PATRICE AND CORALIE
Everything happened as M. Masseron had foretold. The press did not
speak. The public did not become excited. The various deaths were
casually paragraphed. The funeral of Essarès Bey, the wealthy banker,
passed unnoticed.
But, on the day following the funeral, after Captain Belval, with the
support of the police, had made an application to the military
authorities, a new order of things was established in the house in the
Rue Raynouard. It was recognized as Home No. 2 attached to the hospital
in the Champs-Élysées; Mme. Essarès was appointed matron; and it became
the residence of Captain Belval and his seven wounded men exclusively.
Coralie, therefore, was the only woman remaining. The cook and housemaid
were sent away. The seven cripples did all the work of the house. One
acted as hall-porter, another as cook, a third as butler. Ya-Bon,
promoted to parlor-maid, made it his business to wait on Little Mother
Coralie. At night he slept in the passage outside her door. By day he
mounted guard outside her window.
"Let no one near that door or that window!" Patrice said to him. "Let no
one in! You'll catch it if so much as a mosquito succeeds in entering
her room."
Nevertheless, Patrice was not easy in his mind. The enemy had given him
too many proofs of reckless daring to let him imagine that he could take
any steps to ensure her perfect protection. Danger always creeps in
where it is least expected; and it was all the more difficult to ward
off in that no one knew whence it threatened. Now that Essarès Bey was
dead, who was continuing his work? Who had inherited the task of revenge
upon Coralie announced in his last letter?
M. Masseron had at once begun his work of investigation, but the
dramatic side of the case seemed to leave him indifferent. Since he had
not found the body of the man whose dying cries reached Patrice Belval's
ears, since he had discovered no clue to the mysterious assailant who
had fired at Patrice and Coralie later in the day, since he was not able
to trace where the assailant had obtained his ladder, he dropped these
questions and confined his efforts entirely to the search of the
eighteen hundred bags of gold. These were all that concerned him.
"We have every reason to believe that they are here," he said, "between
the four sides of the quadrilateral formed by the garden and the house.
Obviously, a bag of gold weighing a hundredweight does not take up as
much room, by a long way, as a sack of coal of the same weight. But, for
all that, eighteen hundred bags represent a cubic content; and a content
like that is not easily concealed."
In two days he had assured himself that the treasure was hidden neither
in the house nor under the house. On the evenings when Essarès Bey's car
brought the gold out of the coffers of the Franco-Oriental Bank to the
Rue Raynouard, Essarès, the chauffeur and the man known as Grégoire
used to pass a thick wire through the grating of which the accomplices
spoke. This wire was found. Along the wire ran hooks, which were also
found; and on these the bags were slung and afterwards stacked in a
large cellar situated exactly under the library. It is needless to say
that M. Masseron and his detectives devoted all their ingenuity and all
the painstaking patience of which they were capable to the task of
searching every corner of this cellar. Their efforts only established
beyond doubt that it contained no secret, save that of a staircase which
ran down from the library and which was closed at the top by a trap-door
concealed by the carpet.
In addition to the grating on the Rue Raynouard, there was another which
overlooked the garden, on the level of the first terrace. These two
openings were barricaded on the inside by very heavy shutters, so that
it was an easy matter to stack thousands and thousands of rouleaus of
gold in the cellar before sending them away.
"But how were they sent away?" M. Masseron wondered. "That's the
mystery. And why this intermediate stage in the basement, in the Rue
Raynouard? Another mystery. And now we have Fakhi, Bournef and Co.
declaring that, this time, it was not sent away, that the gold is here
and that it can be found for the searching. We have searched the house.
There is still the garden. Let us look there."
It was a beautiful old garden and had once formed part of the
wide-stretching estate where people were in the habit, at the end of the
eighteenth century, of going to drink the Passy waters. With a
two-hundred-yard frontage, it ran from the Rue Raynouard to the quay of
the river-side and led, by four successive terraces, to an expanse of
lawn as old as the rest of the garden, fringed with thickets of
evergreens and shaded by groups of tall trees.
