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

butt of his gun against his shoulder and took aim. Dorothy leapt forward and flung herself at the stone which stood up behind him and with the impetus of her spring and all her weight behind her outstretched hands, shoved it. It was badly balanced, gave at the shock, and toppled over, closing the excavation like a trap-door of stone, crushing the gun, and imprisoning the man in the blouse. The young girl got just a glimpse of his head as it bent and his shoulders as they were thrust down into the hole.

She thought that the attack was only postponed, that the enemy would lose no time in getting out of his grave, and dashed at full speed to the bottom of the fissure at which she arrived at the same time as Saint-Quentin.

“Quick⁠ ⁠… quick!” she cried. “We must bolt!”

In a flurry, he dragged down the rope by one of the ends, mumbling as he did so:

“What’s up? What d’you want? How did you know I was here?”

She gripped his arm and tugged at it.

“Bolt, idiot!⁠ ⁠… They’ve seen you!⁠ ⁠… They were going to take a shot at you!⁠ ⁠… Quick! They’ll be after us!”

“What’s that? Be after us? Who?”

“A queer-looking beggar disguised as a peasant. He’s in a hole over yonder. He was going to shoot you like a partridge when I tumbled the slab on to the top of him.”

“But⁠—”

“Do as I tell you, idiot! And bring the rope with you. You mustn’t leave any traces!”

She turned and bolted; he followed her. They reached the end of the valley before the slab was raised, and without exchanging a word took cover in the wood.

Twenty minutes later they entered the stream and did not leave it till they could emerge on to a bank of pebbles on which their feet could leave no print.

Saint-Quentin was off again like an arrow; but Dorothy stopped short, suddenly shaken by a spasm of laughter which bent her double.

“What is it?” he said. “What’s the matter with you?”

She could not answer. She was convulsed, her hands pressed against her ribs, her face scarlet, her teeth, small, regular, whitely-gleaming teeth, bared. At last she managed to stutter:

“You⁠—you⁠—your high⁠—high hat!⁠ ⁠… That b-b-black coat!⁠ ⁠… Your b-b-bare feet!⁠ ⁠… It’s t-t-too funny!⁠ ⁠… Where did you sneak that disguise from?⁠ ⁠… Goodness! What a sight you are!”

Her laughter rang out, young and fresh, on the silence in which the leaves were fluttering. Facing her, Saint-Quentin, an awkward stripling who had outgrown his strength, with his face too pale, his hair too fair, his ears sticking out, but with admirable, very kindly black eyes, gazed, smiling, at the young girl, delighted by this diversion which seemed to be turning aside from him the outburst of wrath he was expecting.

Of a sudden, indeed, she fell upon him, attacking him with thumps and reproaches, but in a halfhearted fashion, with little bursts of laughter, which robbed the chastisement of its sting.

“Wretch and rogue! You’ve been stealing again, have you? You’re no longer satisfied with your salary as acrobat, aren’t you, my fine fellow? You must still prig money or jewels to keep yourself in high hats, must you? What have you got, looter? Eh? Tell me!”

By dint of striking and laughing she had soothed her righteous indignation. She set out again and Saint-Quentin, thoroughly abashed, stammered:

“Tell you? What’s the good of telling you? You’ve guessed everything, as usual.⁠ ⁠… As a matter of fact I did get in through that window, last evening.⁠ ⁠… It was a pantry at the end of a corridor which led to the ground-floor rooms.⁠ ⁠… Not a soul about.⁠ ⁠… The family was at dinner.⁠ ⁠… A servant’s staircase led me up into another passage, which ran round the house, with the doors of all the rooms opening into it. I went through them all. Nothing⁠—that is to say, pictures and other things too big to carry away. Then I hid myself in a closet, from which I could see into a little sitting-room next to the prettiest bedroom. They danced till late; then came upstairs⁠ ⁠… fashionable people.⁠ ⁠… I saw them through a peephole in the door⁠ ⁠… the ladies décolletées, the gentlemen in evening dress.⁠ ⁠… At last one of the ladies went into the boudoir. She put her jewels into a jewel-box and the jewel-box into a small safe, saying out loud as she opened it the three letters of the combination of the lock, R. O. B.⁠ ⁠… So that, when she went to bed, all I had to do was to make use of them.⁠ ⁠… After that.⁠ ⁠… I waited for daylight.⁠ ⁠… I wasn’t going to chance stumbling about in the dark.”

“Let’s see what you’ve got,” she commanded.

He opened his hand and disclosed on the palm of it two earrings, set with sapphires. She took them and looked at them. Her face changed; her eyes sparkled; she murmured in quite a different voice:

“How lovely they are, sapphires!⁠ ⁠… The sky is sometimes like that⁠—at night⁠ ⁠… that dark blue, full of light.⁠ ⁠…”

At the moment they were crossing a piece of land on which stood a large scarecrow, simply clad in a pair of trousers. On one of the cross-sticks which served it for arms hung a jacket. It was the jacket of Saint-Quentin. He had hung it there the evening before, and in order to render himself unrecognizable, had borrowed the scarecrow’s long coat and high hat. He took off that long coat, buttoned it over the plaster bosom of the scarecrow, and replaced the hat. Then he slipped on his jacket and rejoined Dorothy.

She was still looking at the sapphires with an air of admiration.

He bent over them and said: “Keep them, Dorothy. You know quite well that I’m not really a thief and that I only got them for you⁠ ⁠… that you might have the pleasure of looking at them and touching them.⁠ ⁠… It often goes to my heart to see you running about in that beggarly getup!⁠ ⁠… To think of you dancing on the tightrope! You who ought to live