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+Project Gutenberg's The Eight Strokes of the Clock, by Maurice Le Blanc
+#3 in our series by Maurice Le Blanc
+
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+
+Title: The Eight Strokes of the Clock
+
+Author: Maurice Le Blanc
+
+Release Date: April, 2005 [EBook #7896]
+[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule]
+[This file was first posted on May 31, 2003]
+[Date last updated: November 16, 2004]
+
+Edition: 10
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE EIGHT STROKES OF THE CLOCK ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Eric Eldred, William Flis
+and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team.
+
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: The girl gasped as Renine (Arsene Lupin) drew forth the
+mysterious telescope.]
+
+
+              THE EIGHT STROKES OF THE CLOCK
+
+                           BY
+
+                    MAURICE LE BLANC
+
+
+
+
+AUTHOR'S NOTE
+
+These adventures were told to me in the old days by Arsene Lupin, as
+though they had happened to a friend of his, named Prince Renine. As for
+me, considering the way in which they were conducted, the actions, the
+behaviour and the very character of the hero, I find it very difficult not
+to identify the two friends as one and the same person. Arsene Lupin is
+gifted with a powerful imagination and is quite capable of attributing to
+himself adventures which are not his at all and of disowning those which
+are really his. The reader will judge for himself.
+
+M. L.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+I ON THE TOP OF THE TOWER
+
+II THE WATER BOTTLE
+
+III THE CASE OF JEAN LOUIS
+
+IV THE TELL-TALE FILM
+
+V THERESE AND GERMAINE
+
+VI THE LADY WITH THE HATCHET
+
+VII FOOTPRINTS IN THE SNOW
+
+VIII AT THE SIGN OF MERCURY
+
+
+
+
+I
+
+ON THE TOP OF THE TOWER
+
+
+Hortense Daniel pushed her window ajar and whispered:
+
+"Are you there, Rossigny?"
+
+"I am here," replied a voice from the shrubbery at the front of the house.
+
+Leaning forward, she saw a rather fat man looking up at her out of a gross
+red face with its cheeks and chin set in unpleasantly fair whiskers.
+
+"Well?" he asked.
+
+"Well, I had a great argument with my uncle and aunt last night. They
+absolutely refuse to sign the document of which my lawyer sent them the
+draft, or to restore the dowry squandered by my husband."
+
+"But your uncle is responsible by the terms of the marriage-settlement."
+
+"No matter. He refuses."
+
+"Well, what do you propose to do?"
+
+"Are you still determined to run away with me?" she asked, with a laugh.
+
+"More so than ever."
+
+"Your intentions are strictly honourable, remember!"
+
+"Just as you please. You know that I am madly in love with you."
+
+"Unfortunately I am not madly in love with you!"
+
+"Then what made you choose me?"
+
+"Chance. I was bored. I was growing tired of my humdrum existence. So I'm
+ready to run risks.... Here's my luggage: catch!"
+
+She let down from the window a couple of large leather kit-bags. Rossigny
+caught them in his arms.
+
+"The die is cast," she whispered. "Go and wait for me with your car at the
+If cross-roads. I shall come on horseback."
+
+"Hang it, I can't run off with your horse!"
+
+"He will go home by himself."
+
+"Capital!... Oh, by the way...."
+
+"What is it?"
+
+"Who is this Prince Renine, who's been here the last three days and whom
+nobody seems to know?"
+
+"I don't know much about him. My uncle met him at a friend's shoot and
+asked him here to stay."
+
+"You seem to have made a great impression on him. You went for a long ride
+with him yesterday. He's a man I don't care for."
+
+"In two hours I shall have left the house in your company. The scandal will
+cool him off.... Well, we've talked long enough. We have no time to lose."
+
+For a few minutes she stood watching the fat man bending under the weight
+of her traps as he moved away in the shelter of an empty avenue. Then she
+closed the window.
+
+Outside, in the park, the huntsmen's horns were sounding the reveille. The
+hounds burst into frantic baying. It was the opening day of the hunt that
+morning at the Chateau de la Mareze, where, every year, in the first week
+in September, the Comte d'Aigleroche, a mighty hunter before the Lord,
+and his countess were accustomed to invite a few personal friends and the
+neighbouring landowners.
+
+Hortense slowly finished dressing, put on a riding-habit, which
+revealed the lines of her supple figure, and a wide-brimmed felt hat,
+which encircled her lovely face and auburn hair, and sat down to her
+writing-desk, at which she wrote to her uncle, M. d'Aigleroche, a farewell
+letter to be delivered to him that evening. It was a difficult letter to
+word; and, after beginning it several times, she ended by giving up the
+idea.
+
+"I will write to him later," she said to herself, "when his anger has
+cooled down."
+
+And she went downstairs to the dining-room.
+
+Enormous logs were blazing in the hearth of the lofty room. The walls were
+hung with trophies of rifles and shotguns. The guests were flocking in from
+every side, shaking hands with the Comte d'Aigleroche, one of those typical
+country squires, heavily and powerfully built, who lives only for hunting
+and shooting. He was standing before the fire, with a large glass of old
+brandy in his hand, drinking the health of each new arrival.
+
+Hortense kissed him absently:
+
+"What, uncle! You who are usually so sober!"
+
+"Pooh!" he said. "A man may surely indulge himself a little once a
+year!..."
+
+"Aunt will give you a scolding!"
+
+"Your aunt has one of her sick headaches and is not coming down. Besides,"
+he added, gruffly, "it is not her business ... and still less is it yours,
+my dear child."
+
+Prince Renine came up to Hortense. He was a young man, very smartly
+dressed, with a narrow and rather pale face, whose eyes held by turns
+the gentlest and the harshest, the most friendly and the most satirical
+expression. He bowed to her, kissed her hand and said:
+
+"May I remind you of your kind promise, dear madame?"
+
+"My promise?"
+
+"Yes, we agreed that we should repeat our delightful excursion of yesterday
+and try to go over that old boarded-up place the look of which made us so
+curious. It seems to be known as the Domaine de Halingre."
+
+She answered a little curtly:
+
+"I'm extremely sorry, monsieur, but it would be rather far and I'm feeling
+a little done up. I shall go for a canter in the park and come indoors
+again."
+
+There was a pause. Then Serge Renine said, smiling, with his eyes fixed on
+hers and in a voice which she alone could hear:
+
+"I am sure that you'll keep your promise and that you'll let me come with
+you. It would be better."
+
+"For whom? For you, you mean?"
+
+"For you, too, I assure you."
+
+She coloured slightly, but did not reply, shook hands with a few people
+around her and left the room.
+
+A groom was holding the horse at the foot of the steps. She mounted and set
+off towards the woods beyond the park.
+
+It was a cool, still morning. Through the leaves, which barely quivered,
+the sky showed crystalline blue. Hortense rode at a walk down winding
+avenues which in half an hour brought her to a country-side of ravines and
+bluffs intersected by the high-road.
+
+She stopped. There was not a sound. Rossigny must have stopped his engine
+and concealed the car in the thickets around the If cross-roads.
+
+She was five hundred yards at most from that circular space. After
+hesitating for a few seconds, she dismounted, tied her horse carelessly, so
+that he could release himself by the least effort and return to the house,
+shrouded her face in the long brown veil that hung over her shoulders and
+walked on.
+
+As she expected, she saw Rossigny directly she reached the first turn in
+the road. He ran up to her and drew her into the coppice!
+
+"Quick, quick! Oh, I was so afraid that you would be late ... or even
+change your mind! And here you are! It seems too good to be true!"
+
+She smiled:
+
+"You appear to be quite happy to do an idiotic thing!"
+
+"I should think I _am_ happy! And so will you be, I swear you will!
+Your life will be one long fairy-tale. You shall have every luxury, and all
+the money you can wish for."
+
+"I want neither money nor luxuries."
+
+"What then?"
+
+"Happiness."
+
+"You can safely leave your happiness to me."
+
+She replied, jestingly:
+
+"I rather doubt the quality of the happiness which you would give me."
+
+"Wait! You'll see! You'll see!"
+
+They had reached the motor. Rossigny, still stammering expressions of
+delight, started the engine. Hortense stepped in and wrapped herself in a
+wide cloak. The car followed the narrow, grassy path which led back to the
+cross-roads and Rossigny was accelerating the speed, when he was suddenly
+forced to pull up. A shot had rung out from the neighbouring wood, on the
+right. The car was swerving from side to side.
+
+"A front tire burst," shouted Rossigny, leaping to the ground.
+
+"Not a bit of it!" cried Hortense. "Somebody fired!"
+
+"Impossible, my dear! Don't be so absurd!"
+
+At that moment, two slight shocks were felt and two more reports were
+heard, one after the other, some way off and still in the wood.
+
+Rossigny snarled:
+
+"The back tires burst now ... both of them.... But who, in the devil's
+name, can the ruffian be?... Just let me get hold of him, that's all!..."
+
+He clambered up the road-side slope. There was no one there. Moreover, the
+leaves of the coppice blocked the view.
+
+"Damn it! Damn it!" he swore. "You were right: somebody was firing at the
+car! Oh, this is a bit thick! We shall be held up for hours! Three tires to
+mend!... But what are you doing, dear girl?"
+
+Hortense herself had alighted from the car. She ran to him, greatly
+excited:
+
+"I'm going."
+
+"But why?"
+
+"I want to know. Some one fired. I want to know who it was."
+
+"Don't let us separate, please!"
+
+"Do you think I'm going to wait here for you for hours?"
+
+"What about your running away?... All our plans ...?"
+
+"We'll discuss that to-morrow. Go back to the house. Take back my things
+with you.... And good-bye for the present."
+
+She hurried, left him, had the good luck to find her horse and set off at a
+gallop in a direction leading away from La Mareze.
+
+There was not the least doubt in her mind that the three shots had been
+fired by Prince Renine.
+
+"It was he," she muttered, angrily, "it was he. No one else would be
+capable of such behaviour."
+
+Besides, he had warned her, in his smiling, masterful way, that he would
+expect her.
+
+She was weeping with rage and humiliation. At that moment, had she found
+herself face to face with Prince Renine, she could have struck him with her
+riding-whip.
+
+Before her was the rugged and picturesque stretch of country which lies
+between the Orne and the Sarthe, above Alencon, and which is known as
+Little Switzerland. Steep hills compelled her frequently to moderate her
+pace, the more so as she had to cover some six miles before reaching her
+destination. But, though the speed at which she rode became less headlong,
+though her physical effort gradually slackened, she nevertheless persisted
+in her indignation against Prince Renine. She bore him a grudge not only
+for the unspeakable action of which he had been guilty, but also for his
+behaviour to her during the last three days, his persistent attentions, his
+assurance, his air of excessive politeness.
+
+She was nearly there. In the bottom of a valley, an old park-wall, full
+of cracks and covered with moss and weeds, revealed the ball-turret of a
+chateau and a few windows with closed shutters. This was the Domaine de
+Halingre.
+
+She followed the wall and turned a corner. In the middle of the
+crescent-shaped space before which lay the entrance-gates, Serge Renine
+stood waiting beside his horse.
+
+She sprang to the ground, and, as he stepped forward, hat in hand, thanking
+her for coming, she cried:
+
+"One word, monsieur, to begin with. Something quite inexplicable happened
+just now. Three shots were fired at a motor-car in which I was sitting. Did
+you fire those shots?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+She seemed dumbfounded:
+
+"Then you confess it?"
+
+"You have asked a question, madame, and I have answered it."
+
+"But how dared you? What gave you the right?"
+
+"I was not exercising a right, madame; I was performing a duty!"
+
+"Indeed! And what duty, pray?"
+
+"The duty of protecting you against a man who is trying to profit by your
+troubles."
+
+"I forbid you to speak like that. I am responsible for my own actions, and
+I decided upon them in perfect liberty."
+
+"Madame, I overheard your conversation with M. Rossigny this morning and it
+did not appear to me that you were accompanying him with a light heart. I
+admit the ruthlessness and bad taste of my interference and I apologise for
+it humbly; but I risked being taken for a ruffian in order to give you a
+few hours for reflection."
+
+"I have reflected fully, monsieur. When I have once made up my mind to a
+thing, I do not change it."
+
+"Yes, madame, you do, sometimes. If not, why are you here instead of
+there?"
+
+Hortense was confused for a moment. All her anger had subsided. She looked
+at Renine with the surprise which one experiences when confronted with
+certain persons who are unlike their fellows, more capable of performing
+unusual actions, more generous and disinterested. She realised perfectly
+that he was acting without any ulterior motive or calculation, that he was,
+as he had said, merely fulfilling his duty as a gentleman to a woman who
+has taken the wrong turning.
+
+Speaking very gently, he said:
+
+"I know very little about you, madame, but enough to make me wish to be of
+use to you. You are twenty-six years old and have lost both your parents.
+Seven years ago, you became the wife of the Comte d'Aigleroche's nephew by
+marriage, who proved to be of unsound mind, half insane indeed, and had
+to be confined. This made it impossible for you to obtain a divorce and
+compelled you, since your dowry had been squandered, to live with your
+uncle and at his expense. It's a depressing environment. The count and
+countess do not agree. Years ago, the count was deserted by his first wife,
+who ran away with the countess' first husband. The abandoned husband and
+wife decided out of spite to unite their fortunes, but found nothing but
+disappointment and ill-will in this second marriage. And you suffer the
+consequences. They lead a monotonous, narrow, lonely life for eleven months
+or more out of the year. One day, you met M. Rossigny, who fell in love
+with you and suggested an elopement. You did not care for him. But you were
+bored, your youth was being wasted, you longed for the unexpected, for
+adventure ... in a word, you accepted with the very definite intention of
+keeping your admirer at arm's length, but also with the rather ingenuous
+hope that the scandal would force your uncle's hand and make him account
+for his trusteeship and assure you of an independent existence. That is how
+you stand. At present you have to choose between placing yourself in M.
+Rossigny's hands ... or trusting yourself to me."
+
+She raised her eyes to his. What did he mean? What was the purport of this
+offer which he made so seriously, like a friend who asks nothing but to
+prove his devotion?
+
+After a moment's silence, he took the two horses by the bridle and tied
+them up. Then he examined the heavy gates, each of which was strengthened
+by two planks nailed cross-wise. An electoral poster, dated twenty years
+earlier, showed that no one had entered the domain since that time.
+
+Renine tore up one of the iron posts which supported a railing that ran
+round the crescent and used it as a lever. The rotten planks gave way. One
+of them uncovered the lock, which he attacked with a big knife, containing
+a number of blades and implements. A minute later, the gate opened on a
+waste of bracken which led up to a long, dilapidated building, with a
+turret at each corner and a sort of a belvedere, built on a taller tower,
+in the middle.
+
+The Prince turned to Hortense:
+
+"You are in no hurry," he said. "You will form your decision this evening;
+and, if M. Rossigny succeeds in persuading you for the second time, I give
+you my word of honour that I shall not cross your path. Until then, grant
+me the privilege of your company. We made up our minds yesterday to inspect
+the chateau. Let us do so. Will you? It is as good a way as any of passing
+the time and I have a notion that it will not be uninteresting."
+
+He had a way of talking which compelled obedience. He seemed to be
+commanding and entreating at the same time. Hortense did not even seek
+to shake off the enervation into which her will was slowly sinking. She
+followed him to a half-demolished flight of steps at the top of which was
+a door likewise strengthened by planks nailed in the form of a cross.
+
+Renine went to work in the same way as before. They entered a spacious
+hall paved with white and black flagstones, furnished with old sideboards
+and choir-stalls and adorned with a carved escutcheon which displayed the
+remains of armorial bearings, representing an eagle standing on a block of
+stone, all half-hidden behind a veil of cobwebs which hung down over a pair
+of folding-doors.
+
+"The door of the drawing-room, evidently," said Renine.
+
+He found this more difficult to open; and it was only by repeatedly
+charging it with his shoulder that he was able to move one of the doors.
+
+Hortense had not spoken a word. She watched not without surprise this
+series of forcible entries, which were accomplished with a really masterly
+skill. He guessed her thoughts and, turning round, said in a serious voice:
+
+"It's child's-play to me. I was a locksmith once."
+
+She seized his arm and whispered:
+
+"Listen!"
+
+"To what?" he asked.
+
+She increased the pressure of her hand, to demand silence. The next moment,
+he murmured:
+
+"It's really very strange."
+
+"Listen, listen!" Hortense repeated, in bewilderment. "Can it be possible?"
+
+They heard, not far from where they were standing, a sharp sound, the sound
+of a light tap recurring at regular intervals; and they had only to listen
+attentively to recognise the ticking of a clock. Yes, it was this and
+nothing else that broke the profound silence of the dark room; it was
+indeed the deliberate ticking, rhythmical as the beat of a metronome,
+produced by a heavy brass pendulum. That was it! And nothing could be more
+impressive than the measured pulsation of this trivial mechanism, which by
+some miracle, some inexplicable phenomenon, had continued to live in the
+heart of the dead chateau.
+
+"And yet," stammered Hortense, without daring to raise her voice, "no one
+has entered the house?"
+
+"No one."
+
+"And it is quite impossible for that clock to have kept going for twenty
+years without being wound up?"
+
+"Quite impossible."
+
+"Then ...?"
+
+Serge Renine opened the three windows and threw back the shutters.
+
+He and Hortense were in a drawing-room, as he had thought; and the room
+showed not the least sign of disorder. The chairs were in their places. Not
+a piece of furniture was missing. The people who had lived there and who
+had made it the most individual room in their house had gone away leaving
+everything just as it was, the books which they used to read, the
+knick-knacks on the tables and consoles.
+
+Renine examined the old grandfather's clock, contained in its tall carved
+case which showed the disk of the pendulum through an oval pane of glass.
+He opened the door of the clock. The weights hanging from the cords were at
+their lowest point.
+
+At that moment there was a click. The clock struck eight with a serious
+note which Hortense was never to forget.
+
+"How extraordinary!" she said.
+
+"Extraordinary indeed," said he, "for the works are exceedingly simple and
+would hardly keep going for a week."
+
+"And do you see nothing out of the common?"
+
+"No, nothing ... or, at least...."
+
+He stooped and, from the back of the case, drew a metal tube which was
+concealed by the weights. Holding it up to the light:
+
+"A telescope," he said, thoughtfully. "Why did they hide it?... And they
+left it drawn out to its full length.... That's odd.... What does it mean?"
+
+The clock, as is sometimes usual, began to strike a second time, sounding
+eight strokes. Renine closed the case and continued his inspection without
+putting his telescope down. A wide arch led from the drawing-room to a
+smaller apartment, a sort of smoking-room. This also was furnished, but
+contained a glass case for guns of which the rack was empty. Hanging on
+a panel near by was a calendar with the date of the 5th of September.
+
+"Oh," cried Hortense, in astonishment, "the same date as to-day!... They
+tore off the leaves until the 5th of September.... And this is the
+anniversary! What an astonishing coincidence!"
+
+"Astonishing," he echoed. "It's the anniversary of their departure ...
+twenty years ago to-day."
+
+"You must admit," she said, "that all this is incomprehensible.
+
+"Yes, of course ... but, all the same ... perhaps not."
+
+"Have you any idea?"
+
+He waited a few seconds before replying:
+
+"What puzzles me is this telescope hidden, dropped in that corner, at
+the last moment. I wonder what it was used for.... From the ground-floor
+windows you see nothing but the trees in the garden ... and the same, I
+expect, from all the windows.... We are in a valley, without the least open
+horizon.... To use the telescope, one would have to go up to the top of the
+house.... Shall we go up?"
+
+She did not hesitate. The mystery surrounding the whole adventure excited
+her curiosity so keenly that she could think of nothing but accompanying
+Renine and assisting him in his investigations.
+
+They went upstairs accordingly, and, on the second floor, came to a landing
+where they found the spiral staircase leading to the belvedere.
+
+At the top of this was a platform in the open air, but surrounded by a
+parapet over six feet high.
+
+"There must have been battlements which have been filled in since,"
+observed Prince Renine. "Look here, there were loop-holes at one time. They
+may have been blocked."
+
+"In any case," she said, "the telescope was of no use up here either and we
+may as well go down again."
+
+"I don't agree," he said. "Logic tells us that there must have been some
+gap through which the country could be seen and this was the spot where the
+telescope was used."
+
+He hoisted himself by his wrists to the top of the parapet and then saw
+that this point of vantage commanded the whole of the valley, including the
+park, with its tall trees marking the horizon; and, beyond, a depression
+in a wood surmounting a hill, at a distance of some seven or eight hundred
+yards, stood another tower, squat and in ruins, covered with ivy from top
+to bottom.
+
+Renine resumed his inspection. He seemed to consider that the key to the
+problem lay in the use to which the telescope was put and that the problem
+would be solved if only they could discover this use.
+
+He studied the loop-holes one after the other. One of them, or rather the
+place which it had occupied, attracted his attention above the rest. In
+the middle of the layer of plaster, which had served to block it, there
+was a hollow filled with earth in which plants had grown. He pulled out
+the plants and removed the earth, thus clearing the mouth of a hole some
+five inches in diameter, which completely penetrated the wall. On bending
+forward, Renine perceived that this deep and narrow opening inevitably
+carried the eye, above the dense tops of the trees and through the
+depression in the hill, to the ivy-clad tower.
+
+At the bottom of this channel, in a sort of groove which ran through it
+like a gutter, the telescope fitted so exactly that it was quite impossible
+to shift it, however little, either to the right or to the left.
+
+Renine, after wiping the outside of the lenses, while taking care not to
+disturb the lie of the instrument by a hair's breadth, put his eye to the
+small end.
+
+He remained for thirty or forty seconds, gazing attentively and silently.
+Then he drew himself up and said, in a husky voice:
+
+"It's terrible ... it's really terrible."
+
+"What is?" she asked, anxiously.
+
+"Look."
+
+She bent down but the image was not clear to her and the telescope had to
+be focussed to suit her sight. The next moment she shuddered and said:
+
+"It's two scarecrows, isn't it, both stuck up on the top? But why?"
+
+"Look again," he said. "Look more carefully under the hats ... the
+faces...."
+
+"Oh!" she cried, turning faint with horror, "how awful!"
