"Bah! You are a fool, Pochard!" she shot at him. "They will catch you sure. How much?"
"Two thousand francs."
"And you get half," contemptuously. "Who did it?"
"Tricot and Le Singe Anglais."
"Tricot!"
Piquette got up and paced the length of the room, turning quickly.
"You are an idiot, Pochard," she stormed at him furiously. "An American! Don't you know what you have done? It is the hero of Boissière Wood that you have struck down. An American – who has risked his life for you and me – "
"But Monsieur 'Orton – "
"He has lied to you. I do not believe – " She broke off, caught Pochard by the arm again and shook him. "When did this happen?"
"L-late last right – "
"And 'Arry 'Orton?"
"Was here – this afternoon – "
"Drunk – ?"
Pochard shrugged. "No – not bad. He was in uniform."
"Where is he now?"
"I think he has gone to find his wife."
"His wife!"
Piquette sank into her chair, took out a cigarette and smoked rapidly for a moment. And then,
"What were you going to do with this – this twin brother?"
"I?" Pochard gave a gesture of abnegation. "Nothing. I am through. That is the affair of Monsieur 'Orton."
"All, mon ami, but you can't wriggle out so easily. You've received money – blood money – "
Pochard put his hands deep in his pockets and extended his long legs, frowning at the floor.
"I am sorry now. It is a bad business – "
"The man is safe?"
"So far, yes – "
"But Tricot?"
"He waits for orders."
Piquette ground her cigarette under her heel and rose abruptly with an air of decision.
"This American must be liberated at once!"
Pochard rose and faced her. "It's too late," he growled,
"No. It's not too late. I know the sort that Tricot is – with the river just there – at his elbow."
"I can do nothing. That's what worries me. Tricot and Le Singe will look after their own skins now."
"You mean," she paused significantly. "The Seine – "
He nodded somberly.
"It is the solution of many problems."
She caught him by the shoulders and shook him.
"But not of this problem. You understand. It will not do. I will not have it."
"You," he laughed. "What can you do?"
"You shall go with me now – and liberate him – "
He took her hands from his arms roughly and turned away. "No," he growled, "not I. Have I not told you that I am through?"
"Yes. You will be through, when the police come to find out what you know about the matter."
"They will not find out."
"Don't be too sure. 'Arry 'Orton is a fool when he drinks. He will betray you – "
Pochard scowled. "And betray himself – ?"
"You can't be too sure."
"I can't. But I must trust to luck."
Piquette stamped her foot.
"I've no patience with you." And then, "You will not liberate him?"
"No. I refuse to have anything more to do with the matter."
"You will regret it."
"Perhaps. That will be my own lookout."
She stared at him in a moment of indecision, and then with a shrug, turned toward the door into the café.
"You are an idiot, Gabriel."
Pochard grunted as he followed her.
"You will say nothing?"
"Naturellement," scornfully. "I am not an informer. But I should like to knock you on the head too."
She put her hand on the knob of the door.
"Where are you going?" he asked.
"To the Rue Charron."
He caught her hand away from the knob and held her.
"You – ! Why should you intrude in this affair?"
"It amuses me."
"I warn you that you will run into danger."
"They will not harm me."
"You must not go."
"Yes. I shall save you from the results of your cupidity – since you will not save yourself."
"I will not permit it – "
"You have nothing to say in the matter – since you've washed your hands of it."
She threw his hand off and opened the door.
"Piquette!" he called, but she went rapidly into the other room before he could intercept her, ran quickly out into the street and disappeared in the darkness.
She was throbbing now, deep with purpose. It was only in moments like these that life ran swiftly in her veins. The excitement of the venture was like a tonic, and she went on rapidly toward the Boule' Miche'.
