THE MAN WHO EMERGED FROM THE DARKNESS
"When the time comes," they had said, "some one will emerge from the
darkness. When the time comes, some one will remove the mask from his
face."
That face now beamed expansively before me. That some one, who was
about to play the game of the two accomplices, was Berangere's father.
And the same question continued to suggest itself, each time more
painfully than the last:
"What had been Berangere's part in the horrible tragedy?"
There was a long, heavy silence between us. I began to stride across
the room and stopped near the chimney, where a dying fire was
smouldering. Thence I could see Massignac in a mirror, without his
perceiving it; and his face, in repose, surprised me by a gloomy
expression which was not unknown to me. I had probably seen some
photograph of him in Berangere's possession.
"It's curious," I said, "that your daughter should not have written to
you."
I had turned round very briskly; nevertheless he had had time to
expand his mouth and to resume his smile:
"Alas," he said, "the dear child hardly ever wrote to me and cared
little about her poor daddy. I, on the other hand, am very fond of
her. A daughter's always a daughter, you know. So you can imagine how
I jumped for joy when I read in the papers that she had come into
money. I should at last be able to devote myself to her and to devote
all my strength and all my energy to the great and wonderful task of
defending her interests and her fortune."
He spoke in a honeyed voice and assumed a false and unctuous air which
exasperated me. I questioned him:
"How do you propose to fulfill that task?"
"Why, quite simply," he replied, "by continuing Noel Dorgeroux's
work."
"In other words?"
"By throwing open the doors of the amphitheatre."
"Which means?"
"Which means that I shall show to the public the pictures which your
uncle used to produce."
"Have you ever seen them?"
"No. I speak from your evidence and your interviews."
"Do you know how my uncle used to produce them?"
"I do, since yesterday evening."
"Then you have seen the manuscript of which I was robbed and the
formula stolen by the murderer?"
"Since yesterday evening, I say."
"But how?" I exclaimed, excitedly.
"How? By a simple trick."
"What do you mean?"
He showed me a bundle of newspapers of the day before and continued,
with a smirking air:
"If you had read yesterday's newspapers, or at least the more
important of them, carefully, you would have noticed a discreet
advertisement in the special column. It read, 'Proprietor of the Yard
wishes to purchase the two documents necessary for working. He can be
seen this evening in the Place Vendome.' Nothing much in the
advertisement, was there? But, to the possessors of the two documents,
how clear in its meaning . . . and what a bait! To them it was the one
opportunity of making a profit, for, with all the publicity attaching
to the affair, they were unable to benefit by the result of their
robberies without revealing their identity to the public. My
calculation was correct. After I had waited an hour by the Vendome
Column, a very luxurious motor-car picked me up, you might almost say
without stopping, and, ten minutes afterwards, dropped me at the
Etoile, with the documents in my possession. I spent the night in
reading the manuscript. Oh, my dear sir, what a genius your uncle was!
What a revolution his discovery! And in what a masterly way he
expounded it! I never read anything so methodical and so lucid! All
that remains for me to do is mere child's-play."
I had listened to the man Massignac with ever-increasing amazement.
Was he assuming that anybody would for a moment credit so ridiculous a
tale?
He was laughing, however, with a look of a man who congratulates
himself on the events with which he is mixed up, or rather, perhaps,
on the very skilful fashion in which he believes himself to have
manipulated them.
With one hand, I pushed in his direction the hat which he had laid on
the table. Then I opened the door leading into the hall.
He rose and said:
"I am staying close by, at the Station Hotel. Would you mind having
any letters sent there which may come for me here? For I suppose you
have no room for me at the Lodge?"
I abruptly gripped him by the arm and cried:
"You know what you're risking, don't you?"
"In doing what?"
"In pursuing your enterprise."
"Upon my word, I don't quite see . . ."
"Prison, sir, prison."
"Oh, come! Prison!"
"Prison, sir. The police will never accept all your stories and all
your lies!"
His mouth widened into a new laugh:
"What big words! And how unjust, when addressed to a respectable
father who seeks nothing but his daughter's happiness! No, no, sir,
believe me, the inauguration will take place on the fourteenth of May
. . . unless, indeed, you oppose the wishes which your uncle expresses
in his will. . . ."
He gave me a questioning look, which betrayed a certain uneasiness;
and I myself wavered as to the answer which I ought to give him. My
hesitation yielded to a motive of which I did not weigh the value
clearly but which seemed to me so imperious that I declared:
"I shall raise no opposition: not that I respect a will which does not
represent my uncle's real intentions, but because I am bound to
sacrifice everything to his fame. If Noel Dorgeroux's discovery
depends on you, go ahead: the means which you have employed to get
hold of it do not concern me."
With a fresh burst of merry laughter and a low bow, the fellow left
the room. That evening, in the course of a visit to the solicitor, and
next day, through the newspapers, he boldly set forth his claims,
which, I may say, from the legal point of view, were recognized as
absolutely legitimate. But, two days later, he was summoned to appear
before the examining-magistrate and an enquiry was opened against him.
