WORDS AS GOOD AS ACTIONS
There was a stupefied silence while this incredible sentence went on
ringing through the air. Marescal almost doubled up like a man who has
received a blow in the stomach. Bregeac, still threatened by
Sauvinoux’s revolver, appeared almost as much amazed.
Suddenly a laugh rang out, a nervous laugh there was no repressing, but
nevertheless struck a note of gayety in the gloomy atmosphere of the
room. It was Aurelie, provoked by the immense expression of
discomfiture on the face of the Commissary to this excess of truly
untimely hilarity. The fact that the comic sentence had been pronounced
loudly by the very man who was the object of its ridicule, brought the
tears to her eyes: “Marescal is a blockhead!”
Marescal gazed at her with a sudden inquietude. How did it come about
that the girl had this excess of gayety in the terrible situation in
which she found herself, actually panting in the grip of her enemy.
“Was the situation no longer the same?” he asked himself. “In what way
had it changed?”
And doubtless he perceived a connection between this unexpected laugh
and the strangely calm attitude of the girl since the beginning of the
struggle. What then was she hoping? Was it possible that in the midst
of events which should have brought her to her knees, she still stood
on firm ground, the solidity of which appeared to her unshakeable.
Things took on a truly disagreeable aspect; he began to suspect a
cleverly laid trap. There was danger in the house. From what side did
it threaten? How could he admit that an attack could take place when he
had taken every possible precaution?
“If Bregeac moves, all the worse for him—a bullet through his head,” he
said to Sauvinoux.
He went to the door and opened it. He could hear the murmur of the
voices of Tony and Labonce.
He leaned over the bannisters and called out: “Is everything right down
there, Tony? Has any one come in?”
“No one, Chief. Did you have a row upstairs?” said Tony.
“No—no—Besides, Sauvinoux is with me,” said Marescal.
More and more uneasy in mind, he returned quickly to the study.
Bregeac, Sauvinoux, and the girl had not stirred. Only,—only—an unheard
of, incredible, unimaginable, fantastic phenomenon, which paralyzed his
legs and held him unable to stir in the frame of the doorway, met his
eye: Sauvinoux had an unlighted cigarette between his lips and was
looking at him in the manner of one asking for a light.
A nightmarish vision, in such violent opposition to reality that
Marescal at first refused to admit to himself its obvious meaning.
Sauvinoux, owing to some aberration for which he would be punished,
wished to smoke and was asking for a light—that was all. Why look any
further? But little by little the face of Sauvinoux was lighted up by a
mocking smile in which there was so much mischief and impertinent
bonhommie that Marescal tried vainly to shut his eyes to it. It could
not be that Sauvinoux, his subordinate Sauvinoux, was little by little
becoming in spirit a new creature who was no longer Sauvinoux, no
longer a policeman, but on the contrary was crossing over to the camp
of the enemy. Sauvinoux? it was——
In the ordinary course of his profession Marescal would have put up a
longer fight against such a monstrous fact. But the most fantastic
happenings seemed to him quite natural when it was a matter of the man
whom he called “the man of the express.” Though he refused to utter,
even in the depths of his heart, the irrevocable admission and submit
to the truly hateful reality, how could he escape the evidence of his
eyes? How could he fail to realize that Sauvinoux, the admirable
assistant whom the Minister had recommended to him a week before, was
no other than that infernal personage whom he had arrested that morning
and who was at the moment actually at the Police Headquarters in the
office set aside for Bertillon measurement.
“Tony!” howled the Commissary, dashing out of the room a second time.
“Tony! Labonce! Come up at once, dammit!”
He had shouted at the top of his voice; he was dancing about and
banging the bannisters, for all the world like a cat on hot bricks.
His men came running upstairs.
He stuttered: “Sauvinoux! D-D-Do you know who he is? It’s the
b-b-beggar we—we—arrested this m-m-morning—escaped! Disguised!”
Tony and Labonce stared at him, aghast: the chief had gone off his
head!
He pushed them into the study and drew his revolver.
“Hands up, you crook! Hands up! Cover him too, Labonce!” he howled.
The good Sauvinoux had propped up a small hand mirror on the top of the
desk, and he did not stir. He began to strip off, slowly, his disguise.
He had even set the revolver with which he had been threatening Bregeac
down on the desk beside him.
Marescal sprang forward, snatched up the weapon, and sprang back, with
both revolvers leveled.
“Hands up, or I fire! D’you hear, you crook!” he howled again.