But the beauty of the garden lay chiefly in its four terraces and in the
view which they afforded of the river, the low ground on the left bank
and the distant hills. They were united by twenty sets of steps; and
twenty paths climbed from the one to the other, paths cut between the
buttressing walls and sometimes hidden in the floods of ivy that dashed
from top to bottom.
Here and there a statue stood out, a broken column, or the fragments of
a capital. The stone balcony that edged the upper terrace was still
adorned with all its old terra-cotta vases. On this terrace also were
the ruins of two little round temples where, in the old days, the
springs bubbled to the surface. In front of the library windows was a
circular basin, with in the center the figure of a child shooting a
slender thread of water through the funnel of a shell. It was the
overflow from this basin, forming a little stream, that trickled over
the rocks against which Patrice had stumbled on the first evening.
"Ten acres to explore before we've done," said M. Masseron to himself.
He employed upon this work, in addition to Belval's cripples, a dozen of
his own detectives. It was not a difficult business and was bound to
lead to some definite result. As M. Masseron never ceased saying,
eighteen hundred bags cannot remain invisible. An excavation leaves
traces. You want a hole to go in and out by. But neither the grass of
the lawns nor the sand of the paths showed any signs of earth recently
disturbed. The ivy? The buttressing-walls? The terraces? Everything was
inspected, but in vain. Here and there, in cutting up the ground, old
conduit pipes were found, running towards the Seine, and remains of
aqueducts that had once served to carry off the Passy waters. But there
was no such thing as a cave, an underground chamber, a brick arch or
anything that looked like a hiding-place.
Patrice and Coralie watched the progress of the search. And yet, though
they fully realized its importance and though, on the other hand, they
were still feeling the strain of the recent dramatic hours, in reality
they were engrossed only in the inexplicable problem of their fate; and
their conversation nearly always turned upon the mystery of the past.
Coralie's mother was the daughter of a French consul at Salonica, where
she married a very rich man of a certain age, called Count Odolavitch,
the head of an ancient Servian family. He died a year after Coralie was
born. The widow and child were at that time in France, at this same
house in the Rue Raynouard, which Count Odolavitch had purchased through
a young Egyptian called Essarès, his secretary and factotum.
Coralie here spent three years of her childhood. Then she suddenly lost
her mother and was left alone in the world. Essarès took her to
Salonica, to a surviving sister of her grandfather the consul, a woman
many years younger than her brother. This lady took charge of Coralie.
Unfortunately, she fell under Essarès' influence, signed papers and
made her little grand-niece sign papers, until the child's whole
fortune, administered by the Egyptian, gradually disappeared.
At last, when she was about seventeen, Coralie became the victim of an
adventure which left the most hideous memory in her mind and which had a
fatal effect on her life. She was kidnaped one morning by a band of
Turks on the plains of Salonica and spent a fortnight in the palace of
the governor of the province, exposed to his desires. Essarès released
her. But the release was brought about in so fantastic a fashion that
Coralie must have often wondered afterwards whether the Turk and the
Egyptian were not in collusion.
At any rate, sick in body and depressed in spirits, fearing a fresh
assault upon her liberty and yielding to her aunt's wishes, a month
later she married this Essarès, who had already been paying her his
addresses and who now definitely assumed in her eyes the figure of a
deliverer. It was a hopeless union, the horror of which became manifest
to her on the very day on which it was cemented. Coralie was the wife of
a man whom she hated and whose love only grew with the hatred and
contempt which she showed for it.
Before the end of the year they came and took up their residence at the
house in the Rue Raynouard. Essarès, who had long ago established and
was at that time managing the Salonica branch of the Franco-Oriental
Bank, bought up almost all the shares of the bank itself, acquired the
building in the Rue Lafayette for the head office, became one of the
financial magnates of Paris and received the title of bey in Egypt.