+
+The field of the telescope, like the circular picture shown by a magic
+lantern, presented this spectacle: the platform of a broken tower, the
+walls of which were higher in the more distant part and formed as it were
+a back-drop, over which surged waves of ivy. In front, amid a cluster of
+bushes, were two human beings, a man and a woman, leaning back against a
+heap of fallen stones.
+
+But the words man and woman could hardly be applied to these two forms,
+these two sinister puppets, which, it is true, wore clothes and hats--or
+rather shreds of clothes and remnants of hats--but had lost their eyes,
+their cheeks, their chins, every particle of flesh, until they were
+actually and positively nothing more than two skeletons.
+
+"Two skeletons," stammered Hortense. "Two skeletons with clothes on. Who
+carried them up there?"
+
+"Nobody."
+
+"But still...."
+
+"That man and that woman must have died at the top of the tower, years and
+years ago ... and their flesh rotted under their clothes and the ravens ate
+them."
+
+"But it's hideous, hideous!" cried Hortense, pale as death, her face drawn
+with horror.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Half an hour later, Hortense Daniel and Renine left the Chateau de
+Halingre. Before their departure, they had gone as far as the ivy-grown
+tower, the remains of an old donjon-keep more than half demolished. The
+inside was empty. There seemed to have been a way of climbing to the top,
+at a comparatively recent period, by means of wooden stairs and ladders
+which now lay broken and scattered over the ground. The tower backed
+against the wall which marked the end of the park.
+
+A curious fact, which surprised Hortense, was that Prince Renine had
+neglected to pursue a more minute enquiry, as though the matter had lost
+all interest for him. He did not even speak of it any longer; and, in the
+inn at which they stopped and took a light meal in the nearest village, it
+was she who asked the landlord about the abandoned chateau. But she learnt
+nothing from him, for the man was new to the district and could give her no
+particulars. He did not even know the name of the owner.
+
+They turned their horses' heads towards La Mareze. Again and again Hortense
+recalled the squalid sight which had met their eyes. But Renine, who was
+in a lively mood and full of attentions to his companion, seemed utterly
+indifferent to those questions.
+
+"But, after all," she exclaimed, impatiently, "we can't leave the matter
+there! It calls for a solution."
+
+"As you say," he replied, "a solution is called for. M. Rossigny has to
+know where he stands and you have to decide what to do about him."
+
+She shrugged her shoulders: "He's of no importance for the moment. The
+thing to-day...."
+
+"Is what?"
+
+"Is to know what those two dead bodies are."
+
+"Still, Rossigny...."
+
+"Rossigny can wait. But I can't. You have shown me a mystery which is now
+the only thing that matters. What do you intend to do?"
+
+"To do?"
+
+"Yes. There are two bodies.... You'll inform the police, I suppose."
+
+"Gracious goodness!" he exclaimed, laughing. "What for?"
+
+"Well, there's a riddle that has to be cleared up at all costs, a terrible
+tragedy."
+
+"We don't need any one to do that."
+
+"What! Do you mean to say that you understand it?"
+
+"Almost as plainly as though I had read it in a book, told in full detail,
+with explanatory illustrations. It's all so simple!"
+
+She looked at him askance, wondering if he was making fun of her. But he
+seemed quite serious.
+
+"Well?" she asked, quivering with curiosity.
+
+The light was beginning to wane. They had trotted at a good pace; and the
+hunt was returning as they neared La Mareze.
+
+"Well," he said, "we shall get the rest of our information from people
+living round about ... from your uncle, for instance; and you will see how
+logically all the facts fit in. When you hold the first link of a chain,
+you are bound, whether you like it or not, to reach the last. It's the
+greatest fun in the world."
+
+Once in the house, they separated. On going to her room, Hortense found her
+luggage and a furious letter from Rossigny in which he bade her good-bye
+and announced his departure.
+
+Then Renine knocked at her door:
+
+"Your uncle is in the library," he said. "Will you go down with me? I've
+sent word that I am coming."
+
+She went with him. He added:
+
+"One word more. This morning, when I thwarted your plans and begged you to
+trust me, I naturally undertook an obligation towards you which I mean to
+fulfill without delay. I want to give you a positive proof of this."
+
+She laughed:
+
+"The only obligation which you took upon yourself was to satisfy my
+curiosity."
+
+"It shall be satisfied," he assured her, gravely, "and more fully than you
+can possibly imagine."
+
+M. d'Aigleroche was alone. He was smoking his pipe and drinking sherry. He
+offered a glass to Renine, who refused.
+
+"Well, Hortense!" he said, in a rather thick voice. "You know that it's
+pretty dull here, except in these September days. You must make the most
+of them. Have you had a pleasant ride with Renine?"
+
+"That's just what I wanted to talk about, my dear sir," interrupted the
+prince.
+
+"You must excuse me, but I have to go to the station in ten minutes, to
+meet a friend of my wife's."
+
+"Oh, ten minutes will be ample!"
+
+"Just the time to smoke a cigarette?"
+
+"No longer."
+
+He took a cigarette from the case which M. d'Aigleroche handed to him, lit
+it and said:
+
+"I must tell you that our ride happened to take us to an old domain which
+you are sure to know, the Domaine de Halingre."
+
+"Certainly I know it. But it has been closed, boarded up for twenty-five
+years or so. You weren't able to get in, I suppose?"
+
+"Yes, we were."
+
+"Really? Was it interesting?"
+
+"Extremely. We discovered the strangest things."
+
+"What things?" asked the count, looking at his watch.
+
+Renine described what they had seen:
+
+"On a tower some way from the house there were two dead bodies, two
+skeletons rather ... a man and a woman still wearing the clothes which
+they had on when they were murdered."
+
+"Come, come, now! Murdered?"
+
+"Yes; and that is what we have come to trouble you about. The tragedy must
+date back to some twenty years ago. Was nothing known of it at the time?"
+
+"Certainly not," declared the count. "I never heard of any such crime or
+disappearance."
+
+"Oh, really!" said Renine, looking a little disappointed. "I hoped to
+obtain a few particulars."
+
+"I'm sorry."
+
+"In that case, I apologise."
+
+He consulted Hortense with a glance and moved towards the door. But on
+second thought:
+
+"Could you not at least, my dear sir, bring me into touch with some persons
+in the neighbourhood, some members of your family, who might know more
+about it?"
+
+"Of my family? And why?"
+
+"Because the Domaine de Halingre used to belong and no doubt still belongs
+to the d'Aigleroches. The arms are an eagle on a heap of stones, on a rock.
+This at once suggested the connection."
+
+This time the count appeared surprised. He pushed back his decanter and his
+glass of sherry and said:
+
+"What's this you're telling me? I had no idea that we had any such
+neighbours."
+
+Renine shook his head and smiled:
+
+"I should be more inclined to believe, sir, that you were not very eager to
+admit any relationship between yourself ... and the unknown owner of the
+property."
+
+"Then he's not a respectable man?"
+
+"The man, to put it plainly, is a murderer."
+
+"What do you mean?"
+
+The count had risen from his chair. Hortense, greatly excited, said:
+
+"Are you really sure that there has been a murder and that the murder was
+done by some one belonging to the house?"
+
+"Quite sure."
+
+"But why are you so certain?"
+
+"Because I know who the two victims were and what caused them to be
+killed."
+
+Prince Renine was making none but positive statements and his method
+suggested the belief that he supported by the strongest proofs.
+
+M. d'Aigleroche strode up and down the room, with his hands behind his
+back. He ended by saying:
+
+"I always had an instinctive feeling that something had happened, but I
+never tried to find out.... Now, as a matter of fact, twenty years ago,
+a relation of mine, a distant cousin, used to live at the Domaine de
+Halingre. I hoped, because of the name I bear, that this story, which,
+as I say, I never knew but suspected, would remain hidden for ever."
+
+"So this cousin killed somebody?"
+
+"Yes, he was obliged to."
+
+Renine shook his head:
+
+"I am sorry to have to amend that phrase, my dear sir. The truth, on the
+contrary, is that your cousin took his victims' lives in cold blood and in
+a cowardly manner. I never heard of a crime more deliberately and craftily
+planned."
+
+"What is it that you know?"
+
+The moment had come for Renine to explain himself, a solemn and
+anguish-stricken moment, the full gravity of which Hortense understood,
+though she had not yet divined any part of the tragedy which the prince
+unfolded step by step."
+
+"It's a very simple story," he said. "There is every reason to believe that
+M. d'Aigleroche was married and that there was another couple living in
+the neighbourhood with whom the owner of the Domaine de Halingre were on
+friendly terms. What happened one day, which of these four persons first
+disturbed the relations between the two households, I am unable to say. But
+a likely version, which at once occurs to the mind, is that your cousin's
+wife, Madame d'Aigleroche, was in the habit of meeting the other husband
+in the ivy-covered tower, which had a door opening outside the estate. On
+discovering the intrigue, your cousin d'Aigleroche resolved to be revenged,
+but in such a manner that there should be no scandal and that no one
+even should ever know that the guilty pair had been killed. Now he had
+ascertained--as I did just now--that there was a part of the house, the
+belvedere, from which you can see, over the trees and the undulations of
+the park, the tower standing eight hundred yards away, and that this was
+the only place that overlooked the top of the tower. He therefore pierced
+a hole in the parapet, through one of the former loopholes, and from
+there, by using a telescope which fitted exactly in the grove which he
+had hollowed out, he watched the meetings of the two lovers. And it was
+from there, also, that, after carefully taking all his measurements, and
+calculating all his distances, on a Sunday, the 5th of September, when the
+house was empty, he killed them with two shots."
+
+The truth was becoming apparent. The light of day was breaking. The count
+muttered:
+
+"Yes, that's what must have happened. I expect that my cousin
+d'Aigleroche...."
+
+"The murderer," Renine continued, "stopped up the loophole neatly with a
+clod of earth. No one would ever know that two dead bodies were decaying
+on the top of that tower which was never visited and of which he took the
+precaution to demolish the wooden stairs. Nothing therefore remained for
+him to do but to explain the disappearance of his wife and his friend. This
+presented no difficulty. He accused them of having eloped together."
+
+Hortense gave a start. Suddenly, as though the last sentence were a
+complete and to her an absolutely unexpected revelation, she understood
+what Renine was trying to convey:
+
+"What do you mean?" she asked.
+
+"I mean that M. d'Aigleroche accused his wife and his friend of eloping
+together."
+
+"No, no!" she cried. "I can't allow that!... You are speaking of a cousin
+of my uncle's? Why mix up the two stories?"
+
+"Why mix up this story with another which took place at that time?" said
+the prince. "But I am not mixing them up, my dear madame; there is only one
+story and I am telling it as it happened."
+
+Hortense turned to her uncle. He sat silent, with his arms folded; and
+his head remained in the shadow cast by the lamp-shade. Why had he not
+protested?
+
+Renine repeated in a firm tone:
+
+"There is only one story. On the evening of that very day, the 5th of
+September at eight o'clock, M. d'Aigleroche, doubtless alleging as his
+reason that he was going in pursuit of the runaway couple, left his house
+after boarding up the entrance. He went away, leaving all the rooms as
+they were and removing only the firearms from their glass case. At the
+last minute, he had a presentiment, which has been justified to-day, that
+the discovery of the telescope which had played so great a part in the
+preparation of his crime might serve as a clue to an enquiry; and he threw
+it into the clock-case, where, as luck would have it, it interrupted
+the swing of the pendulum. This unreflecting action, one of those which
+every criminal inevitably commits, was to betray him twenty years later.
+Just now, the blows which I struck to force the door of the drawing-room
+released the pendulum. The clock was set going, struck eight o'clock ...
+and I possessed the clue of thread which was to lead me through the
+labyrinth."
+
+"Proofs!" stammered Hortense. "Proofs!"
+
+"Proofs?" replied Renine, in a loud voice. "Why, there are any number
+of proofs; and you know them as well as I do. Who could have killed at
+that distance of eight hundred yards, except an expert shot, an ardent
+sportsman? You agree, M. d'Aigleroche, do you not?... Proofs? Why was
+nothing removed from the house, nothing except the guns, those guns
+which an ardent sportsman cannot afford to leave behind--you agree, M.
+d'Aigleroche--those guns which we find here, hanging in trophies on the
+walls!... Proofs? What about that date, the 5th of September, which was
+the date of the crime and which has left such a horrible memory in the
+criminal's mind that every year at this time--at this time alone--he
+surrounds himself with distractions and that every year, on this same 5th
+of September, he forgets his habits of temperance? Well, to-day, is the 5th
+of September.... Proofs? Why, if there weren't any others, would that not
+be enough for you?"
+
+And Renine, flinging out his arm, pointed to the Comte d'Aigleroche, who,
+terrified by this evocation of the past, had sunk huddled into a chair and
+was hiding his head in his hands.
+
+Hortense did not attempt to argue with him. She had never liked her uncle,
+or rather her husband's uncle. She now accepted the accusation laid against
+him.
+
+Sixty seconds passed. Then M. d'Aigleroche walked up to them and said:
+
+"Whether the story be true or not, you can't call a husband a criminal for
+avenging his honour and killing his faithless wife."
+
+"No," replied Renine, "but I have told only the first version of the story.
+There is another which is infinitely more serious ... and more probable,
+one to which a more thorough investigation would be sure to lead."
+
+"What do you mean?"
+
+"I mean this. It may not be a matter of a husband taking the law into his
+own hands, as I charitably supposed. It may be a matter of a ruined man who
+covets his friend's money and his friend's wife and who, with this object
+in view, to secure his freedom, to get rid of his friend and of his own
+wife, draws them into a trap, suggests to them that they should visit that
+lonely tower and kills them by shooting them from a distance safely under
+cover."
+
+"No, no," the count protested. "No, all that is untrue."
+
+"I don't say it isn't. I am basing my accusation on proofs, but also on
+intuitions and arguments which up to now have been extremely accurate. All
+the same, I admit that the second version may be incorrect. But, if so, why
+feel any remorse? One does not feel remorse for punishing guilty people."
+
+"One does for taking life. It is a crushing burden to bear."
+
+"Was it to give himself greater strength to bear this burden that M.
+d'Aigleroche afterwards married his victim's widow? For that, sir, is
+the crux of the question. What was the motive of that marriage? Was M.
+d'Aigleroche penniless? Was the woman he was taking as his second wife
+rich? Or were they both in love with each other and did M. d'Aigleroche
+plan with her to kill his first wife and the husband of his second wife?
+These are problems to which I do not know the answer. They have no interest
+for the moment; but the police, with all the means at their disposal, would
+have no great difficulty in elucidating them."
+
+M. d'Aigleroche staggered and had to steady himself against the back of a
+chair. Livid in the face, he spluttered:
+
+"Are you going to inform the police?"
+
+"No, no," said Renine. "To begin with, there is the statute of limitations.
+Then there are twenty years of remorse and dread, a memory which will
+pursue the criminal to his dying hour, accompanied no doubt by domestic
+discord, hatred, a daily hell ... and, in the end, the necessity of
+returning to the tower and removing the traces of the two murders, the
+frightful punishment of climbing that tower, of touching those skeletons,
+of undressing them and burying them. That will be enough. We will not ask
+for more. We will not give it to the public to batten on and create a
+scandal which would recoil upon M. d'Aigleroche's niece. No, let us leave
+this disgraceful business alone."
+
+The count resumed his seat at the table, with his hands clutching his
+forehead, and asked:
+
+"Then why ...?"
+
+"Why do I interfere?" said Renine. "What you mean is that I must have
+had some object in speaking. That is so. There must indeed be a penalty,
+however slight, and our interview must lead to some practical result. But
+have no fear: M. d'Aigleroche will be let off lightly."
+
+The contest was ended. The count felt that he had only a small formality to
+fulfil, a sacrifice to accept; and, recovering some of his self-assurance,
+he said, in an almost sarcastic tone:
+
+"What's your price?"
+
+Renine burst out laughing:
+
+"Splendid! You see the position. Only, you make a mistake in drawing me
+into the business. I'm working for the glory of the thing."
+
+"In that case?"
+
+"You will be called upon at most to make restitution."
+
+"Restitution?"
+
+Renine leant over the table and said:
+
+"In one of those drawers is a deed awaiting your signature. It is a draft
+agreement between you and your niece Hortense Daniel, relating to her
+private fortune, which fortune was squandered and for which you are
+responsible. Sign the deed."
+
+M. d'Aigleroche gave a start:
+
+"Do you know the amount?"
+
+"I don't wish to know it."
+
+"And if I refuse?..."
+
+"I shall ask to see the Comtesse d'Aigleroche."
+
+Without further hesitation, the count opened a drawer, produced a document
+on stamped paper and quickly signed it:
+
+"Here you are," he said, "and I hope...."
+
+"You hope, as I do, that you and I may never have any future dealings? I'm
+convinced of it. I shall leave this evening; your niece, no doubt,
+tomorrow. Good-bye."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In the drawing-room, which was still empty, while the guests at the
+house were dressing for dinner, Renine handed the deed to Hortense. She
+seemed dazed by all that she had heard; and the thing that bewildered her
+even more than the relentless light shed upon her uncle's past was the
+miraculous insight and amazing lucidity displayed by this man: the man who
+for some hours had controlled events and conjured up before her eyes the
+actual scenes of a tragedy which no one had beheld.
+
+"Are you satisfied with me?" he asked.
+
+She gave him both her hands:
+
+"You have saved me from Rossigny. You have given me back my freedom and my
+independence. I thank you from the bottom of my heart."
+
+"Oh, that's not what I am asking you to say!" he answered. "My first and
+main object was to amuse you. Your life seemed so humdrum and lacking in
+the unexpected. Has it been so to-day?"
+
+"How can you ask such a question? I have had the strangest and most
+stirring experiences."
+
+"That is life," he said. "When one knows how to use one's eyes. Adventure
+exists everywhere, in the meanest hovel, under the mask of the wisest of
+men. Everywhere, if you are only willing, you will find an excuse for
+excitement, for doing good, for saving a victim, for ending an injustice."
+
+Impressed by his power and authority, she murmured:
+
+"Who are you exactly?"
+
+"An adventurer. Nothing more. A lover of adventures. Life is not worth
+living except in moments of adventure, the adventures of others or personal
+adventures. To-day's has upset you because it affected the innermost depths
+of your being. But those of others are no less stimulating. Would you like
+to make the experiment?"
+
+"How?"
+
+"Become the companion of my adventures. If any one calls on me for help,
+help him with me. If chance or instinct puts me on the track of a crime or
+the trace of a sorrow, let us both set out together. Do you consent?"
+
+"Yes," she said, "but...."
+
+She hesitated, as though trying to guess Renine's secret intentions.
+
+"But," he said, expressing her thoughts for her, with a smile, "you are a
+trifle sceptical. What you are saying to yourself is, 'How far does that
+lover of adventures want to make me go? It is quite obvious that I attract
+him; and sooner or later he would not be sorry to receive payment for his
+services.' You are quite right. We must have a formal contract."
+
+"Very formal," said Hortense, preferring to give a jesting tone to the
+conversation. "Let me hear your proposals."
+
+He reflected for a moment and continued:
+
+"Well, we'll say this. The clock at Halingre gave eight strokes this
+afternoon, the day of the first adventure. Will you accept its decree and
+agree to carry out seven more of these delightful enterprises with me,
+during a period, for instance, of three months? And shall we say that, at
+the eighth, you will be pledged to grant me...."
+
+"What?"
+
+He deferred his answer:
+
+"Observe that you will always be at liberty to leave me on the road if I
+do not succeed in interesting you. But, if you accompany me to the end, if
+you allow me to begin and complete the eighth enterprise with you, in three
+months, on the 5th of December, at the very moment when the eighth stroke
+of that clock sounds--and it will sound, you may be sure of that, for the
+old brass pendulum will not stop swinging again--you will be pledged to
+grant me...."
+
+"What?" she repeated, a little unnerved by waiting.
+
+He was silent. He looked at the beautiful lips which he had meant to claim
+as his reward. He felt perfectly certain that Hortense had understood and
+he thought it unnecessary to speak more plainly:
+
+"The mere delight of seeing you will be enough to satisfy me. It is not for
+me but for you to impose conditions. Name them: what do you demand?"
+
+She was grateful for his respect and said, laughingly:
+
+"What do I demand?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Can I demand anything I like, however difficult and impossible?"
+
+"Everything is easy and everything is possible to the man who is bent on
+winning you."
+
+Then she said:
+
+"I demand that you shall restore to me a small, antique clasp, made of a
+cornelian set in a silver mount. It came to me from my mother and everyone
+knew that it used to bring her happiness and me too. Since the day when it
+vanished from my jewel-case, I have had nothing but unhappiness. Restore it
+to me, my good genius."
+
+"When was the clasp stolen?"
+
+She answered gaily:
+
+"Seven years ago ... or eight ... or nine; I don't know exactly ... I don't
+know where ... I don't know how ... I know nothing about it...."
+
+"I will find it," Renine declared, "and you shall be happy."
+
+
+
+
+II
+
+THE WATER-BOTTLE
+
+
+Four days after she had settled down in Paris, Hortense Daniel agreed to
+meet Prince Renine in the Bois. It was a glorious morning and they sat down
+on the terrace of the Restaurant Imperial, a little to one side.
+
+Hortense, feeling glad to be alive, was in a playful mood, full of
+attractive grace. Renine, lest he should startle her, refrained from
+alluding to the compact into which they had entered at his suggestion.
+She told him how she had left La Mareze and said that she had not heard
+of Rossigny.
+
+"I have," said Renine. "I've heard of him."
+
+"Oh?"
+
+"Yes, he sent me a challenge. We fought a duel this morning. Rossigny got
+a scratch in the shoulder. That finished the duel. Let's talk of something
+else."
+
+There was no further mention of Rossigny. Renine at once expounded to
+Hortense the plan of two enterprises which he had in view and in which he
+offered, with no great enthusiasm, to let her share:
+
+"The finest adventure," he declared, "is that which we do not foresee. It
+comes unexpectedly, unannounced; and no one, save the initiated, realizes
+that an opportunity to act and to expend one's energies is close at hand.
+It has to be seized at once. A moment's hesitation may mean that we are too
+late. We are warned by a special sense, like that of a sleuth-hound which
+distinguishes the right scent from all the others that cross it."
