Part 10

"She is La Porte's goddaughter, the queen's trusted valet. Didn't I tell you, gentlemen? Besides, it may be a calculation on Her Majesty's part to have sought her support so low this time. High heads are seen from afar, and the cardinal has good eyesight."

"Well then," said Porthos, "first make a price with the mercer, and a good one."

"It's useless," said d'Artagnan, "for I believe that if he doesn't pay us, we will be paid enough from another quarter."

At that moment, a hurried sound of footsteps was heard on the stairs, the door burst open with a crash, and the unfortunate mercer rushed into the room where the council was being held.

"Ah, gentlemen!" he cried, "save me, in Heaven's name, save me! There are four men coming to arrest me; save me, save me!"

Porthos and Aramis rose.

"One moment," cried d'Artagnan, motioning them to push their half-drawn swords back into the scabbards; "one moment, it is not courage that is needed here, but prudence."

"However," cried Porthos, "we will not let…"

"You will let d'Artagnan act," said Athos, "he is, I repeat, the strong head among us all, and for my part, I declare that I obey him. Do what you will, d'Artagnan."

At that moment, the four guards appeared at the door of the antechamber, and seeing four musketeers standing with swords at their sides, they hesitated to go further.

"Come in, gentlemen, come in," cried d'Artagnan; "you are here at my home, and we are all faithful servants of the king and of Monsieur the Cardinal."

"Then, gentlemen, you will not oppose us in executing the orders we have received?" asked he who seemed to be the leader of the squad.

"On the contrary, gentlemen, and we would lend you a hand, if need be."

"But what is he saying?" muttered Porthos.

"You are a fool," said Athos, "silence!"

"But you promised me…" said the poor mercer softly.

"We can only save you by remaining free," replied d'Artagnan quickly and softly, "and if we make a show of defending you, we will be arrested with you."

"It seems to me, however…"

"Come, gentlemen, come," said d'Artagnan aloud; "I have no reason to defend this gentleman. I saw him today for the first time, and on what occasion, he will tell you himself: to come and demand the rent for my lodging. Is that true, Monsieur Bonacieux? Answer!"

"It is the pure truth," cried the mercer, "but this gentleman does not tell you…"

"Silence about me, silence about my friends, silence above all about the queen, or you will ruin everyone without saving yourself. Go, go, gentlemen, take this man away!"

And d'Artagnan pushed the bewildered mercer into the hands of the guards, saying to him:

"You are a knave, my dear sir; you come to ask me for money! Me, a musketeer! To prison, gentlemen, once again, take him to prison and keep him under lock and key as long as possible, that will give me time to pay."

The minions were profuse in thanks and led away their prey.

As they were descending, d'Artagnan tapped the leader on the shoulder:

"Shall I not drink to your health and you to mine?" he said, filling two glasses with the wine of Beaugency which he had from the liberality of Monsieur Bonacieux.

"That would be a great honor for me," said the chief of the minions, "and I accept with gratitude."

"Then, to yours, Monsieur… what is your name?"

"Boisrenard."

"Monsieur Boisrenard!"

"To yours, my gentleman: what is your name, in turn, if you please?"

"d'Artagnan."

"To yours, Monsieur d'Artagnan!"

"And above all," cried d'Artagnan, as if carried away by his enthusiasm, "to that of the king and the cardinal!"

The chief of the minions might have doubted d'Artagnan's sincerity if the wine had been bad; but the wine was good, he was convinced.

"But what the devil of a nasty thing have you done?" said Porthos when the chief bailiff had rejoined his companions and the four friends were alone. "Fie! Four musketeers letting a poor wretch crying for help be arrested in their midst! A gentleman drinking with a bailiff!"

"Porthos," said Aramis, "Athos has already told you that you are a fool, and I agree with him. D'Artagnan, you are a great man, and when you take Monsieur de Tréville's place, I ask your protection to get me an abbey."

"Well, I'm lost," said Porthos, "you approve of what d'Artagnan just did?"

