CHAPTER XV—HOW HENRI MENTONE RODE WITH JACQUES BOURGET

IT was eight o'clock—the clock was striking in the kitchen—as Raymond entered the presbytère again. He stepped briskly to the door of the front room, opened it, and paused—no, before going in there to wait, it would be well first to let Madame Lafleur know that he was back, to establish the fact that it was after his return that the man had escaped, that his evening walk could in no way be connected with what would set all St. Marleau by the ears in the morning. And so he passed on to the dining room, which Madame Lafleur used as a sitting room as well. She was sewing beside the table lamp.

“Always busy, Madame Lafleur!” he called out cheerily, from the threshold. “Well, and has Mademoiselle Valérie returned?”

“Ah, it is you, Monsieur le Curé!” she exclaimed, dropping her work on her knees. “And did you enjoy your walk? No, Valérie has not come back here yet, though I am sure she must have got back to her uncle's by now. Did you want her for anything, Monsieur le Curé—to write letters? I can go over and tell her.”

“But, no—not at all!” said Raymond hastily. He indicated the rear room with an inclination of his head. “And our pauvre there?”

Madame Lafleur's sweet, motherly face grew instantly troubled.

“You can hear him tossing on the bed yourself, Monsieur le Curé. I have just been in to see him. He has one of his bad moods. He said he wanted nothing except to be left alone. But I think he will soon be quiet. Poor man, he is so weak he will be altogether exhausted—it is only his mind that keeps him restless.”

Raymond nodded.

“It is a very sad affair,” he said slowly, “a very sad affair!” He lifted a finger and shook it playfully at Madame Lafleur. “But we must think of you too—eh? Do not work too late, Madame Lafleur!”

She answered him seriously.

“Only to finish this, Monsieur le Curé. See, it is an altar cloth—for next Sunday.” She held it up. “It is you who work too hard and too late.”

It was a cross on a satin background. He stared at it. It had been hidden on her lap before. He had not been thinking of—a cross. For the moment, assured of Henri Mentone's escape, he had been more light of heart than at any time since he had come to St. Mar-leau; and, for the moment, he had forgotten that he was a meddler with holy things, that he was—a priest of God! It seemed as though this were being flaunted suddenly now as a jeering reminder before his eyes; and with it he seemed as suddenly to see the chancel, the altar of the church where the cloth was to play its part—and himself kneeling there—and, curse the vividness of it! he heard his own lips at their sacrilegious work: “Lavabo inter innocentes manus meas: et circumdabo altare tuum, Domine.... I will wash my hands among the innocent: and I will compass Thine altar, O Lord.” And so he stared at this cross she held before him, fighting to bring a pleased and approving smile to the lips that fought in turn for their right to snarl a defiant mockery.

“Ah, you like it, Monsieur le Curé!” cried Madame Lafleur happily. “I am so glad.”

And Raymond smiled for answer, and went from the room.

And in the front room he lighted the lamp upon his desk, and stood there looking down at the two letters that still awaited the signature of—Francois Aubert. “I will wash my hands among the innocent”—he raised his hands, and they were clenched into hard and knotted fists. Words! Words! They were only words. And what did their damnable insinuations matter to him! Others might listen devoutly and believe, as he mouthed them in his surplice and stole—but for himself they were no more than the mimicry of sounds issuing from a parrot's beak! It was absurd then that they should affect him at all. He would better laugh and jeer at them, and all this holy entourage with which he cloaked himself, for these things were being made to serve his own ends, were being turned to his own account, and—it was Three-Ace Artie now, and he laughed hoarsely under his breath—for once they were proving of some real and tangible value! Madame Lafleur, and her cross, and her altar cloth! He laughed again. Well, while she was busy with her churchly task, that she no doubt fondly believed would hurry her exit through the purgatory to come, he would busy himself a little in getting as speedily as possible out of the purgatory of the present. These letters now. While he was waiting, and there was an opportunity, he would sign them. It would be easier to say that he had decided not to make any changes in them after all, than to have new ones written and then have to find another opportunity for signing the latter. He reached for the prayer-book to make a tracing of the signature that was on the fly-leaf—and suddenly drew back his hand, and stood motionless, listening.

From the road came the rumble of wheels. The sound grew louder. The vehicle passed by the presbytère, going in the direction of Tournayville. The sound died away. Still Raymond listened—even more intently than before. Jacques Bourget did not own the only horse and wagon in St. Marleau, but Bourget was to turn around a little way down the road, and return to the church. A minute, two passed, another; and then Raymond caught the sound of a wheel-tire rasping and grinding against the body of a wagon, as though the latter were being turned in a narrow space—then presently the rattle of wheels again, coming back now toward the church. And now by the church he heard the wagon turn in from the road.