The crook took no more notice of him. Under the leveled revolvers a few
feet away from him, he removed the hair which formed mutton-chop
whiskers on his cheeks, and gave his eyebrows an unwonted thickness.
“I’ll fire! I’ll fire! D’you hear, you scoundrel? I’ll count three and
fire! One—two—three!”
“You’re going to make a fool of yourself, Rudolph,” murmured Sauvinoux.
Rudolph made a fool of himself. He had lost his head. He let fly with
both weapons, at random, at the pier-glass, the walls, the pictures,
like a murderer drunk with the smell of blood who plunges his knife
again and again into the corpse of his panting victim. Bregeac crouched
before the storm of bullets. Aurelie did not risk a movement. Since her
savior did not try to save her, since he let it happen, it must be that
there was nothing to fear. Her confidence in him was so complete that
she almost smiled. With his handkerchief and some Vaseline Sauvinoux
removed the grease-paint from his face. Little by little Ralph
appeared.
Twelve reports had banged out. The room was full of smoke; mirrors were
smashed; there were holes in the walls, broken picture-frames, ruined
pictures. It looked as if it had been taken by storm.
Marescal stood dazed; a sudden shame at his fit of madness overwhelmed
him. He pulled himself together and said faintly to his men:
“Wait on the staircase. Come the moment I call.”
“Look here, Chief: since Sauvinoux is no longer Sauvinoux, hadn’t we
better arrest whoever he is,” Labonce suggested. “I’ve disliked him
ever since you engaged him last week. Shall we? The three of us can
collar him all right.”
“Do as I tell you,” said Marescal.
Doubtless three to one did not seem to him good enough odds.
He shut the door on them.
Sauvinoux finished his transformation, straightened his waistcoat and
his tie; and another man faced them. The measly-looking policeman of a
minute or two before had become a debonair fellow, sure of himself,
well dressed, elegant, even young, in whom Marescal beheld once more
his habitual prosecutor.
“How do you do, Mademoiselle? Allow me to introduce myself—Baron
Limézy, explorer—and for the last week a detective. You recognized me
at once, I think. Yes? I guessed it down in the hall. Maintain your
silence by all means, but still laugh. How good it was to hear your
laugh just now! What a reward for my efforts!”
He bowed to Bregeac and said: “How do you do, sir?”
Then he turned to Marescal and said cheerfully: “And how are you, old
chap? Of course you didn’t recognize me—you wouldn’t. You’re still
asking yourself how I managed to take Sauvinoux’s place. For you still
believe in the existence of Sauvinoux. Heavens! that there should be a
man who believes in the existence of Sauvinoux and that he held the
rank of chief turnip in the police world! But, my good Rudolph,
Sauvinoux never did exist. Sauvinoux’s a myth. He’s a non-existent
personage who was warmly recommended to the foreign minister, and the
foreign minister’s wife had him appointed your collaborator in the
express case. And that’s how it came about that I’ve been in your
service for the last ten days, that is to say, that I have guided you
in the way you should go, that I pointed out to you the flat of Baron
de Limézy, that I had myself arrested by myself this morning, and that
I found, where I had hidden it, the marvelous bottle which proclaims
the incontestable truth that Marescal is a blockhead.”
One would have thought that the Commissary would have sprung at Ralph’s
throat; but he kept control of himself. And Ralph went on in the tone
of mockery which gave Aurelie a feeling of complete security and lashed
Marescal like a whip: “You’re looking devilishly uncomfortable,
Rudolph. Why are you itching so? Are you annoyed because I’m here and
not in a cell, and you’re asking yourself how I was able at one and the
same time to go to prison as Limézy and lunch with you as Sauvinoux?
What an infant it is! What a fine sleuth! But, my good Rudolph, it’s
simplicity itself! Having myself arranged the invasion of my domicile!
I substituted for Baron de Limézy an obliging and well-paid gentleman,
who had the very slightest resemblance to that Baron, but was
instructed to endure without immediate protest all the misfortunes
which might befall him to-day. Conducted by my old servant, you rushed
like a bull at this gentleman, whose head I instantly covered with a
handkerchief; and off he goes to Headquarters. The result: rid of the
formidable Limézy, absolutely reassured, you came to arrest
Mademoiselle, a thing you would never have done, had I been free. Now,
it was necessary that what has taken place should take place. You
understand, Rudolph? It was necessary. This little interview between
the four of us was necessary. It was necessary that matters should be
brought to a point at which there was no turning back. They have been
brought to that point, haven’t they? Once more we all breathe easily.
