The Three Musketeers (The Modern Library) - Alexandre Dumas [122]
A savage rage swept over him as, losing all sense of reality, he ran ahead down the lane as though the Devil himself were at his heels. Time passed and he ran on, this way and that, until eventually he found himself at the riverside in front of the ferry. The boatman was at hand; D’Artagnan questioned him feverishly.
At seven o’clock that evening, the boatman said, he had rowed a lady across the river. The lady wore a heavy black cloak and wrapped it closely about her as though wishing to go unrecognized and for that very reason he had looked at her attentively. She was, he added, both young and pretty. Of course young and pretty women had come to Saint-Cloud in the past, came to Saint-Cloud daily, and would continue to come to Saint-Cloud in the future, all of them chary of recognition. Nevertheless D’Artagnan felt certain that the boatman’s client was Constance Bonacieux.
By the light in the boatman’s shed, he read his inamorata’s note once again to make sure of its contents. No, there could be no doubt: the appointment was for Saint-Cloud and nowhere else, for ten o’clock and at no other time, and in front of Monsieur d’Estrées’ lodge. D’Artagnan’s worst fears were confirmed; something terrible had occurred.
He ran back to the château, hoping against hope that in his absence some new development might shed light on the mystery.
The lane was still deserted; the same calm, soft light still shone from the window. In despair he looked about him and once again saw the dark silent hut at the end of the garden. Someone must surely live there, he thought, someone who might have heard or seen what had happened and who might be persuaded to talk.
The gate of the enclosure was shut but he vaulted over the hedge and despite the angry barking of a dog—he noticed it was chained—approached the hut.
To his first frantic knocking there was no reply. He stood quite still for a moment, his heart heavy as lead. A deathly silence reigned over the tumble-down dwelling, a silence as sinister as that he had found at the lodge. But fully aware that this was his last resort, he kept knocking with a sort of blind fury.
Presently he fancied he heard a slight noise within, a timid noise as though someone was fearful of being overheard amid the silence. D’Artagnan at once stopped knocking and pleaded to be admitted; his voice was so full of anxiety and promise, so appealing in its terror and persuasive in its cajolery that the most fearful of persons could not have apprehended any danger. At length an old worm-eaten shutter swung ajar on creaky hinges but was slammed shut as soon as the rays of a wretched lamp in one corner of the hovel had lighted up D’Artagnan’s sword-belt, the pommel of his sword and the butts of the pistols in his holsters. Swift though the movement was, D’Artagnan nevertheless managed to catch a glimpse of an old man’s head.
“In the name of Heaven, listen to me,” he begged. “I have been waiting for someone who has not come; I am dying of anxiety. Has any mishap occurred here? Have you noticed anything untoward in the last few hours? Speak, I implore you!”
Slowly the window swung open again and the same face appeared again, looking even paler than before. D’Artagnan told his story simply and accurately without mentioning any names of course: how he had an appointment with a young woman . . . how he had been invited to wait near the lodge . . . how he had waited and, seeing no one, had climbed the tree . . . and what he had seen when he looked into the house.