The Three Musketeers (The Modern Library) - Alexandre Dumas [124]
“Come, my good gentleman, do not take on so! There is still hope, Monsieur. They did not kill your lady, and that’s a comfort.”
“Can you tell me anything about the ringleader?”
“I never saw him before, Monsieur, I never knew any of them.”
“But you spoke to him? You saw him?”
“Oh, you want me to tell you what he looked like?”
“Yes, exactly!”
“Well, Monsieur, he was a tall, dark, spare man with a swarthy complexion, black mustaches and eyes as black as the ace of spades. He looked like a nobleman.”
“That’s the man!” D’Artagnan gasped. “Once again and for ever, my demon, the man of Meung.” He wrung his hands, then, more calmly: “What about the other man?” he asked.
“Which one do you mean?”
“The little oldish one.”
“Oh, he was no nobleman, Monsieur, I can vouch for that. Besides he did not wear a sword and the others ordered him about every which way.”
“Some lackey, I dare say,” D’Artagnan murmured. And, as he thought of his mistress: “Poor woman, poor woman!” he sighed. “What have they done to you?”
“You swore to keep my secret, Monsieur?” the old man reminded him.
“I repeat my promise. I gave you my word as a gentleman; a gentleman has but one word, my friend, so you need worry about nothing.”
With a heavy heart D’Artagnan retraced his steps toward the ferry, a prey to the most sanguine sentiments one moment and to the bitterest the next. Now he hoped that it could not have been Madame Bonacieux who was so brutally attacked and he looked forward to finding her at the Louvre on the morrow; now he feared she had had some intrigue with a jealous rival who had surprised her and carried her off. Doubt, grief and despair made their battleground of his heart.
“Ah, God! if only my friends were with me!” he exclaimed. “Athos, Porthos, Aramis, you would give me some hope of finding her. But who knows what on earth has become of you?”
It was past midnight. The next thing to do was to find Planchet. D’Artagnan called successively at five taverns where a light was burning but found Planchet in none. At the sixth, he decided that his search was vain. He had made arrangements to meet his lackey at six in the morning and the lackey’s time was his own so that he appeared punctually. Further, he reflected, by remaining close to the spot where the tragedy had occurred, he might perhaps discover some fact to shed light on the appalling mystery. D’Artagnan therefore settled down in the sixth tavern, ordered a bottle of the best wine and, ensconced in the darkest corner of the room, determined to wait for daybreak. But here again his hopes were vain; though he strained his ears, he heard only oaths, coarse jokes and insults bandied about by the laborers, lackeys and carters who comprised the distinguished clientèle of the inn. There was not the merest hint of a scandal or abduction and no faintest clue to put him on the scent of his unhappy and beloved Constance. Having downed his bottle, for want of anything else to do, he decided to sit on in order to pass the time and to avoid suspicion. Sinking back comfortably into his corner, he composed himself for sleep. He had experienced a great ordeal, to be sure; but on a man of twenty, sleep exercises its imprescriptible rights though the sleeper’s heart be utterly broken.
Toward six o’clock in the morning, D’Artagnan awakened with all the discomfort that usually follows a bad night. He was not long in tidying his rumpled clothes, making sure that his diamond was still on his finger, his purse in his pocket and his pistols in his belt. He rose, paid for his bottle and ventured out to try if he might have better luck in his search for his lackey than the night before. Through the damp gray mist the first object he discerned was honest Planchet, two horses in hand, waiting by the door of a disreputable looking tavern—a blind pig, so to speak—which D’Artagnan had passed the night before without even suspecting its existence.
XXV
OF WHAT HAPPENED TO PORTHOS
D’Artagnan did not go straight home. Instead he stopped off to call on Monsieur