delivery of his note to me. Such a coincidence, which seemed no less pertinent than strange, opened a wide field for conjecture; and the possibility that Nicholas had called on me to sound me and learn what I knew occurring to my mind, brought me to a final determination to seek out this Felix, and without the delay of an hour sift the matter to the bottom.
Doubtless I shall seem to some to have acted precipitately, and built much on small foundations. I answer that I had the life of the King my master to guard, and in that cause dared neglect no precaution, however trivial, nor any indication, however remote. Would that all my care and vigilance had longer sufficed to preserve for France the life of that great man! But God willed otherwise.
I sent word at once to La Font, my valet-de-chambre, the same who persuaded me to my first marriage, to come to me; and directing him to make secret inquiry where Felix, a clerk in the Chamber of Accounts, lodged, bade him report to me on my return from the Great Hall, where, it will be remembered, it was my custom to give audience after dinner to all who had business with me. As it happened, I was detained that day, and found him awaiting me. A man of few words, as soon as the door was shut, “At the ‘Three Half Moons,’” he said, “in the Faubourg St. Honoré, my lord.”
“That is near the Louvre,” I answered. “Get me my cloak, and your own also; and bring your pistols. I am for a walk, and you will accompany me.”
He was a good man, La Font, and devoted to my interests. “It will be night in half an hour,” he answered respectfully. “You will take some of the Swiss?”
“In one word, no!” I rejoined. “We will go out by the stable entrance, and until we return, I will bid Maignan keep the door, and admit no one.”
The crowd of those who daily left the Arsenal at nightfall happened to be augmented on this occasion by a troop of my clients from Mantes; tenants on the lands of Rosny, who had lingered after the hour of audience to see the courts and garden. By mingling with these we passed out unobserved; nor, once in the streets, where a thaw had set in, that filled the kennel with water, was La Font long in bringing me to the house I sought. It stood on the outskirts of the St. Honoré Faubourg, in a quarter sufficiently respectable, and a street marked neither by squalor nor ostentation — from one or other of which all desperate enterprises take their rise. The house, which was high and narrow, presented only two windows to the street, but the staircase was clean, and it was impossible to cross the threshold without feeling a prepossession in Felix’s favour. Already I began to think that I had come on a fool’s errand.
“Which floor?” I asked La Font.
“The highest,” he answered.
I went up softly and he followed me. Under the tiles I found a door, and heard some one moving beyond it. Bidding La Font remain on guard, and come to my aid only if I called him, I knocked boldly. A gentle voice bade me enter, and I did so.
There was only one person in the room, a young woman with fair waving hair, a pale freckled face, and blue eyes; who, seeing a cloaked stranger instead of the neighbour she anticipated, stared at me in the utmost wonder and in some alarm. The room, though poorly furnished, was neat and clean; which, taken with the woman’s complexion, left me in no doubt as to her province. On the floor near the fire stood a cradle; and in the window a cage with a singing bird completed the homely aspect of this interior, which was such, indeed, as I would fain multiply by thousands in every town of France.
A lamp, which the woman was in the act of lighting, enabled me to see these details, and also discovered me to her. I asked politely if I spoke to Madame Felix, the wife of M. Felix, of the Chamber of Accounts.
“I am Madame Felix,” she answered, advancing slowly towards me. “My husband is late. Do you come from him? It is not — bad news, Monsieur?”
The tone of anxiety in which she uttered the last question, and the quickness with which she raised her lamp to scan my face, went to a heart already softened by the sight of this young mother in her home. I hastened to answer that I had no bad news, and wished to see her husband on business connected with his employment.
“He is very late,” she said, a shade of perplexity crossing her face. “I have never known him so late before. Monsieur is unfortunate.”
I replied that with her leave I would wait; on which she very readily placed a stool for me, and sat down by the cradle. I remarked that perhaps M. Nicholas had detained her husband: she answered that it might be so, but that she had never known it happen before.
“M. Felix has evening employment?” I asked, after a moment’s reflection.
