PANIC
Dijon--Macon--Lyons--certainly the boy could not be sleeping all
this time. I called him softly and he did not reply, but I would
have wagered my hand that he was not sleeping. What was he planning?
How quiet he was! What could it be that had given him such a strange
calmness? I seemed to see him again as he had been in the parlor,
suddenly standing erect as he said: “Let us go on!” in that voice so
composed and tranquil and resolute. Go on to whom? Toward what was he
resolved to go? Toward Her, evidently, who was in danger, and who could
be rescued only by him--toward her who was his mother and who did not
know it.
“It is a secret which must remain between you and me! That child is
dead to the whole world, except to us two!”
That was his decision, taken almost in a single moment, never to reveal
himself to her. And the poor child had come to seek the certainty that
she was indeed the Lady in Black, only to have the right to speak to
her! In the very moment that the assurance which he sought was his, he
had determined to forget it; he condemned himself to endless silence.
Poor little hero soul, which had understood that the Lady in Black,
who had such dire need of his help, would have shrunk from a safety
bought by the warfare of a son against his father! Where might not such
warfare lead? To what bloody conflict? Everything must be expected, no
matter how terrible, and Rouletabille must have his hands free to fight
to the death for the Lady in Black.
The boy was so quiet that I could not even hear him breathing. I leaned
over him; his eyes were open.
“Do you know what I have been thinking of?” he said. “Of the dispatch
that came to us from Bourg and was signed ‘Darzac,’ and the other
dispatch which came from Valence and was signed ‘Stangerson.’”
“And the more I think of them, the stranger they seem to me. At Bourg,
M. and Mme. Darzac were not with M. Stangerson, who left them at Dijon.
Besides, the dispatch says: ‘We are going to rejoin M. Stangerson.’ But
the Stangerson dispatch proves that M. Stangerson, who had continued on
his journey toward Marseilles, is again with the Darzacs. The Darzacs
might have rejoined M. Stangerson on the way to Marseilles; but if that
were so, the Professor must have stopped on the road. Why was this?
He did not expect to do so. At the train, he said: ‘To-morrow at ten
o’clock, I shall be at Mentone.’ Look at the hour that the dispatch was
sent from Valence, and then we’ll look in the time table and find out
the hour at which M. Stangerson would have passed through Valence if he
had not stopped upon the journey.”
We consulted the time table. M. Stangerson should have passed through
Valence at 12:44 o’clock in the morning, and the dispatch was sent at
12:47 o’clock. It had, therefore, been sent by M. Stangerson while he
was continuing on the trip which he had planned. At that moment he
must have been with M. and Mme. Darzac. Still poring over the time
table, we endeavored to solve the mystery of this re-encounter. M.
Stangerson had left the Darzacs at Dijon, where the whole party had
arrived at twenty-seven minutes after six o’clock in the evening. The
Professor had then taken the train which leaves Dijon at eight minutes
past seven, and had arrived at Lyons at four minutes after ten and at
Valence at forty-seven minutes after midnight. During the same time
the Darzacs, leaving Dijon at seven o’clock, continued on their way
to Modane, and, by way of Saint-Amour, reached Bourg at three minutes
past nine in the evening, on the train which was scheduled to leave
at eight minutes past nine. M. Darzac’s dispatch was sent from Bourg,
and had left the telegraph office at the station at 9:28. The Darzacs,
therefore, must have left their train at Bourg, and remained there. Or,
it might have happened that the train was late. In any case, we must
seek the reason for M. Darzac’s telegram somewhere between Dijon and
Bourg, after the departure of M. Stangerson. One might even go further,
and say ‘between Louhans and Bourg,’ for the train stops at Louhans,
and if anything had happened before he reached there, at eight o’clock,
it is altogether likely that M. Darzac would have sent his message from
that station.
