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The Three Musketeers - Александр Дюма - Читать любовный роман онлайн в женской библиотеке LadyLib.Net
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Дюма Александр
The Three Musketeers
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10 A Mousetrap of the Seventeenth Century
THE MOUSETRAP IS not a modern invention. As soon as societies had, in establishing, themselves, instituted some kind of police, that police in its turn invented mousetraps.
As our readers are perhaps not familiar with the slang of the Rue de Jerusalem, and as it is, although we have been engaged in authorship for fifteen years, the first time that we have used the word in this signification, let us explain to them what a mousetrap is.
When an individual has been arrested, in any house whatever, on suspicion of some crime, his arrest is kept secret; four or five men are placed in ambush in the front room of this house; all who knock are admitted, and also locked in and detained; and, in this manner, at the end of three or four days, they can lay their fingers on all the frequenters of the establishment.
This, reader, is a mousetrap! and into such a one was M. Bonancieux’s apartment transformed. Whoever applied there, was seized and examined by the cardinal’s people. But as there was a private court leading to the first floor, which d’Artagnan occupied, his visitors were all exempt from this detention. The three musketeers, however, were, in fact, the only visitors he had; and each of these had, by this time, commenced a separate search, but had discovered nothing. Athos had even gone so far as to question M. de Treville—a circumstance which, considering his habitual taciturnity, had greatly surprised his captain. But M. de Treville knew nothing about it; excepting that the last time he had seen either the king, the queen, and the cardinal, the cardinal was very morose, the king very uneasy, and the queen’s eyes were red from watching or weeping. But this last circumstance had not attracted much of his notice, as the queen had, since her marriage, both watched and wept frequently.
Furthermore, M. de Treville strongly advised Athos to be active in the king’s service, and more particularly in the queen’s, and requested him to transmit the advice to his companions.
As to d’Artagnan, he did not stir out of his lodgings. He had converted his room into an observatory. From his own windows he saw everybody who came into the trap; and as he had taken up some squares from the floor, and dug up the deafening, so that nothing but a ceiling separated him from the room below, where the examinations were made, he heard all that passed between the inquisitors and the accused. The interrogatories, which were preceded by a strict search, were almost always in these terms—
“Has Madame Bonancieux entrusted you with anything for her husband or any other person?”
“Has M. Bonancieux entrusted you with anything for his wife, or any one else?”
“Has either of them made any verbal communication to you?”
“If they knew anything, they would not put such questions as these,” said d’Artagnan to himself. “But what are they trying to find out? Whether the Duke of Buckingham is in Paris at present; and if he has not had, or is not about to have, an interview with the queen?”
D’Artagnan stopped at this idea, which, after all that he had heard, was not without its probability. In the meantime, however, both the mousetrap and the vigilance of d’Artagnan remained in operation.
Just as it was striking nine on the evening of the day after poor Bonancieux’s arrest, and just as Athos had left d’Artagnan to go to M. de Treville’s, whilst Planchet, who had not made the bed, was about to do so, there was a knocking at the street door, which was immediately opened, and shut again: it was some new prey caught in the trap.
D’Artagnan rushed towards the unpaved part of his room, and laid himself down to listen. In a short time cries were heard, and then groans, which someone endeavoured to stifle.
There was no thought of examination.
“The devil!” said d’Artagnan to himself; “it seems to me to be a woman; they are searching her, and she resists; the wretches are using violence!”
In spite of his prudence, d’Artagnan had some trouble to restrain himself from interfering in the scene which was being enacted underneath.
“I tell you, gentlemen, that I am the mistress of the house; I am Madame Bonancieux. I tell you that I am a servant of the queen’s!” exclaimed the unfortunate woman.
“Madame Bonancieux!” murmured d’Artagnan; “shall I be so fortunate as to have found her whom everybody searches for in vain?”
“You are the very person we were waiting for,” replied the officers.
The voice became more and more stifled. Violent struggling made the wainscot rattle. The victim was offering all the resistance that one woman could offer against four men.
“Forgive me, gentlemen, by———” murmured the voice, which then
uttered only inarticulate sounds.
“They are gagging her! They are going to abduct her!” ejaculated d’Artagnan, raising himself up with a bound. “My sword!—Right! it is by my side!—Planchet!”
