THE KISS IN THE DARK
The station of Beaucourt is situated in the open country at a
considerable distance from the outskirts of the village, with not even
a cottage near it. The platform was lighted by all the lamps, lanterns,
and candles they had been able to lay hands on, so that Ralph was
obliged to approach it with infinite care. The station master, a
workman, and a porter were talking to the policeman in charge of the
prisoner.
In the shadowy dusk of this room were piles of baskets and crates,
intermingled with boxes and trunks of all kinds. As he drew near, Ralph
fancied that he saw, sitting on a heap of objects a bent and motionless
figure.
“That must be the girl with the green eyes,” he said to himself. “No
need to lock the door since the jailors, standing in front of it, make
it a safe enough prison.”
He slipped into the booking-office and looked about him. There was a
door on the left of him, a waiting-room on the right, out of which a
staircase rose to the story above, and in the right-hand wall of this
waiting-room another door. From the position of the rooms that must be
what he wanted.
For a man like Ralph a bolt was an obstacle hardly worth taking into
account. He always had on him four or five small tools with which he
could make sure of opening the most recalcitrant of doors. At the first
attempt the bolt yielded. He opened the door an inch or two and found
that not a ray of light fell on him. He opened it wider, and, stooping,
entered. The men outside had been able neither to see nor hear him, nor
had the prisoner, whose dull sobs broke the silence with a rhythmical
monotony.
Ralph took advantage of the noise outside to slip his head between two
piles of baskets to get a clear view. He found himself just behind the
heap of mail-bags on which the prisoner had thrown herself. This time
she must have heard the sound he made, for her sobbing ceased. As it
ceased he whispered: “Don’t be frightened.”
“Is it you, William?” she whispered.
Ralph gathered that she was speaking of the other fugitive; he
answered:
“No. It’s a friend who will save you from the police.”
She did not say anything. She must be suspecting a trap.
He went on in a yet more urgent whisper: “You’re in the hands of the
police. If you don’t follow me it means the court and prison.”
“No. The magistrate will let me go free.”
“He won’t let you go free. Two men have been murdered. Your blouse is
covered with blood. Come along—a moment’s hesitation may destroy you.
Come along!” he insisted.
After a few seconds’ silence she murmured:
“My hands are bound.”
Crawling along and hugging the darkness as he crawled he cut her bonds
with his knife and asked in a whisper:
“Can they actually see you?”
“Only the policeman when he turns round,” she replied. “And he can’t
see me very well, for I’m in the shadow. As for the others, they’re too
far to the left.”
“That’s all right,” he said with a sigh of relief; then: “Wait a
moment! Listen!”
They heard the sound of feet coming along the platform; he recognized
the voice of Marescal.
“Not a movement!” he said in low, imperative accents. “They’re coming
sooner than I expected. Lie still.”
“Oh! I’m frightened!” the girl muttered. “It seems to me that that
voice—Oh, dear! Can it be possible?”
“Yes,” he muttered. “It’s the voice of your enemy, Marescal. But you
mustn’t be frightened. Don’t you remember this afternoon, on the
Boulevard, that a man interposed between you and him. It was me. I beg
you not to be frightened.”
“But he’ll come in here,” she quavered.
“We don’t know that.”
“But if he does come in?”
“Pretend to be asleep, or to have fainted. Bury your head between your
crossed arms. Don’t stir,” he urged.
“But if he tries to get a look at me. Suppose he recognizes me?” she
muttered in a harried tone.
“Don’t answer him. Whatever happens, don’t say a word. Marescal will
not act immediately. He will take time to consider what to do. And
then——”
But he was not at all easy in mind. He thought it more than likely that
Marescal would be anxious to know whether he had made a mistake, or
not, and whether the robber was really a woman. He would then start to
question her at once, and in any case, considering her insecurely
imprisoned, inspect her prison himself.
He was right. At once the Commissary exclaimed in a joyful tone: “Well,
station master, this is good news! You’ve got a prisoner, have you, and
an important prisoner too. Beaucourt railway station is going to become
celebrated. You seem to me to have selected a very good place to
confine him in; indeed, I don’t see how you could have done better. But
just to make sure, I’m going to take a look myself.”
