NINETEEN MINUTES PAST SEVEN
Patrice, in his bedroom at the home, was unable to sleep that night. He
had a continual waking sensation of being oppressed and hunted down, as
though he were suffering the terrors of some monstrous nightmare. He had
an impression that the frantic series of events in which he was playing
the combined parts of a bewildered spectator and a helpless actor would
never cease so long as he tried to rest; that, on the contrary, they
would rage with greater violence and intensity. The leave-taking of the
husband and wife did not put an end, even momentarily, to the dangers
incurred by Coralie. Fresh perils arose on every side; and Patrice
Belval confessed himself incapable of foreseeing and still more of
allaying them.
After lying awake for two hours, he switched on his electric light and
began hurriedly to write down the story of the past twelve hours. He
hoped in this way to some small extent to unravel the tangled knot.
At six o'clock he went and roused Ya-Bon and brought him back with him.
Then, standing in front of the astonished negro, he crossed his arms and
exclaimed:
"So you consider that your job is over! While I lie tossing about in the
dark, my lord sleeps and all's well! My dear man, you have a jolly
elastic conscience."
The word elastic amused the Senegalese mightily. His mouth opened wider
than ever; and he gave a grunt of enjoyment.
"That'll do, that'll do," said the captain. "There's no getting a word
in, once you start talking. Here, take a chair, read this report and
give me your reasoned opinion. What? You don't know how to read? Well,
upon my word! What was the good, then, of wearing out the seat of your
trousers on the benches of the Senegal schools and colleges? A queer
education, I must say!"
He heaved a sigh, and, snatching the manuscript, said:
"Listen, reflect, argue, deduct and conclude. This is how the matter
briefly stands. First, we have one Essarès Bey, a banker, rich as
Crœsus, and the lowest of rapscallions, who betrays at one and the same
time France, Egypt, England, Turkey, Bulgaria and Greece . . . as is
proved by the fact that his accomplices roast his feet for him.
Thereupon he kills one of them and gets rid of four with the aid of as
many millions, which millions he orders another accomplice to get back
for him before five minutes are passed. And all these bright spirits
will duck underground at eleven o'clock this morning, for at twelve
o'clock the police propose to enter on the scene. Good."
Patrice Belval paused to take breath and continued:
"Secondly, Little Mother Coralie--upon my word, I can't say why--is
married to Rapscallion Bey. She hates him and wants to kill him. He
loves her and wants to kill her. There is also a colonel who loves her
and for that reason loses his life and a certain Mustapha, who tries to
kidnap her on the colonel's account and also loses his life for that
reason, strangled by a Senegalese. Lastly, there is a French captain, a
dot-and-carry-one, who likewise loves her, but whom she avoids because
she is married to a man whom she abhors. And with this captain, in a
previous incarnation, she has halved an amethyst bead. Add to all this,
by way of accessories, a rusty key, a red silk bowstring, a dog choked
to death and a grate filled with red coals. And, if you dare to
understand a single word of my explanation, I'll catch you a whack with
my wooden leg, for I don't understand it a little bit and I'm your
captain."
Ya-Bon laughed all over his mouth and all over the gaping scar that cut
one of his cheeks in two. As ordered by his captain, he understood
nothing of the business and very little of what Patrice had said; but he
always quivered with delight when Patrice addressed him in that gruff
tone.
"That's enough," said the captain. "It's my turn now to argue, deduct
and conclude."
He leant against the mantelpiece, with his two elbows on the marble
shelf and his head tight-pressed between his hands. His merriment, which
sprang from temperamental lightness of heart, was this time only a
surface merriment. Deep down within himself he did nothing but think of
Coralie with sorrowful apprehension. What could he do to protect her? A
number of plans occurred to him: which was he to choose? Should he hunt
through the numbers in the telephone-book till he hit upon the
whereabouts of that Grégoire, with whom Bournef and his companions had
taken refuge? Should he inform the police? Should he return to the Rue
Raynouard? He did not know. Yes, he was capable of acting, if the act to
be performed consisted in flinging himself into the conflict with
furious ardor. But to prepare the action, to divine the obstacles, to
rend the darkness, and, as he said, to see the invisible and grasp the
intangible, that was beyond his powers.
He turned suddenly to Ya-Bon, who was standing depressed by his silence:
"What's the matter with you, putting on that lugubrious air? Of course
it's you that throw a gloom over me! You always look at the black side
of things . . . like a nigger! . . . Be off."
Ya-Bon was going away discomfited, when some one tapped at the door and
a voice said:
"Captain Belval, you're wanted on the telephone."
Patrice hurried out. Who on earth could be telephoning to him so early
in the morning?
"Who is it?" he asked the nurse.
"I don't know, captain. . . . It's a man's voice; he seemed to want you
urgently. The bell had been ringing some time. I was downstairs, in the
kitchen. . . ."
Before Patrice's eyes there rose a vision of the telephone in the Rue
Raynouard, in the big room at the Essarès' house. He could not help
wondering if there was anything to connect the two incidents.
He went down one flight of stairs and along a passage. The telephone was
through a small waiting-room, in a room that had been turned into a
linen-closet. He closed the door behind him.
