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

“I’m not afraid for myself.”

“For whom?”

“For my children.”

Maître Delarue exclaimed:

“Gracious! You’ve got children?”

“I left them at the inn.”

“But how many have you?”

“Four.”

The notary was flabbergasted.

“Four children! Then you’re married?”

“No,” admitted Dorothy, not perceiving the good man’s mistake. “But I wish to secure their safety. Fortunately Saint-Quentin is not an idiot.”

“Saint-Quentin?”

“Yes, the eldest of the urchins⁠ ⁠… an artful lad, cunning as a monkey.”

Maître Delarue gave up trying to understand. Besides, nothing was of any importance to him but the prospect of being overtaken before he had passed that narrow, devilish causeway.

“Let’s run! Let’s run!” he said, for all that his shortness of breath compelled him to go slower every minute. “And then catch hold, mademoiselle! Here’s the second envelope! There’s no reason why I should carry such a dangerous paper on me; and after all it’s no business of mine.”

She took the envelope and put it in her purse just as they came into the court of the clock. Maître Delarue who could move only with great difficulty, uttered a cry of joy on perceiving his donkey in the act of browsing in the most peaceful fashion in the world, at some distance from the motorcycle and the two horses.

“You’ll excuse me, mademoiselle.”

He scrambled on to his mount. The donkey began by backing; and it threw the good man into such a state of exasperation that he belabored its head and belly with thumps and kicks. The donkey suddenly gave in and went off like an arrow.

Dorothy called out to him:

“Look out, Maître Delarue! The confederates have been warned!”

The notary heard the words, on the instant leaned back in the saddle, and tugged desperately at the reins. But nothing could stop the brute. When Dorothy got clear of the ruins of the outer wall, she saw him a long way off, still going hard.

Then she began to run again, in a growing disquiet: d’Estreicher’s whistle had been meant for confederates posted on the mainland at the entrance to the peninsula the access to which they were guarding. She said to herself:

“In any case if I don’t get through, Maître Delarue will; and it is clear that Saint-Quentin will be warned and be on his guard.”

The sea, very blue and very calm, had ebbed to right and left, forming two bays on the other side of which rose the cliff of the coast. The path down the gorge was distinguishable by the dark cutting she saw in the mass of trees which covered the plateau. Here and there it rose to some height. Twice she caught sight of the flying notary.

But as in her turn she reached the line of the trees, a report rang out ahead, and a little smoke rose in the air above what must have been the steepest point in the path.

There came cries and shouts for help; then silence. Dorothy doubled her speed in order to help Maître Delarue; undoubtedly he had been attacked. But after running for some minutes at such a pace that no sound could have reached her ears, she had barely time to spring out of the path to get out of the way of the furiously galloping donkey whose rider was crouching forward on its back with his arms knotted round its neck. Maître Delarue, since his head was glued to the further side of its neck, did not even see her.

More anxious than ever, since it was clear that Saint-Quentin and his comrades would not be warned if she did not succeed in getting through the path down the gorge and over the causeway, she started to run again. Then she caught sight of the figures of two men on one of the high points of the path in front, coming towards her. They were the confederates. They had barred the road to Maître Delarue and were now acting after the manner of beaters.

She flung herself into the bushes, dropped into a hollow full of dead leaves, and covered herself with them.

The confederates passed her in silence. She heard the dull noise of their hobnailed boots, which went further and further off in the direction of the ruins; and when she raised herself, they had disappeared.

Forthwith, having no further obstacle before her, Dorothy made her way down the path, so correctly described by the board as bad going, and came to the causeway which joined the peninsula to the mainland, observed that the Baron Davernoie and his old flame were no longer on the edge of the water, mounted the slope, and hurried towards the inn. A little way from it she called out:

“Saint-Quentin!⁠ ⁠… Saint-Quentin.”

Getting no answer, her forebodings redoubled. She passed in front of the house and saw no one. She crossed the orchard, went to the barn, and jerked open the caravan door. There once more⁠—no one. Nothing but the children’s bags and the usual things.

“Saint-Quentin!⁠ ⁠… Saint-Quentin!” she cried again.

She returned to the house and this time she entered.

The little room which formed the café and in which stood the zinc counter, was empty. Overturned benches and chairs lay about the floor. On a table stood three glasses, half full, and a bottle.

Dorothy called out:

“Madame Amoureux!”

She thought she heard a groan and went to the counter. Behind it, doubled up, her legs and arms bound, the landlady was lying with a handkerchief covering her mouth.

“Hurt?” asked Dorothy when she had freed her from the gag.

“No⁠ ⁠… no⁠ ⁠…”

“And the children?” said the young girl in a shaky voice.

“They’re all right.”

“Where are they?”

“Down on the beach, I think.”

“All of them?”

“All but one, the smallest.”

“Montfaucon.”

“Yes.”

“Good heavens! What has become of him?”

“They’ve carried him off.”

“Who?”

“Two men⁠—two men who came in and asked for a drink. The little boy was playing near us. The others must have been amusing themselves at the bottom of the orchards behind the barns. We couldn’t hear them. And then of a sudden one of the men, with whom I was drinking a glass of wine, seized me by the throat while the second caught hold of the