Finally, seeking the correspondence between Bourg and Lyons, we
reasoned that M. Darzac must have sent his wire from Bourg one minute
before leaving for Lyons by the 9:29 train. But this train reached
Lyons at 10:23 o’clock, while M. Stangerson’s train reached Lyons at
10:24. After changing their plans and leaving the train at Bourg, M.
and Mme. Darzac must have rejoined M. Stangerson at Lyons, which they
reached one minute before him. Now, what had upset their plans? We
could only think of the most terrible hypotheses, every one of which,
alas! had as its basis the reappearance of Larsan. The fact which gave
the greatest color to this idea was the desire expressed by each of
our friends, _not to frighten anyone_. M. Darzac in his message,
Mme. Darzac in hers, had not endeavored to conceal the gravity of the
situation. As to M. Stangerson, we asked ourselves whether he had been
made aware of the new developments, whatever they might be.
Having thus approximately settled the question of time and distance,
Rouletabille invited me to profit by the luxurious accommodations which
the International Sleeping Car company places at the disposal of those
who wish to sleep while on a journey, and he himself set me the example
by making as careful a night toilet as he would have done in his own
room at his hotel. A quarter of an hour later he was snoring, but I
believed the snores to be feigned. At any rate, I could not sleep.
At Avignon Rouletabille jumped up from his cot, hastily donned his
trousers and coat, and rushed out to the refreshment rooms to get a
cup of chocolate. I was not hungry. From Avignon to Marseilles, in our
anxiety and suspense, neither of us desired to talk, and the journey
was continued almost in silence, but at the sight of the city in which
he had led such a chequered existence, Rouletabille, doubtless to keep
from showing the emotion which he felt, and to lighten the heaviness of
both our hearts as we drew near our journey’s end, began to tell funny
stories, in the narration of which, however, he did not seem to find
the least amusement. I scarcely heard what he was saying. And at last
we reached Toulon.
What a trip! And it might have been so beautiful! Ordinarily, it is
always with an almost boyish enthusiasm that I come within sight of
this marvellous country, with its azure shores, like a bit of dreamland
or a corner of paradise after the horrible departure from Paris in the
snow and rain and darkness and dampness and dirt. With what joy that
night, had things been otherwise, would I have set my foot upon the
quay, sure of finding the glorious friend who would be waiting for
me in the morning at the end of those two iron rails--the wonderful
southern sun!
When we left Toulon, our impatience became extreme. And at Cannes, we
were scarcely surprised at all to see M. Darzac upon the platform of
the station, anxiously looking for us. He could scarcely have received
the dispatch which Rouletabille had sent him from Dijon, announcing the
hour at which we would reach Mentone. Having arrived there with Mme.
Darzac and M. Stangerson the day before, at ten o’clock in the morning,
he must have left Mentone almost at once, and have come to meet us at
Cannes, for we could understand from his dispatch that he had something
to say to us in confidence. His face looked worn and sad. Somehow, it
frightened us only to look at him.
“Trouble?” questioned Rouletabille, briefly.
“No, not yet,” was the reply.
“God be praised!” exclaimed Rouletabille, having a deep sigh. “We have
come in time!”
M. Darzac said simply:
“I thank you for coming.”
And he pressed both our hands in silence, following us into our
compartment, in which we locked ourselves, taking care to draw the
curtains and so isolate ourselves completely. When we were comfortably
settled, and the train had begun to move on, our friend spoke again.
His voice trembled so that he could scarcely utter the words.
“Well,” he said; “he is not dead.”
“We suspected it!” interrupted Rouletabille. “But are you sure?”
“I have seen him as surely as I have seen you.”
“And has Mme. Darzac seen him?”
“Alas, yes! But it is necessary that we should use every means to make
her believe that it was an illusion. I could not bear it if she were
to lose her mind again, poor, innocent, wretched girl! Ah, my friends,
what a fatality pursues us! What has this man come back to do to us?
What does he want now?”
I looked at Rouletabille. His face was even more full of grief than
that of M. Darzac. The blow which he feared had fallen. He leaned back
against the cushions as though he were going to faint. There was a
brief pause, and then M. Darzac spoke again:
“Listen! This man must disappear--he must be gotten rid of! We must
go to him and ask what it is that he wants. If it is money, he may
take all that I have. If he will not go, I shall kill him. It is very
simple--after all, I think that would be the simplest way. Don’t you
think so, too?”