As she walked she went over in detail the conversation she had had last night in the Café Javet. It was not surprising that she had not guessed the truth last night, for the new Harry Horton's information as to his brother's affairs had blinded her to the physical differences such as there were, between them. Perhaps it was the glamor that his heroism had thrown about him, perhaps it was his gravity, or perhaps the depth of his voice or the penetrating quality of his steady gaze, but she had not been able to deny all day a new and extraordinary appreciation of the newcomer, whose virtues, half guessed at, seemed to bring Harry Horton's deficiencies into higher relief. And the mystery of his sudden appearance and the strange tale of Gabriel Pochard provided the added touches to stimulate her interest in him. As she had told Gabriel, there was something back of this mystery of dual identity, and she meant to discover the truth. As to one thing she was resolved, the beautiful young soldier of the Café Javet should not die, if there was anything that she could do to prevent it.
Tricot was a bad one. So was Le Singe Anglais. Either of them was capable of anything. She was acquainted with them both, but she did not fear them, for she knew the freemasonry of their evil calling and had even been in the little room of Gabriel Pochard when they had discussed their business affairs. But this matter concerned a human being in whom she was interested. No harm should come to him. It could not be. She wanted him for herself.
And so at last, having decided that she must move with caution and leave the rest to chance and opportunity, she went toward the house in the Rue Charron. She had been there before some years ago with Gabriel Pochard, when the boat-load of champagne from up the river had been smuggled in. Thus it was that she knew the secret of the old passage to the river bank, hidden from the opposite shore by a barricade of old timber. So instead of approaching the house by way of the Rue Charron she went down toward the river and turned in to the Quai des Augustins. There were a few people about but she watched her opportunity and when she reached the steps descended to the boat landing, where she found herself alone and unobserved, hidden from the lights above by the shadow of the retaining wall. Here she paused a moment to think and plan. According to all the rules of the underworld the prisoner would be in the cellar of the house in the Rue Charron. But if Tricot or Le Singe were taking turns guarding him there, her problem would be difficult. Because it meant a scene in which her persuasions and promises of immunity might fail, and Tricot could be ugly. Money? Yes, perhaps, if everything else failed. But she had a sense of pride in the belief that with luck favoring her she could accomplish this rescue alone.
At any rate she meant to make the attempt – and so, she found the end of the tunnel and with some difficulty and damage to her gloves and clothing, wrenched at the boarding. The timbers were old and rotten, as she knew, and it was not difficult to make a passage. It was so easy in fact that she began to believe that Tricot had more wisely kept his prisoner upstairs, but as she moved forward cautiously, one hand steadying her progress over the rough masonry, she caught the first dull glimmer of yellow light. As she came to a turn in the passage she paused a moment and then stole forward quietly, to the foot of the steps, peering up into the cellar.
At first she could see nothing but a litter of boxes, bottles and waste paper, and then coming up one step at a time, she searched the recesses of the cavern one by one. A smoke-stained lantern burned dimly near the foot of the flight of steps, leading to the floor above, but there was no sign of any one watching. And so she emerged cautiously from the dark hole and stood up. In a moment she found what she was looking for. Huddled in the corner to her right, she made out the contours of a human figure. With another quick glance toward the steps and a moment to listen for any sound above, she approached noiselessly. He was trussed with a rope from head to foot, his hands tied behind him. But he was the man she sought. She bent over him, noticing his heavy breathing and the odor of the drug. At the touch of her hand he stirred slightly and she saw the blood upon his face.
"Monsieur!" she whispered quickly, "it is I – Piquette – and I have come to help you."
He stirred again and tried to move, but the drug was heavy in his blood. So she shook him furiously, trying to arouse him.
"It is Piquette," she whispered again.
His lips moved and his eyelids fluttered open. "Piquette – !" he muttered, and then breathed stertorously.
This was encouraging. She shook him again and again, fighting the lethargy. He moved and groaned. It seemed almost certain that his guardians must hear him.
"Sh – ," she whispered, "Silence!"
Meanwhile she was struggling with the knots of the cord that bound his wrists. At last she managed to get his arms free and moved them backward and forward with all her strength, trying to restore his circulation. Then she unfastened the cords at his feet and pulled his knees up, thumping him from time to time and whispering at his ear.
"Wake up, Monsieur! You mus' get out of dis wit' me – "
His lips moved again. "Who – "
"It's Piquette, Monsieur," she repeated, prodding at him and shaking his shoulders.
This time his eyelids opened wider, and he looked at her vaguely. But his lips muttered her name.