"Hullo! Captain Belval speaking. What is it?"
A voice, a man's voice which he did not know, replied in breathless,
panting tones:
"Ah! . . . Captain Belval! . . . It's you! . . . Look here . . . but I'm
almost afraid that it's too late. . . . I don't know if I shall have
time to finish. . . . Did you get the key and the letter? . . ."
"Who are you?" asked Patrice.
"Did you get the key and the letter?" the voice insisted.
"The key, yes," Patrice replied, "but not the letter."
"Not the letter? But this is terrible! Then you don't know . . ."
A hoarse cry struck Patrice's ear and the next thing he caught was
incoherent sounds at the other end of the wire, the noise of an
altercation. Then the voice seemed to glue itself to the instrument and
he distinctly heard it gasping:
"Too late! . . . Patrice . . . is that you? . . . Listen, the amethyst
pendant . . . yes, I have it on me. . . . The pendant. . . . Ah, it's
too late! . . . I should so much have liked to . . . Patrice. . . .
Coralie. . . ."
Then again a loud cry, a heart-rending cry, and confused sounds growing
more distant, in which he seemed to distinguish:
"Help! . . . Help! . . ."
These grew fainter and fainter. Silence followed. And suddenly there was
a little click. The murderer had hung up the receiver.
All this had not taken twenty seconds. But, when Patrice wanted to
replace the telephone, his fingers were gripping it so hard that it
needed an effort to relax them.
He stood utterly dumfounded. His eyes had fastened on a large clock
which he saw, through the window, on one of the buildings in the yard,
marking nineteen minutes past seven; and he mechanically repeated these
figures, attributing a documentary value to them. Then he asked
himself--so unreal did the scene appear to him--if all this was true and
if the crime had not been penetrated within himself, in the depths of
his aching heart. But the shouting still echoed in his ears; and
suddenly he took up the receiver again, like one clinging desperately to
some undefined hope:
"Hullo!" he cried. "Exchange! . . . Who was it rang me up just now?
. . . Are you there? Did you hear the cries? . . . Are you there? . . .
Are you there? . . ."
There was no reply. He lost his temper, insulted the exchange, left the
linen-closet, met Ya-Bon and pushed him about:
"Get out of this! It's your fault. Of course you ought to have stayed
and looked after Coralie. Be off there now and hold yourself at my
disposal. I'm going to inform the police. If you hadn't prevented me, it
would have been done long ago and we shouldn't be in this predicament.
Off you go!"
He held him back:
"No, don't stir. Your plan's ridiculous. Stay here. Oh, not here in my
pocket! You're too impetuous for me, my lad!"
He drove him out and returned to the linen-closet, striding up and down
and betraying his excitement in irritable gestures and angry words.
Nevertheless, in the midst of his confusion, one idea gradually came to
light, which was that, after all, he had no proof that the crime which
he suspected had happened at the house in the Rue Raynouard. He must not
allow himself to be obsessed by the facts that lingered in his memory to
the point of always seeing the same vision in the same tragic setting.
No doubt the drama was being continued, as he had felt that it would be,
but perhaps elsewhere and far away from Coralie.
And this first thought led to another: why not investigate matters at
once?
"Yes, why not?" he asked himself. "Before bothering the police,
discovering the number of the person who rang me up and thus working
back to the start, a process which it will be time enough to employ
later, why shouldn't I telephone to the Rue Raynouard at once, on any
pretext and in anybody's name? I shall then have a chance of knowing
what to think. . . ."
Patrice felt that this measure did not amount to much. Suppose that no
one answered, would that prove that the murder had been committed in the
house, or merely that no one was yet about? Nevertheless, the need to do
something decided him. He looked up Essarès Bey's number in the
telephone-directory and resolutely rang up the exchange.
The strain of waiting was almost more than he could bear. And then he
was conscious of a thrill which vibrated through him from head to foot.
He was connected; and some one at the other end was answering the call.
"Hullo!" he said.
"Hullo!" said a voice. "Who are you?"
It was the voice of Essarès Bey.
Although this was only natural, since at that moment Essarès must be
getting his papers ready and preparing his flight, Patrice was so much
taken aback that he did not know what to say and spoke the first words
that came into his head:
"Is that Essarès Bey?"
"Yes. Who are you?"
"I'm one of the wounded at the hospital, now under treatment at the
home. . . ."
"Captain Belval, perhaps?"
Patrice was absolutely amazed. So Coralie's husband knew him by name? He
stammered:
"Yes . . . Captain Belval."
"What a lucky thing!" cried Essarès Bey, in a tone of delight. "I rang
you up a moment ago, at the home, Captain Belval, to ask . . ."
"Oh, it was you!" interrupted Patrice, whose astonishment knew no
bounds.
"Yes, I wanted to know at what time I could speak to Captain Belval in
order to thank him."
"It was _you_! . . . It was _you_! . . ." Patrice repeated, more and
more thunderstruck.
Essarès' intonation denoted a certain surprise.
"Yes, wasn't it a curious coincidence?" he said. "Unfortunately, I was
cut off, or rather my call was interrupted by somebody else."
"Then you heard?"
