|VALERIE'S flushed face was lifted eagerly to his. She had caught
impetuously at the sleeve of his _soutane_, and was urging him forward.
And yet he was walking with deliberate measured tread across the green
toward the _presbytère_. Strange how the blood seemed to be hammering
feverishly at his temples! Every impulse prompted him to run, as a man
running for his life, to reach the _presbytère_, to reach that room, to
shut the door upon himself and that man whose return to consciousness
meant--what? But it was too late to run now. Too late! Already the news
seemed to have spread. Those who had been the last to linger at the
grave of Théophile Blondin were gathering, on their way out from the
little burying ground, around the door of the _presbytère_. It would
appear bizarre, perhaps, that the curé should come tearing across
the green with vestments flying simply because a man had regained
consciousness! Ha, ha! Yes, very bizarre! Why should their curé run like
one demented just because a man had regained consciousness! If the
man were at his last gasp now, were just about to die--that would be
different! He found a bitter mirth in that. Yes, decidedly, they would
understand that! But as it was, they would think their curé had gone
suddenly mad, perhaps, or they would think, perhaps--something else.
The dice were thrown, the card was turned--against him. His luck was
out. It was like walking tamely to where the noose dangled and awaited
his neck to walk toward those gaping people clustered around the door,
to walk into the _presbytère_. But it was his only chance. Yes, there
was a chance--one chance left. If he could hold out until evening, until
darkness!
Until evening, until darkness--with the night before him in which to
attempt his escape! But there were still eight hours or more to
evening. There were only a few more steps to go before he reached the
_presbytère_. The distance was pitifully short. In those few steps he
must plan everything; plan that that accursed noose swaying before his
eyes should----
“_Dies illa, dies iræ_--that day, a day of wrath.” What brought those
words flashing through his mind! He had said them once that morning--but
a little while ago--in church--as a priest--at Théophile Blondin's
funeral. Damn it, they were not meant for him! They did not mean to-day.
They were not premonitory. He was not beaten yet!
In the shed behind the _presbytère_ there was a pair of the old
sacristan's overalls, and an old coat, and an old hat. He had noticed
them yesterday. They would serve his purpose--a man in a pair of
overalls and a dirty, torn coat would not look much like a priest. Yes,
yes; that would do, it was the way--when night came. He would have the
darkness, and he would hide the next day, and the day after, and travel
only by night. It invited pursuit of course, the one thing that next
to capture itself he had struggled and plotted to avoid, but it was the
only chance now, and, if luck turned again, he might succeed in making
his way out of the country--when night came.
But until then! What until then? That was where his danger lay now--in
those hours until darkness.
“Yes!” whispered Raymond fiercely to himself. “Yes--if only you keep
your head!”
What was the matter with him? Had he forgotten! It was what he had
been prepared to face that night when he had brought the priest to the
_presbytère_, should the man then have recovered sufficiently to speak.
It should be still easier now to make any one believe that the man was
wandering in his mind, was not yet lucid or coherent after so long a
lapse from consciousness. And the very story that the man would tell
must sound like the ravings of a still disordered mind! He, Raymond,
would insist that the man be kept very quiet during the day; he,
Raymond, would stay beside the other's bed. Was he not the curé! Would
they not obey him, show deference to his judgment and his wishes--until
night came!
They were close to the _presbytère_ now, close to the little gaping
crowd that surrounded the door; and, as though conscious for the first
time that she was clinging to his arm, Valérie, in sudden embarrassment
at her own eagerness, hurriedly dropped her hand to her side. And,
at the act, Raymond looked at her quickly, in an almost startled way.
Strange! But then his brain was in turmoil! Strange that extraneous
things, things that had nothing to do with the one grim purpose of
saving his neck should even for an instant assert themselves! But then
they--no, she--had done that before. He remembered now... when they were
putting on that bandage.