+
+The terrace was beginning to fill up around them. At the next table sat
+a young man reading a newspaper. They were able to see his insignificant
+profile and his long, dark moustache. From behind them, through an open
+window of the restaurant, came the distant strains of a band; in one of
+the rooms a few couples were dancing.
+
+As Renine was paying for the refreshments, the young man with the long
+moustache stifled a cry and, in a choking voice, called one of the waiters:
+
+"What do I owe you?... No change? Oh, good Lord, hurry up!"
+
+Renine, without a moment's hesitation, had picked up the paper. After
+casting a swift glance down the page, he read, under his breath:
+
+    "Maitre Dourdens, the counsel for the defence in the trial of Jacques
+    Aubrieux, has been received at the Elysee. We are informed that the
+    President of the Republic has refused to reprieve the condemned man
+    and that the execution will take place to-morrow morning."
+
+After crossing the terrace, the young man found himself faced, at the
+entrance to the garden, by a lady and gentleman who blocked his way; and
+the latter said:
+
+"Excuse me, sir, but I noticed your agitation. It's about Jacques Aubrieux,
+isn't it?"
+
+"Yes, yes, Jacques Aubrieux," the young man stammered. "Jacques, the friend
+of my childhood. I'm hurrying to see his wife. She must be beside herself
+with grief."
+
+"Can I offer you my assistance? I am Prince Renine. This lady and I would
+be happy to call on Madame Aubrieux and to place our services at her
+disposal."
+
+The young man, upset by the news which he had read, seemed not to
+understand. He introduced himself awkwardly:
+
+"My name is Dutreuil, Gaston Dutreuil."
+
+Renine beckoned to his chauffeur, who was waiting at some little distance,
+and pushed Gaston Dutreuil into the car, asking:
+
+"What address? Where does Madame Aubrieux live?"
+
+"23 _bis_, Avenue du Roule."
+
+After helping Hortense in, Renine repeated the address to the chauffeur
+and, as soon as they drove off, tried to question Gaston Dutreuil:
+
+"I know very little of the case," he said. "Tell it to me as briefly as you
+can. Jacques Aubrieux killed one of his near relations, didn't he?"
+
+"He is innocent, sir," replied the young man, who seemed incapable of
+giving the least explanation. "Innocent, I swear it. I've been Jacques'
+friend for twenty years ... He is innocent ... and it would be
+monstrous...."
+
+There was nothing to be got out of him. Besides, it was only a short drive.
+They entered Neuilly through the Porte des Sablons and, two minutes later,
+stopped before a long, narrow passage between high walls which led them to
+a small, one-storeyed house.
+
+Gaston Dutreuil rang.
+
+"Madame is in the drawing-room, with her mother," said the maid who opened
+the door.
+
+"I'll go in to the ladies," he said, taking Renine and Hortense with him.
+
+It was a fair-sized, prettily-furnished room, which, in ordinary times,
+must have been used also as a study. Two women sat weeping, one of whom,
+elderly and grey-haired, came up to Gaston Dutreuil. He explained the
+reason for Renine's presence and she at once cried, amid her sobs:
+
+"My daughter's husband is innocent, sir. Jacques? A better man never lived.
+He was so good-hearted! Murder his cousin? But he worshipped his cousin! I
+swear that he's not guilty, sir! And they are going to commit the infamy of
+putting him to death? Oh, sir, it will kill my daughter!"
+
+Renine realized that all these people had been living for months under the
+obsession of that innocence and in the certainty that an innocent man could
+never be executed. The news of the execution, which was now inevitable, was
+driving them mad.
+
+He went up to a poor creature bent in two whose face, a quite young face,
+framed in pretty, flaxen hair, was convulsed with desperate grief.
+Hortense, who had already taken a seat beside her, gently drew her head
+against her shoulder. Renine said to her:
+
+"Madame, I do not know what I can do for you. But I give you my word of
+honour that, if any one in this world can be of use to you, it is myself.
+I therefore implore you to answer my questions as though the clear and
+definite wording of your replies were able to alter the aspect of things
+and as though you wished to make me share your opinion of Jacques Aubrieux.
+For he is innocent, is he not?"
+
+"Oh, sir, indeed he is!" she exclaimed; and the woman's whole soul was in
+the words.
+
+"You are certain of it. But you were unable to communicate your certainty
+to the court. Well, you must now compel me to share it. I am not asking you
+to go into details and to live again through the hideous torment which you
+have suffered, but merely to answer certain questions. Will you do this?"
+
+"I will."
+
+Renine's influence over her was complete. With a few sentences Renine had
+succeeded in subduing her and inspiring her with the will to obey. And once
+more Hortense realized all the man's power, authority and persuasion.
+
+"What was your husband?" he asked, after begging the mother and Gaston
+Dutreuil to preserve absolute silence.
+
+"An insurance-broker."
+
+"Lucky in business?"
+
+"Until last year, yes."
+
+"So there have been financial difficulties during the past few months?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"And the murder was committed when?"
+
+"Last March, on a Sunday."
+
+"Who was the victim?"
+
+"A distant cousin, M. Guillaume, who lived at Suresnes."
+
+"What was the sum stolen?"
+
+"Sixty thousand-franc notes, which this cousin had received the day before,
+in payment of a long-outstanding debt."
+
+"Did your husband know that?"
+
+"Yes. His cousin told him of it on the Sunday, in the course of a
+conversation on the telephone, and Jacques insisted that his cousin ought
+not to keep so large a sum in the house and that he ought to pay it into a
+bank next day."
+
+"Was this in the morning?"
+
+"At one o'clock in the afternoon. Jacques was to have gone to M. Guillaume
+on his motor-cycle. But he felt tired and told him that he would not go
+out. So he remained here all day."
+
+"Alone?"
+
+"Yes. The two servants were out. I went to the Cinema des Ternes with my
+mother and our friend Dutreuil. In the evening, we learnt that M. Guillaume
+had been murdered. Next morning, Jacques was arrested."
+
+"On what evidence?"
+
+The poor creature hesitated to reply: the evidence of guilt had evidently
+been overwhelming. Then, obeying a sign from Renine, she answered without
+a pause:
+
+"The murderer went to Suresnes on a motorcycle and the tracks discovered
+were those of my husband's machine. They found a handkerchief with my
+husband's initials; and the revolver which was used belonged to him.
+Lastly, one of our neighbours maintains that he saw my husband go out
+on his bicycle at three o'clock and another that he saw him come in at
+half-past four. The murder was committed at four o'clock."
+
+"And what does Jacques Aubrieux say in his defence?"
+
+"He declares that he slept all the afternoon. During that time, some one
+came who managed to unlock the cycle-shed and take the motor-cycle to go
+to Suresnes. As for the handkerchief and the revolver, they were in the
+tool-bag. There would be nothing surprising in the murderer's using them."
+
+"It seems a plausible explanation."
+
+"Yes, but the prosecution raised two objections. In the first place,
+nobody, absolutely nobody, knew that my husband was going to stay at
+home all day, because, on the contrary, it was his habit to go out on
+his motor-cycle every Sunday afternoon."
+
+"And the second objection?"
+
+She flushed and murmured:
+
+"The murderer went to the pantry at M. Guillaume's and drank half a bottle
+of wine straight out of the bottle, which shows my husband's fingerprints."
+
+It seemed as though her strength was exhausted and as though, at the same
+time, the unconscious hope which Renine's intervention had awakened in her
+had suddenly vanished before the accumulation of adverse facts. Again she
+collapsed, withdrawn into a sort of silent meditation from which Hortense's
+affectionate attentions were unable to distract her.
+
+The mother stammered:
+
+"He's not guilty, is he, sir? And they can't punish an innocent man. They
+haven't the right to kill my daughter. Oh dear, oh dear, what have we done
+to be tortured like this? My poor little Madeleine!"
+
+"She will kill herself," said Dutreuil, in a scared voice. "She will never
+be able to endure the idea that they are guillotining Jacques. She will
+kill herself presently ... this very night...."
+
+Renine was striding up and down the room.
+
+"You can do nothing for her, can you?" asked Hortense.
+
+"It's half-past eleven now," he replied, in an anxious tone, "and it's to
+happen to-morrow morning."
+
+"Do you think he's guilty?"
+
+"I don't know.... I don't know.... The poor woman's conviction is too
+impressive to be neglected. When two people have lived together for years,
+they can hardly be mistaken about each other to that degree. And yet...."
+
+He stretched himself out on a sofa and lit a cigarette. He smoked three in
+succession, without a word from any one to interrupt his train of thought.
+From time to time he looked at his watch. Every minute was of such
+importance!
+
+At last he went back to Madeleine Aubrieux, took her hands and said, very
+gently:
+
+"You must not kill yourself. There is hope left until the last minute has
+come; and I promise you that, for my part, I will not be disheartened until
+that last minute. But I need your calmness and your confidence."
+
+"I will be calm," she said, with a pitiable air.
+
+"And confident?"
+
+"And confident."
+
+"Well, wait for me. I shall be back in two hours from now. Will you come
+with us, M. Dutreuil?"
+
+As they were stepping into his car, he asked the young man:
+
+"Do you know any small, unfrequented restaurant, not too far inside Paris?"
+
+"There's the Brasserie Lutetia, on the ground-floor of the house in which I
+live, on the Place des Ternes."
+
+"Capital. That will be very handy."
+
+They scarcely spoke on the way. Renine, however, said to Gaston Dutreuil:
+
+"So far as I remember, the numbers of the notes are known, aren't they?"
+
+"Yes. M. Guillaume had entered the sixty numbers in his pocket-book."
+
+Renine muttered, a moment later:
+
+"That's where the whole problem lies. Where are the notes? If we could lay
+our hands on them, we should know everything."
+
+At the Brasserie Lutetia there was a telephone in the private room where
+he asked to have lunch served. When the waiter had left him alone with
+Hortense and Dutreuil, he took down the receiver with a resolute air:
+
+"Hullo!... Prefecture of police, please.... Hullo! Hullo!... Is that the
+Prefecture of police? Please put me on to the criminal investigation
+department. I have a very important communication to make. You can say it's
+Prince Renine."
+
+Holding the receiver in his hand, he turned to Gaston Dutreuil:
+
+"I can ask some one to come here, I suppose? We shall be quite
+undisturbed?"
+
+"Quite."
+
+He listened again:
+
+"The secretary to the head of the criminal investigation department? Oh,
+excellent! Mr. Secretary, I have on several occasions been in communication
+with M. Dudouis and have given him information which has been of great use
+to him. He is sure to remember Prince Renine. I may be able to-day to show
+him where the sixty thousand-franc notes are hidden which Aubrieux the
+murderer stole from his cousin. If he's interested in the proposal, beg him
+to send an inspector to the Brasserie Lutetia, Place des Ternes. I shall
+be there with a lady and M. Dutreuil, Aubrieux's friend. Good day, Mr.
+Secretary."
+
+When Renine hung up the instrument, he saw the amazed faces of Hortense and
+of Gaston Dutreuil confronting him.
+
+Hortense whispered:
+
+"Then you know? You've discovered ...?"
+
+"Nothing," he said, laughing.
+
+"Well?"
+
+"Well, I'm acting as though I knew. It's not a bad method. Let's have some
+lunch, shall we?"
+
+The clock marked a quarter to one.
+
+"The man from the prefecture will be here," he said, "in twenty minutes at
+latest."
+
+"And if no one comes?" Hortense objected.
+
+"That would surprise me. Of course, if I had sent a message to M. Dudouis
+saying, 'Aubrieux is innocent,' I should have failed to make any
+impression. It's not the least use, on the eve of an execution, to attempt
+to convince the gentry of the police or of the law that a man condemned
+to death is innocent. No. From henceforth Jacques Aubrieux belongs to
+the executioner. But the prospect of securing the sixty bank-notes is a
+windfall worth taking a little trouble over. Just think: that was the
+weak point in the indictment, those sixty notes which they were unable
+to trace."
+
+"But, as you know nothing of their whereabouts...."
+
+"My dear girl--I hope you don't mind my calling you so?--my dear girl, when
+a man can't explain this or that physical phenomenon, he adopts some sort
+of theory which explains the various manifestations of the phenomenon and
+says that everything happened as though the theory were correct. That's
+what I am doing."
+
+"That amounts to saying that you are going upon a supposition?"
+
+Renine did not reply. Not until some time later, when lunch was over, did
+he say:
+
+"Obviously I am going upon a supposition. If I had several days before me,
+I should take the trouble of first verifying my theory, which is based upon
+intuition quite as much as upon a few scattered facts. But I have only two
+hours; and I am embarking on the unknown path as though I were certain that
+it would lead me to the truth."
+
+"And suppose you are wrong?"
+
+"I have no choice. Besides, it is too late. There's a knock. Oh, one word
+more! Whatever I may say, don't contradict me. Nor you, M. Dutreuil."
+
+He opened the door. A thin man, with a red imperial, entered:
+
+"Prince Renine?"
+
+"Yes, sir. You, of course, are from M. Dudouis?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+And the newcomer gave his name:
+
+"Chief-inspector Morisseau."
+
+"I am obliged to you for coming so promptly, Mr. Chief-inspector," said
+Prince Renine, "and I hope that M. Dudouis will not regret having placed
+you at my disposal."
+
+"At your entire disposal, in addition to two inspectors whom I have left in
+the square outside and who have been in the case, with me, from the first."
+
+"I shall not detain you for any length of time," said Renine, "and I will
+not even ask you to sit down. We have only a few minutes in which to settle
+everything. You know what it's all about?"
+
+"The sixty thousand-franc notes stolen from M. Guillaume. I have the
+numbers here."
+
+Renine ran his eyes down the slip of paper which the chief-inspector handed
+him and said:
+
+"That's right. The two lists agree."
+
+Inspector Morisseau seemed greatly excited:
+
+"The chief attaches the greatest importance to your discovery. So you will
+be able to show me?..."
+
+Renine was silent for a moment and then declared:
+
+"Mr. Chief-inspector, a personal investigation--and a most exhaustive
+investigation it was, as I will explain to you presently--has revealed
+the fact that, on his return from Suresnes, the murderer, after replacing
+the motor-cycle in the shed in the Avenue du Roule, ran to the Ternes and
+entered this house."
+
+"This house?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"But what did he come here for?"
+
+"To hide the proceeds of his theft, the sixty bank-notes."
+
+"How do you mean? Where?"
+
+"In a flat of which he had the key, on the fifth floor."
+
+Gaston Dutreuil exclaimed, in amazement:
+
+"But there's only one flat on the fifth floor and that's the one I live
+in!"
+
+"Exactly; and, as you were at the cinema with Madame Aubrieux and her
+mother, advantage was taken of your absence...."
+
+"Impossible! No one has the key except myself."
+
+"One can get in without a key."
+
+"But I have seen no marks of any kind."
+
+Morisseau intervened:
+
+"Come, let us understand one another. You say the bank-notes were hidden in
+M. Dutreuil's flat?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Then, as Jacques Aubrieux was arrested the next morning, the notes ought
+to be there still?"
+
+"That's my opinion."
+
+Gaston Dutreuil could not help laughing:
+
+"But that's absurd! I should have found them!"
+
+"Did you look for them?"
+
+"No. But I should have come across them at any moment. The place isn't big
+enough to swing a cat in. Would you care to see it?"
+
+"However small it may be, it's large enough to hold sixty bits of paper."
+
+"Of course, everything is possible," said Dutreuil. "Still, I must repeat
+that nobody, to my knowledge, has been to my rooms; that there is only one
+key; that I am my own housekeeper; and that I can't quite understand...."
+
+Hortense too could not understand. With her eyes fixed on Prince Renine's,
+she was trying to read his innermost thoughts. What game was he playing?
+Was it her duty to support his statements? She ended by saying:
+
+"Mr. Chief-inspector, since Prince Renine maintains that the notes have
+been put away upstairs, wouldn't the simplest thing be to go and look? M.
+Dutreuil will take us up, won't you?"
+
+"This minute," said the young man. "As you say, that will be simplest."
+
+They all four climbed the five storys of the house and, after Dutreuil
+had opened the door, entered a tiny set of chambers consisting of a
+sitting-room, bedroom, kitchen and bathroom, all arranged with fastidious
+neatness. It was easy to see that every chair in the sitting-room occupied
+a definite place. The pipes had a rack to themselves; so had the matches.
+Three walking-sticks, arranged according to their length, hung from
+three nails. On a little table before the window a hat-box, filled with
+tissue-paper, awaited the felt hat which Dutreuil carefully placed in it.
+He laid his gloves beside it, on the lid.
+
+He did all this with sedate and mechanical movements, like a man who loves
+to see things in the places which he has chosen for them. Indeed, no sooner
+did Renine shift something than Dutreuil made a slight gesture of protest,
+took out his hat again, stuck it on his head, opened the window and rested
+his elbows on the sill, with his back turned to the room, as though he were
+unable to bear the sight of such vandalism.
+
+"You're positive, are you not?" the inspector asked Renine.
+
+"Yes, yes, I'm positive that the sixty notes were brought here after the
+murder."
+
+"Let's look for them."
+
+This was easy and soon done. In half an hour, not a corner remained
+unexplored, not a knick-knack unlifted.
+
+"Nothing," said Inspector Morisseau. "Shall we continue?"
+
+"No," replied Renine, "The notes are no longer here."
+
+"What do you mean?"
+
+"I mean that they have been removed."
+
+"By whom? Can't you make a more definite accusation?"
+
+Renine did not reply. But Gaston Dutreuil wheeled round. He was choking
+and spluttered:
+
+"Mr. Inspector, would you like _me_ to make the accusation more
+definite, as conveyed by this gentleman's remarks? It all means that
+there's a dishonest man here, that the notes hidden by the murderer were
+discovered and stolen by that dishonest man and deposited in another and
+safer place. That is your idea, sir, is it not? And you accuse me of
+committing this theft don't you?"
+
+He came forward, drumming his chest with his fists: "Me! Me! I found the
+notes, did I, and kept them for myself? You dare to suggest that!"
+
+Renine still made no reply. Dutreuil flew into a rage and, taking Inspector
+Morisseau aside, exclaimed:
+
+"Mr. Inspector, I strongly protest against all this farce and against
+the part which you are unconsciously playing in it. Before your arrival,
+Prince Renine told this lady and myself that he knew nothing, that he was
+venturing into this affair at random and that he was following the first
+road that offered, trusting to luck. Do you deny it, sir?"
+
+Renine did not open his lips.
+
+"Answer me, will you? Explain yourself; for, really, you are putting
+forward the most improbable facts without any proof whatever. It's easy
+enough to say that I stole the notes. And how were you to know that they
+were here at all? Who brought them here? Why should the murderer choose
+this flat to hide them in? It's all so stupid, so illogical and absurd!...
+Give us your proofs, sir ... one single proof!"
+
+Inspector Morisseau seemed perplexed. He questioned Renine with a glance.
+Renine said:
+
+"Since you want specific details, we will get them from Madame Aubrieux
+herself. She's on the telephone. Let's go downstairs. We shall know all
+about it in a minute."
+
+Dutreuil shrugged his shoulders:
+
+"As you please; but what a waste of time!"
+
+He seemed greatly irritated. His long wait at the window, under a blazing
+sun, had thrown him into a sweat. He went to his bedroom and returned with
+a bottle of water, of which he took a few sips, afterwards placing the
+bottle on the window-sill:
+
+"Come along," he said.
+
+Prince Renine chuckled.
+
+"You seem to be in a hurry to leave the place."
+
+"I'm in a hurry to show you up," retorted Dutreuil, slamming the door.
+
+They went downstairs to the private room containing the telephone. The room
+was empty. Renine asked Gaston Dutreuil for the Aubrieuxs' number, took
+down the instrument and was put through.
+
+The maid who came to the telephone answered that Madame Aubrieux had
+fainted, after giving way to an access of despair, and that she was now
+asleep.
+
+"Fetch her mother, please. Prince Renine speaking. It's urgent."
+
+He handed the second receiver to Morisseau. For that matter, the voices
+were so distinct that Dutreuil and Hortense were able to hear every word
+exchanged.
+
+"Is that you, madame?"
+
+"Yes. Prince Renine, I believe?"
+
+"Prince Renine."
+
+"Oh, sir, what news have you for me? Is there any hope?" asked the old
+lady, in a tone of entreaty.
+
+"The enquiry is proceeding very satisfactorily," said Renine, "and you
+may hope for the best. For the moment, I want you to give me some very
+important particulars. On the day of the murder, did Gaston Dutreuil come
+to your house?"
+
+"Yes, he came to fetch my daughter and myself, after lunch."
+
+"Did he know at the time that M. Guillaume had sixty thousand francs at his
+place?"
+
+"Yes, I told him."
+
+"And that Jacques Aubrieux was not feeling very well and was proposing not
+to take his usual cycle-ride but to stay at home and sleep?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"You are sure?"
+
+"Absolutely certain."
+
+"And you all three went to the cinema together?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"And you were all sitting together?"
+
+"Oh, no! There was no room. He took a seat farther away."
+
+"A seat where you could see him?"
+
+"No."
+
+"But he came to you during the interval?"
+
+"No, we did not see him until we were going out."
+
+"There is no doubt of that?"
+
+"None at all."
+
+"Very well, madame. I will tell you the result of my efforts in an hour's
+time. But above all, don't wake up Madame Aubrieux."
+
+"And suppose she wakes of her own accord?"
+
+"Reassure her and give her confidence. Everything is going well, very well
+indeed."
+
+He hung up the receiver and turned to Dutreuil, laughing:
+
+"Ha, ha, my boy! Things are beginning to look clearer. What do you say?"
+
+It was difficult to tell what these words meant or what conclusions Renine
+had drawn from his conversation. The silence was painful and oppressive.
+
+"Mr. Chief-Inspector, you have some of your men outside, haven't you?"
+
+"Two detective-sergeants."
+
+"It's important that they should be there. Please also ask the manager not
+to disturb us on any account."
+
+And, when Morisseau returned, Renine closed the door, took his stand in
+front of Dutreuil and, speaking in a good-humoured but emphatic tone, said:
+
+"It amounts to this, young man, that the ladies saw nothing of you between
+three and five o'clock on that Sunday. That's rather a curious detail."
+
+"A perfectly natural detail," Dutreuil retorted, "and one, moreover, which
+proves nothing at all."
+
+"It proves, young man, that you had a good two hours at your disposal."