So without the loss of a moment, as Ralph had foreseen, he set about
making sure. It was a terrible game for a young girl to be called on to
play: a movement or two, a word or two, and she would be irremediably
lost.
Ralph nearly beat a retreat; but that would have been to throw up the
sponge and draw on his heels a whole horde of adversaries who would
prevent him from resuming the enterprise. Therefore he kept still and
trusted to luck.
Marescal came into the room, still speaking as he came to the people
outside, and in such a fashion as to hide the motionless figure which
he wished to be the only person to examine. Ralph remained at a
distance, sufficiently hidden by the pile of baskets for Marescal not
to see him.
The Commissary stopped short and said loudly: “Asleep, are we? Ah,
well, my friend, we ought to be able to manage a little chat.”
He drew from his pocket an electric torch, pressed the switch and
turned the illuminating ray on to the supine form. Only seeing two
crossed arms and a hat, he drew the arms aside and tilted the hat up.
“I was right,” he muttered in a low voice. “It is a woman—a fair woman!
Come on, baby: let’s have a look at your pretty mug.”
He took hold of her head rather roughly and turned her face towards
him. The sight that met his eyes was so astonishing that he seemed
unable to believe the incredible fact.
“No, no! I can’t believe it!” he murmured.
He looked towards the door of the room. It would never do for any of
the others to join him. Then, feverishly, he tore off the hat. The full
light of the lamp fell on the face, revealing every feature.
“You! You!” he muttered. “But I’m mad! This is incredible! You! You a
murderess! You, You!” He bent lower. The prisoner did not stir. Her
pale face did not even quiver.
“It is you!” muttered Marescal in a breathless voice. “By what miracle?
So you’ve murdered a man; and the police have caught you and here you
are—you! it’s impossible!”
One would have sworn that she was really asleep. Marescal was silent.
Was she really asleep?
“That’s right, don’t stir,” he said. “I’m going to get these people
away and come back. Then, presently, we’ll have a talk. We must go
gently indeed, my child.”
What did he mean? Was he going to propose some abominable bargain?
Ralph guessed that he had not really any fixed plan. This astonishing
occurrence had taken him by surprise and he was asking himself what
advantage he might expect from it.
Marescal drew the hat back over the fair head, pushed all the curls
under it, then, opening the blouse, felt in all the pockets of the
jacket. He found nothing in them. Then he stood upright and turned to
go out; his mind was in such a state of confusion that he never thought
to examine the other door of the room.
“A queer-looking lad,” he said, joining the group outside. “He
certainly isn’t twenty. A young rascal misled by his accomplice.”
He went on talking, but in an absent-minded manner which made it clear
that his mind was in a whirl and that he needed time to consider the
matter.
“I think that my little preliminary inquiry won’t be quite lacking in
interest to the examining magistrate,” he said proudly. “While we wait
for him, I’ll keep guard here with you, inspector. Or no, I’ll keep
guard alone. For really I don’t need any one else; and if you’d like a
little sleep——”
Ralph lost no time. He caught up from among the trunks three rolled-up
sacks, of pretty much the same color as the blouse beneath which the
prisoner was hiding her boy’s clothes. He held out one of the sacks and
muttered:
“Slip your legs over towards me so that I can stick this over them into
their place. But move them slowly, scarcely moving at all—do you
understand? Then draw away your body towards me—and then your head.”
He squeezed her hand which was icy cold and repeated these
instructions, for the girl did not stir.
“I beg you to do as I say,” he whispered yet more urgently. “Marescal
will stick at nothing. You have humiliated him; and he will take
revenge on you in some way or other, since you are entirely in his
hands. Move your legs towards me.”
She began to obey him, moving with the tiniest movements which changed
her position almost insensibly and took three or four minutes. When the
movement was completed there was in front of her and a little higher
than she, a gray form huddled together, presenting the same contour as
she had presented, which produced a sufficient illusion of her presence
to bring it about that the policeman and Marescal, if they cast a
glance at her, would believe that she was still there.
“Come on. Take advantage of their being turned away from you and
talking, and slide towards me,” whispered Ralph.