This was the story which Coralie told Patrice one day in the beautiful
garden at Passy; and, in this unhappy past which they explored together
and compared with Patrice Belval's own, neither he nor Coralie was able
to discover a single point that was common to both. The two of them had
lived in different parts of the world. Not one name evoked the same
recollection in their minds. There was not a detail that enabled them to
understand why each should possess a piece of the same amethyst bead nor
why their joint images should be contained in the same medallion-pendant
or stuck in the pages of the same album.
"Failing everything else," said Patrice, "we can explain that the
pendant found in the hand of Essarès Bey was snatched by him from the
unknown friend who was watching over us and whom he murdered. But what
about the album, which he wore in a pocket sewn inside his vest?"
Neither attempted to answer the question. Then Patrice asked:
"Tell me about Siméon."
"Siméon has always lived here."
"Even in your mother's time?"
"No, it was one or two years after my mother's death and after I went to
Salonica that Essarès put him to look after this property and keep it in
good condition."
"Was he Essarès' secretary?"
"I never knew what his exact functions were. But he was not Essarès'
secretary, nor his confidant either. They never talked together
intimately. He came to see us two or three times at Salonica. I remember
one of his visits. I was quite a child and I heard him speaking to
Essarès in a very angry tone, apparently threatening him."
"With what?"
"I don't know. I know nothing at all about Siméon. He kept himself very
much to himself and was nearly always in the garden, smoking his pipe,
dreaming, tending the trees and flowers, sometimes with the assistance
of two or three gardeners whom he would send for."
"How did he behave to you?"
"Here again I can't give any definite impression. We never talked; and
his occupations very seldom brought him into contact with me.
Nevertheless I sometimes thought that his eyes used to seek me, through
their yellow spectacles, with a certain persistency and perhaps even a
certain interest. Moreover, lately, he liked going with me to the
hospital; and he would then, either there or on the way, show himself
more attentive, more eager to please . . . so much so that I have been
wondering this last day or two . . ."
She hesitated for a moment, undecided whether to speak, and then
continued:
"Yes, it's a very vague notion . . . but, all the same . . . Look here,
there's one thing I forgot to tell you. Do you know why I joined the
hospital in the Champs-Élysées, the hospital where you were lying
wounded and ill? It was because Siméon took me there. He knew that I
wanted to become a nurse and he suggested this hospital. . . . And then,
if you think, later on, the photograph in the pendant, the one showing
you in uniform and me as a nurse, can only have been taken at the
hospital. Well, of the people here, in this house, no one except Siméon
ever went there. . . . You will also remember that he used to come to
Salonica, where he saw me as a child and afterwards as a girl, and that
there also he may have taken the snapshots in the album. So that, if we
allow that he had some correspondent who on his side followed your
footsteps in life, it would not be impossible to believe that the
unknown friend whom you assume to have intervened between us, the one
who sent you the key of the garden . . ."
"Was old Siméon?" Patrice interrupted. "The theory won't hold water."
"Why not?"
"Because this friend is dead. The man who, as you say, sought to
intervene between us, who sent me the key of the garden, who called me
to the telephone to tell me the truth, that man was murdered. There is
not the least doubt about it. I heard the cries of a man who is being
killed, dying cries, the cries which a man utters when at the moment of
death."
"You can never be sure."
"I am, absolutely. There is no shadow of doubt in my mind. The man whom
I call our unknown friend died before finishing his work; he died
murdered, whereas Siméon is alive. Besides," continued Patrice, "this
man had a different voice from Siméon, a voice which I had never heard
before and which I shall never hear again."
Coralie was convinced and did not insist.
They were seated on one of the benches in the garden, enjoying the
bright April sunshine. The buds of the chestnut-trees shone at the tips
of the branches. The heavy scent of the wall-flowers rose from the
borders; and their brown and yellow blossoms, like a cluster of bees and
wasps pressed close together, swayed to the light breeze.
Suddenly Patrice felt a thrill. Coralie had placed her hand on his, with
engaging friendliness; and, when he turned to look at her, he saw that
she was in tears.
