MAJOR HERMANN
Resisting the surge of hatred that might have driven him to perform an
immediate act of vengeance, Paul at once laid his hand on Bernard's arm
to compel him to prudence. But he himself was filled with rage at the
sight of that demon. The man who represented in his eyes every one of
the crimes committed against his father and his wife, that man was
there, in front of his revolver, and Paul must not budge! Nay more,
circumstances had taken such a shape that, to a certainty, the man would
go away in a few minutes, to commit other crimes, and there was no
possibility of calling him to account.
"Good, Karl," said the major, in German, addressing the so-called
Belgian. "Good. You have been punctual. Well, what news is there?"
"First of all, _Excellenz_," replied Karl, who seemed to treat the major
with that deference mingled with familiarity which men show to a
superior who is also their accomplice, "by your leave."
He took off his blue tunic and put on that of one of the dead Germans.
Then, giving the military salute:
"That's better. You see, I'm a good German, _Excellenz_. I don't stick
at any job. But this uniform chokes me.
"Well, _Excellenz_, it's too dangerous a trade, plied in this way. A
peasant's smock is all very well; but a soldier's tunic won't do. Those
beggars know no fear; I am obliged to follow them; and I run the risk of
being killed by a German bullet."
"What about the two brothers-in-law?"
"I fired at them three times from behind and three times I missed them.
Couldn't be helped: they've got the devil's luck; and I should only end
by getting caught. So, as you say, I'm deserting; and I sent the
youngster who runs between me and Rosenthal to make an appointment with
you."
"Rosenthal sent your note on to me at headquarters."
"But there was also a photograph, the one you know of, and a bundle of
letters from your agents in France. I didn't want to have those proofs
found on me if I was discovered."
"Rosenthal was to have brought them to me himself. Unfortunately, he
made a blunder."
"What was that, _Excellenz_?"
"Getting killed by a shell."
"Nonsense!"
"There's his body at your feet."
Karl merely shrugged his shoulders and said:
"The fool!"
"Yes, he never knew how to look after himself," added the major,
completing the funeral oration. "Take his pocketbook from him, Karl. He
used to carry it in an inside pocket of his woolen waistcoat."
The spy stooped and, presently, said:
"It's not there, _Excellenz_."
"Then he put it somewhere else. Look in the other pockets."
Karl did so and said:
"It's not there either."
"What! This is beyond me! Rosenthal never parted with his pocketbook. He
used to keep it to sleep with; he would have kept it to die with."
"Look for yourself, _Excellenz_."
"But then . . . ?"
"Some one must have been here recently and taken the pocketbook."
"Who? Frenchmen?"
The spy rose to his feet, was silent for a moment and then, going up to
the major, said in a deliberate voice:
"Not Frenchmen, _Excellenz_, but a Frenchman."
"What do you mean?"
"_Excellenz_, Delroze started on a reconnaissance not long ago with his
brother-in-law, Bernard d'Andeville. I could not get to know in which
direction, but I know now. He came this way. He must have explored the
ruins of the lighthouse and, seeing some dead lying about, turned out
their pockets."
"That's a bad business," growled the major. "Are you sure?"
"Certain. He must have been here an hour ago at most. Perhaps," added
Karl, with a laugh, "perhaps he's here still, hiding in some hole.
. . ."
Both of them cast a look around them, but mechanically; and the movement
denoted no serious fear on their part. Then the major continued,
pensively:
"After all, that bundle of letters received by our agents, letters
without names or addresses to them, doesn't matter so much. But the
photograph is more important."
"I should think so, _Excellenz_! Why, here's a photograph taken in 1902;
and we've been looking for it, therefore, for the last twelve years. I
manage, after untold efforts, to discover it among the papers which
Comte Stéphane d'Andeville left behind at the outbreak of war. And this
photograph, which you wanted to take back from the Comte d'Andeville, to
whom you had been careless enough to give it, is now in the hands of
Paul Delroze, M. d'Andeville's son-in-law, Élisabeth d'Andeville's
husband and your mortal enemy!"
"Well, I know all that," cried the major, who was obviously annoyed.
"You needn't rub it in!"