+
+"Obviously. Two hours which I spent at the cinema."
+
+"Or somewhere else."
+
+Dutreuil looked at him:
+
+"Somewhere else?"
+
+"Yes. As you were free, you had plenty of time to go wherever you liked ...
+to Suresnes, for instance."
+
+"Oh!" said the young man, jesting in his turn. "Suresnes is a long way
+off!"
+
+"It's quite close! Hadn't you your friend Jacques Aubrieux's motor-cycle?"
+
+A fresh pause followed these words. Dutreuil had knitted his brows as
+though he were trying to understand. At last he was heard to whisper:
+
+"So that is what he was trying to lead up to!... The brute!..."
+
+Renine brought down his hand on Dutreuil's shoulder:
+
+"No more talk! Facts! Gaston Dutreuil, you are the only person who on that
+day knew two essential things: first, that Cousin Guillaume had sixty
+thousand francs in his house; secondly, that Jacques Aubrieux was not
+going out. You at once saw your chance. The motor-cycle was available. You
+slipped out during the performance. You went to Suresnes. You killed Cousin
+Guillaume. You took the sixty bank-notes and left them at your rooms. And
+at five o'clock you went back to fetch the ladies."
+
+Dutreuil had listened with an expression at once mocking and flurried,
+casting an occasional glance at Inspector Morisseau as though to enlist
+him as a witness:
+
+"The man's mad," it seemed to say. "It's no use being angry with him."
+
+When Renine had finished, he began to laugh:
+
+"Very funny!... A capital joke!... So it was I whom the neighbours saw
+going and returning on the motor-cycle?"
+
+"It was you disguised in Jacques Aubrieux's clothes."
+
+"And it was my finger-prints that were found on the bottle in M.
+Guillaume's pantry?"
+
+"The bottle had been opened by Jacques Aubrieux at lunch, in his own house,
+and it was you who took it with you to serve as evidence."
+
+"Funnier and funnier!" cried Dutreuil, who had the air of being frankly
+amused. "Then I contrived the whole affair so that Jacques Aubrieux might
+be accused of the crime?"
+
+"It was the safest means of not being accused yourself."
+
+"Yes, but Jacques is a friend whom I have known from childhood."
+
+"You're in love with his wife."
+
+The young man gave a sudden, infuriated start:
+
+"You dare!... What! You dare make such an infamous suggestion?"
+
+"I have proof of it."
+
+"That's a lie! I have always respected Madeleine Aubrieux and revered
+her...."
+
+"Apparently. But you're in love with her. You desire her. Don't contradict
+me. I have abundant proof of it."
+
+"That's a lie, I tell you! You have only known me a few hours!"
+
+"Come, come! I've been quietly watching you for days, waiting for the
+moment to pounce upon you."
+
+He took the young man by the shoulders and shook him:
+
+"Come, Dutreuil, confess! I hold all the proofs in my hand. I have
+witnesses whom we shall meet presently at the criminal investigation
+department. Confess, can't you? In spite of everything, you're tortured
+by remorse. Remember your dismay, at the restaurant, when you had seen
+the newspaper. What? Jacques Aubrieux condemned to die? That's more than
+you bargained for! Penal servitude would have suited your book; but the
+scaffold!... Jacques Aubrieux executed to-morrow, an innocent man!...
+Confess, won't you? Confess to save your own skin! Own up!"
+
+Bending over the other, he was trying with all his might to extort a
+confession from him. But Dutreuil drew himself up and coldly, with a sort
+of scorn in his voice, said:
+
+"Sir, you are a madman. Not a word that you have said has any sense in it.
+All your accusations are false. What about the bank-notes? Did you find
+them at my place as you said you would?"
+
+Renine, exasperated, clenched his fist in his face:
+
+"Oh, you swine, I'll dish you yet, I swear I will!"
+
+He drew the inspector aside:
+
+"Well, what do you say to it? An arrant rogue, isn't he?"
+
+The inspector nodded his head:
+
+"It may be.... But, all the same ... so far there's no real evidence."
+
+"Wait, M. Morisseau," said Renine. "Wait until we've had our interview with
+M. Dudouis. For we shall see M. Dudouis at the prefecture, shall we not?"
+
+"Yes, he'll be there at three o'clock."
+
+"Well, you'll be convinced, Mr. Inspector! I tell you here and now that you
+will be convinced."
+
+Renine was chuckling like a man who feels certain of the course of events.
+Hortense, who was standing near him and was able to speak to him without
+being heard by the others, asked, in a low voice:
+
+"You've got him, haven't you?"
+
+He nodded his head in assent:
+
+"Got him? I should think I have! All the same, I'm no farther forward than
+I was at the beginning."
+
+"But this is awful! And your proofs?"
+
+"Not the shadow of a proof ... I was hoping to trip him up. But he's kept
+his feet, the rascal!"
+
+"Still, you're certain it's he?"
+
+"It can't be any one else. I had an intuition at the very outset; and I've
+not taken my eyes off him since. I have seen his anxiety increasing as my
+investigations seemed to centre on him and concern him more closely. Now I
+know."
+
+"And he's in love with Madame Aubrieux?"
+
+"In logic, he's bound to be. But so far we have only hypothetical
+suppositions, or rather certainties which are personal to myself. We shall
+never intercept the guillotine with those. Ah, if we could only find the
+bank-notes! Given the bank-notes, M. Dudouis would act. Without them, he
+will laugh in my face."
+
+"What then?" murmured Hortense, in anguished accents.
+
+He did not reply. He walked up and down the room, assuming an air of gaiety
+and rubbing his hands. All was going so well! It was really a treat to take
+up a case which, so to speak, worked itself out automatically.
+
+"Suppose we went on to the prefecture, M. Morisseau? The chief must be
+there by now. And, having gone so far, we may as well finish. Will M.
+Dutreuil come with us?"
+
+"Why not?" said Dutreuil, arrogantly.
+
+But, just as Renine was opening the door, there was a noise in the passage
+and the manager ran up, waving his arms:
+
+"Is M. Dutreuil still here?... M. Dutreuil, your flat is on fire!... A man
+outside told us. He saw it from the square."
+
+The young man's eyes lit up. For perhaps half a second his mouth was
+twisted by a smile which Renine noticed:
+
+"Oh, you ruffian!" he cried. "You've given yourself away, my beauty! It was
+you who set fire to the place upstairs; and now the notes are burning."
+
+He blocked his exit.
+
+"Let me pass," shouted Dutreuil. "There's a fire and no one can get in,
+because no one else has a key. Here it is. Let me pass, damn it!"
+
+Renine snatched the key from his hand and, holding him by the collar of his
+coat:
+
+"Don't you move, my fine fellow! The game's up! You precious blackguard! M.
+Morisseau, will you give orders to the sergeant not to let him out of his
+sight and to blow out his brains if he tries to get away? Sergeant, we rely
+on you! Put a bullet into him, if necessary!..."
+
+He hurried up the stairs, followed by Hortense and the chief inspector, who
+was protesting rather peevishly:
+
+"But, I say, look here, it wasn't he who set the place on fire! How do you
+make out that he set it on fire, seeing that he never left us?"
+
+"Why, he set it on fire beforehand, to be sure!"
+
+"How? I ask you, how?"
+
+"How do I know? But a fire doesn't break out like that, for no reason at
+all, at the very moment when a man wants to burn compromising papers."
+
+They heard a commotion upstairs. It was the waiters of the restaurant
+trying to burst the door open. An acrid smell filled the well of the
+stair-case.
+
+Renine reached the top floor:
+
+"By your leave, friends. I have the key."
+
+He inserted it in the lock and opened the door.
+
+He was met by a gust of smoke so dense that one might well have supposed
+the whole floor to be ablaze. Renine at once saw that the fire had gone out
+of its own accord, for lack of fuel, and that there were no more flames:
+
+"M. Morisseau, you won't let any one come in with us, will you? An intruder
+might spoil everything. Bolt the door, that will be best."
+
+He stepped into the front room, where the fire had obviously had its chief
+centre. The furniture, the walls and the ceiling, though blackened by the
+smoke, had not been touched. As a matter of fact, the fire was confined to
+a blaze of papers which was still burning in the middle of the room, in
+front of the window.
+
+Renine struck his forehead:
+
+"What a fool I am! What an unspeakable ass!"
+
+"Why?" asked the inspector.
+
+"The hat-box, of course! The cardboard hat-box which was standing on the
+table. That's where he hid the notes. They were there all through our
+search."
+
+"Impossible!"
+
+"Why, yes, we always overlook that particular hiding-place, the one just
+under our eyes, within reach of our hands! How could one imagine that a
+thief would leave sixty thousand francs in an open cardboard box, in which
+he places his hat when he comes in, with an absent-minded air? That's just
+the one place we don't look in.... Well played, M. Dutreuil!"
+
+The inspector, who remained incredulous, repeated:
+
+"No, no, impossible! We were with him and he could not have started the
+fire himself."
+
+"Everything was prepared beforehand on the supposition that there might be
+an alarm.... The hat-box ... the tissue paper ... the bank-notes: they must
+all have been steeped in some inflammable liquid. He must have thrown a
+match, a chemical preparation or what not into it, as we were leaving."
+
+"But we should have seen him, hang it all! And then is it credible that
+a man who has committed a murder for the sake of sixty thousand francs
+should do away with the money in this way? If the hiding-place was such
+a good one--and it was, because we never discovered it--why this useless
+destruction?"
+
+"He got frightened, M. Morisseau. Remember that his head is at stake
+and he knows it. Anything rather than the guillotine; and they--the
+bank-notes--were the only proof which we had against him. How could he
+have left them where they were?"
+
+Morisseau was flabbergasted:
+
+"What! The only proof?"
+
+"Why, obviously!"
+
+"But your witnesses? Your evidence? All that you were going to tell the
+chief?"
+
+"Mere bluff."
+
+"Well, upon my word," growled the bewildered inspector, "you're a cool
+customer!"
+
+"Would you have taken action without my bluff?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Then what more do you want?"
+
+Renine stooped to stir the ashes. But there was nothing left, not even
+those remnants of stiff paper which still retain their shape.
+
+"Nothing," he said. "It's queer, all the same! How the deuce did he manage
+to set the thing alight?"
+
+He stood up, looking attentively about him. Hortense had a feeling that he
+was making his supreme effort and that, after this last struggle in the
+dark, he would either have devised his plan of victory or admit that he was
+beaten.
+
+Faltering with anxiety, she asked:
+
+"It's all up, isn't it?"
+
+"No, no," he said, thoughtfully, "it's not all up. It was, a few seconds
+ago. But now there is a gleam of light ... and one that gives me hope."
+
+"God grant that it may be justified!"
+
+"We must go slowly," he said. "It is only an attempt, but a fine, a very
+fine attempt; and it may succeed."
+
+He was silent for a moment; then, with an amused smile and a click of the
+tongue, he said:
+
+"An infernally clever fellow, that Dutreuil! His trick of burning the
+notes: what a fertile imagination! And what coolness! A pretty dance the
+beggar has led me! He's a master!"
+
+He fetched a broom from the kitchen and swept a part of the ashes into the
+next room, returning with a hat-box of the same size and appearance as the
+one which had been burnt. After crumpling the tissue paper with which it
+was filled, he placed the hat-box on the little table and set fire to it
+with a match.
+
+It burst into flames, which he extinguished when they had consumed half
+the cardboard and nearly all the paper. Then he took from an inner pocket
+of his waistcoat a bundle of bank-notes and selected six, which he burnt
+almost completely, arranging the remains and hiding the rest of the notes
+at the bottom of the box, among the ashes and the blackened bits of paper:
+
+"M. Morisseau," he said, when he had done, "I am asking for your assistance
+for the last time. Go and fetch Dutreuil. Tell him just this: 'You are
+unmasked. The notes did not catch fire. Come with me.' And bring him up
+here."
+
+Despite his hesitation and his fear of exceeding his instructions from the
+head of the detective service, the chief-inspector was powerless to throw
+off the ascendancy which Renine had acquired over him. He left the room.
+
+Renine turned to Hortense:
+
+"Do you understand my plan of battle?"
+
+"Yes," she said, "but it's a dangerous experiment. Do you think that
+Dutreuil will fall into the trap?"
+
+"Everything depends on the state of his nerves and the degree of
+demoralization to which he is reduced. A surprise attack may very well do
+for him."
+
+"Nevertheless, suppose he recognizes by some sign that the box has been
+changed?"
+
+"Oh, of course, he has a few chances in his favour! The fellow is much more
+cunning than I thought and quite capable of wriggling out of the trap.
+On the other hand, however, how uneasy he must be! How the blood must be
+buzzing in his ears and obscuring his sight! No, I don't think that he will
+avoid the trap.... He will give in.... He will give in...."
+
+They exchanged no more words. Renine did not move. Hortense was stirred to
+the very depths of her being. The life of an innocent man hung trembling in
+the balance. An error of judgment, a little bad luck ... and, twelve hours
+later, Jacques Aubrieux would be put to death. And together with a horrible
+anguish she experienced, in spite of all, a feeling of eager curiosity.
+What was Prince Renine going to do? What would be the outcome of the
+experiment on which he was venturing? What resistance would Gaston Dutreuil
+offer? She lived through one of those minutes of superhuman tension in
+which life becomes intensified until it reaches its utmost value.
+
+They heard footsteps on the stairs, the footsteps of men in a hurry. The
+sound drew nearer. They were reaching the top floor.
+
+Hortense looked at her companion. He had stood up and was listening, his
+features already transfigured by action. The footsteps were now echoing in
+the passage. Then, suddenly, he ran to the door and cried:
+
+"Quick! Let's make an end of it!"
+
+Two or three detectives and a couple of waiters entered. He caught hold of
+Dutreuil in the midst of the detectives and pulled him by the arm, gaily
+exclaiming:
+
+"Well done, old man! That trick of yours with the table and the
+water-bottle was really splendid! A masterpiece, on my word! Only, it
+didn't come off!"
+
+"What do you mean? What's the matter?" mumbled Gaston Dutreuil, staggering.
+
+"What I say: the fire burnt only half the tissue-paper and the hat-box;
+and, though some of the bank-notes were destroyed, like the tissue-paper,
+the others are there, at the bottom.... You understand? The long-sought
+notes, the great proof of the murder: they're there, where you hid them....
+As chance would have it, they've escaped burning.... Here, look: there
+are the numbers; you can check them.... Oh, you're done for, done for, my
+beauty!"
+
+The young man drew himself up stiffly. His eyelids quivered. He did not
+accept Renine's invitation to look; he examined neither the hat-box nor
+the bank-notes. From the first moment, without taking the time to reflect
+and before his instinct could warn him, he believed what he was told and
+collapsed heavily into a chair, weeping.
+
+The surprise attack, to use Renine's expression, had succeeded. On seeing
+all his plans baffled and the enemy master of his secrets, the wretched man
+had neither the strength nor the perspicacity necessary to defend himself.
+He threw up the sponge.
+
+Renine gave him no time to breathe:
+
+"Capital! You're saving your head; and that's all, my good youth! Write
+down your confession and get it off your chest. Here's a fountain-pen....
+The luck has been against you, I admit. It was devilishly well thought
+out, your trick of the last moment. You had the bank-notes which were in
+your way and which you wanted to destroy. Nothing simpler. You take a big,
+round-bellied water-bottle and stand it on the window-sill. It acts as
+a burning-glass, concentrating the rays of the sun on the cardboard and
+tissue-paper, all nicely prepared. Ten minutes later, it bursts into
+flames. A splendid idea! And, like all great discoveries, it came quite
+by chance, what? It reminds one of Newton's apple.... One day, the sun,
+passing through the water in that bottle, must have set fire to a scrap of
+cotton or the head of a match; and, as you had the sun at your disposal
+just now, you said to yourself, 'Now's the time,' and stood the bottle in
+the right position. My congratulations, Gaston!... Look, here's a sheet of
+paper. Write down: 'It was I who murdered M. Guillaume.' Write, I tell
+you!"
+
+Leaning over the young man, with all his implacable force of will he
+compelled him to write, guiding his hand and dictating the sentences.
+Dutreuil, exhausted, at the end of his strength, wrote as he was told.
+
+"Here's the confession, Mr. Chief-inspector," said Renine. "You will be
+good enough to take it to M. Dudouis. These gentlemen," turning to the
+waiters, from the restaurant, "will, I am sure, consent to serve as
+witnesses."
+
+And, seeing that Dutreuil, overwhelmed by what had happened, did not move,
+he gave him a shake:
+
+"Hi, you, look alive! Now that you've been fool enough to confess, make an
+end of the job, my gentle idiot!"
+
+The other watched him, standing in front of him.
+
+"Obviously," Renine continued, "you're only a simpleton. The hat-box was
+fairly burnt to ashes: so were the notes. That hat-box, my dear fellow, is
+a different one; and those notes belong to me. I even burnt six of them to
+make you swallow the stunt. And you couldn't make out what had happened.
+What an owl you must be! To furnish me with evidence at the last moment,
+when I hadn't a single proof of my own! And such evidence! A written
+confession! Written before witnesses!... Look here, my man, if they do cut
+off your head--as I sincerely hope they will--upon my word, you'll have
+jolly well deserved it! Good-bye, Dutreuil!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Downstairs, in the street, Renine asked Hortense Daniel to take the car, go
+to Madeleine Aubrieux and tell her what had happened.
+
+"And you?" asked Hortense.
+
+"I have a lot to do ... urgent appointments...."
+
+"And you deny yourself the pleasure of bringing the good news?"
+
+"It's one of the pleasures that pall upon one. The only pleasure that never
+flags is that of the fight itself. Afterwards, things cease to be
+interesting."
+
+She took his hand and for a moment held it in both her own. She would have
+liked to express all her admiration to that strange man, who seemed to
+do good as a sort of game and who did it with something like genius. But
+she was unable to speak. All these rapid incidents had upset her. Emotion
+constricted her throat and brought the tears to her eyes.
+
+Renine bowed his head, saying:
+
+"Thank you. I have my reward."
+
+
+
+
+III
+
+THE CASE OF JEAN LOUIS
+
+
+"Monsieur," continued the young girl, addressing Serge Renine, "it was
+while I was spending the Easter holidays at Nice with my father that I made
+the acquaintance of Jean Louis d'Imbleval...."
+
+Renine interrupted her:
+
+"Excuse me, mademoiselle, but just now you spoke of this young man as Jean
+Louis Vaurois."
+
+"That's his name also," she said.
+
+"Has he two names then?"
+
+"I don't know ... I don't know anything about it," she said, with some
+embarrassment, "and that is why, by Hortense's advice, I came to ask for
+your help."
+
+This conversation was taking place in Renine's flat on the Boulevard
+Haussmann, to which Hortense had brought her friend Genevieve Aymard, a
+slender, pretty little creature with a face over-shadowed by an expression
+of the greatest melancholy.
+
+"Renine will be successful, take my word for it, Genevieve. You will,
+Renine, won't you?"
+
+"Please tell me the rest of the story, mademoiselle," he said.
+
+Genevieve continued:
+
+"I was already engaged at the time to a man whom I loathe and detest. My
+father was trying to force me to marry him and is still trying to do so.
+Jean Louis and I felt the keenest sympathy for each other, a sympathy that
+soon developed into a profound and passionate affection which, I can assure
+you, was equally sincere on both sides. On my return to Paris, Jean Louis,
+who lives in the country with his mother and his aunt, took rooms in our
+part of the town; and, as I am allowed to go out by myself, we used to see
+each other daily. I need not tell you that we were engaged to be married. I
+told my father so. And this is what he said: 'I don't particularly like the
+fellow. But, whether it's he or another, what I want is that you should get
+married. So let him come and ask for your hand. If not, you must do as I
+say.' In the middle of June, Jean Louis went home to arrange matters with
+his mother and aunt. I received some passionate letters; and then just
+these few words:
+
+    'There are too many obstacles in the way of our happiness. I give up.
+    I am mad with despair. I love you more than ever. Good-bye and forgive
+    me.'
+
+"Since then, I have received nothing: no reply to my letters and
+telegrams."
+
+"Perhaps he has fallen in love with somebody else?" asked Renine. "Or there
+may be some old connection which he is unable to shake off."
+
+Genevieve shook her head:
+
+"Monsieur, believe me, if our engagement had been broken off for an
+ordinary reason, I should not have allowed Hortense to trouble you. But it
+is something quite different, I am absolutely convinced. There's a mystery
+in Jean Louis' life, or rather an endless number of mysteries which hamper
+and pursue him. I never saw such distress in a human face; and, from
+the first moment of our meeting, I was conscious in him of a grief and
+melancholy which have always persisted, even at times when he was giving
+himself to our love with the greatest confidence."
+
+"But your impression must have been confirmed by minor details, by things
+which happened to strike you as peculiar?"
+
+"I don't quite know what to say."
+
+"These two names, for instance?"
+
+"Yes, there was certainly that."
+
+"By what name did he introduce himself to you?"
+
+"Jean Louis d'Imbleval."
+
+"But Jean Louis Vaurois?"
+
+"That's what my father calls him."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Because that was how he was introduced to my father, at Nice, by a
+gentleman who knew him. Besides, he carries visiting-cards which describe
+him under either name."
+
+"Have you never questioned him on this point?"
+
+"Yes, I have, twice. The first time, he said that his aunt's name was
+Vaurois and his mother's d'Imbleval."
+
+"And the second time?"
+
+"He told me the contrary: he spoke of his mother as Vaurois and of his aunt
+as d'Imbleval. I pointed this out. He coloured up and I thought it better
+not to question him any further."
+
+"Does he live far from Paris?"
+
+"Right down in Brittany: at the Manoir d'Elseven, five miles from Carhaix."
+
+Renine rose and asked the girl, seriously:
+
+"Are you quite certain that he loves you, mademoiselle?"
+
+"I am certain of it and I know too that he represents all my life and all
+my happiness. He alone can save me. If he can't, then I shall be married
+in a week's time to a man whom I hate. I have promised my father; and the
+banns have been published."
+
+"We shall leave for Carhaix, Madame Daniel and I, this evening," said
+Renine.
+
+That evening he and Hortense took the train for Brittany. They reached
+Carhaix at ten o'clock in the morning; and, after lunch, at half past
+twelve o'clock they stepped into a car borrowed from a leading resident of
+the district.