"You mus' rouse yourself – you mus'! We are going out of here – at once."
With an effort he struggled up to a sitting posture while she supported him, pinching his shoulders and arms. Then she saw for the first time an earthen pitcher on a stool nearby. There was still some water in it, and she threw it in his face. He sputtered and choked, but she silenced him.
"Quiet – for your life! Dey're upstairs, aren't dey?"
"Yes – upstairs. I – I'm weak as a cat."
"Naturally, but you've got to 'elp yourself. I can't carry you."
"Carry me – no – " He toppled sideways and would have fallen, but she caught him and held him, shaking and pinching him again.
"No. You've got to wake up. Do you hear?" she whispered desperately. "They may come down 'ere at any moment."
A dim notion of what she was talking about seemed to come to him, for with an effort he threw off the heaviness that was coming over him again.
"You – Piquette – How did you – ?"
"By an old passage from dis cellar to de river. You mus' go out dat way. Do you on'erstand me?"
He nodded feebly. "River – " he muttered.
There was another struggle against the drug and another, but at last she got him to understand. He was very weak, but managed to support himself with an effort, sitting upright, while Piquette ran over toward the foot of the steps and listened intently, for if Tricot and the Englishman were listening, they must surely have heard something of the commotion she had made. But there was no sound.
She went back to the injured man. Would he be able to walk? She shook him again and pointed to the way by which she had come.
"It is dere – in de corner – the way of escape. You mus' make de effort."
She helped him struggle to his knees, one of his arms around her shoulders, but when she attempted to get him to his feet, his knees gave out and he fell, dragging her down with him.
It was at this moment of failure, that a sudden clamor of knocking at the street door upstairs came, with terrifying clearness, to her ears. And the sound of a masculine voice calling the name of Tricot. There was no time to be lost, yet what was she to do? She was strong, but she could not lift the American bodily and he had collapsed again upon the floor. For an agonized moment she listened. A long silence and then the knocking was renewed, followed by the sound of another voice upstairs and the tread of heavy feet going toward the door. Desperate now, and aware that only the American's own efforts could save him, she lifted him again by sheer strength to his knees.
"Dey'll be down 'ere in a moment," she stammered in his ear. "You've got to help yourself. You've got to. Crawl – on your knees – toward de corner beyond de pillar. I will 'elp you."
He seemed to understand and struggled a few feet, paused in weakness, then struggled on again. And all the while Piquette was listening to the sounds upstairs, the voices which now seemed to be near the head of the stairway, coming to her ears distinctly.
"We've got to get him away from here – out into the country somewhere – and lose him." Harry Horton's voice.
"Why?" growled a voice in English.
"Moira Quinlevin knows the truth."
An oath from Tricot as the other translated.
"Who told her?"
"No one. She guessed it."
"Parbleu! We shall take no chances then."
"You must take him away – a cab – out into the country," said Harry's voice again.
"And leave him to recover and set the police on us? Not much. He'll have to go the long road."
"My God! No. Not that!" cried Harry.
"The river!" growled Tricot.
And then the other voice.
"You started this thing. And it's got to be finished. Did you bring the money?"
"To-morrow. But – I can't – "
There was the beginning of a violent discussion in which Tricot's advice seemed to prevail. Harry's opinions wouldn't matter much to these precious villains.
But Piquette had heard enough. It seemed that they were about to descend the stairs to the prisoner, and glancing backward she labored with the injured man until they reached the shadows of the pillar into which she pushed and dragged him until they were both hidden from the light of the lantern. But the steps into the passage were still ten feet away. Already there were footsteps on the stair, where one of the men stood, still arguing with Harry Horton. With a final effort, she urged the drugged man toward the opening and then tumbled him down into the darkness.
She heard the steps coming down the stairs, heard them pause and a voice again raised in argument. But she listened no more. The situation was desperate, for in a few seconds at the least, the escape of the prisoner would be discovered, so forgetting caution, she pinched and shook him, by main strength of her strong young arms, urging him forward. Something of the imminence of his danger seemed to come to him, for he crawled to the corner and then stumbled in some fashion to his feet, clinging to her. The air beyond the turn in the passage seemed to revive him and in a moment, swaying and struggling against his weakness, he stood outside the opening upon the river-bank, leaning against the wall, while Piquette thrust the boards across the opening.
