LAZARUS
Dorothy gazed; her eyes missed no slightest movement. Like her, the
young men remained motionless, with drawn faces. The Italian, however,
just sketched the sign of the cross.
"He's alive!" broke in Maître Delarue. "Look; he's looking at us."
A strange gaze. It did not shift; it did not try to see. The gaze of
the newly born, animated by no thought. Vague, unconscious, it shunned
the light of the lamps and seemed ready to be extinguished in a new
sleep. On the other hand the rest of the body became instinct with
life, as if the blood resumed its normal course under the impulsion of
a heart which again began to beat. The arms and the hands moved with
purposed movements. Then suddenly the legs slipped off the bed. The
bust was raised. After several attempts the man sat up.
Then they saw him face to face; and since one of the young men raised
his lamp that its light might not shine in his eyes, that lamp lit
up on the wall of the alcove above the bed the portrait of which the
Marquis had made mention. They could then perceive that it was indeed
the portrait of the man. The same enormous brow, the same eyes deeply
sunk in their orbits, the same high cheek-bones, the same bony jaw,
the same projecting ears. But the man, contrary to the prediction in
the letter, had greatly aged and grown considerably thinner, for the
portrait represented a nobleman of good appearance and sufficiently
plump.
Twice he tried to stand upright without succeeding. He was too weak;
his legs refused to support him. He seemed also to be laboring under
a heavy oppression and to breathe with difficulty, either because he
had lost the habit or because he needed more air. Dorothy observed two
planks nailed to the wall, pointed them out to Dario and Webster, and
signed to them to pull them down. It was easy to do so, for they were
not nailed very firmly to the wall; and they uncovered a small round
window, a bull's-eye rather, not more than a foot or fifteen inches
across.
A whiff of fresh air blew into the room all round the man sitting on
the bed; and for all that he appeared to have no understanding of
anything, he turned towards the window, and opening his mouth, drew in
great breaths.
All these trifling incidents were spread over a considerable time.
The astonished witnesses of them had a feeling that they were taking
part in the mysterious phases of a resurrection which they were wholly
unable to consider final. Every minute gained by this living dead man
appeared to them a new miracle which passed all imagining, and they
hoped for the inevitable event which would restore things to their
natural order, and which would be as it were the disarticulation and
crumbling away of this incredible automaton.
Dorothy stamped her foot impatiently, as if she were struggling against
herself and trying to shake off a torpor.
She turned away from this sight which fascinated her, and her face took
on an expression of such profound thought, that her companions withdrew
their eyes from the man to watch her. Her eyes were seeking something.
Their blue irises became of a deeper blue. They seemed to see beyond
what ordinary eyes see and to pursue the truth into more distant
regions.
At the end of a minute or two she said:
"We must try."
She went firmly to the bed. After all here was a clear and definite
phenomenon; it had to be taken into account: this man was alive. It was
necessary therefore to treat him as a living being, who has ears to
hear and a mouth to speak with, and who distinguishes the things about
him by a personal existence. This man had a name. Every circumstance
pointed directly to the fact that his presence in this sealed chamber
was the result not of a miracle--a hypothesis which they need only
examine as a last resort--but of an experiment that had succeeded--a
hypothesis which one had no right to set aside for _a priori_ reasons,
however astonishing it might appear to be.
Then why not question him?
She sat down beside him, took his hands, which were cold and moist, in
hers and said gravely:
"We have hastened hither at your summons.... We are they to whom the
gold medal----"
She stopped. The words were not coming easily to her. They seemed
to her absurd and childish; and she was quite certain that they must
appear so to those who heard them. But she must make an effort to
continue:
"In our families the gold medal has passed from hand to hand right
down to us.... It is now for two centuries that the tradition has been
forming and that your will----"
But she was incapable of continuing on these pompous lines. Another
voice within her murmured:
"Goodness, how idiotic what I am saying is!"
However, the hands of the man were growing warm from their contact with
hers. He almost wore an air of hearing the noise of her words and of
understanding that they were addressed to him. And so, dropping the
phrase-making, she brought herself to speak to him simply, as to a poor
man whom his resurrection did not set apart from human necessities:
"Are you hungry?... Do you want to eat? ... to drink? Answer. What
would you like?... My friends and I will try...."
The old man, with the light full on his face, his mouth open, his lower
lip hanging down, preserved a dull and stupid countenance, animated by
no expression, no desire.
Without turning away from him, Dorothy called out to the notary:
"Don't you think we ought to offer him the second envelope, Maître
Delarue, the codicil? His understanding may perhaps awake at the sight
of this paper which formerly belonged to him, and which, according to
the instructions in the will, we're to hand over to him."