We could not answer. It was too pitiful. Rouletabille, overcoming his
own feelings by a visible effort, engaged M. Darzac in conversation,
endeavoring to calm him, and asking him to tell us what had happened
since his departure from Paris.
And he told us that the event which had changed the face of his
existence had taken place at Bourg, just as we had thought. Two
compartments of the sleeping car had been reserved by M. Darzac, and
these compartments were joined by a little dressing room. In one had
been placed the travelling bag with the toilet articles of Mme. Darzac,
and in the other the smaller packages. It was in the latter compartment
that the Darzacs and Professor Stangerson had travelled from Paris to
Dijon, where the three had left the train, and had dined at the buffet.
They had arrived at 6:27 o’clock, exactly on time, and M. Stangerson
had left Dijon at eight minutes after seven, and the Darzacs at just
seven o’clock.
The Professor had bidden adieu to his daughter and his son-in-law
upon the platform of the station after dinner. M. and Mme. Darzac had
returned to their compartment--the one in which the small parcels had
been deposited--and remained at the window, chatting with the Professor
until the train started. As it steamed out of the station, the newly
wedded pair looked back and waved their hands to M. Stangerson, who
was still standing upon the platform, throwing kisses at them from the
distance.
From Dijon to Bourg neither M. nor Mme. Darzac had occasion to enter
the adjacent compartment, where Mme. Darzac’s night bag had been
placed. The door of this compartment, opening upon the vestibule, had
been closed at Paris, as soon as the baggage had been brought there.
But the door had not been locked, either upon the outside with a key
by the porter, nor on the inside with the bolt by the Darzacs. The
curtain of the glass door had been drawn over the pane from the inside
by M. Darzac in such a way that no one could look into the compartment
from the corridor. But the curtain between the two compartments had
not been drawn. All of these circumstances were brought out by the
questions asked by Rouletabille of M. Darzac, and, although I could not
understand his reasons for going into such minute detail, I give the
facts in order to make the condition under which the journey of the
Darzacs to Bourg and of M. Stangerson to Dijon was accomplished.
When they reached Bourg our travellers learned that, on account of
an accident on the line at Culoz, the train would be delayed for an
hour and a half. M. and Mme. Darzac alighted and took a stroll on the
platform. M. Darzac, while talking with his wife, mentioned the fact
that he had forgotten to write some important letters before leaving
Paris. Both entered the buffet, and M. Darzac asked for writing
materials. Mathilde sat beside him for a few moments and then remarked
that she would take a little walk through the station while he finished
his letters.
“Very well,” replied M. Darzac. “As soon as I have finished, I will
join you.”
From that point, I will quote M. Darzac’s own words:
“I had finished writing,” he said. “And I arose to go and look for
Mathilde, when I saw her approaching the buffet, pallid and trembling.
As soon as she perceived me, she uttered a shriek and threw herself
into my arms. ‘Oh, my God!’ she cried. ‘Oh, my God!’ It seemed
impossible for her to utter any other words. She was shaking from
head to foot. I tried to calm her. I assured her that she had nothing
to fear when I was with her, and I strove as gently and patiently as
I could to draw from her the cause of her sudden terror. I made her
sit down, for her limbs seemed too weak to support her, and I begged
her to take some restorative, but she told me that she could not even
swallow a drop of water. Her teeth chattered as though she had an
ague. At length she was able to speak, and she told me, interrupting
herself at almost every other word, and looking about her as though she
expected to encounter something which she dreaded, that she had started
to walk about the station, as she had said she intended to do, but that
she had not dared to go far, lest I should finish my writing and look
for her. Then she went through the station and out upon the platform.