She heard a cry now from beyond the passage and with the injured man's arm around her shoulders, led the way down the bank to the landing. He caught her intention. There was a boat there and she got him into it and pushed off from the shore into the stream. She was almost exhausted by this time, but managed to get out the oars and make some progress down the river before the timbers fell from before the opening in the wall and three men appeared – Tricot, Harry and the Englishman. She saw their shapes dimly in the shadow of the wall.
But a strange thing happened then. For the three figures went flying up the steps to the Quai and then ran as though for their lives in the direction of the Pont St. Michel.
But she managed at last to reach the Quai du Louvre, where with the help of a belated passer-by, she managed to get the man she had rescued into a fiacre and so to the Boulevard Clichy.
CHAPTER X
THE SAMARITAN
When Jim Horton came to his senses after his rescue, he found himself in a small room overlooking a pleasant façade of gray stone, tinted softly by the pale morning sunlight. It was some moments before he managed to gather his scattered wits together and out of the haze and darkness in which he had been groping for two nights and a day, recall the incidents of his escape. Piquette! He remembered… But what was this room? There had been a cab-drive late in the night – he had been carried up a flight of stairs … As he turned in the bed he was aware of a figure which rose from the corner of the room and approached him. It was an oldish woman in the neat uniform of a maid.
She smiled. "Monsieur is awake?" And then, moving toward the door, "Madame shall come at once."
But when Piquette entered the small room, attired in a gorgeous pink lounging robe of silk and lace and wearing a boudoir-cap embroidered with silken flowers and golden thread, she dazzled him for a moment with her splendor, and he did not recognize her. She came forward to him quickly and laid her cool hand on his brow.
"Ah, mon petit, c'est mieux." And then, in English, "'Ow do you feel?"
"Better. But everything doesn't seem – very clear to me yet."
"Naturellement. You mus' 'ave some food and de doctor will be 'ere soon."
Jim Horton glanced about the small room.
"Would you mind telling me where I am?" he asked.
"Dis room is in de hallway adjoining my apartment – "
"You brought me here – ?"
"Las' night," she said, with a smile, "an' a beautiful time we had getting you up de stair – "
"I – I remember – a man with a lantern – and then a struggle – with you helping – through a passage – to the river – a boat – "
"A voiture an' den – here," she added as he paused.
He put out his hand and fingered the lace of her sleeve.
"Why – why did you do this for me, Piquette?"
She caught his hand, pressed it in hers, and then rose abruptly.
"What does it matter? You s'all talk no more until after de doctor 'as seen you. Sh – "
Later in the day after Jim Horton had slept again, Piquette visited him, dressed for the street. In a few words she told him how she had guessed at the double identity – then confirmed it, and then how she had discovered the means Harry Horton had employed to get his brother out of the way. She dwelt lightly on his rescue from the house in the Rue Charron and explained quite frankly her own relations with the criminals.
"C'est la grande vie, Monsieur l'Americain," she said with an expressive gesture. "You remember perhaps what Monsieur Valcourt 'as said. I am still de vrai gamine. I know dat vilain Pochard since I am so high."
"But why have you done this for me, Piquette? When you found out that I was not my brother – "
"Oh, la, la! Who can tell? Perhaps I like' you a little de night in Javet's. De thought of de adventure – perhaps, but more dat Tricot and Le Singe Anglais– dey would 'ave t'rown you in de river, Monsieur."
"You saved my life – "
"Yes. You see, Monsieur – Monsieur," she paused in search of a name.
"My name is Jim Horton."
"Jeem! C'est bon ça. Jeem 'Orton, dere wasn' anyt'ing else for me to do. You were a good Americain – who 'ad fought at La Boissière for France and for me. An' he had not. It could not be dat you should die. But dere are many t'ings I do not yet on'erstand. If you would tell me – ?"
Jim Horton was silent a moment, thinking deeply.
"You were a friend of my brother's."
He put it more in the form of a statement than a question.
