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Glad to escape so easily, La Trape ran to the gate; but he failed to find his friend, and two or three days elapsed before I thought again of the matter, such petty rogueries being ingrained in a great man's VALETAILLE, and being no more to be removed than the hairs from a man's arm. At the end of that time La Trape came to me, bringing the Spaniard; who had appeared again at the gate.
When La Trape dismounted and raised the fallen man the latter was dead, his breast riddled by a dozen slugs. Such were the circumstances, now for the first time made public, which attended the discovery of this, the least known, yet one of the most dangerous of the many plots which were directed against the life of my master.
This was the gipsy-girl, whom La Trape had mentioned, and whose presence in my household seemed to need the more elucidation the farther I pushed the inquiry. In the end I had the butler punished, but though my agents sought the girl through Paris, and even traced her to Meaux, she was never discovered.
"The truth, you villain; you did not taste all?" "I did, your excellency; as God is above, I did!" he answered. But he had grown pale, and he looked at the King in a terrified way. "You did?" "Yes!" Yet I did not believe him, and I was about to give him the lie again, when the King intervened. "Quite so," he said to La Trape with a smile.
"La Trape," I said to my valet the same who was with me at Cahors "what is the name of the innkeeper at Poissy, at whose house we are accustomed to dine?" "Andrew, may it please your lordship." "Andrew! I thought so!" I exclaimed, smiting my thigh. "Simon and Andrew his brother! Answer, knave, and, if you have permitted me to be robbed these many times, tremble for your ears.
Whichever the sentiment he entertained, however, it was quickly cut short by a lamentable cry that drove the blood from our cheeks. La Trape was in another paroxysm. "Oh, the poor man!" Henry cried. "I suppose that the cat came in unseen," I said; "with him last night, and then stayed in the room?" "Doubtless." "And was seized with a paroxysm here?" "Such as he has now!"
Under these circumstances, we quickly settled to work, no one entertaining the slightest suspicion; and La Trape, who could accommodate himself to anything, playing the part of clerk, I was presently receiving money and hearing excuses; the minute acquaintance with the routine of the finances, which I had made it my business to acquire, rendering the work easy to me.
On the morrow a third search seeming still the only resource, and proving as futile as the others, I ordered La Trape and two or three in whom I placed the greatest confidence to watch their fellows, and report anything in their bearing or manner that seemed to be out of the ordinary course; while I myself went to wait; on the King, and parry his demand for the memorial as well as I could.
La Ferté Alais, on the borders of the forest, is some five leagues westward of Fontainebleau and as far north of Malesherbes, with which it is connected by a high-road. Having disclosed my intentions to La Trape, I left this road and struck into a woodland path which promised to conduct us in the right direction.
I found that La Varenne and D'Entragues were close behind us, while the troopers with La Trape and Boisrosé were a hundred paces farther to the rear, and Vitry and Coquet had dropped out of sight. This being so, I suddenly reined in my horse so as to back it into that of D'Entragues, and then wheeled round on the latter, taking care to be between him and the King.
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