The Girl Philippa
from side to side with curiosity, but without apparently any suspicion.
They seemed to know the place and to be entirely familiar with every
alley, for, just before they passed the runway where he crouched behind
the boxes, they turned aside, played their light over the dusty banks of
bottles, chose one, coolly knocked off its neck, and leisurely drained
it between them.
Then, exchanging a few comments in voices too low to be understood, they
resumed their course, passed the entrance to the alley where Warner lay
hidden, and continued on a few paces.
He could see them as black shapes against the flare of light; saw them
halt a few paces from where he stood, saw them reach up and take hold of
a huge tun which blocked their progress.
Their torch was shining full upon it; he could follow minutely
everything they were doing.
One of the men stretched his arms out horizontally and grasped the edges
of the immense cask. Then he threw his full weight to the right; the
cask swung easily outward, leaving a passageway wide enough for a man.
And there, full in the blaze of brilliant light, was a door, scarcely
ten feet away from where he was standing.
The man who had turned the cask went to the door, slid aside a panel,
reached in and unbolted it, and had already opened the door when a big
bulk loomed up in front of him; a gross, vibrant voice set the hollow
echoes growling under the arches of stone and mortar; Wildresse barred
their way.
He stood there, the torchlight falling full on his round, partly bald
and smoothly shaven head; his wicked little ratty eyes were two points
of black, his wicked mouth was twisted with profanity.
"Sacre tas de bougres!" he roared. "I told you to come at nine o'clock,
didn't I? What are you doing here, then? You, Asticot, you are
supposed to have more sense than Squelette, there! Why do you interrupt
me before the hour I set?"
The man addressed as Asticot--a heavy, bench-legged young man with two
_favoris_ pasted over his large wide ears--shuffled his shoes most
uncomfortably.
Squelette, tall, frightfully thin, with his long, furrowed neck of an
unclean bird swathed in a red handkerchief, stood sullen and motionless
while the glare of his torch streamed over Wildresse.
"Nom de Dieu!" shouted the latter. "Aim at my belly and keep that light
out of my face, you stupid ass!"
Squelette sulkily shifted his torch; Asticot said in the nasal, whining
voice of the outer boulevards:
"_Voyons, mon vieux_, you have been at it for six hours, and the
Skeleton here and I thought you might require our services----"
"Is that so!" snarled Wildresse. "Also, they may require your services
in La Roquette!"
"They do," remarked Squelette naively.
"You don't have to tell me that!" retorted Wildresse. "You'll sneeze for
them, too, some day!" He turned savagely on Asticot: "I _don't_ want
you now! I'm busy! Do you understand?"
"I understand," replied the Maggot. "All the same, if I may be so
bold--what's the use of chattering if there's a job to finish? If
there's work to do, do it, and talk afterward. That's my idea."
Wildresse glared at him:
"Really! Very commendable. Such notions of industry ought to be
encouraged in the young. But the trouble with you, Asticot, is that you
haven't anything inside that sucked-out orange you think is a head.
"Whatever mental work is to be done, I shall do. Do you comprehend me,
imbecile? And I don't trouble to consult your convenience, either. Is
that clear? Now, take your friend, the Skeleton, and take your torch and
yourself out of this cellar. Get out, or I'll bash your face in!--You
dirty little bandy-legged, blood-lapping cockroach----"
His big, pock-pitted, hairless face became frightful in its concentrated
ferocity; both men made simultaneous and involuntary movements to the
rear.
"You'll come at nine o'clock, do you hear!" he roared. "And you'll bring
a sack with you and enough weight to keep it sunk! You, Maggot; you,
Skeleton, do you understand? Very well, clear out!"
The young ruffians made no response; Asticot turned and made his way
through the narrow passage; the Skeleton shuffled on his heels, shining
his torch ahead.
Halfway down the central corridor they helped themselves to two more
bottles of Bordeaux, pocketing them in silence, and continued on their
course.
Listening, Warner could hear them ascending the stone stairs, could hear
the door click above as they left the cellar. But his eyes remained
fixed on Wildresse, who still stood in the door, darkly outlined against
the dull gaslight burning somewhere in the room behind him.
Once or twice he looked at the great cask which the two _voyous_ had not
troubled to close into its place behind them. And Wildresse did not
bother to go out and swing the cask back into place, but, as soon as he
caught the sound of the closing cellar door, stepped back and shut his
own door.
He must either have forgotten, or carelessly neglected, to close the
open panel in it, for the lighted square remained visible, illuminating
the narrow passage after Warner heard him bolt the door on the inside.
His retreating footsteps, also, were audible for some distance before
the sound of them died away; and Warner knew then that the door belonged
to the cabaret, and that behind its bolted shutters and its police seals
Wildresse had been lurking since his return from Sais.
There was no need to use his torch as he crept out of his ambush and
entered the narrow lane behind the big cask.
With infinite precautions, he thrust his arm through the open panel,
felt around until he found the two bolts, slid them noiselessly back.
The door swung open, inward. He went in softly.
The place appeared to be a lumber room littered with odds and ends.
Beyond was a passage in which a gas jet burned; at the end of it a
stairway leading up.