Raymond relaxed from his strained attitude of attention. Jacques Bourget, it was quite evident, intended to earn the balance of his money! Well, for a word then between Pierre Desforges and Jacques Bourget—pending the time that Madame Lafleur and her altar cloth should go to bed. The letters could wait.

He moved stealthily and very slowly across the room. Madame Lafleur must not hear him leaving the house. He would be gone only a minute—just to warn Bourget to keep very quiet, and to satisfy the man that everything was going well. He could strip off his soutane and leave it under the porch.

Cautiously he opened the door, an inch at a time that it might not creak, and stepped out into the hall on tiptoe—and listened. Madame Lafleur's rocking chair squeaked back and forth reassuringly. She had perhaps had enough of her altar cloth for a while! How could one do fine needle work—and rock! And why that fanciful detail to flash across his mind! And—his face was suddenly set, his lips tight-drawn together—what was this! These footsteps that had made no sound in crossing the green, but were quick and heavy upon the porch outside! He drew back upon the threshold of his room. And then the front door was thrust open. And in the doorway was Dupont, Monsieur Dupont, the assistant chief of the Tournayville police, and behind Dupont was another man, and behind the man was—yes—it was Valerie.

“Tiens! 'Cré nom d'un chien!” clucked Monsieur Dupont. “Ha, Monsieur le Curé, you heard us—eh? But you did not hear us until we were at the door—and a man posted at the back of the house by that window there, eh? No, you did not hear us. Well, we have nipped the little scheme in the bud, eh?”

Dupont knew! Raymond's hand tightened on the door jamb—and, as once before, his other hand crept in under his crucifix, and under the breast of his soutane to his revolver.

“I do not understand”—he spoke deliberately, gravely. “You speak of a scheme, Monsieur Dupont? I do not understand.”

“Ah, you do not understand!”—Monsieur Duponts face screwed up into a cryptic smile. “No, of course, you do not understand! Well, you will in a moment! But first we will attend to Monsieur Henri Mentone! Now then, Marchand”—he addressed his companion, and pointed to the rear room—“that room in there, and handcuff him to you. You had better stay where you are, Monsieur le Curé. Come along, Marchand!”

Dupont and his companion ran into Henri Mentone's room. Raymond heard Madame Lafleur cry out in sudden consternation. It was echoed by a cry in Henri Mentone's voice. But he was looking at Valérie, who had stepped into the hall. She was very pale. What had she to do with this? What did it mean? Had she discovered that he—no, Dupont would not have rushed away in that case, but then—His lips moved: “You—Valérie!” How very pale she was—and how those dark eyes, deep with something he could not fathom, sought his face, only to be quickly veiled by their long lashes.

“Do not look like that, Monsieur le Curé—as though I had done wrong.” she said in a low, hurried tone. “I am sorry for the man too; but the police were to have taken him away to-morrow morning in any case. And if I went for Monsieur Dupont to-night, it was——”

“You went for Monsieur Dupont?”—he repeated her words dazedly, as though he had not heard aright. “It was you who brought Monsieur Dupont here just now—from Tournayville! But—but, I do not understand at all!”

“Valérie! Valérie!”—it was Madame Lafleur, pale and excited, who had rushed to her daughter's side. “Valérie, speak quickly! What are they doing? What does all this mean?”

Valérie's arm stole around her mother's shoulder.

“I—I was just telling Father Aubert, mother,” she said, a little tremulously. “You—you must not be nervous. See, it was like this. You had just taken the man for a little walk about the green this afternoon—you remember? When I came out of the house a few minutes later to join you, I saw what I thought looked like some money sticking out from one end of a folded-up piece of paper that was lying on the grass just at the bottom of the porch steps. I was sure, of course, that it was only a trick my imagination was playing on me, but I stooped down and picked it up. It was money, a great deal of money, and there was writing on the paper. I read it, and then I was afraid. It was from some friend of that man's in there, and was a plan for him to make his escape to-night.”

“Escape!”—Madame Lafleur drew closer to her daughter, as she glanced apprehensively toward the rear room.

Dupont's voice floated menacingly out into the hall—came a gruff oath from his companion—the sound of a chair over-turned—and Henri Mentone's cry, pitched high.

In a curiously futile way Raymond's hand dropped from the breast of his soutane to his side. Valérie and her mother seemed to be swirling around in circles in the hall before him. He forced himself to speak naturally:

“And then?”

Valérie's eyes were on her mother.

