The Essential Wilkie Collins Collection. Уилки Коллинз

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СКАЧАТЬ upon his position; for he ventured to make a remark, instead of leaving the room in silence, like his predecessor Picard.

      "When Citizen Danville returns to Paris," he began, "he will be rather astonished to find that in denouncing his wife's brother he had also unconsciously denounced his wife."

      Lomaque looked up quickly, with that old weakness in his eyes which affected them in such a strangely irregular manner on certain occasions. Magloire knew what this symptom meant, and would have become confused if he had not been a police agent. As it was, he quietly backed a step or two from the table, and held his tongue.

      "Friend Magloire," said Lomaque, winking mildly, "your last remark looks to me like a question in disguise. I put questions constantly to others; I never answer questions myself. You want to know, citizen, what our superintendent's secret motive is for denouncing his wife's brother? Suppose you try and find that out for yourself. It will be famous practice for you, friend Magloire--famous practice after office hours."

      "Any further orders?" inquired Magloire, sulkily.

      "None in relation to the reports," returned Lomaque. "I find nothing to alter or add on a revised hearing. But I shall have a little note ready for you immediately. Sit down at the other desk, friend Magloire; I am very fond of you when you are not inquisitive; pray sit down."

      While addressing this polite invitation to the agent in his softest voice, Lomaque produced his pocketbook, and drew from it a little note, which he opened and read through attentively. It was headed: "Private Instructions relative to Superintendent Danville," and proceeded thus:

      "The undersigned can confidently assert, from long domestic experience in Danville's household that his motive for denouncing his wife's brother is purely a personal one, and is not in the most remote degree connected with politics. Briefly, the facts are these: Louis Trudaine, from the first, opposed his sister's marriage with Danville, distrusting the latter's temper and disposition. The marriage, however, took place, and the brother resigned himself to await results--taking the precaution of living in the same neighborhood as his sister, to interpose, if need be, between the crimes which the husband might commit and the sufferings which the wife might endure. The results soon exceeded his worst anticipations, and called for the interposition for which he had prepared himself. He is a man of inflexible firmness, patience, and integrity, and he makes the protection and consolation of his sister the business of his life. He gives his brother-in-law no pretext for openly quarreling with him. He is neither to be deceived, irritated, nor tired out, and he is Danville's superior every way--in conduct, temper, and capacity. Under these circumstances, it is unnecessary to say that his brother-in-law's enmity toward him is of the most implacable kind, and equally unnecessary to hint at the perfectly plain motive of the denunciation.

      "As to the suspicious circumstances affecting not Trudaine only, but his sister as well, the undersigned regrets his inability, thus far, to offer either explanation or suggestion. At this preliminary stage, the affair seems involved in impenetrable mystery."

      Lomaque read these lines through, down to his own signature at the end. They were the duplicate Secret Instructions demanded from him in the paper which he had been looking over before the entrance of the two police agents. Slowly, and, as it seemed, unwillingly, he folded the note up in a fresh sheet of paper, and was preparing to seal it when a tap at the door stopped him. "Come in," he cried, irritably; and a man in traveling costume, covered with dust, entered, quietly whispered a word or two in his ear, and then went out. Lomaque started at the whisper, and, opening his note again, hastily wrote under his signature: "I have just heard that Danville has hastened his return to Paris, and may be expected back to-night." Having traced these lines, he closed, sealed, and directed the letter, and gave it to Magloire. The police agent looked at the address as he left the room; it was "To Citizen Robespierre, Rue Saint-Honore."

      Left alone again, Lomaque rose, and walked restlessly backward and forward, biting his nails.

      "Danville comes back to-night," he said to himself, "and the crisis comes with him. Trudaine a conspirator! Bah! conspiracy can hardly be the answer to the riddle this time. What is?"

      He took a turn or two in silence--then stopped at the open window, looking out on what little glimpse the street afforded him of the sunset sky. "This time five years," he said, "Trudaine was talking to me on that bench overlooking the river; and Sister Rose was keeping poor hatchet-faced old Lomaque's cup of coffee hot for him! Now I am officially bound to suspect them both; perhaps to arrest them; perhaps--I wish this job had fallen into other hands. I don't want it--I don't want it at any price!"

      He returned to the writing-table and sat down to his papers, with the dogged air of a man determined to drive away vexing thoughts by dint of sheer hard work. For more than an hour he labored on resolutely, munching a bit of dry bread from time to time. Then he paused a little, and began to think again. Gradually the summer twilight faded, and the room grew dark.

      "Perhaps we shall tide over to-night, after all--who knows?" said Lomaque, ringing his handbell for lights. They were brought in, and with them ominously returned the police agent Magloire with a small sealed packet. It contained an arrest-order and a tiny three-cornered note, looking more like a love-letter, or a lady's invitation to a party, than anything else. Lomaque opened the note eagerly and read these lines neatly written, and signed with Robespierre's initials--M. R.--formed elegantly in cipher:

      "Arrest Trudaine and his sister to-night. On second thoughts, I am not sure, if Danville comes back in time to be present, that it may not be all the better. He is unprepared for his wife's arrest. Watch him closely when it takes place, and report privately to me. I am afraid he is a vicious man; and of all things I abhor Vice."

      "Any more work for me to-night?" asked Magloire, with a yawn.

      "Only an arrest," replied Lomaque. "Collect our men; and when you're ready get a coach at the door."

      "We were just going to supper," grumbled Magloire to himself, as he went out. "The devil seize the Aristocrats! They're all in such a hurry to get to the guillotine that they won't even give a man time to eat his victuals in peace!"

      "There's no choice now," muttered Lomaque, angrily thrusting the arrest-order and the three-cornered note into his pocket. "His father was the saving of me; he himself welcomed me like an equal; his sister treated me like a gentleman, as the phrase went in those days; and now--"

      He stopped and wiped his forehead--then unlocked his desk, produced a bottle of brandy, and poured himself out a glass of the liquor, which he drank by sips, slowly.

      "I wonder whether other men get softer-hearted as they grow older!" he said. "I seem to do so, at any rate. Courage! courage! what must be, must. If I risked my head to do it, I couldn't stop this arrest. Not a man in the office but would be ready to execute it, if I wasn't."

      Here the rumble of carriage-wheels sounded outside.

      "There's the coach!" exclaimed Lomaque, locking up the brandy-bottle, and taking his hat. "After all, as this arrest is to be made, it's as well for them that I should make it."

      Consoling himself as he best could with this reflection, Chief Police Agent Lomaque blew out the candles, and quitted the room.

      CHAPTER II.

      Ignorant of the change in her husband's plans, which was to bring him back to Paris a day before the time that had been fixed for his return, Sister Rose had left her solitary home to spend the evening with her brother. They had sat talking СКАЧАТЬ