She decided to come back to the buffet, when she noticed through
the lighted windows of the cars, the sleeping car porters, who were
making up the bed in a berth near our own. She remembered immediately
that her night travelling bag, in which she had put her jewels, was
standing unlocked, and she decided to go and lock it up without delay,
not because she suspected the honesty of the employees, but through a
natural instinct of prudence on a journey. She entered the car, walked
down the corridor and came to the glass door of the compartment which
had been reserved for her, and which neither of us had entered since
leaving Paris. She opened the door and instantly uttered a cry of
horror. No one heard her, for there was no one in that part of the car,
and a train which passed at that moment drowned the sound of her voice
with the clamor of the locomotive. What had happened to alarm her? The
most terrible, ghastly, monstrous thing that the imagination could
devise.
“Within the compartment, the little door opening upon the dressing
cabinet was half drawn toward the interior of the section, cutting
off diagonally the view of whoever might enter. This little door was
ornamented by a mirror. There, in the glass, Mathilde beheld the face
of Larsan! She flung herself backward, shrieking for help, and fled so
precipitately that, in leaping down from the platform of the car, she
fell on her knees in the trainshed. Regaining her feet with difficulty,
she dragged herself toward the buffet, which she reached in the
condition which I have described.
“When she had told me these things, my first care was to try to
convince her that she was laboring under some hideous delusion--partly
because I prayed that this might be the case, and that the horrible
thing which she believed had not happened, but mainly because I felt
that it was my duty, if I wished to prevent Mathilde from going mad, to
make her think that she must have been mistaken. Wasn’t Larsan dead and
buried? * * * As I soothed her thus, I really believed what I said, and
I continued to reassure her until there remained no doubt in my mind,
at least, that what she had seen was merely a phantom, conjured up by
fear and imagination. Naturally, I wished to make an investigation
for myself, and I offered to accompany Mathilde at once to the
compartment, in order to prove to her that she had been the victim of
an hallucination. She was bitterly opposed to the idea, crying out that
neither she nor I must ever enter the compartment again, and, not only
that, but she refused to continue our journey that night. She said all
these things in little halting phrases--she could hardly breathe--and
it caused me the most intense pain to look at her and listen to her.
The more I told her that such an apparition was an impossibility,
the more she insisted that it was a reality. I tried to remind her
of how seldom she had seen Larsan while the events at the Glandier
were going on--which was true--and to persuade her that she could not
be certain that it was his face which she had beheld, and not that
of some one who might resemble him. She replied that she remembered
Larsan’s face perfectly--that it had appeared before her twice under
such circumstances as would impress it indelibly upon her memory, even
if she were to live for a century--once during the strange scene in
the gallery, and again at the moment when they came into her sick room
to place me under arrest. And then, now that she knew who Larsan was,
it was not only the features of the Secret Service agent that she had
recognized, but the dreaded countenance of the man who had not ceased
pursuing her for so many years.
“She cried out that she could swear on her life and on mine that she
had seen Ballmeyer--that Ballmeyer was alive--alive in the glass, with
the smooth face of Larsan and his high, bald forehead. She clung to me,
crouching upon the ground like a helpless wild animal, as though she
feared a separation yet more terrible than the others. She drew me from
the buffet where, fortunately, we had been entirely alone, out upon the
platform, and then, suddenly she released my arm, and hiding her face
in her hands, rushed into the superintendent’s office. The man was as
alarmed as myself when he saw the poor soul, and I could only repeat
under my breath to myself, ‘She is going mad again! She will lose her
reason!’
“I explained to the superintendent that my wife had been frightened at
something she fancied that she had seen while alone in our compartment,
and I begged him to keep her in his office while I went myself to
discover what it was that she had seen.
“And then, my friends,” continued Robert Darzac, his voice beginning
to tremble, “I left the superintendent’s office, but I had no sooner
gotten out of the room than I went back and slammed the door behind me.
My face must have looked strange enough, to judge from the expression
of the superintendent’s face when I reappeared. But there was reason
for it. _I, too, had seen Larsan._ My wife had had no illusion.
_Larsan was there_--in the station--upon the platform outside that
door!”
