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It would have been an easy matter for one of Leroux's agents to have cast a few handfuls of the deadly powder over the fish while the sleigh stood waiting outside Danton's door, and the jolting of the vehicle would have shaken the substance down into the middle of the heap, so that it would be three or four days before the dogs got to the poisoned fish. I was mad with anger.
It was a very neat servants' bedroom; with comfortable, quite simple, furniture; but the chest-of-drawers had been hastily ransacked, and the contents of a trunk or some of its contents lay strewn about the floor. "He has packed his grip!" came Leroux's voice from the doorway. "It's gone!" The window was wide open.
But there had been a sinister smoothness in Leroux's latest mood. I did not trust the man, for all his bluntness. I suspected something, and I did not intend to relax my guard. A gentle touch upon the elbow made me leap round in my chair. Old Charles Duchaine had ceased to play and was watching me out of his mild eyes. His fingers stroked my coat-sleeve timidly, as though he were afraid of me.
It was a situation which could not have alarmed "Martin Zeda," but it alarmed, immeasurably, nay, struck inert with horror, Martin Zeda's creator. Then, in upon Leroux's mental turmoil, a sensible idea intruded itself. "Dr. Cumberly!" he muttered. "I hope to God he is in!"
Therefore, when he looked into Henry Leroux's eyes, he saw there, and recognized, horror and consternation. With no further evidence than that furnished by his own powers of perception, he knew that the mystery of this woman's death was as inexplicable to Henry Leroux as it was inexplicable to himself. He was a masterful man, with the gray eyes of a diplomat, and he knew Leroux as did few men.
Jacqueline was beating with her little fists upon Leroux's broad back, but he did not even feel the blows. I heard old Charles Duchaine's piping cries of fear, and then somebody held me by the throat, and I was swimming in black water. "Bring a rope, Raoul!" I heard Simon call. Half conscious, I knew that I was being tied.
After receiving those instructions, Soames had sat for close upon an hour in his own room, contemplating the six broken boxes, containing in all some five hundred and ninety cigars; but the voice within prevailed; he must court no chance of losing his situation; therefore, he "discovered" these six boxes in a cupboard much to Henry Leroux's surprise!
The sun had sunk behind the cliffs. I had fired away all but six of my cartridges. Then the memory of my similar act of folly before came home to me. I grew more calm. I understood Leroux's intentions he meant to surprize me in the night when I was worn out, or when I made a blind dash in the dark for the tunnel.
But, as he told himself, on almost every occasion that he went to Leroux's bank, he was deliberately throwing money away, deliberately closing his eyes to the good fortune which this careless and gullible man cast in his path.
Jacqueline joined me. The tears were streaming down her cheeks; she slipped her arm through mine and looked mutely at me. I knew this was Leroux's work. He had tricked me again. I had seen clusters of the frozen fungus outside St. Boniface.
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