The Three Musketeers (The Modern Library) - Alexandre Dumas [78]
Petty as was his triumph over so base a creature as Bonacieux, His Eminence nevertheless savored it gratefully for a moment. Then, almost immediately, inspired anew, he smiled ever so fleetingly and offered the haberdasher his hand.
“Come, rise, friend, you are a worthy man.”
“The Cardinal has touched my hand! I have touched the hand of the great man! The great man has called me his friend.”
“Yes, my friend, yes,” said the Cardinal with that paternal tone which he could assume on occasion, but which did not deceive those who knew him, “as you have been unjustly suspected, you shall be rewarded. Here, take this purse; it has one hundred pistoles in it. And pardon me for misjudging you.”
“I pardon you, Monseigneur!” Bonacieux hesitated to take the purse, fearing that the Cardinal was jesting. “But Your Eminence is free to arrest me, to have me tortured, even to have me hanged; you are the master and I can have nothing to say. I pardon you, Monseigneur. You cannot mean that!”
“My dear Monsieur Bonacieux, you are acting most generously and I thank you. Take this purse and let there be no hard feelings between us.”
“Hard feelings? No, Monseigneur, I am delighted—”
“Adieu, then. Or rather au revoir, for I hope that we shall meet again.”
“Whenever Monseigneur wishes. I am always at Your Eminence’s orders.”
“We shall meet again often, you may be sure. I have enjoyed our conversation very much.”
“Oh, Monseigneur!”
“Au revoir, Monsieur Bonacieux.” The Cardinal motioned him out. “Au revoir.”
Bonacieux bowed to the very ground and retreated, bowing. When he reached the antechamber, the Cardinal heard him shouting at the top of his lungs:
“Vive Monseigneur! Long live His Eminence! Hurrah for the Cardinal!”
This vociferous manifestation of the haberdasher’s enthusiasm brought another fleeting smile to the Cardinal’s lips. As the cheers faded into the distance:
“Good!” said His Eminence. “There goes a man who would give his life for me.”
Then he returned to the map of La Rochelle on his table and, having examined it minutely, picked up a pencil and traced the line along which, eighteen months later, the famous dyke was to block the port of the beleaguered city. Rochefort entered. Though lost in the most vital and detailed planning, the Cardinal nevertheless looked up and rose eagerly.
“Well?”
“Well, Your Eminence, a young woman of some twenty-six years of age stayed in the Rue de Vaugirard; a man of about forty in the Rue de La Harpe. The lady spent four days here, the gentleman five; she left last night, he this morning.”
“It was our friends, of course!” The Cardinal glanced at the clock. “Too late now to catch them: Madame de Chevreuse is at Tours, Buckingham at Boulogne. We shall have to settle all this in London.”
“What are Your Eminence’s orders?”
“The strictest silence about what has happened . . . let the Queen believe herself perfectly secure, she must not dream we know her secret . . . she must be made to believe we are following up some other plot. . . . send for the Keeper of the Seals.”
“What has Your Eminence done with that fellow—”
“What fellow?”
“The haberdasher Bonacieux.”
“All that could be done with such a man. From now on he will spy on his wife night and day.”
The Comte de Rochefort bowed deeply. Here was a master of intrigue making of a conventional salutation a tribute to genius.
Richelieu sat down, penned a letter, stamped it with his private seal, and rang the bell. The orderly officer entered for the fourth time.
“Send for Vitray,” the Cardinal ordered. “Tell him he is to go on a journey.”
An instant later, Vitray, booted and spurred, stood before the Cardinal.
“Vitray,” said His Eminence, “you are to leave immediately for London. You must not stop a moment on the way. You will deliver this letter to Milady. Here is an order for two hundred pistoles; call on my treasurer and get the money. You shall have as much again