“Sir.”
“Run, and seek Athos, Porthos, and Aramis; one of the three must be at home; perhaps all. Tell them to arm themselves, and hasten here. Ah, now I remember Athos is with M. de Treville.”
“But where are you going, sir?—Where are you going?”
“I shall get down through the window,” said d’Artagnan, “that I may be there sooner. Replace the squares, sweep the floor, go out by the door, and hasten whither I have told you.”
“Oh! sir, you will be killed!” cried Planchet.
“Hold your tongue, idiot!” exclaimed d’Artagnan.
Then, grasping the window-sill, he dropped from the first storey, which was fortunately not high, without giving himself even a scratch. He then went immediately and knocked at the door, muttering—
“I in my turn am going to be caught in the mousetrap; but woe betide the cats who shall deal with such a mouse!”
Scarcely had the knocker sounded beneath the young man’s hand, ere the tumult ceased, and footsteps approached. The door was opened, and d’Artagnan, armed with his naked sword, sprang into the apartment of M. Bonancieux. The door, doubtless moved by a spring, closed automatically behind him.
Then might those who yet inhabited the unfortunate house of M. Bonancieux, as well as the nearest neighbours, hear loud outcries, stampings, and the clashing of swords and the continual crash of furniture. After a moment more, those who had looked from their windows to learn the cause of this surprising noise, might see the door open, and four men clothed in black, not merely go out, but fly like frightened crows, leaving on the ground, and at the corners of the house, their feathers and wings, that is to say, portions of their coats and fragments of their cloaks.
D’Artagnan had come off victorious, without much difficulty, it must be confessed; for only one of the officers was armed, and he had only gone through a form of defence. It is quite true that the other three had endeavoured to knock down the young man with chairs, stools, and crockery, but two or three scratches from the Gascon’s sword had scared them. Ten minutes had sufficed for their defeat, and d’Artagnan had remained master of the field of battle.
The neighbours, who had opened their windows with the indifference habitual to the inhabitants of Paris at that season of perpetual disturbances and riots, closed them again when they saw the four men escape; their instinct told them no more was to be seen for the time. Besides, it was getting late; and then, as well as now, people went to bed early in the quarter of the Luxembourg.
When d’Artagnan was left alone with Madame Bonancieux, he turned towards her. The poor woman was reclining in an easy chair, almost senseless. D’Artagnan examined her with a rapid glance.
She was a charming woman, about twenty-two or twenty-three years of age; with blue eyes, a nose slightly turned up, beautiful teeth, and a complexion of intermingled rose and opal. Here, however, ended the charms which might have confounded her with a lady of high birth. Her hands were white, but not delicately formed; and her feet did not indicate a woman of quality. Fortunately, d’Artagnan was not of an age to be nice in these matters.
Whilst d’Artagnan was examining Madame Bonancieux, and had got, as we have said, to her feet, he saw on the ground a fine cambric handkerchief, which, naturally, he picked up; and, at the corner of it, he discovered the same cipher that he had seen on the handkerchief which had nearly caused him and Aramis to cut one another’s throats. Since that time d’Artagnan had mistrusted all coronetted handkerchiefs; and he now put that which he had picked up into Madame Bonancieux’s pocket, without saying a word. At that moment Madame Bonancieux recovered her senses. She opened her eyes, looked around her in affright, and saw that the room was empty, and that she was alone with her deliverer. She immediately held out her hands to him, with a smile—and Madame Bonancieux had the most charming smile in the world.
“Ah! sir,” said she, “it is you who have saved me; allow me to thank you!”
“Madame,” replied d’Artagnan, “I have only done what any gentleman would have done in my situation. You owe me no thanks.”
“Yes, yes, sir, I do; and I hope to prove to you that this service has not been for naught. But what did these men, whom I at first took for robbers, want with me? and why is not M. Bonancieux here?”
“Madame, these men were far more dangerous than any robbers would have been, for they are agents of the cardinal; and as for your husband, M. Bonancieux, he is not here, because he was taken yesterday to the Bastile.”
“My husband in the Bastile!” cried Madame Bonancieux. “Oh, my God! what can he have done, poor, dear man! Why, he is innocence itself!”
And something like a smile glanced across the yet alarmed countenance of the young woman.
