The Classic Mystery Collection - Arthur Conan Doyle [93]
"And the money?" said Michu, who was thinking deeply as he listened to the young countess.
"I gave my cousins a hundred louis this evening," she replied.
"I'll answer for them!" cried Michu. "But once hidden here you must not attempt to see them. My wife, or the little one, shall bring them food twice a week. But, as I can't be sure of what may happen to me, remember, mademoiselle, in case of trouble, that the main beam in my hay-loft has been bored with an auger. In the hole, which is plugged with a bit of wood, you will find a plan showing how to reach this spot. The trees which you will find marked with a red dot on the plan have a black mark at their foot close to the earth. Each of these trees is a sign-post. At the foot of the third old oak which stands to the left of each sign-post, two feet in front of it and buried seven feet in the ground, you will find a large metal tube; in each tube are one hundred thousand francs in gold. These eleven trees--there are only eleven--contain the whole fortune of the Simeuse brothers, now that Gondreville has been taken from them."
"It will take a hundred years for the nobility to recover from such blows," said Mademoiselle de Cinq-Cygne, slowly.
"Is there a pass-word?" asked Michu.
"'France and Charles' for the soldiers, 'Laurence and Louis' for the Messieurs d'Hauteserre and Simeuse. Good God! to think that I saw them yesterday for the first time in eleven years, and that now they are in danger of death--and what a death! Michu," she said, with a melancholy look, "be as prudent during the next fifteen hours as you have been grand and devoted during the last twelve years. If disaster were to overtake my cousins now I should die of it--No," she added, quickly, "I would live long enough to kill Bonaparte."
"There will be two of us to do that when all is lost," said Michu.
Laurence took his rough hand and wrung it warmly, as the English do. Michu looked at his watch; it was midnight.
"We must leave here at any cost," he said. "Death to the gendarme who attempts to stop me! And you, madame la comtesse, without presuming to dictate, ride back to Cinq-Cygne as fast as you can. The police are there by this time; fool them! delay them!"
The hole once opened, Michu flung himself down with his ear to the earth; then he rose precipitately. "The gendarmes are at the edge of the forest towards Troyes!" he said. "Ha, I'll get the better of them yet!"
He helped the countess to come out, and replaced the stones. When this was done he heard her soft voice telling him she must see him mounted before mounting herself. Tears came to the eyes of the stern man as he exchanged a last look with his young mistress, whose own eyes were tearless.
"Fool them! yes, he is right!" she said when she heard him no longer. Then she darted towards Cinq-Cygne at full gallop.
CHAPTER VIII
TRIALS OF THE POLICE
Madame d'Hauteserre, roused by the danger of her sons, and not believing that the Revolution was over, but still fearing its summary justice, recovered her senses by the violence of the same distress which made her lose them. Led by an agonizing curiosity she returned to the salon, which presented a picture worthy of the brush of a genre painter. The abbe, still seated at the card-table and mechanically playing with the counters, was covertly observing Corentin and Peyrade, who were standing together at a corner of the fireplace and speaking in a low voice. Several times Corentin's keen eye met the not less keen glance of the priest; but, like two adversaries who knew themselves equally strong, and who return to their guard after crossing their weapons, each averted his eyes the instant they met. The worthy old d'Hauteserre, poised on his long thin legs like a heron, was standing beside the stout form of the mayor, in an attitude expressive of utter stupefaction. The mayor, though dressed as a bourgeois, always looked like a servant. Each gazed with a bewildered eye at the gendarmes, in whose clutches Gothard was still