All were crowding around M. Bermutier, the judge, who was giving his
opinion about the Saint-Cloud mystery. For a month this in explicable
crime had been the talk of Paris. Nobody could make head or tail of it.
M. Bermutier, standing with his back to the fireplace, was talking,
citing the evidence, discussing the various theories, but arriving at no
conclusion.
Some women had risen, in order to get nearer to him, and were standing
with their eyes fastened on the clean-shaven face of the judge, who was
saying such weighty things. They, were shaking and trembling, moved
by fear and curiosity, and by the eager and insatiable desire for the
horrible, which haunts the soul of every woman. One of them, paler than
the others, said during a pause:
“It's terrible. It verges on the supernatural. The truth will never be
known.”
The judge turned to her:
“True, madame, it is likely that the actual facts will never be
discovered. As for the word 'supernatural' which you have just used,
it has nothing to do with the matter. We are in the presence of a very
cleverly conceived and executed crime, so well enshrouded in mystery
that we cannot disentangle it from the involved circumstances which
surround it. But once I had to take charge of an affair in which the
uncanny seemed to play a part. In fact, the case became so confused that
it had to be given up.”
Several women exclaimed at once:
“Oh! Tell us about it!”
M. Bermutier smiled in a dignified manner, as a judge should, and went
on:
“Do not think, however, that I, for one minute, ascribed anything in the
case to supernatural influences. I believe only in normal causes. But
if, instead of using the word 'supernatural' to express what we do not
understand, we were simply to make use of the word 'inexplicable,' it
would be much better. At any rate, in the affair of which I am about to
tell you, it is especially the surrounding, preliminary circumstances
which impressed me. Here are the facts:
“I was, at that time, a judge at Ajaccio, a little white city on the
edge of a bay which is surrounded by high mountains.
“The majority of the cases which came up before me concerned vendettas.
There are some that are superb, dramatic, ferocious, heroic. We find
there the most beautiful causes for revenge of which one could
dream, enmities hundreds of years old, quieted for a time but never
extinguished; abominable stratagems, murders becoming massacres and
almost deeds of glory. For two years I heard of nothing but the price
of blood, of this terrible Corsican prejudice which compels revenge for
insults meted out to the offending person and all his descendants and
relatives. I had seen old men, children, cousins murdered; my head was
full of these stories.
“One day I learned that an Englishman had just hired a little villa at
the end of the bay for several years. He had brought with him a French
servant, whom he had engaged on the way at Marseilles.
“Soon this peculiar person, living alone, only going out to hunt and
fish, aroused a widespread interest. He never spoke to any one, never
went to the town, and every morning he would practice for an hour or so
with his revolver and rifle.
“Legends were built up around him. It was said that he was some high
personage, fleeing from his fatherland for political reasons; then
it was affirmed that he was in hiding after having committed some
abominable crime. Some particularly horrible circumstances were even
mentioned.
“In my judicial position I thought it necessary to get some information
about this man, but it was impossible to learn anything. He called
himself Sir John Rowell.
“I therefore had to be satisfied with watching him as closely as I
could, but I could see nothing suspicious about his actions.
“However, as rumors about him were growing and becoming more widespread,
I decided to try to see this stranger myself, and I began to hunt
regularly in the neighborhood of his grounds.
“For a long time I watched without finding an opportunity. At last it
came to me in the shape of a partridge which I shot and killed right in
front of the Englishman. My dog fetched it for me, but, taking the bird,
I went at once to Sir John Rowell and, begging his pardon, asked him to
accept it.
“He was a big man, with red hair and beard, very tall, very broad,
a kind of calm and polite Hercules. He had nothing of the so-called
British stiffness, and in a broad English accent he thanked me
warmly for my attention. At the end of a month we had had five or six
conversations.
“One night, at last, as I was passing before his door, I saw him in the
garden, seated astride a chair, smoking his pipe. I bowed and he invited
me to come in and have a glass of beer. I needed no urging.
“He received me with the most punctilious English courtesy, sang the
praises of France and of Corsica, and declared that he was quite in love
with this country.
“Then, with great caution and under the guise of a vivid interest, I
asked him a few questions about his life and his plans. He answered
without embarrassment, telling me that he had travelled a great deal in
Africa, in the Indies, in America. He added, laughing:
“'I have had many adventures.'
“Then I turned the conversation on hunting, and he gave me the most
curious details on hunting the hippopotamus, the tiger, the elephant and
even the gorilla.
“I said:
“'Are all these animals dangerous?'
“He smiled:
“'Oh, no! Man is the worst.'
“And he laughed a good broad laugh, the wholesome laugh of a contented
Englishman.
“'I have also frequently been man-hunting.'
“Then he began to talk about weapons, and he invited me to come in and
see different makes of guns.
“His parlor was draped in black, black silk embroidered in gold. Big
yellow flowers, as brilliant as fire, were worked on the dark material.