“As to what he has been doing, madame,” said d’Artagnan, “I believe that his only crime consists in having at the same time the good fortune and the misfortune of being your husband.”
“Then, sir, you know?”
“I know that you were carried off, madame.”
“But by whom? do you know that? Oh, if you know, pray tell me!”
“By a man about forty or forty-five years of age, with dark hair, a brown complexion, and a scar on the left temple.”
“Just so, just so: but his name?”
“Ah! his name—I don’t know it myself.”
“And did my husband know that I had been carried off?”
“He had been informed of it by a letter sent him by the ravisher himself.”
“And does he suspect,” demanded Madame Bonancieux, with some confusion, “the cause of this abduction?”
“He attributes it, I believe, to some political cause.”
“At first I doubted whether it was so, but now, as I think, he does; and so my dear M. Bonancieux did not mistrust me for a single instant?”
“Ah! so far from that, madame, he was too proud of your prudence and your love.”
A second smile, almost imperceptible, glided over the rosy lips of the beautiful young woman.
“But,” continued d’Artagnan, “how did you make your escape?”
“I profited by a moment in which I was left alone; and as I learned this morning the cause of my abduction, by the help of my sheets I got out of the window, and hurried here, where I expected to find my husband.”
“To place yourself under his protection?”
“Oh, no! poor dear man! I knew that he was incapable of protecting me; but, as he might be of some service to us, I wished to put him on his guard.”
“Against what?”
“Alas! that is not my secret; and I dare not tell it to you.”
“Besides,” said d’Artagnan—“(pardon me, madame, if, protector as I am, I remind you of prudence)—besides, I think that we are scarcely in a situation suitable for confidences. The men whom I have put to flight will return reinforced, and if they find us here, we shall be lost. I have sent to summon three of my friends, but it is uncertain whether they may be at home!”
“Yes! yes! you are right,” said Madame Bonancieux, in alarm; “let us fly: let us escape!”
And seizing d’Artagnan by his arm, she eagerly drew him along.
“But whither shall we fly? where shall we escape to?” said d’Artagnan.
“Let us get away from this place first, and then, having got clear of it, we shall see.”
Without taking the trouble to shut the door, the two young people hastily passed down the Rue des Fossoyeurs, crossed the Rue des Fosses Monsieur le Prince, and did not stop until they reached the Place de St. Sulpice.
“And now, what next?” inquired d’Artagnan; “and whither would you like me to conduct you?”
“I confess that I scarcely know whither,” said Madame Bonancieux. “I had intended, through my husband, to intimate my escape to M. de la Porte, so that the latter might tell us exactly what has happened at the Louvre within the last three days, and whether there would be any danger in my presenting myself there.”
“But I,” said d’Artagnan, “can go and inform M. de la Porte.”
“Undoubtedly; yet there is one difficulty. M. Bonancieux is known at the Louvre, and would be allowed to enter; whilst you, not being known, would not be admitted.”
“Nonsense!” said d’Artagnan: “there is doubtless a porter at some wicket of the Louvre who is devoted to you, and who, thanks to some countersign———”
Madame Bonancieux looked earnestly at the young man.
“And if I trusted you with this countersign,” said she, “would you undertake to forget it as soon as you had made use of it?”
“On my word of honour! on the faith of a gentleman!” said d’Artagnan, with that accent of truth which never can mislead.
“Well, I believe you! You look like a man of honour, and your fortune perhaps may depend on your devotion.”
“I will perform, without any promises, and conscientiously, whatever I can to serve the king, and to be acceptable to the queen,” said d’Artagnan; “use me, therefore, as a friend!”
“But what is to become of me in the meantime?”
“Have you no acquaintance, to whose house M. de la Porte can come for you?”
“No, I would rather not trust to any one!”
“Wait,” said d’Artagnan; “we are now just by Athos’s door; yes, this is the best way!”
“And who is Athos?”
“A friend of mine.”
“But, if he is at home, and sees me?”
“But he is not there, and I will take away the key when I have placed you in his apartment.”
“Suppose he should return?”
“He will not return; besides, if he should, he will be told that I have brought a woman here, and that she is now in his apartment.”
“But don’t you see this will compromise me very much?”
“What need you care! no one knows you. Besides, we are not in a position to be particular.”
