THE FOURTH MEDAL
Violent though this sensational turn was, it provoked from those who
witnessed it neither outcries nor disorder. Something mastered their
terror, smothered their words, and restrained their gestures: the
impossibility of conceiving how this murder had been committed. The
impossible resurrection of the Marquis was transformed into a miracle
of death quite as impossible; but they could not deny this miracle
since it had taken place before their eyes. In truth, they had the
impression, since no living being had entered, that death itself had
stepped over the threshold, crossed the room to the man, struck him in
their presence with its invisible hand, and then gone away, leaving the
murderous weapon in the corpse. None but a phantom could have passed.
None but a phantom could have killed.
"Errington," said Dorothy, who had recovered her coolness more quickly
than her companions, "there's no one on the staircase, is there? Dario,
surely the window is too small for any one to slip through? Webster and
Kourobelef look to the walls of the alcove."
She stooped and took the dagger from the wound. No convulsion stirred
the victim's body. It was indeed a corpse. An examination of the
dagger and the clothes gave no clue.
Errington and Dario rendered an account of their mission. The
staircase? Empty. The window? Too narrow.
They joined the Russian and the American, as did Dorothy also; and all
five of them examined and sounded the walls of the alcove with such
minuteness that Dorothy expressed the absolute conviction of all of
them when she declared in a tone of finality:
"No entrance. It is impossible to admit that any one passed that way."
"Then?" stuttered the notary, who was sitting on the stool and had
not moved for the excellent reason that his legs refused to be of the
slightest use to him. "Then?"
He asked the question with a kind of humility as if he regretted not
having admitted without opposition all Dorothy's explanations, and
promised to accept all she should consent to give him. Dorothy, who had
so clearly announced the peril which threatened them, and so clearly
elucidated all the problems of this obscure affair, suddenly appeared
to him to be a woman who makes no mistake, who cannot make any mistake.
And owing to that fact he saw in her a powerful protection against the
attacks which were about to ensue.
Dorothy for her part felt confusedly that the truth was prowling round
her, that she was on the point of perceiving with perfect clearness
that which had no form, and that it was a thing which must moreover
astonish her infinitely. Why could she not guess what was hidden
in the shadow? It appeared almost as if she was afraid to guess it
and that she was deliberately turning away from a danger which her
intelligence would have pointed out to her at once, if her womanly
instincts had not suffered her to blind herself for several minutes.
Indeed, those several minutes, she lost them. Like one whom dangers
surround and who does not know against which he must first defend
himself, she shuffled about on one spot. She wasted time on futile
phrases, keeping herself simply to the actual facts of the situation,
in the hope perhaps that one of her words might strike the enlightening
spark out of its flint.
"Maître Delarue, there's a death and a crime. We must therefore inform
the police. However ... however I think we could put it off for a day
or two."
"Put it off?" he protested. "That's a step I won't take. That is a
formality which admits of no delay."
"You will never get back to Périac."
"Why not?"
"Because the band which had been able to get rid under our very eyes of
a confederate who was in its way, must have taken precautions, and the
road which leads to Périac must be guarded."
"You believe that?... You believe that?" stuttered Maître Delarue.
"I believe it."
She answered in a hesitating fashion. At the moment she was suffering
bitterly, being one of those creatures to whom uncertainty is torture.
She had a profound impression that an essential element of the truth
was lacking. Protected as she was in that tower, with four resolute
men beside her, it was not she who directed events. She was under the
constraint of the law of the enemy who was oppressing and in a way
directing her as his fancy took him.
"But it's terrible," lamented Maître Delarue. "I cannot stay here
forever.... My practice demands my attention.... I have a wife ...
children."
"Go, Maître Delarue. But first of all hand over to us the envelope of
the codicil that I gave back to you. We will open it in your presence."
"Have you the right?"
"Why not? The letter of the Marquis is explicit: 'In the event of
Destiny having betrayed me and your finding no trace of me, you will
yourselves open the envelope, and learning their hiding-place, take
possession of the diamonds.' That's clear, isn't it? And since we know
that the Marquis is dead and quite dead, we have the right to take
possession of the four diamonds of which we are the proprietors--all
five of us ... all five."