She looked at me in some wonder. “No,” she said. “He spends his evenings with me, Monsieur. It is not much, for he is at work all day.”
I bowed, and was preparing another question, when the sound of footsteps ascending the stairs reached my ears, and led me to pause. Madame heard the noise at the same moment and rose to her feet. “It is my husband,” she said, looking towards the door with such a light in her eyes as betrayed the sweetheart lingering in the wife. “I was afraid — I do not know what I feared,” she muttered to herself.
Proposing to have the advantage of seeing Felix before he saw me, I pushed back my stool into the shadow, contriving to do this so discreetly that the young woman noticed nothing. A moment later it appeared that I might have spared my pains; for at sight of her husband, and particularly of the lack-lustre eye and drooping head with which he entered, she sprang forward with a cry of dismay, and, forgetting my presence, appealed to him to know what was the matter.
He let himself fall on a stool, the first he reached, and, leaning his elbows on the table in an attitude of dejection, he covered his face with his hands. “What is it?” he said in a hollow tone. “We are ruined, Margot. That is what it is. I have no more work. I am dismissed.”
“Dismissed?” she ejaculated.
He nodded. “Nicholas discharged me this morning,” he said, almost in a whisper. He dared not speak louder, for he could not command his voice.
“Why?” she asked, as she leant over him, her hands busy about him. “What had you done?”
“Nothing!” he answered with bitterness. “He has missed a place he thought to get; and I must suffer for it.”
“But did he say nothing? Did he give no reason?”
“Ay,” he answered. “He said clerks were plentiful, and the King or I must starve.”
Hitherto I had witnessed the scene in silence, a prey to emotions so various I will not attempt to describe them. But hearing the King’s name thus prostituted I started forward with a violence which made my presence known. Felix, confounded by the sight of a stranger at his elbow, rose from his seat, and retreating before me with alarm painted on his countenance, he asked with a faltering tongue who I was.
I replied as gently as possible that I was a friend, anxious to assist him. Notwithstanding that, seeing that I kept my cloak about my face — for I was not willing to be recognized — he continued to look at me with distrust.
“What is your will?” he said, raising the lamp much as his wife had done, to see me the better.
“The answers to two or three questions,” I replied. “Answer them truly, and I promise you your troubles are at an end.” So saying, I drew from my pouch the scrap of paper which had come to me so strangely. “When did you write this, my friend?” I continued, placing it before him.
He drew a deep breath at sight of it, and a look of comprehension crossed his face. For a moment he hesitated. Then in a hurried manner he said that he had never seen the paper.
“Come,” I rejoined sternly, “look at it again. Let there be no mistake. When did you write th
at, and why?”
Still he shook his head; and, though I pressed him, he continued so stubborn in his denial that, but for the look I had seen on his face when I produced the paper, and the strange coincidence of his dismissal, I might have believed him. As it was, I saw nothing for it but to have him arrested and brought to my house, where I did not doubt he would tell the truth; and I was about to retire to give the order, when something in a sidelong glance which he cast at his wife caught my eye, and furnished me with a new idea. Acting on it, I affected to be satisfied. I apologized for my intrusion on the ground of mistake; and, withdrawing to the door, I asked him at the last moment to light me downstairs.
Complying with a shaking hand, he went out before me, and had nearly reached the foot of the staircase when I touched him on the shoulder.
“Now,” I said, fixing him with my eyes, “your wife is no longer listening, and you can tell me the truth. Who employed you to write those words?”
Trembling so violently that he had to lean on the balustrade for support, he told me.
“Madame Nicholas,” he whispered.
“What?” I cried, recoiling. I had no doubt he was telling me the truth. “The secretary’s wife, do you mean? Be careful, man.”
He nodded.
“When?” I asked suspiciously.
“Yesterday,” he answered. “She is an old cat!” he continued, with a grimace. “I hate her! But my wife is jealous, and would think all things.”
Complete Works of Stanley J Weyman Page 809