What a lot of nightmares we have been freed from! How pleasant it is,
even for you, to think that in ten minutes from now Mademoiselle and I
will be bidding you good-by.”
In spite of this biting mockery, Marescal had recovered his coolness.
He wished to seem as calm as his opponent, and with a careless movement
he took the receiver from the telephone.
“Hello. The Prefecture of Police, please.... Is that the Prefecture?...
Put me on to Monsieur Philippe?... Is that you Philippe?... What? The
mistake has already been discovered.... Yes: I know about it—and
more.... Listen.... Bring two police cyclists with you—big ones—with
you quickly—here—to Bregeac’s. You understand? There’s not a moment to
lose!”
He put back the receiver and said to Ralph: “You revealed yourself a
trifle too soon, my young friend,” he said, jeering in his turn. “The
attack has failed—and you know the counter-attack. On the landing
Labonce and Tony. Here Marescal and Bregeac, for he has nothing to gain
by backing you up. That’s the first line, if the fancy takes you to
save Aurelie. And in another twenty minutes three specialists from
Headquarters. Is that enough for you?”
Ralph was absorbed in sticking matches into a groove in the table. He
stuck in seven one after another close together and one, by itself, at
a little distance from them.
“Seven to one,” he said. “The odds are a trifle short. What you really
want is—may I?”
With a timid air he stretched out his hand towards the receiver.
Marescal let him take it up, but watched him closely.
“Hello!” said Ralph. “... Elysées 2233, please.... Hello. Is that the
President of the Republic?... Please, Monsieur le President, send at
once to Monsieur Marescal a battalion of Horse Marines.”
Furious, Marescal snatched the receiver out of his hand.
“Stop fooling!” he cried. “I suppose you haven’t come here just to play
the joker. What is your object?”
Ralph looked uncommonly disappointed. “So you’ve no sense of humor,
have you?” he said mournfully. “But there’s always time for a little
joke.”
“Speak, will you!” snapped the Commissary.
“I beg you to explain,” said Aurelie in an imploring tone.
He smiled at her and said: “You’re afraid of the big policemen,
Mademoiselle, and you don’t want any of their politeness. You’re right.
We will explain.” Then in a more serious tone he went on: “I will
explain, since you ask me, Marescal. To speak is as good as to act,
sometimes, and nothing equals the solid reality of certain words. If I
am master of the situation, I am master of it for reasons still secret,
but which I must now reveal, if I wish to give my victory unshakeable
foundations—and convince you.”
“Of what?”
“Of the absolute innocence of this young lady,” said Ralph firmly.
“Indeed?” sneered Marescal. “She is not a murderess?”
“No.”
“And perhaps you’re not a murderer either?”
“No.”
“Then who did commit the murders?”
“Some one else.”
“It’s a lie!”
“It’s the truth. From the beginning to the end of this business,
Marescal, you’ve been mistaken. When I saved this young lady at
Beaucourt Station I did not know her. I had only seen her having tea at
the confectioner’s on the Boulevard Haussmann and then talking to you
on the pavement. It was only at Sainte-Marie that we had a few talks.
Now, during those interviews she always avoided any allusion to the
murders on the express; and I never questioned her about them. The
truth has been established, without her having anything to do with it,
thanks to my strenuous efforts, and thanks above all to my conviction,
instinctive but as weighty as actual reasoning, that, with a face of
that innocence, she was no criminal.”
Marescal shrugged his shoulders with an incredulous air, but did not
protest. In spite of everything he was curious to know how this strange
person interpreted the facts of the case.
He looked at his watch and smiled. Philippe and the big policemen from
Headquarters were drawing near.
Bregeac listened without understanding and stared at Ralph. Aurelie’s
anxious eyes never quitted his face.
He began, employing, without being aware of it, the words used by
Marescal.