"I should think so," said Athos; "not only do I approve of what he just did, but I congratulate him on it."

"And now, gentlemen," said d'Artagnan without taking the trouble to explain his conduct to Porthos, "all for one, one for all—that is our motto, is it not?"

"However…" said Porthos.

"Hold out your hand and swear!" cried Athos and Aramis together.

Overcome by their example, grumbling under his breath, Porthos held out his hand, and the four friends repeated with one voice the formula dictated by d'Artagnan:

"All for one, one for all."

"Very well, let each of you now retire to his home," said d'Artagnan, as if he had done nothing but command all his life, "and be careful, for from this moment on, we are pitted against the cardinal."

CHAPTER X. A MOUSETRAP IN THE 17TH CENTURY

The invention of the mousetrap does not date from our time; as soon as societies, in forming, invented any sort of police, that police in turn invented mousetraps.

Since perhaps our readers are not yet familiar with the slang of the Rue de Jérusalem, and since this is the first time—in some fifteen years of writing—that we use this word applied to this thing, let us explain what a mousetrap is.

When, in any house whatsoever, an individual suspected of some crime has been arrested, the arrest is kept secret; four or five men are placed in ambush in the first room, the door is opened to all who knock, it is closed upon them and they are arrested; in this way, after two or three days, nearly all the regular visitors of the establishment are caught.

That is what a mousetrap is.

So Master Bonacieux's apartment was made into a mousetrap, and whoever appeared there was taken and interrogated by the cardinal's men. It goes without saying that, as a private passage led to the first floor where d'Artagnan lived, those who came to his house were exempt from all visits.

Moreover, only the three musketeers came there; they had each been on the lookout separately and had found nothing, discovered nothing. Athos had even gone so far as to question Monsieur de Tréville, which, given the worthy musketeer's habitual silence, greatly astonished his captain. But Monsieur de Tréville knew nothing, except that the last time he had seen the cardinal, the king, and the queen, the cardinal had looked very worried, the king was anxious, and the queen's red eyes indicated that she had been up late or had wept. But this last circumstance had struck him little, for the queen, since her marriage, often stayed up late and wept a lot.

Monsieur de Tréville nonetheless recommended to Athos the service of the king and especially that of the queen, asking him to give the same recommendation to his comrades.

As for d'Artagnan, he did not stir from his home. He had turned his room into an observatory. From the windows he saw those who came to get themselves caught; then, since he had removed the tiles of the floor, hollowed out the flooring, and only a simple ceiling separated him from the room below where the interrogations took place, he heard everything that went on between the inquisitors and the accused.

The interrogations, preceded by a minute search of the arrested person, were almost always phrased like this:

"Has Madame Bonacieux given you anything for her husband or for any other person?"

"Has Monsieur Bonacieux given you anything for his wife or for any other person?"

"Has either of them made any verbal confidence to you?"

"If they knew anything, they wouldn't question like that," d'Artagnan said to himself. "Now, what are they trying to find out? Whether the Duke of Buckingham is in Paris and whether he has had or is to have some meeting with the queen."

D'Artagnan stopped at this idea, which, according to everything he had heard, was not lacking in probability.

Meanwhile, the mousetrap was in permanent operation, and so was d'Artagnan's vigilance.

On the evening of the day after the arrest of poor Bonacieux, just as Athos had left d'Artagnan to go to Monsieur de Tréville's, as nine o'clock had just struck, and as Planchet, who had not yet made the bed, was beginning his work, a knock was heard at the street door; immediately the door opened and closed: someone had just been caught in the mousetrap.

D'Artagnan rushed to the spot where the floor was uncovered, lay flat on his stomach, and listened.

Cries soon resounded, then groans that someone tried to stifle. There was no question of interrogation.

"The devil!" said d'Artagnan to himself, "it seems to me it's a woman: they are searching her, she resists, they are using force—the wretches!"

And d'Artagnan, despite his prudence, held himself back with all his might from interfering in the scene taking place below him.

