She had scarcely set down my heavy box, which she seemed to haveconsiderable difficulty in raising on the table, when the door of theroom in which I had seen the coffin, opened, and a sinister andunexpected apparition entered.
It was the Count de St. Alyre, who had been, as I have told you,reported to me to be, for some considerable time, on his way to Père laChaise. He stood before me for a moment, with the frame of the doorwayand a background of darkness enclosing him, like a portrait. Hisslight, mean figure was draped in the deepest mourning. He had a pair ofblack gloves in his hand, and his hat with crape round it.
When he was not speaking his face showed signs of agitation; his mouthwas puckering and working. He looked damnably wicked and frightened.
"Well, my dear Eugenie? Well, child—eh? Well, it all goes admirably?"
"Yes," she answered, in a low, hard tone. "But you and Planard shouldnot have left that door open."
This she said sternly. "He went in there and looked about wherever heliked; it was fortunate he did not move aside the lid of the coffin."
"Planard should have seen to that," said the Count, sharply. "Ma foi!I can't be everywhere!" He advanced half-a-dozen short quick steps intothe room toward me, and placed his glasses to his eyes.
"Monsieur Beckett," he cried sharply, two or three times, "Hi! don't youknow me?"
He approached and peered more closely in my face; raised my hand andshook it, calling me again, then let it drop, and said—"It has set inadmirably, my pretty mignonne. When did it commence?"
The Countess came and stood beside him, and looked at me steadily forsome seconds.
You can't conceive the effect of the silent gaze of those two pairs ofevil eyes.
The lady glanced to where, I recollected, the mantel-piece stood, andupon it a clock, the regular click of which I sharply heard.
"Four—five—six minutes and a half," she said slowly, in a cold hardway.
"Brava! Bravissima! my beautiful queen! my little Venus! my Joan ofArc! my heroine! my paragon of women!"
He was gloating on me with an odious curiosity, smiling, as he gropedbackward with his thin brown fingers to find the lady's hand; but she,not (I dare say) caring for his caresses, drew back a little.
"Come, ma chère, let us count these things. What is it? Pocket-book?Or—or—what?"
"It is that?" said the lady, pointing with a look of disgust to thebox, which lay in its leather case on the table.
"Oh! Let us see—let us count—let us see," he said, as he wasunbuckling the straps with his tremulous fingers. "We must countthem—we must see to it. I have pencil and pocket-book—but—where's thekey? See this cursed lock! My ——! What is it? Where's the key?"
He was standing before the Countess, shuffling his feet, with his handsextended and all his fingers quivering.
"I have not got it; how could I? It is in his pocket, of course," saidthe lady.
In another instant the fingers of the old miscreant were in my pockets:he plucked out everything they contained, and some keys among the rest.
I lay in precisely the state in which I had been during my drive withthe Marquis to Paris. This wretch I knew was about to rob me. The wholedrama, and the Countess'