Number 22 rue Messier was a wretched one-storeyed house that belonged to
a country vine-dresser who seldom came to Paris. It was damp, dirty, and
dilapidated, and would have had to be rebuilt from top to bottom if it
were to be rendered habitable. There had been a long succession of
so-called tenants of this hovel, shady, disreputable people who, for the
most part, left without paying any rent, the landlord being only too
glad if occasionally they left behind them a little miserable furniture
or worn out kitchen utensils. He was finding it ever more difficult to
let the wretched house, and for weeks together it had remained
unoccupied. But one day, about a month ago, he had been astonished by
receiving an application for the tenancy from someone who vaguely signed
himself Durand; and still further astonished by finding in the envelope
bank-notes representing a year's rent in advance. Delighted with this
windfall, and congratulating himself on not having gone to the expense
of putting the hovel into something like repair--unnecessary now, since
he had secured a tenant, and a good one, for at least twelve months--the
landlord promptly sent a receipt to this Durand, with the keys, and
thought no more about the matter.
In the principal room, on the first floor of this hovel, a little poor
furniture had been put; a shabby sofa, an equally shabby arm-chair, a
few cane-bottomed chairs, and a deal table. On the table was a tea-pot,
a small kettle over a spirit-stove, and a few cups and small cakes. A
smoky lamp shed a dim light over this depressing interior, and a handful
of coal was smouldering in the cracked grate.
And here, in these miserable surroundings, Lady Beltham was installed on
this eighteenth of December.
The great lady was even paler than usual, and her eyes shone with a
curious brilliance. That she was suffering from the most acute and
feverish nervous excitement was patent from the way in which she kept
putting her hands to her heart as though the violence of its throbbing
were unendurable, and from the restless way in which she paced the room,
stopping at every other step to listen for some sound to reach her
through the silence of the night. Once she stepped quickly from the
middle of the room to the wall opposite the door that opened on to the
staircase; she pushed ajar the door of a small cupboard and murmured
"hush," making a warning movement with her hands, as if addressing
someone concealed there; then she moved forward again and, sinking on to
the sofa, pressed her hands against her throbbing temples.
"No one yet!" she murmured presently. "Oh, I would give ten years of my
life to----! Is all really lost?" Her eyes wandered round the room.
"What a forbidding, squalid place!" and again she sprang to her feet and
paced the room. Through the grimy panes of the window she could just see
a long row of roofs and chimneys outlined against the sky. "Oh, those
black roofs, those horrible black roofs!" she muttered. The already
wretched light in the wretched room was burning dimmer, and Lady Beltham
turned up the wick of the lamp. As she did so she caught a sound and
stopped. "Can that be he?" she exclaimed, and hurried to the door.
"Footsteps--and a man's footsteps!"
The next moment she was sure. Someone stumbled in the passage below,
came slowly up the stairs, was on the landing.
Lady Beltham recoiled to the sofa and sank down on it, turning her back
to the door, and hiding her face in her hands.
"Valgrand!"
* * * * *
Valgrand was a man with a passion for adventure. But invariable success
in his flirtations had made him blasé, and now it was only the
absolutely novel that could appeal to him. And there could certainly be
no question about the woman who had sent him the present invitation
being anything but a commonplace one! Moreover, it was not just any
woman who had asked him to keep this assignation in the outward guise of
Gurn, but the one woman in whose heart the murderer ought to inspire the
greatest abhorrence, the widow of the man whom Gurn had murdered. What
should his deportment be when he came face to face with her? That was
what preoccupied the actor as he left the theatre, and made him dismiss
the taxi in which he had started, before he reached his destination.
Valgrand came into the room slowly, and with a trained eye for effect.
He flung his cloak and hat theatrically on the arm-chair, and moved
towards Lady Beltham, who still sat motionless with her face hidden in
her hands.
"I have come!" he said in deep tones.
Lady Beltham uttered a little exclamation as if of surprise, and seemed
even more anxious to hide from him.
"Odd!" thought Valgrand. "She seems to be really upset; what can I say
to her, I wonder?"
But Lady Beltham made a great effort and sat up, looking at the actor
with strained eyes, yet striving to force a smile.
"Thank you for coming, sir," she murmured.