The floor creaked in spite of him, but the stairs were carpeted. They
led up to a large butler's pantry; and, through the sliding door, he
peered out into the dim interior of the empty cabaret.
Through cracks in the closed shutters rays from the setting sun pierced
the gloom, making objects vaguely distinct--tables and chairs piled one
upon the other around the dancing floor, the gaudy decorations pendent
from the ceiling, the shrouded music stands, the cashier's desk where he
had first set eyes on the girl Philippa----
With the memory his heart almost ceased, then leaped with the resurgence
of his fear for her; he looked around him until he discovered a leather
swinging door, and when he opened it a wide hallway lay before him and a
stairway rose beyond.
Over the thick carpet he hastened, then up the stairs, cautiously,
listening at every step.
Somewhere above, coming apparently from behind a closed door, he heard
the heavy vibration of a voice, and knew whose it was.
Guided by it along the upper passageway, he passed the open doors of
several bedrooms, card rooms, private dining-rooms, all empty and the
furniture covered with sheets, until he came to a closed door.
Behind it, the heavy voice of Wildresse sounded menacingly; he waited
until it rose to a roar, then tried the door under cover of the noise
within. It was locked, and he stood close to it, listening, striving to
think out the best way.
Behind the locked door Wildresse was shouting now, and Warner heard
every word:
"By God!" he roared in English. "You had better not try to lie to me!
Do you want your neck twisted?"
There was no reply.
"I ask you again, what did you do with that paper I gave you by
mistake?" he repeated.
Suddenly Warner's heart stood still, as Philippa's voice came to him,
low but distinct:
"I burned it!"
"You burned it? You lie!"
"I never lie," came the subdued voice. "I burned it."
"You slut! How dared you touch it at all?"
"You handed it to me," she said wearily.
"And you knew it was a mistake, you treacherous cat! My God! Have I
nourished you for this, you little snake, that you turn your poisonous
teeth on me?"
"Perhaps.... But not on my country."
"Your country! You miserable foundling, did you suppose yourself
French?"
"France is the only country I have known. I refuse to betray her."
"France!" he shouted. "France! A hell of a country to snivel about!
You can't tell me anything about France--the dirty kennel full of
mongrels that it is! France? To hell with France!
"What has she done for me? What has she done to me? Chased me out of
Paris; forced my only son into her filthy army; hunted us both without
mercy--finally hunted my son into the Battalions of Biribi--me into this
damned pigpen of Ausone! That's what France has done to me and
mine!--Blackmailed me into playing the _mouchard_ for her--forcing me to
play spy for her by threatening to hunt me into La Nouvelle!
"By God! I break even, though! I sell her every chance I get; and what
I sell to her she has to pay for, too--believe me, she pays for it a
hundred times over!"
There came a silence, then Wildresse's voice again, rumbling,
threatening:
"Who was that _type_ you went to visit in Sais at the Golden Peach?"
No answer.
"Do you hear, you little fool?"
"I hear you," she said in a tired voice.
"You won't tell?"
"No."
"Why? Is he your lover?"
"No."
"Oh, you merely got your wages, eh?"
No answer.
"In other words, you're launched, eh? You aspire to turn _cocotte_,
eh?"
"I am employed by him quite honestly----"
"Very touching. Such a nice young man, isn't he? And how much did you
tell him about me, eh?"
No reply.
"Did you inform him that I was a very bad character?" he sneered. "Did
you tell him what a hard time you had? Did you explain to him that a
pious Christian really could not live any longer with such a man as I
am? _Did_ you? And that is the way you feel, isn't it?--That you are
too good for the business in which I have taken the trouble to educate
you?"
"To be compelled to seek information for my Government has made me very
unhappy," she said. "But to betray that Government--that is not in me
to do. I had rather die.... I think, anyway, that I had rather
not--live--any longer."
"Is that so? Is that all the spirit you have? What are you, anyway--a
worm? Have you no anger in you against the country which has kicked you
and me out of Paris into this filthy kennel called Ausone? Have you no
resentment toward the Government that has attempted to beggar us
both--the Government which bullies us, threatens us, blackmails us,
forbids us entry into the capital, keeps us tied up here like dogs to
watch and bark at strangers and whine away our lives on starvation
wages, when we could make our fortunes in Paris?"
"I don't know what you did."
"What of it? Suppose I broke a few of their damned laws! Is that a
reason to kick me from place to place and finally tie me up here?"
"I--don't know."
"Oh, 'don't know'!" he mimicked her. "You ungrateful slut, if you had
any gratitude in your treacherous little body, you'd stick to me now!
You'd rejoice at my vengeance! You'd laugh to know that I am paying
back in her own coin the country which insulted me! That's what you'd
do, instead of sniveling around about 'treachery' and 'betraying
France.'
"And, by God!--now that war has come, you'll see your beloved France
torn into pieces by the Bosches! That's what you'll see--France ripped
into tatters!
"Yes, and that sight will repay me for all that has been done to
me--that revenge I shall have--soon!--just as soon as they sweep up that
stable litter of Belgians over there!
"_Then_ we'll see! Then perhaps I'll get my recognition from the
Bosches!
"What do I care for France or for them, either? I'm of no nation; I'm