THE MONSTER
The party was waited on by two pretty French maids, while Monsieur
Severin served the wine. The latter interested Wallace. He was
somewhere between fifty and sixty years of age, with a cadaverous face
and small, bird-like eyes. Although he fulfilled his functions
perfectly, he had a habit of constantly looking over his shoulder,
which detracted from his deportment considerably. Having heard what he
had heard, Wallace could not do other than ascribe these frequent
nervous acts to the Monster. Severin evidently expected him
everywhere. He was like a man at his last gasp, hiding his terror by a
commendable effort of will.
“We must give Severin a rest,” said Fallières. “I am afraid he is
approaching a nervous breakdown.”
“Has he been with you long?” asked Wallace.
“Oh, yes. Nearly twenty-five years now. An excellent fellow, and a
connoisseur in wines.”
“I can quite believe that,” said Conrad, as he lifted his glass.
“There! I quite forgot to telephone to Rheims about the car,” said
Fallières. “I will do so immediately after dinner.”
“You need not bother,” put in Wallace. “The car is in going order.”
“You have discovered the trouble?”
“Mademoiselle and I--between us. It was nothing much.”
“Splendid! These trivial accidents are very annoying.”
“Talking about accidents,” said Conrad, “I regret that I have had one
in my room. Rather an inexplicable one, too.”
“Nothing serious, I hope?”
“No damage to myself--but to your property, monsieur. I can’t imagine
how it happened. I went to the bathroom, and on returning found the
dressing-table mirror shattered to atoms. It was lying on the floor,
and seemed to have suffered a severe blow. The window was open, but
there was no wind that could have blown so heavy an article to the
floor.”
The face of Fallières went pallid, and Yolande started noticeably.
Conrad was evidently at a loss to understand this rather strange
reception.
“It--it is of no consequence whatever,” stammered Fallières, after a
brief pause. Then, recovering his equanimity, “This is an unfortunate
place for mirrors, Mr. Conrad. We do not seem to be able to keep a
mirror intact for more than a few weeks. There seems to be an evil
spirit here who hates them.”
“Well, it means seven years’ bad luck for me, anyhow,” replied Conrad
with a laugh. “I suppose you find your family quite small now that
your two younger children are away?”
“_Too_ small. I like to have young people about me. I like their
laughter--their high spirits. I am a little concerned about Yolande,
too. I fear it is not much of a life for a young woman, imprisoned in
a kind of hermitage.”
“Father!” remonstrated Yolande. “You know I love the château, and the
beautiful country.”
“Because it is home to you. I wish you would go away for a period. A
change is good for everyone. There is Uncle Bernard at Nice and your
cousins----”
“You know we never get on together. Are you anxious to be rid of me,
father?”
He smiled and touched her arm affectionately, then he decided to
confide a little in his guests.
“To be quite frank, there is something a little strange about the
château. If I were a superstitious man I should put the estate into
the market and seek for a place that was less charged with the spirits
of the past, but I am rational enough to set at defiance strange signs
and warnings----”
“Warnings!” said Conrad.
“One might interpret them as such. Now, Yolande, I am making your
flesh creep.”
“It has crept before now,” she said, with a wan smile. “I know what
you mean, father. It is everybody’s secret, and we all try to keep it
from each other for fear of ridicule.”
Fallières stroked his chin reflectively. This assertion evidently did
not surprise him greatly, but he was obviously a little distressed.
“This is very interesting,” said Conrad. “But of course every château
has its family ghost. Usually they are accounted for by rats in the
walls, or wind in the chimneys.”
Yolande shot him a swift glance, but held her peace. At that moment
Severin came in to inform her that she was wanted on the telephone,
and, as the call was a long-distance one, she left at once.
“This is no rat in the walls, monsieur,” said Fallières, “nor wind in
the chimneys. It is a perplexing, worrying mystery. Something that can
be seen and touched walks this old place intermittently. For periods
it seems to sleep, and peace reigns, but suddenly it becomes
active--and its activity is daily increasing. But you are right to be
sceptical. I was sceptical until I was compelled to accept the truth.”
“But if it is human, surely the remedy is simple.”
“What is the remedy?”
“To lay hands on it and deal with it.”
“I have tried to for years. See, I do not go about unprepared.”