She did as he bade her; he picked her up and keeping her crouching,
slipped with her noiselessly through the door. Only in the waiting room
did they rise to their full height. He shot the bolt; they went out
through the booking office. But scarcely were they outside the station
when she half-swooned and almost sank to her knees.
“I shall never be able to! Never!” she moaned.
Without the least effort he hoisted her on to his shoulder and started
to run towards the line of trees which marked the road to Romillaud and
Auxerre. He was filled with a deep satisfaction by the knowledge that
he had gripped his prey, that the murderess of Miss Bakersfield could
no longer escape him, that his action had substituted itself for that
of society. What would he do? At the moment he was convinced, or at any
rate he assured himself that he was actuated by a keen craving for
justice, and that the punishment would take the form that circumstances
should dictate.
Two hundred yards further on he stopped. Not because he was out of
breath, but to listen and question the deep silence which was hardly
broken by the rustling of the leaves and the stealthy passage of the
little creatures of the night.
“What is it?” asked the girl in a tone of anguish.
“Nothing—nothing to worry about,” he said in a reassuring tone. “On the
contrary—the trotting of a horse a long way off. It’s just what I
wanted, and I’m delighted. It means safety for you.”
He lowered her from his shoulder and carried her in his arms as if she
were a small child. He went at a jog-trot for another three or four
hundred yards, and came to the cross-roads, at which the main road
crossed the road from Romillaud.
The grass was so damp that as he sat down on the embankment he said:
“Stay where you are on my knee and listen to me carefully. That
carriage you hear is that of the doctor they have sent for. I will get
rid of the good fellow by tying him very gently to a tree. Then we’ll
get into the carriage and drive all night to some station on another
line.”
She did not answer. He suspected that she did not hear what he was
saying. Her hand was burning.
She stammered in a kind of delirium: “I did not murder them! I did
not!”
“Be quiet,” said Ralph roughly. “We’ll talk about that later on.”
They were both silent. The immense peace of the sleeping plain seemed
to spread around them stretches of silence and safety. Only the
trotting of the horse now and again struck on their ears in the
darkness; two or three times, how far away they could not guess, they
saw the lamps of the carriage like wide open eyes. There came no noise,
no menace from the direction of the station.
Ralph reflected on this strange situation and beside the form of this
mysterious murderess, whose heart was beating so strongly that he could
feel its distracted rhythm, he summoned up the figure of the
Parisienne, which he had seen eight or nine hours previously, happy and
to all seeming without a care in the world. The two images, so
different from one another, grew confused in his mind. The memory of
the ravishing vision was lessening his hatred against this girl who had
murdered the English girl. But did he hate her?
He dwelt on the word and said to himself savagely: “I do hate her.
Whatever she may say, she is a murderess. It is her fault and that of
her accomplices that the English girl is dead. I do hate her. Miss
Bakersfield shall be avenged!”
However, he let none of these thoughts find utterance. On the contrary,
he was aware that he was uttering the gentlest of words.
“Misfortune falls on people when they’re not even dreaming of it,
doesn’t it? One is happy—full of life—then the crime occurs. But it
will be all right. You shall tell me all about it, and we’ll smooth
things out.”
He had the impression that slowly a deep calm was stealing over her.
She was no longer shaken by those feverish shudders which shook her
from head to foot. Her troubled spirit was growing quieter; the
nightmares, the anguish, the terror, all the hideous creatures of night
and death, were growing fainter. He enjoyed fiercely this manifestation
of his influence and power, magnetic to a degree, over creatures whom
circumstances had thrust from their ordinary round and to whom he
restored balance and for a while gave forgetfulness of the horrible
reality.
Moreover he was withdrawing himself also from the tragedy. The dead
English girl grew faint in his memory, and it was no longer a girl in a
blood-stained blouse whom he was clasping, but the girl of Paris,
elegant and radiant. It was useless for him to say to himself: “I will
punish her. She shall pay the penalty.” How could he fail to be aware
of the fresh breath breathed out through lips so near to him?
The eyes of the carriage lamps were growing larger. The doctor would
reach them in a few minutes.
