The Snowball by Stanley John Weyman Page B

certainly, if a
good conscience waits on appetite, I had soon abundant evidence on his
behalf. He grew merry and talkative, and, telling me some free tales,
bore himself altogether so naturally that I had begun to deem my
suspicions baseless, when a chance word gave me new grounds for
entertaining them.
    I was on the subject of my morning's employment. Knowing how easily
confidence begets confidence, and that in his position the matter
could not be long kept from him, I told him as a secret where I had
been.
    "I do not wish all the world to know, my friend," I said; "but you are
a discreet man, and it will go no farther. I am just from Du
Hallot's."
    He dropped his napkin and stooped to pick it up again with a gesture
so hasty that it caught my attention and led me to watch him.
Moreover, although my words seemed to call for an answer, he did not
speak until he had taken a deep draught of wine; and then he said
only, "Indeed!" in a tone of such indifference as might at another
time have deceived me, but now was perfectly patent.
    "Yes," I replied, affecting to be engaged with my own plate (we were
eating nuts). "Doubtless you will be able to guess on what subject."
    "I?" he said, as quick to answer as he had before been slow. "No, I
think not."
    "La Fin," I said; "and his statements respecting M. de Biron's
friends."
    "Ah!" he replied, shrugging his shoulders. He had contrived to regain
his composure, but I noticed that his hand shook, and I saw him put a
nut into his mouth with so much salt upon it that he had no choice but
to make a grimace. "They tell me he accuses everybody," he grumbled,
his eyes on his plate. "Even the King is scarcely safe from him. But I
have heard no particulars."
    "They will be known by and by," I answered prudently. And after that I
did not think it wise to speak farther, lest I should give more than I
got; but as soon as he had finished, and we had washed our hands, I
led him to the closet looking on the river, where I was in the habit
of working with my secretaries. I sent them away and sat down with him
to his accounts; but in the position in which I found myself, between
suspicion and perplexity, I could so little command my attention that
I gathered nothing from their items; and had I found another doing the
King's service as negligently I had certainly sent him about his
business. Nevertheless I made some show of auditing them, and had
reached the last roll when something in the fairly written summary,
which closed the account, caught my eye. I bent more closely over it,
and presently making an occasion to carry the parchment into the next
room, compared it with the handwriting on the scrap of paper I had
found in the snowball. A brief scrutiny showed me that they were the
work of the same person!
    I went back to M. Nicholas, and after attesting the accounts, and
making one or two notes, remarked in a careless way on the clearness
of the hand. "I am badly in need of a fourth secretary," I added.
"Your scribe might do for me."
    It did not escape me that once again M. Nicholas looked uncomfortable,
his red face taking a deeper tinge and his hand going nervously to his
pointed gray beard, "I do not think he would do for you," he answered.
    "What is his name?" I asked, purposely bending over the papers and
avoiding his eyes.
    "I have dismissed him," he rejoined curtly. "I do not know where he
could now be found."
    "That is a pity—he writes well," I answered, as if it were nothing
but a whim that led me to pursue the subject. "And good clerks are
scarce. What was his name?"
    "Felix," he said reluctantly.
    I had now all I wanted. Accordingly I spoke of another matter and
shortly afterward Nicholas rose and went. But he left me in a fever of
doubt and suspicion; so that for nearly half an hour I walked up and
down the room, unable to decide whether I should treat the warning of
the snowball with contempt, as the work of a discharged servant, or on
that very account attach the more credit to it. By