+
+"You're looking a little pale, my dear," said Renine, with a laugh, as they
+alighted by the gate of the garden at Elseven.
+
+"I'm very fond of Genevieve," she said. "She's the only friend I have. And
+I'm feeling frightened."
+
+He called her attention to the fact that the central gate was flanked by
+two wickets bearing the names of Madame d'Imbleval and Madame Vaurois
+respectively. Each of these wickets opened on a narrow path which ran among
+the shrubberies of box and aucuba to the left and right of the main avenue.
+The avenue itself led to an old manor-house, long, low and picturesque, but
+provided with two clumsily-built, ugly wings, each in a different style of
+architecture and each forming the destination of one of the side-paths.
+Madame d'Imbleval evidently lived on the left and Madame Vaurois on the
+right.
+
+Hortense and Renine listened. Shrill, hasty voices were disputing inside
+the house. The sound came through one of the windows of the ground-floor,
+which was level with the garden and covered throughout its length with red
+creepers and white roses.
+
+"We can't go any farther," said Hortense. "It would be indiscreet."
+
+"All the more reason," whispered Renine. "Look here: if we walk straight
+ahead, we shan't be seen by the people who are quarrelling."
+
+The sounds of conflict were by no means abating; and, when they reached the
+window next to the front-door, through the roses and creepers they could
+both see and hear two old ladies shrieking at the tops of their voices and
+shaking their fists at each other.
+
+The women were standing in the foreground, in a large dining-room where
+the table was not yet cleared; and at the farther side of the table sat a
+young man, doubtless Jean Louis himself, smoking his pipe and reading a
+newspaper, without appearing to trouble about the two old harridans.
+
+One of these, a thin, tall woman, was wearing a purple silk dress; and her
+hair was dressed in a mass of curls much too yellow for the ravaged face
+around which they tumbled. The other, who was still thinner, but quite
+short, was bustling round the room in a cotton dressing-gown and displayed
+a red, painted face blazing with anger:
+
+"A baggage, that's what you are!" she yelped. "The wickedest woman in the
+world and a thief into the bargain!"
+
+"I, a thief!" screamed the other.
+
+"What about that business with the ducks at ten francs apiece: don't you
+call that thieving?"
+
+"Hold your tongue, you low creature! Who stole the fifty-franc note from my
+dressing-table? Lord, that I should have to live with such a wretch!"
+
+The other started with fury at the outrage and, addressing the young man,
+cried:
+
+"Jean, are you going to sit there and let me be insulted by your hussy of a
+d'Imbleval?"
+
+And the tall one retorted, furiously:
+
+"Hussy! Do you hear that, Louis? Look at her, your Vaurois! She's got the
+airs of a superannuated barmaid! Make her stop, can't you?"
+
+Suddenly Jean Louis banged his fist upon the table, making the plates and
+dishes jump, and shouted:
+
+"Be quiet, both of you, you old lunatics!"
+
+They turned upon him at once and loaded him with abuse:
+
+"Coward!... Hypocrite!... Liar!... A pretty sort of son you are!... The son
+of a slut and not much better yourself!..."
+
+The insults rained down upon him. He stopped his ears with his fingers and
+writhed as he sat at table like a man who has lost all patience and has
+need to restrain himself lest he should fall upon his enemy.
+
+Renine whispered:
+
+"Now's the time to go in."
+
+"In among all those infuriated people?" protested Hortense.
+
+"Exactly. We shall see them better with their masks off."
+
+And, with a determined step, he walked to the door, opened it and entered
+the room, followed by Hortense.
+
+His advent gave rise to a feeling of stupefaction. The two women stopped
+yelling, but were still scarlet in the face and trembling with rage. Jean
+Louis, who was very pale, stood up.
+
+Profiting by the general confusion, Renine said briskly:
+
+"Allow me to introduce myself. I am Prince Renine. This is Madame Daniel.
+We are friends of Mlle. Genevieve Aymard and we have come in her name. I
+have a letter from her addressed to you, monsieur."
+
+Jean Louis, already disconcerted by the newcomers' arrival, lost
+countenance entirely on hearing the name of Genevieve. Without quite
+knowing what he was saying and with the intention of responding to Renine's
+courteous behaviour, he tried in his turn to introduce the two ladies and
+let fall the astounding words:
+
+"My mother, Madame d'Imbleval; my mother, Madame Vaurois."
+
+For some time no one spoke. Renine bowed. Hortense did not know with whom
+she should shake hands, with Madame d'Imbleval, the mother, or with Madame
+Vaurois, the mother. But what happened was that Madame d'Imbleval and
+Madame Vaurois both at the same time attempted to snatch the letter which
+Renine was holding out to Jean Louis, while both at the same time mumbled:
+
+"Mlle. Aymard!... She has had the coolness ... she has had the
+audacity...!"
+
+Then Jean Louis, recovering his self-possession, laid hold of his mother
+d'Imbleval and pushed her out of the room by a door on the left and next of
+his mother Vaurois and pushed her out of the room by a door on the right.
+Then, returning to his two visitors, he opened the envelope and read, in an
+undertone:
+
+    "I am to be married in a week, Jean Louis. Come to my rescue, I beseech
+    you. My friend Hortense and Prince Renine will help you to overcome the
+    obstacles that baffle you. Trust them. I love you.
+
+    "GENEVIEVE."
+
+He was a rather dull-looking young man, whose very swarthy, lean and bony
+face certainly bore the expression of melancholy and distress described by
+Genevieve. Indeed, the marks of suffering were visible in all his harassed
+features, as well as in his sad and anxious eyes.
+
+He repeated Genevieve's name over and over again, while looking about him
+with a distracted air. He seemed to be seeking a course of conduct.
+
+He seemed on the point of offering an explanation but could find nothing
+to say. The sudden intervention had taken him at a disadvantage, like an
+unforseen attack which he did not know how to meet.
+
+Renine felt that the adversary would capitulate at the first summons. The
+man had been fighting so desperately during the last few months and had
+suffered so severely in the retirement and obstinate silence in which he
+had taken refuge that he was not thinking of defending himself. Moreover,
+how could he do so, now that they had forced their way into the privacy of
+his odious existence?
+
+"Take my word for it, monsieur," declared Renine, "that it is in your best
+interests to confide in us. We are Genevieve Aymard's friends. Do not
+hesitate to speak."
+
+"I can hardly hesitate," he said, "after what you have just heard. This is
+the life I lead, monsieur. I will tell you the whole secret, so that you
+may tell it to Genevieve. She will then understand why I have not gone back
+to her ... and why I have not the right to do so."
+
+He pushed a chair forward for Hortense. The two men sat down, and, without
+any need of further persuasion, rather as though he himself felt a certain
+relief in unburdening himself, he said:
+
+"You must not be surprised, monsieur, if I tell my story with a certain
+flippancy, for, as a matter of fact, it is a frankly comical story and
+cannot fail to make you laugh. Fate often amuses itself by playing these
+imbecile tricks, these monstrous farces which seem as though they must have
+been invented by the brain of a madman or a drunkard. Judge for yourself.
+Twenty-seven years ago, the Manoir d'Elseven, which at that time consisted
+only of the main building, was occupied by an old doctor who, to increase
+his modest means, used to receive one or two paying guests. In this way,
+Madame d'Imbleval spent the summer here one year and Madame Vaurois the
+following summer. Now these two ladies did not know each other. One of them
+was married to a Breton of a merchant-vessel and the other to a commercial
+traveller from the Vendee.
+
+"It so happened that they lost their husbands at the same time, at a period
+when each of them was expecting a baby. And, as they both lived in the
+country, at places some distance from any town, they wrote to the old
+doctor that they intended to come to his house for their confinement....
+He agreed. They arrived almost on the same day, in the autumn. Two small
+bedrooms were prepared for them, behind the room in which we are sitting.
+The doctor had engaged a nurse, who slept in this very room. Everything
+was perfectly satisfactory. The ladies were putting the finishing touches
+to their baby-clothes and were getting on together splendidly. They were
+determined that their children should be boys and had chosen the names of
+Jean and Louis respectively.... One evening the doctor was called out to a
+case and drove off in his gig with the man-servant, saying that he would
+not be back till next day. In her master's absence, a little girl who
+served as maid-of-all-work ran out to keep company with her sweetheart.
+These accidents destiny turned to account with diabolical malignity. At
+about midnight, Madame d'Imbleval was seized with the first pains. The
+nurse, Mlle. Boussignol, had had some training as a midwife and did not
+lose her head. But, an hour later, Madame Vaurois' turn came; and the
+tragedy, or I might rather say the tragi-comedy, was enacted amid the
+screams and moans of the two patients and the bewildered agitation of the
+nurse running from one to the other, bewailing her fate, opening the window
+to call out for the doctor or falling on her knees to implore the aid of
+Providence.... Madame Vaurois was the first to bring a son into the world.
+Mlle. Boussignol hurriedly carried him in here, washed and tended him and
+laid him in the cradle prepared for him.... But Madame d'Imbleval was
+screaming with pain; and the nurse had to attend to her while the newborn
+child was yelling like a stuck pig and the terrified mother, unable to stir
+from her bed, fainted.... Add to this all the wretchedness of darkness and
+disorder, the only lamp, without any oil, for the servant had neglected to
+fill it, the candles burning out, the moaning of the wind, the screeching
+of the owls, and you will understand that Mlle. Boussignol was scared
+out of her wits. However, at five o'clock in the morning, after many
+tragic incidents, she came in here with the d'Imbleval baby, likewise a
+boy, washed and tended him, laid him in his cradle and went off to help
+Madame Vaurois, who had come to herself and was crying out, while Madame
+d'Imbleval had fainted in her turn. And, when Mlle. Boussignol, having
+settled the two mothers, but half-crazed with fatigue, her brain in a
+whirl, returned to the new-born children, she realized with horror that she
+had wrapped them in similar binders, thrust their feet into similar woolen
+socks and laid them both, side by side, _in the same cradle_, so that
+it was impossible to tell Louis d'Imbleval from Jean Vaurois!... To make
+matters worse, when she lifted one of them out of the cradle, she found
+that his hands were cold as ice and that he had ceased to breathe. He was
+dead. What was his name and what the survivor's?... Three hours later, the
+doctor found the two women in a condition of frenzied delirium, while the
+nurse was dragging herself from one bed to the other, entreating the two
+mothers to forgive her. She held me out first to one, then to the other,
+to receive their caresses--for I was the surviving child--and they first
+kissed me and then pushed me away; for, after all, who was I? The son of
+the widowed Madame d'Imbleval and the late merchant-captain or the son of
+the widowed Madame Vaurois and the late commercial traveller? There was
+not a clue by which they could tell.... The doctor begged each of the two
+mothers to sacrifice her rights, at least from the legal point of view,
+so that I might be called either Louis d'Imbleval or Jean Vaurois. They
+refused absolutely. 'Why Jean Vaurois, if he's a d'Imbleval?' protested the
+one. 'Why Louis d'Imbleval, if he's a Vaurois?' retorted the other. And I
+was registered under the name of Jean Louis, the son of an unknown father
+and mother."
+
+Prince Renine had listened in silence. But Hortense, as the story
+approached its conclusion, had given way to a hilarity which she could no
+longer restrain and suddenly, in spite of all her efforts, she burst into
+a fit of the wildest laughter:
+
+"Forgive me," she said, her eyes filled with tears, "do forgive me; it's
+too much for my nerves...."
+
+"Don't apologize, madame," said the young man, gently, in a voice free
+from resentment. "I warned you that my story was laughable; I, better than
+any one, know how absurd, how nonsensical it is. Yes, the whole thing is
+perfectly grotesque. But believe me when I tell you that it was no fun in
+reality. It seems a humorous situation and it remains humorous by the force
+of circumstances; but it is also horrible. You can see that for yourself,
+can't you? The two mothers, neither of whom was certain of being a mother,
+but neither of whom was certain that she was not one, both clung to Jean
+Louis. He might be a stranger; on the other hand, he might be their own
+flesh and blood. They loved him to excess and fought for him furiously.
+And, above all, they both came to hate each other with a deadly hatred.
+Differing completely in character and education and obliged to live
+together because neither was willing to forego the advantage of her
+possible maternity, they lived the life of irreconcilable enemies who can
+never lay their weapons aside.... I grew up in the midst of this hatred and
+had it instilled into me by both of them. When my childish heart, hungering
+for affection, inclined me to one of them, the other would seek to inspire
+me with loathing and contempt for her. In this manor-house, which they
+bought on the old doctor's death and to which they added the two wings, I
+was the involuntary torturer and their daily victim. Tormented as a child,
+and, as a young man, leading the most hideous of lives, I doubt if any one
+on earth ever suffered more than I did."
+
+"You ought to have left them!" exclaimed Hortense, who had stopped
+laughing.
+
+"One can't leave one's mother; and one of those two women was my mother.
+And a woman can't abandon her son; and each of them was entitled to believe
+that I was her son. We were all three chained together like convicts, with
+chains of sorrow, compassion, doubt and also of hope that the truth might
+one day become apparent. And here we still are, all three, insulting one
+another and blaming one another for our wasted lives. Oh, what a hell! And
+there was no escaping it. I tried often enough ... but in vain. The broken
+bonds became tied again. Only this summer, under the stimulus of my love
+for Genevieve, I tried to free myself and did my utmost to persuade the two
+women whom I call mother. And then ... and then! I was up against their
+complaints, their immediate hatred of the wife, of the stranger, whom I
+was proposing to force upon them.... I gave way. What sort of a life would
+Genevieve have had here, between Madame d'Imbleval and Madame Vaurois? I
+had no right to victimize her."
+
+Jean Louis, who had been gradually becoming excited, uttered these last
+words in a firm voice, as though he would have wished his conduct to
+be ascribed to conscientious motives and a sense of duty. In reality,
+as Renine and Hortense clearly saw, his was an unusually weak nature,
+incapable of reacting against a ridiculous position from which he had
+suffered ever since he was a child and which he had come to look upon as
+final and irremediable. He endured it as a man bears a cross which he has
+no right to cast aside; and at the same time he was ashamed of it. He had
+never spoken of it to Genevieve, from dread of ridicule; and afterwards, on
+returning to his prison, he had remained there out of habit and weakness.
+
+He sat down to a writing-table and quickly wrote a letter which he handed
+to Renine:
+
+"Would you be kind enough to give this note to Mlle. Aymard and beg her
+once more to forgive me?"
+
+Renine did not move and, when the other pressed the letter upon him, he
+took it and tore it up.
+
+"What does this mean?" asked the young man.
+
+"It means that I will not charge myself with any message."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Because you are coming with us."
+
+"I?"
+
+"Yes. You will see Mlle. Aymard to-morrow and ask for her hand in
+marriage."
+
+Jean Louis looked at Renine with a rather disdainful air, as though he were
+thinking:
+
+"Here's a man who has not understood a word of what I've been explaining to
+him."
+
+But Hortense went up to Renine:
+
+"Why do you say that?"
+
+"Because it will be as I say."
+
+"But you must have your reasons?"
+
+"One only; but it will be enough, provided this gentleman is so kind as to
+help me in my enquiries."
+
+"Enquiries? With what object?" asked the young man.
+
+"With the object of proving that your story is not quite accurate."
+
+Jean Louis took umbrage at this:
+
+"I must ask you to believe, monsieur, that I have not said a word which is
+not the exact truth."
+
+"I expressed myself badly," said Renine, with great kindliness. "Certainly
+you have not said a word that does not agree with what you believe to be
+the exact truth. But the truth is not, cannot be what you believe it to
+be."
+
+The young man folded his arms:
+
+"In any case, monsieur, it seems likely that I should know the truth better
+than you do."
+
+"Why better? What happened on that tragic night can obviously be known to
+you only at secondhand. You have no proofs. Neither have Madame d'Imbleval
+and Madame Vaurois."
+
+"No proofs of what?" exclaimed Jean Louis, losing patience.
+
+"No proofs of the confusion that took place."
+
+"What! Why, it's an absolute certainty! The two children were laid in the
+same cradle, with no marks to distinguish one from the other; and the nurse
+was unable to tell...."
+
+"At least, that's her version of it," interrupted Renine.
+
+"What's that? Her version? But you're accusing the woman."
+
+"I'm accusing her of nothing."
+
+"Yes, you are: you're accusing her of lying. And why should she lie? She
+had no interest in doing so; and her tears and despair are so much evidence
+of her good faith. For, after all, the two mothers were there ... they saw
+the woman weeping ... they questioned her.... And then, I repeat, what
+interest had she ...?"
+
+Jean Louis was greatly excited. Close beside him, Madame d'Imbleval and
+Madame Vaurois, who had no doubt been listening behind the doors and who
+had stealthily entered the room, stood stammering, in amazement:
+
+"No, no ... it's impossible.... We've questioned her over and over again.
+Why should she tell a lie?..."
+
+"Speak, monsieur, speak," Jean Louis enjoined. "Explain yourself. Give your
+reasons for trying to cast doubt upon an absolute truth!"
+
+"Because that truth is inadmissible," declared Renine, raising his voice
+and growing excited in turn to the point of punctuating his remarks by
+thumping the table. "No, things don't happen like that. No, fate does not
+display those refinements of cruelty and chance is not added to chance with
+such reckless extravagance! It was already an unprecedented chance that, on
+the very night on which the doctor, his man-servant and his maid were out
+of the house, the two ladies should be seized with labour-pains at the same
+hour and should bring two sons into the world at the same time. Don't let
+us add a still more exceptional event! Enough of the uncanny! Enough of
+lamps that go out and candles that refuse to burn! No and again no, it
+is not admissable that a midwife should become confused in the essential
+details of her trade. However bewildered she may be by the unforeseen
+nature of the circumstances, a remnant of instinct is still on the alert,
+so that there is a place prepared for each child and each is kept distinct
+from the other. The first child is here, the second is there. Even if they
+are lying side by side, one is on the left and the other on the right.
+Even if they are wrapped in the same kind of binders, some little detail
+differs, a trifle which is recorded by the memory and which is inevitably
+recalled to the mind without any need of reflection. Confusion? I refuse
+to believe in it. Impossible to tell one from the other? It isn't true. In
+the world of fiction, yes, one can imagine all sorts of fantastic accidents
+and heap contradiction on contradiction. But, in the world of reality, at
+the very heart of reality, there is always a fixed point, a solid nucleus,
+about which the facts group themselves in accordance with a logical order.
+I therefore declare most positively that Nurse Boussignol could not have
+mixed up the two children."
+
+All this he said decisively, as though he had been present during the night
+in question; and so great was his power of persuasion that from the very
+first he shook the certainty of those who for more than a quarter of a
+century had never doubted.
+
+The two women and their son pressed round him and questioned him with
+breathless anxiety:
+
+"Then you think that she may know ... that she may be able to tell us....?"
+
+He corrected himself:
+
+"I don't say yes and I don't say no. All I say is that there was something
+in her behaviour during those hours that does not tally with her statements
+and with reality. All the vast and intolerable mystery that has weighed
+down upon you three arises not from a momentary lack of attention but from
+something of which we do not know, but of which she does. That is what I
+maintain; and that is what happened."
+
+Jean Louis said, in a husky voice:
+
+"She is alive.... She lives at Carhaix.... We can send for her...."
+
+Hortense at once proposed:
+
+"Would you like me to go for her? I will take the motor and bring her back
+with me. Where does she live?"
+
+"In the middle of the town, at a little draper's shop. The chauffeur will
+show you. Mlle. Boussignol: everybody knows her...."
+
+"And, whatever you do," added Renine, "don't warn her in any way. If she's
+uneasy, so much the better. But don't let her know what we want with her."
+
+Twenty minutes passed in absolute silence. Renine paced the room, in which
+the fine old furniture, the handsome tapestries, the well-bound books and
+pretty knick-knacks denoted a love of art and a seeking after style in Jean
+Louis. This room was really his. In the adjoining apartments on either
+side, through the open doors, Renine was able to note the bad taste of the
+two mothers.
+
+He went up to Jean Louis and, in a low voice, asked:
+
+"Are they well off?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"And you?"
+
+"They settled the manor-house upon me, with all the land around it, which
+makes me quite independent."
+
+"Have they any relations?"
+
+"Sisters, both of them."
+
+"With whom they could go to live?"
+
+"Yes; and they have sometimes thought of doing so. But there can't be any
+question of that. Once more, I assure you...."
+
+Meantime the car had returned. The two women jumped up hurriedly, ready to
+speak.
+
+"Leave it to me," said Renine, "and don't be surprised by anything that I
+say. It's not a matter of asking her questions but of frightening her, of
+flurrying her.... The sudden attack," he added between his teeth.
+
+The car drove round the lawn and drew up outside the windows. Hortense
+sprang out and helped an old woman to alight, dressed in a fluted linen
+cap, a black velvet bodice and a heavy gathered skirt.
+
+The old woman entered in a great state of alarm. She had a pointed face,
+like a weasel's, with a prominent mouth full of protruding teeth.
+
+"What's the matter, Madame d'Imbleval?" she asked, timidly stepping into
+the room from which the doctor had once driven her. "Good day to you,
+Madame Vaurois."
+
+The ladies did not reply. Renine came forward and said, sternly:
+
+"Mlle. Boussignol, I have been sent by the Paris police to throw light
+upon a tragedy which took place here twenty-seven years ago. I have just
+secured evidence that you have distorted the truth and that, as the result
+of your false declarations, the birth-certificate of one of the children
+born in the course of that night is inaccurate. Now false declarations in
+matters of birth-certificates are misdemeanours punishable by law. I shall
+therefore be obliged to take you to Paris to be interrogated ... unless
+you are prepared here and now to confess everything that might repair the
+consequences of your offence."
+
+The old maid was shaking in every limb. Her teeth were chattering. She was
+evidently incapable of opposing the least resistance to Renine.
+
+"Are you ready to confess everything?" he asked.
+
+"Yes," she panted.
+
+"Without delay? I have to catch a train. The business must be settled
+immediately. If you show the least hesitation, I take you with me. Have
+you made up your mind to speak?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+He pointed to Jean Louis:
+
+"Whose son is this gentleman? Madame d'Imbleval's?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Madame Vaurois', therefore?"
+
+"No."