"_Excellenz_, one must always look facts in the face. What has been your
constant object with regard to Paul Delroze? To conceal from him the
truth as to your identity and therefore to turn his attention, his
enquiries, his hatred, towards Major Hermann. That's so, is it not? You
went to the length of multiplying the number of daggers engraved with
the letters H, E, R, M and even of signing 'Major Hermann' on the panel
where the famous portrait hung. In fact, you took every precaution, so
that, when you think fit to kill off Major Hermann, Paul Delroze will
believe his enemy to be dead and will cease to think of you. And now
what happens? Why, in that photograph he possesses the most certain
proof of the connection between Major Hermann and the famous portrait
which he saw on the evening of his marriage, that is to say, between the
present and the past."
"True; but this photograph, found on the body of some dead soldier,
would have no importance in his eyes unless he knew where it came from,
for instance, if he could see his father-in-law."
"His father-in-law is fighting with the British army within eight miles
of Paul Delroze."
"Do they know it?"
"No, but an accident may bring them together. Moreover, Bernard and his
father correspond; and Bernard must have told his father what happened
at the Château d'Ornequin, at least in so far as Paul Delroze was able
to piece the incidents together."
"Well, what does that matter, so long as they know nothing of the other
events? And that's the main thing. They could discover all our secrets
through Élisabeth and find out who I am. But they won't look for her,
because they believe her to be dead."
"Are you sure of that, _Excellenz_?"
"What's that?"
The two accomplices were standing close together, looking into each
other's eyes, the major uneasy and irritated, the spy cunning.
"Speak," said the major. "What do you want to say?"
"Just this, _Excellenz_, that just now I was able to put my hand on
Delroze's kit-bag. Not for long: two seconds, that's all; but long
enough to see two things. . . ."
"Hurry up, can't you?"
"First, the loose leaves of that manuscript of which you took care to
burn the more important papers, but of which, unfortunately, you mislaid
a considerable part."
"His wife's diary?"
"Yes."
The major burst into an oath:
"May I be damned for everlasting! One should burn everything in those
cases. Oh, if I hadn't indulged that foolish curiosity! . . . And next?"
"Oh, hardly anything, _Excellenz_! A bit of a shell, yes, a little bit
of a shell; but I must say that it looked to me very like the splinter
which you ordered me to drive into the wall of the lodge, after sticking
some of Élisabeth's hair to it. What do you think of that, _Excellenz_?"
The major stamped his foot with anger and let fly a new string of oaths
and anathemas at the head of Paul Delroze.
"What do you think of that?" repeated the spy.
"You are right," cried the major. "His wife's diary will have given that
cursed Frenchman a glimpse of the truth; and that piece of shell in his
possession is a proof to him that his wife is perhaps still alive, which
is the one thing I wanted to avoid. We shall never get rid of him now!"
His rage seemed to increase. "Oh, Karl, he makes me sick and tired! He
and his street-boy of a brother-in-law, what a pair of swankers! By God,
I did think that you had rid me of them the night when we came back to
their room at the château and found their names written on the wall! And
you can understand that they won't let things rest, now that they know
the girl isn't dead! They will look for her. They will find her. And, as
she knows all our secrets . . . ! You ought to have made away with her,
Karl!"
"And the prince?" chuckled the spy.
"Conrad is an ass! The whole of that family will bring us ill-luck and
first of all to him who was fool enough to fall in love with that hussy.
You ought to have made away with her at once, Karl--I told you--and not
to have waited for the prince's return."
Standing full in the light as he was, Major Hermann displayed the most
appalling highwayman's face imaginable, appalling not because of the
deformity of the features or any particular ugliness, but because of
the most repulsive and savage expression, in which Paul once more
recognized, carried to the very limits of paroxysm, the expression of
the Comtesse Hermine, as revealed in her picture and the photograph. At
the thought of the crime which had failed, Major Hermann seemed to
suffer a thousand deaths, as though the murder had been a condition of
his own life. He ground his teeth. He rolled his bloodshot eyes.
In a distraught voice, clutching the shoulder of his accomplice with his
fingers, he shouted, this time in French:
"Karl, it is beginning to look as though we couldn't touch them, as
though some miracle protected them against us. You've missed them three
times lately. At the Château d'Ornequin you killed two others in their
stead. I also missed him the other day at the little gate in the park.
And it was in the same park, near the same chapel--you remember--sixteen
years ago, when he was only a child, that you drove your knife into him.
. . . Well, you started your blundering on that day."
