The Casque's Lark Part 37

On leaving the general of the army I walked home disconsolate. Crime was triumphant. I returned home, to the house of my foster-sister, where I remained until my departure for Brittany. I was engaged with Sampso packing up the last articles needed on our journey, when the following unlooked-for events happened on that night.

Mora, the servant, had also remained in the house. The woman's grief at her mistress's death touched my heart. On the night that I am writing about, my son, while engaged with your second mother in the preparations for our journey, we found that we needed another trunk. I went downstairs in search of one into a room that was separated from Mora's chamber by a rough wooden part.i.tion. It was past midnight. Upon entering the room where the trunk was, I noticed, to my no slight astonishment, that a bright light shone from the servant's room through the clefts of the part.i.tion. Fearing that the woman's bed might have taken fire while she slept, I hastened to peep through the clefts in the boards. I bounded back with astonishment, but quickly returned to my place of observation.

Mora was contemplating herself in a little silver mirror by the light of two lamps, the gleam of which had first attracted my attention. But it was no longer Mora the Mauritanian; at least, her bronze complexion had disappeared! I now saw her a pale brunette, coiffed in a rich gold band ornamented with precious stones. The woman smiled at herself in the gla.s.s. She put a long pearl earring to one of her ears, and--strangest of all--she wore a corsage of some silvery material and a scarlet skirt.

I recognized Kidda, the Bohemian girl.

Alas! I had seen the creature only once, and then only by the light of the moon, on that fateful night, when, suddenly recalled to Mayence by the mysterious notification given me by my traveling companion, I slew Victorin in my house, together with my beloved wife Ellen.

Rage followed close upon the heels of my stupor--a horrible suspicion flashed through my mind. I bolted from the inside the room in which I was; with a violent thrust of my shoulder--rage multiplied my strength a hundredfold--I broke down one of the boards of the part.i.tion, and suddenly I stood before the eyes of the startled Bohemian. With one hand I seized her and threw her upon her knees, with the other I took one of the two heavy iron lamps, and raising it over the woman's head I cried:

"I shall shatter your skull if you do not immediately confess your crimes!"

Kidda believed she read the decree of her death in my face. She grew livid and murmured:

"Kill me not! I shall speak!"

"You are Kidda, the Bohemian girl?"

"Yes--I am Kidda."

"You were formerly at Mayence--and, as the price of your favors, you exacted of Victorin that he dishonor my wife Ellen?"

"Yes--that is so!"

"You were acting under orders of Tetrik?"

"No, I never spoke to him."

"Whose orders were you, then, following?"

"Of Tetrik's equerry."

"The man is cautious," I thought to myself. "And the soldier who on that fateful night announced to me that a heinous crime was being perpetrated in my house--do you know who he was?"

"It was Captain Marion's companion in arms, he was a former blacksmith, like Marion."

"Did Tetrik also know that soldier?"

"No, it was Tetrik's equerry who had secret conferences with him at Mayence."

"And where is that soldier now?"

"He died."

"After Tetrik employed him to a.s.sa.s.sinate Captain Marion?"

The girl looked puzzled.

"Did Tetrik cause him to be put to death? Answer!"

"I think so!"

"And it is that same equerry who sent you to this house under the guise of Mora, the Mauritanian? Was it in order to disguise yourself that you painted your face?"

"Yes--that is all so."

"You were to spy upon your mistress, were you not?--and then poison her?

Speak! If you believe in a G.o.d--if your infernal soul dares at this supreme moment to implore his help--you have but a minute to live--Speak!"

"Have pity upon me!"

"Confess your crime--you committed it under orders of Tetrik? Speak!"

"Yes, I was ordered by Tetrik."

"When--how did he give you the order to execute that crime?"

"When I entered the room the second time--after I was sent to bring Captain Paul, who was to arrest Tetrik."

"And the poison--you poured it into the drink that you were to present to your mistress?"

"Yes--it happened that way."

"And on that same day," I added, my recollections now thronging to my mind, "when I sent you to my wife, you purloined a parchment that lay on my table and that I had written upon?"

"Yes, Tetrik ordered me to--he heard Victoria refer to the parchment."

"Why, after the crime was committed, did you stay in this house down to to-day?"

"So as to awaken no suspicions."

"What induced you to poison your mistress?"

"The gift of these jewels that I was entertaining myself with putting on when you broke in upon me. I thought I was alone!"

"Tetrik came himself near dying of the poison--do you believe his equerry is guilty of that crime?"

"Every poison has its counter-poison," answered the Bohemian with a sinister smile. "He who poisons others, removes suspicion from himself by drinking from the same cup, and he is safe through the counter-poison."

The woman's answer was a flash-light to me. By an infernal ruse, and doubtlessly guaranteed against death, thanks to an antidote, Tetrik had swallowed enough poison to produce in him the identical symptoms that marked Victoria's agony and thus seem to share her fate.

To seize a scarf that lay upon the bed, and, despite the resistance that she offered, to tie her hands firmly together and to lock her up in one of the lower rooms, was the affair of but an instant. I ran back to the general of the army. After finally succeeding in being admitted to his presence--a difficult thing owing to the hour of the night--I repeated to him the confession that Kidda had just made to me. He shrugged his shoulders impatiently and said:

"Ever this same, rooted, thought--your mind must be wholly deranged. The idea of having me waked up to hear such crazy man's stories. Moreover, you have chosen ill the hour to prefer such charges against the venerable Tetrik. He left Treves last evening for Bordeaux."

The departure of Tetrik was a heavy blow to my last hopes. Nevertheless, I pressed the general with such insistence, I spoke to him with such earnestness and coherence, that he consented to order one of his officers to accompany me back to the house, and take the Bohemian girl's confession in writing. He and I returned hurriedly to the house. I opened the door of the chamber in which I had left Kidda with her hands tied. She was gone! She must have gnawed at the scarf with her teeth, and fled by one of the windows that now stood open and that looked into the garden. In my hurry and the seething confusion of my brain I had omitted to guard against the chances of the woman's escape by that issue.

"Poor Schanvoch!" said the officer to me with deep pity. "Your grief makes you see visions--be careful, or you will go crazy, altogether!"