“And then,” said Ralph to himself, “I shall have to leave her and
act—all this will be over. Never again shall I be able to spend moments
like this with her—moments of such intimacy.”
He bent down over her and divined that she was lying with her eyes
closed, trusting herself wholly to his protecting care. Plainly she was
thinking that in his arms all was well, that the danger was lessening.
Quickly he bent lower and kissed her lips. She tried weakly to thrust
him away, sighed and said nothing. He had the impression that she
accepted the caress, and that, in spite of a slight recoil, she yielded
to the sweetness of that kiss. That lasted a few moments. Then a wave
of revolt surged through her. She stiffened her arms and thrust him
away with a sudden energy, crying:
“This is hateful! Shameful! Leave me alone. You’re behaving
disgracefully!”
He tried to laugh, and furious with her could well have abused her. But
he could not find the words; and as she fled from him through the
darkness, he murmured under his breath:
“What does this mean? But what modesty! And what next? What! You might
think I had committed sacrilege.”
He turned and sprang up the embankment and searched for her. Where?
Thick bushes hid her in her flight. There was no hope of catching her.
He cursed and swore; once again he was full of hate for the murderess,
a hate whetted keener by the rancor of a man rebuffed; he was even
considering the horrible plan of returning to the station and giving an
alarm, when he heard an outcry some way off. It came from higher up the
road and from a hollow in it which probably hid the carriage from his
eyes. The noise of its wheels had suddenly ceased. He ran towards it,
came to the top of the slope, and saw the two lamps. But even as he
caught sight of them he saw them swing right round. The carriage went
off; there was no longer the quiet sound of a horse’s trotting but the
clatter of a galloping horse, lashed to its utmost speed. Two minutes
later Ralph, guided by his cries, discovered the figure of a man lying
among the brambles by the side of the road.
“What’s the matter? Who are you?” cried Ralph.
“A doctor from Romillaud. The police told me to come to the railway
station.”
“What’s the matter. Has some one attacked you?”
“Yes; a man on foot who asked me the way. I pulled up, and he sprang up
on to the box, got me by the throat, half-strangled me, tied me up, and
threw me among the bushes!”
“And did he go off with your carriage?” asked Ralph.
“Yes.”
“Alone?”
“No, with some one else, who came running up the road—just as I was
able to cry out a bit,” said the doctor.
“Was it a man, or a woman?” questioned Ralph, though he was very sure
which it was.
“I could not see. They only said a few words, and those in a whisper.
Directly they went off I started shouting.”
Ralph set about dragging him out of the brambles. Then he said: “So he
didn’t gag you?”
“Oh, yes; he did, but not successfully.”
“What with?”
“With my silk scarf.
“There is a right way of gagging, but very few people know it,” said
Ralph.
He snatched the scarf from the doctor and set about showing him that
right way of gagging people.
That lesson was followed by another operation, that of a much more
effective tying up, with the horse-rug and halter that William had
employed for the purpose. It was impossible to doubt that William had
been the doctor’s assailant and that the girl had stumbled across him
in her flight.
“I’m not hurting you, am I, doctor? I should be frightfully sorry if I
was,” said Ralph. “At any rate I’ll find you a more comfortable place
than among these brambles and nettles,” he added, picking his prisoner
up and carrying him deeper among the bushes. “Look, here’s a place you
won’t find too uncomfortable to spend the night in. The moss is thick
and dry here. No, no: don’t thank me—not a word. Believe me that if I
could have helped it——”
His intention, at the moment, was to run after the two fugitives and
catch them at any cost. He was furious at having been so balked. He
must have been a fool! What! He had her in his claws and instead of
wringing her neck he had amused himself by kissing her! How can one
keep one’s mind clear under such conditions?
But it seemed inevitable that that night his intentions should always
result in actions contrary to them. As soon as he had quitted the
doctor, without abandoning his plan, he returned towards the station as
hard as he could run with the new plan of getting astride the horse of
one of the policemen and so making sure of catching the car.
