I was pretty well through the wood at this time, and when the sun began to shine it found me on the high-road leading to the railway station. I had walked perhaps a mile down this when I saw a man on ahead of me, going my way, but slower than I was; and at the second look I recognized him. He was the little detective I had laughed at.
"Halloa, there!" I shouted, mighty glad to get company in my walk, "what are you doing abroad at this time of the morning?"
He waited for me to come up to him, and then he cried;
"Why, it's Bigg—and in a hurry, too!"
"You've put your thumb on it," said I. "And you didn't catch the count, I make sure, or you wouldn't be here."
"Catch him!" exclaimed he; "no, not quite. You don't take birds like him in the nest. He's too many sentinels."
"Is the charge a heavy one?" I asked as we walked along together.
"Obtaining a diamond in London," said he; "but there's a dozen others. He's a bad one right through, is the Comte de Faugère."
I said that he must be, and then we both quickened up a bit.
"I'll be coming over here after Nicky Steele, by and by, I fancy," he remarked pleasantly, when we had covered a mile or more.
"Ah," said I, "it will want a sharp man for that job!"
"I won't deny it," cried he; "the way that chap keeps outside the law is a crusher. Here's a health to him!"
He had pulled a silver flask out of his pocket as he spoke, and raised it to his lips. Then he passed it over to me.
"Brandy, mate," said he; "you can't do better in the raw of the morning."
I took a good nip, for the day was bitter cold, and gave him back his flask. But I had not walked on ten yards when I found myself reeling like a drunken man—and then I fell heavily, with him bending over me.
One night, some ten days after I fell down insensible on the road to Brest, Sir Nicolas and I were talking in my bedroom in the village of Folgoet of Mme. Pauline and her château. I was still weak and bruised and unable to leave my bed, and he had come up to say good-night to me.
"All!" said he, "we'd be four thousand the richer to-day if you had never discovered that the Comte de Faugère had a liking for the woods."
"Say, rather, sir, if one of his gang had not played it off on me that he was a detective."
"Ye're right there. To give it out that he was an English officer, too! 'Twas a daring business altogether—for the French police were watching the house the very night when the woman stayed for a last deal. The count must have gone the day before. She left in the middle of the night, after I'd won the money for her. 'Tis the Lord only knows how she got away."
"I can tell you, sir, for I saw her in the woods one day disguised as a man. That's how she cheated them."
"I don't doubt it," said he; "they had sentinels everywhere, and used flags by day and lanterns by night for the danger signals. Sure, she was a wonderful woman—to rent a house like that and to play the part."
"Any way," said I, "her man nearly did for me."
"Indeed and he did. There was not much life in you when the priest found you, and carried you to the village."
"And not much money, either."
"They'd not left you sixpence for a cab-fare," cried he.
CHAPTER XVIII
I LEAVE MY MASTER
It was early in the summer of last year when Sir Nicolas Steele and I took different roads in life. They tell me that he has now settled down in a little village near Pau; but from him I hear nothing. It may be that my company would trouble him in these days; it may be that he would be very glad to see me if I knocked on his door. Those are questions I don't care to ask myself. Marriage changes a man, they say. Possibly it has changed him.
It was the summer of the year when I left him; and the early autumn brought me to America. I knew that there was breathing room across the water; and once I had done with Nicky Steele, I did not lose much time in putting the sea between me and those who troubled themselves with my concerns. And that's a step I have never regretted. There's room for every man in the States, so long as he carries a decent head on his shoulders and a bit of brass in his pocket. They don't ask you there if you came by your own honestly. Character is a cheap article, and reputation is put by in museums.
I sailed for America, and it was there that I wrote these papers. They won't hurt Sir Nicolas Steele—and if they do, that's his business. Mine is to make the money while I can; but as for what the law can do to me, I don't care a snap of the fingers. So far as that goes, I doubt if there's much in our past that any judge could spout upon. All said and done, it's easy to be a rogue by Act of Parliament. If Nicky and I got our dues, we should have a statue all to ourselves on St. Stephen's Green, and our portraits would be hung in the Kerry town hall. But this is a short-sighted world, and it knows nothing of its greatest men.
It is a year ago since I left my master, and many things have happened since then—though none of them so odd as the events which led up to that parting. We had returned to Paris quietly enough after our fool's errand to Brittany, and there was no thought in our heads of any thing but a slow season and an unprofitable summer. Such of our friends as had been useful had gone their ways, some to Lon- don, some to America. There was no pigeon to pluck that I knew of; no Yankee who would buy diamonds. Sir Nicolas had little to do but drive and play with the old impecunious lot; and right well lie did it.
"While the money's left, be hanged to the care!" he would say; and for the matter of that, all the lifebelts in France couldn't have saved that same dull care when he set out to drown her. Time and again I told him that if nothing was to be done in Paris, we might find work enough in Madrid or in Berlin. He wouldn't so much as listen to me.
"Is it a bagman I am?" he asked one day when I was harping on the old string again. "Must I be running round the country seeing who'll buy me wares? Indeed, and I'll stop where I am "
"Until the money is spent, sir," I hinted.
"A curse upon the money!" said he. "It's nothing but the money you think of the week through. Am I a pauper, then? And who's to put gold in me purse in Germany? Bedad! I'd as soon spend a week in the Mazas as in that same country. There was no gentleman ever came out of Germany—no, nor honest liquor either. I'd be dead in a week of their beef."
I did not answer him, for he never was a man you could persuade when he was in one of his tempers. He dined that night at the Hôtel Scribe with Jack Ames and his lot; and it was not until one o'clock in the morning that I saw him again. He was pretty well warmed up with the drink then, and directly he set eyes on me, he called out at the top of his lungs;
"Hildebrand, it's yourself I want and no other; fetch me the whiskey, and don't ye sing hymns on the way."
I got him the drink, and when he had pulled out a great handful of cigars and dropped half of them on the pavement, he burst out with his news.
"Man," said he, "it's fine intelligence I have for ye. We're to be in St. Petersburg in three days!"
"Be where, sir?" I gasped, for I made sure that he was joking.
"In St. Petersburg, and nowhere else," replied he, holding the match about a foot away from his cigar—"in St. Petersburg, I'm telling ye. I've a fancy to see the Russians, and there's one of Jack Ames' lot that will take us through. It's an officer of the' Guards he is, and ye'll not forget to pack me yeomanry clothes, though the Queen—God bless her!— has dispensed with my services."
"Then it's certain that you are going, sir?" said I.
"As certain as the moon is round," cried he, "which is a geographical