World Literature Classics Library: The Count of Monte Cristo

Chapter 155 The Thief (1)
On the second day of Andra's meeting with Caderousse, the Count of Monte Cristo took Ali and several other servants to Auteuil, and he also took some horses to try them out.The count had not planned to go to Auteuil the day before, and Andrea did not expect that he would, but as soon as Beticio arrived, the count immediately decided to go to Auteuil.Betticio had come from Normandy with news of the house purchased there and of the boat.The house was settled, the boat had arrived a week before, and was now moored in a small bay, and the six sailors on board had all the formalities completed and were ready to go to sea at any time.The count praised Betticio's ability to do things well, and also ordered him to prepare to leave there soon, because he would not stay in France for more than a month at most.

"Now," said the count to Beticio, "I need to travel from Paris to Le Trepo in one night, and I want eight horses to go along the way, so that I can cover fifty miles in ten hours." Li (Guri, France, about four kilometers.).”

"Your Excellency once mentioned the meaning of this aspect," Beticio replied, "the horses are all ready, I have chosen them myself, and I have chosen a place to put them. The place I chose is the most suitable place. Because they are all in villages where no one goes.”

"Very well," said Monte Cristo, "I will stay here for a day or two, and you will do as I have just said."

Beticio was about to go out to make arrangements for a day or two when Battistan opened the door and came in with a letter on a gilded silver tray in his hand.

"What is your business here?" asked the count, seeing that he was covered in dust. "It seems that I didn't ask you to come?"

Baptistan didn't answer, but walked towards the count and handed the letter. "This letter is extremely important and urgent," he said.

The count opened the letter and read:
Mr. Count of Monte Cristo: Someone is going to sneak into the residence of the Count on the Champs-Elysées tonight, trying to steal some documents that he thinks are hidden on the bathroom desk.The Count of Monte Cristo is known to be so courageous and courageous that it seems unnecessary to resort to the police authorities, and the intervention of the police may seriously impair the person who disclosed the information.Mr. Earl only needs to push the door from the bedroom to enter the bathroom, or hide in the bathroom beforehand, and he can win by surprise.If there are a large number of people and guard against exposure to the public, the gangster will definitely be kept out of the door. However, the Count of Monte Cristo also missed the opportunity and will not be able to identify the enemy.It was a coincidence that the person who reported to the earl learned of this situation. If the gangster attempted to steal this time, and the old tricks were repeated in the future, the person who reported the letter may not have the luck to report again.

After reading the letter, the count felt at first that it was a burglar's trick, a naked trap designed to confuse him with an insignificant danger, so that he would be unaware of a really serious danger.Therefore, although this friend, who did not want to be named, warned in the letter, or because of the letter, the count still wanted to send this letter to the police chief, but he suddenly thought about it, maybe It really is an old enemy that only he himself can recognize, and if so, only he can do it. He was the protagonist in the play of the same name written by Fiesco German dramatist Schiller.This is how he took advantage of the Moor who tried to assassinate him.Readers already know the earl very well, so there is no need to talk about how he is fearless and courageous, what superhuman perseverance he has, how persevering he is, and how he turned the inability into ability.Out of his life experience, out of his long-awaited determination that never gives up halfway, he fought with nature, that is to say, with God, he fought with human society, or he can be said to fight with the devil, and now he has begun to taste To the fun that is not experienced by ordinary people.

"They didn't come to steal my papers," said Monte Cristo, "they wanted to kill me. These people are not thieves, they are murderers. I don't want the chief of police to meddle in my own affairs. I have money, really. If you have money, it saves the police department from digging into the budget for this case."

Baptistan left the room after delivering the letter, and the count called him back. "Go back to Paris," said the count, "and bring here all the servants who have been left there. I demand that all come to Otto. Yi."

"But is there no one left in that house, Monsieur Count?" asked Baptistan.

"No, the porter stays."

"Mr. Earl, please think twice. There is still a long way from the gatehouse to the main building."

"Ok?"

"Well, everything in the building has been stolen, and the porter can't hear a sound."