When that crucifix had tangled up his hands, and she had seemed to stand
before him to save him from himself... those dark eyes, that pure,
sweet face, the tender, womanly sympathy--the antithesis of himself! And
to-night, when night came, when the night he longed for came, when
the night that meant his only chance for life came, he--what was
this!--this sudden pang of yearning that ignored, with a most curious
authority, as though it had the right to ignore, the desperate, almost
hopeless peril that was closing down upon him, that seemed to make the
coming of the night now a thing he would put off, a thing to regret and
to dread, that bade him search for some other way, some other plan that
would not necessitate--
“A fool and a pretty face!”--it was the gibe and sneer and prod of that
inward monitor. “See all these people who are so reverently making way
for you, and eying you with affection and simple humility, see the rest
of them coming back from all directions because the _murderer_ is about
to tell his story--well, see how they will make way for you, and with
what affection and humility they will eye you when you come out of that
house again, if all the wits the devil ever gave you are not about you
now!”
He spoke to her quietly, controlling his voice:
“You have not told me yet what he said, mademoiselle?”
She shook her head.
“He did not say much--only to ask where he was and for a drink of
water.”
He had no time to ask more. They had reached the group before the
_presbytère_ now, and the buzz of conversation, the eager, excited
exchange of questions and answers was hushed, as, with one accord, men
and women made way for their curé. And Raymond, lifting his hand in
a kindly, yet authoritative gesture, cautioning patience and order,
mounted the steps of the _presbytère_.
And then, inside the doorway, Raymond quickened his step. From the
closed door at the end of the short hallway came the low murmur of
voices. It was Madame Lafleur probably who was there with the other now.
How much, how little had the man said--since Valérie had left the room?
Raymond's lips tightened grimly. It was fortunate that Madame Lafleur
had so great a respect for the cloth! He had nothing to fear from
her. He could make her believe anything. He could twist her around his
finger, and--he opened the door softly--and stood, as though turned
suddenly rigid, incapable of movement, upon the threshold--and his hand
upon the doorknob closed tighter and tighter in a vise-like grip. Across
the room stood, not Madame Lafleur, but Monsieur Dupont, the assistant
chief of the Tournayville police, and in Monsieur Dupont's hand was
a notebook, and upon Monsieur Dupont's lips, as he turned and glanced
quickly toward the door, there played an enigmatical smile.
“Ah! It is Monsieur le Curé!” observed Monsieur Dupont smoothly. “Well,
come in, Monsieur le Curé--come in, and shut the door. I promise you,
you will find it interesting. What? Yes, very interesting!”
“Oh, Monsieur Dupont is here!”--the words seemed to come to Raymond as
from some great distance behind him.
He turned. It was Valérie. Of course, it was Valérie! He had forgotten.
She had naturally followed him along the hall to the door. What did this
Dupont mean by what he had said? What had Dupont already learned--that
was so _interesting!_ It would not do to have Valérie here, if--if he
and Dupont----
“Perhaps, Mademoiselle Valérie,” he said gravely, “it would be as
well if you did not come in. Monsieur Dupont appears to be officially
engaged.”
“But, of course!” she agreed readily. “I did not know that any one was
here. I left the man alone when I ran out to find you. I will come back
when Monsieur Dupont has gone.”
And Raymond smiled, and stepped inside the room, and closed the door,
and leaned with his back against it.
“Well, Monsieur le Curé”--Monsieur Dupont tapped with his pencil on the
notebook--“I have it all down here. All! Everything that he has said.”
Raymond had not even glanced toward the bed--his eyes, cool, steady now,
were on the officer, watching the other like a hawk.
“Yes?” he prompted calmly.
“And”--Monsieur Dupont made that infernal clucking noise with his
tongue--“I have--nothing! Did I not tell you it was interesting? Yes,
very interesting! Very!”
Was the man playing with him? How clever was this Dupont? No fool, at
any rate! He had already shown that, in spite of his absurd mannerisms.
Raymond's hand began to toy with the crucifix on his breast, while his
fingers surreptitiously loosened several buttons of his _soutane_.
“Nothing?”--Raymond's eyebrows were raised in mild surprise. “But
Mademoiselle Valérie told me he had regained consciousness.”
“Yes,” said Monsieur Dupont, “I heard her say so to some one as she
left the house. I was keeping an eye on that _vieille sauvage_, Mother
Blondin. But this--ah! Quite a more significant matter! Yes--quite!