"But I tell you I am the mistress of the house, gentlemen; I tell you I am Madame Bonacieux, I tell you I belong to the queen!" cried the unfortunate woman.

"Madame Bonacieux!" murmured d'Artagnan, "could I be lucky enough to have found what everyone is looking for?"

"You are exactly the one we were waiting for," replied the interrogators.

The voice became more and more muffled: a tumultuous movement made the woodwork resound. The victim resisted as much as a woman can resist four men.

"Pardon, gentlemen, par…" murmured the voice, which now only made inarticulate sounds.

"They are gagging her, they are going to drag her away," cried d'Artagnan, springing up as if by a spring. "My sword! Good, it's at my side. Planchet!"

"Monsieur?"

"Run and fetch Athos, Porthos, and Aramis. One of the three is surely at home, perhaps all three have returned. Let them take arms, let them come, let them hurry. Ah, I remember, Athos is at Monsieur de Tréville's."

"But where are you going, monsieur, where are you going?"

"I am going down by the window," cried d'Artagnan, "to get there sooner; you put back the tiles, sweep the floor, go out by the door, and run where I told you."

"Oh! monsieur, monsieur, you will kill yourself!" cried Planchet.

"Be quiet, you idiot," said d'Artagnan. And clinging with his hand to the edge of his window, he let himself drop from the first floor, which fortunately was not high, without getting a scratch.

Then he immediately went to knock at the door, murmuring:

"I am going to get caught in the mousetrap in my turn, and woe to the cats that rub up against such a mouse."

Scarcely had the knocker resounded under the young man's hand when the tumult ceased, footsteps approached, the door opened, and d'Artagnan, with his naked sword, rushed into Master Bonacieux's apartment, whose door, doubtless moved by a spring, closed again by itself behind him.

Then those who still inhabited poor Bonacieux's house and the nearest neighbors heard loud cries, stamping, a clashing of swords, and a prolonged noise of furniture. Then, a moment later, those who, surprised by this noise, had gone to their windows to find out the cause, could see the door open again and four men dressed in black not go out, but fly like frightened crows, leaving on the ground and at the corners of tables feathers from their wings, that is, rags of their clothes and scraps of their cloaks.

D'Artagnan was victorious without much trouble, it must be said, for only one of the bailiffs was armed, and even he only defended himself for form's sake. It is true that the other three had tried to knock the young man down with chairs, stools, and pots; but two or three scratches from the Gascon's rapier had frightened them. Ten minutes sufficed for their defeat, and d'Artagnan remained master of the field of battle.

The neighbors, who had opened their windows with the particular coolness of Parisians in those times of perpetual riots and brawls, closed them again as soon as they saw the four black men flee: their instinct told them that for the moment everything was over.

Besides, it was getting late, and then as now, people went to bed early in the Luxembourg quarter.

D'Artagnan, left alone with Madame Bonacieux, turned toward her: the poor woman was slumped in an armchair, half unconscious. D'Artagnan examined her with a quick glance.

She was a charming woman of twenty-five or twenty-six years, dark-haired with blue eyes, a slightly turned-up nose, admirable teeth, a complexion marbled with rose and opal. There, however, ended the signs that might have made her be mistaken for a great lady. Her hands were white, but without delicacy; her feet did not announce a woman of quality. Fortunately, d'Artagnan was not yet at the point of worrying about such details.

While d'Artagnan examined Madame Bonacieux, and had reached her feet, as we have said, he saw on the floor a fine cambric handkerchief, which he picked up out of habit, and at the corner of which he recognized the same monogram he had seen on the handkerchief that had almost caused his throat to be cut with Aramis.

Since that time, d'Artagnan had been distrustful of monogrammed handkerchiefs; so he put back without a word the one he had picked up into Madame Bonacieux's pocket. At that moment, Madame Bonacieux regained her senses. She opened her eyes, looked around her with terror, saw that the room was empty, and that she was alone with her liberator. She immediately held out her hands to him with a smile. Madame Bonacieux had the most charming smile in the world.