"What, Captain Belval?"
"Cries."
"Cries?"
"At least, so it seemed to me; but the connection was very indistinct."
"All that I heard was somebody asking for you, somebody who was in a
great hurry; and, as I was not, I hung up the telephone and postponed
the pleasure of thanking you."
"Of thanking me?"
"Yes, I have heard how my wife was assaulted last night and how you came
to her rescue. And I am anxious to see you and express my gratitude.
Shall we make an appointment? Could we meet at the hospital, for
instance, at three o'clock this afternoon?"
Patrice made no reply. The audacity of this man, threatened with arrest
and preparing for flight, baffled him. At the same time, he was
wondering what Essarès' real object had been in telephoning to him
without being in any way obliged to. But Belval's silence in no way
troubled the banker, who continued his civilities and ended the
inscrutable conversation with a monologue in which he replied with the
greatest ease to questions which he kept putting to himself.
In spite of everything, Patrice felt more comfortable. He went back to
his room, lay down on his bed and slept for two hours. Then he sent for
Ya-Bon.
"This time," he said, "try to control your nerves and not to lose your
head as you did just now. You were absurd. But don't let's talk about
it. Have you had your breakfast? No? No more have I. Have you seen the
doctor? No? No more have I. And the surgeon has just promised to take
off this beastly bandage. You can imagine how pleased I am. A wooden leg
is all very well; but a head wrapped up in lint, for a lover, never! Get
on, look sharp. When we're ready, we'll start for the hospital. Little
Mother Coralie can't forbid me to see her there!"
Patrice was as happy as a schoolboy. As he said to Ya-Bon an hour later,
on their way to the Porte-Maillot, the clouds were beginning to roll by:
"Yes, Ya-Bon, yes, they are. And this is where we stand. To begin with,
Coralie is not in danger. As I hoped, the battle is being fought far
away from her, among the accomplices no doubt, over their millions. As
for the unfortunate man who rang me up and whose dying cries I
overheard, he was obviously some unknown friend, for he addressed me
familiarly and called me by my Christian name. It was certainly he who
sent me the key of the garden. Unfortunately, the letter that came with
the key went astray. In the end, he felt constrained to tell me
everything. Just at that moment he was attacked. By whom, you ask.
Probably by one of the accomplices, who was frightened of his
revelations. There you are, Ya-Bon. It's all as clear as noonday. For
that matter, the truth may just as easily be the exact opposite of what
I suggest. But I don't care. The great thing is to take one's stand upon
a theory, true or false. Besides, if mine is false, I reserve the right
to shift the responsibility on you. So you know what you're in for.
. . ."
At the Porte-Maillot they took a cab and it occurred to Patrice to drive
round by the Rue Raynouard. At the junction of this street with the Rue
de Passy, they saw Coralie leaving the Rue Raynouard, accompanied by old
Siméon.
She had hailed a taxi and stepped inside. Siméon sat down by the
driver. They went to the hospital in the Champs-Élysées, with Patrice
following. It was eleven o'clock when they arrived.
"All's well," said Patrice. "While her husband is running away, she
refuses to make any change in her daily life."
He and Ya-Bon lunched in the neighborhood, strolled along the avenue,
without losing sight of the hospital, and called there at half-past one.
Patrice at once saw old Siméon, sitting at the end of a covered yard
where the soldiers used to meet. His head was half wrapped up in the
usual comforter; and, with his big yellow spectacles on his nose, he sat
smoking his pipe on the chair which he always occupied.
As for Coralie, she was in one of the rooms allotted to her on the first
floor, seated by the bedside of a patient whose hand she held between
her own. The man was asleep.
Coralie appeared to Patrice to be very tired. The dark rings round her
eyes and the unusual pallor of her cheeks bore witness to her fatigue.
"Poor child!" he thought. "All those blackguards will be the death of
you."
He now understood, when he remembered the scenes of the night before,
why Coralie kept her private life secret and endeavored, at least to the
little world of the hospital, to be merely the kind sister whom people
call by her Christian name. Suspecting the web of crime with which she
was surrounded, she dropped her husband's name and told nobody where she
lived. And so well was she protected by the defenses set up by her
modesty and determination that Patrice dared not go to her and stood
rooted to the threshold.
"Yet surely," he said to himself, as he looked at Coralie without being
seen by her, "I'm not going to send her in my card!"
He was making up his mind to enter, when a woman who had come up the
stairs, talking loudly as she went, called out:
"Where is madame? . . . M. Siméon, she must come at once!"
Old Siméon, who had climbed the stairs with her, pointed to where
Coralie sat at the far end of the room; and the woman rushed in. She
said a few words to Coralie, who seemed upset and at once, ran to the
door, passing in front of Patrice, and down the stairs, followed by
Siméon and the woman.
"I've got a taxi, ma'am," stammered the woman, all out of breath. "I had
the luck to find one when I left the house and I kept it. We must be
quick, ma'am. . . . The commissary of police told me to . . ."
Patrice, who was downstairs by this time, heard nothing more; but the
last words decided him. He seized hold of Ya-Bon as he passed; and the
two of them leapt into a cab, telling the driver to follow Coralie's
taxi.