Robert Darzac paused for an instant, as though the remembrance overcame
him. He passed his hand over his forehead, heaved a sigh and resumed:
“He was there, in front of the superintendent’s door, standing under
a gas jet. Evidently, he expected us and was waiting for us. For,
extraordinarily enough, he made no effort to hide himself. On the
contrary, anyone would have declared that he had stationed himself
there for the express purpose of being seen. The gesture which had made
me close the door upon this apparition was purely instinctive. When I
opened it again, intending to walk straight up to the miserable wretch,
he had disappeared.
“The superintendent must have thought that he had fallen in with
two lunatics. Mathilde was staring at me, her great eyes wide open,
speechless, as though she were a somnambulist. In a moment, however,
she came back to herself sufficiently to ask me whether it were far
from Bourg to Lyons, and what was the next train which would take
us there. At the same time, she begged me to give orders about our
baggage, and asked me to accede to her desire to rejoin her father
as soon as possible. I could see no other means of calming her, and,
far from making any objection to the new project, I immediately
entered into her plans. Besides, now that I had seen Larsan with my
own eyes--yes, with my own eyes--I knew well that the long honeymoon
trip which we had planned must be given up, and, my dear boy,” went on
M. Darzac, turning to Rouletabille, “I became possessed with the idea
that we were running the risk of some mysterious and fantastic danger,
from which you alone could rescue us, if it were not already too late.
Mathilde was grateful to me for the readiness with which I fell in
with her wish to join her father, and she thanked me fervently, when
I told her that in a few minutes we would be on board the 9:29 train,
which reaches Lyons at about ten o’clock, and when we consulted the
time table, we discovered that we would overtake M. Stangerson himself
at that point. Mathilde showed as much gratitude toward me as though
I were personally responsible for this lucky chance. She had regained
her composure to a certain extent when the nine o’clock train arrived
in the station, but at the moment that we boarded the train, as we
rapidly crossed the platform and passed beneath the gas jet where I
had seen Larsan, I felt her arm trembling in my own. I looked around,
but could not see any sign of our enemy. I asked her whether she had
seen anything, and she made no reply. Her agitation seemed to increase,
however, and she begged me not to take her into a private car, but to
enter a car the berths of which were already two-thirds filled with
passengers. Under pretext of making some inquiries about the baggage,
I left her for an instant, and went to the telegraph office, where I
sent the telegram to you. I said nothing to Mathilde of this dispatch,
because I continued to assure her that her eyes must have deceived her,
and because on no account did I wish her to believe that I placed any
faith in such a resurrection. When my wife opened her travelling bag,
she found that no one had touched her jewels.
“The few words which we exchanged concerning the secret were in
relation to the necessity for concealing it from M. Stangerson, to
whom it might have dealt a mortal blow. I will pass over his amazement
when he beheld us upon the platform of the station at Lyons. Mathilde
explained to him that on account of a serious accident, which had
closed the line at Culoz, we had decided, since a change of plans had
to be made, that we would join him, and to spend a few days with him
at the home of Arthur Rance and his young wife, as we had before been
entreated to do by this faithful friend of ours.”
At this time, it might be well for me to interrupt M. Darzac’s
narrative to recall to the memory of the reader of “The Mystery of the
Yellow Room” the fact that M. Arthur William Rance had for many years
cherished a hopeless devotion for Mlle. Stangerson, but had at last
overcome it, and married a beautiful American girl, who knew nothing of
the mysterious adventures of the Professor’s daughter.
After the affair at the Glandier, and while Mlle. Stangerson was still
a patient in a private asylum near Paris, where the treatment restored
her to health and reason, we heard one fine day that M. Arthur William
Rance was about to wed the niece of an old professor of geology at
the Academy of Science in Philadelphia. Those who had known of his
luckless passion for Mathilde, and had gauged its depths by the excess
with which it was displayed (for it had seemed at one time to rob the
man of sense and reason and turn him into a maniac)--such persons, I
say, believed that Rance was marrying in desperation, and prophesied
little happiness for the union. Stories were told that the match--which
was a good one for Arthur Rance, for Miss Edith Prescott was rich--had
been brought about in a rather singular fashion. But these are stories
which I may tell at some future time. You will learn then by what chain
of circumstances the Rances had been led to locate at Rochers Rouges in
the old castle, on the peninsula of Hercules, of which they had become
the owners the preceding autumn.