"Ah, monsieur!" she said, "it is you who have saved me; allow me to thank you."

"Madame," said d'Artagnan, "I have only done what any gentleman would have done in my place, so you owe me no thanks."

"Yes, monsieur, yes, and I hope to prove to you that you have not done a service to an ungrateful woman. But what did those men want with me, whom I first took for thieves, and why is Monsieur Bonacieux not here?"

"Madame, those men were far more dangerous than thieves could be, for they are agents of the cardinal, and as for your husband, Monsieur Bonacieux, he is not here because yesterday he was taken to the Bastille."

"My husband in the Bastille!" cried Madame Bonacieux, "Oh! my God! What has he done then? Poor dear man! He is innocence itself!"

And something like a smile broke through the still frightened face of the young woman.

"What has he done, madame?" said d'Artagnan. "I believe his only crime is to have at once the happiness and the misfortune of being your husband."

"But, monsieur, you know then…"

"I know that you were abducted, madame."

"And by whom? Do you know? Oh! if you know, tell me."

"By a man of forty to forty-five, with black hair, dark complexion, and a scar on his left temple."

"That's it, that's it; but his name?"

"Ah! his name? That I do not know."

"And did my husband know that I had been abducted?"

"He was informed by a letter that the abductor himself wrote to him."

"And does he suspect," asked Madame Bonacieux with embarrassment, "the cause of this event?"

"He attributed it, I believe, to a political cause."

"I doubted it at first, and now I think as he does. So then, dear Monsieur Bonacieux did not suspect me for a single instant…?"

"Ah! far from it, madame, he was too proud of your wisdom and especially of your love."

A second, almost imperceptible smile brushed the rosy lips of the beautiful young woman.

"But," continued d'Artagnan, "how did you escape?"

"I took advantage of a moment when I was left alone, and since I knew from this morning what to think about my abduction, I came down by the window using my sheets; then, as I believed my husband was here, I rushed here."

"To put yourself under his protection?"

"Oh! no, poor dear man, I knew well that he was incapable of defending me; but since he could serve us for something else, I wanted to warn him."

"Of what?"

"Oh! this is not my secret, so I cannot tell you."

"Besides," said d'Artagnan (forgive me, madame, if, though still on guard, I remind you to be prudent), "besides, I believe we are not in a suitable place here for confidences. The men I have put to flight will return with reinforcements; if they find us here, we are lost. I have sent word to three of my friends, but who knows if they will be found at home!"

"Yes, yes, you are right," cried Madame Bonacieux, frightened; "let us flee, let us save ourselves."

With these words, she passed her arm under d'Artagnan's and drew him quickly along.

"But where to flee?" said d'Artagnan, "where to save ourselves?"

"Let us first get away from this house, then we'll see."

And the young woman and the young man, without taking the trouble to close the door, quickly descended the Rue des Fossoyeurs, turned into the Rue des Fossés-Monsieur-le-Prince, and did not stop until they reached the Place Saint-Sulpice.

"And now, what are we going to do?" asked d'Artagnan, "and where do you want me to take you?"

"I am very embarrassed to answer you, I confess," said Madame Bonacieux; "my intention was to have Monsieur de La Porte informed by my husband, so that Monsieur de La Porte could tell us precisely what has happened at the Louvre for the past three days, and whether it is not dangerous for me to present myself there."

"But I," said d'Artagnan, "can go and inform Monsieur de La Porte."

"Certainly; only there is one misfortune: it is that Monsieur Bonacieux is known at the Louvre and would be let in, whereas you are not known, and the door will be closed to you."

"Oh, bah!" said d'Artagnan, "you must have at some wicket of the Louvre a concierge devoted to you, who, thanks to a password…"

Madame Bonacieux looked fixedly at the young man.

"And if I gave you that password," she said, "would you forget it as soon as you had used it?"