As he hurried from his compartment to the station he had observed the
three horses of the policemen in a shed with one of the porters looking
after them. He made his way to that shed, to see, by the light of a
lantern which lit it, that the porter was asleep. Instead of slipping
the bridle of one of the horses off the hook and leading it away, he
set about cutting quietly and with every conceivable precaution the
girths of the three horses and the straps of their bridles. So when the
police or Marescal did discover the disappearance of the girl with
green eyes it would be impossible to pursue her.
“I really don’t know what I’m doing,” Ralph said to himself as he
regained the compartment in which Marescal had left him. “I’ve a
perfect horror of this little devil; nothing would please me better
than to hand her over to the police and keep my oath of vengeance. But
all the efforts I do make help her to get away. Why?”
He knew quite well the answer to this question. If he had been
interested in the girl because she had eyes the color of jade, how
should he not be protecting her now that he had held her clasped to
him, half-fainting and with his lips on hers? Does one hand a girl
whose lips one has kissed over to the police? Murderess she might be;
but she had quivered to his lips; and he knew well that henceforth
nothing in the world would prevent him from defending her against every
one and everything. For him that burning kiss in the darkness was the
central point of the drama and swept away all the resolutions which his
instinct rather than his reason had brought him to make.
That was why he felt obliged to resume contact with Marescal, in order
to learn the result of his inquiries about her; and he was almost as
eager to get into touch with him again about the business of the
English girl and the wallet which she had begged him to carry away.
Two hours later Marescal staggered into the compartment, harassed and
exhausted, and dropped on to the opposite seat of the compartment in
the detached railway car, in which the slumbering Ralph quietly waited
for him. Ralph started up from his sleep, pulled down the lampshade,
and seeing the distressed face, the parting all ruffled, the drooping
mustache of the Commissary, cried out:
“What on earth’s the matter, Monsieur Commissary? I hardly recognized
you.”
Marescal stammered: “Don’t you know? Didn’t you hear?”
“I know nothing. I’ve heard nothing since you shut that door on me,”
said Ralph.
“Escaped!” groaned the Commissary.
“Who?”
“The murderer!”
“So you caught one?”
“Yes.”
“Which of them? The man or the woman?”
“The woman.”
“It was really a woman, then?”
“Yes.”
“And you weren’t able to keep her?”
“Yes. Only—” said the Commissary, and paused.
“Only what?”
“Well, she left some rolled-up sacks in her place.”
In abandoning the pursuit of the fugitives Ralph had followed, among
other motives, the wish for immediate revenge. Baffled, he wished to
baffle in his turn and to score off some one else as he had been scored
off. Marescal was to hand, the appointed victim; Marescal from whom he
hoped to tear other confidences, Marescal whose distress was almost on
the instant giving him a keen pleasure.
“It’s a catastrophe!” he cried in the most sympathetic accents.
“You may well say so,” the Commissary groaned.
“And you have no clew?” asked Ralph eagerly.
“Not the slightest.”
“No fresh trace of her accomplice?”
“What accomplice?”
“The accomplice who was sharing her flight,” said Ralph impatiently.
“But he played no part in her escape. We know his footprints, scattered
about all over the place, along the line and especially in the wood.
But, just outside the entrance to the railway station, in a patch of
mud, side by side with the print of the shoe without a heel, we found
quite different footprints—a smaller foot—with a more pointed toe.”
Ralph pushed his muddy boots as far as possible under the seat.
With an air of the liveliest interest he asked: “Then was there some
one waiting outside the station?”
“Undoubtedly. And it’s my opinion that that person must have got away
with the murderer by making use of the doctor’s carriage,” the
Commissary explained.
“The doctor’s carriage?”
“Well, if he didn’t we should have seen the doctor; and since we
haven’t seen the doctor, it must be that he was pulled out of his
carriage and thrown into some hole.”
“But you can always overtake a carriage,” said Ralph.
“How?”
“The horses of the police,” said Ralph.
“I ran straight to the shed in which they were standing and mounted one
of them. But the saddle turned right round and I came a cropper,” said
the Commissary glumly.
“What do you mean?”
“The man who was looking after the horses had fallen asleep and this
brute had taken advantage of it to cut the girths and bridle straps.