You will understand, Monsieur le Curé, that I lost no time in reaching
here?”
And now for the first time Raymond looked swiftly toward the bed. It was
only for the barest fraction of a second that he permitted his eyes to
leave the police officer; but in that glance he had met coal black eyes,
all pupils they seemed, fixed in a sort of intense penetration upon him.
The man was still lying on his back, he had noticed that--but it was the
eyes, disconcerting, full of something he could not define, boring into
him, that dominated all else. He stepped nonchalantly toward Monsieur
Dupont.
“It is astonishing that he has said nothing,” he murmured softly. “Will
you permit me, Monsieur Dupont”--he held out his hand--“to see your
book?”
“The book? H'm! Well, why not?” Monsieur Dupont shrugged his shoulders
as he placed the notebook in Raymond's hand. “It is not customary--but,
why not!”
And then upon Raymond came relief. It surged upon him until he could
have laughed out hysterically, laughed like a fool in this Monsieur
Dupont's face--this Monsieur Dupont who was the assistant chief of the
police force of Tournayville. It was true! Dupont had at least told the
truth. So far Dupont had learned nothing. Raymond's face was impassive
as he scrutinised the page before him. Written with a flourish on the
upper line, presumably to serve as a caption, were the words:
“The Murderer, Henri Mentone,” and beneath: “Evades direct answers.
Hardened type--knows his way about. Pretends ignorance. Stubborn. Wily
rascal--yes, very!”
Raymond handed the notebook back to Monsieur Dupont.
“It is perhaps not so strange after all, Monsieur Dupont,” he remarked
with a thoughtful air. “We must not forget that the poor fellow has but
just recovered consciousness. He is hardly likely to be either lucid or
rational.”
“Bah!” ejaculated Monsieur Dupont grimly. “He is as lucid as I am. But I
am not through with him yet! He is not the first of his kind I have had
upon my hook!” He leaned toward the bed. “Now, then, my little Apache,
you will answer my questions! Do you understand? No more evasions! None
at all! They will do you no good, and----”
Raymond's hand fell upon Monsieur Dupont's shoulder. Though he had not
looked again until now, he was conscious that those eyes from the
bed had never for an instant swerved from his face. Now he met them
steadily. He addressed Monsieur Dupont, but he spoke to the man on the
bed.
“Have you warned him, Monsieur Dupont,” he said soberly, “that anything
he says will be used against him? And have you told him that he is not
obliged to answer? He is weak yet and at a disadvantage. He would be
quite justified in waiting until he was stronger, and entirely competent
to weigh his own words.”
Monsieur Dupont was possessed of an inconsistency all his own.
“_Tonnerre!_” he snapped. “And what is the use of warning him when he
will not answer at all?”
“You appear not quite to have given up hope!” observed Raymond dryly.
“H'm!” Monsieur Dupont scowled. “Very well, then”--he leaned once more
over the bed, and addressed the man--“you understand? It is as Monsieur
le Curé says. I warn you. You are not obliged to answer. Now then--your
name, your age, your birthplace?”
Raymond shifted his position to the foot of the bed.
Damn those eyes! Move where he would, they never left his face. The man
had paid no attention to Monsieur Dupont. Why, in God's name, why did
the man keep on staring and gazing so fixedly at him--and why had the
man refused to answer Dupont's questions--and why had not the man with
his first words poured out his story eagerly!
“Well, well!” prodded Monsieur Dupont. “Did you not hear--eh? Your
name?”
The man's eyes followed Raymond.
“Where am I?” he asked faintly.
It was too querulous, that tone, too genuinely weak and peevish to smack
of trickery--and suddenly upon Raymond there came again that nervous
impulse to laugh out aloud. So that was the secret of it, was it? There
was a sort of sardonic humour then in the situation! The suggestion,
the belief he had planned to convey to shield himself--that the man
was still irrational--was, in fact, the truth! But how long would that
condition last? He must put an end to this--get this cursed Dupont away!
“Where am I?” muttered the man again.