"It is not from you, madame, that the thanks should come," Valgrand
answered magnificently; "quite the reverse; I am infinitely grateful to
you for having summoned me. Pray believe that I would have been here
even sooner but for the delay inevitable on a first performance. But you
are cold," he broke off, for Lady Beltham was shivering.
"Yes, I am," she said almost inaudibly, mechanically pulling a scarf
over her shoulders. Valgrand was standing, taking in every detail of the
squalid room in which he found himself with this woman whose wealth, and
taste, and sumptuous home at Neuilly were notorious.
"I must clear up this mystery," he thought, while he moved to the window
to see that it was shut, and searched about, in vain, for a little coal
to put upon the fire. While he was thus occupied Lady Beltham also rose,
and going to the table poured out two cups of tea.
"Perhaps this will warm us, in the absence of anything better," she
said, making an effort to seem more amiable. "I am afraid it is rather
strong, M. Valgrand; I hope you do not mind?" and, with a hand that
trembled as if it held a heavy weight, she brought one of the cups to
her guest.
"Tea never upsets me, madame," Valgrand replied as he took the cup.
"Indeed, I like it." He came to the table and picked up the basin filled
with castor sugar, making first as if to put some in her cup.
"Thanks, I never take sugar in tea," she said.
Valgrand made a little grimace. "I admire you, but I will not imitate
you," he said, and unceremoniously tipped a generous helping of the
sugar into his own cup.
Lady Beltham watched him with haggard eyes.
While they were sipping their tea, there was silence between them. Lady
Beltham went back to the sofa, and Valgrand took a chair quite close to
her. The conversation was certainly lacking in animation, he reflected
whimsically; would the lady succeed in reducing him to the level of
intelligence of a callow schoolboy? And she most certainly did seem to
be horribly upset. He raised his eyes to her and found that she was
gazing into infinity.
"One has got to draw upon psychology here," Valgrand mused. "It is not
me, myself, in whom this lovely creature takes any interest, or she
would not have desired me to come in these trappings that make me look
like Gurn; it's his skin that I must stop in! But what is the proper
attitude to adopt? The sentimental? Or the brutal? Or shall I appeal to
her proselytising mania, and do the repentant sinner act? I'll chance
it; here goes!" and he rose to his feet.
As he moved, Lady Beltham looked round, uneasy, frightened, almost
anguished: it seemed as though she realised that the moment had come for
extraordinary things to happen.
Valgrand began to speak as he did upon the stage, restraining his
effects at first and controlling his voice of set purpose to give full
effect to it later on, modulating it cleverly.
"At your summons, madame, the prisoner Gurn has burst his bonds, broken
through the door of his cell, and scaled his prison walls, triumphing
over every obstacle with the single object of coming to your feet. He
comes----" and he took a step nearer to her.
Lady Beltham stayed him with a gesture of terror.
"Don't! Don't! Please say no more!" she murmured.
"I've got a bite," Valgrand said to himself. "Let's try another bait,"
and as if repeating a part he said dramatically: "Has your charitable
heart turned towards the guilty soul that you fain would rescue from
transgression? Men say you are so great a lady, so good, so near to
heaven!"
Again Lady Beltham put up a protesting hand.
"Not that! Not that!" she said imploringly. "Oh, this is torture; go
away!"
In her distress she was really superbly beautiful; but Valgrand knew too
much about women of every temperament, neurotic, hysterical, and many
another kind, not to suppose that here he was merely taking part in a
sentimental comedy. He made a rough gesture and laid his hand on Lady
Beltham's arm.
"Do you not know me?" he said harshly. "I am Gurn! I will crush you to
my heart!" and he tried to draw her close to him.
But this time Lady Beltham threw him off with the violence of despair.
"Stand back! You brute!" she cried, in tones that there was no
mistaking.
Valgrand recoiled in real dismay, and stood silent in the middle of the
room, while Lady Beltham went to the wall farthest from him and leaned
for support against it.
"Listen, madame," Valgrand began presently, in dulcet tones that had the
effect of making Lady Beltham try to control her emotion and murmur some
faint words of apology. "Of course you know I am Valgrand, Valgrand the
actor; I will apologise for having come to you like this, but I have
some small excuse in your note!"