"There's news, Ya-Bon, there's news!" said Patrice. "The plot is
thickening. The woman is obviously one of the Essarès' servants and she
has come for her mistress by the commissary's orders. Therefore the
colonel's disclosures are having their effect. House searched;
magistrate's inquest; every sort of worry for Little Mother Coralie; and
you have the cheek to advise me to be careful! You imagine that I would
leave her to her own devices at such a moment! What a mean nature you
must have, my poor Ya-Bon!"
An idea occurred to him; and he exclaimed:
"Heavens! I hope that ruffian of an Essarès hasn't allowed himself to be
caught! That would be a disaster! But he was far too sure of himself. I
expect he's been trifling away his time. . . ."
All through the drive this fear excited Captain Belval and removed his
last scruples. In the end his certainty was absolute. Nothing short of
Essarès' arrest could have produced the servant's attitude of panic or
Coralie's precipitate departure. Under these conditions, how could he
hesitate to interfere in a matter in which his revelations would
enlighten the police? All the more so as, by revealing less or more,
according to circumstances, he could make his evidence subservient to
Coralie's interests.
The two cabs pulled up almost simultaneously outside the Essarès' house,
where a car was already standing. Coralie alighted and disappeared
through the carriage-gate. The maid and Siméon also crossed the
pavement.
"Come along," said Patrice to the Senegalese.
The front-door was ajar and Patrice entered. In the big hall were two
policemen on duty. Patrice acknowledged their presence with a hurried
movement of his hand and passed them with the air of a man who belonged
to the house and whose importance was so great that nothing done without
him could be of any use.
The sound of his footsteps echoing on the flags reminded him of the
flight of Bournef and his accomplices. He was on the right road.
Moreover, there was a drawing-room on the left, the room, communicating
with the library, to which the accomplices had carried the colonel's
body. Voices came from the library. He walked across the drawing-room.
At that moment he heard Coralie exclaim in accents of terror:
"Oh, my God, it can't be! . . ."
Two other policemen barred the doorway.
"I am a relation of Mme. Essarès'," he said, "her only relation. . . ."
"We have our orders, captain . . ."
"I know, of course. Be sure and let no one in! Ya-Bon, stay here."
And he went in.
But, in the immense room, a group of six or seven gentlemen, no doubt
commissaries of police and magistrates, stood in his way, bending over
something which he was unable to distinguish. From amidst this group
Coralie suddenly appeared and came towards him, tottering and wringing
her hands. The housemaid took her round the waist and pressed her into a
chair.
"What's the matter?" asked Patrice.
"Madame is feeling faint," replied the woman, still quite distraught.
"Oh, I'm nearly off my head!"
"But why? What's the reason?"
"It's the master . . . just think! . . . Such a sight! . . . It gave me
a turn, too . . ."
"What sight?"
One of the gentlemen left the group and approached:
"Is Mme. Essarès ill?"
"It's nothing," said the maid. "A fainting-fit. . . . She is liable to
these attacks."
"Take her away as soon as she can walk. We shall not need her any
longer."
And, addressing Patrice Belval with a questioning air:
"Captain? . . ."
Patrice pretended not to understand:
"Yes, sir," he said, "we will take Mme. Essarès away. Her presence, as
you say, is unnecessary. Only I must first . . ."
He moved aside to avoid his interlocutor, and, perceiving that the group
of magistrates had opened out a little, stepped forward. What he now saw
explained Coralie's fainting-fit and the servant's agitation. He himself
felt his flesh creep at a spectacle which was infinitely more horrible
than that of the evening before.
On the floor, near the fireplace, almost at the place where he had
undergone his torture, Essarès Bey lay upon his back. He was wearing the
same clothes as on the previous day: a brown-velvet smoking-suit with a
braided jacket. His head and shoulders had been covered with a napkin.
But one of the men standing around, a divisional surgeon no doubt, was
holding up the napkin with one hand and pointing to the dead man's face
with the other, while he offered an explanation in a low voice.
And that face . . . but it was hardly the word for the unspeakable mass
of flesh, part of which seemed to be charred while the other part formed
no more than a bloodstained pulp, mixed with bits of bone and skin,
hairs and a broken eye-ball.
"Oh," Patrice blurted out, "how horrible! He was killed and fell with
his head right in the fire. That's how they found him, I suppose?"
The man who had already spoken to him and who appeared to be the most
important figure present came up to him once more:
"May I ask who you are?" he demanded.
"Captain Belval, sir, a friend of Mme. Essarès, one of the wounded
officers whose lives she has helped to save . . ."
"That may be, sir," replied the important figure, "but you can't stay
here. Nobody must stay here, for that matter. Monsieur le commissaire,
please order every one to leave the room, except the doctor, and have
the door guarded. Let no one enter on any pretext whatever. . . ."
"Sir," Patrice insisted, "I have some very serious information to
communicate."
"I shall be pleased to receive it, captain, but later on. You must
excuse me now."
VII
TWENTY-THREE MINUTES PAST TWELVE
The great hall that ran from Rue Raynouard to the upper terrace of the
garden was filled to half its extent by a wide staircase and divided the
Essarès house into two parts communicating only by way of the hall.
