The Secret Tomb

Under a sky heavy with stars and faintly brighter for a low-hanging sickle moon, the gipsy caravan slept on the turf by the roadside, its shutters closed, its shafts stretched out like arms. In the shadow of the ditch nearby a stertorous horse was snoring.

Far away, above the black crest of the hills, a bright streak of sky announced the coming of the dawn. A church clock struck four. Here and there a bird awoke and began to sing. The air was soft and warm.

Abruptly, from the interior of the caravan, a woman’s voice cried:

“Saint-Quentin! Saint-Quentin!”

A head was thrust out of the little window which looked out over the box under the projecting roof.

“A nice thing this! I thought as much! The rascal has decamped in the night. The little beast! Nice discipline this is!”

Other voices joined in the grumbling. Two or three minutes passed, then the door in the back of the caravan opened and a shadowy figure descended the five steps of the ladder while two tousled heads appeared at the side window.

“Dorothy! Where are you going?”

“To look for Saint-Quentin!” replied the shadowy figure.

“But he came back with you from your walk last night; and I saw him settle down on the box.”

“You can see that he isn’t there any longer, Castor.”

“Where is he?”

“Patience! I’m going to bring him back to you by the ears.”

But two small boys in their shirts came tumbling down the steps of the caravan and implored her:

Of a sudden she quivered. One might have said that in thinking of this mischance she had brought it on them. She heard the sound of heavy footfalls coming along the ravine and making for its main entrance. She buried herself among the roots of the tree and they hid her. A man came in sight. He was wearing a long blouse; his face was encircled and hidden by a gray muffler; old, furred gloves covered his hands; he carried a gun on his arm, a mattock over his shoulder.

She thought that he must be a sportsman, or rather a poacher, for he walked with an uneasy air, looking carefully about him, like one who feared to be seen, and who was carefully changing his usual bearing. But he came to a standstill near the wall fifty or sixty yards from the spot at which Saint-Quentin had made the ascent, and studied the ground, turning over some flat stones and bending down over them.

At last he made up his mind and seizing one of these slabs by its narrower end, he raised it and set it up on end in such a manner that it was balanced after the fashion of a cromlech. So doing he uncovered a hole which had been hollowed out in the center of the deep imprint left by the slab. Then he took his mattock and set about enlarging it, removing the earth very quietly, evidently taking great care to make no noise.

A few minutes more slipped away. Then the inevitable event which Dorothy had at once desired and feared took place.

“I don’t think so,” she said.

“Why?”

She took his hand, turned it over, bent over the open palm, and as she examined it said slowly:

“Dissipation.⁠ ⁠… Greedy for money.⁠ ⁠… Conscienceless.⁠ ⁠…”

“But I protest, mademoiselle! Conscienceless? I? I who am full of scruples.”

“Your hand says the opposite, monsieur.”

“Does it also say that I have no luck?”

“None at all.”

“What? Shan’t I ever be rich?”

“I fear not.”

“Confound it.⁠ ⁠… And what about my death? Is it a long way off?”

“Not very.”

“A painful death?”

“A matter of seconds.”

“An accident, then?”

“Yes.”

“What kind of accident?”

She pointed with her finger:

“Look here⁠—at the base of the forefinger.”

“What is there?”

“The gallows.”

There was an outburst of laughter. D’Estreicher was enchanted. Count Octave clapped his hands.

“If they seize me,” she thought. “If it’s d’Estreicher’s intention to kidnap me without more ado, there’s nothing to be done. Before I could be rescued, they would carry me off to their underground lair, and from there I don’t know where!”

And why should it be otherwise? Master of the medal and of Dorothy, the ruffian had only to fly.

On the instant she saw all the faults of her plan. In order to compel d’Estreicher to risk a sortie that she might capture him during that sortie, she had invented a too subtle ruse, which actual developments of Fortune’s spite might turn to her undoing. A conflict which turns on the number of seconds gained or lost is extremely doubtful.

She went quickly into the house and pushed the disc under a heap of discarded things in a small lumber-room. The necessary hunt for it would delay for a while the enemy’s flight. But when she came back to go out of the house, d’Estreicher, grimacing ironically behind his spectacles and under his thick beard, stood on the threshold of the front door.

Dorothy never carried a revolver. All her life she never cared to trust to anything but her courage and intelligence. She regretted it at this horrible moment when she found herself face to face with the man who had murdered her father. Her first act would have been to blow out his brains.

Divining her vengeful thought, he seized her arm quickly and twisted it, as he had twisted the arm of old Juliet Assire. Then bending over her, he snapped:

By the light of their lamps they perceived a fair-sized room with an arched ceiling. No ornament relieved the bareness of the stone walls. There was nothing in the way of furniture in it. But one judged that there was a small, low room, which formed an alcove, from the piece of tapestry, roughly nailed to a beam, which ran along the left side of it.

The five men and Dorothy did not stir, silent, motionless. Maître Delarue, extremely pale, seemed very ill at ease indeed.

Was it the fumes of wine, or the distress inspired by mystery?

No one was smiling any longer. Dorothy could not withdraw her eyes from the piece of tapestry. So the adventure did not come to an end with the astonishing meeting of the Marquis’ heirs, nor with the reading of his fantastic will. It went as far as the hollow stairway in the old tower, to which no one had ever penetrated, to the very threshold of the inviolable retreat in which the Marquis had drunk the draft which brings sleep.⁠ ⁠… Or which kills. What was there behind the tapestry? A bed, of course⁠ ⁠… some garments which kept perhaps the shape of the body they had covered⁠ ⁠… and besides, a handful of ashes.

She turned her head to her companions as if to say to them:

“Shall I go first?”

They stood motionless⁠—undecided, ill at ease.

Then she took a step forward⁠—then two. The tapestry was within reach. With a hesitating hand she took hold of the edge of it, while the young men drew nearer.