"My note?" she murmured. "Oh, yes; I forgot!"
Valgrand went on, seeming to pick his words.
"You have overestimated your strength, and now perhaps you find the
resemblance too startling? Do not be frightened. But your letter came
to me like healing balm upon a quivering wound. For weeks, long
weeks----" The actor stopped, and mechanically rubbed his eyes. "It's
odd," he thought to himself, "but I feel ever so much more inclined to
go to sleep than to make love." He shook off his real desire for sleep
and began again. "I have loved you since the day I saw you first. I love
you with an intensity----"
For some moments Lady Beltham had been looking at him with a calmer air,
and eyes that were less hostile. The old amorist observed it, and made a
tremendous effort to overcome his most inopportune drowsiness.
"How shall I be silent, when at last kind heaven is about to grant the
fondest desire of my heart? When, all afire with love, I am kneeling at
your feet?"
Valgrand dropped to his knees. Lady Beltham drew herself up, listening.
In the distance a clock struck four.
"Oh, I can bear it no longer!" she cried stammeringly. "I can bear no
more! Listen; four o'clock! No, no! It is too much, too much for me!"
The woman seemed absolutely frantic. She paced up and down the room like
a caged animal. Then she came close to Valgrand, and looked at him with
an immense pity in her eyes. "Go, sir; if you believe in God, go away!
Go as quickly as you can!"
Valgrand struggled to his feet. His head was heavy, and he had an
irresistible desire to hold his tongue and just stay where he was.
Partly from gallantry and partly from his desire not to move, he
murmured, not without a certain aptness: "I believe only in the god of
love, madame, and he bids me remain!"
In vain did Lady Beltham make every effort to rouse the actor and induce
him to go away; in vain were all her frantic appeals to him to fly.
"I will stay," was all he said, and he dropped heavily on the sofa by
Lady Beltham's side, and mechanically tried to put his arm round her.
"Listen!" she began, freeing herself from him: "in heavens name you
must---- And yet, I cannot tell you! Oh, it is horrible! I am going
mad! How am I to choose! What am I to do! Which----? Oh, go--go--go!
There is not a minute to lose!"
"I will stay!" said Valgrand again; this amazing drowsiness was gaining
on him so fast that he had but one desire left--for sleep! Surely a
strange assignation, this, and a poor kind of lover, too!
Lady Beltham stopped her torrent of appeal, and looked at the actor
crumpled up beside her. Suddenly she started and listened: a slight
noise became audible, coming from the staircase. Lady Beltham stood
erect and rigid: then dropped to her knees upon the floor.
"Oh! It is all over!" she sobbed.
* * * * *
In spite of his overwhelming longing for sleep, Valgrand suddenly
started. Two heavy hands fell on his shoulder, and then his arms were
pulled behind him and his wrists rapidly bound together.
"Good God!" he cried, in stupefied surprise, turning quickly round. Two
men stood before him, old soldiers by the look of them, in dark uniforms
relieved only by the gleam of metal buttons. He was going to say more,
but one of the men laid his hand over his lips.
"Hush!" he said peremptorily.
Valgrand made frantic efforts to prevent himself from falling.
"What does this mean? Let me go! What right----"
The two men began to drag him gently away.
"Come along," said one of them in his ear. "Time's up. Don't be
obstinate."
"Besides, you know it's quite useless to resist, Gurn," the other added,
not unkindly. "Nothing in the world could----"
"I don't understand," Valgrand protested feebly. "Who are you? And why
do you call me Gurn?"
"Let me finish," growled one of the men irritably. "You know we are
running an awful risk in getting you out of the prison and bringing you
here when you are supposed to be with the chaplain; you swore you would
behave squarely with us and go back when you were told. Now you've got
to keep your promise."
"The lady paid us well to give you an hour with her," the other man put
in, "but you've had more than an hour and a half, and we've got our
characters and our situations to look after. So now, come along, Gurn,
and don't let us have any nonsense."
Valgrand, fighting hard against his overpowering sleepiness, began to
have some vague comprehension of what was happening. He recognised the
uniforms, and guessed that the men were prison warders.