“I did not want to alarm you, mother,” she went on rapidly; “and so I told you I was going for a drive. I ran to uncle's house. He was out somewhere. I could go as well as any one, and if Henri Mentone had a friend lurking somewhere in the village there would be nothing to arouse suspicion in a girl driving alone; and, besides, I did not know who this friend might be, and I did not know who to trust. I told old Adèle that I wanted to go for a drive, and she helped me to harness the horse.”

And now, as Raymond listened, those devils, that had chuckled and screeched as the lumpy earth had thudded down on the lid of Théophile Blondin's coffin, were at their hell-carols again. It was not just luck, just the unfortunate turn of a card that the man had dropped the money and the note. It was more than that. It seemed to hold a grim, significant premonition—for the future. Those devils did well to chuckle! Struggle as he would, they had woven their net too cunningly for his escape. It was those devils who had torn his coat that night in the storm, as he had tried to force his way through the woods. It was his coat that Henri Mentone was wearing. He remembered now that the lining of the pocket on the inside had been ripped across. It was those devils who had seen to that—for this—knowing what was to come. A finger seemed to wag with hideous jocularity before his eyes—the finger of fate. He looked at Valerie. It was nothing for her to have driven to Tournayville, she had probably done it a hundred times before, but it seemed a little strange that Henri Mentone's possible escape should have been, apparently, so intimate and personal a matter to her.

“You were afraid, you said, Mademoiselle Valerie,” he said slowly. “Afraid—that he would escape?”

She shook her head—and the colour mounted suddenly in her face.

“Of what then?” he asked.

“Of what was in the note,” she said, in a low voice. “I knew I had time, for nothing was to be done until the presbytère was quiet for the night; but the plan then was to—to put you out of the way, and——”

His voice was suddenly hoarse.

“And you were afraid—for me? It was for me that you have done this?”

She did not answer. The colour was still in her cheeks—her eyes were lowered.

“The blessed saints!” cried Madame Lafleur, crossing herself. “The devils! They would do harm to Father Aubert! Well, I am sorry for that man no longer! He——”

They were coming along the hall—Henri Mentone handcuffed to Monsieur Dupont's companion, and Monsieur Dupont himself in the rear.

“Monsieur le Curé!” Henri Mentone called out wildly. “Monsieur le Curé, do not——”

“Enough! Hold your tongue!” snapped Monsieur Dupont, giving the man a push past Raymond toward the front door. “Do you appeal to Monsieur le Curé because he has been good to you—or because you intended to knock Monsieur le Curé on the head to-night! Bah! Hurry him along, Marchand!” Monsieur Dupont paused before Valérie and her mother. “You will do me a favour, mesdames? A very great favour—yes? You will retire instantly to bed—instantly. I have my reasons. Yes, that is right—go at once.” He turned to Raymond. “And you, Monsieur le Curé, you will wait for me here, eh? Yes, you will wait. I will be back on the instant.”

The hall was empty. In a subconscious sort of way Raymond stepped back into his room, and, reaching the desk, stood leaning heavily against it. His brain would tolerate no single coherent thought. Valérie had done this for fear of harm to him, Valérie had... there was Jacques Bourget who if he attempted now to... it was no wonder that Henri Mentone had been restless all evening, knowing that he had lost the note, and not daring to question... the day after to-morrow there was to be a trial at the criminal assizes... Valérie had not met his eyes, but there had been the crimson colour in her face, and she had done this to save him... were they still laughing, those hell-devils... were they now engaged in making Valérie love him, and making her torture her soul because she was so pure that no thought could strike her more cruelly than that love should come to her for a priest? Ah, his brain was logical now! His hands clenched, and unclenched, and clenched again. Impotent fury was upon him. If it were true! Damn them to the everlasting place from whence they came! But it was not true! It was but another trick of theirs to make him writhe the more—to make him believe she cared!

A footstep! He looked up. Monsieur Dupont was back.

“Tiens!” cried Monsieur Dupont. “Well, you have had an escape, Monsieur le Curé! An escape! Yes, you have! But I do not take all the credit. No, I do not. She is a fine girl, that Valérie Lafleur. If she were a man she would have a career—with the police. I would see to it! But you do not know yet what it is all about, Monsieur le Curé, eh?”

“There was a note and money that Mademoiselle Valérie said she found”—Raymond's voice was steady, composed.

“Zut!” Monsieur Dupont laid his forefinger along the side of his nose impressively. “That is the least of it! There is an accomplice—two of them in it! You would not have thought that, eh, Monsieur le Curé? No, you would not. Very well, then—listen! I have this Mentone safe, and now I, Dupont, will give this accomplice a little surprise. There will be the two of them at the trial for the murder of Théophile Blondin! The grand jury is still sitting. You understand, Monsieur le Curé? Yes, you understand. You are listening?”...