She stopped short. She had uttered words which, as the saying goes,
clashed curiously. The contradiction of the terms she had used--four
diamonds, five proprietors--was so flagrant that the young men were
struck by them, and that Maître Delarue himself, absorbed as he was in
other matters, received a considerable shock.
"As a matter of fact that's true: you are five. How was it we didn't
notice that detail? You are five and there are only four diamonds."
Dario explained.
"Doubtless that arises from the fact that there are four men and that
we have only paid attention to this number four, four strangers in
contrast with you, mademoiselle, who are French."
"But you can't get away from the fact that you are five," said Maître
Delarue.
"And what about it?" said Webster.
"Well, you're five; and the Marquis, according to his letter, had only
four sons to whom he left four gold medals. You understand, four gold
medals?"
Webster made the objection:
"He could have bequeathed four ... and left five."
He looked at Dorothy. She was silent. Was she going to find in this
unexpected incident the solution of the enigma which escaped him? She
said thoughtfully:
"Always supposing that a fifth medal has not been fabricated since on
the model of the others and then transmitted to us by a process of
fraud."
"How are we to know it?"
"Let us compare our medals," she said. "An examination of them will
enlighten us perhaps."
Webster was the first to present his medal:
It showed no peculiarity which gave them to believe that it was not
one of the four original pieces struck by the instructions of the
Marquis and controlled by him. An examination of the medals of Dario,
Kourobelef, and Errington showed the same. Maître Delarue who had taken
all four of them and was examining them minutely, held out his hand for
Dorothy's medal.
She had taken out the little leather purse which she had slipped into
her bodice. She untied the strings and stood amazed. The purse was
empty.
She shook it, turned it inside out. Nothing.
"It's gone.... It's gone," she said in a hushed voice.
An astonished silence followed her declaration. Then the notary asked:
"You haven't lost it by any chance?"
"No," she said. "I can't have lost it. If I had, I should have lost the
little bag at the same time."
"But how do you explain it?" said the notary.
Dario intervened a trifle dryly:
"Mademoiselle has no need to explain. For you don't pretend...."
"Of course none of us supposes that mademoiselle has come here without
having the right," said the notary. "In the place of four medals there
are five, that's all I meant to say."
Dorothy said again in the most positive tones: "I have not lost it.
From the moment it was missing----"
She was on the point of saying:
"From the moment it was missing from this purse it had been stolen from
me."
She did not finish that sentence. Her heart was wrung by a sudden
anguish, as she suddenly grasped the full meaning of such an
accusation; and the problem presented itself to her in all its
simplicity and with its only possible and exact solution: "_The four
pieces of gold are there. One of them has been stolen from me. Then one
of these four men is a thief._"
And this undeniable fact brought her abruptly to such a vision of the
facts, to a certainty so unforeseen and so formidable that she needed
almost super-human energy to restrain herself. It was needful that no
one should be on their guard against her, before she had considered
the matter and fully taken in the tragic aspect of the situation. She
accepted therefore the notary's hypothesis and murmured:
"After all ... yes ... that's it. You must be right, Maître Delarue,
I've lost that medal.... But how? I can't think in what way I could
have lost it ... at what moment."
She spoke in a very low voice, an absent-minded voice. The parted
curls showed her forehead furrowed by anxiety. Maître Delarue and the
four strangers were exchanging futile phrases; not one of them seemed
worth her consideration. Then they were silent. The silence lengthened.
The lamps were switched off. The light from the little window was
concentrated on Dorothy. She was very pale, so pale that she was aware
of it and hid her face in her hands in order to prevent them from
perceiving the effects of the emotions which were racking her.
Violent emotions, which proceeded from that truth that she had had
such difficulty in attaining and which was disengaging itself from the
shadows. It was not by scraps that she was gathering up the revealing
clues but in a mass so to speak. The clouds had been swept away. In
front of her, before her closed eyes, she saw ... she saw.... Ah! What
a terrifying fact!
However she stubbornly kept herself silent and motionless, while to
her mind there presented themselves in quick succession during the
course of a few seconds all the questions and all the answers, all the
arguments and all the proofs.
