Chapter 24 The Gamester by Rafael Sabatini
MURDER
Early in the following year the easy-going Regent proclaimed an amnesty for the Cellamare plotters, and whether touched or merely amused by the letters of the Duchess of Maine, with their professions of devotion and loyalty so oddly at variance with her conduct, he restored her Grace to liberty and allowed her to make her peace with him. This she found easier than making it with her husband, who continued to blame her plotting for his tribulations.
The Bastille opened its ponderous gates for the conspirators of Sceaux, and with them came also the Count of Horn, released from that duress, but still under the ban requiring him to keep himself not less than fifty leagues from Court.
He re-entered the world practically without means, for he had lived at his own charges in prison, and by denying himself no luxuries had exhausted the moneys he had received from the Countess before his arrest.
In the Rue d'Argenteuil he found her house closed, and he learnt in the neighbourhood that Madame la Comtesse was in the Dordogne. This by rendering still more desperately urgent his necessities, deepened his hatred of Mr Law in whom he beheld the author of all his woes.
As a result it happened that in the course of that chilly March morning Colonel de Mille, whilst frugally breaking his fast on bread and olives, a marinade of artichokes and a jug of petit vin, was surprised by the advent of a rather dilapidated Count of Horn. Not only was the young nobleman pallid and puffy from long imprisonment, but his once elegant suit of biscuit-coloured satin was crumpled and stained, his stockings soiled and his wig out of curl.
Recovering from his astonishment the Colonel embraced him, felicitated him upon his release, gave him a chair and the freedom of his breakfast.
"I keep Lent, you see, like the good Christian that I am not."
The Count eyed the olives and the artichokes, sniffed the wine disdainfully, and professed himself without appetite.
"Money is my need," he announced. "I am going down to the Dordogne to square accounts with Madame la Comtesse as soon as I've squared them here with that rascally lover of hers. A settlement is overdue. But as I've a soul to lose I'll see that they pay with interest."
"That's laudable," said the Colonel, "provided you don't expect me to finance the enterprise. No moment could be less propitious. I may perhaps command ten louis, and you're welcome to the half of it. But I doubt if that will take you as far as the Dordogne."
"You're laughing at me, I suppose," growled Horn.
"My child, I weep over you. And over myself. I'm a dried-up source. Though, if I can't supply money, I can supply advice. Begin with Lass by all means; but go about it in the proper manner. Put your sword to his throat, and demand the return of your million. He'll account his life cheap at the price. For what's a million to that usurer? In these days he flings millions from the window for all the world to catch."
"Damn your jests."
"It's a jest with the germ of earnest in it." The Colonel took a pull at his wine, grimaced over its sourness, and wiped his coarse lips. "On my honour it is what I should do in your place. It's the only way to deal with a thief who enjoys that fellow's power. His Majesty's Comptroller-General. That's where he's climbed whilst you've been in gaol. You talk easily of squaring accounts with him. Do you suppose you can call out a man of that eminence? Faith, my way is the only way, and may God damn me but I'm so hard-driven myself these days that if you take it I'll lend a hand for a share in the plunder."
"Can you be mad enough to propose it seriously?"
"Sane enough. Though I confess it's nearer to purse cutting than I've come yet in my evil days. It's perhaps not to be done just as I suggested. That is merely the scheme in the raw. It needs shaping. Let us consider."
They considered so effectively that on the following morning Mr Law's secretary, Lacroix, placed before his master a letter which occasioned him some thought.
McWhirter was with him at the time, having come from the Rue Quincampoix for his daily orders. He had to announce the safe arrival of a cargo of spices from the Indies which should prove highly profitable, and a small parcel from China of bohea which might be transhipped for sale in England where a beverage prepared from that curious roasted herb was beginning to find favour with the quality.
When all this was settled, Mr Law handed over the letter Lacroix had brought him.
Signed "Duchatel," it announced that the writer was a holder of five hundred shares in the India Company which circumstances were compelling him to liquidate at once. For so large a parcel he could not expect to command the full value of the day, and to cast it upon the market must almost inevitably produce a fall in the price. Also he had the best of personal reasons for not wishing it to be known that he was the seller, for which reason also he confessed that the name he gave did not disclose his real identity. Therefore he offered these shares privately to Mr Law for an immediate payment at the reduced price of seven million livres. If, as he hoped, Mr Law was interested, and, in view of the secrecy desired by the seller, would attend in person to make the purchase at noon on Friday next at the Cerf Volant in the Rue Quincampoix, he would be placing one of the noblest families in France under a profound obligation.
"Ay, ay!" said McWhirter when he had read. He went over the letter a second time, more carefully. "Ay, ay!" he said again, and looked up. "Will the shares be forgeries now?"
Mr Law shook his head. "In that case he would not wish to deal with me personally. A broker would be more easily deceived."
"Ay. True enough. And what for would he wish to deal with you in person?"
"He gives a reason: secrecy."
"To be sure. Ah well, then, there's a good half-million profit for you."
"It's too much."
"I'm thinking the same. But there's no lack of fools in the world."
"Nor of knaves," said Mr Law. "Still, we'll not cast away a half-million on suspicion. You shall attend for me at the Flying Stag, Angus. I'll give you a note to say that you're my man of confidence, and that this gentleman may trust you in every way as he would myself."
What de Mille had left out of his calculations was that in no circumstances would a man of the Comptroller-General's present consequence attend in person to transact an operation of this nature.
Never doubting that the bait must bring Mr Law to the appointment, the Colonel waited confidently in a room above-stairs, accompanied by a rascal named Lestaing, who stood to him much as he, himself, stood to the Count. Horn was not with them, since his presence must at once have put Law upon his guard. He waited in the adjoining room, to intervene only if it should become necessary.