"Good God!" he exclaimed thickly, "the fools think I am Gurn! But I am
not Gurn! Ask----" He cast a despairing eye at Lady Beltham who
throughout the awful scene remained on her knees in a corner of the
room, dumb with anguish, apparently deaf and turned to stone. "Tell
them, madame," he implored her. "Oh, God save me!" but still the warders
dragged him towards the door. By an herculean effort he swayed them back
with him into the middle of the room. "I am not Gurn, I tell you," he
shouted. "I am Valgrand, Valgrand the actor. Everybody in the world
knows me. You know it too, but---- Search me, I tell you," and he made a
sign with his head towards his left side. "Look in my pocket-book; my
name's inside; and you'll find a letter too; proof of the trap I've been
led into: the letter from that woman over there!"
"Better look and see, Nibet," one warder said to the other, and to
Valgrand he added: "Not so much noise, man! Do you mean to get us all
caught?"
Nibet passed a quick hand through Valgrand's pockets; there was no
note-book there. He shrugged his shoulders.
"Besides, what about it?" he growled. "We brought Gurn here, didn't we?
Well, we've got to take Gurn back again. That's all I know. Come on!"
Beaten down by the drowsiness that was quite irresistible, and worn out
by his violent but futile efforts to resist the warders, Valgrand was
half dragged, half carried out by the two men, his head drooping on his
chest, his consciousness failing. But still as they were getting him
down the stairs his voice could be heard in the half-dark room above,
bleating more weakly and at longer intervals:
"I am not Gurn! I am not Gurn!"
Once more silence reigned in the room. After the three men had gone,
Lady Beltham rose to her feet, tottered to the window, and stood there
listening. She heard their footsteps crossing the street and stopping by
the door into the prison. She waited for a few minutes to make sure that
they had escaped unnoticed from their amazing adventure, then turned
again to the sofa, struggled to unfasten the collar of her dress to get
more air, drew a few deep sighs, and swooned.
The door opposite the staircase opened slowly, and noiselessly Gurn
emerged from the darkness and went towards Lady Beltham. The murderer
flung himself at her feet, covered her face with kisses, and pressed her
hands in his.
"Maud!" he called. "Maud!"
She did not answer and he hunted about the room for something to revive
her. Presently, however, she recovered consciousness unaided and uttered
a faint sigh. Her lover hurried to her.
"Oh, Gurn," she murmured, laying her white hand on the wretch's neck:
"it's you, dear! Come close to me, and hold me in your arms! It was too
much for me! I almost broke down and told everything! I could have borne
no more. Oh, what an appalling time!" She sat up sharply, her face drawn
with terror. "Listen: I can hear him still!"
"Try not to think about it," Gurn whispered, caressing her.
"Did you hear him, how he kept on saying 'I am not Gurn! I am not Gurn!'
Oh, heaven grant they may not find that out!"
Gurn himself was shaken by the horror of the plot he had contrived with
his mistress to effect this substitution of another for himself; it
surpassed in ghastliness anything that had gone before, and he had not
dared to give the least hint of it to Nibet.
"The warders were well paid," he said to reassure her now. "They would
deny everything." He hesitated a second, and then asked: "He drank the
drug, didn't he?"
Lady Beltham nodded assent.
"It will take effect. It was acting already: so rapidly, that I thought
for a moment he would fall unconscious there, at my feet!"
Gurn drew a deep breath.
"Maud, we are saved!" he exclaimed. "See," he went on, "as soon as it is
light, and there are enough people in the street for us to mix with them
unobserved, we will go away from here. While you were with--him---- I
burned my other clothes, so I will take these to get away in." He picked
up the hat and cloak which Valgrand had thrown upon the chair, and
wrapped the heavy cloak around himself. "This will conceal me
effectively."
"Let us go at once!" Lady Beltham exclaimed, but Gurn stayed her.