Under those circumstances it was impossible to go after the carriage,”
said the Commissary.
He spoke in such a tone, with such an air of misery that Ralph could
not help laughing gently; then he said: “By Jove! This is a foeman
worthy of your steel.”
“A master,” said the Commissary. “I once had occasion to follow in
detail an affair in which Arsène Lupin was pitted against Ganimard.
To-night’s coup was brought off with the same mastery.”
Ralph had no pity for him; he said; “It really is a catastrophe, for I
take it that you looked to find this arrest of great advantage to your
future career?”
“Of the greatest,” Marescal admitted, for his defeat made him more and
more inclined to grow confidential. “I’ve powerful enemies in the
Ministry; and the so to speak instantaneous capture of this woman would
have been of the greatest use to me. Just think! The noise the affair
would have made!—The fuss there would have been about a criminal like
this, a young girl disguised and so pretty! Day after day the limelight
would have been full on me. And besides——”
He appeared to check himself and paused.
“And besides?” said Ralph softly.
Marescal still hesitated. But there are hours during which no effort of
the reason will prevent you from speaking and revealing the very bottom
of your soul at the risk of regretting it bitterly. He could not keep
his secret.
“Besides it would have doubled, it would have tripled the value of the
victory I had won in another field,” he said in an even gloomier tone.
“Another victory?” cried Ralph in a tone of warm admiration.
“Yes; and a decisive victory too.”
“Decisive?”
“Undoubtedly. No one could have snatched it from me since it was a
victory over the dead.”
“Not the English girl?” cried Ralph.
“The English girl.”
Still keeping his simple air and plainly showing that he could not
refrain from giving way to his desire to enjoy the fullest admiration
of his companion’s skill, Ralph said: “You couldn’t, I suppose, explain
to me how?”
“Why not? After all you will only get the information two hours before
the examining magistrate.”
Marescal was started, and in his weariness and confusion, contrary as
it was to his usual habit, he could not stop babbling.
Bending towards Ralph, he said: “Do you know who that English girl is?”
“You knew her then?” said Ralph.
“I should think I did know her! We were even on excellent terms. For
six months I have been her shadow. I watched her always, seeking for
proofs against her I could not collect.”
“Proofs? Against her?” cried Ralph in astounded accents.
“Yes, indeed: Against her—against Miss Bakersfield, on the one hand the
daughter of Lord Bakersfield, an English peer and multi-millionaire,
but on the other an international crook, hotel thief, and chief of a
gang—entirely to amuse herself, a veritable dilettante of crime. And
she had penetrated my disguise as I had penetrated hers; and when I
spoke to her I found her quite sure of herself and ready to jeer at me.
A thief? Yes. And I’ve warned my chiefs of it. But how to catch her?
Then, ever since yesterday, I held her in my grip. I had been warned by
a person in our service at her hotel that she had received from Nice
yesterday, the plan of a villa to be burgled—Villa B. it was named in
the letter which accompanied the plan—and that she had put the plan and
the letter along with a packet of compromising papers, in a little red
leather wallet, and was taking the train to the South. Hence my leaving
Paris. ‘Down there,’ I thought, ‘either I shall catch her in the very
act, or I shall get hold of those papers.’ I had not even to wait till
I got to the South. The train-robbers handed her over to me.”
“And the wallet?” asked Ralph.
“She carried it under her clothes, fastened to a belt; and now it’s
here,” said Marescal patting the breast-pocket of his overcoat. “I’ve
just had time to cast a glance over it, from which I gathered that
there was no explaining away some of the papers, such as the plan of
Villa B, to which she has added with a blue pencil in her own
handwriting the date of the twenty-eighth of April. The twenty-eighth
of April is the day after to-morrow—Wednesday.”
Ralph could not help feeling shocked. His pretty traveling companion a
thief! He had indeed been deceived; and his deception had been the
greater since he could not protest against an accusation justified by
so many details and which explained so completely the insight of the
English girl with regard to himself. A member of a gang of
international crooks, she possessed such a knowledge of the world of
crime that she had been able to see the figure of Arsène Lupin behind
the mask of Ralph de Limézy; and he was forced to believe that the
words which she had forced herself so vainly to utter, were a
confession and a prayer, addressed directly to Arsène Lupin himself.