+
+A stupefied silence welcomed the two replies.
+
+"Explain yourself," Renine commanded, looking at his watch.
+
+Then Madame Boussignol fell on her knees and said, in so low and dull a
+voice that they had to bend over her in order to catch the sense of what
+she was mumbling:
+
+"Some one came in the evening ... a gentleman with a new-born baby wrapped
+in blankets, which he wanted the doctor to look after. As the doctor wasn't
+there, he waited all night and it was he who did it all."
+
+"Did what?" asked Renine. "What did he do? What happened?"
+
+"Well, what happened was that it was not one child but the two of them that
+died: Madame d'Imbleval's and Madame Vaurois' too, both in convulsions.
+Then the gentleman, seeing this, said, 'This shows me where my duty lies. I
+must seize this opportunity of making sure that my own boy shall be happy
+and well cared for. Put him in the place of one of the dead children.' He
+offered me a big sum of money, saying that this one payment would save him
+the expense of providing for his child every month; and I accepted. Only, I
+did not know in whose place to put him and whether to say that the boy was
+Louis d'Imbleval or Jean Vaurois. The gentleman thought a moment and said
+neither. Then he explained to me what I was to do and what I was to say
+after he had gone. And, while I was dressing his boy in vest and binders
+the same as one of the dead children, he wrapped the other in the blankets
+he had brought with him and went out into the night."
+
+Mlle. Boussignol bent her head and wept. After a moment, Renine said:
+
+"Your deposition agrees with the result of my investigations."
+
+"Can I go?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"And is it over, as far as I'm concerned? They won't be talking about this
+all over the district?"
+
+"No. Oh, just one more question: do you know the man's name?"
+
+"No. He didn't tell me his name."
+
+"Have you ever seen him since?"
+
+"Never."
+
+"Have you anything more to say?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Are you prepared to sign the written text of your confession?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Very well. I shall send for you in a week or two. Till then, not a word to
+anybody."
+
+He saw her to the door and closed it after her. When he returned, Jean
+Louis was between the two old ladies and all three were holding hands. The
+bond of hatred and wretchedness which had bound them had suddenly snapped;
+and this rupture, without requiring them to reflect upon the matter, filled
+them with a gentle tranquillity of which they were hardly conscious, but
+which made them serious and thoughtful.
+
+"Let's rush things," said Renine to Hortense. "This is the decisive moment
+of the battle. We must get Jean Louis on board."
+
+Hortense seemed preoccupied. She whispered:
+
+"Why did you let the woman go? Were you satisfied with her statement?"
+
+"I don't need to be satisfied. She told us what happened. What more do you
+want?"
+
+"Nothing.... I don't know...."
+
+"We'll talk about it later, my dear. For the moment, I repeat, we must get
+Jean Louis on board. And immediately.... Otherwise...."
+
+He turned to the young man:
+
+"You agree with me, don't you, that, things being as they are, it is best
+for you and Madame Vaurois and Madame d'Imbleval to separate for a time?
+That will enable you all to see matters more clearly and to decide in
+perfect freedom what is to be done. Come with us, monsieur. The most
+pressing thing is to save Genevieve Aymard, your _fiancee_."
+
+Jean Louis stood perplexed and undecided. Renine turned to the two women:
+
+"That is your opinion too, I am sure, ladies?"
+
+They nodded.
+
+"You see, monsieur," he said to Jean Louis, "we are all agreed. In great
+crises, there is nothing like separation ... a few days' respite. Quickly
+now, monsieur."
+
+And, without giving him time to hesitate, he drove him towards his bedroom
+to pack up.
+
+Half an hour later, Jean Louis left the manor-house with his new friends.
+
+"And he won't go back until he's married," said Renine to Hortense, as they
+were waiting at Carhaix station, to which the car had taken them, while
+Jean Louis was attending to his luggage. "Everything's for the best. Are
+you satisfied?"
+
+"Yes, Genevieve will be glad," she replied, absently.
+
+When they had taken their seats in the train, Renine and she repaired to
+the dining-car. Renine, who had asked Hortense several questions to which
+she had replied only in monosyllables, protested:
+
+"What's the matter with you, my child? You look worried!"
+
+"I? Not at all!"
+
+"Yes, yes, I know you. Now, no secrets, no mysteries!"
+
+She smiled:
+
+"Well, since you insist on knowing if I am satisfied, I am bound to
+admit that of course I am ... as regards my friend Genevieve, but that,
+in another respect--from the point of view of the adventure--I have an
+uncomfortable sort of feeling...."
+
+"To speak frankly, I haven't 'staggered' you this time?"
+
+"Not very much."
+
+"I seem to you to have played a secondary part. For, after all, what have I
+done? We arrived. We listened to Jean Louis' tale of woe. I had a midwife
+fetched. And that was all."
+
+"Exactly. I want to know if that _was_ all; and I'm not quite sure.
+To tell you the truth, our other adventures left behind them an impression
+which was--how shall I put it?--more definite, clearer."
+
+"And this one strikes you as obscure?"
+
+"Obscure, yes, and incomplete."
+
+"But in what way?"
+
+"I don't know. Perhaps it has something to do with that woman's confession.
+Yes, very likely that is it. It was all so unexpected and so short."
+
+"Well, of course, I cut it short, as you can readily imagine!" said Renine,
+laughing. "We didn't want too many explanations."
+
+"What do you mean?"
+
+"Why, if she had given her explanations with too much detail, we should
+have ended by doubting what she was telling us."
+
+"By doubting it?"
+
+"Well, hang it all, the story is a trifle far-fetched! That fellow arriving
+at night, with a live baby in his pocket, and going away with a dead one:
+the thing hardly holds water. But you see, my dear, I hadn't much time to
+coach the unfortunate woman in her part."
+
+Hortense stared at him in amazement:
+
+"What on earth do you mean?"
+
+"Well, you know how dull-witted these countrywomen are. And she and I
+had no time to spare. So we worked out a little scene in a hurry ... and
+she really didn't act it so badly. It was all in the right key: terror,
+_tremolo_, tears...."
+
+"Is it possible?" murmured Hortense. "Is it possible? You had seen her
+beforehand?"
+
+"I had to, of course."
+
+"But when?"
+
+"This morning, when we arrived. While you were titivating yourself at
+the hotel at Carhaix, I was running round to see what information I
+could pick up. As you may imagine, everybody in the district knows the
+d'Imbleval-Vaurois story. I was at once directed to the former midwife,
+Mlle. Boussignol. With Mlle. Boussignol it did not take long. Three minutes
+to settle a new version of what had happened and ten thousand francs to
+induce her to repeat that ... more or less credible ... version to the
+people at the manor-house."
+
+"A quite incredible version!"
+
+"Not so bad as all that, my child, seeing that you believed it ... and
+the others too. And that was the essential thing. What I had to do was to
+demolish at one blow a truth which had been twenty-seven years in existence
+and which was all the more firmly established because it was founded on
+actual facts. That was why I went for it with all my might and attacked it
+by sheer force of eloquence. Impossible to identify the children? I deny
+it. Inevitable confusion? It's not true. 'You're all three,' I say, 'the
+victims of something which I don't know but which it is your duty to clear
+up!' 'That's easily done,' says Jean Louis, whose conviction is at once
+shaken. 'Let's send for Mlle. Boussignol.' 'Right! Let's send for her.'
+Whereupon Mlle. Boussignol arrives and mumbles out the little speech which
+I have taught her. Sensation! General stupefaction ... of which I take
+advantage to carry off our young man!"
+
+Hortense shook her head:
+
+"But they'll get over it, all three of them, on thinking!"
+
+"Never! Never! They will have their doubts, perhaps. But they will
+never consent to feel certain! They will never agree to think! Use your
+imagination! Here are three people whom I have rescued from the hell in
+which they have been floundering for a quarter of a century. Do you think
+they're going back to it? Here are three people who, from weakness or a
+false sense of duty, had not the courage to escape. Do you think that they
+won't cling like grim death to the liberty which I'm giving them? Nonsense!
+Why, they would have swallowed a hoax twice as difficult to digest as that
+which Mlle. Boussignol dished up for them! After all, my version was no
+more absurd than the truth. On the contrary. And they swallowed it whole!
+Look at this: before we left, I heard Madame d'Imbleval and Madame Vaurois
+speak of an immediate removal. They were already becoming quite
+affectionate at the thought of seeing the last of each other."
+
+"But what about Jean Louis?"
+
+"Jean Louis? Why, he was fed up with his two mothers! By Jingo, one can't
+do with two mothers in a life-time! What a situation! And when one has the
+luck to be able to choose between having two mothers or none at all, why,
+bless me, one doesn't hesitate! And, besides, Jean Louis is in love with
+Genevieve." He laughed. "And he loves her well enough, I hope and trust,
+not to inflict two mothers-in-law upon her! Come, you may be easy in your
+mind. Your friend's happiness is assured; and that is all you asked for.
+All that matters is the object which we achieve and not the more or less
+peculiar nature of the methods which we employ. And, if some adventures
+are wound up and some mysteries elucidated by looking for and finding
+cigarette-ends, or incendiary water-bottles and blazing hat-boxes as on our
+last expedition, others call for psychology and for purely psychological
+solutions. I have spoken. And I charge you to be silent."
+
+"Silent?"
+
+"Yes, there's a man and woman sitting behind us who seem to be saying
+something uncommonly interesting."
+
+"But they're talking in whispers."
+
+"Just so. When people talk in whispers, it's always about something shady."
+
+He lit a cigarette and sat back in his chair. Hortense listened, but in
+vain. As for him, he was emitting little slow puffs of smoke.
+
+Fifteen minutes later, the train stopped and the man and woman got out.
+
+"Pity," said Renine, "that I don't know their names or where they're going.
+But I know where to find them. My dear, we have a new adventure before us."
+
+Hortense protested:
+
+"Oh, no, please, not yet!... Give me a little rest!... And oughtn't we to
+think of Genevieve?"
+
+He seemed greatly surprised:
+
+"Why, all that's over and done with! Do you mean to say you want to waste
+any more time over that old story? Well, I for my part confess that I've
+lost all interest in the man with the two mammas."
+
+And this was said in such a comical tone and with such diverting sincerity
+that Hortense was once more seized with a fit of giggling. Laughter alone
+was able to relax her exasperated nerves and to distract her from so many
+contradictory emotions.
+
+
+
+
+IV
+
+THE TELL-TALE FILM
+
+
+"Do look at the man who's playing the butler," said Serge Renine.
+
+"What is there peculiar about him?" asked Hortense.
+
+They were sitting in the balcony at a picture-palace, to which Hortense had
+asked to be taken so that she might see on the screen the daughter of a
+lady, now dead, who used to give her piano-lessons. Rose Andree, a lovely
+girl with lissome movements and a smiling face, was that evening figuring
+in a new film, _The Happy Princess_, which she lit up with her high
+spirits and her warm, glowing beauty.
+
+Renine made no direct reply, but, during a pause in the performance,
+continued:
+
+"I sometimes console myself for an indifferent film by watching the
+subordinate characters. It seems to me that those poor devils, who are made
+to rehearse certain scenes ten or twenty times over, must often be thinking
+of other things than their parts at the time of the final exposure. And
+it's great fun noting those little moments of distraction which reveal
+something of their temperament, of their instinct self. As, for instance,
+in the case of that butler: look!"
+
+The screen now showed a luxuriously served table. The Happy Princess sat at
+the head, surrounded by all her suitors. Half-a-dozen footmen moved about
+the room, under the orders of the butler, a big fellow with a dull, coarse
+face, a common appearance and a pair of enormous eyebrows which met across
+his forehead in a single line.
+
+"He looks a brute," said Hortense, "but what do you see in him that's
+peculiar?"
+
+"Just note how he gazes at the princess and tell me if he doesn't stare at
+her oftener than he ought to."
+
+"I really haven't noticed anything, so far," said Hortense.
+
+"Why, of course he does!" Serge Renine declared. "It is quite obvious that
+in actual life he entertains for Rose Andree personal feelings which are
+quite out of place in a nameless servant. It is possible that, in real
+life, no one has any idea of such a thing; but, on the screen, when he is
+not watching himself, or when he thinks that the actors at rehearsal cannot
+see him, his secret escapes him. Look...."
+
+The man was standing still. It was the end of dinner. The princess was
+drinking a glass of champagne and he was gloating over her with his
+glittering eyes half-hidden behind their heavy lids.
+
+Twice again they surprised in his face those strange expressions to which
+Renine ascribed an emotional meaning which Hortense refused to see:
+
+"It's just his way of looking at people," she said.
+
+The first part of the film ended. There were two parts, divided by an
+_entr'acte_. The notice on the programme stated that "a year had
+elapsed and that the Happy Princess was living in a pretty Norman cottage,
+all hung with creepers, together with her husband, a poor musician."
+
+The princess was still happy, as was evident on the screen, still as
+attractive as ever and still besieged by the greatest variety of suitors.
+Nobles and commoners, peasants and financiers, men of all kinds fell
+swooning at her feet; and prominent among them was a sort of boorish
+solitary, a shaggy, half-wild woodcutter, whom she met whenever she went
+out for a walk. Armed with his axe, a formidable, crafty being, he prowled
+around the cottage; and the spectators felt with a sense of dismay that a
+peril was hanging over the Happy Princess' head.
+
+"Look at that!" whispered Renine. "Do you realise who the man of the woods
+is?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Simply the butler. The same actor is doubling the two parts."
+
+In fact, notwithstanding the new figure which he cut, the butler's
+movements and postures were apparent under the heavy gait and rounded
+shoulders of the woodcutter, even as under the unkempt beard and long,
+thick hair the once clean-shaven face was visible with the cruel expression
+and the bushy line of the eyebrows.
+
+The princess, in the background, was seen to emerge from the thatched
+cottage. The man hid himself behind a clump of trees. From time to time,
+the screen displayed, on an enormously enlarged scale, his fiercely rolling
+eyes or his murderous hands with their huge thumbs.
+
+"The man frightens me," said Hortense. "He is really terrifying."
+
+"Because he's acting on his own account," said Renine. "You must understand
+that, in the space of three or four months that appears to separate the
+dates at which the two films were made, his passion has made progress; and
+to him it is not the princess who is coming but Rose Andree."
+
+The man crouched low. The victim approached, gaily and unsuspectingly. She
+passed, heard a sound, stopped and looked about her with a smiling air
+which became attentive, then uneasy, and then more and more anxious. The
+woodcutter had pushed aside the branches and was coming through the copse.
+
+They were now standing face to face. He opened his arms as though to seize
+her. She tried to scream, to call out for help; but the arms closed around
+her before she could offer the slightest resistance. Then he threw her over
+his shoulder and began to run.
+
+"Are you satisfied?" whispered Renine. "Do you think that this fourth-rate
+actor would have had all that strength and energy if it had been any other
+woman than Rose Andree?"
+
+Meanwhile the woodcutter was crossing the skirt of a forest and plunging
+through great trees and masses of rocks. After setting the princess down,
+he cleared the entrance to a cave which the daylight entered by a slanting
+crevice.
+
+A succession of views displayed the husband's despair, the search and the
+discovery of some small branches which had been broken by the princess
+and which showed the path that had been taken. Then came the final scene,
+with the terrible struggle between the man and the woman when the woman,
+vanquished and exhausted, is flung to the ground, the sudden arrival of the
+husband and the shot that puts an end to the brute's life....
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Well," said Renine, when they had left the picture-palace--and he
+spoke with a certain gravity--"I maintain that the daughter of your old
+piano-teacher has been in danger ever since the day when that last scene
+was filmed. I maintain that this scene represents not so much an assault by
+the man of the woods on the Happy Princess as a violent and frantic attack
+by an actor on the woman he desires. Certainly it all happened within the
+bounds prescribed by the part and nobody saw anything in it--nobody except
+perhaps Rose Andree herself--but I, for my part, have detected flashes
+of passion which leave not a doubt in my mind. I have seen glances that
+betrayed the wish and even the intention to commit murder. I have seen
+clenched hands, ready to strangle, in short, a score of details which prove
+to me that, at that time, the man's instinct was urging him to kill the
+woman who could never be his."
+
+"And it all amounts to what?"
+
+"We must protect Rose Andree if she is still in danger and if it is not too
+late."
+
+"And to do this?"
+
+"We must get hold of further information."
+
+"From whom?"
+
+"From the World's Cinema Company, which made the film. I will go to them
+to-morrow morning. Will you wait for me in your flat about lunch-time?"
+
+At heart, Hortense was still sceptical. All these manifestations of
+passion, of which she denied neither the ardour nor the ferocity, seemed
+to her to be the rational behaviour of a good actor. She had seen nothing
+of the terrible tragedy which Renine contended that he had divined; and
+she wondered whether he was not erring through an excess of imagination.
+
+"Well," she asked, next day, not without a touch of irony, "how far have
+you got? Have you made a good bag? Anything mysterious? Anything
+thrilling?"
+
+"Pretty good."
+
+"Oh, really? And your so-called lover...."
+
+"Is one Dalbreque, originally a scene-painter, who played the butler in the
+first part of the film and the man of the woods in the second and was so
+much appreciated that they engaged him for a new film. Consequently, he has
+been acting lately. He was acting near Paris. But, on the morning of Friday
+the 18th of September, he broke into the garage of the World's Cinema
+Company and made off with a magnificent car and forty thousand francs
+in money. Information was lodged with the police; and on the Sunday the
+car was found a little way outside Dreux. And up to now the enquiry has
+revealed two things, which will appear in the papers to-morrow: first,
+Dalbreque is alleged to have committed a murder which created a great stir
+last year, the murder of Bourguet, the jeweller; secondly, on the day after
+his two robberies, Dalbreque was driving through Le Havre in a motor-car
+with two men who helped him to carry off, in broad daylight and in a
+crowded street, a lady whose identity has not yet been discovered."
+
+"Rose Andree?" asked Hortense, uneasily.
+
+"I have just been to Rose Andree's: the World's Cinema Company gave me her
+address. Rose Andree spent this summer travelling and then stayed for a
+fortnight in the Seine-inferieure, where she has a small place of her own,
+the actual cottage in _The Happy Princess_. On receiving an invitation
+from America to do a film there, she came back to Paris, registered her
+luggage at the Gare Saint-Lazare and left on Friday the 18th of September,
+intending to sleep at Le Havre and take Saturday's boat."
+
+"Friday the 18th," muttered Hortense, "the same day on which that man...."
+
+"And it was on the Saturday that a woman was carried off by him at
+Le Havre. I looked in at the Compagnie Transatlantique and a brief
+investigation showed that Rose Andree had booked a cabin but that the
+cabin remained unoccupied. The passenger did not turn up."
+
+"This is frightful. She has been carried off. You were right."
+
+"I fear so."
+
+"What have you decided to do?"
+
+"Adolphe, my chauffeur, is outside with the car. Let us go to Le Havre. Up
+to the present, Rose Andree's disappearance does not seem to have become
+known. Before it does and before the police identify the woman carried off
+by Dalbreque with the woman who did not turn up to claim her cabin, we will
+get on Rose Andree's track."
+
+There was not much said on the journey. At four o'clock Hortense and Renine
+reached Rouen. But here Renine changed his road.
+
+"Adolphe, take the left bank of the Seine."
+
+He unfolded a motoring-map on his knees and, tracing the route with his
+finger, showed Hortense that, if you draw a line from Le Havre, or rather
+from Quillebeuf, where the road crosses the Seine, to Dreux, where the
+stolen car was found, this line passes through Routot, a market-town lying
+west of the forest of Brotonne:
+
+"Now it was in the forest of Brotonne," he continued, "according to what I
+heard, that the second part of _The Happy Princess_ was filmed. And
+the question that arises is this: having got hold of Rose Andree, would it
+not occur to Dalbreque, when passing near the forest on the Saturday night,
+to hide his prey there, while his two accomplices went on to Dreux and from
+there returned to Paris? The cave was quite near. Was he not bound to go to
+it? How should he do otherwise? Wasn't it while running to this cave, a few
+months ago, that he held in his arms, against his breast, within reach of
+his lips, the woman whom he loved and whom he has now conquered? By every
+rule of fate and logic, the adventure is being repeated all over again ...
+but this time in reality. Rose Andree is a captive. There is no hope
+of rescue. The forest is vast and lonely. That night, or on one of the
+following nights, Rose Andree must surrender ... or die."
+
+Hortense gave a shudder:
+
+"We shall be too late. Besides, you don't suppose that he's keeping her a
+prisoner?"
+
+"Certainly not. The place I have in mind is at a cross-roads and is not a
+safe retreat. But we may discover some clue or other."
+
+The shades of night were falling from the tall trees when they entered the
+ancient forest of Brotonne, full of Roman remains and mediaeval relics.
+Renine knew the forest well and remembered that near a famous oak, known
+as the Wine-cask, there was a cave which must be the cave of the Happy
+Princess. He found it easily, switched on his electric torch, rummaged in
+the dark corners and brought Hortense back to the entrance:
+
+"There's nothing inside," he said, "but here is the evidence which I was
+looking for. Dalbreque was obsessed by the recollection of the film, but so
+was Rose Andree. The Happy Princess had broken off the tips of the branches
+on the way through the forest. Rose Andree has managed to break off some to
+the right of this opening, in the hope that she would be discovered as on
+the first occasion."
+
+"Yes," said Hortense, "it's a proof that she has been here; but the proof
+is three weeks old. Since that time...."
+
+"Since that time, she is either dead and buried under a heap of leaves or
+else alive in some hole even lonelier than this."
+
+"If so, where is he?"
+
+Renine pricked up his ears. Repeated blows of the axe were sounding from
+some distance, no doubt coming from a part of the forest that was being
+cleared.
+
+"He?" said Renine, "I wonder whether he may not have continued to behave
+under the influence of the film and whether the man of the woods in _The
+Happy Princess_ has not quite naturally resumed his calling. For how is
+the man to live, to obtain his food, without attracting attention? He will
+have found a job."
+
+"We can't make sure of that."
+
+"We might, by questioning the woodcutters whom we can hear."
+
+The car took them by a forest-road to another cross-roads where they
+entered on foot a track which was deeply rutted by waggon-wheels. The sound
+of axes ceased. After walking for a quarter of an hour, they met a dozen
+men who, having finished work for the day, were returning to the villages
+near by.