Maître Delarue agreed with her and passed the envelope to her. She held
it out to the old man, saying:
"Here are the directions for finding the diamonds, written by yourself.
No one knows these directions. Here they are."
She stretched out her hand. It was clear that the old man tried to
respond with a similar movement. She accentuated the gesture. He
lowered his eyes towards the envelope; and his fingers opened to
receive it.
"You quite understand?" she asked. "You are going to open this
envelope. It contains the secret of the diamonds--a fortune."
Once more she stopped abruptly, as if struck by a sudden thought,
something she had unexpectedly observed.
Webster said to her:
"He certainly understands. When he opens the letter and reads it, the
whole of the past will come back to his memory. We may give it to him."
George Errington supported him.
"Yes, mademoiselle, we may give it to him. It's a secret which belongs
to him."
Dorothy however did not perform the action she had suggested. She
looked at the old man with the most earnest attention. Then she took
the lamp, moved it away, then near, examined the mutilated hand, and
then suddenly burst into a fit of wild laughter; it burst out with all
the violence of laughter long restrained.
Bent double, holding her ribs, she laughed till it hurt her. Her pretty
head shook her wavy hair in a series of jerks. And it was a laugh
so fresh and so young, of such irresistible gayety that the young
men burst out laughing in their turn. Maître Delarue, on the other
hand, irritated by a hilarity which seemed to him out of place in the
circumstances protested in a tone of annoyance:
"Really, I'm amazed.... There's nothing to laugh at in all this.... We
are in the presence of a really extraordinary occurrence...."
His shocked air re-doubled Dorothy's merriment. She stammered:
"Yes--extraordinary--a miracle! Goodness, how funny it is! And what a
pleasure it is to let one's self go! I had been holding myself in quite
long enough. Yes, I was manifestly serious ... uneasy.... But all the
same I did want to laugh!... It is all so funny!"
The notary muttered:
"I don't see anything funny in it.... The Marquis----"
Dorothy's delight passed all bounds. She repeated, wringing her hands,
with tears in her eyes:
"The Marquis!... The friend of Fontenelle! The revivified Marquis!
Lazarus de Beaugreval! Then you didn't see?"
"I saw the film on the mirror ... the eyes open."
"Yes, yes: I know. But the rest?"
"What rest?"
"In his mouth?"
"What on earth is it?"
"There's a...."
"A what? Out with it!"
"A false tooth!"
Maître Delarue repeated slowly:
"There's a false tooth?"
"Yes, a molar ... a molar all of gold!"
"Well, what about it?"
Dorothy did not immediately reply. She gave Maître Delarue plenty of
time to collect his wits and to grasp the full value of this discovery.
He said again in a less assured tone:
"Well?"
"Well, there you are?" she said, very much out of breath. "I ask
myself, with positive anguish: did they make gold teeth in the days of
Louis XIV and Louis XV?... Because, you see, if the Marquis was unable
to get his gold tooth before he died, he must have had his dentist come
here--to this tower--while he was dead. That is to say, he must have
learnt from the newspapers, or from some other source, that he could
have a false tooth put in the place of the one which used to ache in
the days of Louis XIV."
Dorothy had finally succeeded in repressing the ill-timed mirth which
had so terribly shocked Maître Delarue. She was merely smiling--but
smiling with an extremely mischievous and delighted air. Naturally the
four strangers, grouped closely round her, were also smiling with the
air of people amused beyond words.
On his bed, the man, always impassive and stupid, continued his
breathing exercises. The notary drew his companions out of the alcove,
into the outer room so that they formed a group with their backs to
the bed, and said in a low voice:
"Then, according to you, mademoiselle, this is a mystification?"
"I'm afraid so," she said, tossing her head with a humorous air.
"But the Marquis?"
"The Marquis has nothing to do with the matter," she said. "The
adventure of the Marquis came to an end on the 12th of July, 1721,
when he swallowed a drug which put an end to his brilliant existence
for good and all. All that remains of the Marquis, in spite of his
hopes of a resurrection, is: firstly, a pinch of ashes mingled with the
dust of this room; secondly, the authentic and curious letter which
Maître Delarue read to us; thirdly, a lot of enormous diamonds hidden
somewhere or other; fourthly, the clothes he was wearing at the supreme
hour when he voluntarily shut himself up in his tomb, that is to say in
this room."
"And those clothes?"
"Our man is dressed in them--unless he bought others, since the old
ones must have been in a very bad state."
"But how could he get here? This window is too narrow; besides it's
inaccessible. Then how?..."
"Doubtless the same way we did."
"Impossible! Think of all the obstacles, the difficulties, the wall of
briers which barred the road."
