The Three Musketeers. Александр Дюма
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Porthos stretched out his hand, and the four friends repeated with one voice the formal motto dictated by d’Artagnan—
“‘All for one; and one for all!’”
“That is right. Now, retire to your homes,” said d’Artagnan, as if he had never been accustomed to anything but to command others. “But,” he added, “be watchful; for remember, that from this moment we are at issue with the cardinal!”
CHAPTER 10 A Mousetrap of the Seventeenth Century
The mousetrap is not a modern invention. As soon as societies had, in establishing, themselves, instituted some kind of police, that police in its turn invented mousetraps.
As our readers are perhaps not familiar with the slang of the Rue de Jerusalem, and as it is, although we have been engaged in authorship for fifteen years, the first time that we have used the word in this signification, let us explain to them what a mousetrap is.
When an individual has been arrested, in any house whatever, on suspicion of some crime, his arrest is kept secret; four or five men are placed in ambush in the front room of this house; all who knock are admitted, and also locked in and detained; and, in this manner, at the end of three or four days, they can lay their fingers on all the frequenters of the establishment.
This, reader, is a mousetrap! and into such a one was M. Bonancieux’s apartment transformed. Whoever applied there, was seized and examined by the cardinal’s people. But as there was a private court leading to the first floor, which d’Artagnan occupied, his visitors were all exempt from this detention. The three musketeers, however, were, in fact, the only visitors he had; and each of these had, by this time, commenced a separate search, but had discovered nothing. Athos had even gone so far as to question M. de Treville—a circumstance which, considering his habitual taciturnity, had greatly surprised his captain. But M. de Treville knew nothing about it; excepting that the last time he had seen either the king, the queen, and the cardinal, the cardinal was very morose, the king very uneasy, and the queen’s eyes were red from watching or weeping. But this last circumstance had not attracted much of his notice, as the queen had, since her marriage, both watched and wept frequently.
Furthermore, M. de Treville strongly advised Athos to be active in the king’s service, and more particularly in the queen’s, and requested him to transmit the advice to his companions.
As to d’Artagnan, he did not stir out of his lodgings. He had converted his room into an observatory. From his own windows he saw everybody who came into the trap; and as he had taken up some squares from the floor, and dug up the deafening, so that nothing but a ceiling separated him from the room below, where the examinations were made, he heard all that passed between the inquisitors and the accused. The interrogatories, which were preceded by a strict search, were almost always in these terms—
“Has Madame Bonancieux entrusted you with anything for her husband or any other person?”
“Has M. Bonancieux entrusted you with anything for his wife, or any one else?”
“Has either of them made any verbal communication to you?”
“If they knew anything, they would not put such questions as these,” said d’Artagnan to himself. “But what are they trying to find out? Whether the Duke of Buckingham is in Paris at present; and if he has not had, or is not about to have, an interview with the queen?”
D’Artagnan stopped at this idea, which, after all that he had heard, was not without its probability. In the meantime, however, both the mousetrap and the vigilance of d’Artagnan remained in operation.
Just as it was striking nine on the evening of the day after poor Bonancieux’s arrest, and just as Athos had left d’Artagnan to go to M. de Treville’s, whilst Planchet, who had not made the bed, was about to do so, there was a knocking at the street door, which was immediately opened, and shut again: it was some new prey caught in the trap.
D’Artagnan rushed towards the unpaved part of his room, and laid himself down to listen. In a short time cries were heard, and then groans, which someone endeavoured to stifle.
There was no thought of examination.
“The devil!” said d’Artagnan to himself; “it seems to me to be a woman; they are searching her, and she resists; the wretches are using violence!”
In spite of his prudence, d’Artagnan had some trouble to restrain himself from interfering in the scene which was being enacted underneath.
“I tell you, gentlemen, that I am the mistress of the house; I am Madame Bonancieux. I tell you that I am a servant of the queen’s!” exclaimed the unfortunate woman.
“Madame Bonancieux!” murmured d’Artagnan; “shall I be so fortunate as to have found her whom everybody searches for in vain?”
“You are the very person we were waiting for,” replied the officers.
The voice became more and more stifled. Violent struggling made the wainscot rattle. The victim was offering all the resistance that one woman could offer against four men.
“Forgive me, gentlemen, by—” murmured the voice, which then uttered only inarticulate sounds.
“They are gagging her! They are going to abduct her!” ejaculated d’Artagnan, raising himself up with a bound. “My sword!—Right! it is by my side!—Planchet!”
“Sir.”
“Run, and seek Athos, Porthos, and Aramis; one of the three must be at home; perhaps all. Tell them to arm themselves, and hasten here. Ah, now I remember Athos is with M. de Treville.”
“But where are you going, sir?—Where are you going?”
“I shall get down through the window,” said d’Artagnan, “that I may be there sooner. Replace the squares, sweep the floor, go out by the door, and hasten whither I have told you.”
“Oh! sir, you will be killed!” cried Planchet.
“Hold your tongue, idiot!” exclaimed d’Artagnan.
Then, grasping the window-sill, he dropped from the first storey, which was fortunately not high, without giving himself even a scratch. He then went immediately and knocked at the door, muttering—
“I in my turn am going to be caught in the mousetrap; but woe betide the cats who shall deal with such a mouse!”
Scarcely had the knocker sounded beneath the young man’s hand, ere the tumult ceased, and footsteps approached. The door was opened, and d’Artagnan, armed with his naked sword, sprang into the apartment of M. Bonancieux. The door, doubtless moved by a spring, closed automatically behind him.
Then might those who yet inhabited the unfortunate house of M. Bonancieux, as well as the nearest neighbours, hear loud outcries, stampings, and the clashing of swords and the continual crash of furniture. After a moment more, those who had looked from their windows to learn the cause of this surprising noise, might see the door open, and four men clothed in black, not merely go out, but fly like frightened crows, leaving on the ground, and at the corners of the house, their feathers and wings, that is to say, portions of their coats and fragments of their cloaks.
D’Artagnan had come off victorious, without much difficulty, it must be confessed; for only one of the officers was armed, and he had only gone through a form of defence. It is quite true that the other three had endeavoured to knock down the young man with chairs, stools, and crockery, but two or three scratches from the Gascon’s sword had scared them. Ten minutes had sufficed for their defeat, and d’Artagnan had remained master of the field of battle.
The neighbours, who had opened their windows with the indifference habitual to the inhabitants of Paris at that season of perpetual disturbances and riots, closed them again when they saw the four men escape; their instinct told them no more was to be seen for the time. Besides, it was getting late; and then, as well