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

Their eyes met. He began:

“How pretty she is, the little devil! A morsel fit for a king. It’s a pity she detests me.” And, drawing nearer, he added: “It really is detestation, Dorothy?”

She recoiled a step. He frowned.

“Yes: I know⁠ ⁠… your father.⁠ ⁠… Bah! Your father was very ill.⁠ ⁠… He would have died in any case. So it wasn’t really I who killed him.”

She said:

“And your confederate⁠ ⁠… a little while ago?⁠ ⁠… The false Marquis.”

He sneered:

“Don’t let’s talk about that, I beg you. A measly fellow not worth a single regret⁠ ⁠… so cowardly and so ungrateful that, finding himself unmasked, he was ready to betray me⁠—as you guessed. For nothing escapes you, Dorothy, and on my word it has been child’s play to you to solve every problem. I who have been working with the narrative of the servant Geoffrey, whose descendant I believe myself to be, have spent years making out what you have unraveled in a few minutes. Not a moment’s hesitation. Not a mistake. You have spotted my game just as if you held my cards in your hand. And what astonishes me most, Dorothy, is your coolness at this moment. For at last, my dear, you know where we stand.”

“I know.”

“And you’re not on your knees!” he exclaimed. “Truly I was looking to hear your supplications.⁠ ⁠… I saw you at my feet, dragging yourself along the ground. Instead of that, eyes which meet mine squarely, an attitude of provocation.”

“I am not provoking you. I am listening.”

“Then let us regulate our accounts. There are two. The account Dorothy.” He smiled. “We won’t talk about that yet. That comes last. And the account diamonds. At the present moment I should have been the possessor of them if you had not intercepted the indispensable document. Enough of obstacles! Maître Delarue has confessed, with a revolver at his temple, that he gave you back the second envelope. Give it to me.”

“If I don’t?”

“All the worse for Montfaucon.”

Dorothy did not even tremble. Assuredly she saw clearly the situation in which she found herself and understood that the duel she was fighting was much more serious than the first, at the Manor. There she expected help. Here nothing. No matter! With such a personage, there must be no weakening. The victor would be the one who should preserve an unshakable coolness, and should end, at some moment or other, by dominating the adversary.

“To hold out to the end!” she thought stubbornly. “… To the end.⁠ ⁠… And not till the last quarter of an hour⁠ ⁠… but till the last quarter of the last minute.”

She stared at her enemy and said in a tone of command:

“There’s a child here who is suffering. First of all I order you to hand him over to me.”

“Oh, indeed,” he said ironically. “Mademoiselle orders. And by what right?”

“By the right given me by the certainty that before long you will be forced to obey me.”

“By whom, my liege lady?”

“By my three friends, Errington, Webster, and Dario.”

“Of course⁠ ⁠… of course⁠ ⁠…” he said. “Those gentlemen are stout young fellows accustomed to field sports, and you have every right to count on those intrepid champions.”

He beckoned to Dorothy to follow him and crossed the arena, covered with stones, which formed the interior of the donjon. To the right of a breach, which formed the opposite entrance, and behind a curtain of ivy stretched over the bushes, were small vaulted chambers, which must have been ancient prisons. One still saw rings affixed to the stones at their base.

In three of these cells, Errington, Webster, and Dario were stretched out, firmly gagged, bound with ropes, which reduced them to the condition of mummies and fastened them to the rings. Three men, armed with rifles, guarded them. In a fourth cell was the corpse of the false Marquis. The fifth contained Maître Delarue and Montfaucon. The child was rolled up in a rug. Above a strip of stuff, which hid the lower part of his face, his poor eyes, full of tears, smiled at Dorothy.

She crushed down the sob which rose to her throat. She uttered no word of protest or reproach. One would have said, indeed, that all these were secondary incidents which could not affect the issue of the conflict.

“Well?” chuckled d’Estreicher. “What do you think of your defenders? And what do you think of the forces at my disposal? Three comrades to guard the prisoners, two others posted as sentinels to watch the approaches. I can be easy in mind, what? But why, my beauty, did you leave them? You were the bond of union. Left to themselves, they let themselves be gathered in stupidly, one by one, at the exit from the donjon. It was no use any one of them struggling⁠ ⁠… it didn’t work. Not one of my men got a shadow of a scratch. I had more trouble with M. Delarue. I had to oblige him with a bullet through his hat before he’d come down from a tree in which he had perched himself. As for Montfaucon, an angel of sweetness! Consequently, you see, your champions being out of it, you can only count on yourself; and that isn’t much.”

“It’s enough,” she said. “The secret of the diamonds depends on me and on me only. So you’re going to untie the bonds of my friends and set the child free.”

“In return for what?”

“In return for that I will give you the envelope of the Marquis de Beaugreval.”

He looked at her.

“Hang it, it’s an attractive offer. Then you’d give up the diamonds?”

“Yes.”

“Yourself and in the name of your friends?”

“Yes.”

“Give me the envelope.”

“Cut the ropes.”

An access of rage seized him:

“Give me the envelope. After all I’m master. Give it me!”

“No,” she said.

“I will have it.⁠ ⁠… I will have that envelope!”

“No,” she said, yet more forcibly.

He snatched the purse pinned to her bodice, for the top of it showed above its edge.

“Ah!” he said in a tone of victory. “The notary told me that you had put it in this⁠ ⁠…