He produced an automatic pistol from his hip pocket and smiled as he
gazed on it.
“Not a very nice thing for a gentleman to carry about in his own home
in the twentieth century,” he said. “I think it is better to lock your
door to-night. I am sorry to have to advise that.”
Conrad began to take him seriously for the first time. He looked at
Wallace, whose face was like the Sphinx.
“What do you make of this, Ralph?” he asked.
“Frankly, I don’t know.”
“Neither do I. But, by Jove, I’d like to meet this thing. Has anyone
ever really seen it face to face?”
“Yes--Severin.”
“Someone else has,” blurted Wallace.
Fallières stared at him in surprise.
“I--I am afraid I have betrayed my trust,” murmured Wallace. “Well,
perhaps it doesn’t matter so much now. Your daughter saw it years
ago--in her room.”
“Great God!”
“Did she tell you that?” asked Conrad.
Wallace nodded, and hoped Fallières would not question him further,
for he was not anxious to relate the incident of the car to the stern
old man. But the horror of this discovery was sufficient temporarily
to stun Fallières.
“She must leave,” he said. “I will send her down to Nice. I fear that
these happenings are working up to a crisis. For myself, I mean to
stay. Nothing shall drive me from this place.”
“Well spoken,” said Conrad. “There must be an explanation--a very
simple one. We live in the twentieth century, and ought not to
tolerate superstition.”
“Is it superstition? Who breaks the mirrors and befouls the
furnishings? What is it that utters horrible noises in rooms and
galleries? What was it my daughter saw? I admit it may have been a
hallucination, brought about by a dream and by the gossip in the
servants’ hall; but, on the other hand, I should have to be insane to
believe that all I have heard was due to my own imagination.”
When Yolande reappeared, they changed the conversation quickly. At her
father’s request she agreed to play for them, and for two hours the
sweet strains of music filled the place. It changed the brooding
atmosphere at once.
“Do you sing?” asked Yolande of Wallace. “I have lots of English
songs.”
He was not unwilling, for he possessed a very fair baritone voice and
knew a whole host of songs. She proved to be an excellent accompanist,
and in one or two duets their voices blended well.
“Bravo!” said Fallières. “That was charming. Yolande seldom has an
opportunity of singing duets. Find another, please.”
Thus the evening passed, and at midnight the party retired. Before
going to his room, Wallace stepped on to the terrace with Yolande to
get a last breath of fresh air. A brilliant moon illumined the valley
and the dark forest.
“Thank you for changing my wires over,” he said. “This has been a most
enjoyable evening. I should not brood too much on that other business.
I feel sure there must be a very simple solution that you will
discover before long.”
“I wish there were,” she replied.
“What a queer yarn that was,” mused Conrad, as he sat and smoked a
cigarette in Wallace’s room. “Of course there is nothing in it. They
have let themselves get into that state.”
“I wonder.”
“Then I am surprised at you. A young hefty lump of bone and muscle
prepared to accept fairy-tales! Shame on you!”
“Fallières doesn’t strike me as being hysterical, nor does Yolande.”
“Well, what will you do if you meet _IT_?” jested Conrad.
“Hit it as hard as I know how.”
“If it is not human, I don’t think that will disconcert it much.”
“It will disconcert me if I don’t find something to stop my fist. What
a curious day it has turned out! I quite imagined we should be
sleeping in Rheims to-night.”
“What does the poet say? ‘The best-laid schemes of mice and men----’
Jove, what a night! A full moon and not a breath of wind. These are
sensible windows.”
He pushed the casement open wider and leaned out. They were on the
side of the château facing the valley, and the drop from the window
to earth proper was tremendous, for below the level of the ground
floor there was nearly a hundred feet of buttress.
“Fine place to commit suicide,” he said, flinging the end of his
cigarette into the abyss. “There it goes, down--down-- What was that?”
“I heard nothing.”
“I thought I heard a cry--kind of snarl. Must have been fancy.”
“Imbibing the atmosphere,” said Wallace. “Now turn out. I’m going to
bed.”
But Conrad still stood by the window with his head inclined to one
side.
“I could have sworn----”
The next moment a reverberating report came from within the building,
followed by a loud yelling.
