The Secret Tomb by Maurice Leblanc (i like reading .txt) 📕

“No: but I wish to destroy him. He’s a dangerous man, Saint-Quentin. I have an intuition of it; and you know that I hardly ever deceive myself. He has all the vices. He is betraying his cousins, the Count and Countess. He is capable of anything. I wish to rid them of him by any means.”

Saint-Quentin strove to reassure himself:

“You’re amazing. You make combinations and calculations; you act; you foresee. One feels that you direct your course in accordance with a plan.”

“In accordance with nothing at all, my lad. I go forward at a venture, and decide as Fortune bids.”

“However.⁠ ⁠…”

“I have a definite aim, that’s all. Four people confront me, who, there’s no doubt about it, are linked together by a common secret. Now the word ‘Roborey,’ uttered by my father when he was dying, gives me the right to try to find out whether he himself did not form part of this group, and if, in consequence, his daughter is not qualified to take his place. Up to now the four people hold together and keep me at a distance. I have vainly attempted the impossible to obtain their confidence in the first place and after it their confessions, so far without any result. But I shall succeed.”

She stamped her foot, with an abruptness in which was suddenly manifest all the energy and decision which animated this smiling and delicate creature, and she said again:

“I shall succeed, Saint-Quentin. I swear it. I am not at the end of my revelations. There is another which will persuade them perhaps to be more open with me.”

“What is it, Dorothy?”

“I know what I’m doing, my lad.”

She was silent. She gazed through the open window near which Castor and Pollux were fighting. The noise of hurrying footsteps reechoed about the château. People were calling out to one another. A servant ran across the court at full speed and shut the gates, leaving a small part of the crowd and three or four caravans, of which one was Dorothy’s Circus, in the courtyard.

“The p-p-policemen! The p-p-policemen!” stammered Saint-Quintin. “There they are! They’re examining the Rifle-Range!”

“And d’Estreicher is with them,” observed the young girl.

“Oh, Dorothy, what have you done?”

“It’s all the same to me,” she said, wholly unmoved. “These people have a secret which perhaps belongs to me as much as to them. I wish to know it. Excitement, sensations, all that works in my favor.”

“Nevertheless.⁠ ⁠…”

“Pipe, Saint-Quentin. Today decides my future. Instead of trembling, rejoice⁠ ⁠… a foxtrot, old chap!”

She threw an arm round his waist, and propping him up like a tailor’s dummy with wobbly legs, she forced him to turn; climbing in at the window, Castor and Pollux, followed by Captain Montfaucon, started to dance round the couple, chanting the air of the Capucine, first in the drawing-room, then across the large hall. But a fresh failure of Saint-Quentin’s legs dashed the spirits of the dancers.

Dorothy lost her temper.

“What’s the matter with you now?” she cried, trying to raise him and keep him upright.

He stuttered:

“I’m afraid⁠ ⁠… I’m afraid.”

“But why on earth are you afraid? I’ve never seen you in such a funk. What are you afraid of?”

“The jewels.⁠ ⁠…”

“Idiot! But you’ve thrown them into the clump!”

“No.”

“You haven’t?”

“No.”

“But where are they then?”

“I don’t know. I looked for them in the basket as you told me to. They weren’t there any longer. The little cardboard box had disappeared.”

During his explanation Dorothy grew graver and graver. The danger suddenly grew clear to her.

“Why didn’t you tell me about it? I should not have acted as I did.”

“I didn’t dare to. I didn’t want to worry you.”

“Ah, Saint-Quentin, you were wrong, my lad.”

She uttered no other reproach, but added:

“What’s your explanation?”

“I suppose I made a mistake and didn’t put the earrings in the basket⁠ ⁠… but somewhere else⁠ ⁠… in some other part of the caravan.⁠ ⁠… I’ve looked everywhere without finding them.⁠ ⁠… But those policemen⁠—they’ll find them.”

The young girl was overwhelmed. The earrings discovered in her possession, the theft duly verified meant arrest and jail.

“Leave me to my fate,” groaned Saint-Quentin. “I’m nothing but an imbecile.⁠ ⁠… A criminal.⁠ ⁠… Don’t try to save me.⁠ ⁠… Throw all the blame on me, since it is the truth.”

At that moment a police-inspector in uniform appeared on the threshold of the hall, under the guidance of one of the servants.

“Not a word,” murmured Dorothy. “I forbid you to utter a single word.”

The inspector came forward:

“Mademoiselle Dorothy?”

“I’m Mademoiselle Dorothy, inspector. What is it you want?”

“Follow me. It will be necessary.⁠ ⁠…”

He was interrupted by the entrance of the Countess who hurried in, accompanied by her husband and Raoul Davernoie.

“No, no, inspector!” she exclaimed. “I absolutely oppose anything which might appear to show a lack of trust in mademoiselle. There is some misunderstanding.”

Raoul Davernoie also protested. But Count Octave observed:

“Bear in mind, dear, that this is merely a formality, a general measure which the inspector is bound to take. A robbery has been committed, it is only right that the inquiry should include everybody⁠—”

“But it was mademoiselle who informed of the robbery,” interrupted the Countess. “It is she who for the last hour has been warning us of all that is being plotted against us!”

“But why not let her be questioned like everybody else? As d’Estreicher said just now, it’s possible that your earrings were not stolen from your safe. You may have put them in your ears without thinking today, and then lost them out-of-doors⁠ ⁠… where someone has picked them up.”

The inspector, an honest fellow who seemed very much annoyed by this difference of opinion between the Count and Countess, did not know what to do. Dorothy helped him out of the awkward situation.

“I quite agree with you, Count. My part in the business may very well appear suspicious to you; and you have the right to ask how I know the word that opens the safe, and if my talents as a diviner are enough to explain my clairvoyance. There isn’t any reason then for making an exception in my favor.”

She bent low before the