Cromwell's House.
It was, in fact, Mordaunt whom D'Artagnan had followed, without knowing it. On entering the house he had taken off his mask and imitation beard, then, mounting a staircase, had opened a door, and in a room lighted by a single lamp found himself face to face with a man seated behind a desk.
This man was Cromwell.
Cromwell had two or three of these retreats in London, unknown except to the most intimate of his friends. Mordaunt was among these.
"It is you, Mordaunt," he said. "You are late."
"General, I wished to see the ceremony to the end, which delayed me."
"Ah! I scarcely thought you were so curious as that."
"I am always curious to see the downfall of your honor's enemies, and he was not among the least of them. But you, general, were you not at Whitehall?"
"No," said Cromwell.
There was a moment's silence.
"Have you had any account of it?"
"None. I have been here since the morning. I only know that there was a conspiracy to rescue the king."
"Ah, you knew that?" said Mordaunt.
"It matters little. Four men, disguised as workmen, were to get the king out of prison and take him to Greenwich, where a vessel was waiting."
"And knowing all that, your honor remained here, far from the city, tranquil and inactive."
"Tranquil, yes," replied Cromwell. "But who told you I was inactive?"
"But -- if the plot had succeeded?"
"I wished it to do so."
"I thought your excellence considered the death of Charles I. as a misfortune necessary to the welfare of England."
"Yes, his death; but it would have been more seemly not upon the scaffold."
"Why so?" asked Mordaunt.
Cromwell smiled. "Because it could have been said that I had had him condemned for the sake of justice and had let him escape out of pity."
"But if he had escaped?"
"Impossible; my precautions were taken."
"And does your honor know the four men who undertook to rescue him?"
"The four Frenchmen, of whom two were sent by the queen to her husband and two by Mazarin to me."
"And do you think Mazarin commissioned them to act as they have done?"
"It is possible. But he will not avow it."
"How so?"
"Because they failed."
"Your honor gave me two of these Frenchmen when they were only guilty of fighting for Charles I. Now that they are guilty of a conspiracy against England will your honor give me all four of them?"
"Take them," said Cromwell.
Mordaunt bowed with a smile of triumphant ferocity.
"Did the people shout at all?" Cromwell asked.
"Very little, except `Long live Cromwell!'"
"Where were you placed?"
Mordaunt tried for a moment to read in the general's face if this was simply a useless question, or whether he knew everything. But his piercing eyes could by no means penetrate the sombre depths of Cromwell's.
"I was so situated as to hear and see everything," he answered.
It was now Cromwell's turn to look fixedly at Mordaunt, and Mordaunt to make himself impenetrable.
"It appears," said Cromwell, "that this improvised executioner did his duty remarkably well. The blow, so they tell me at least, was struck with a master's hand."
Mordaunt remembered that Cromwell had told him he had had no detailed account, and he was now quite convinced that the general had been present at the execution, hidden behind some screen or curtain.
"In fact," said Mordaunt, with a calm voice and immovable countenance, "a single blow sufficed."
"Perhaps it was some one in that occupation," said Cromwell.
"Do you think so, sir? He did not look like an executioner."
"And who else save an executioner would have wished to fill that horrible office?"
"But," said Mordaunt, "it might have been some personal enemy of the king, who had made a vow of vengeance and accomplished it in this way. Perhaps it was some man of rank who had grave reasons for hating the fallen king, and who, learning that the king was about to flee and escape him, threw himself in the way, with a mask on his face and an axe in his hand, not as substitute for the executioner, but as an ambassador of Fate."
"Possibly."
"And if that were the case would your honor condemn his action?"
"It is not for me to judge. It rests between his conscience and his God."
"But if your honor knew this man?"
"I neither know nor wish to know him. Provided Charles is dead, it is the axe, not the man, we must thank."
"And yet, without the man, the king would have been rescued."
Cromwell smiled.
"They would have carried him to Greenwich," he said, "and put him on board a felucca with five barrels of powder in the hold. Once out to sea, you are too good a politician not to understand the rest, Mordaunt."
"Yes, they would have all been blown up."