But at present I must give place to M. Darzac, who continued his story,
as follows:
“When we had given these explanations to M. Stangerson, my wife and I
saw that he seemed to understand very little of what we had said, and
that, instead of being glad to have us with him again, he appeared very
mournful. Mathilde tried in vain to seem happy. Her father saw that
something had happened since we had left him which we were concealing
from him. Mathilde began to talk of the ceremony of the morning, and
in that way the conversation came around to you, my young friend”--and
again M. Darzac addressed himself to Rouletabille--“and I took the
occasion to say to M. Stangerson that since your vacation was just
beginning at the time that we were all going to Mentone, you might be
pleased with an invitation that would give you the chance of spending
your holiday in our society. There was, I said, plenty of room at
Rochers Rouges, and I was certain that M. Arthur Rance and his bride
would extend to you a cordial welcome. While I was speaking, Mathilde
looked gratefully at me and pressed my hand tenderly with an effusion
which showed me what gladness she was experiencing at the proposition.
Thus it happened that when we reached Valence, I had M. Stangerson
write the dispatch which you must have received. All night long we
did not sleep. While her father rested in his compartments next to
ours, Mathilde opened my travelling bag and took out my revolver. She
requested me to put it in my overcoat pocket, saying: ‘If _he_
should attack us, you must defend yourself.’ Ah, what a night we
passed! We kept silence, each attempting to deceive the other into the
belief that we were resting, our eyes closed, with the light burning
full force, for we did not dare to sit in the darkness. The doors
of our compartment were locked and bolted, but yet, every moment,
we dreaded to see _his_ face appear. When we heard a step in
the corridor, our hearts beat wildly. We seemed to recognize it. And
Mathilde had put a cover over the mirror, for fear of glancing toward
it and seeing the reflection of that face again. ‘Had he followed us?’
‘Could we have been mistaken?’ ‘Would we escape from him?’ ‘Had he gone
on to Culoz on the train which we had left?’ ‘Could we hope for any
such good fortune?’ For my own part, I did not believe that we could.
And she--she! Ah, how my heart bled for her, wrapped in a silence like
that of death, sitting there in her corner. I knew how she was weighed
down by despair and agony--how far more unhappy she was even than
myself, because of the misery which it seemed to be her lot to bring
upon those whom she loved most dearly. I longed to console her, to
comfort her, but I found no words. And when once I attempted to speak,
she made a gesture so full of misery and desolation that I realized
that I would be far kinder if I kept silence. Then, like her, I closed
my eyes.”
This was M. Darzac’s story, although I have shortened it in a certain
degree. We felt, Rouletabille and myself, that the narrative was so
important that we both resolved on arriving at Mentone, that we would
write it down from memory as faithfully as possible. We did as we
agreed, and where our versions did not agree, or halted a little, we
submitted them to M. Darzac, who made a few unimportant changes, after
which the story read just as I have given it here.
The rest of the journey taken by the Darzacs and M. Stangerson
presented no incident worthy of note. At the station of Mentone
Garavan, they found M. Arthur Rance, who was astonished at beholding
the bride and bridegroom; but when he was told that they intended
to spend a few days with him, and to accept the invitation which M.
Darzac, under various pretexts, had always declined, he was delighted,
and declared that his wife would be as glad as himself. He was pleased,
too, to learn that Rouletabille might soon join the party. M. Arthur
Rance had not, even after his marriage to Miss Edith Prescott, been
able to overcome the extreme reserve with which M. Darzac had always
treated him. When, during his last trip to San Remo, the young
Professor of the Sorbonne had been urged in passing to make a visit at
the Château Hercules, he had made his excuses in the most ceremonious
manner. But when he met Rance in the station at Mentone Garavan, M.
