The Three Musketeers (The Modern Library) - Alexandre Dumas [55]
When in a house of any kind a person suspected of a crime has been arrested, the arrest is kept secret. Four or five men are posted in ambush in the front room of the prisoner’s apartment. The door is opened to all who knock but, as it closes, the visitor becomes a prisoner. Thus within two or three days almost all the habitués of the house are in the hands of the police. Such then is the mousetrap.
Monsieur Bonacieux’s residence then became a mousetrap; whoever appeared was seized and investigated by the Cardinal’s men. However, as a special passage led to the second floor, where D’Artagnan lodged, his callers were exempt from molestation.
Besides no one save the three musketeers ever came there. They reported that they had all made careful independent investigations but to no avail; Athos had even gone so far as to question Monsieur de Tréville, a step which, in view of this worthy musketeer’s usual reticence, had much surprised his Captain. But Monsieur de Tréville knew nothing save that the last time he had seen the Cardinal, the King and the Queen, the Cardinal looked very anxious, the King seemed worried and the Queen’s bloodshot eyes betrayed either a sleepless night or much weeping. This last circumstance was not particularly striking, for since her marriage the Queen had known vigils and tears aplenty.
Monsieur de Tréville urged Athos scrupulously to observe his duty to the King and particularly to the Queen, and to convey the same orders to his companions.
As for D’Artagnan, nowadays he never stirred from his quarters. He turned his room into a sort of observatory. From the watchtower of his windows, he saw all who, entering the house, walked into the trap. He also removed a plank of the flooring and cleared enough of the foundation so that there was but a mere ceiling between him and the inquisition room below. Thus he could hear everything that passed between the Cardinal’s spies and their victims.
Those arrested were first submitted to a minute search of their persons. Then, almost invariably, they were asked:
“Has Madame Bonacieux given you anything to deliver to her husband or to another party? Has Monsieur Bonacieux given you anything to deliver to his wife or to another party? Has either of them confided anything to you by word of mouth?”
“If they knew anything they would not question people in this manner,” D’Artagnan mused. “Now what do they want to find out? Exactly this: whether the Duke of Buckingham is in Paris and whether he has had or is due to have an interview with the Queen.”
This idea was constantly uppermost in D’Artagnan’s mind especially since everything he had heard seemed to confirm its probability. Meanwhile the mousetrap—and D’Artagnan’s vigilance—never relaxed for a moment.
On the morrow of Monsieur Bonacieux’s arrest, late in the evening, on the stroke of nine, Athos left D’Artagnan’s to call at Monsieur de Tréville’s. Planchet, who had not yet made the bed, was setting to work when there was a knock at the street door. The door immediately opened and closed; someone was caught in the mousetrap!
D’Artagnan leapt to his listening-post and lay flat on his belly, his ear to the ground. Soon he heard cries, then moans which someone was apparently trying to stifle. Assuredly this was no mere exchange of questions and answers.
“Devil take it,” D’Artagnan thought. “It sounds like a woman. Probably they’re searching her and she’s resisting. They’re using force, the swine. . . .”
In spite of his prudence it was all D’Artagnan could do not to interrupt the scene.
“But I tell you I am the mistress of this house, gentlemen,” cried the unhappy woman. “I tell you I am Madame Bonacieux; I tell you I belong to the Queen.”
“Madame Bonacieux!” D’Artagnan murmured. “Have I found the person everyone is looking for?”
“You are exactly the lady we were awaiting.”
The voice grew more and more indistinct, then a series of bumps shook the wainscoting; no doubt the victim was struggling as fiercely as a lone woman could struggle against four men.
“Pardon,