Against him is the right term. Certainly, there was no fact to be laid
to his charge. Certainly, he was able to prove that he had been ill in
bed, nursed by a woman-of-all-work who had been looking after him for
a month, and that he had left his place in Toulouse only to come
straight to Paris. But what had he done in Paris? Whom had he seen?
From whom had he obtained the manuscript and the formula? He was
unable to furnish explanations in reply to any of these questions.
He did not even try:
"I am pledged to secrecy," he said. "I gave my word of honour not to
say anything about those who handed me the documents I needed."
The man Massignac's word of Honour! The man Massignac's scruples!
Lies, of course! Hypocrisy! Subterfuge! But, all the same, however
suspect the fellow might be, it was difficult to know of what to
accuse him or how to sustain the accusation when made.
And then there was this element of strangeness, that the suspicion,
the presumption, the certainty that the man Massignac was the willing
tool of the two criminals, all this was swept away by the great
movement of curiosity that carried people off their feet. Judicial
procedure, ordinary precautions, regular adjournments, legal
procrastinations which delay the entry into possession of the legatees
were one and all neglected. The public wanted to see and know; and
Theodore Massignac was the man who held the prodigious secret.
He was therefore allowed to have the keys of the amphitheatre and went
in alone, or with labourers upon whom he kept an eye, replacing them
by fresh gangs so as to avoid plots and machinations. He often went to
Paris, throwing off the scent of the detectives who dogged his
movements, and returned with bottles and cans carefully wrapped up.
On the day before that fixed for the inauguration, the police were no
wiser than on the first day in matters concerning the man Massignac,
or Velmot's hiding-place, or the murderer's, or Berangere's. The same
ignorance prevailed regarding Noel Dorgeroux's secret, the
circumstances of his death and the ambiguous words which he had
scribbled on the plaster of the wall. As for the miraculous visions
which I have described, they were denied or accepted as vigorously and
as unreasonably by both the disputing parties. In short, nobody knew
anything.
And this perhaps was the reason why the thousand seats in the
amphitheatre were sold out within a few hours. Priced at a hundred
francs apiece, they were bought up by half-a-dozen speculators who got
rid of them at two or three times their original cost. How delighted
my poor uncle would have been had he lived to see it!
The night before the fourteenth of May, I slept very badly, haunted by
nightmares that kept on waking me with a start. At the first glimmer
of dawn, I was sitting on the side of my bed when, in the deep
silence, which was barely broken by the twittering of a few birds, I
seemed to hear the sound of a key in a lock and a door creaking on its
hinges.
I must explain that, since my uncle's death, I had been sleeping next
to the room that used to be his. Now the noise came from that room,
from which I was separated only by a glazed door covered with a chintz
curtain. I listened and heard the sound of a chair moved from its
place. There was certainly some one in the next room; and this some
one, obviously unaware that I occupied the adjoining chamber, was
taking scarcely any precautions. But how had he got in?
I sprang from the bed, slipped on my trousers, took up a revolver and
drew aside a corner of the curtain. At first, the shutters were closed
and the room in darkness and I saw only an indistinct shadow. Then the
window was opened softly. Somebody lifted the iron bar and pushed back
the shutters, thus admitting the light.
I now saw a woman return to the middle of the room. She was draped
from head to foot in a brown stuff cloak. Nevertheless I knew her at
once. It was Berangere.
I had a feeling not so much of amazement as of sudden and profound
pity at the sight of her emaciated face, her poor face, once so bright
and eager, now so sad and wan. I did not even think of rejoicing at
the fact of her being alive, nor did I ask myself what clandestine
business had brought her back to the Lodge. The one thing that held me
captive was the painful spectacle of her pallid face, with its
feverish, burning eyes and blue eyelids. Her cloak betrayed the
shrunken figure beneath it.
Her heart must have been beating terribly, for she held her two hands
to her breast to suppress its throbbing. She even had to lean on the
edge of the table. She staggered and nearly fell. Poor Berangere. I
felt anguish-stricken as I watched her.
She pulled herself together, however, and looked around her. Then,
with a tottering gait, she went to the mantelpiece, where two old
engravings, framed in black with a gold beading, hung one on either
side of the looking-glass. She climbed on a chair and took down the
one on the right, a portrait of D'Alembert.
Stepping down from the chair, she examined the back of the frame,
which was closed by a piece of old card-board the edges of which were
fastened to the sides of the frame by strips of gummed cloth.
Berangere cut these strips with a pen-knife, bending back the tacks
which held the cardboard in position. It came out of the frame; and I
then saw--Berangere had her back turned in my direction, so that not a
detail escaped me--I then saw that there was inserted between the
cardboard and the engraving a large sheet of paper covered with my
uncle's writing.
At the top, in red ink, was a drawing of the three geometrical eyes.
Next came the following words, in bold black capitals:
"Instructions for working my discovery, abridged from
the manuscript sent to my nephew."
And next forty or fifty very closely-written lines, in a hand too
small to allow me to decipher them.
Besides, I had not the time. Berangere merely glanced at the paper.
Having found the object of her search and obtained possession of an
additional document which my uncle had provided in case the manuscript
should be lost, she folded it up, slipped it into her bodice, replaced
the cardboard and hung the engraving where she had found it.