On the left were the drawing-room and the library, which was followed by
an independent block containing a private staircase. On the right were a
billiard-room and the dining-room, both with lower ceilings. Above these
were Essarès Bey's bedroom, on the street side, and Coralie's,
overlooking the garden. Beyond was the servants' wing, where old Siméon
also used to sleep.
Patrice was asked to wait in the billiard-room, with the Senegalese. He
had been there about a quarter of an hour when Siméon and the maid were
shown in.
The old secretary seemed quite paralyzed by the death of his employer
and was holding forth under his breath, making queer gestures as he
spoke. Patrice asked him how things were going; and the old fellow
whispered in his ear:
"It's not over yet . . . There's something to fear . . . to fear! . . .
To-day . . . presently."
"Presently?" asked Patrice.
"Yes . . . yes," said the old man, trembling.
He said nothing more. As for the housemaid, she readily told her story
in reply to Patrice' questions:
"The first surprise, sir, this morning was that there was no butler, no
footman, no porter. All the three were gone. Then, at half-past six, M.
Siméon came and told us from the master that the master had locked
himself in his library and that he wasn't to be disturbed even for
breakfast. The mistress was not very well. She had her chocolate at nine
o'clock. . . . At ten o'clock she went out with M. Siméon. Then, after
we had done the bedrooms, we never left the kitchen. Eleven o'clock
came, twelve . . . and, just as the hour was striking, we heard a loud
ring at the front-door. I looked out of the window. There was a motor,
with four gentlemen inside. I went to the door. The commissary of police
explained who he was and wanted to see the master. I showed them the
way. The library-door was locked. We knocked: no answer. We shook it: no
answer. In the end, one of the gentlemen, who knew how, picked the lock.
. . . Then . . . then . . . you can imagine what we saw. . . . But you
can't, it was much worse, because the poor master at that moment had his
head almost under the grate. . . . Oh, what scoundrels they must have
been! . . . For they did kill him, didn't they? I know one of the
gentlemen said at once that the master had died of a stroke and fallen
into the fire. Only my firm belief is . . ."
Old Siméon had listened without speaking, with his head still half
wrapped up, showing only his bristly gray beard and his eyes hidden
behind their yellow spectacles. But at this point of the story he gave
a little chuckle, came up to Patrice and said in his ear:
"There's something to fear . . . to fear! . . . Mme. Coralie. . . . Make
her go away at once . . . make her go away. . . . If not, it'll be the
worse for her. . . ."
Patrice shuddered and tried to question him, but could learn nothing
more. Besides, the old man did not remain. A policeman came to fetch him
and took him to the library.
His evidence lasted a long time. It was followed by the depositions of
the cook and the housemaid. Next, Coralie's evidence was taken, in her
own room. At four o'clock another car arrived. Patrice saw two gentlemen
pass into the hall, with everybody bowing very low before them. He
recognized the minister of justice and the minister of the interior.
They conferred in the library for half an hour and went away again.
At last, shortly before five o'clock, a policeman came for Patrice and
showed him up to the first floor. The man tapped at a door and stood
aside. Patrice entered a small boudoir, lit up by a wood fire by which
two persons were seated: Coralie, to whom he bowed, and, opposite her,
the gentleman who had spoken to him on his arrival and who seemed to be
directing the whole enquiry.
He was a man of about fifty, with a thickset body and a heavy face, slow
of movement, but with bright, intelligent eyes.
"The examining-magistrate, I presume, sir?" asked Patrice.
"No," he replied, "I am M. Masseron, a retired magistrate, specially
appointed to clear up this affair . . . not to examine it, as you
think, for it does not seem to me that there is anything to examine."
"What?" cried Patrice, in great surprise. "Nothing to examine?"
He looked at Coralie, who kept her eyes fixed upon him attentively. Then
she turned them on M. Masseron, who resumed:
"I have no doubt, Captain Belval, that, when we have said what we have
to say, we shall be agreed at all points . . . just as madame and I are
already agreed."
"I don't doubt it either," said Patrice. "All the same, I am afraid that
many of those points remain unexplained."
"Certainly, but we shall find an explanation, we shall find it together.
Will you please tell me what you know?"
Patrice waited for a moment and then said:
"I will not disguise my astonishment, sir. The story which I have to
tell is of some importance; and yet there is no one here to take it
down. Is it not to count as evidence given on oath, as a deposition
which I shall have to sign?"
"You yourself, captain, shall determine the value of your words and the
innuendo which you wish them to bear. For the moment, we will look on
this as a preliminary conversation, as an exchange of views relating to
facts . . . touching which Mme. Essarès has given me, I believe, the
same information that you will be able to give me."
Patrice did not reply at once. He had a vague impression that there was
a private understanding between Coralie and the magistrate and that, in
face of that understanding, he, both by his presence and by his zeal,
was playing the part of an intruder whom they would gladly have
dismissed. He resolved therefore to maintain an attitude of reserve
until the magistrate had shown his hand.
"Of course," he said, "I daresay madame has told you. So you know of the
conversation which I overheard yesterday at the restaurant?"