“I am listening,” said Raymond gravely—and instinctively glanced toward the window. It might still have been Jacques Bourget who had turned down there on the road; or, if not, then the man would be along at any minute. In either case, he must find some way to warn Bourget. “I am listening, Monsieur Dupont,” he said again. “You propose to lay a trap for this accomplice?”

“It is already laid,” announced Monsieur Dupont complacently. “They will discover with whom they are dealing! I returned at once with Mademoiselle Valérie. I brought two men with me; but you will observe, Monsieur le Curé, that I did not bring two teams—nothing to arouse suspicion—nothing to indicate that I was about to remove our friend Mentone to-night. It would be a very simple matter to secure a team here when I was ready for it. You see, Monsieur le Curé? Yes, you see. Very well! My plans worked without a hitch. Just as we approached the church, we met a man named Jacques Bourget driving alone in a buckboard. Nothing could be better. It was excellent. I stopped him. I requisitioned him and his horse and his wagon in the name of the law. I made him turn around, and told him to follow us back here after a few minutes. You see, Monsieur le Curé? Yes, you see. Monsieur Jacques Bourget is now on his way to Tournayville with one of my officers and the prisoner.”

Raymond's fingers were playing nonchalantly with the chain of his crucifix. Raymond's face was unmoved. It was really funny, was it not! No wonder those denizens of hell were shrieking with abandoned glee in his ears. This time they had a right to be amused. It was really very funny—that Jacques Bourget should be driving Henri Mentone away from St. Marleau! Well, and now—what?

“You are to be congratulated, Monsieur Dupont,” he murmured. “But the accomplice—the other one, who is still at large?”

“Ah, the other one!” said Monsieur Dupont, and laid his hand confidentially on Raymond's arm. “The other—heh, mon Dieu, Monsieur le Curé, but you wear heavy clothes for the summertime!”

It was the bulk of the sacristan's old coat! There was a smile in Raymond's eyes, a curious smile, as he searched the other's face. One could never be sure of Monsieur Dupont.

“A coat always under my soutane in the evenings”—Raymond's voice was tranquil, and he did not withdraw his arm.

“A coat—yes—of course!” Monsieur Dupont nodded his head. “Why not! Well then, the other—listen. All has been done very quietly. No alarm raised. None at all! I have sent Madame Lafleur and her daughter to bed. The plan was that the accomplice should come to the back window for Mentone. But they would not make the attempt until late—until all in the village was quiet. That is evident, is it not? Yes, it is evident. Very good! You sleep here in this room, Monsieur le Curé? Yes? Well, you too will put out your light and retire at once. I will go into Mentone's room, and wait there in the dark for our other friend to come to the window. I will be Henri Mentone. You see? Yes, you see. It is simple, is it not? Yes, it is simple. Before morning I will have the man in a cell alongside of Henri Mentone. Do you see any objections to the plan, Monsieur le Curé?”

“Only that it might prove very dangerous—for you,” said Raymond soberly. “If the man, who is certain to be a desperate character, attacked you before you——”

“Dangerous! Bah!” exclaimed Monsieur Dupont. “That is part of my business. I do not consider that! I have my other officer outside there now by the shed. As soon as the man we are after approaches the window, the officer will leap upon him and overpower him. And now, Monsieur le Curé, to bed—eh? And the light out!”

“At once!” agreed Raymond. “And I wish you every success, Monsieur Dupont! If you need help you have only to call; or, if you like, I will go in there and stay with you.”

“No, no—not at all!” Monsieur Dupont moved toward the door. “It is not necessary. Nothing can go wrong. We may have to wait well through the night, and there is no reason why you should remain up too. Tiens! Fancy! Imagine! Did I not tell you that Mentone was a hardened rascal? Two of them! Well, we will see if the second one can remember any better than the first? The light, Monsieur le Curé—do not forget! He will not come while there is a sound or a light about the house!” Monsieur Dupont waved his hand, and the door closed on Monsieur Dupont.

Raymond, still leaning against the desk, heard the other walk along the hall, and enter the rear room—and then all was quiet. He leaned over and blew out the lamp. Nothing must be allowed to frustrate Monsieur Dupont's plans!

And then, in the darkness, for a long time Raymond stood there. And thinking of Monsieur Dupont's dangerous vigil in the other room, he laughed; and thinking of Valérie, he knew a bitter joy; and thinking of Henri Mentone, his hands knotted at his sides, and his face grew strained and drawn. And after that long time was past, he fumbled with his hands outstretched before him like a blind man feeling his way, and flung himself down upon the couch.