The Classic Mystery Collection - Arthur Conan Doyle [87]
"Mademoiselle, here's some one," said Gothard, seeing a woman.
"Hush!" said Marthe, in a low voice. "Come down and speak to me."
Gothard was in the garden in less time than a bird would have taken to fly down from a tree.
"In a minute the chateau will be surrounded by the gendarmerie. Saddle mademoiselle's horse without making any noise and take it down through the breach in the moat between the stables and this tower."
Marthe quivered when she saw Laurence, who had followed Gothard, standing beside her.
"What is it?" asked Laurence, quietly.
"The conspiracy against the First Consul is discovered," replied Marthe, in a whisper. "My husband, who seeks to save your two cousins, sends me to ask you to come and speak to him."
Laurence drew back and looked at Marthe. "Who are you?" she said.
"Marthe Michu."
"I do not know what you want of me," replied the countess, coldly.
"Take care, you will kill them. Come with me, I implore you in the Simeuse name," said Marthe, clasping her hands and stretching them towards Laurence. "Have you papers here which may compromise you? If so, destroy them. From the heights over there my husband has just seen the silver-laced hats and the muskets of the gendarmerie."
Gothard had already clambered to the hay-loft and seen the same sight; he heard in the stillness of the evening the sound of their horses' hoofs. Down he slipped into the stable and saddled his mistress's mare, whose feet Catherine, at a word from the lad, muffled in linen.
"Where am I to go?" said Laurence to Marthe, whose look and language bore the unmistakable signs of sincerity.
"Through the breach," she replied; "my noble husband is there. You shall learn the value of a 'Judas'!"
Catherine went quickly into the salon, picked up the hat, veil, whip, and gloves of her mistress, and disappeared. This sudden apparition and action were so striking a commentary on the mayor's inquiry that Madame d'Hauteserre and the abbe exchanged glances which contained the melancholy thought: "Farewell to all our peace! Laurence is conspiring; she will be the death of her cousins."
"But what do you really mean?" said Monsieur d'Hauteserre to the mayor.
"The chateau is surrounded. You are about to receive a domiciliary visit. If your sons are here tell them to escape, and the Simeuse brothers too, if they are with them."
"My sons!" exclaimed Madame d'Hauteserre, stupefied.
"We have seen no one," said Monsieur d'Hauteserre.
"So much the better," said Goulard; "but I care too much for the Cinq-Cygne and Simeuse families to let any harm come to them. Listen to me. If you have any compromising papers--"
"Papers!" repeated the old gentleman.
"Yes, if you have any, burn them at once," said the mayor. "I'll go and amuse the police agents."
Goulard, whose object was to run with the royalist hare and hold with the republican hounds, left the room; at that moment the dogs barked violently.
"There is no longer time," said the abbe, "here they come! But who is to warn the countess? Where is she?"
"Catherine didn't come for her hat and whip to make relics of them," remarked Mademoiselle Goujet.
Goulard tried to detain the two agents for a few moments, assuring them of the perfect ignorance of the family at Cinq-Cygne.
"You don't know these people!" said Peyrade, laughing at him.
The two agents, insinuatingly dangerous, entered the house at once, followed by the corporal from Arcis and one gendarme. The sight of them paralyzed the peaceful card-players, who kept their seats at the table, terrified by such a display of force. The noise produced by a dozen gendarmes whose horses were stamping on the terrace, was heard without.
"I do not see Mademoiselle de Cinq-Cygne,"