“Defend my memory—Let my father know nothing—Destroy my papers.”
“Then this means a terrible scandal for the noble family of
Bakersfield, Monsieur Commissary?” said Ralph gravely.
“Of course it does,” Marescal replied.
“Isn’t the idea a bit painful to you? And the idea too of handing over
to justice a young girl like the one who has just escaped you. Isn’t
that a bit painful to you? For she is quite young, isn’t she?” said
Ralph even more gravely.
“Quite young and very pretty.”
“But in spite of that——”
“In spite of that and in spite of any consideration whatever, nothing
shall ever prevent me from doing my duty,” said Marescal firmly.
He uttered these words in the tone of a man who manifestly desires his
worth to be recognized, a man whose professional conscience governs his
every thought.
“Well said, Monsieur Commissary,” said Ralph in approving accents,
considering the while that Marescal appeared to mix up his duty with a
good many other things among which in particular were rancor and
ambition.
Marescal looked at his watch, then seeing that he had plenty of time to
get some rest before the coming of the examining magistrate and his
clerk, he drew his legs up on to the seat and scribbled a few notes in
a little note-book. Presently the note-book came to rest on his knee;
his hand loosed its hold on it; the Commissary yielded to his weariness
and slept.
Ralph sat watching him for two or three minutes. Since their meeting in
the train his memory had been busy with the good gentleman, presenting
him little by little with a more precise remembrance of his doings and
his character. It had summoned up the figure of a rather interesting
detective, or rather of a rich amateur who had taken up the detection
of crime from a taste for it and to amuse himself, but also to serve
his interests and his passions. A man fortunate in love, as Ralph now
remembered, a woman-hunter, by no means always scrupulous, a man who
was on occasion helped by women in his rather too rapid career. Did not
people say that he had the entry into the house of the Minister
himself, and that the Minister’s wife knew a good deal about certain
undeserved favors he had received?
Ralph took the note-book, and with one eye on the detective wrote:
Notes regarding Rudolph Marescal.
“A remarkable policeman. Clearsighted and full of initiative. But
too fond of talking. He confides in the first comer, without asking
his name or examining the state of his boots, or even looking
closely at him and observing carefully his physiognomy.
“Badly brought up. If he meets a young girl of his acquaintance
leaving a confectioner’s on the Boulevard Haussmann, he accosts her
and talks to her, though she does not wish it. If he finds her some
hours later disguised, covered with blood, and guarded by the
police, does not make sure that the bolt is in its proper place and
that the gentleman whom he left in the railway car is not crouching
behind the mail-bags.
“He ought not therefore to be astonished if that gentleman, taking
advantage of such gross carelessness, decides to preserve a
precious anonymity, to reject the rôle of witness and base
informer, to take a hand in this strange affair, and to defend
energetically, with the help of the papers in the wallet, the
memory of the unfortunate Constance Bakersfield and the honor of
the Bakersfields, and to concentrate all his energy on punishing
the unknown with green eyes, without permitting any one else to
touch a single one of her fair hairs or to demand a reckoning for
the blood which stained her adorable hands.”
By way of signature Ralph sketched the head of a man in spectacles with
a cigarette between his lips and wrote beneath it:
“Could you oblige me with a light?”
The Commissary snored. Ralph set his note-book back on his knee, then
drew a little bottle from his pocket, uncorked it, and held it under
Marescal’s nose. A strong scent of chloroform filled the carriage. The
head of Marescal drooped lower and lower.
Then, very gently, Ralph opened his overcoat, drew from its pocket the
belt and wallet, and fastened the belt round his own waist, under his
waistcoat.
He had scarcely done this when a train, moving very slowly, came past,
a freight train. He opened the door of the car, sprang lightly and
without being seen on to the buffers of a truck full of apples, and
installed himself comfortably under the tarpaulin that covered them.
“A dead girl crook and a murderess of whom I have a horror, such are
the worthy persons to whom I afford my protection,” he said to himself.
“Why, in the devil’s name, have I plunged into this adventure?”