The Secret Tomb by Maurice Leblanc

Author:Maurice Leblanc
Language: eng
Format: azw3, epub
Tags: Circus -- Fiction, Treasure troves -- Fiction, Orphans -- Fiction, France -- Fiction, Mystery fiction
Publisher: Standard Ebooks
Published: 2019-08-08T23:13:09+00:00

* * *

It was Saint-Quentin, fol­lowed by the cap­tain, who found Dorothy; and at the sight of her blood-smeared face, they were near­ly be­side them­selves.

“Si­lence,” she com­mand­ed, to cut short their ques­tions. “Yes, I’m wound­ed. But it’s a mere noth­ing. Run to the Baron, cap­tain; catch hold of Go­liath, pat him, and take off his col­lar. In the col­lar, you will find be­hind the met­al plate, on which his name is en­graved, a pock­et, form­ing a lin­ing to it and con­tain­ing the met­al we’re look­ing for. Bring it to me.”

The boy hur­ried off.

“Saint-Quentin,” Dorothy con­tin­ued. “Have the de­tec­tives seen me?”

“No.”

“You must give ev­ery­one to un­der­stand that I left the Manor some time ago and that you’re to meet me at the mar­ket-town, Roche-sur-Yon. I don’t want to be mixed up with the in­quiry. They’ll ex­am­ine me; and it will be a sheer waste of time.”

“But Mon­sieur Dav­er­noie?”

“As soon as you get the chance, tell him. Tell him that I’ve gone for rea­sons which I will ex­plain lat­er, and that I beg him to keep silent about ev­ery­thing that con­cerns us. Be­sides, he is wound­ed, and his mind is con­fused, and no­body will think about me. They’re go­ing to hunt through the hillocks, I ex­pect, to get hold of d’Es­tre­ich­er’s con­fed­er­ates. They mustn’t see me. Cov­er me with branch­es.”

“That’s all right,” she said when he had done so, “As soon as it is get­ting dark, come, all four of you, and car­ry me down to the car­a­van; and we’ll start as soon as it’s day­light. Per­haps I shall be out of sorts for a few days. Rather too much over­work and ex­cite­ment—noth­ing for you to wor­ry about. Do you un­der­stand, my boy?”

“Yes, Dorothy.”

As she had fore­seen, the two de­tec­tives, hav­ing shut up d’Es­tre­ich­er at the Manor, passed at no great dis­tance from her, guid­ed by one of the farm-ser­vants. She present­ly heard them call­ing out and guessed that they had dis­cov­ered the en­trance to the caves of the Labyrinth, down which d’Es­tre­ich­er’s con­fed­er­ates had fled.

“Pur­suit is use­less,” mur­mured Dorothy. “The quar­ry has too long a start.”

She felt ex­haust­ed. But for noth­ing in the world would she have yield­ed to her las­si­tude be­fore the re­turn of the cap­tain. She asked Saint-Quentin how the at­tack had come to be so long de­layed.

“An ac­ci­dent, wasn’t it?”

“Yes,” said he. “The de­tec­tives made a mis­take about the inn; and the farm-ser­vants were late get­ting back from the fête. It was nec­es­sary to col­lect the whole lot; and the car broke down.”

Mont­fau­con came run­ning up. Dorothy went on:

“Per­haps, Saint-Quentin, there’ll be the name of a town, or rather of a château, on the medal. In that case, find out all you can about the route and take the car­a­van there. Did you find it, cap­tain?”

“Yes, mum­my.”

“Give it to me, pet.”

What emo­tion Dorothy felt when she touched the gold medal so keen­ly cov­et­ed by them all, which one might reck­on the most pre­cious of tal­is­mans, as the guar­an­tee even of suc­cess!

It was a medal twice the size of

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