“On the twenty-sixth of last April car number five of the Marseilles
express was occupied by only four persons. An English woman, of the
name of Miss Bakersfield——”
He stopped short suddenly, reflected for some seconds, and began again
firmly: “No: that is not the way in which to set out the facts. It is
necessary to go further back, to the very source of those facts and to
unfold the whole affair, or rather what one might call the two periods
in the affair. I ignore certain details in it; but what I do know,
along with what one can suppose with practical certainty, is enough to
make it clear and connect the facts together without a break.” He
paused, then went on more slowly: “About eighteen years ago—I repeat
the number Marescal—eighteen years—that is the first period in the
story—eighteen years ago at Cherbourg four young men used to meet one
another at different cafés with a certain regularity, one of the name
of Bregeac, secretary at the Commissariat Maritime, one of the name of
Jacques Ancivel, one of the name of Loubeaux, and a fellow of the name
of Jodot. The relations between the four were not very intimate and
they did not last long, since the last three of them came to
loggerheads with the law and the official position of the first, that
is to say of Bregeac, did not allow him to frequent their society any
longer. Moreover, Bregeac married and went to live at Paris.
“He had married a widow, the mother of a little girl called Aurelie
d’Asteux. His wife’s father, Etienne d’Asteux, was an old eccentric who
lived in the country, an inventor, an inquirer always on the lookout
for new facts and who, several times, had just missed acquiring a great
fortune or discovering a great secret which gives you a great fortune.
Now, some time before the marriage of his daughter with Bregeac, he
appeared to have discovered one of those miraculous secrets. At least
he lays claim to having done so in the letters he wrote to his
daughter; and to prove it to her, he made her come, with the little
Aurelie, to visit him. The journey was kept secret but unfortunately
Bregeac learned about it, not much later, as Mademoiselle thinks, but
almost immediately. He questioned his wife about it. Keeping silent
about the essential facts, as she had sworn to her father to do, and
refusing to tell him the place they had been to, she made certain
admissions which led Bregeac to believe that Etienne d’Asteux had
buried a treasure somewhere. Where? And why not reap the benefit of it
now?
“Their home life became painful. Bregeac grew more irritated every day.
He writes importunate letters to Etienne d’Asteux, questions the child,
who does not answer, persecutes his wife, threatens her, in a word
lives in a state of growing excitement.
“Then, one on the top of the other, two events bring his exasperation
to its height. His wife dies of pleurisy and he learns that his
father-in-law, attacked by a serious illness, is doomed to an early
death. Bregeac falls into a panic. What will become of the secret, if
Etienne d’Asteux does not speak? What will become of the treasure if
Etienne d’Asteux leaves it to his grand-daughter Aurelie, on the
condition of her coming into possession of it on attaining her
majority, as he talked of doing in one of his letters? In either case
Bregeac would get nothing. All these riches, which he presumed to be
fabulous, would pass him by. It was necessary, at any cost, by any
means, to learn the secret.
“These means a fatal chance put in his way. In handling a case of
robbery and hunting down the thieves he lay hands on his three old
comrades of Cherbourg, Jodot, Loubeaux, and Ancivel. The temptation was
too great for him. He succumbs to it and tells them the story. They
come to an agreement on the spot: for the three rogues it means
immediate liberty. They will go straight to the Provençal village, in
which the old man is in his dying agony, and tear from him, by force if
necessary, the information they must have.
“The plot failed. The old man, assaulted in the middle of the night by
the three blackguards, summoned to answer their questions and tortured,
dies without speaking a word. The three murderers take to flight.
Bregeac has on his conscience a crime from which he has reaped no
benefit.”
Ralph paused and looked at Bregeac. Bregeac said nothing. Was he
refusing to defend himself against improbable accusations? Was he
confessing the truth of them? You would have said that all this was of
no importance to him and that the recalling of the past, terrible as it
might be, could not increase his present distress.
Aurelie had listened without displaying any more than he the impression
the story made on her. But Marescal was recovering little by little his
coolness, astonished certainly that Limézy revealed before him facts of
such gravity and handed over to him, bound hand and foot, his old enemy
Bregeac. And once more he looked at his watch.
Ralph went on: “The crime then was useless, but the results of it were
to make themselves severely felt, in spite of the fact that justice had
never known anything about it. In the first place one of his
accomplices, Jacques Ancivel, in his terror fled for America. Before
going, he confided everything to his wife. She came to Bregeac and
compelled him, under penalty of immediate denunciation, to sign a paper
in which he took upon himself all the responsibility for the crime
against Etienne d’Asteux and declared the innocence of the three guilty
men. Bregeac was frightened and stupidly signed the paper. Handed over
to Jodot, the paper was enclosed by him and Loubeaux in a bottle which
they found under the bolster of Etienne d’Asteux and which they had
kept at every risk. From that time they had Bregeac in their power and
could blackmail him whenever they wanted to.
