Thinking that Jolival must be still asleep, she turned the handle.
The door opened easily, revealing a disordered room. Since the feminine character of the belongings thus revealed was enough to inform her that she had made a mistake, Marianne withdrew her head and turned to find herself face to face with a chambermaid who was eyeing her suspiciously.
"Was Madame looking for someone?"
"Yes. I thought this was the Vicomte de Jolival's room."
"Madame is mistaken. This room belongs to the Comtesse de Gachet. Monsieur the Vicomte is next door—but I don't think he is there just now."
"What do you know about it?" Marianne asked crossly, disliking the girl's tone. "I hardly think he'd tell you where he was going?"
"Oh, no, Madame! It's only that I saw him go out at about eight o'clock. He asked for a horse to be saddled and rode off in the direction of the harbor. Does Madame require anything further?"
"No… that will do, thank you."
Marianne walked back to her own room, feeling puzzled and out of sorts. Where the devil had Jolival run off to at this hour of the morning? And why had he said nothing to her?
She had grown accustomed to the vicomte's solitary expeditions, for he seemed to possess a peculiar faculty of making himself understood anywhere in the world and of finding out whatever he wanted to know. But here in this city where civilization was as yet only skin deep, a thin varnish on the surface of barbarism, it was uncomfortable to feel herself alone, even if only for an hour or two and in surroundings as typically French as the Hotel Ducroux.
The chambermaid had said that he had ridden toward the harbor. Why? Was he going to look for the Sea Witch or to explore the neighborhood of the old citadel in the hope of hearing some news of Jason? Or perhaps both?
She paced about her room for a while, uncertain what to do. She was longing to go out herself and begin inquiries on her own account but dared not for fear of missing Jolival if he should return with any news. As time passed she grew increasingly bored and discontented at being obliged to remain indoors when she wanted so badly to go out and start her own search for Jason. She unpacked her boxes and packed them again, did her hair afresh, put on a hat to go out after all, then took it off again and cast herself into a chair, took up a book and threw it down, and finally donned her hat once more with the intention of going down at least as far as the front door and finding out from Ducroux whether any word had come for her from the governor's palace.
She was tying the wide sea-green crepe ribbons under her chin when all of a sudden an uproar exploded in the hotel. There were loud shouts and the sound of running feet in the passage, with a shrill voice shrieking in some foreign language, followed by the tramp of heavy-booted feet approaching, accompanied by a clash of arms.
Full of curiosity, Marianne was on her way to her door when it was flung open abruptly. In the opening, his shocked face whiter than his shirt, stood the hotel proprietor. He was accompanied by a law officer and two armed soldiers, and he looked like a man in extreme stages of embarrassment.
Marianne stared indignantly at the intruders.
"May I ask, Maître Ducroux, what this means?" she asked icily. "What kind of hotel do you call this? Who gave you permission to enter my room uninvited?"
"Indeed, Mademoiselle, it is not my fault," the man stammered wretchedly. "Believe me, I should never dream of… It is these gentlemen—" he finished, indicating the three Russians.
Meanwhile, disregarding both him and Marianne completely, the officer had stalked into the room and was flinging open trunks and boxes and tossing out the contents in such a cavalier fashion that Marianne lost her temper.
"This is your hotel, is it not? Then get these men out of here this instant unless you want me to complain to the governor! Gentlemen, you call them! I don't want to know what they think they're doing. Get them out!"
"Indeed, I can't help it. They insist on searching this room."
"But whatever for? Will you tell me that?"
Racked by the glittering green eyes that seemed able to flay him alive, Ducroux tugged awkwardly at his shirt cuffs and kept his eyes fixed firmly on the ground at Marianne's feet, as though expecting the answer to come from there. A curt command from the officer seemed to force him to a decision at last and he lifted his unhappy gaze to hers.
"There has been a complaint," he said almost inaudibly. "A lady, a guest in the hotel, has missed a valuable jewel. She insists on a search of the whole building and—and unfortunately one of the maids saw you, Mademoiselle, coming out of the lady's room this morning."
Marianne's heart seemed to stop dead and the blood mounted to her cheeks.
"A valuable jewel, did you say? Who is this woman?"
"Madame de Gachet! She has been robbed of a very large, pear-shaped diamond—a teardrop, she calls it. It was an heirloom… she is making a great deal of fuss…"
Inevitably, the diamond was discovered a moment later in Marianne's reticule and, despite her furious protests as she realized too late the trap into which she had fallen out of pure innocence, she was dragged roughly from her room with a soldier on either side and hurried out of the hotel, watched by a large crowd which had been drawn up to the Hotel Ducroux by the uproar.
Without further warning she found herself hustled into a closed carriage, which had been hurriedly fetched, and driven away rapidly in the direction of the citadel, which she had been so anxious to visit only a short while before. They had not given her time to utter so much as a single protest.
Chapter 9
The General of the Shadows
THE ancient Podolian stronghold of Khadjibey, rebuilt by the Turks and recovered by the Russians, had no doubt gained in strength and impregnability under its different owners but by no means in comfort. The cell into which Marianne was thrust unceremoniously, foaming with rage, was small and damp with grimy walls and a triple-barred window looking out at a gray wall and a line of stunted trees. Even the sight of these trees, however, was forbidden to the prisoners since the window glass had everywhere been whitewashed over so that a kind of fog seemed to hang over the prison even in bright sunshine.
The only furniture was a bed, consisting of nothing more than a plank and some straw, a heavy table and a stool, all three items bolted to the floor. An oil lamp stood in a recess but even this was behind bars, as though for fear the occupants of the cell might try to set fire to it.
After the massive door slammed shut behind her, Marianne remained for a moment sitting dazedly on the straw mattress where her guards had thrown her. It had all occurred so quickly that she could hardly take in where she was or what had happened to her.
There had been that woman, the wretched creature who had used her father's name as an excuse to reach her, to melt her heart and so get money from her! But what was the purpose of this charade? To obtain the money and ensure that she was spared the necessity of paying it back? That seemed to be the only explanation, for it was impossible to think of any other motive for such a diabolical trick. Revenge or feminine jealousy was ruled out since she and Madame de Gachet had only set eyes on one another for the first time in the entrance hall of the hotel. Marianne could not remember ever having heard her name mentioned before and even Jolival, although thinking he had met that devil in female form somewhere, could not recall when or where, or even put a name to her.
As her initial bewilderment passed, Marianne was seized again by the anger which had swept over her as she found herself apprehended like a common thief. With a roaring in her head and a red light before her eyes, she saw again the officer's triumphant expression as he pulled the diamond from her bag, the anger and mortification on the hotel proprietor's face and the gaping wonder of those other inmates of the hotel who had been attracted by the fuss at the sight of the magnificent stone.