“_Tiens!_” clucked Monsieur Dupont. “You see, Monsieur le Curé! You see?
Yes, you see. He plays the game well--with finesse, eh?” He turned to
the man. “Where are you, eh? Well, you are better off where you are
now than where you will be in a few days! I promise you that! Now,
again--your name?”
The man shook his head.
“Monsieur Dupont,” said Raymond, a little severely. “You will arrive
at nothing like this. The man is not himself. To-morrow he will be
stronger.”
“Bah! Nonsense! Stronger!” jerked out Monsieur Dupont derisively. “Our
fox is quite strong enough! Monsieur le Curé, you are not a police
officer--do not let your pity deceive you. And permit me to continue!”
He slipped his hand into his pocket, and adroitly flashed a visiting
card suddenly before the man's eyes. “Well, since you cannot recall
your name, this will perhaps be of assistance! You see, Monsieur Henri
Mentone, that you get yourself nowhere by refusing to answer!” Once more
the man shook his head.
“So!” Monsieur Dupont complacently returned the card to his pocket. “Now
we will continue. You see now where you stand. Your age?”
Again the man shook his head.
“He does not know!” remarked Monsieur Dupont caustically. “Very
convenient memory! Yes--very! Well, will you tell us where you came
from?”
For the fourth time the man shook his head--and at that instant Raymond
edged close to Monsieur Dupont's side. What was that in those eyes
now--that something that was creeping into them--that _dawning_ light,
as they searched his face!
“He does not know that, either!” complained Monsieur Dupont
sarcastically. “Magnificent! Yes--very! He knows nothing at all! He----”
With a low cry, the man struggled to his elbow, propping himself up in
bed.
“Yes, I know!”--his voice, high-pitched, rang through the room. “I know
now!” He raised his hand and pointed at Raymond. “_I know you!_”
Raymond's hand was thrust into the breast of his _soutane_, where he had
unbuttoned it beneath the crucifix--and Raymond's fingers closed upon
the stock of an automatic in his upper left-hand vest pocket.
“Poor fellow!” murmured Raymond pityingly. “You see, Monsieur
Dupont”--he moved still a little closer--“you have gone too far. You
have excited him. He is incoherent. He does not know what he is saying.”
Monsieur Dupont was clucking with his tongue, as he eyed the man
speculatively.
“Yes, yes; I know you now!” cried the man again. “Oh, monsieur,
monsieur!”--both hands were suddenly thrust out to Raymond, and there
was a smile on the trembling lips, an eager flush dyeing the pale
cheeks. “It is you, monsieur! I have been very sick, have I not? It--it
was like a dream. I--I was trying to remember--your face. It is your
face that I have seen so often bending over me. Was that not it,
monsieur--monsieur, you who have been so good--was that not it? You
would lift me upon my pillow, and give me something cool to drink. And
was it not you, monsieur, who sat there in that chair for long, long
hours? It seems as though I saw you there always--many, many times.”
It was like a shock, a revulsion so strong that for the moment it
unnerved him. Raymond scarcely heard his own voice.
“Yes,” he said--his forehead was damp, as he brushed his hand across it.
Monsieur Dupont blew out his cheeks.
“_Nom d'un nom!_” he exploded. “Ah, your pardon, Monsieur le Curé!
But it is mild, a very mild oath, is it not--under the circumstances?
Yes--very! I admire cleverness--yes, I do! The man has a head! What
an appeal to the emotions! Poignant! Yes, that's the word--poignant.
Looking for sympathy! Trying to make an ally of you, Monsieur le Curé!”
“Get rid of the fool! Get rid of the fool!” prompted that inward monitor
impatiently.
Raymond, with a significant look, plucked at Monsieur Dupont's sleeve,
and led the other across the room away from the bed.
“Do you think so?” he asked, in a lowered voice.
“Eh?” inquired Monsieur blankly. “Think what?”
“What you just said--that he is trying to make an ally of me.”
“Oh, that--_zut!_” sniffed Monsieur Dupont. “But what else?”
“Then suppose”--Raymond dropped his voice still lower--“then suppose you
leave him with me until tomorrow. And meanwhile--you understand?”
