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"Lafleur's story of the gentleman at Avranches, with the description of him, struck me as strange; and for the rest there were two things." He seated himself on a stool. I leaned against the wall. "In the first place," he continued, "I know my wife pretty well; in the second, a secret known to four maidservants Really, sir, you were very confiding!"
"Why not?" asked the duke, in the tone of a man willing to hear the other side, but certain that he would not be convinced by it. "Why not? We find you stealing and we shoot you as you try to escape. I see nothing unnatural or illegal in it, Lafleur. Nor do I see anything in favor of leaving you alive." And the pistol pressed still on Lafleur's forehead.
And while he said it he laughed, and took advantage of Lafleur's posture to give him four or five hearty kicks. "It's empty!" cried Lafleur, surprise rescuing him for an instant from the other emotions to which his position gave occasion. And, as he spoke, for the first time Pierre started, turning an eager gaze toward the box. "Yes, it's empty," said the duke. "The necklace isn't there, is it?
"Keep your eye on that fellow, Mr. Aycon," said the duke; and then he put his left hand in his pocket, took out a key and flung it in Lafleur's face. It struck him sharply between the eyes, and he whined again. "Open the box," said the duke. "Open it do you hear? This instant!"
"Let him," he said briefly; and his glance rested on me for a moment in defiant significance. And then, without another word, he turned on his heel. He took no heed of Lafleur's dead body, that seemed to fondle the box, huddling it in a ghastly embrace, nor of me, who swayed and tottered and sank on the ground by the corpse.
Then the story came: disentangled from the excuses and prayers, it was simply that Pierre was no footman but a noted thief that he had long meditated an attack on the Cardinal's Necklace; had made Lafleur's acquaintance in Paris, corrupted his facile virtue, and, with the aid of forged testimonials, presented himself in the character in which I had first made his acquaintance.
They sprang up the next moment; but the duke's muzzle covered Lafleur, and mine was leveled full at Pierre. A second later Lafleur fell on his knees with a cry for mercy; the little man stood quite still, his arms by his side and the iron box hard by his feet. Lafleur's protestations and lamentations began to flow fast. Pierre shrugged his shoulders. The duke advanced, and I kept pace with him.
"Destiny," the little man seemed to say in the eloquent movement of his shoulders; while the growing light showed his beady eyes fixed, full and unfaltering, on me. Lafleur's prayers died away. The duke, still smiling, set his pistol against the wretch's head. "That's what you deserve," said he. And Lafleur, groveling, caught him by the knees. "Don't kill me! Don't kill me!" he implored.
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