"What's the matter, Little Mother Coralie?"
Coralie's head bent down and her cheek touched the officer's shoulder.
He dared not move. She was treating him as a protecting elder brother;
and he shrank from showing any warmth of affection that might annoy her.
"What is it, dear?" he repeated. "What's the matter?"
"Oh, it is so strange!" she murmured. "Look, Patrice, look at those
flowers."
They were on the third terrace, commanding a view of the fourth; and
this, the lowest of the terraces, was adorned not with borders of
wall-flowers but with beds in which were mingled all manner of spring
flowers; tulips, silvery alyssums, hyacinths, with a great round plot of
pansies in the middle.
"Look over there," she said, pointing to this plot with her outstretched
arm. "Do you see? . . . Letters. . . ."
Patrice looked and gradually perceived that the clumps of pansies were
so arranged as to form on the ground some letters that stood out among
the other flowers. It did not appear at the first glance. It took a
certain time to see; but, once seen, the letters grouped themselves of
their own accord, forming three words set down in a single line:
_Patrice and Coralie_
"Ah," he said, in a low voice, "I understand what you mean!"
It gave them a thrill of inexpressible excitement to read their two
names, which a friendly hand had, so to speak, sown; their two names
united in pansy-flowers. It was inexpressibly exciting too that he and
she should always find themselves thus linked together, linked together
by events, linked together by their portraits, linked together by an
unseen force of will, linked together now by the struggling effort of
little flowers that spring up, waken into life and blossom in
predetermined order.
Coralie, sitting up, said:
"It's Siméon who attends to the garden."
"Yes," he said, wavering slightly. "But surely that does not affect my
opinion. Our unknown friend is dead, but Siméon may have known him.
Siméon perhaps was acting with him in certain matters and must know a
good deal. Oh, if he could only put us on the right road!"
An hour later, as the sun was sinking on the horizon, they climbed the
terraces. On reaching the top they saw M. Masseron beckoning to them.
"I have something curious to show you," he said, "something I have found
which will interest both you, madame, and you, captain, particularly."
He led them to the very end of the terrace, outside the occupied part of
the house next to the library. Two detectives were standing mattock in
hand. In the course of their searching, M. Masseron explained, they had
begun by removing the ivy from the low wall adorned with terra-cotta
vases. Thereupon M. Masseron's attention was attracted by the fact that
this wall was covered, for a length of some yards, by a layer of plaster
which appeared to be more recent in date than the stone.
"What did it mean?" said M. Masseron. "I had to presuppose some motive.
I therefore had this layer of plaster demolished; and underneath it I
found a second layer, not so thick as the first and mingled with the
rough stone. Come closer . . . or, rather, no, stand back a little way:
you can see better like that."
The second layer really served only to keep in place some small white
pebbles, which constituted a sort of mosaic set in black pebbles and
formed a series of large, written letters, spelling three words. And
these three words once again were:
_Patrice and Coralie_
"What do you say to that?" asked M. Masseron. "Observe that the
inscription goes several years back, at least ten years, when we
consider the condition of the ivy clinging to this part of the wall."
"At least ten years," Patrice repeated, when he was once more alone with
Coralie. "Ten years ago was when you were not married, when you were
still at Salonica and when nobody used to come to this garden . . .
nobody except Siméon and such people as he chose to admit. And among
these," he concluded, "was our unknown friend who is now dead. And
Siméon knows the truth, Coralie."
They saw old Siméon, late that afternoon, as they had seen him
constantly since the tragedy, wandering in the garden or along the
passages of the house, restless and distraught, with his comforter
always wound round his head and his spectacles on his nose, stammering
words which no one could understand. At night, his neighbor, one of the
maimed soldiers, would often hear him humming to himself.
Patrice twice tried to make him speak. He shook his head and did not
answer, or else laughed like an idiot.