"Are we sure that this wall was not already pierced in some other
place, that the plaster partition had not been broken down and
reconstructed, that the door of this room had not been opened before
we came?"
"But it would have been necessary for this man to know the secret
combinations of the Marquis, the mechanical device of the two stones
and so on."
"Why not? Perhaps the Marquis left a copy of his letter ... or a draft
of it. But no.... Of course!... Better than that! We know the truth
from the Marquis de Beaugreval himself.... He foresaw it, since he
alludes to an always possible defection of his old servant, Geoffrey,
and takes into account the possibility of the good fellow's writing a
description of what had taken place. This description the good fellow
did write, and along different lines it has come down to our time."
"It's a simple supposition."
"It's a supposition more than probable, Maître Delarue, since besides
us, besides these four young men and myself, there are other families
in which the history, or a part of the history of Beaugreval, has been
handed down; and as a consequence for some months I've been fighting
for the possession of the indispensable gold medal stolen from my
father."
Her words made a very deep impression. She entered into details:
"The family of Chagny-Roborey in the Orne, the family of Argonne in the
Ardennes, the family of Davernoie in Vendée, are so many focuses of the
tradition. And around it dramas, robberies, assassinations, madness, a
regular boiling up of passion and violence."
"Nevertheless," observed Errington, "here there is no one but us. What
are the others doing?"
"They're waiting. They're waiting for a date of which they are
ignorant. They are waiting for the medal. I saw in front of the church
of Roche-Périac a tramp and a factory hand, a woman, from Paris. I saw
two poor mad people who came to the rendezvous and are waiting at the
edge of the water. A week ago I handed over to the police a dangerous
criminal of the name of d'Estreicher, a distant connection of my
family, who had committed a murder to obtain possession of the gold
medal. Will you believe me now when I tell you that we are dealing with
an impostor?"
Dario said:
"Then the man who is here has come to play the same part as the Marquis
expected to play two hundred years after his death?"
"Of course."
"With what object?"
"The diamonds, I tell you--the diamonds!"
"But since he knew of their existence, he had only to search for them
and appropriate them."
"You can take it from me that he has searched for them and without
ceasing, but in vain. A fresh proof that the man only knew Geoffrey's
story, since Geoffrey had not been informed by his master of their
hiding-place. And it is in order to learn where this hiding-place is,
to be present at the meeting of the descendants of the Marquis de
Beaugreval, that he is playing to-day, the 12th of July, 1921, after
months and years of preparation, the part of the Marquis."
"A dangerous part! An impossible part!"
"Possible for at least some hours, which would be enough. What do I
say, some hours? But just think: at the end of ten minutes we were all
of one mind about giving him the second envelope which contains the
key to the enigma, and which was probably the actual object of his
enterprise. He must have known of the existence of a codicil, of a
document giving directions. But where to find that document. No longer
any scrivener Barbier--no longer any successors. But where to find it?
Why here! At the meeting on the 12th of July. Logically, the codicil
must be brought to that meeting. Logically, it would be handed over
to him. And as a matter of fact I had it in my hand. I held it out to
him. A second later he would have obtained from it the information he
wanted. After that, good-bye. The Marquis de Beaugreval, once possessor
of the diamonds of the Marquis de Beaugreval, would retire into the
void, that is to say he would bolt at full speed."
Webster asked:
"Why didn't you give him the envelope? Did you guess?"
"Guess? No. But I distrusted him. In offering it to him I was above all
things making an experiment. What evidence it would be against him, if
he accepted my offer by a gesture of acceptance, inexplicable at the
end of such a short period? He did accept. I saw his hand tremble with
impatience. I knew where I was. But at the same time Fortune was kind
to me; I saw that little bit of gold in his mouth."
It was all linked together in a flawless chain of reasoning. Dorothy
had set forth the coördination of events, causes and effects, as one
displays a piece of tapestry in which the complicated play of design
and color produces the most harmonious unity.
The four young men were astounded; not one of them threw any doubt on
her statement.
Archibald Webster said:
"One would think that you had been present throughout the whole
adventure."
"Yes," said Dario. "The revivified Marquis played a whole comedy before
you."
"What a power of observation and what terrible logic!" said Errington,
of London.
And Webster added:
"And what intuition!"
Dorothy did not respond to the praise with her habitual smile. One
would have said that events were happening in a manner far from
pleasing to her, which seemed to promise others which she distrusted in
advance. But what events? What was there to fear?
In the silence Maître Delarue suddenly cried:
"Well, for my part, I assert that you're making a mistake. I'm not at
all of your opinion, mademoiselle."