“They had him in their power; but they are intelligent rogues and they
prefer, rather than to exhaust him by blackmail in a small way, to let
him rise in the administration. They have only one idea in their minds,
the discovery of that treasure of which Bregeac had had the imprudence
to speak to them. Bregeac still knows nothing about it. No one knows
anything about it, except the little girl who has seen the country in
which it is, and who in the mysterious depths of her mind, keeps
obstinately the silence imposed upon her. It is necessary then to wait
and watch. When she leaves the convent to which Bregeac has sent her,
they will act.
“Well, she comes out of the convent, and on the very next day, two
years ago, Bregeac receives a letter in which Jodot and Loubeaux inform
him that they are entirely at his service to hunt for the treasure.
That he must make the girl speak and pass the information on to them.
If he does not——
“This letter is a sudden clap of thunder to Bregeac. Twelve years had
passed; he hoped that the affair was definitely buried. He had even
ceased to be interested in it. It recalled to him a crime which
horrified him, and a period of his life that he remembered only with
anguish. And lo! All these shameful things rise up out of the darkness!
And with them his old comrades rise again. They harass him. What is he
to do?
“The question he asks himself is one of those which do not even bear
discussion. Whether he wants to or not, he must obey: that is to say he
must torment his step-daughter into speaking. He decided to do so,
urged on by the need to know the secret and grow rich, which once more
invades his spirit. From that moment not a day passes without
questionings, quarrels, and threats. There is a perpetual hunt through
the thoughts and memories of the unfortunate girl. On this closed door,
behind which, when quite a child, she has shut a little group of images
and impressions, they knock more and more loudly. She wants to live:
they do not allow it. She wants to amuse herself, and she does
sometimes amuse herself, goes to the houses of a few friends, plays in
private theatricals, sings. But, on her return home it is an unceasing
martyrdom.
“A martyrdom to which is presently added a really odious circumstance,
one I dread to recall: Bregeac’s love. Don’t let us speak of it. About
that you know as much as I do, Marescal, since from the moment you saw
Aurelie d’Asteux there sprang up between you and Bregeac the ferocious
hatred of two rivals in love.
“In that way it came about, little by little, that flight appeared to
the victim as the only possible way of escape. She was encouraged to
fly by a person whom Bregeac had to put up with, in spite of himself,
William, the son of the last of his Cherbourg friends. Ancivel’s widow
had been keeping him in reserve. He plays his part, in the shade up to
this point, very cleverly, without awaking distrust. Guided by his
mother, and knowing that Aurelie d’Asteux, on the day on which she
shall love, will have full freedom to confide the secret to the fiancé
she has chosen, he dreams of bringing her to love himself. He offers
his help. He will escort her to the South whither, exactly at the right
moment, his business calls him.
“The twenty-sixth of April comes.
“Observe carefully, Marescal, the situation of the actors in the drama
at this date and the exact position of things. First of all there is
Mademoiselle who is escaping from her prison. Happy at the thought of
the liberty she is so soon to enjoy, she consents, on the last day, to
have tea with her step-father at a confectioner’s on the Boulevard
Haussmann. Bregeac is late. She has tea with some street urchins she
has picked up, and comes out of the confectioner’s. Just outside she
chances on you. There is a scene. Bregeac takes her back home. She
escapes and at the railway station joins William Ancivel.
“William has at the moment two affairs on hand: he is going to make
Aurelie his; but at the same time he is going to commit a burglary at
Nice, under the direction of the notorious Miss Bakersfield, of whose
gang he is a member. It was in this way that the unfortunate English
girl found herself caught up in a drama in which she did not herself
play a part of any kind.
“Finally we have Jodot and the two brothers Loubeaux. These three have
acted so cleverly that William and his mother do not know that they
have reappeared and are competing with them. The three rogues have
followed all William’s maneuvers; they know everything that is going on
and being planned in Bregeac’s house; and they are on the spot on the
twenty-sixth of April. Their plan is laid: they will carry off Aurelie
and compel her to speak by any means to hand. That’s clear, isn’t it?”
He paused and looked round at their attentive faces.
Then he went on: “And now this is the real distribution of these
persons on the express. Car number five: in the back compartment Miss
Bakersfield and Baron de Limézy; in the front compartment Aurelie and
William Ancivel. You quite understand, Marescal, in the front
compartment, Aurelie and William, and not the two brothers Loubeaux, as
one has hitherto believed. The two brothers as well as Jodot are
elsewhere. They are in car number four, your car, Marescal, well hidden
in the darkness of the covered lamp and drawn curtains. Do you
understand?”