The problem was becoming complicated; and nothing pointed to a possible
solution. Who was it that, since their childhood, had promised them to
each other as a pair betrothed long beforehand by an inflexible
ordinance? Who was it that arranged the pansy-bed last autumn, when they
did not know each other? And who was it that had written their two
names, ten years ago, in white pebbles, within the thickness of a wall?
These were haunting questions for two young people in whom love had
awakened quite spontaneously and who suddenly saw stretching behind them
a long past common to them both. Each step that they took in the garden
seemed to them a pilgrimage amid forgotten memories; and, at every turn
in a path, they were prepared to discover some new proof of the bond
that linked them together unknown to themselves.
As a matter of fact, during those few days, they saw their initials
interlaced twice on the trunk of a tree, once on the back of a bench.
And twice again their names appeared inscribed on old walls and
concealed behind a layer of plaster overhung with ivy.
On these two occasions their names were accompanied by two separate
dates:
_Patrice and Coralie, 1904_
_Patrice and Coralie, 1907_
"Eleven years ago and eight years ago," said the officer. "And always
our two names: Patrice and Coralie."
Their hands met and clasped each other. The great mystery of their past
brought them as closely together as did the great love which filled them
and of which they refrained from speaking.
In spite of themselves, however, they sought out solitude; and it was in
this way that, a fortnight after the murder of Essarès Bey, as they
passed the little door opening on the lane, they decided to go out by it
and to stroll down to the river bank. No one saw them, for both the
approach to the door and the path leading to it were hidden by a screen
of tall bushes; and M. Masseron and his men were exploring the old
green-houses, which stood at the other side of the garden, and the old
furnace and chimney which had been used for signaling.
But, when he was outside, Patrice stopped. Almost in front of him, in
the opposite wall, was an exactly similar door. He called Coralie's
attention to it, but she said:
"There is nothing astonishing about that. This wall is the boundary of
another garden which at one time belonged to the one we have just left."
"But who lives there?"
"Nobody. The little house which overlooks it and which comes before
mine, in the Rue Raynouard, is always shut up."
"Same door, same key, perhaps," Patrice murmured, half to himself.
He inserted in the lock the rusty key, which had reached him by
messenger. The lock responded.
"Well," he said, "the series of miracles is continuing. Will this one be
in our favor?"
The vegetation had been allowed to run riot in the narrow strip of
ground that faced them. However, in the middle of the exuberant grass, a
well-trodden path, which looked as if it were often used, started from
the door in the wall and rose obliquely to the single terrace, on which
stood a dilapidated lodge with closed shutters. It was built on one
floor, but was surmounted by a small lantern-shaped belvedere. It had
its own entrance in the Rue Raynouard, from which it was separated by a
yard and a very high wall. This entrance seemed to be barricaded with
boards and posts nailed together.
They walked round the house and were surprised by the sight that awaited
them on the right-hand side. The foliage had been trained into
rectangular cloisters, carefully kept, with regular arcades cut in yew-
and box-hedges. A miniature garden was laid out in this space, the very
home of silence and tranquillity. Here also were wall-flowers and
pansies and hyacinths. And four paths, coming from four corners of the
cloisters, met round a central space, where stood the five columns of a
small, open temple, rudely constructed of pebbles and unmortared
building-stones.
Under the dome of this little temple was a tombstone and, in front of
it, an old wooden praying-chair, from the bars of which hung, on the
left, an ivory crucifix and, on the right, a rosary composed of amethyst
beads in a gold filigree setting.
"Coralie, Coralie," whispered Patrice, in a voice trembling with
emotion, "who can be buried here?"
They went nearer. There were bead wreaths laid in rows on the tombstone.
They counted nineteen, each bearing the date of one of the last nineteen
years. Pushing them aside, they read the following inscription in gilt
letters worn and soiled by the rain:
HERE LIE
PATRICE AND CORALIE,
BOTH OF WHOM WERE MURDERED
ON THE 14th OF APRIL, 1895.
REVENGE TO ME: I WILL REPAY.