Monsieur Dupont pondered the suggestion.
“Well, very well--why not?” decided Monsieur Dupont. “Perhaps not a bad
idea--perhaps not. And if it does not succeed”--Monsieur Dupont shrugged
his shoulders--“well, we know everything anyhow; and I will make him
pay through the nose for his tricks! But he is under arrest, Monsieur le
Curé, you understand that? There is a cell in the jail at Tournayville
that----”
“Naturally--when he is able to be moved,” agreed Raymond readily. “We
will speak to the doctor about that. In the meantime he probably could
not walk across this room. He is quite safe here. I will be responsible
for him.”
“And I will put a flea in the doctor's ear!” announced Monsieur Dupont,
moving toward the door. “The assizes are next week, and after the
assizes, say, another six weeks and”--Monsieur Dupont's tongue clucked
eloquently several times against the roof of his mouth. “We will not
keep him waiting long!” Monsieur Dupont opened the door, and, standing
on the threshold where he was hidden from the bed, laid his forefinger
along the side of his nose. “You are wrong, Monsieur le Curé”--he had
raised his voice to carry through the room. “But still you may be right!
You are too softhearted; yes, that is it--soft-hearted. Well, he has you
to thank for it. I would not otherwise consider it--it is against my
best judgment. I bid you good-bye, Monsieur le Curé!”
Raymond closed the door--but it was a moment, standing there with his
back to the bed, before he moved. His face was set, the square jaws
clamped, a cynical smile flickering on his lips. It had been close--but
of the two, as between Monsieur Dupont and himself and the gallows,
Monsieur Dupont had been the nearer to death! He saw Monsieur Dupont in
his mind's-eye sprawled on the floor. It would not have been difficult
to have stopped forever any outcry from that weak thing upon the bed.
And then the window; and after that--God knew! And it would have been
God's affair! It was God Who had instituted that primal law that lay
upon every human soul, the law of self-preservation; and it was God's
choosing, not his, that he was here! Who was to quarrel with him if he
stopped at nothing in his fight for life! Well, Dupont was gone now!
That danger was past. He had only to reckon now with Valérie and her
mother--until night came. He raised his hand heavily to his forehead and
pushed back his hair. Valérie! Until night came! Fool! What was Valérie
to him! And yet--he jeered at himself in a sort of grim derision--and
yet, if it were not his one chance for life, he would not go to-night.
He could call himself a fool, if he would; that ubiquitous and caustic
other self, that was the cool, calculating, unemotional personification
of Three-Ace Artie, could call him a fool, if it would--those dark eyes
of Valérie's--no, not that--it was not eyes, nor hair, nor lips, they
were only part of Valérie--it was Valérie, like some rare fragrance,
fresh and pure and sweet in her young womanhood, that----
“Monsieur!”--the man was calling from the bed.
And then Raymond turned, and walked back across the room, and drew a
chair to the bedside, and sat down. And Raymond smiled--but not at the
bandaged, outstretched form before him. A fool! Well, so be it! The
fool would sit here for the rest of the morning, and the rest of the
afternoon, and listen to the babbling wanderings of another fool who
had not had sense enough to die; and he would play this cursed rôle of
saint, and fumble with his crucifix, and mumble his * Latin, and
keep this Mademoiselle Valérie, who meant nothing to him, from the
room--until to-night. And--what was this other fool saying?
“Monsieur--monsieur, who was that man who just went out?”
Raymond answered mechanically:
“It was Monsieur Dupont, the assistant chief of the Tournayville
police.”
“What was he doing here?” asked the other slowly, as though trying to
puzzle out the answer to his own question. “Why was he asking me all
those questions?”
Raymond, tight-lipped, looked the man in the eyes.
“We've had enough of this, haven't we?” he challenged evenly. “I thought
at first you were still irrational. You're not--that is now quite
evident. Well--we are alone--what is your object? You had a chance to
tell Dupont your story!”
A pitiful, stunned look crept into the man's face. He stretched out his
hand over the coverlet toward Raymond. “You--you, too, monsieur!” he
said numbly. “What does it mean? What does it mean?”
