It must be that he was wholly sure of himself and that his will rested on truly extraordinary grounds for him to formulate it with so imperious a solemnity. Even Leonard himself was impressed and stood undecided; while Clarice, who had not grasped the full horror of their intention, appeared to take comfort.
Josephine, taken aback, murmured: “Words—just words. Some fresh ruse—”
“Facts,” he declared, “or rather one fact which dominates everything and before which you will have to give way.”
“What does that mean?” asked Josephine, more and more disturbed. “What is it you want?”
“I don’t want—I demand.”
“What?”
“The immediate liberty of Clarice. The liberty of leaving this place without either you or Leonard stirring a foot.”
She burst out laughing and asked: “Is that all?”
“That’s all.”
“And in exchange you offer me?”
“The key-word of the enigma!”
She quivered and said: “You know it, then?”
“Yes.”
The drama had suddenly undergone a complete change. From all the furious antagonism which flung them into conflict with one another, from the hatred and fury of love and jealousy, there seemed to come clear only their anxiety about the great enterprise. The obsession of vengeance passed into the background of Josephine’s mind. The thousands and thousands of jewels were, as Ralph had willed, once more gleaming before her eyes.
Beaumagnan raised himself painfully into a sitting posture and was listening with all his ears.
Leaving Clarice to the care of her confederate, Josine stepped nearer to Ralph, and said: “Is it sufficient to know the key-word of the enigma?”
“No,” he said with decision. “It is still necessary to interpret it. The meaning of the formula is hidden behind a veil; and the first thing to do is to pierce that veil.”
“And have you done it?”
“Yes. I already had some ideas about the matter. Just now, all at once, the truth flashed on me.”
She knew that he was not the man to joke at such a juncture.
“Tell me about it,” she said, “and Clarice shall go.”
“Let her go first and I’ll tell you my idea. Of course I won’t reveal it with a rope round my neck and my hands bound, but free and in no way hampered.”
“But it’s absurd!” she protested. “You revolutionize the whole situation. As it is it’s absolutely in my power to do what I like.”
“Not now,” he declared. “Now you depend on me and it is for me to dictate the conditions.”
She shrugged her shoulders and looked round the room somewhat helplessly, then she was obliged to say: “Swear to speak the exact truth. Swear it by the tomb of your mother.”
He said calmly: “By the tomb of my mother I swear to you that twenty minutes after Clarice has crossed this threshold I will show you the exact place where that block of granite is, that is to say, the hiding-place of the treasure accumulated by the monks of the abbeys of France.”
She tried to thrust off the incredible fascination that Ralph was of a sudden exercising over her with this fabulous offer, and cried in a tone of revolt: “No, no! It’s a trap! You know nothing at all!”
“Not only do I know, but I’m not the only one to know,” he said.
“Who else knows?”
“Beaumagnan and the Baron.”
“Impossible!” she cried.
“Think a little,” he said quietly. “The day before yesterday Beaumagnan was at La Haie d’Etigues. Why? Because the Baron had recovered the casket and they studied the inscription together. Then, if there are not only the five words mentioned by the Cardinal, if there is also the word, the magic word which sums them up and gives the key to the mystery, they have seen it and they know it.”
“What does that matter?” she said, gazing at Beaumagnan. “I hold him safely enough.”
“But you do not hold Godfrey d’Etigues; and perhaps at this very minute he is on the spot with his cousin, the two of them sent in advance by Beaumagnan to explore the spot and make preparations for carrying off the treasure. Do you understand the danger? Do you understand that the loss of a minute may mean the loss of the game?”
She held out fiercely, crying: “I win it if Clarice speaks.”
“She will not speak—for the excellent reason that she has told you all she knows,” he said in a tone that carried conviction.
“Be it so, but then do you speak yourself, since you have been so foolish as to make this disclosure. Why should I set her free? Why should I obey you? As long as Clarice is in the hands of Leonard, I have only to will to drag from you everything you know.”
He shook his head. “No,” he said. “That danger is passed; that storm is at a distance. Perhaps, as a matter of fact, you have only to will; but equally as a matter of fact, you can no longer will that. You have no longer the strength to will it.”
And it was true; and he was certain of it. Hard, cruel, “infernal,” as Beaumagnan had said, but none the less a woman and subject to failure of nerve, she committed her evil deeds rather on impulse than by a deliberate effort of will—in an access of madness and hysteria, which was followed by a kind of lassitude, by enfeeblement as much moral as physical. Ralph was sure that at that very moment she was suffering from such a reaction.
“Come, Josephine: be consistent,” he said. “You have staked your life on this card, the conquest of boundless riches. Are you going to throw away the fruit of all your efforts when I offer you those riches?”
Her resistance was weakening. But she protested: “I don’t trust you.”
“That isn’t true. You know quite well that I keep my promises. If you hesitate—but you do not hesitate. In your heart of hearts, you have made your decision; and it is