Darzac greeted him most cordially, and complimented him upon his
appearance, saying that the air of the country seemed to agree with him
perfectly.
We have seen how the apparition of Larsan in the station at Bourg had
overthrown all the plans of M. and Mme. Darzac, and had completely
overwhelmed them both with grief and consternation, and had made them
turn to the Rances’ home as to a refuge, casting them, figuratively
speaking, into the arms of these people who were not especially
congenial to them, but whom they believed to be honest, loyal and
willing to protect them. We know that M. Stangerson, to whom nothing
had been told of what had occurred, was beginning to suspect something,
and we know that all three of the party had called Rouletabille to
their aid. It was a veritable panic. And, so far as M. Darzac was
concerned, the terror which he felt was increased by news brought to us
by M. Arthur Rance when he met us at Nice. But before this there had
occurred a little incident which I cannot pass by in silence. As soon
as we reached the Nice station, I had jumped from the train and hurried
into the telegraph office to ask whether there was any message for me.
A dispatch was handed to me, and, without opening it, I went back to M.
Darzac and Rouletabille.
“Read this!” I said to the young reporter.
Rouletabille opened the envelope and read:
“Brignolles has not been away from Paris since April 6th. This is an
absolute certainty.”
Rouletabille looked at me for a moment and then said:
“Well, what does this amount to, now that you have it? What did you
suspect, anyway?”
“It was at Dijon,” I rejoined, vexed at the attitude of the lad toward
the affair, “that the idea came to me that Brignolles might be in some
way concerned in the misfortunes that seem to be crowding upon us, and
of which warning was given by the telegrams that you received. I wired
one of my friends to make inquiries for me in regard to the movements
of the fellow during the last few days. I was anxious to learn whether
he had left Paris.”
“Well,” said Rouletabille. “You have your inquiries answered. Are you
willing to admit now that Brignolles is not and has never been Larsan
in disguise?”
“I never thought of any such thing as that!” I exclaimed with some
vexation, for I suspected that Rouletabille was laughing at me.
The truth was that the idea, absurd as it was, had actually entered my
mind.
“Will you never stop thinking ill of poor Brignolles?” asked M. Darzac,
with a sad smile at me. “He is quiet and shy, I grant you, but he is a
good lad, just the same.”
“That’s where we differ,” I retorted.
And I retired to my own corner of the railway carriage. In general
my personal intuitions in regard to things were poor enough guides
compared to the wonderful insight of Rouletabille, but in this case,
we were to receive proof, only a few days later, that even if the
personality of Brignolles were not another of Larsan’s disguises,
the laboratory assistant was nevertheless a miserable wretch. And
this time both M. Darzac and Rouletabille begged my pardon and paid
their respects to my despised intuitions. But there is no use of
anticipating. If I mention this incident here, it is for the purpose of
showing to how great an extent I was haunted by the image of Larsan,
hiding under some new form, and lurking unknown among us. Dear Heaven!
Larsan had so often proved his talent--I may even say his genius--in
this respect, that I felt that he was quite capable of defying us now,
and of mingling with us while we thought that he was a stranger--or,
perhaps, even a friend.
I was soon to change my ideas, however, and to believe that this time
Ballmeyer had altered his usual tactics, and the unexpected arrival of
M. Arthur Rance was to go far in leading me to this opinion. Instead
of hiding himself, the bandit was showing himself openly--at least,
to some of us--with an audacity that staggered belief. After all,
what had he to fear in this part of the country? He was well aware
that neither M. Darzac nor his wife would be likely to denounce him,
nor, consequently, would their friends do so. His bold revelation of
his presence seemed to have but one end in view--that of ruining the
happiness of the couple who had believed that his death had opened the
way for their marriage. But an objection arose to that conjecture. Why
should he have chosen such a means of vengeance? Would it not have been
a better plan to let himself be seen before the marriage had taken
place? He would certainly have prevented it by so doing. Yes, but in
that case, he would have found it necessary to appear in his own person
in Paris. But when had any thought of danger or risk been able to deter
Larsan from an undertaking upon which he had determined? Who dared
affirm that he knew of one such case?