McWhirter presented himself punctually.
"Monsieur Duchatel?" he inquired.
"Your servant, Monsieur le Baron." The Colonel bowed; but when he had straightened himself, he stared. This man was almost as tall as Law and affected the same type of black periwig. But that was all the resemblance. "You are not Monsieur Lass," he exclaimed.
"His deputy. This will explain." McWhirter proffered his note.
The Colonel glanced over it. "I see." He considered for a moment, and concluded that whilst this might not be Law, the money was Law's, which was all that mattered. "Have you brought the money?" he asked.
"I have it here." The Scot tapped his bosom where it bulged.
In the next heartbeat the Colonel was upon him.
He had whipped a small but serviceable bludgeon from his pocket, and as he stepped forward he aimed at McWhirter's head a blow that must have stunned him had the Scot's reflexes been less prompt. McWhirter swerved his head out of the line of the descending weapon, which fell, instead, upon his shoulder, partly numbing it.
Before de Mille could repeat the blow he found himself grappled in so tight a hug that he was unable to use the bludgeon again. Close-locked they swayed across the room, hurtling against a table, which went over with such a thud and crash of the crockery standing on it that it must have resounded through the house.
The Colonel tripped over one of the legs of it and went down upon his back, with McWhirter on top of him, whilst in that interlocked fall the bludgeon slipped from his fingers and rolled beyond his reach. He now found a knee on his chest, pinning him to the floor, and sinewy hands reaching for his throat.
"Lend a hand, Lestaing," he roared. "Lend a hand, damn you!"
But Lestaing had taken fright at the noise. He had pushed open the lattice and was already astride the sill. Without heeding de Mille's urgent cry, he lowered himself, hung a moment by his hands, and then let himself drop to the yard and made off, to be seen no more.
McWhirter's hands had found the Colonel's throat, whilst he glared at him with one eye through the curls of a periwig that had become displaced, and was covering half his face.
"Lie still, you thieving bandit, till the archers come for you," he growled, and to ensure obedience bumped the Colonel's head upon the floor. "Lie still."
So much noise warned Horn that things were not going smoothly, and brought him in a rush from the adjoining room. He beheld the Colonel in distress under the knees of his opponent, whom he supposed to be Law, for the displaced wig was acting as a mask.
At sight of the enemy whom he was there to despoil, apparently in the act of strangling de Mille, all the Count's rancour boiled up to rob him of his wits. As much to bring help to the Colonel as to gratify his passion of hatred he acted upon blind instinct, whipped out his sword and passed it from side to side through the man's body.
The Scot went limp, and as the Colonel heaved him aside and rose gasping for air and drenched in blood, McWhirter writhed and coughed dreadfully for a moment before sinking to lie still and prone upon the floor.
Standing over him, Horn snarled: "So, you dog, you are paid at last." Then across the length of the body Horn and de Mille looked at each other, their faces ghastly.
"You fool!" gasped the Colonel, with a hand on his heaving chest. "You cursed fool! What have you done?"
Horn was grinning horribly. "I've saved your life," said he, to whom the question seemed ungrateful.
"And you're waiting for me to thank you, I suppose. By God, let us get out of this whilst we can and if we can, or we'll hang for it."
He stooped to recover his hat from the floor, then lurched across the room to depart. But a thunder of steps rumbling up the stairs made him check and turn. "The window," he panted, and started for it. Horn who was nearer to it was the first to throw a leg over the sill. But not soon enough. The door was flung open, and the landlord followed by three of his lads swept in.
One glance at the body prone in a puddle of blood upon the floor was enough. Whilst two of them sprang across the room to seize the Count before he could drop from the window, the other two laid hands on de Mille, who was now too limp even to struggle.
In grasping the sill, Horn had lost his hold of the sword, with which he might have offered a murderous resistance. Disarmed, panting, distraught, he suffered himself tamely to be captured.
It was not until the archers were marching the pair away to the prison of La Tournelle that Horn was to realize the full extent of the catastrophe that had overtaken him. If he had left the Flying Stag under arrest for murder, he had borne with him at least the satisfaction of having made an end of the scoundrel who had robbed him of his money and seduced his wife.
Upon that he would base his defence when he came to take his trial; and considering the powerful enemies created for his Majesty's Comptroller-General by his rise to power, the Count of Horn should not want for friends to support him, to plead his righteous cause, and to justify him. He could count upon such great nobles as the Duke of Noailles, the Duke d'Aumont, the Marquis d'Argenson and the whole body of the Parliament, and in the end of it all he could already see himself hailed as the deliverer of France from the evil thrall of a foreign adventurer, a Scottish Jew.
It all became so clear and inevitable to him, that as he trudged alongside of the hangdog de Mille, through the Rue de Venise into the broader thoroughfare, he was in danger of exulting.
It was only when they were halfway down the Rue Saint-Martin that this heroic dream was suddenly shattered. They had been thrust aside by their guards to make way for a magnificent coach, drawn by a pair of superb bays, and with footmen behind in claret and silver. As it passed them the leather curtain was drawn aside, and a long, stern, handsome face framed in a black periwig looked out of the window.
It was the face of Mr Law--of Mr Law, whom the Count of Horn had left dead in a pool of blood on the floor of a room above-stairs in the Flying Stag--on his way to pay one of his occasional visits to the Banque Royale in the Rue Quincampoix.
As the Comptroller-General's brilliant eyes, frowning inquiry, rested for a moment on the prisoners under guard, the Count of Horn felt his stomach turn over within him.