"Who stole it?"

"Of course it's a thief!
"You're too ignorant, Mr. Baptistan. What's the matter with the burglar stealing the whole building? I'm only annoyed if I don't do what I ordered."

Baptistan bowed.

"You hear me well," continued the count, "bring here all your companions, and leave none behind, and everything else will be as usual, and you will close the shutters on the ground floor, and that will do."

"What about upstairs?"

"You know the shutters are never drawn upstairs. You go."

The count sent word that he would dine alone in his room, if Ali should come and wait on him.He ate a little at his leisure, as usual.When dinner was over, he motioned for Ali to follow him.The count then went out of the wicket, slipped like a stroll into the Bois de Boulogne, then casually took the road to Paris, and by the time it was getting dark, he was already in the Rue d'Elysées opposite his small house.

The whole small building was pitch-dark, and there was only a faint solitary lamp shining in the gatehouse.Baptistan was right, the porter was about forty steps away from the main building.Monte Cristo, leaning against a tree, searched the two-lane avenue with his almost imperceptible eyes for all the passers-by, and cast his eyes on the side roads to see if anyone was secretly walking. hide there.He watched like this for 10 minutes, making sure that no one was staring at him, so he immediately ran to the small gate with Ali, walked into the courtyard with a bang, and then used the key he carried with him to open the stairs used by the servants to go up and down. door, and went upstairs to his bedroom.The window curtains of the room were already drawn, but he didn't open them, or even touch them.The janitor thought that the building was empty, so he never expected the owner to return to the building.

Once in the bedroom, the count signaled Ali to stand still, and then he went into the bathroom by himself. He checked carefully. Everything was as usual, the precious writing desk was still in place, and the key was still hanging in the drawer.He turned the key twice to lock the drawer, pulled out the key, retreated to the bedroom door, pulled out the double lock bolt on the door, and then returned to the bedroom.Ali took advantage of this time to arrange on the table the weapons the count had ordered him to bring, namely, a carbine and a pair of double-barreled pistols--pistols with two barrels stacked on top of each other, which are as easy as target pistols. aim.With these weapons in hand, the count can say that the lives of five people are all in his hands.

It was nearly nine-thirty in the evening, and the count and Ali had a quick loaf of bread and a glass of Spanish wine.Monte Cristo then opened a trap, so that he could see the next door without leaving the house, and he had his pistol and his carbine at hand.Ali stood beside him, holding in his hand a small Arabian ax which had remained unchanged since the Crusades.There was a window in the bedroom parallel to the bathroom window, from which the count could see the road outside.

Two hours passed in this way, in the darkness of night, but Ali, by his untrained nature, and the Count, by his evident practice, were both able to look around in the darkness, even They could clearly see the slightest swaying of the leaves in the courtyard.The little lamp in the caretaker's room had long been extinguished.It seemed that if someone was going to do something wrong, they should have slipped into the ground floor and then upstairs instead of coming in through the window.Monte Cristo always felt that the gangsters were coming to kill him, not for his money, so the place where they killed him was his bedroom, and to enter his bedroom, he either came from the dark building or jumped in through the bathroom window. .He told Ali to stand guard at the door of the stairs, while he continued to stare at the bathroom.

The big clock of the Invalides struck quarter to eleven, and with the bursts of moisture from the west wind, there were three mournful and trembling bells.The last sound had just died away, and it seemed to the count that he heard a soft sound from the toilet, which had just ended, or rather, had just been heard a creak, followed by a second creak. Two strokes, and then a third stroke.Hearing the fourth sound, the count knew what was going on. It turned out that a strong and powerful hand was skilfully scratching the four sides of a pane of glass on the window with a diamond.The count suddenly felt his heart pounding.No matter how well-tested a man is, no matter how well-knowledgeed he is about the dangers he faces, when he feels his heart beating and his body trembling, he experiences a dream. A far cry from reality, plan and implementation are very different.Monte Cristo then made a sign to Ali, who immediately understood that the danger lay in the bathroom.Ali took a step forward and stood beside his master.At this moment Monte Cristo was anxious to know what kind of enemy he was approaching, and how many he had to deal with.