She recalled the fact that the night before at the village of Périac
the caravan had nearly been destroyed by fire. Who had started that
fire? And with what motive? Might she not suppose that one of those
unhoped-for helpers, who had appeared so suddenly in the very nick of
time, had taken advantage of the confusion to slip into the caravan,
ransack her sleeping birth, and open the little leather purse hanging
from a nail.
Possessor of the medal, the chief of the gang returned in haste to
the ruins of Roche-Périac and disposed his men in that peninsula, the
innermost recesses of which must be known to him, and in which he had
everything arranged in view of the fateful day, the 12th of July,
1921. Doubtless he had had a dress rehearsal with his confederate cast
for the part of the sleeping Marquis. Final instructions. Promises
of reward in the event of success. Menaces in the event of failure.
And at noon he arrived quietly in front of the clock, like the other
strangers, presented the medal, the only certificate of identity
required, and was present at the reading of the will. Then came the
ascent of the tower and the resurrection of the Marquis. In another
instant she would have handed over the codicil to him; and he reached
his goal. The great plot which d'Estreicher had been so long weaving
attained its end. And how could she fail to observe that up to the very
last minute, there had been in the working out of that plan, in the
performance of unforeseen actions, necessitated by the chances, the
same boldness, the same vigor, the same methodical decision? There are
battles which are only won when the chief is on the battle-field.
_He is here_, she thought, distracted. He has escaped from prison and
_he is here_. His confederate was going to betray him and join us;
he killed him. _He is here._ Rid of his beard and spectacles, his
skull shaved, his arm in a sling, disguised as a Russian soldier, not
speaking a word, changing his bearing, he was unrecognizable. But it
is certainly d'Estreicher. Now he has his eyes fixed on me. He is
hesitating. He is asking himself have I penetrated his disguise....
Whether he can go on with the comedy ... or whether he should unmask
and compel us, revolver in hand, to hand over the codicil, that is to
say the diamonds.
Dorothy did not know what to do. In her place a man of her character
and temper would have settled the question by throwing himself on the
enemy. But a woman?... Already her legs were failing her; she was
in the grip of terror--of terror also for the three young men whom
d'Estreicher could lay low with three shots.
She withdrew her hands from her face. Without turning she was aware
that they were waiting, _all four of them_. D'Estreicher was one of
the group, his eyes fixed on her ... yes, fixed on her.... She felt
the savage glare which followed her slightest movement and sought to
discover her intentions.
She slid a step towards the door. Her plan was to gain that door, bar
the enemy's way, face him, and throw herself between him and the
three young men. Blockaded against the walls of the room, with escape
impossible, there were plenty of chances that he would be forced to
yield to the will of three strong and resolute men.
She moved yet another step, imperceptibly ... then another. Ten feet
separated her from the door. She saw on her right its heavy mass,
studded with nails.
She said, as if the disappearance of the medal still filled her mind:
"I must have lost it ... a day or two ago.... I had it on my knee.... I
must have forgotten to put it back----"
Suddenly she made her spring.
Too late. At the very moment that she drew herself together,
d'Estreicher, foreseeing it, leapt in front of the door, a revolver in
either outstretched hand.
This sudden act was masked by no single word. There was no need of
words indeed for the three young men to grasp the fact that the
murderer of the false Marquis stood before them. Instinctively they
recoiled from the menace; then on the instant pulled themselves
together, and ready for the counterstroke, they advanced.
Dorothy stopped them at the moment that d'Estreicher was on the point
of shooting. Drawn to her full height in front of them, she protected
them, certain that the scoundrel would not pull the trigger. But he was
aiming straight at her bosom; and the young men could not stir, while,
his right arm outstretched, with his left hand still holding the other
revolver, he felt for the lock.
"Leave it to us, mademoiselle!" cried Webster, beside himself.
"A single movement and he kills me," she said.
The scoundrel did not utter a word, he opened the door behind him,
flattened himself against the wall, then slipped quickly out.
The three young men sprang forward like unleashed hounds--only to dash
themselves against the obstacle of the heavy door.