ROBERT BARR Ultimate Collection: 20 Novels & 65+ Detective Stories. Robert Barr

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ stood there, looking at her for a moment, and then said—"Lurine, I think you are a little fool. They owe you ever so much more than that. However, I must have the things," and he gave her back the paper with the caution—"Be sure you let no one see that, and be very certain that you get the right things." He walked with her as far as the corner of the Rue de Lille. "You are not angry with me?" he asked her before they parted.

      "I would do anything for you," she whispered, and then he kissed her good night.

      She got the chemicals when the proprietor was out, and tied them up neatly, as was her habit, afterwards concealing them in the little basket in which she carried her lunch. The proprietor was a sharp-eyed old lynx, who looked well after his shop and his pretty little assistant.

      "Who has been getting so much chlorate of potash?" he asked, taking down the jar, and looking sharply at her.

      The girl trembled.

      "It is all right," she said. "Here is the money in the till."

      "Of course," he said. "I did not expect you to give it away for nothing. Who bought it?"

      "An old man," replied the girl, trembling still, but the proprietor did not notice that—he was counting the money, and found it right.

      "I was wondering what he wanted with so much of it. If he comes in again look sharply at him, and be able to describe him to me. It seems suspicious." Why it seemed suspicious Lurine did not know, but she passed an anxious time until she took the basket in her hand and went to meet her lover at the corner of the Rue des Pyramides. His first question was—

      "Have you brought me the things?"

      "Yes," she answered. "Will you take them here, now?"

      "Not here, not here," he replied hurriedly, and then asked anxiously,

       "Did anyone see you take them?"

      "No, but the proprietor knows of the large package, for he counted the money."

      "What money?" asked Jean.

      "Why, the money for the things. You didn't think I was going to steal them, did you?"

      The young man laughed, and drew her into a quiet corner of the Gardens of the Tuileries.

      "I will not have time to go with you to the Rue de Lille to-night," he said.

      "But you will come as usual to-morrow night?" she asked, anxiously.

      "Certainly, certainly." he replied, as he rapidly concealed the packages in his pockets.

      The next night the girl waited patiently for her lover at the corner where they were in the habit of meeting, but he did not come. She stood under the glaring light of a lamp-post so that he would recognize her at once. Many people accosted her as she stood there, but she answered none, looking straight before her with clear honest eyes, and they passed on after a moment's hesitation. At last she saw a man running rapidly down the street, and as he passed a brilliantly-lighted window she recognized Jean. He came quickly towards her.

      "Here I am," she cried, running forward. She caught him by the arm, saying, "Oh, Jean, what is the matter?"

      He shook her rudely, and shouted at her—"Let me go, you fool!" But she clung to him, until he raised his fist and struck her squarely in the face. Lurine staggered against the wall, and Jean ran on. A stalwart man who had spoken to Lurine a few moments before, and, not understanding her silence, stood in a doorway near watching her, sprang out when he saw the assault, and thrust his stick between the feet of the flying man, flinging him face forward on the pavement. The next instant he placed his foot upon Jean's neck holding him down as if he were a snake.

      "You villain!" he cried. "Strike a woman, would you?"

      Jean lay there as if stunned, and two gens d'armes came pantingly upon the scene.

      "This scoundrel," said the man, "has just assaulted a woman. I saw him."

      "He has done more than that," said one of the officers, grimly, as if, after all, the striking of a woman was but a trivial affair.

      They secured the young man, and dragged him with them. The girl came up to them and said, falteringly—

      "It is all a mistake, it was an accident. He didn't mean to do it."

      "Oh, he didn't, and pray how do you know?" asked one of the officers.

      "You little devil," said Jean to the girl, through his clinched teeth, "it's all your fault."

      The officers hurried him off.

      "I think," said one, "that we should have arrested the girl; you heard what she said."

      "Yes," said the other, "but we have enough on our hands now, if the crowd find out who he is."

      Lurine thought of following them, but she was so stunned by the words that her lover had said to her, rather than by the blow he had given her that she turned her steps sadly towards the Pont Royal and went to her room.

      The next morning she did not go through the gardens, as usual, to her work, and when she entered the Pharmacie de Siam, the proprietor cried out, "Here she is, the vixen! Who would have thought it of her? You wretch, you stole my drugs to give to that villain!"

      "I did not," said Lurine, stoutly. "I put the money in the till for them."

      "Hear her! She confesses!" said the proprietor.

      The two concealed officers stepped forward and arrested her where she stood as the accomplice of Jean Duret, who, the night before, had flung a bomb in the crowded Avenue de l'Opéra.

      Even the prejudiced French judges soon saw that the girl was innocent of all evil intent, and was but the victim of the scoundrel who passed by the name of Jean Duret. He was sentenced for life; she was set free. He had tried to place the blame on her, like the craven he was, to shield another woman. This was what cut Lurine to the heart. She might have tried to find an excuse for his crime, but she realized that he had never cared for her, and had but used her as his tool to get possession of the chemicals he dared not buy.

      In the drizzling rain she walked away from her prison, penniless, and broken in body and in spirit. She passed the little Pharmacie de Siam, not daring to enter. She walked in the rain along the Rue des Pyramides, and across the Rue de Rivoli, and into the Tuileries Gardens. She had forgotten about her stone woman, but, unconsciously her steps were directed to her. She looked up at her statue with amazement, at first not recognizing it. It was no longer the statue of a smiling woman. The head was thrown back, the eyes closed. The last mortal agony was on the face. It was a ghastly monument to Death. The girl was so perplexed by the change in her statue that for the moment she forgot the ruin of her own life. She saw that the smiling face was but a mask, held in place by the curving of the left arm over it. Life, she realized now, was made up of tragedy and comedy, and he who sees but the smiling face, sees but the half of life. The girl hurried on to the bridge, sobbing quietly to herself, and looked down at the grey river water. The passers-by paid no attention to her. Why, she wondered, had she ever thought the river cold and cruel and merciless? It is the only home of the homeless, the only lover that does not change. She turned back to the top of the flight of steps which lead down, to the water's brink. She looked toward the Tuileries Gardens, but she could not see her statue for СКАЧАТЬ