“He said:
“'It is a Japanese material.'
“But in the middle of the widest panel a strange thing attracted my
attention. A black object stood out against a square of red velvet. I
went up to it; it was a hand, a human hand. Not the clean white hand
of a skeleton, but a dried black hand, with yellow nails, the muscles
exposed and traces of old blood on the bones, which were cut off as
clean as though it had been chopped off with an axe, near the middle of
the forearm.
“Around the wrist, an enormous iron chain, riveted and soldered to this
unclean member, fastened it to the wall by a ring, strong enough to hold
an elephant in leash.
“I asked:
“'What is that?'
“The Englishman answered quietly:
“'That is my best enemy. It comes from America, too. The bones were
severed by a sword and the skin cut off with a sharp stone and dried in
the sun for a week.'
“I touched these human remains, which must have belonged to a giant. The
uncommonly long fingers were attached by enormous tendons which still
had pieces of skin hanging to them in places. This hand was terrible to
see; it made one think of some savage vengeance.
“I said:
“'This man must have been very strong.'
“The Englishman answered quietly:
“'Yes, but I was stronger than he. I put on this chain to hold him.'
“I thought that he was joking. I said:
“'This chain is useless now, the hand won't run away.'
“Sir John Rowell answered seriously:
“'It always wants to go away. This chain is needed.'
“I glanced at him quickly, questioning his face, and I asked myself:
“'Is he an insane man or a practical joker?'
“But his face remained inscrutable, calm and friendly. I turned to other
subjects, and admired his rifles.
“However, I noticed that he kept three loaded revolvers in the room, as
though constantly in fear of some attack.
“I paid him several calls. Then I did not go any more. People had become
used to his presence; everybody had lost interest in him.
“A whole year rolled by. One morning, toward the end of November, my
servant awoke me and announced that Sir John Rowell had been murdered
during the night.
“Half an hour later I entered the Englishman's house, together with
the police commissioner and the captain of the gendarmes. The servant,
bewildered and in despair, was crying before the door. At first I
suspected this man, but he was innocent.
“The guilty party could never be found.
“On entering Sir John's parlor, I noticed the body, stretched out on its
back, in the middle of the room.
“His vest was torn, the sleeve of his jacket had been pulled off,
everything pointed to, a violent struggle.
“The Englishman had been strangled! His face was black, swollen and
frightful, and seemed to express a terrible fear. He held something
between his teeth, and his neck, pierced by five or six holes which
looked as though they had been made by some iron instrument, was covered
with blood.
“A physician joined us. He examined the finger marks on the neck for a
long time and then made this strange announcement:
“'It looks as though he had been strangled by a skeleton.'
“A cold chill seemed to run down my back, and I looked over to where I
had formerly seen the terrible hand. It was no longer there. The chain
was hanging down, broken.
“I bent over the dead man and, in his contracted mouth, I found one of
the fingers of this vanished hand, cut--or rather sawed off by the teeth
down to the second knuckle.
“Then the investigation began. Nothing could be discovered. No door,
window or piece of furniture had been forced. The two watch dogs had not
been aroused from their sleep.
“Here, in a few words, is the testimony of the servant:
“For a month his master had seemed excited. He had received many
letters, which he would immediately burn.
“Often, in a fit of passion which approached madness, he had taken a
switch and struck wildly at this dried hand riveted to the wall, and
which had disappeared, no one knows how, at the very hour of the crime.
“He would go to bed very late and carefully lock himself in. He always
kept weapons within reach. Often at night he would talk loudly, as
though he were quarrelling with some one.
“That night, somehow, he had made no noise, and it was only on going
to open the windows that the servant had found Sir John murdered. He
suspected no one.
“I communicated what I knew of the dead man to the judges and public
officials. Throughout the whole island a minute investigation was
carried on. Nothing could be found out.
“One night, about three months after the crime, I had a terrible
nightmare. I seemed to see the horrible hand running over my curtains
and walls like an immense scorpion or spider. Three times I awoke,
three times I went to sleep again; three times I saw the hideous object
galloping round my room and moving its fingers like legs.
“The following day the hand was brought me, found in the cemetery, on
the grave of Sir John Rowell, who had been buried there because we had
been unable to find his family. The first finger was missing.
“Ladies, there is my story. I know nothing more.”
The women, deeply stirred, were pale and trembling. One of them
exclaimed:
“But that is neither a climax nor an explanation! We will be unable to
sleep unless you give us your opinion of what had occurred.”
The judge smiled severely:
“Oh! Ladies, I shall certainly spoil your terrible dreams. I simply
believe that the legitimate owner of the hand was not dead, that he came
to get it with his remaining one. But I don't know how. It was a kind of
vendetta.”
One of the women murmured:
“No, it can't be that.”
And the judge, still smiling, said:
“Didn't I tell you that my explanation would not satisfy you?”