But now let me tell you of the news brought by Arthur Rance when he
joined the three of us on the train at Nice. Rance, of course, knew
nothing of what had happened at Bourg, nothing of the appearing of
Larsan to Mme. Darzac on the train and to her husband in the station,
but he brought alarming tidings. If we had retained the slightest hope
that we had lost Larsan on the road to Culoz, Rance’s words obliterated
it, for he, too, had seen the man whom we so feared, face to face. And
he had come to warn us, before we reached his home, so that we might
decide upon some plan of action.
“When we were about to return home after having taken you to the
station,” said Rance to Darzac; “after the train had pulled out,
your wife, M. Stangerson and myself thought that we would leave the
carriage for a little while and take a stroll on the promenade walk.
M. Stangerson gave his arm to his daughter. I was at the right of
M. Stangerson, who, therefore, was walking between the two of us.
Suddenly, as we paused for a moment near a sort of public garden to let
a tramcar pass, I brushed against a man who said to me, ‘I beg your
pardon, sir.’ The sound of the voice made me tremble and I knew as well
beforehand as I did when I raised my head that it was Larsan. The voice
was the voice I had heard at the Court of Assizes. He cast a long, calm
look upon the three of us. I do not know how I was able to restrain the
exclamation which rose to my lips,--how I kept from crying aloud his
miserable name! Happily M. Stangerson and Mme. Darzac had not seen him
and I hurried them rapidly away. I made them walk around the garden
and listen to the music in the park and then we returned to where the
carriage was waiting. Upon the sidewalk in front of the station, there
was Larsan again! I do not know--I cannot understand how M. Stangerson
and Mme. Darzac could have helped but see him----”
“Are you sure that they did not see him?” interrupted Robert Darzac.
“Absolutely sure. I feigned a sudden attack of illness. We got into the
carriage and ordered the coachman to drive as fast as he could. The man
was still standing on the sidewalk, staring after us with his cold,
cruel eyes when we drove away.”
“And are you certain that my wife did not see him?” repeated Darzac,
who was growing more and more agitated.
“Certain, I assure you.”
“But, Good God, M. Darzac!” interposed Rouletabille. “How long do
you think you can deceive your wife as to the fact that Larsan has
reappeared and that she actually saw him? If you imagine that you can
keep her in ignorance for very long, you are greatly mistaken.”
“But,” replied Darzac, “while we were ending our journey, the idea that
she had been the victim of a delusion seemed to grow in her mind and by
the time we reached Garavan, she seemed to be quite calm.”
“At the time you reached Garavan,” said Rouletabille, quietly, “your
wife sent me the telegram I am going to ask you to read.”
And the reporter held out to M. Darzac the paper which bore the two
words, “Save us.”
M. Darzac read it with the blood seeming to die away from his face as
we looked at him.
“She will go mad again,” was all that he said.
That was what he dreaded--all of us--and, strangely enough, when we
arrived at the station of Mentone Garavan and found M. Stangerson and
Mme. Darzac (who were awaiting us in spite of the promise which the
Professor had made to Arthur Rance not to leave Rochers Rouges nor
allow his daughter to do so until we came, for reasons which their host
said he would tell them later, not being able to invent them on the
spur of the moment) it was with a phrase which seemed the echo of our
terror that Mme. Darzac greeted Rouletabille. As soon as she perceived
the young man, she rushed toward him and it seemed to us that she was
making a great effort not to throw her arms around him. I saw that her
spirit was clinging to him as a shipwrecked sailor grips at the hand
which is stretched out to save him from drowning. And I heard the words
that she whispered to him:
“I know that I am going mad!”
As to Rouletabille, I may have seen his face as pale before, but I had
never seen it look like that of a man stricken with his death blow.