"I must get rid of this beard, and my moustache," he said, and he took a
pair of scissors from his pocket and was walking towards a looking-glass
when suddenly they both heard the distinct sound of footsteps coming
slowly and steadily up the stairs. Gurn had no time to get back to his
former hiding-place; all he could do was to sink into the one arm-chair
that was in the room, and conceal his features as well as he could by
turning down the brim of the hat and turning up the collar of the cloak
which the actor had forgotten. The man went as white as a sheet, but
Lady Beltham appeared to recover all her presence of mind, and strength,
and daring, at the approach of danger, and she hurried to the door. But
though she tried to keep it shut, it slowly turned upon the hinges, and
a timid, hesitating figure appeared in the doorway and advanced towards
the retreating woman.
"Who are you? What do you want?" Lady Beltham faltered.
"I beg you to excuse me, madame," the man began, "I came to----" He
caught sight of Gurn and pointed to him. "M. Valgrand knows me well. I
am Charlot, his dresser at the theatre, and I came to--I wanted to have
a word--stay----" he took a small square parcel from his pocket. "M.
Valgrand went off so hurriedly that he forgot his pocket-book, and so I
came to bring it to him." The dresser was trying to get near the
murderer, whom he supposed to be his master, but Lady Beltham, in the
most acute anxiety, kept between the two men. Charlot misunderstood her
intention. "I also came to----" He stopped again and whispered to Lady
Beltham. "He does not speak: is he very angry with me for coming? I
didn't come out of curiosity, or to cause you any trouble, madame; will
you ask him not to be very angry with his poor old Charlot?"
Lady Beltham felt like swooning again; she could endure very little of
this old man's garrulity.
"Go, for goodness' sake, go," she said peremptorily.
"I am going," Charlot said; "I know I am in the way; but I must explain
to him," and he raised his voice and spoke to Gurn, who sat quite still,
sinking as far as he could into the shadow of the chair. "You are not
very angry with me, M. Valgrand, are you?" and getting no reply he
looked apologetically at Lady Beltham. "It was all these stories, and
then the street, and the prison opposite: but perhaps you do not know;
you see, I read in the paper yesterday, or rather to-night, a couple of
hours ago, that that man Gurn, who murdered the rich English gentleman,
was to be executed this morning. And so I was rather what you might call
uneasy; at first I only meant to follow M. Valgrand and wait for him
down below, but I lost my way and I have only just arrived; I found the
door open, and as I did not know whether he had gone or was still here,
I took the liberty to come upstairs. But I am going now, quite easy in
my mind, since he is quiet and happy here with you. And I beg your
pardon, madame." He threw a last appeal to where Gurn sat. "I hope you
will forgive me, M. Valgrand?" He sighed as no answer was forthcoming,
and made a pathetic little appeal to Lady Beltham. "You will explain to
him, madame, won't you? He is a kind master, and he will understand. One
does get fancies like that, you know. But now I will go away easy, quite
easy in my mind, since I have seen him."
Charlot turned away slowly, with bent shoulders. As he passed the window
he glanced outside and stopped short. Day was just beginning to break,
making the wan light of the street lamps still more wan. From the window
a view could be obtained of a kind of platform at the corner of the
boulevard Arago which was bounded by the high wall of the Santé prison.
This spot, usually deserted, was crowded with people; a moving mob,
swarming and struggling behind some hastily erected barriers. Charlot
stretched a trembling hand towards the spectacle, in sudden
comprehension.
"Good heavens!" he cried, "that must be where they are putting up the
scaffold. Yes, I can see the planks and uprights; it is the guillotine!
The exe----"
The old man's words ended in a sudden cry, and almost simultaneously
there was a heavy thud.
Struck from behind, Charlot fell like a log to the floor, while Lady
Beltham recoiled in terror, clenching her fists to prevent herself from
screaming.
Seizing the opportunity presented by Valgrand's faithful servant
standing so still, hypnotised by the gruesome spectacle being prepared
outside, Gurn had drawn a knife from his pocket, and, springing on the
unfortunate old man, had driven the blade up to the hilt behind his
neck.
Charlot fell prone and rigid, the weapon remaining in the wound and
stopping the flow of blood.
Lady Beltham was staring at the victim in horror, but Gurn seized her
roughly by the arm.
Without troubling to alter the appearance of his face, but horrified as
she was by the tragedies which had succeeded one another in such
appalling and rapid succession during this awful night, Gurn drew the
half-fainting woman to him, and hurried her away.
"Come quick!" he muttered hoarsely. "Let us get out of this!"