+
+"Will this path take us to Routot?" ask Renine, in order to open a
+conversation with them.
+
+"No, you're turning your backs on it," said one of the men, gruffly.
+
+And he went on, accompanied by his mates.
+
+Hortense and Renine stood rooted to the spot. They had recognized the
+butler. His cheeks and chin were shaved, but his upper lip was covered by
+a black moustache, evidently dyed. The eyebrows no longer met and were
+reduced to normal dimensions.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Thus, in less than twenty hours, acting on the vague hints supplied by the
+bearing of a film-actor, Serge Renine had touched the very heart of the
+tragedy by means of purely psychological arguments.
+
+"Rose Andree is alive," he said. "Otherwise Dalbreque would have left the
+country. The poor thing must be imprisoned and bound up; and he takes her
+some food at night."
+
+"We will save her, won't we?"
+
+"Certainly, by keeping a watch on him and, if necessary, but in the last
+resort, compelling him by force to give up his secret."
+
+They followed the woodcutter at a distance and, on the pretext that the car
+needed overhauling, engaged rooms in the principal inn at Routot.
+
+Attached to the inn was a small cafe from which they were separated by the
+entrance to the yard and above which were two rooms, reached by a wooden
+outer staircase, at one side. Dalbreque occupied one of these rooms and
+Renine took the other for his chauffeur.
+
+Next morning he learnt from Adolphe that Dalbreque, on the previous
+evening, after all the lights were out, had carried down a bicycle from his
+room and mounted it and had not returned until shortly before sunrise.
+
+The bicycle tracks led Renine to the uninhabited Chateau des Landes, five
+miles from the village. They disappeared in a rocky path which ran beside
+the park down to the Seine, opposite the Jumieges peninsula.
+
+Next night, he took up his position there. At eleven o'clock, Dalbreque
+climbed a bank, scrambled over a wire fence, hid his bicycle under the
+branches and moved away. It seemed impossible to follow him in the pitchy
+darkness, on a mossy soil that muffled the sound of footsteps. Renine did
+not make the attempt; but, at daybreak, he came with his chauffeur and
+hunted through the park all the morning. Though the park, which covered
+the side of a hill and was bounded below by the river, was not very large,
+he found no clue which gave him any reason to suppose that Rose Andree was
+imprisoned there.
+
+He therefore went back to the village, with the firm intention of taking
+action that evening and employing force:
+
+"This state of things cannot go on," he said to Hortense. "I must rescue
+Rose Andree at all costs and save her from that ruffian's clutches. He must
+be made to speak. He must. Otherwise there's a danger that we may be too
+late."
+
+That day was Sunday; and Dalbreque did not go to work. He did not leave his
+room except for lunch and went upstairs again immediately afterwards. But
+at three o'clock Renine and Hortense, who were keeping a watch on him from
+the inn, saw him come down the wooden staircase, with his bicycle on his
+shoulder. Leaning it against the bottom step, he inflated the tires and
+fastened to the handle-bar a rather bulky object wrapped in a newspaper.
+
+"By Jove!" muttered Renine.
+
+"What's the matter?"
+
+In front of the cafe was a small terrace bordered on the right and left by
+spindle-trees planted in boxes, which were connected by a paling. Behind
+the shrubs, sitting on a bank but stooping forward so that they could see
+Dalbreque through the branches, were four men.
+
+"Police!" said Renine. "What bad luck! If those fellows take a hand, they
+will spoil everything."
+
+"Why? On the contrary, I should have thought...."
+
+"Yes, they will. They will put Dalbreque out of the way ... and then? Will
+that give us Rose Andree?"
+
+Dalbreque had finished his preparations. Just as he was mounting his
+bicycle, the detectives rose in a body, ready to make a dash for him. But
+Dalbreque, though quite unconscious of their presence, changed his mind and
+went back to his room as though he had forgotten something.
+
+"Now's the time!" said Renine. "I'm going to risk it. But it's a difficult
+situation and I've no great hopes."
+
+He went out into the yard and, at a moment when the detectives were not
+looking, ran up the staircase, as was only natural if he wished to give an
+order to his chauffeur. But he had no sooner reached the rustic balcony at
+the back of the house, which gave admission to the two bedrooms than he
+stopped. Dalbreque's door was open. Renine walked in.
+
+Dalbreque stepped back, at once assuming the defensive:
+
+"What do you want? Who said you could...."
+
+"Silence!" whispered Renine, with an imperious gesture. "It's all up with
+you!"
+
+"What are you talking about?" growled the man, angrily.
+
+"Lean out of your window. There are four men below on the watch for you to
+leave, four detectives."
+
+Dalbreque leant over the terrace and muttered an oath:
+
+"On the watch for me?" he said, turning round. "What do I care?"
+
+"They have a warrant."
+
+He folded his arms:
+
+"Shut up with your piffle! A warrant! What's that to me?"
+
+"Listen," said Renine, "and let us waste no time. It's urgent. Your name's
+Dalbreque, or, at least, that's the name under which you acted in _The
+Happy Princess_ and under which the police are looking for you as being
+the murderer of Bourguet the jeweller, the man who stole a motor-car and
+forty thousand francs from the World's Cinema Company and the man who
+abducted a woman at Le Havre. All this is known and proved ... and here's
+the upshot. Four men downstairs. Myself here, my chauffeur in the next
+room. You're done for. Do you want me to save you?"
+
+Dalbreque gave his adversary a long look:
+
+"Who are you?"
+
+"A friend of Rose Andree's," said Renine.
+
+The other started and, to some extent dropping his mask, retorted:
+
+"What are your conditions?"
+
+"Rose Andree, whom you have abducted and tormented, is dying in some hole
+or corner. Where is she?"
+
+A strange thing occurred and impressed Renine. Dalbreque's face, usually so
+common, was lit up by a smile that made it almost attractive. But this was
+only a flashing vision: the man immediately resumed his hard and impassive
+expression.
+
+"And suppose I refuse to speak?" he said.
+
+"So much the worse for you. It means your arrest."
+
+"I dare say; but it means the death of Rose Andree. Who will release her?"
+
+"You. You will speak now, or in an hour, or two hours hence at least. You
+will never have the heart to keep silent and let her die."
+
+Dalbreque shrugged his shoulders. Then, raising his hand, he said:
+
+"I swear on my life that, if they arrest me, not a word will leave my
+lips."
+
+"What then?"
+
+"Then save me. We will meet this evening at the entrance to the Parc des
+Landes and say what we have to say."
+
+"Why not at once?"
+
+"I have spoken."
+
+"Will you be there?"
+
+"I shall be there."
+
+Renine reflected. There was something in all this that he failed to grasp.
+In any case, the frightful danger that threatened Rose Andree dominated the
+whole situation; and Renine was not the man to despise this threat and to
+persist out of vanity in a perilous course. Rose Andree's life came before
+everything.
+
+He struck several blows on the wall of the next bedroom and called his
+chauffeur.
+
+"Adolphe, is the car ready?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"Set her going and pull her up in front of the terrace outside the cafe,
+right against the boxes so as to block the exit. As for you," he continued,
+addressing Dalbreque, "you're to jump on your machine and, instead of
+making off along the road, cross the yard. At the end of the yard is a
+passage leading into a lane. There you will be free. But no hesitation and
+no blundering ... else you'll get yourself nabbed. Good luck to you."
+
+He waited till the car was drawn up in accordance with his instructions
+and, when he reached it, he began to question his chauffeur, in order to
+attract the detectives' attention.
+
+One of them, however, having cast a glance through the spindle-trees,
+caught sight of Dalbreque just as he reached the bottom of the staircase.
+He gave the alarm and darted forward, followed by his comrades, but had
+to run round the car and bumped into the chauffeur, which gave Dalbreque
+time to mount his bicycle and cross the yard unimpeded. He thus had some
+seconds' start. Unfortunately for him as he was about to enter the passage
+at the back, a troop of boys and girls appeared, returning from vespers. On
+hearing the shouts of the detectives, they spread their arms in front of
+the fugitive, who gave two or three lurches and ended by falling.
+
+Cries of triumph were raised:
+
+"Lay hold of him! Stop him!" roared the detectives as they rushed forward.
+
+Renine, seeing that the game was up, ran after the others and called out:
+
+"Stop him!"
+
+He came up with them just as Dalbreque, after regaining his feet, knocked
+one of the policemen down and levelled his revolver. Renine snatched it out
+of his hands. But the two other detectives, startled, had also produced
+their weapons. They fired. Dalbreque, hit in the leg and the chest, pitched
+forward and fell.
+
+"Thank you, sir," said the inspector to Renine introducing himself. "We owe
+a lot to you."
+
+"It seems to me that you've done for the fellow," said Renine. "Who is he?"
+
+"One Dalbreque, a scoundrel for whom we were looking."
+
+Renine was beside himself. Hortense had joined him by this time; and he
+growled:
+
+"The silly fools! Now they've killed him!"
+
+"Oh, it isn't possible!"
+
+"We shall see. But, whether he's dead or alive, it's death to Rose Andree.
+How are we to trace her? And what chance have we of finding the place--some
+inaccessible retreat--where the poor thing is dying of misery and
+starvation?"
+
+The detectives and peasants had moved away, bearing Dalbreque with them on
+an improvised stretcher. Renine, who had at first followed them, in order
+to find out what was going to happen, changed his mind and was now standing
+with his eyes fixed on the ground. The fall of the bicycle had unfastened
+the parcel which Dalbreque had tied to the handle-bar; and the newspaper
+had burst, revealing its contents, a tin saucepan, rusty, dented, battered
+and useless.
+
+"What's the meaning of this?" he muttered. "What was the idea?..."
+
+He picked it up examined it. Then he gave a grin and a click of the tongue
+and chuckled, slowly:
+
+"Don't move an eyelash, my dear. Let all these people clear off. All this
+is no business of ours, is it? The troubles of police don't concern us. We
+are two motorists travelling for our pleasure and collecting old saucepans
+if we feel so inclined."
+
+He called his chauffeur:
+
+"Adolphe, take us to the Parc des Landes by a roundabout road."
+
+Half an hour later they reached the sunken track and began to scramble down
+it on foot beside the wooded slopes. The Seine, which was very low at this
+time of day, was lapping against a little jetty near which lay a
+worm-eaten, mouldering boat, full of puddles of water.
+
+Renine stepped into the boat and at once began to bale out the puddles with
+his saucepan. He then drew the boat alongside of the jetty, helped Hortense
+in and used the one oar which he shipped in a gap in the stern to work her
+into midstream:
+
+"I believe I'm there!" he said, with a laugh. "The worst that can happen
+to us is to get our feet wet, for our craft leaks a trifle. But haven't we
+a saucepan? Oh, blessings on that useful utensil! Almost as soon as I set
+eyes upon it, I remembered that people use those articles to bale out the
+bottoms of leaky boats. Why, there was bound to be a boat in the Landes
+woods! How was it I never thought of that? But of course Dalbreque made use
+of her to cross the Seine! And, as she made water, he brought a saucepan."
+
+"Then Rose Andree ...?" asked Hortense.
+
+"Is a prisoner on the other bank, on the Jumieges peninsula. You see the
+famous abbey from here."
+
+They ran aground on a beach of big pebbles covered with slime.
+
+"And it can't be very far away," he added. "Dalbreque did not spend the
+whole night running about."
+
+A tow-path followed the deserted bank. Another path led away from it. They
+chose the second and, passing between orchards enclosed by hedges, came to
+a landscape that seemed strangely familiar to them. Where had they seen
+that pool before, with the willows overhanging it? And where had they seen
+that abandoned hovel?
+
+Suddenly both of them stopped with one accord:
+
+"Oh!" said Hortense. "I can hardly believe my eyes!"
+
+Opposite them was the white gate of a large orchard, at the back of which,
+among groups of old, gnarled apple-trees, appeared a cottage with blue
+shutters, the cottage of the Happy Princess.
+
+"Of course!" cried Renine. "And I ought to have known it, considering
+that the film showed both this cottage and the forest close by. And isn't
+everything happening exactly as in _The Happy Princess_? Isn't
+Dalbreque dominated by the memory of it? The house, which is certainly the
+one in which Rose Andree spent the summer, was empty. He has shut her up
+there."
+
+"But the house, you told me, was in the Seine-inferieure."
+
+"Well, so are we! To the left of the river, the Eure and the forest of
+Brotonne; to the right, the Seine-inferieure. But between them is the
+obstacle of the river, which is why I didn't connect the two. A hundred and
+fifty yards of water form a more effective division than dozens of miles."
+
+The gate was locked. They got through the hedge a little lower down and
+walked towards the house, which was screened on one side by an old wall
+shaggy with ivy and roofed with thatch.
+
+"It seems as if there was somebody there," said Hortense. "Didn't I hear
+the sound of a window?"
+
+"Listen."
+
+Some one struck a few chords on a piano. Then a voice arose, a woman's
+voice softly and solemnly singing a ballad that thrilled with restrained
+passion. The woman's whole soul seemed to breathe itself into the melodious
+notes.
+
+They walked on. The wall concealed them from view, but they saw a
+sitting-room furnished with bright wall-paper and a blue Roman carpet. The
+throbbing voice ceased. The piano ended with a last chord; and the singer
+rose and appeared framed in the window.
+
+"Rose Andree!" whispered Hortense.
+
+"Well!" said Renine, admitting his astonishment. "This is the last thing
+that I expected! Rose Andree! Rose Andree at liberty! And singing Massenet
+in the sitting room of her cottage!"
+
+"What does it all mean? Do you understand?"
+
+"Yes, but it has taken me long enough! But how could we have guessed ...?"
+
+Although they had never seen her except on the screen, they had not the
+least doubt that this was she. It was really Rose Andree, or rather,
+the Happy Princess, whom they had admired a few days before, amidst the
+furniture of that very sitting-room or on the threshold of that very
+cottage. She was wearing the same dress; her hair was done in the same way;
+she had on the same bangles and necklaces as in _The Happy Princess_;
+and her lovely face, with its rosy cheeks and laughing eyes, bore the same
+look of joy and serenity.
+
+Some sound must have caught her ear, for she leant over towards a clump of
+shrubs beside the cottage and whispered into the silent garden:
+
+"Georges ... Georges ... Is that you, my darling?"
+
+Receiving no reply, she drew herself up and stood smiling at the happy
+thoughts that seemed to flood her being.
+
+But a door opened at the back of the room and an old peasant woman entered
+with a tray laden with bread, butter and milk:
+
+"Here, Rose, my pretty one, I've brought you your supper. Milk fresh from
+the cow...."
+
+And, putting down the tray, she continued:
+
+"Aren't you afraid, Rose, of the chill of the night air? Perhaps you're
+expecting your sweetheart?"
+
+"I haven't a sweetheart, my dear old Catherine."
+
+"What next!" said the old woman, laughing. "Only this morning there were
+footprints under the window that didn't look at all proper!"
+
+"A burglar's footprints perhaps, Catherine."
+
+"Well, I don't say they weren't, Rose dear, especially as in your calling
+you have a lot of people round you whom it's well to be careful of. For
+instance, your friend Dalbreque, eh? Nice goings on his are! You saw the
+paper yesterday. A fellow who has robbed and murdered people and carried
+off a woman at Le Havre ...!"
+
+Hortense and Renine would have much liked to know what Rose Andree thought
+of the revelations, but she had turned her back to them and was sitting at
+her supper; and the window was now closed, so that they could neither hear
+her reply nor see the expression of her features.
+
+They waited for a moment. Hortense was listening with an anxious face. But
+Renine began to laugh:
+
+"Very funny, really funny! And such an unexpected ending! And we who were
+hunting for her in some cave or damp cellar, a horrible tomb where the poor
+thing was dying of hunger! It's a fact, she knew the terrors of that first
+night of captivity; and I maintain that, on that first night, she was
+flung, half-dead, into the cave. Only, there you are: the next morning
+she was alive! One night was enough to tame the little rogue and to
+make Dalbreque as handsome as Prince Charming in her eyes! For see the
+difference. On the films or in novels, the Happy Princesses resist or
+commit suicide. But in real life ... oh, woman, woman!"
+
+"Yes," said Hortense, "but the man she loves is almost certainly dead."
+
+"And a good thing too! It would be the best solution. What would be the
+outcome of this criminal love for a thief and murderer?"
+
+A few minutes passed. Then, amid the peaceful silence of the waning day,
+mingled with the first shadows of the twilight, they again heard the
+grating of the window, which was cautiously opened. Rose Andree leant over
+the garden and waited, with her eyes turned to the wall, as though she saw
+something there.
+
+Presently, Renine shook the ivy-branches.
+
+"Ah!" she said. "This time I know you're there! Yes, the ivy's moving.
+Georges, Georges darling, why do you keep me waiting? Catherine has gone.
+I am all alone...."
+
+She had knelt down and was distractedly stretching out her shapely arms
+covered with bangles which clashed with a metallic sound:
+
+"Georges!... Georges!..."
+
+Her every movement, the thrill of her voice, her whole being expressed
+desire and love. Hortense, deeply touched, could not help saying:
+
+"How the poor thing loves him! If she but knew...."
+
+"Ah!" cried the girl. "You've spoken. You're there, and you want me to come
+to you, don't you? Here I am, Georges!..."
+
+She climbed over the window-ledge and began to run, while Renine went round
+the wall and advanced to meet her.
+
+She stopped short in front of him and stood choking at the sight of this
+man and woman whom she did not know and who were stepping out of the very
+shadow from which her beloved appeared to her each night.
+
+Renine bowed, gave his name and introduced his companion:
+
+"Madame Hortense Daniel, a pupil and friend of your mother's."
+
+Still motionless with stupefaction, her features drawn, she stammered:
+
+"You know who I am?... And you were there just now?... You heard what I
+was saying ...?"
+
+Renine, without hesitating or pausing in his speech, said:
+
+"You are Rose Andree, the Happy Princess. We saw you on the films the other
+evening; and circumstances led us to set out in search of you ... to Le
+Havre, where you were abducted on the day when you were to have left for
+America, and to the forest of Brotonne, where you were imprisoned."
+
+She protested eagerly, with a forced laugh:
+
+"What is all this? I have not been to Le Havre. I came straight here.
+Abducted? Imprisoned? What nonsense!"
+
+"Yes, imprisoned, in the same cave as the Happy Princess; and you broke off
+some branches to the right of the cave."
+
+"But how absurd! Who would have abducted me? I have no enemy."
+
+"There is a man in love with you: the one whom you were expecting just
+now."
+
+"Yes, my lover," she said, proudly. "Have I not the right to receive whom I
+like?"
+
+"You have the right; you are a free agent. But the man who comes to see you
+every evening is wanted by the police. His name is Georges Dalbreque. He
+killed Bourguet the jeweller."
+
+The accusation made her start with indignation and she exclaimed:
+
+"It's a lie! An infamous fabrication of the newspapers! Georges was in
+Paris on the night of the murder. He can prove it."
+
+"He stole a motor car and forty thousand francs in notes."
+
+She retorted vehemently:
+
+"The motor-car was taken back by his friends and the notes will be
+restored. He never touched them. My leaving for America had made him lose
+his head."
+
+"Very well. I am quite willing to believe everything that you say. But the
+police may show less faith in these statements and less indulgence."
+
+She became suddenly uneasy and faltered:
+
+"The police.... There's nothing to fear from them.... They won't know...."
+
+"Where to find him? I succeeded, at all events. He's working as a
+woodcutter, in the forest of Brotonne."
+
+"Yes, but ... you ... that was an accident ... whereas the police...."
+
+The words left her lips with the greatest difficulty. Her voice was
+trembling. And suddenly she rushed at Renine, stammering:
+
+"He is arrested?... I am sure of it!... And you have come to tell me....
+Arrested! Wounded! Dead perhaps?... Oh, please, please!..."
+
+She had no strength left. All her pride, all the certainty of her great
+love gave way to an immense despair and she sobbed out.
+
+"No, he's not dead, is he? No, I feel that he's not dead. Oh, sir, how
+unjust it all is! He's the gentlest man, the best that ever lived. He has
+changed my whole life. Everything is different since I began to love him.
+And I love him so! I love him! I want to go to him. Take me to him. I want
+them to arrest me too. I love him.... I could not live without him...."
+
+An impulse of sympathy made Hortense put her arms around the girl's neck
+and say warmly:
+
+"Yes, come. He is not dead, I am sure, only wounded; and Prince Renine will
+save him. You will, won't you, Renine?... Come. Make up a story for your
+servant: say that you're going somewhere by train and that she is not to
+tell anybody. Be quick. Put on a wrap. We will save him, I swear we will."
+
+Rose Andree went indoors and returned almost at once, disguised beyond
+recognition in a long cloak and a veil that shrouded her face; and they all
+took the road back to Routot. At the inn, Rose Andree passed as a friend
+whom they had been to fetch in the neighbourhood and were taking to Paris
+with them. Renine ran out to make enquiries and came back to the two women.
+
+"It's all right. Dalbreque is alive. They have put him to bed in a private
+room at the mayor's offices. He has a broken leg and a rather high
+temperature; but all the same they expect to move him to Rouen to-morrow
+and they have telephoned there for a motor-car."
+
+"And then?" asked Rose Andree, anxiously.
+
+Renine smiled:
+
+"Why, then we shall leave at daybreak. We shall take up our positions in a
+sunken road, rifle in hand, attack the motor-coach and carry off Georges!"
+
+"Oh, don't laugh!" she said, plaintively. "I am so unhappy!"
+
+But the adventure seemed to amuse Renine; and, when he was alone with
+Hortense, he exclaimed:
+
+"You see what comes of preferring dishonour to death! But hang it all, who
+could have expected this? It isn't a bit the way in which things happen
+in the pictures! Once the man of the woods had carried off his victim and
+considering that for three weeks there was no one to defend her, how could
+we imagine--we who had been proceeding all along under the influence of
+the pictures--that in the space of a few hours the victim would become a
+princess in love? Confound that Georges! I now understand the sly, humorous
+look which I surprised on his mobile features! He remembered, Georges did,
+and he didn't care a hang for me! Oh, he tricked me nicely! And you, my
+dear, he tricked you too! And it was all the influence of the film. They
+show us, at the cinema, a brute beast, a sort of long-haired, ape-faced
+savage. What can a man like that be in real life? A brute, inevitably,
+don't you agree? Well, he's nothing of the kind; he's a Don Juan! The
+humbug!"