The spy gave an insolent, cynical laugh:
"What did you expect, _Excellenz_? I was on the threshold of my career
and I had not your experience. Here were a father and a little boy whom
we had never set eyes on ten minutes before and who had done nothing to
us except annoy the Kaiser. My hand shook, I confess. You, on the other
hand: ah, you made neat work of the father, you did! One little touch
of your little hand and the trick was done!"
This time it was Paul who, slowly and carefully, slipped the barrel of
his revolver into one of the breaches. He could no longer doubt, after
Karl's revelations, that the major had killed his father. It was that
creature whom he had seen, dagger in hand, on that tragic evening, that
creature and none other! And the creature's accomplice of to-day was the
accomplice of the earlier occasion, the satellite who had tried to kill
Paul while his father was dying.
Bernard, seeing what Paul did, whispered in his ear:
"So you have made up your mind? We're to shoot him down?"
"Wait till I give the signal," answered Paul. "But don't you fire at
him, aim at the spy."
In spite of everything, he was thinking of the inexplicable mystery of
the bonds connecting Major Hermann with Bernard d'Andeville and his
sister Élisabeth and he could not allow Bernard to be the one to carry
out the act of justice. He himself hesitated, as one hesitates before
performing an action of which one does not realize the full scope. Who
was that scoundrel? What identity was Paul to ascribe to him? To-day,
Major Hermann and chief of the German secret service; yesterday, Prince
Conrad's boon companion, all-powerful at the Château d'Ornequin,
disguising himself as a peasant-woman and prowling through Corvigny;
long before that, an assassin, the Emperor's accomplice . . . and the
lady of Ornequin: which of all these personalities, which were but
different aspects of one and the same being, was the real one?
Paul looked at the major in bewilderment, as he had looked at the
photograph and, in the locked room, at the portrait of Hermine
d'Andeville. Hermann, Hermine! In his mind the two names became merged
into one. And he noticed the daintiness of the hands, white and small as
a woman's hands. The tapering fingers were decked with rings set with
precious stones. The booted feet, too, were delicately formed. The
colorless face showed not a trace of hair. But all this effeminate
appearance was belied by the grating sound of a hoarse voice, by
heaviness of gait and movement and by a sort of barbarous strength.
The major put his hands before his face and reflected for a few minutes.
Karl watched him with a certain air of pity and seemed to be asking
himself whether his master was not beginning to feel some kind of
remorse at the thought of the crimes which he had committed. But the
major threw off his torpor and, in a hardly audible voice, quivering
with nothing but hatred, said:
"On their heads be it, Karl! On their heads be it for trying to get in
our path! I put away the father and I did well. One day it will be the
son's turn. And now . . . now we have the girl to see to."
"Shall I take charge of that, _Excellenz_?"
"No, I have a use for you here and I must stay here myself. Things are
going very badly. But I shall go down there early in January. I shall be
at Èbrecourt on the morning of the tenth of January. The business must
be finished forty-eight hours after. And it shall be finished, that I
swear to you."
He was again silent while the spy laughed loudly. Paul had stooped, so
as to bring his eyes to the level of his revolver. It would be criminal
to hesitate now. To kill the major no longer meant revenging himself and
slaying his father's murderer: it meant preventing a further crime and
saving Élisabeth. He had to act, whatever the consequences of his act
might be. He made up his mind.
"Are you ready?" he whispered to Bernard.
"Yes. I am waiting for you to give the signal."
He took aim coldly, waiting for the propitious moment, and was about to
pull the trigger, when Karl said, in German: "I say, _Excellenz_, do you
know what's being prepared for the ferryman's house?"
"What?"
"An attack, just that. A hundred volunteers from the African companies
are on their way through the marshes now. The assault will be delivered
at dawn. You have only just time to let them know at headquarters and to
find out what precautions they intend to take."
The major simply said:
"They are taken."
"What's that you say, _Excellenz_?"
"I say, that they are taken. I had word from another quarter; and, as
they attach great value to the ferryman's house, I telephoned to the
officer in command of the post that we would send him three hundred men
at five o'clock in the morning. The African volunteers will be caught in
a trap. Not one of them will come back alive."
The major gave a little laugh of satisfaction and turned up the collar
of his cloak as he added:
"Besides, to make doubly sure, I shall go and spend the night there
. . . especially as I am beginning to wonder whether the officer
commanding the post did not chance to send some men here with
instructions to take the papers off Rosenthal, whom he knew to be dead."
"But . . ."
"That'll do. Have Rosenthal seen to and let's be off."
