The Secret of Sarek - Maurice Leblanc (easy to read books for adults list TXT) 📗

“Otto! Otto!”

“Halt! Who goes there?” answered Otto, in a scared voice.

“It’s me.⁠ ⁠… Damn you, don’t fire!”

“Who’s there? You?”

“Yes, yes, you fool.”

“But the two shots?”

“Nothing.⁠ ⁠… A mistake.⁠ ⁠… We’ll tell you about it.⁠ ⁠…”

He was now close to the oak and, at once, taking up the lantern, turned its rays upon his victim. She had not moved and lay stretched at the foot of the tree, with her head wrapped in the veil.

“Ah!” he said. “I breathe again! Hang it, how frightened I was!”

“Frightened of what?”

“Of their taking her from us, of course!”

“Well, wasn’t I here?”

“Oh, you! You’ve got no more pluck than a louse⁠ ⁠… and, if they had gone for you⁠ ⁠…”

“I should have fired, at any rate. You’d have heard the signal.”

“May be. Well, did nothing happen?”

“Nothing at all.”

“Her ladyship didn’t carry on too much?”

“She did at first. She moaned and groaned under her hood, until I lost all patience.”

“And then?”

“Oh, then! It didn’t last long: I stunned her with a good blow of my fist.”

“You brute!” exclaimed Vorski. “If you’ve killed her, you’re a dead man.”

He plumped down and glued his ear to his unfortunate victim’s breast.

“No,” he said, presently, “her heart is still beating. But that may not last long. To work, lads. It must all be over in ten minutes.”

The preparations were soon made; and Vorski himself took an active part in them. Resting the ladder against the trunk of the tree, he passed one end of the rope round his victim and the other over one of the upper branches. Then, standing on the bottom rung, he instructed his accomplices:

“Here, all you’ve got to do now is to pull. Get her on her feet first and one of you keep her from falling.”

He waited a moment. But Otto and Conrad were whispering to each other; and he exclaimed:

“Look here, hurry up, will you?⁠ ⁠… Remember I’m making a pretty easy target, if they took it into their heads to send a bullet or an arrow at me. Are you ready?”

The two assistants did not reply.

“Well, this is a bit thick! What’s the matter with you? Otto! Conrad!”

He leapt to the ground and shook them:

“You’re a pair of nice ones, you are! At this rate, we should still be at it tomorrow morning⁠ ⁠… and the whole thing will miscarry.⁠ ⁠… Answer me, Otto, can’t you?” He turned the light full on Otto’s face. “Look here, what’s all this about? Are you wriggling out of it? If so, you’d better say so! And you, Conrad? Are you both going on strike?”

Otto wagged his head:

“On strike⁠ ⁠… that’s saying a lot. But Conrad and I would like a word or two of explanation?”

“Explanation? What about, you pudding-head? About the lady we’re executing? About either of the two brats? It’s no use taking that line, my man. I said to you, when I first mentioned the business, ‘Will you go to work blindfold? There’ll be a tough job and plenty of bloodshed. But there’s big money at the end of it.’ ”

“That’s the whole question,” said Otto.

“Say what you mean, you jackass!”

“It’s for you to say and repeat the terms of our agreement. What are they?”

“You know as well as I do.”

“Exactly, it’s to remind you of them that I’m asking you to repeat them.”

“I remember them exactly. I get the treasure; and out of the treasure I pay you two hundred thousand francs between the two of you.”

“That’s so and it’s not quite so. We’ll come back to that. Let’s begin by talking of this famous treasure. Here have we been grinding away for weeks, wallowing in blood, living in a nightmare of every sort of crime⁠ ⁠… and not a thing in sight!”

Vorski shrugged his shoulders:

“You’re getting denser and denser, my poor Otto! You know there were certain things to be done first. They’re all done, except one. In a few minutes, this will be finished too and the treasure will be ours!”

“How do we know?”

“Do you think I’d have done all that I have done, if I wasn’t sure of the result⁠ ⁠… as sure as I am that I’m alive? Everything has happened in a certain given order. It was all predetermined. The last thing will come at the hour foretold and will open the gate for me.”

“The gate of hell,” sneered Otto, “as I heard Maguennoc call it.”

“Call it by that name or another, it opens on the treasure which I shall have won.”

“Very well,” said Otto, impressed by Vorski’s tone of conviction, “very well. I’m willing to believe you’re right. But what’s to tell us that we shall have our share?”

“You shall have your share for the simple reason that the possession of the treasure will provide me with such indescribable wealth that I’m not likely to risk having trouble with you two fellows for the sake of a couple of hundred thousand francs.”

“So we have your word?”

“Of course.”

“Your word that all the clauses of our agreement shall be respected.”

“Of course. What are you driving at?”

“This, that you’ve begun to trick us in the meanest way by breaking one of the clauses of the agreement.”

“What’s that? What are you talking about? Do you realize whom you’re speaking to?”

“I’m speaking to you, Vorski.”

Vorski laid violent hands on his accomplice:

“What’s this? You dare to insult me? To call me by my name, me, me?”

“What of it, seeing that you’ve robbed me of what’s mine by rights?”

Vorski controlled himself and, in a voice trembling with anger:

“Say what you have to say and be careful, my man, for you’re playing a dangerous game. Speak out.”

“It’s this,” said Otto. “Apart from the treasure, apart from the two hundred thousand francs, it was arranged between us⁠—you held up your hand and took your oath on it⁠—that any loose cash found by either of us in the course of the business would be divided in equal shares: half for you, half for Conrad and myself. Is that so?”

“That’s so.”

“Then pay up,” said Otto, holding out his hand.

“Pay