"Word of honor, on my faith as a gentleman!" said d'Artagnan, with an accent whose truth there was no mistaking.

"Here, I believe you; you seem a brave young man, besides, your fortune may be at the end of your devotion."

"I will do without promise and conscientiously all I can to serve the king and be agreeable to the queen," said d'Artagnan; "so dispose of me as of a friend."

"But where will you put me in the meantime?"

"Don't you have a person with whom Monsieur de La Porte can come and pick you up?"

"No, I do not wish to trust anyone."

"Wait," said d'Artagnan; "we are at the door of Athos. Yes, that's it."

"Who is Athos?"

"One of my friends."

"But if he is at home and he sees me?"

"He is not at home, and I will take the key after having let you into his apartment."

"But if he returns?"

"He will not return; besides, they will tell him that I brought a woman, and that this woman is at his place."

"But that will compromise me very much, you know!"

"What does it matter! You are not known; besides, we are in a situation to overlook certain proprieties!"

"Let us go to your friend's then. Where does he live?"

"Rue Férou, two steps from here."

"Let us go."

And both resumed their run. As d'Artagnan had foreseen, Athos was not at home: he took the key, which he was accustomed to being given as a friend of the house, went up the stairs, and introduced Madame Bonacieux into the little apartment we have already described.

"You are at home," he said; "wait, lock the door from inside and open to no one, unless you hear three knocks like this: there;" and he knocked three times: two blows close together and quite strong, one blow more distant and lighter.

"Very well," said Madame Bonacieux; "now it is my turn to give you my instructions."

"I am listening."

"Present yourself at the Louvre wicket on the side of the Rue de l'Échelle and ask for Germain."

"Very well. After that?"

"He will ask you what you want, and you will answer him with these two words: Tours and Brussels. Immediately he will be at your orders."

"And what shall I order him?"

"To go and fetch Monsieur de La Porte, the queen's valet."

"And when he has fetched him and Monsieur de La Porte has come?"

"You will send him to me."

"Very well, but where and how shall I see you again?"

"Do you care very much to see me again?"

"Certainly."

"Well then, rely on me for that care, and be calm."

"I count on your word."

"Count on it."

D'Artagnan bowed to Madame Bonacieux, throwing her the most loving look he could concentrate on her charming little person, and while he descended the stairs, he heard the door locked behind him with a double turn. In two bounds he was at the Louvre: as he entered the wicket of the Échelle, ten o'clock struck. All the events we have just related had followed one another in half an hour.

Everything was carried out as Madame Bonacieux had announced. At the agreed password, Germain bowed; ten minutes later, La Porte was in the lodge; in two words, d'Artagnan informed him and indicated where Madame Bonacieux was. La Porte assured himself twice of the accuracy of the address, and set off running. However, he had barely taken ten steps when he returned.

"Young man," he said to d'Artagnan, "a piece of advice."

"What?"

"You might be troubled for what has just happened."

"You think so?"

"Yes. Do you have any friend whose clock is slow?"

"Well?"

"Go see him so that he can testify that you were at his house at half past nine. In justice, that is called an alibi."

D'Artagnan found the advice prudent; he took to his heels, arrived at Monsieur de Tréville's, but instead of going into the salon with everyone else, he asked to enter his study. As d'Artagnan was one of the regulars of the house, no difficulty was made in granting his request; and they went to tell Monsieur de Tréville that his young compatriot, having something important to say to him, requested a private audience. Five minutes later, Monsieur de Tréville asked d'Artagnan what he could do for his service and what occasioned his visit at such a late hour.

"Pardon, monsieur!" said d'Artagnan, who had taken advantage of the moment he was left alone to set the clock back three-quarters of an hour; "I thought that, as it was only twenty-five past nine, it was still time to present myself to you."

"Twenty-five past nine!" cried Monsieur de Tréville, looking at his clock; "but that's impossible!"

"Look for yourself, monsieur," said d'Artagnan, "here is evidence."

“Stories of the world, in your language.”