“Well, let us go to your friend’s house, then; where does he live?”
“In the Rue Ferou—two steps from here.”
“Come, then.” And the two proceeded on their way. As d’Artagnan had foreseen, Athos was not at home; so taking the key, which they were in the habit of giving to him as a friend of the musketeer, he ascended the stairs, and introduced Madame Bonancieux into the little apartment which we have already described.
“You are now at home,” said he. “Lock the door inside, and do not open it to any one, unless you hear three knocks—thus;” and he tapped three times—two taps together, pretty hard, and, after a short interval, a gentler tap.
“That will do,” said Madame Bonancieux; “and now let me give you my instructions.”
“I am all attention.”
“Present yourself at the postern of the Louvre, on the side of the Rue de l’Echelle; and ask for Germain.”
“Very well; and what next?”
“He will ask you what you want; you must answer by these words—‘Tours and Brussels’—and he will immediately listen to your commands.”
“And what shall I tell him to do?”
“To go and find M. de la Porte, the queen’s valet-de-chambre.”
“And when M. de la Porte has come?”
“You will send him to me.”
“Very well. But where, and how, shall I see you again?”
“Do you feel particularly anxious to see me again?”
“Particularly.”
“Well, then, leave that to my care; and be at ease.”
“I rely upon your word.”
“And quite right.”
D’Artagnan took leave of Madame Bonancieux, with the most amorous glance that he could possibly concentrate upon her charming little person; and whilst he was descending the stairs, he heard the door behind him double locked. In two bounds he was at the Louvre; and, as he entered the small door in the Rue de l’Echelle, it struck ten; so that all the events we have just related had transpired within half an hour.
Everything happened just as Madame Bonancieux had predicted. Germain heard the watchword with a bow, and in ten minutes de la Porte was in the porter’s lodge; and in two words d’Artagnan told him what had occurred, and where Madame Bonancieux was to be found. La Porte made himself certain of the address by having it twice repeated, and then hurried away. But he had scarcely taken ten steps, before he returned.
“Young man,” said he, “let me give you some good counsel.”
“What is it?”
“You may possibly get into some trouble on account of this affair.”
“Do you think so?”
“I do! Have you any friend whose clock is slow?”
“Suppose I have?”
“Go and pay him a visit, that he may be able to bear witness that you were in his company at half-past nine. In law, that is what is called an alibi.”
D’Artagnan thought the advice prudent. He therefore took to his heels, and reached M. de Treville’s; but, instead of entering the drawing-room, with the rest of the company, he asked to be admitted into the cabinet, and as he was one of the habitual frequenters of the hotel, no objection was made to this; and M. de Treville was soon informed that his young compatriot, having something of importance to communicate, solicited a private interview.
In five minutes M. de Treville was there, and asked d’Artagnan what he could do for him, and to what he was indebted for a visit at such a late hour?
“Forgive me, sir,” said d’Artagnan (who had taken advantage of the moment he was left alone, to put the clock back three quarters of an hour), “but I thought, as it was only twenty-five minutes past nine, it was not yet too late to wait upon you.”
“Twenty-five minutes past nine!” exclaimed M. de Treville, looking at the clock, “it is impossible!”
“Look for yourself, sir,” said d’Artagnan, “the clock shows it.”
“You are right,” replied M. de Treville: “I should have thought it was later. But what can I do for you?”
Then d’Artagnan entered into a long story about the queen; expressing all the fears that he entertained upon her majesty’s account, and recounting all that he had heard about the cardinal’s designs against Buckingham; and this with a degree of tranquillity and consistency by which M. de Treville was the more readily duped, inasmuch as he had himself, as we have already said, remarked that something fresh was stirring between the cardinal, the king, and the queen.
Just as the clock was striking ten, d’Artagnan arose, and took his leave of M. de Treville, who thanked him for his information, expressed on him an incessant earnestness in the service of the king and queen, and returned to his saloon.
But d’Artagnan remembered, at the bottom of the stairs, that he had forgotten his cane; he therefore hastened up again, re-entered the cabinet, and with one touch of his finger put the clock to its right time, so that it might not be seen the next day to have been wrong: then, satisfied that he had a witness there to prove his alibi, he again descended the stairs, and soon found himself in the street.
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