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Then she found Sainte-Croix stretched out beside the furnace, the broken glass lying by his side. It was impossible to deceive the public as to the circumstances of this strange and sudden death: the servants had seen the corpse, and they talked. The commissary Picard was ordered to affix the seals, and all the widow could do was to remove the furnace and the fragments of the glass mask.
Picard bustled about, and brought to his master a magnificent dressing-gown-made, after the Venetian fashion, of rich stuff, with arabesques of black velvet on a gold ground which he slipped on, and tied round the waist with a superb cord and tassels; then, seating himself in an easychair, told Picard to admit his early visitor.
And that momentary glance was wholly medieval. John saw it and understood it. A rage against Auersperg that would never die flamed up in his heart. He already hated everything for which the man stood. Auersperg's glance passed on, and slowly measured the gigantic figure of Picard. Then he smiled in a slow and ugly fashion. "Ah, a peasant in civilian's dress, captured fighting our brave armies!
"If that man ever comes near me with the intention of cutting off one of my legs I'll shoot him, good fellow and good doctor though he may be," he said. "Help me up a little higher, will you, Picard? I want to see what kind of a place we're in." Picard built up a little pyramid of saddles and knapsacks behind him and John drew himself up with his back against them.
"M. Palmer?" "Yes, and he can tell you." "Thanks, Mme. Picard, thanks " "Good-bye, prince, good-bye," and Mme. Picard went back to her stool, near her colleague, Mme. Flachet, and said to her: "Ah, my dear, what a charming man the prince is! True gentlefolks, there is nothing like them! But they are dying out, they are dying out; there are many less than formerly."
Picard flew to summon him, and in a few moments the discomfited bully made his appearance; pale from abject terror, with teeth chattering and limbs trembling, as he was ushered into the dread presence of his angry lord.
Neither was unfamiliar to him. The small, delicate old man, with the peaked hat and short black velvet cloak, was Abbe Picard, a gay Parisian, who had come to Leyden ten years before and gave French lessons in the wealthy families of the city.
Then Picard promptly raised his rifle and shot him through the heart. When von Boehlen fell dead in the road his hussars halted and while they were hesitating Picard shot the horses of two under them, while a third received a bullet in the shoulder.
The silence, and the absence of Picard filled him with alarm. In the smoking-room he held the candle aloft, and then he uttered a cry. The room was in a state of utter disorder. Chairs, tables and writing-desks were overturned, and glass was smashed. It was evident to both that a mighty struggle had taken place there, but no blood was shed.
Nor was it long before the King of England, learning that the marshal was dead, made Perrot the Picard, to whose merit he was no stranger, marshal in the dead man's room. Such, in brief, was the history of the two innocent children, with whom the Count of Antwerp had parted, never expecting to see them again.
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