It startled Raymond. There was trickery here, it could be nothing
else--and yet there was sincerity too genuine to be assumed in the
other's words and acts. Raymond sat back in his chair, and for a long
minute, brows knitted, studied the man. It was possible, of course, that
the other might not have recognised him--they had only been together for
a few moments in the smoking compartment of the train, and, dressed
now as a priest, that might well be the case--but why not the story
then?--why not the simple statement that he was the new curé coming to
the village, that he had been struck down and--bah! What was the man's
game! Well, he would force the issue, that was all! He leaned over the
bed; and, his hand upon the other's, his fingers closed around the
man's wrist until, beneath their tips, they could gauge the throb of the
other's pulse. And his eyes, steel-hard, were on the other.
“I am the curé,” he said, in a low, level tone, “of St. Marleau--while
Father Allard is away. My name is--_François Aubert_.”
“And mine,” said the man, “is”--he shook his head--“mine is”--his face
grew piteously troubled--“it is strange--I do not remember that either.”
There had been no tell-tale nervous flutter of the man's pulse.
Raymond's hand fell away from the other's wrist. What was this curious,
almost uncanny presentiment that was creeping upon him! Was it possible
that the man was telling the _truth!_ Was it possible that--his own
brain was whirling now--he steadied himself, forcing himself to speak.
“Did you not read the card that Dupont showed you?”
“Yes,” said the other. “Henri Mentone--is that my name?”
“Do you not know!”--Raymond's tone was suddenly sharp, incisive.
“No,” the other answered. “No, I cannot remember.” He reached out his
arms imploringly to Raymond again. “Oh, monsieur, what does it mean? I
do not know where I am--I do not know how I came here.”
“You are in the _presbytère_ at St. Marleau,” said Raymond, still
sharply. Was it true; or was the man simply magnificent in duplicity?
No--there could be no reason, no valid reason for the man to play a
part?--no reason why he should have withheld his story from Dupont. It
was not logical. He, Raymond, who alone knew all the story, knew
that. It must be true--but he dared not yet drop his guard. He must
be sure--his life depended on his being sure. He was speaking
again--uncompromisingly: “You were picked up unconscious on the road by
the tavern during the storm three nights ago--you remember the storm, of
course?”
Again that piteously troubled look was on the other's face.
“No, monsieur, I do not remember,” he said tremulously.
“Well, then,” persisted Raymond, “before the storm--you surely remember
that! Where you came from? Where you lived? Your people?”
“Where I came from, my--my people”--the man repeated the words
automatically. He swept his hand across his bandaged head. “It is gone,”
he whispered miserably. “I--it is gone. There--there is nothing. I do
not remember anything except a girl in this room saying she would run
for the curé, and then that man came in.” A new trouble came into his
eyes. “That man--you said he was a police officer--why was he here?
And--you have not told me yet--why should he ask me questions?”
There was still a card to play. Raymond leaned again over the man.
“All this will not help you,” he said sternly. “Far better that you
should confide in me! The proof against you is overwhelming. You are
already condemned. You murdered Théophile Blondin that night, and stole
Mother Blondin's money. Mother Blondin struck you that blow upon the
head as you ran from the house. You were found on the road; and in your
pockets was Mother Blondin's money--and her son's revolver, with which
you shot him. In a word, you are under arrest for murder.”
“Murder!”--the man, wide-eyed, horror-stricken, was staring at
Raymond--and then he was clawing himself frantically into an
upright position in the bed. “No, no! Not that! It cannot be true!
Not--_murder!_” His voice rose into a piercing cry, and rang, and rang
again through the room. He reached out his arms. “You are a priest,
monsieur--by that holy crucifix, by the dear Christ's love, tell me that
it is not so! Tell me! Murder! It is not true! It cannot be true! No,
no--no! Monsieur--father--do you not hear me crying to you, do you
not--” His voice choked and was still. His face was buried in his hands,
and great sobs shook his shoulders.
And Raymond turned his head away--and Raymond's face was gray and drawn.
There was no longer room for doubt. That blow upon the skull had blotted
out the man's memory, left it--a blank.