The Honor of the Name by Emile Gaboriau (free ebook novel TXT) 📖

of the condemned prisoners must have escaped. The guards hastened to Baron d’Escorval’s room—it was empty.

The baron had fled, taking with him the man who had been left to guard him—Corporal Bavois, of the grenadiers.

The amazement was as intense as the indignation, but the fright was still greater.

There was not a single officer who did not tremble on thinking of his responsibility; not one who did not see his hopes of advancement blighted forever.

What should they say to the formidable Duc de Sairmeuse and to the Marquis de Courtornieu, who, in spite of his calm and polished manners, was almost as much to be feared. It was necessary to warn them, however, and a sergeant was despatched with the news.

Soon they made their appearance, accompanied by Martial; all frightfully angry.

M. de Sairmeuse especially seemed beside himself.

He swore at everybody, accused everybody, threatened everybody.

He began by consigning all the keepers and guards to prison; he even talked of demanding the dismissal of all the officers.

“As for that miserable Bavois,” he exclaimed, “as for that cowardly deserter, he shall be shot as soon as we capture him, and we will capture him, you may depend upon it!”

They had hoped to appease the duke’s wrath a little, by informing him of Lacheneur’s arrest; but he knew this already, for Chupin had ventured to awake him in the middle of the night to tell him the great news.

The baron’s escape afforded the duke an opportunity to exalt Chupin’s merits.

“The man who has discovered Lacheneur will know how to find this traitor d’Escorval,” he remarked.

M. de Courtornieu, who was more calm, “took measures for the restoration of a great culprit to the hand of justice,” as he said.

He sent couriers in every direction, ordering them to make close inquiries throughout the neighborhood.

His commands were brief, but to the point; they were to watch the frontier, to submit all travellers to a rigorous examination, to search the house, and to sow the description of d’Escorval broadcast through the land.

But first of all he ordered the arrest both of Abbe Midon—the Cure of Sairmeuse, and of the son of Baron d’Escorval.

Among the officers present there was one, an old lieutenant, medalled and decorated, who had been deeply wounded by imputations uttered by the Duc de Sairmeuse.

He stepped forward with a gloomy air, and said that these measures were doubtless all very well, but the most pressing and urgent duty was to institute an investigation at once, which, while acquainting them with the method of escape, would probably reveal the accomplices.

On hearing the word “investigation,” neither the Duc de Sairmeuse nor the Marquis de Courtornieu could repress a slight shudder.

They could not ignore the fact that their reputations were at stake, and that the merest trifle might disclose the truth. A precaution neglected, the most insignificant detail, a word, a gesture might ruin their ambitious hopes forever.

They trembled to think that this officer might be a man of unusual shrewdness, who had suspected their complicity, and was impatient to verify his presumptions.

No, the old lieutenant had not the slightest suspicion. He had spoken on the impulse of the moment, merely to give vent to his displeasure. He was not even keen enough to remark the rapid glance interchanged between the marquis and the duke.

Martial noticed this look, however, and with a politeness too studied not to be ridicule, he addressed the lieutenant:

“Yes, we must institute an investigation; that suggestion is as shrewd as it is opportune,” he remarked.

The old officer turned away with a muttered oath.

“That coxcomb is poking fun at me,” he thought; “and he and his father and that prig deserve—but what is one to do?”

In spite of his bold remark, Martial felt that he must not incur the slightest risk.

To whom must the charge of this investigation be intrusted? To the duke and to the marquis, of course, since they were the only persons who would know just how much to conceal, and just how much to disclose.

They began their task immediately, with an empressement which could not fail to silence all doubts, in case any existed in the minds of their subordinates.

But who could be suspicious? The success of the plot had been all the more certain from the fact that the baron’s escape seemed likely to injure the interests of the very parties who had favored it.

Martial thought he knew the details of the escape as exactly as the fugitives themselves. He had been the author, even if they had been the actors, of the drama of the preceding night.

He was soon obliged to admit that he was mistaken in this opinion.

The investigation revealed facts which seemed incomprehensible to him.

It was evident that the Baron d’Escorval and Corporal Bavois had been compelled to accomplish two successive descents.

To do this the prisoners had realized (since they had succeeded) the necessity of having two ropes. Martial had provided them; the prisoners must have used them. And yet only one rope could be found—the one which the peasant woman had perceived hanging from the rocky platform, where it was made fast to an iron crowbar.

From the window to the platform, there was no rope.

“This is most extraordinary!” murmured Martial, thoughtfully.

“Very strange!” approved M. de Courtornieu.

“How the devil could they have reached the base of the tower?”

“That is what I cannot understand.”

But Martial found another cause for surprise.

On examining the rope that remained—the one which had been used in making the second descent—he discovered that it was not a single piece. Two pieces had been knotted together. The longest piece had evidently been too short.

How did this happen? Could the duke have made a mistake in the height of the cliff? or had the abbe measured the rope incorrectly?

But Martial had also measured it with his eye, and it had seemed to him that the rope was much longer, fully a third longer, than it now appeared.

“There must have been some accident,” he remarked to his father and to the marquis; “but what?”

“Well, what does it matter?” replied the marquis, “you have the compromising letter, have you not?”

But Martial’s was one of those minds that never rest when confronted by an unsolved problem.