Was she going away? If so, she was bound to return as she had come,
that is to say, evidently, through Noel Dorgeroux's dressing-room, on
the other side of the bedroom, of which she had left the
communicating-door ajar. I was about to prevent her and had already
taken hold of the door-handle, when suddenly she moved a few steps
towards my uncle's bed and fell on her knees, stretching out her hands
in despair.
Her sobs rose in the silence. She stammered words which I was able to
catch:
"God-father! . . . My poor god-father!"
And she passionately kissed the coverlet of the bed beside which she
must often have sat up watching my uncle when he was ill.
Her fit of crying lasted a long time and did not cease until just as I
entered. Then she turned her head, saw me and stood up slowly, without
taking her eyes from my face:
"You!" she murmured. "It's you!"
Seeing her make for the door, I said:
"Don't go, Berangere."
She stopped, looking paler than ever, with drawn features.
"Give me that sheet of paper," I said, in a voice of command.
She handed it to me, with a quick movement. After a brief pause, I
continued:
"Why did you come to fetch it? My uncle told you of its existence,
didn't he? And you . . . you were taking it to my uncle's murderers,
so that they might have nothing more to fear and be the only persons
to know the secret? . . . Speak, Berangere, will you?"
I had raised my voice and was advancing towards her. She took another
step back.
"You shan't move, do you hear? Stay where you are. Listen to me and
answer me!"
She made no further attempt to move. Her eyes were filled with such
distress that I adopted a calmer demeanour:
"Answer me," I said, very gently. "You know that, whatever you may
have done, I am your friend, your indulgent friend, and that I mean to
help you . . . and advise you. There are feelings which are proof
against everything. Mine for you is of that sort. It is more than
affection: you know it is, don't you, Berangere? You know that I love
you?"
Her lips quivered, she tried to speak, but could not. I repeated again
and again:
"I love you! . . . I love you!"
And, each time, she shuddered, as though these words, which I spoke
with infinite emotion, which I had never spoken so seriously or so
sincerely, as if these words wounded her in the very depths of her
soul. What a strange creature she was!
I tried to put my hand on her shoulder. She avoided my friendly touch.
"What can you see to fear in me," I asked, "when I love you? Why not
confess everything? You are not a free agent, are you? You are being
forced to act as you do and you hate it all?"
Once more, anger was overmastering me. I was exasperated by her
silence. I saw no way of compelling her to reply, of overcoming that
incomprehensible obstinacy except by clasping her in my arms and
yielding to the instinct of violence which urged me towards some
brutal action.
I went boldly forward. But I had not taken a step before she spun
round on her heel, so swiftly that I thought that she would drop to
the floor in the doorway. I followed her into the other room. She
uttered a terrible scream. At the same moment I was knocked down by a
sudden blow. The man Massignac, who had been hiding in the
dressing-room and watching us, had leapt at me and was attacking me
furiously, while Berangere fled to the staircase.
"Your daughter," I spluttered, defending myself, "your daughter! . . .
Stop her! . . ."
The words were senseless, seeing that Massignac, beyond a doubt, was
Berangere's accomplice, or rather an inspiring force behind her, as
indeed he proved by his determination to put me out of action, in
order to protect his daughter against my pursuit.
We had rolled over the carpet and each of us was trying to master his
adversary. The man Massignac was no longer laughing. He was striking
harder blows than ever, but without using any weapon and without any
murderous intent. I hit back as lustily and soon discovered that I
was getting the better of him.
This gave me additional strength. I succeeded in flattening him
beneath me. He stiffened every muscle to no purpose. We lay clutching
each other, face to face, eye to eye. I took him by the throat and
snarled:
"Ah, I shall get it out of you now, you wretch, and learn at last
. . ."
And suddenly I ceased. My words broke off in a cry of horror and I
clapped my hand to his face in such a way as to hide the lower part of
it, leaving only the eyes visible. Oh, those eyes riveted on mine!
Why, I knew them! Not with their customary expression of smug and
hypocritical cheerfulness, but with the other expression which I was
slowly beginning to remember. Yes, I remember them now, those two
fierce, implacable eyes, filled with hatred and cruelty, those eyes
which I had seen on the wall of the chapel, those eyes which had
looked at me on that same day, when I lay gasping in the murderer's
grip in the woods near the Yard.
And again, as on that occasion, suddenly my strength forsook me. Those
savage eyes, those atrocious eyes, the man Massignac's real eyes,
alarmed me.
He released himself with a laugh of triumph and, speaking in calm and
deliberate accents, said:
"You're no match for me, young fellow! Don't you come meddling in my
affairs again!"
Then, pushing me away, he ran off in the same direction as Berangere.
A few minutes later, I perceived that the sheet of paper which the
daughter had found behind the old engraving had been taken from me by
the father; and then, but not till then, I understood the exact
meaning of the attack.
The amphitheatre was duly inaugurated on the afternoon of that same
day. Seated in the box-office was the manager of the establishment,
the possessor of the great secret, Theodore Massignac, Noel
Dorgeroux's murderer.