“Good God!” ejaculated Conrad. “That is Fallières’s voice. He is only
three rooms away. There is something wrong.”
“Come on,” said Wallace, and made for the door.
In the corridor they saw Yolande running towards them, clad in a
kimono, and some distance behind her old Severin, with an antiquated
firearm in his hand.
“I heard a shot,” she gasped, “and a voice that sounded like my
father’s.”
“Which is his room?”
“There.”
Wallace rapped on the door, and, receiving no reply, opened it
immediately. The room was empty, but the bed had been occupied, and
across the pillow was a long streak of blood. On the floor was an
automatic pistol, still warm.
“Queer!” muttered Conrad. “How could he have left the room?”
Wallace flung open the wardrobe cupboard and looked under the bed. He
turned round on Severin.
“You heard the shot?”
“Yes, m’sieu. I ran up the stairs and along the passage immediately.
The master never came that way or I should have seen him.”
Wallace went to the window, which was partly open, but below was the
same abyss that fronted his own room.
“He shot at something,” said Conrad. “Look, the bullet is embedded in
the wall here. He must have missed.”
“It was the Monster,” croaked Severin, crossing himself. “Always he
comes at the full moon.”
“Full moon--fiddlesticks!” retorted Conrad. “How could anyone get into
this room? The question is, where is Monsieur Fallières?”
Wallace heard a low sob, and turned to see Yolande totter. He caught
her in his arms, and under Severin’s guidance carried her to her room.
Having sent for a maid, he went back to Conrad. The latter was sitting
on the bed, stroking his chin reflectively.
“I don’t like the look of this,” he said.
“Nor do I. Gad, it’s a bit uncanny. It seems impossible that anyone
could have left the room by the door without being observed in the
passage. But we mustn’t draw premature conclusions. I am going to
gather together a search-party.”
“That seems to be the obvious thing to do. Let us make a start at
once.”
The nerve-shattered Severin was found and some half-dozen male
servants were mustered. The main apartments of the château were
quickly ransacked, but there remained a very large number of
unoccupied rooms and annexes, and these took time. Ultimately the
possibility of finding Fallières inside the château was abandoned.
The extensive vaults were explored, but these provided no clue of any
kind towards the solution of the mystery.
“The next thing is to make a search under the window of Fallières’s
room,” said Wallace. “We shall need lanterns or torches.”
To reach this spot necessitated the descent of many flights of steps
leading from the terrace. That part of the cultivated grounds of the
château was given up to rock-gardens, interspersed with winding
gravel paths, by means of which, after a considerable detour, the more
exotic flower-gardens could be reached. Severin pointed out
Fallières’s still-lighted window, and the party walked to a spot
immediately beneath it. Thick ivy scrambled up the wall, but there was
no sign of any disturbance, and the freshly-raked gravel path showed
no footprints but their own.
A search was made among the neighbouring bushes, but all in vain. They
returned by the long path, and ultimately reached the château, tired
out and baffled. Conrad dismissed the servants, and he and Wallace
went and sat in the drawing-room.
“In the circumstances there is only one thing left to be done,” said
Conrad.
“Notify the police?”
“Yes. What the etiquette is in such matters I don’t know, but I should
imagine Paris will act immediately when it concerns a man so widely
known as Fallières. I will telephone the Préfecture now. I daresay
there will be considerable delay.”
He put the call through, and returned to yarn with Wallace until he
was rung. Neither of them was a nervous man, but both looked very grim
and thoughtful.
“We haven’t seen half the château,” said Wallace. “There were lots of
passages that Severin passed by.”
“I noticed that--but the place is such a maze. Of course Severin was
scared stiff.”
An hour passed before the telephone bell rang. Conrad went to the
instrument, and was engaged in conversation for some minutes. At
length he came back.
“It appears I ought to have informed the local police,” he said. “But,
anyway, they are going to act at once. A good man is leaving Paris by
the next train. I’m afraid we shall not be able to leave in the
morning.”
“Rather not. I’m keen on seeing this thing through. It looks
remarkably like murder to me.”
The first glad light of the dawn appeared in the eastern sky before
they rose and went to their rooms. Even then Wallace did not undress,
but reclined on his bed, with ears alert. Sometimes in the dead
silence he thought he heard a woman sobbing.