"Yes, Jeem 'Orton," she said, "before 'e went to de front. Dat does not matter now, I can assure you. What 'appen' at Boissière Wood, mon ami? Pochard tol' me what 'Arry 'Orton said – " And she related it as nearly as possible in Pochard's own words.
Jim Horton listened, smiling slightly, until she had finished. And then,
"I had intended to keep silent about this thing, Piquette. But I'm not going to keep silent now. I'm going to tell the truth, whatever happens to Harry or to me. He would have killed me – "
"No," she broke in. "I t'ink 'Arry was frighten' at what he 'ad done – "
"He wasn't too frightened to get those chaps to knock me in the head," he put in dryly, then broke off with a sudden sense of the situation. "I hope, Madame, that you do not care for him."
She had been watching him intently and now put her hand over his.
"No – no, Jeem 'Orton," she said carelessly. "But tell me de truth – "
He looked at her for a long moment.
"No one has a better right to know it than you."
And then, without ornamentation, he related the facts from the unfortunate moment that night when he had put on Harry's uniform and gone into the fight until he had met his brother in the Rue de Tavennes. She heard him through to the end.
"You 'ave not told me everyt'ing, Jeem 'Orton," And then, significantly, "About Madame – Madame 'Orton?"
He frowned and then went on with an assumption of carelessness.
"The situation was impossible, as you will see. I would have gone away – " he shrugged, "if Harry hadn't saved me the need of it. But now – "
He paused and clenched a fist. "He has much to answer to me for."
She was silent for a while, watching him.
"A coward! I might 'ave known," she murmured after a moment.
In the conversation that followed many things were revealed to Jim Horton, many things to Piquette. He learned from her own lips every detail of the story of Quinlevin's plot against the Duc and what was to be Moira's share in it, and he listened in anger and amazement. As to her relations with de Vautrin, she spoke with the utmost frankness. He was not a pleasant person, and to her mind, for all his money and position, possessed fewer virtues even than the outrageous Pochard and his crew, who at least were good-natured villains and made no pretenses. The Duc was stingy – cruel, self-obsessed and degenerate. Que ça m'embête ça! Why she had not cut loose from him and gone back to live in the Quartiershe did not know, except that it was comfortable in the Boulevard Clichy and she was tired of working hard.
He found himself regarding Piquette with interest. The type was new to him, but he liked her immensely. She might betray her Duc, but in her own mind she would have perfectly adequate reasons for doing so.
As to Moira, little enough was said. If she suspected anything of his tenderness in that quarter she gave not a sign of it. But he could see that the facts as to his brother's marriage had come as a surprise to her.
"An' now, Jeem 'Orton," said Piquette the next morning, when he had strength enough to sit in a chair by the window, "what are you going to do about it?"
He thought for a moment.
"You have given me my life. I should dislike to do anything that would give you unhappiness."
"As to that, mon petit," she said carelessly, "you s'all do what you t'ink bes'. You know perhaps dat to-morrow in de Place de la Concorde, your brother 'Arry is to receive de Croix de Guerre?"
He had forgotten, but the announcement had no effect upon him.
"It does not matter," he muttered. What he had been thinking in his moments of wakefulness was of Harry going to the studio in the Rue de Tavennes. Moira was his wife. Would she, like Piquette, learn at once of the deception? Or would she accept him…?
"You do not care for de honors you have won?" asked Piquette, breaking on his thought.
"They weren't my honors – "
"But you bear de wounds – "
"Yes, and they're proofs my brother will find it hard to answer. But tell me, Piquette, what you have heard. Do they suspect you of having carried me off?"
Piquette laughed. "No. I saw Émile Pochard las' night. 'E does not dare speak. Tricot, 'Arry, Le Singe– I saw dem at Pochard's. Dey t'ink you are a devil. It is de police worries dem mos'."
"The police?"
"Some one followed 'Arry 'Orton to de house in de Rue Charron and tol' de police. Dey came jus' as we escape'. Your brother was lucky to get away."
"Who could this have been?"
"I don' know. But what does it matter since you are safe?" And then, after a long pause, "No harm 'as been done except to your poor head. We mus' let de matter drop, Jeem 'Orton. It is better so."