Monte Cristo stood at the door opening of the bedroom, and he could see the bathroom at a glance. The window that the gangster was playing with was directly opposite the door opening where Monte Cristo stood, and Monte Cristo could stare at that window intently.He saw a darker shadow appearing in front of the dark window, and then the glass on the window became black, as if it had been pasted with a layer of paper from the outside, and then a piece of glass rattled, but nothing happened. fall down.There was a hole in the glass, and an arm was thrust in, and was feeling for the handle of the long latch on the window, when in a second the window was pushed open slightly, and a man jumped in from outside, but It's just that one person. "The rascal is really audacious," said the count secretly.

At this moment, the count felt that Ali patted him lightly on the shoulder, and he immediately turned his head. Ali pointed out to him the window of the bedroom where they were sitting. The window was opposite the street. Monte Cristo took three steps towards the window , he knew that this loyal servant felt very sensitive.Sure enough, he saw another person by the door, and saw that person stepping on the cornerstone of the wall, as if he was visiting the earl's residence. "Okay!" said the count, "there are two of them, one to fight and the other to let go."

The Count motioned Ali to keep an eye on the man in the street, while he himself turned to deal with the guy in the bathroom.After the gangster broke through the glass and jumped into the bathroom, he was walking slowly with his arms raised in front of his chest.Finally, he seemed to have figured out the situation in the house. There were two doors in the bathroom, and he wanted to put the latches on both doors.Just as he was approaching the door of the bedroom, Monte Cristo thought the fellow would come in, so he took a pistol ready, but the count only heard the click of the brass catch on the latch, and it turned out that the midnight visitor had locked the door. Just in case, but he didn't know that the earl had already pulled out the lock spring on the bolt, but he thought that it was safe now, so he could do it boldly and safely.

The guy thought he was the only one in the room, so he let go and got ready to fuck.He took something out of his wide pocket - the Count knew what it was at a glance.The man put the thing on the round table, then went straight to the writing desk, reached out to feel for the lock on the drawer, only to find that, completely to his surprise, there was no key in the lock of the drawer.However, this person not only knows how to scratch glass, but also works meticulously, thinking of everything in advance.After a while, the count heard the tinkling sound of the keychain shaking like iron plates. The keychain was full of keys of indeterminate shape.When we went to locksmiths to open the door, they brought this kind of key chain. The burglars called it "Nightingale". Listen to this serenade. "Ah! ah!" said Monte Cristo to himself, with a disappointed smile on his lips, "it is only a thief."

But the room was pitch dark, and the guy couldn't find the right key, so he went to get the thing that had just been put on the round table, moved the spring on it, and the thing shot out a dim yellow light at once, but with The light was bright enough to illuminate things, and the dim yellow light really illuminated the guy's hands and face. "Hey!" said Monte Cristo, startled, and retreating a step, "it is..." Ali immediately raised his axe. "Stay still," said Monte Cristo softly to Ali; "put down the axe, we have no need for weapons here now."

Then the count said a few more words, but he lowered his voice, because just now he screamed, although his voice could not be lowered, but it still made the guy over there tremble with fright, and he looked like Like the knife sharpeners in ancient times, the cat's waist is curled up.The count had just given orders to Ali, and Ali tiptoed to the bedroom wall, and took off a black robe and a three-cornered hat.At this moment Monte Cristo quickly took off his coat, waistcoat and shirt.There was a ray of light through the cracks in the panel, and it was just possible to see that the earl was still wrapped in a delicate and soft steel waistcoat.Now that we are safe from daggers in France, Louis XVI may have been the last to wear such a waistcoat, for fear of getting a knife in the chest, which turned out to be an ax to the head.In an instant the count put on the priest's robe, covered the steel wire vest tightly, put on a wig imitating the priest's dome, covered his real hair, and finally put on the three-cornered hat on the wig. Suddenly the earl became a long-haired man.

(End of this chapter)