Page:Once a Week Volume V.djvu/152

. 3, 1861.] “But not easily enforced.”

“I will undertake that whatever engagement Adair enters into with you, he shall fulfil to the letter. Were your friend Mr. Aventayle here, he would tell you that there are terrors for those who are mad enough to forget pledges given to us.”

“If it were possible to induce him to promise one thing—”

“I promise it in his behalf.”

“It may be more important than you imagine. If he would go to England, and there keep himself in readiness to afford some information—”

“Any you can ask of him.”

“I? Do you think that I could ever find myself again face to face with the assassin, without striking him down? No, he must submit to be questioned by those who will not know to what a miscreant they are talking.”

“He shall submit. I have some guess at the nature of the evidence you would extract from him, but we will speak of that presently. I am glad that you have come to this decision. I need not add to an English gentleman, that he will not unduly speak of what has passed. I make no absurd request of a pledge to secrecy, but I dare say that you will take care not to mention anything to zealous persons who may have notions like those of Mr. Lygon.”

“I shall be too glad to be silent—to say nothing of my personal debt to you.”

“Say nothing of that. We will now send for Wolowski.”

“ were not, I am sure, fool enough to think of taking that window,” said M. Wolowski to Ernest Adair.

The Pole entered, somewhat hastily, a garret with sloping roof, and with one square window that would just have permitted a slight man to pass through it. The room was at the top of a lonely old house about three miles from Versailles.

Adair turned upon the Pole, but there was no menace in the look of the slayer of Urquhart. He was haggard and nervous, and the effect of the terrible conflict he had gone through, and of its fearful issue, was visible in his easily agitated frame. His eyes were bloodshot, and his tongue incessantly played upon and moistened the feverish lips.

“You have traced me,” said Adair. “It was a friend’s business. I regret that I can offer you no hospitality.”

“A couch and a chair,” replied the Pole, looking round the miserable room, “and a scrap of looking-glass, and a picture of St. Somebody—female, however. Better men have been worse off. But, my brave Ernest, I never expected to see you again.”

“Nor would you, Wolowski, had I not been robbed, and consequently been without the means—”

“Of bribery. Fie, is it thus you speak of old colleagues?”

“Of purchasing food,” said Ernest Adair. “I am faint with hunger, or you should have had a longer chase, my friend.”

“Actually hungry?” said Wolowski.

“Yes. I have scarcely tasted food for twenty-four hours. I did not mind it at first, but now the privation tells upon me. I am your prisoner.”

“Nay, do not surrender until it is required of you. The weakest fortress expects the courtesy of a summons. But first let us throw provisions into the fortress.”

And he handed a packet to Adair, which the latter tore open, and seizing some bread and meat ate them with an eagerness that excited the compassion of the Pole, cruel only as matter of business.

“It was well I thought of providing myself against a night in the open air,” said the Pole. “Do not eat too hastily, however. And here, take my flask. I suppose you will not stab me while I am drawing the cork.”

He handed a travelling-bottle to Adair, who, however, took but a small quantity, and returned it.

“You should have nothing to say against that liquor. It is from the cellar of the Silver Lion.”

“I am restored, in some measure,” said Adair, “and I am ready to accompany you, M. Wolowski.”

“Thanks for the Monsieur, which you omitted before. It is a sort of grace after meat. But I have not come to arrest you. We leave duties of that kind, as you know, to inferior agents, which prevents unpleasantness afterwards, when people are released and meet as friends in society.”

“You have not come to arrest me? Ah, but there are men round the house?”

“I will show my confidence in an armed man by telling him that there is not one. Now, do you meditate an attack upon me?”

“Why are you here?”

“That is a practical question, to which I will give you an answer later. That blow was struck well, Ernest, that blow in the drawing room.”

“It was struck in defence of my own life.”

“The master of the house arrests a robber, and the robber holds that he may kill the honest man.”

“I was no robber. I came there to seek my own property, and I was watched and trapped. He entered the house intending to murder me, and he had all but succeeded when I saved myself with a blow.”

“I am bound to tell you that the most unfavourable view will be taken of your case.”

“That means that M. sacrifices me.”

“Well, it is thought that to give up a first-rate employé of the police to justice would have a good effect upon the public mind, and therefore circumstances will be recalled, and on the whole your case is not an agreeable one.”

“You know all,” said Adair, “and will tell me what you please. I thought it possible that the Englishmen might wish to avoid a prosecution.”

“The Englishmen have strange notions of duty, and have invoked all the vengeance of the law upon you.”

“Regardless of the consequences.”

“Regardless of the fact, strongly urged upon them by MM. [sic], that you will, when upon trial, make it a pleasure as well as a business to offer