"Yes."
"And the attempt to kidnap Mme. Essarès?"
"Yes."
"And the murder? . . ."
"Yes."
"Mme. Essarès has described to you the blackmailing scene that took
place last night, with M. Essarès for a victim, the details of the
torture, the death of the colonel, the handing over of the four
millions, the conversation on the telephone between M. Essarès and a
certain Grégoire and, lastly, the threats uttered against madame by her
husband?"
"Yes, Captain Belval, I know all this, that is to say, all that you
know; and I know, in addition, all that I discovered through my own
investigations."
"Of course, of course," Patrice repeated. "I see that my story becomes
superfluous and that you are in possession of all the necessary factors
to enable you to draw your conclusions." And, continuing to put rather
than answer questions, he added, "May I ask what inference you have
arrived at?"
"To tell you the truth, captain, my inferences are not definite.
However, until I receive some proof to the contrary, I propose to remain
satisfied with the actual words of a letter which M. Essarès wrote to
his wife at about twelve o'clock this morning and which we found lying
on his desk, unfinished. Mme. Essarès asked me to read it and, if
necessary, to communicate the contents to you. Listen."
M. Masseron proceeded to read the letter aloud:
"_Coralie_,
"You were wrong yesterday to attribute my departure to
reasons which I dared not acknowledge; and perhaps I
also was wrong not to defend myself more convincingly
against your accusation. The only motive for my
departure is the hatred with which I am surrounded.
You have seen how fierce it is. In the face of these
enemies who are seeking to despoil me by every
possible means, my only hope of salvation lies in
flight. That is why I am going away.
"But let me remind you, Coralie, of my clearly
expressed wish. You are to join me at the first
summons. If you do not leave Paris then, nothing shall
protect you against my lawful resentment: nothing, not
even my death. I have made all my arrangements so
that, even in the contingency . . ."
"The letter ends there," said M. Masseron, handing it back to Coralie,
"and we know by an unimpeachable sign that the last lines were written
immediately before M. Essarès' death, because, in falling, he upset a
little clock which stood on his desk and which marked twenty-three
minutes past twelve. I assume that he felt unwell and that, on trying to
rise, he was seized with a fit of giddiness and fell to the floor.
Unfortunately, the fireplace was near, with a fierce fire blazing in it;
his head struck the grate; and the wound that resulted was so deep--the
surgeon testified to this--that he fainted. Then the fire close at hand
did its work . . . with the effects which you have seen. . . ."
Patrice had listened in amazement to this unexpected explanation:
"Then in your opinion," he asked, "M. Essarès died of an accident? He
was not murdered?"
"Murdered? Certainly not! We have no clue to support any such theory."
"Still . . ."
"Captain Belval, you are the victim of an association of ideas which, I
admit, is perfectly justifiable. Ever since yesterday you have been
witnessing a series of tragic incidents; and your imagination naturally
leads you to the most tragic solution, that of murder.
Only--reflect--why should a murder have been committed? And by whom? By
Bournef and his friends? With what object? They were crammed full with
bank-notes; and, even admitting that the man called Grégoire recovered
those millions from them, they would certainly not have got them back by
killing M. Essarès. Then again, how would they have entered the house?
And how can they have gone out? . . . No, captain, you must excuse me,
but M. Essarès died an accidental death. The facts are undeniable; and
this is the opinion of the divisional surgeon, who will draw up his
report in that sense."
Patrice turned to Coralie:
"Is it Mme. Essarès' opinion also?"
She reddened slightly and answered:
"Yes."
"And old Siméon's?"
"Oh," replied the magistrate, "old Siméon is wandering in his mind! To
listen to him, you would think that everything was about to happen all
over again, that Mme. Essarès is threatened with danger and that she
ought to take to flight at once. That is all that I have been able to
get out of him. However, he took me to an old disused door that opens
out of the garden on a lane running at right angles with the Rue
Raynouard; and here he showed me first the watch-dog's dead body and
next some footprints between the door and the flight of steps near the
library. But you know those foot-prints, do you not? They belong to you
and your Senegalese. As for the death of the watch-dog, I can put that
down to your Senegalese, can't I?"
Patrice was beginning to understand. The magistrate's reticence, his
explanation, his agreement with Coralie: all this was gradually becoming
plain. He put the question frankly:
"So there was no murder?"
"No."
"Then there will be no magistrate's examination?"
"No."
"And no talk about the matter; it will all be kept quiet, in short, and
forgotten?"
"Just so."
Captain Belval began to walk up and down, as was his habit. He now
remembered Essarès' prophecy:
"I sha'n't be arrested. . . . If I am, I shall be let go. . . . The
matter will be hushed up. . . ."
Essarès was right. The hand of justice was arrested; and there was no
way for Coralie to escape silent complicity.
Patrice was intensely annoyed by the manner in which the case was being
handled. It was certain that a compact had been concluded between
Coralie and M. Masseron. He suspected the magistrate of circumventing
Coralie and inducing her to sacrifice her own interests to other
considerations. To effect this, the first thing was to get rid of him,
Patrice.