“Yes,” said Marescal in a low voice.
“That’s a good thing!” said Ralph. “Well, the train starts. Two hours
pass. It stops at La Roche station. It starts again. The moment has
come. The three men from car number four, that is to say Jodot and the
brothers Loubeaux come out of their dark compartment. They are masked,
dressed in gray blouses, and wear caps. They slip into car number five.
At once they see in the first compartment, two sleeping figures, a man
and a lady with fair hair. Jodot and one of the brothers fall upon them
while the other brother keeps watch. The Baron is knocked on the head
and bound. The Englishwoman defends herself. Jodot grips her by the
throat and only then learns the mistake they have made: it is not
Aurelie, but another woman with fair hair. They leave the Baron bound
and the girl dying and go out of the corridor to the last compartment,
where William and Aurelie really are. But here everything changes.
William has heard a noise. He is on his guard. He has his revolver and
brings the business to an end with a couple of shots. The two brothers
fall, and Jodot flies.
“We are in full agreement, aren’t we, Marescal? Your mistake, my
mistake at the beginning, the mistake of the magistrates, everybody’s
mistake is to have judged the facts in accordance with their appearance
and in accordance with this rule, which is quite reasonable: when there
is a murder, the dead are the victims and the people who fly the
murderers. One never thought that the exact opposite might happen, that
the assailants might be killed and the assailed, safe and sound, might
take to flight. And how should William not have thought of flight on
the instant? If William waits, William is done for. William the burglar
cannot allow justice to meddle in his affairs. The smallest enquiry and
the underside of his equivocal existence will rise into the full light
of day. Was he going to resign himself to that? It would be too
foolish. When the train is slowing down the remedy is at hand. He does
not hesitate; he hustles his companion and shows her the scandal that
the business will set going—a scandal for her and a scandal for
Bregeac. Helpless, in an immense confusion of mind, terrified by what
she has seen and the presence of these two corpses, she does as he bids
her. William dresses her in the blood-stained blouse and mask and cap
of the younger Loubeaux. He dresses himself in the disguise of the
elder Loubeaux, carries away their suit-cases to leave no trace behind
him. They hurry down the corridor, upset the conductor, and jump from
the train.
“An hour later, after a terrible flight through the wood, Aurelie was
arrested, imprisoned, found herself in the hands of her implacable
enemy, Marescal, and was lost.
“But for a coup de théâtre. I enter the scene!”
Nothing, neither the gravity of the circumstances, nor the dolorous
attitude of the young girl who is weeping at the memory of that
accursed night—nothing could have prevented Ralph from playing the part
of an actor who enters on the scene.
He rose, went to the door, and came back, with the magnificent air of
an actor whose entry must produce an overwhelming effect.
“Then I enter on the scene,” he repeated, smiling with an air of
satisfaction. “It was time. I am sure, Marescal, that you also are
pleased to see, in the midst of these rogues and imbeciles, an honest
man who at once takes up the right attitude, without knowing anything,
and simply because Mademoiselle has beautiful green eyes, comes forward
as the champion of persecuted innocence. Here at last is a firm will, a
penetrating insight, a helping hand, a generous heart—Baron de Limézy!
As soon as he arrives, things begin to clear up. The facts line up,
like good children, in their true and proper order; and the drama ends
in laughter and good temper.”
He walked a few steps up and down the room, and bent over the weeping
girl.
“Why do you go on crying, Mademoiselle, now that this nightmare is at
an end, and even Marescal himself bows before an innocence he clearly
sees? Do not weep, Mademoiselle. Always I enter on the scene at the
decisive moment. It’s a habit of mine, and I never miss my entry. You
saw it yourself that horrible night: Marescal shut you up; I set you
free. Two days later, at Nice, it was Jodot. I rescue you. At Monte
Carlo, at Sainte-Marie, it is Marescal again. I rescue you. And was I
not here just now? Then what are you afraid of? All is over, and we can
go quietly away before the big policemen arrive and the Horse Marines
surround the house. Isn’t that so, Rudolph? You don’t put any obstacle
in the way, and Mademoiselle is free? Isn’t it a fact that you’re
ravished by this dénouement which satisfies your sense of justice and
your genial soul? You are coming, Mademoiselle?”
She rose timidly, feeling strongly that the battle was not won. In
fact, on the threshold of the door, Marescal, pitiless, barred their
way. Bregeac ranged himself beside him. The two men made common cause
against their triumphant rival.