Maître Delarue was one of those people who cling the more firmly to an
opinion the longer they have been adopting it. The resurrection of the
Marquis suddenly appeared to him a dogma he was bound to defend.
He repeated:
"Not at all of your opinion! You are piling up unfounded hypotheses.
No: this man is not an impostor. There is evidence in his favor which
you do not take into account."
"What evidence?" she asked.
"Well, his portrait! His indisputable resemblance to the portrait of
the Marquis de Beaugreval, executed by Largillière!"
"Who tells you that this is the portrait of the Marquis, and not the
portrait of the man himself? It's a very easy way of resembling any
one."
"But this old frame? This canvas which dates from earlier days?"
"Let us admit that the frame remained. Let us admit that the old
canvas, instead of having been changed, has simply been painted over in
such a way as to represent the false Marquis here present."
"And the cut-off finger?" exclaimed Maître Delarue triumphantly.
"A finger can be cut off."
The notary became vehement:
"Oh, no! A thousand times, no! Whatever be the attraction of the
benefit to be derived, one does not mutilate oneself. No, no: your
contention falls to the ground. What? You represent this fellow as
ready to cut off his finger! This fellow with his dull face, his air of
stupidity! But he is incapable of it! He's weak and a coward...."
The argument struck Dorothy. It threw light on the most obscure part of
the business; and she drew from it exactly the conclusions it warranted.
"You're right," she said. "A man like him is incapable of mutilating
himself."
"In that case?"
"In that case, some one else has charged himself with this sinister
task."
"Some one else has cut off the finger? An accomplice?"
"More than an accomplice, his chief? The brain which has devised
these combinations is not his. He is not the man who has staged the
adventure. He is only an instrument, some common rogue chosen for his
fleshless aspect. The man who holds the threads remains invisible; and
he is formidable."
The notary shivered.
"One would say you knew him."
After a pause she answered slowly:
"It is possible that I do know him. If my instinct does not deceive
me, the master criminal is the man who I handed over to justice, this
d'Estreicher of whom I spoke just now. While he is in prison his
accomplices--for there are several of them--have taken up the work he
began and are trying to carry it through.... Yes, yes," she added,
"one can well believe that it is d'Estreicher who has arranged the
whole business. He has been engaged in the affair for years; and such
a machination is entirely in accord with his cunning and wily spirit.
We must be on our guard against him. Even in prison he is a dangerous
adversary."
"Dangerous ... dangerous ..." said the notary, trying to reassure
himself. "I don't see what threatens us. Besides, the affair draws to
its end. As regards the precious stones, open the codicil. And as far
as I am concerned, my task is performed."
"It isn't a matter of knowing whether your task is performed, Maître
Delarue," Dorothy answered in the same thoughtful tone. "It's a matter
of escaping a danger which is not quite clear to me but which permits
me to expect anything, which I foresee more and more clearly. Where
will it come from? I don't know. But it exists."
"It's terrible," groaned Maître Delarue. "How are we to defend
ourselves? What are we to do?"
"What are we to do?"
She turned towards the little room which served as alcove. The man no
longer stirred, his head and face buried in the shadow.
"Question him. You quite understand that this super did not come here
alone. They have intrusted him with this post, but the others are on
the watch, the agents of d'Estreicher. They are waiting in the wings
for the result of the comedy. They are spying on us. Perhaps they hear
us. Question him. He is going to tell us the measures to be taken
against us in case of a check."
"He will not speak."
"But he will--he will. He is in our hands; and it is entirely to his
interest to win our forgiveness for the part he has played. He is one
of those people who are always on the side of the stronger.... Look at
him."
The man remained motionless. Not a gesture. However his attitude did
not look natural. Sitting as he was, half bent over, he should have
lost his balance.
"Errington ... Webster ... light him up," Dorothy ordered.
Simultaneously the rays from the two electric lamps fell on him.
Some seconds passed.
"Ah!" sighed Dorothy, who was the first to grasp the terrible fact; and
she started back.
All six of them were shocked by the same sight, at first inexplicable.
The bust and the head which they believed to be motionless, were
bending a little forward, with a movement which was hardly perceptible,
but which did not cease. At the bottom of the orbits rose the eyes,
quite round, eyes full of terror, which gleamed, like carbuncles, in
the concentric fires of the two lamps. His mouth moved convulsively as
if to utter a cry which did not issue from it. Then the head settled
down on to the chest, dragging the bust with it. They saw for some
seconds the ebony hilt of a dagger, the blade of which half buried in
the right shoulder, at the junction with the neck, was streaming with
blood. And finally the whole body huddled on to itself. Slowly, like
a wounded beast, the man sank to his knees on the stone floor, and
suddenly fell in a heap.