"Ugh!" said Patrice to himself. "I'm fairly sick of this sportsman, with
his cool ironical ways. It looks as if he were doing a considerable
piece of thimblerigging at my expense."
He restrained himself, however, and, with a pretense of wanting to keep
on good terms with the magistrate, came and sat down beside him:
"You must forgive me, sir," he said, "for insisting in what may appear
to you an indiscreet fashion. But my conduct is explained not only by
such sympathy or feeling as I entertain for Mme. Essarès at a moment in
her life when she is more lonely than ever, a sympathy and feeling which
she seems to repulse even more firmly than she did before. It is also
explained by certain mysterious links which unite us to each other and
which go back to a period too remote for our eyes to focus. Has Mme.
Essarès told you those details? In my opinion, they are most important;
and I cannot help associating them with the events that interest us."
M. Masseron glanced at Coralie, who nodded. He answered:
"Yes, Mme. Essarès has informed me and even . . ."
He hesitated once more and again consulted Coralie, who flushed and
seemed put out of countenance. M. Masseron, however, waited for a reply
which would enable him to proceed. She ended by saying, in a low voice:
"Captain Belval is entitled to know what we have discovered. The truth
belongs as much to him as to me; and I have no right to keep it from
him. Pray speak, monsieur."
"I doubt if it is even necessary to speak," said the magistrate. "It
will be enough, I think, to show the captain this photograph-album which
I have found. Here you are, Captain Belval."
And he handed Patrice a very slender album, covered in gray canvas and
fastened with an india-rubber band.
Patrice took it with a certain anxiety. But what he saw on opening it
was so utterly unexpected that he gave an exclamation:
"It's incredible!"
On the first page, held in place by their four corners, were two
photographs: one, on the right, representing a small boy in an Eton
jacket; the other, on the left, representing a very little girl. There
was an inscription under each. On the right: "Patrice, at ten." On the
left: "Coralie, at three."
Moved beyond expression, Patrice turned the leaf. On the second page
they appeared again, he at the age of fifteen, she at the age of eight.
And he saw himself at nineteen and at twenty-three and at twenty-eight,
always accompanied by Coralie, first as a little girl, then as a young
girl, next as a woman.
"This is incredible!" he cried. "How is it possible? Here are portraits
of myself which I had never seen, amateur photographs obviously, which
trace my whole life. Here's one when I was doing my military training.
. . . Here I am on horseback . . . Who can have ordered these
photographs? And who can have collected them together with yours,
madame?"
He fixed his eyes on Coralie, who evaded their questioning gaze and
lowered her head as though the close connection between their two lives,
to which those pages bore witness, had shaken her to the very depths of
her being.
"Who can have brought them together?" he repeated. "Do you know? And
where does the album come from?"
M. Masseron supplied the answer:
"It was the surgeon who found it. M. Essarès wore a vest under his
shirt; and the album was in an inner pocket, a pocket sewn inside the
vest. The surgeon felt the boards through it when he was undressing M.
Essarès' body."
This time, Patrice's and Coralie's eyes met. The thought that M. Essarès
had been collecting both their photographs during the past twenty years
and that he wore them next to his breast and that he had lived and died
with them upon him, this thought amazed them so much that they did not
even try to fathom its strange significance.
"Are you sure of what you are saying, sir?" asked Patrice.
"I was there," said M. Masseron. "I was present at the discovery.
Besides, I myself made another which confirms this one and completes it
in a really surprising fashion. I found a pendant, cut out of a solid
block of amethyst and held in a setting of filigree-work."
"What's that?" cried Captain Belval. "What's that? A pendant? An
amethyst pendant?"
"Look for yourself, sir," suggested the magistrate, after once more
consulting Mme. Essarès with a glance.
And he handed Captain Belval an amethyst pendant, larger than the ball
formed by joining the two halves which Coralie and Patrice possessed,
she on her rosary and he on his bunch of seals; and this new ball was
encircled with a specimen of gold filigree-work exactly like that on the
rosary and on the seal.
The setting served as a clasp.
"Am I to open it?" he asked.
Coralie nodded. He opened the pendant. The inside was divided by a
movable glass disk, which separated two miniature photographs, one of
Coralie as a nurse, the other of himself, wounded, in an officer's
uniform.
Patrice reflected, with pale cheeks. Presently he asked:
"And where does this pendant come from? Did you find it, sir?"
"Yes, Captain Belval."
"Where?"
The magistrate seemed to hesitate. Coralie's attitude gave Patrice the
impression that she was unaware of this detail. M. Masseron at last
said:
"I found it in the dead man's hand."
"In the dead man's hand? In M. Essarès' hand?"
Patrice had given a start, as though under an unexpected blow, and was
now leaning over the magistrate, greedily awaiting a reply which he
wanted to hear for the second time before accepting it as certain.
"Yes, in his hand. I had to force back the clasped fingers in order to
release it."
Belval stood up and, striking the table with his fist, exclaimed:
"Well, sir, I will tell you one thing which I was keeping back as a last
argument to prove to you that my collaboration is of use; and this thing
becomes of great importance after what we have just learnt. Sir, this
morning some one asked to speak to me on the telephone; and I had hardly
answered the call when this person, who seemed greatly excited, was the
victim of a murderous assault, committed in my hearing. And, amid the
sound of the scuffle and the cries of agony, I caught the following
words, which the unhappy man insisted on trying to get to me as so many
last instructions: 'Patrice! . . . Coralie! . . . The amethyst pendant.