"Am I to go with you, _Excellenz_?"
"No, there's no need. One of the boats will take me up the canal. The
house is not forty minutes from here."
In answer to the spy's call, three soldiers came down and hoisted the
dead man's body to the trap-door overhead. Karl and the major both
remained where they were, at the foot of the ladder, while Karl turned
the light of the lantern, which he had taken down from the wall, towards
the trap-door.
Bernard whispered:
"Shall we fire now?"
"No," said Paul.
"But . . ."
"I forbid you."
When the operation was over, the major said to Karl:
"Give me a good light and see that the ladder doesn't slip."
He went up and disappeared from sight.
"All right," he said. "Hurry."
The spy climbed the ladder in his turn. Their footsteps were heard
overhead. The steps moved in the direction of the canal and there was
not a sound.
"What on earth came over you?" cried Bernard. "We shall never have
another chance like that. The two ruffians would have dropped at the
first shot."
"And we after them," said Paul. "There were twelve of them up there. We
should have been doomed."
"But Élisabeth would have been saved, Paul! Upon my word, I don't
understand you. Fancy having two monsters like that at our mercy and
letting them go! The man who murdered your father and who is torturing
Élisabeth was there; and you think of ourselves!"
"Bernard," said Paul Delroze, "you didn't understand what they said at
the end, in German. The enemy has been warned of the attack and of our
plans against the ferryman's house. In a little while, the hundred
volunteers who are stealing up through the marsh will be the victims of
an ambush laid for them. We've got to save them first. We have no right
to sacrifice our lives before performing that duty. And I am sure that
you agree with me."
"Yes," said Bernard. "But all the same it was a grand opportunity."
"We shall have another and perhaps soon," said Paul, thinking of the
ferryman's house to which Major Hermann was now on his way.
"Well, what do you propose to do?"
"I shall join the detachment of volunteers. If the lieutenant in command
is of my opinion, he will not wait until seven to deliver the assault,
but attack at once. And I shall be of the party."
"And I?"
"Go back to the colonel. Explain the position to him and tell him that
the ferryman's house will be captured this morning and that we shall
hold it until reinforcements come up."
They parted with no more words and Paul plunged resolutely into the
marshes.
The task which he was undertaking did not meet with the obstacles he
expected. After forty minutes of rather difficult progress, he heard the
murmur of voices, gave the password and told the men to take him to the
lieutenant.
Paul's explanations at once convinced that officer: the job must either
be abandoned or hurried on at once.
The column went ahead. At three o'clock, guided by a peasant who knew a
path where the men sank no deeper than their knees, they succeeded in
reaching the neighborhood of the house unperceived. Then, when the alarm
had been given by a sentry, the attack began.
This attack, one of the finest feats of arms in the war, is too well
known to need a detailed description here. It was extremely violent. The
enemy, who was on his guard, made an equally vigorous defense. There was
a tangle of barbed wire to be forced and many pitfalls to be overcome. A
furious hand-to-hand fight took place first outside and then inside the
house; and, by the time that the French had gained the victory after
killing or taking prisoner the eighty-three Germans who defended it,
they themselves had suffered losses which reduced their effective force
by half.
Paul was the first to leap into the trenches, the line of which ran
beside the house on the left and was extended in a semicircle as far as
the Yser. He had an idea: before the attack succeeded and before it was
even certain that it would succeed, he wanted to cut off all retreat on
the part of the fugitives.
Driven back at first, he made for the bank, followed by three
volunteers, stepped into the water, went up the canal and thus came to
the other side of the house, where, as he expected, he found a bridge
of boats.
At that moment, he saw a figure disappearing in the darkness.
"Stay here," he said to his men, "and let no one pass."
He himself jumped out of the water, crossed the bridge and began to run.
A searchlight was thrown on the canal bank and he again perceived the
figure, thirty yards in front of him.
A minute later, he shouted:
"Halt, or I fire!"
And, as the man continued to run, he fired, but aimed so as not to hit
him.
The fugitive stopped and fired his revolver four times, while Paul,
stooping down, flung himself between his legs and brought him to the
ground.
The enemy, seeing that he was mastered, offered no resistance. Paul
rolled his cloak round him and took him by the throat. With the hand
that remained free, he threw the light of his pocket-lamp full on the
other's face.
His instinct had not deceived him: the man he held by the throat was
Major Hermann.