. . . Yes, I have it on me. . . . The pendant. . . . Ah, it's too late!
. . . I should so much have liked. . . . Patrice. . . . Coralie. . . .'
There's what I heard, sir, and here are the two facts which we cannot
escape. This morning, at nineteen minutes past seven, a man was murdered
having upon him an amethyst pendant. This is the first undeniable fact.
A few hours later, at twenty-three minutes past twelve, this same
amethyst pendant is discovered clutched in the hand of another man. This
is the second undeniable fact. Place these facts side by side and you
are bound to come to the conclusion that the first murder, the one of
which I caught the distant echo, was committed here, in this house, in
the same library which, since yesterday evening, witnessed the end of
every scene in the tragedy which we are contemplating."
This revelation, which in reality amounted to a fresh accusation against
Essarès, seemed to affect the magistrate profoundly. Patrice had flung
himself into the discussion with a passionate vehemence and a logical
reasoning which it was impossible to disregard without evident
insincerity.
Coralie had turned aside slightly and Patrice could not see her face;
but he suspected her dismay in the presence of all this infamy and
shame.
M. Masseron raised an objection:
"Two undeniable facts, you say, Captain Belval? As to the first point,
let me remark that we have not found the body of the man who is supposed
to have been murdered at nineteen minutes past seven this morning."
"It will be found in due course."
"Very well. Second point: as regards the amethyst pendant discovered in
Essarès' hand, how can we tell that Essarès Bey found it in the murdered
man's hand and not somewhere else? For, after all, we do not know if he
was at home at that time and still less if he was in his library."
"But I do know."
"How?"
"I telephoned to him a few minutes later and he answered. More than
that, to sweep away any trace of doubt, he told me that he had rung me
up but that he had been cut off."
M. Masseron thought for a moment and then said:
"Did he go out this morning?"
"Ask Mme. Essarès."
Without turning round, manifestly wishing to avoid Belval's eyes,
Coralie answered:
"I don't think that he went out. The suit he was wearing at the time of
his death was an indoor suit."
"Did you see him after last night?"
"He came and knocked at my room three times this morning, between seven
and nine o'clock. I did not open the door. At about eleven o'clock I
started off alone; I heard him call old Siméon and tell him to go with
me. Siméon caught me up in the street. That is all I know."
A prolonged silence ensued. Each of the three was meditating upon this
strange series of adventures. In the end, M. Masseron, who had realized
that a man of Captain Belval's stamp was not the sort to be easily
thrust aside, spoke in the tone of one who, before coming to terms,
wishes to know exactly what his adversary's last word is likely to be:
"Let us come to the point, captain. You are building up a theory which
strikes me as very vague. What is it precisely? And what are you
proposing to do if I decline to accept it? I have asked you two very
plain questions. Do you mind answering them?"
"I will answer them, sir, as plainly as you put them."
He went up to the magistrate and said:
"Here, sir, is the field of battle and of attack--yes, of attack, if
need be--which I select. A man who used to know me, who knew Mme.
Essarès as a child and who was interested in both of us, a man who used
to collect our portraits at different ages, who had reasons for loving
us unknown to me, who sent me the key of that garden and who was making
arrangements to bring us together for a purpose which he would have told
us, this man was murdered at the moment when he was about to execute
his plan. Now everything tells me that he was murdered by M. Essarès. I
am therefore resolved to lodge an information, whatever the results of
my action may be. And believe me, sir, my charge will not be hushed up.
There are always means of making one's self heard . . . even if I am
reduced to shouting the truth from the house-tops."
M. Masseron burst out laughing:
"By Jove, captain, but you're letting yourself go!"
"I'm behaving according to my conscience; and Mme. Essarès, I feel sure,
will forgive me. She knows that I am acting for her good. She knows that
all will be over with her if this case is hushed up and if the
authorities do not assist her. She knows that the enemies who threaten
her are implacable. They will stop at nothing to attain their object and
to do away with her, for she stands in their way. And the terrible thing
about it is that the most clear-seeing eyes are unable to make out what
that object is. We are playing the most formidable game against these
enemies; and we do not even know what the stakes are. Only the police
can discover those stakes."
M. Masseron waited for a second or two and then, laying his hand on
Patrice's shoulder, said, calmly:
"And, suppose the authorities knew what the stakes were?"
Patrice looked at him in surprise:
"What? Do you mean to say you know?"
"Perhaps."
"And can you tell me?"
"Oh, well, if you force me to!"
"What are they?"
"Not much! A trifle!"
"But what sort of trifle?"
"A thousand million francs."
"A thousand millions?"
"Just that. A thousand millions, of which two-thirds, I regret to say,
if not three-quarters, had already left France before the war. But the
remaining two hundred and fifty or three hundred millions are worth more
than a thousand millions all the same, for a very good reason."
"What reason?"
"They happen to be in gold."