+
+"You will save him, won't you?" said Hortense, in a beseeching tone.
+
+"Are you very anxious that I should?"
+
+"Very."
+
+"In that case, promise to give me your hand to kiss."
+
+"You can have both hands, Renine, and gladly."
+
+The night was uneventful. Renine had given orders for the two ladies to
+be waked at an early hour. When they came down, the motor was leaving the
+yard and pulling up in front of the inn. It was raining; and Adolphe, the
+chauffeur, had fixed up the long, low hood and packed the luggage inside.
+
+Renine called for his bill. They all three took a cup of coffee. But, just
+as they were leaving the room, one of the inspector's men came rushing in:
+
+"Have you seen him?" he asked. "Isn't he here?"
+
+The inspector himself arrived at a run, greatly excited:
+
+"The prisoner has escaped! He ran back through the inn! He can't be far
+away!"
+
+A dozen rustics appeared like a whirlwind. They ransacked the lofts, the
+stables, the sheds. They scattered over the neighbourhood. But the search
+led to no discovery.
+
+"Oh, hang it all!" said Renine, who had taken his part in the hunt. "How
+can it have happened?"
+
+"How do I know?" spluttered the inspector in despair. "I left my three men
+watching in the next room. I found them this morning fast asleep, stupefied
+by some narcotic which had been mixed with their wine! And the Dalbreque
+bird had flown!"
+
+"Which way?"
+
+"Through the window. There were evidently accomplices, with ropes and a
+ladder. And, as Dalbreque had a broken leg, they carried him off on the
+stretcher itself."
+
+"They left no traces?"
+
+"No traces of footsteps, true. The rain has messed everything up. But they
+went through the yard, because the stretcher's there."
+
+"You'll find him, Mr. Inspector, there's no doubt of that. In any case, you
+may be sure that you won't have any trouble over the affair. I shall be in
+Paris this evening and shall go straight to the prefecture, where I have
+influential friends."
+
+Renine went back to the two women in the coffee-room and Hortense at once
+said:
+
+"It was you who carried him off, wasn't it? Please put Rose Andree's mind
+at rest. She is so terrified!"
+
+He gave Rose Andree his arm and led her to the car. She was staggering and
+very pale; and she said, in a faint voice:
+
+"Are we going? And he: is he safe? Won't they catch him again?"
+
+Looking deep into her eyes, he said:
+
+"Swear to me, Rose Andree, that in two months, when he is well and when
+I have proved his innocence, swear that you will go away with him to
+America."
+
+"I swear."
+
+"And that, once there, you will marry him."
+
+"I swear."
+
+He spoke a few words in her ear.
+
+"Ah!" she said. "May Heaven bless you for it!"
+
+Hortense took her seat in front, with Renine, who sat at the wheel. The
+inspector, hat in hand, fussed around the car until it moved off.
+
+They drove through the forest, crossed the Seine at La Mailleraie and
+struck into the Havre-Rouen road.
+
+"Take off your glove and give me your hand to kiss," Renine ordered. "You
+promised that you would."
+
+"Oh!" said Hortense. "But it was to be when Dalbreque was saved."
+
+"He is saved."
+
+"Not yet. The police are after him. They may catch him again. He will not
+be really saved until he is with Rose Andree."
+
+"He is with Rose Andree," he declared.
+
+"What do you mean?"
+
+"Turn round."
+
+She did so.
+
+In the shadow of the hood, right at the back, behind the chauffeur, Rose
+Andree was kneeling beside a man lying on the seat.
+
+"Oh," stammered Hortense, "it's incredible! Then it was you who hid him
+last night? And he was there, in front of the inn, when the inspector was
+seeing us off?"
+
+"Lord, yes! He was there, under the cushions and rugs!"
+
+"It's incredible!" she repeated, utterly bewildered. "It's incredible! How
+were you able to manage it all?"
+
+"I wanted to kiss your hand," he said.
+
+She removed her glove, as he bade her, and raised her hand to his lips.
+
+The car was speeding between the peaceful Seine and the white cliffs that
+border it. They sat silent for a long while. Then he said:
+
+"I had a talk with Dalbreque last night. He's a fine fellow and is ready
+to do anything for Rose Andree. He's right. A man must do anything for
+the woman he loves. He must devote himself to her, offer her all that is
+beautiful in this world: joy and happiness ... and, if she should be bored,
+stirring adventures to distract her, to excite her and to make her smile
+... or even weep."
+
+Hortense shivered; and her eyes were not quite free from tears. For the
+first time he was alluding to the sentimental adventure that bound them by
+a tie which as yet was frail, but which became stronger and more enduring
+with each of the ventures on which they entered together, pursuing them
+feverishly and anxiously to their close. Already she felt powerless and
+uneasy with this extraordinary man, who subjected events to his will and
+seemed to play with the destinies of those whom he fought or protected. He
+filled her with dread and at the same time he attracted her. She thought of
+him sometimes as her master, sometimes as an enemy against whom she must
+defend herself, but oftenest as a perturbing friend, full of charm and
+fascination....
+
+
+
+
+V
+
+THERESE AND GERMAINE
+
+
+The weather was so mild that autumn that, on the 12th of October, in the
+morning, several families still lingering in their villas at Etretat had
+gone down to the beach. The sea, lying between the cliffs and the clouds on
+the horizon, might have suggested a mountain-lake slumbering in the hollow
+of the enclosing rocks, were it not for that crispness in the air and those
+pale, soft and indefinite colours in the sky which give a special charm to
+certain days in Normandy.
+
+"It's delicious," murmured Hortense. But the next moment she added: "All
+the same, we did not come here to enjoy the spectacle of nature or to
+wonder whether that huge stone Needle on our left was really at one time
+the home of Arsene Lupin."
+
+"We came here," said Prince Renine, "because of the conversation which I
+overheard, a fortnight ago, in a dining-car, between a man and a woman."
+
+"A conversation of which I was unable to catch a single word."
+
+"If those two people could have guessed for an instant that it was possible
+to hear a single word of what they were saying, they would not have spoken,
+for their conversation was one of extraordinary gravity and importance. But
+I have very sharp ears; and though I could not follow every sentence, I
+insist that we may be certain of two things. First, that man and woman, who
+are brother and sister, have an appointment at a quarter to twelve this
+morning, the 12th of October, at the spot known as the Trois Mathildes,
+with a third person, who is married and who wishes at all costs to recover
+his or her liberty. Secondly, this appointment, at which they will come
+to a final agreement, is to be followed this evening by a walk along the
+cliffs, when the third person will bring with him or her the man or woman,
+I can't definitely say which, whom they want to get rid of. That is the
+gist of the whole thing. Now, as I know a spot called the Trois Mathildes
+some way above Etretat and as this is not an everyday name, we came down
+yesterday to thwart the plan of these objectionable persons."
+
+"What plan?" asked Hortense. "For, after all, it's only your assumption
+that there's to be a victim and that the victim is to be flung off the
+top of the cliffs. You yourself told me that you heard no allusion to a
+possible murder."
+
+"That is so. But I heard some very plain words relating to the marriage of
+the brother or the sister with the wife or the husband of the third person,
+which implies the need for a crime."
+
+They were sitting on the terrace of the casino, facing the stairs which run
+down to the beach. They therefore overlooked the few privately-owned cabins
+on the shingle, where a party of four men were playing bridge, while a
+group of ladies sat talking and knitting.
+
+A short distance away and nearer to the sea was another cabin, standing by
+itself and closed.
+
+Half-a-dozen bare-legged children were paddling in the water.
+
+"No," said Hortense, "all this autumnal sweetness and charm fails to
+attract me. I have so much faith in all your theories that I can't help
+thinking, in spite of everything, of this dreadful problem. Which of those
+people yonder is threatened? Death has already selected its victim. Who is
+it? Is it that young, fair-haired woman, rocking herself and laughing? Is
+it that tall man over there, smoking his cigar? And which of them has the
+thought of murder hidden in his heart? All the people we see are quietly
+enjoying themselves. Yet death is prowling among them."
+
+"Capital!" said Renine. "You too are becoming enthusiastic. What did I tell
+you? The whole of life's an adventure; and nothing but adventure is worth
+while. At the first breath of coming events, there you are, quivering in
+every nerve. You share in all the tragedies stirring around you; and the
+feeling of mystery awakens in the depths of your being. See, how closely
+you are observing that couple who have just arrived. You never can tell:
+that may be the gentleman who proposes to do away with his wife? Or perhaps
+the lady contemplates making away with her husband?"
+
+"The d'Ormevals? Never! A perfectly happy couple! Yesterday, at the hotel,
+I had a long talk with the wife. And you yourself...."
+
+"Oh, I played a round of golf with Jacques d'Ormeval, who rather fancies
+himself as an athlete, and I played at dolls with their two charming little
+girls!"
+
+The d'Ormevals came up and exchanged a few words with them. Madame
+d'Ormeval said that her two daughters had gone back to Paris that morning
+with their governess. Her husband, a great tall fellow with a yellow beard,
+carrying his blazer over his arm and puffing out his chest under a cellular
+shirt, complained of the heat:
+
+"Have you the key of the cabin, Therese?" he asked his wife, when they had
+left Renine and Hortense and stopped at the top of the stairs, a few yards
+away.
+
+"Here it is," said the wife. "Are you going to read your papers?"
+
+"Yes. Unless we go for a stroll?..."
+
+"I had rather wait till the afternoon: do you mind? I have a lot of letters
+to write this morning."
+
+"Very well. We'll go on the cliff."
+
+Hortense and Renine exchanged a glance of surprise. Was this suggestion
+accidental? Or had they before them, contrary to their expectations, the
+very couple of whom they were in search?
+
+Hortense tried to laugh:
+
+"My heart is thumping," she said. "Nevertheless, I absolutely refuse to
+believe in anything so improbable. 'My husband and I have never had the
+slightest quarrel,' she said to me. No, it's quite clear that those two get
+on admirably."
+
+"We shall see presently, at the Trois Mathildes, if one of them comes to
+meet the brother and sister."
+
+M. d'Ormeval had gone down the stairs, while his wife stood leaning on the
+balustrade of the terrace. She had a beautiful, slender, supple figure. Her
+clear-cut profile was emphasized by a rather too prominent chin when at
+rest; and, when it was not smiling, the face gave an expression of sadness
+and suffering.
+
+"Have you lost something, Jacques?" she called out to her husband, who was
+stooping over the shingle.
+
+"Yes, the key," he said. "It slipped out of my hand."
+
+She went down to him and began to look also. For two or three minutes,
+as they sheered off to the right and remained close to the bottom of the
+under-cliff, they were invisible to Hortense and Renine. Their voices were
+covered by the noise of a dispute which had arisen among the
+bridge-players.
+
+They reappeared almost simultaneously. Madame d'Ormeval slowly climbed a
+few steps of the stairs and then stopped and turned her face towards the
+sea. Her husband had thrown his blazer over his shoulders and was making
+for the isolated cabin. As he passed the bridge-players, they asked him for
+a decision, pointing to their cards spread out upon the table. But, with a
+wave of the hand, he refused to give an opinion and walked on, covered the
+thirty yards which divided them from the cabin, opened the door and went
+in.
+
+Therese d'Ormeval came back to the terrace and remained for ten minutes
+sitting on a bench. Then she came out through the casino. Hortense, on
+leaning forward, saw her entering one of the chalets annexed to the Hotel
+Hauville and, a moment later, caught sight of her again on the balcony.
+
+"Eleven o'clock," said Renine. "Whoever it is, he or she, or one of the
+card-players, or one of their wives, it won't be long before some one goes
+to the appointed place."
+
+Nevertheless, twenty minutes passed and twenty-five; and no one stirred.
+
+"Perhaps Madame d'Ormeval has gone." Hortense suggested, anxiously. "She is
+no longer on her balcony."
+
+"If she is at the Trois Mathildes," said Renine, "we will go and catch her
+there."
+
+He was rising to his feet, when a fresh discussion broke out among the
+bridge-players and one of them exclaimed:
+
+"Let's put it to d'Ormeval."
+
+"Very well," said his adversary. "I'll accept his decision ... if he
+consents to act as umpire. He was rather huffy just now."
+
+They called out:
+
+"D'Ormeval! D'Ormeval!"
+
+They then saw that d'Ormeval must have shut the door behind him, which kept
+him in the half dark, the cabin being one of the sort that has no window.
+
+"He's asleep," cried one. "Let's wake him up."
+
+All four went to the cabin, began by calling to him and, on receiving no
+answer, thumped on the door:
+
+"Hi! D'Ormeval! Are you asleep?"
+
+On the terrace Serge Renine suddenly leapt to his feet with so uneasy an
+air that Hortense was astonished. He muttered:
+
+"If only it's not too late!"
+
+And, when Hortense asked him what he meant, he tore down the steps and
+started running to the cabin. He reached it just as the bridge-players were
+trying to break in the door:
+
+"Stop!" he ordered. "Things must be done in the regular fashion."
+
+"What things?" they asked.
+
+He examined the Venetian shutters at the top of each of the folding-doors
+and, on finding that one of the upper slats was partly broken, hung on as
+best he could to the roof of the cabin and cast a glance inside. Then he
+said to the four men:
+
+"I was right in thinking that, if M. d'Ormeval did not reply, he must have
+been prevented by some serious cause. There is every reason to believe that
+M. d'Ormeval is wounded ... or dead."
+
+"Dead!" they cried. "What do you mean? He has only just left us."
+
+Renine took out his knife, prized open the lock and pulled back the two
+doors.
+
+There were shouts of dismay. M. d'Ormeval was lying flat on his face,
+clutching his jacket and his newspaper in his hands. Blood was flowing
+from his back and staining his shirt.
+
+"Oh!" said some one. "He has killed himself!"
+
+"How can he have killed himself?" said Renine. "The wound is right in the
+middle of the back, at a place which the hand can't reach. And, besides,
+there's not a knife in the cabin."
+
+The others protested:
+
+"If so, he has been murdered. But that's impossible! There has been nobody
+here. We should have seen, if there had been. Nobody could have passed us
+without our seeing...."
+
+The other men, all the ladies and the children paddling in the sea had come
+running up. Renine allowed no one to enter the cabin, except a doctor who
+was present. But the doctor could only say that M. d'Ormeval was dead,
+stabbed with a dagger.
+
+At that moment, the mayor and the policeman arrived, together with some
+people of the village. After the usual enquiries, they carried away the
+body.
+
+A few persons went on ahead to break the news to Therese d'Ormeval, who was
+once more to be seen on her balcony.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+And so the tragedy had taken place without any clue to explain how a man,
+protected by a closed door with an uninjured lock, could have been murdered
+in the space of a few minutes and in front of twenty witnesses, one might
+almost say, twenty spectators. No one had entered the cabin. No one had
+come out of it. As for the dagger with which M. d'Ormeval had been stabbed
+between the shoulders, it could not be traced. And all this would have
+suggested the idea of a trick of sleight-of-hand performed by a clever
+conjuror, had it not concerned a terrible murder, committed under the most
+mysterious conditions.
+
+Hortense was unable to follow, as Renine would have liked, the small party
+who were making for Madame d'Ormeval; she was paralysed with excitement and
+incapable of moving. It was the first time that her adventures with Renine
+had taken her into the very heart of the action and that, instead of noting
+the consequences of a murder, or assisting in the pursuit of the criminals,
+she found herself confronted with the murder itself.
+
+It left her trembling all over; and she stammered: "How horrible!... The
+poor fellow!... Ah, Renine, you couldn't save him this time!... And that's
+what upsets me more than anything, that we could and should have saved him,
+since we knew of the plot...."
+
+Renine made her sniff at a bottle of salts; and when she had quite
+recovered her composure, he said, while observing her attentively:
+
+"So you think that there is some connection between the murder and the
+plot which we were trying to frustrate?"
+
+"Certainly," said she, astonished at the question.
+
+"Then, as that plot was hatched by a husband against his wife or by a wife
+against her husband, you admit that Madame d'Ormeval ...?"
+
+"Oh, no, impossible!" she said. "To begin with, Madame d'Ormeval did not
+leave her rooms ... and then I shall never believe that pretty woman
+capable.... No, no, of course there was something else...."
+
+"What else?"
+
+"I don't know.... You may have misunderstood what the brother and sister
+were saying to each other.... You see, the murder has been committed under
+quite different conditions ... at another hour and another place...."
+
+"And therefore," concluded Renine, "the two cases are not in any way
+related?"
+
+"Oh," she said, "there's no making it out! It's all so strange!"
+
+Renine became a little satirical:
+
+"My pupil is doing me no credit to-day," he said. "Why, here is a perfectly
+simple story, unfolded before your eyes. You have seen it reeled off like
+a scene in the cinema; and it all remains as obscure to you as though you
+were hearing of an affair that happened in a cave a hundred miles away!"
+
+Hortense was confounded:
+
+"What are you saying? Do you mean that you have understood it? What clues
+have you to go by?"
+
+Renine looked at his watch:
+
+"I have not understood everything," he said. "The murder itself, the mere
+brutal murder, yes. But the essential thing, that is to say, the psychology
+of the crime: I've no clue to that. Only, it is twelve o'clock. The brother
+and sister, seeing no one come to the appointment at the Trois Mathildes,
+will go down to the beach. Don't you think that we shall learn something
+then of the accomplice whom I accuse them of having and of the connection
+between the two cases?"
+
+They reached the esplanade in front of the Hauville chalets, with the
+capstans by which the fishermen haul up their boats to the beach. A number
+of inquisitive persons were standing outside the door of one of the
+chalets. Two coastguards, posted at the door, prevented them from entering.
+
+The mayor shouldered his way eagerly through the crowd. He was back from
+the post-office, where he had been telephoning to Le Havre, to the office
+of the procurator-general, and had been told that the public prosecutor
+and an examining-magistrate would come on to Etretat in the course of the
+afternoon.
+
+"That leaves us plenty of time for lunch," said Renine. "The tragedy will
+not be enacted before two or three o'clock. And I have an idea that it will
+be sensational."
+
+They hurried nevertheless. Hortense, overwrought by fatigue and her desire
+to know what was happening, continually questioned Renine, who replied
+evasively, with his eyes turned to the esplanade, which they could see
+through the windows of the coffee-room.
+
+"Are you watching for those two?" asked Hortense.
+
+"Yes, the brother and sister."
+
+"Are you sure that they will venture?..."
+
+"Look out! Here they come!"
+
+He went out quickly.
+
+Where the main street opened on the sea-front, a lady and gentleman were
+advancing with hesitating steps, as though unfamiliar with the place. The
+brother was a puny little man, with a sallow complexion. He was wearing a
+motoring-cap. The sister too was short, but rather stout, and was wrapped
+in a large cloak. She struck them as a woman of a certain age, but still
+good-looking under the thin veil that covered her face.
+
+They saw the groups of bystanders and drew nearer. Their gait betrayed
+uneasiness and hesitation.
+
+The sister asked a question of a seaman. At the first words of his answer,
+which no doubt conveyed the news of d'Ormeval's death, she uttered a cry
+and tried to force her way through the crowd. The brother, learning in his
+turn what had happened, made great play with his elbows and shouted to the
+coast-guards:
+
+"I'm a friend of d'Ormeval's!... Here's my card! Frederic Astaing.... My
+sister, Germaine Astaing, knows Madame d'Ormeval intimately!... They were
+expecting us.... We had an appointment!..."
+
+They were allowed to pass. Renine, who had slipped behind them, followed
+them in without a word, accompanied by Hortense.
+
+The d'Ormevals had four bedrooms and a sitting-room on the second floor.
+The sister rushed into one of the rooms and threw herself on her knees
+beside the bed on which the corpse lay stretched. Therese d'Ormeval was in
+the sitting-room and was sobbing in the midst of a small company of silent
+persons. The brother sat down beside her, eagerly seized her hands and
+said, in a trembling voice:
+
+"My poor friend!... My poor friend!..."
+
+Renine and Hortense gazed at the pair of them: and Hortense whispered:
+
+"And she's supposed to have killed him for that? Impossible!"
+
+"Nevertheless," observed Renine, "they are acquaintances; and we know that
+Astaing and his sister were also acquainted with a third person who was
+their accomplice. So that...."
+
+"It's impossible!" Hortense repeated.
+
+And, in spite of all presumption, she felt so much attracted by Therese
+that, when Frederic Astaing stood up, she proceeded straightway to sit down
+beside her and consoled her in a gentle voice. The unhappy woman's tears
+distressed her profoundly.
+
+Renine, on the other hand, applied himself from the outset to watching
+the brother and sister, as though this were the only thing that mattered,
+and did not take his eyes off Frederic Astaing, who, with an air of
+indifference, began to make a minute inspection of the premises, examining
+the sitting-room, going into all the bedrooms, mingling with the various
+groups of persons present and asking questions about the manner in which
+the murder had been committed. Twice his sister came up and spoke to him.
+Then he went back to Madame d'Ormeval and again sat down beside her, full
+of earnest sympathy. Lastly, in the lobby, he had a long conversation with
+his sister, after which they parted, like people who have come to a perfect
+understanding. Frederic then left. These manoeuvers had lasted quite thirty
+or forty minutes.
+
+It was at this moment that the motor-car containing the
+examining-magistrate and the public prosecutor pulled up outside the
+chalets. Renine, who did not expect them until later, said to Hortense:
+
+"We must be quick. On no account leave Madame d'Ormeval."
+
+Word was sent up to the persons whose evidence might be of any service
+that they were to go to the beach, where the magistrate was beginning a
+preliminary investigation. He would call on Madame d'Ormeval afterwards.
+Accordingly, all who were present left the chalet. No one remained behind
+except the two guards and Germaine Astaing.
+
+Germaine knelt down for the last time beside the dead man and, bending low,
+with her face in her hands, prayed for a long time. Then she rose and was
+opening the door on the landing, when Renine came forward:
+
+"I should like a few words with you, madame."
+
+She seemed surprised and replied:
+
+"What is it, monsieur? I am listening."
+
+"Not here."
+
+"Where then, monsieur?"
+
+"Next door, in the sitting-room."
+
+"No," she said, sharply.
+
+"Why not? Though you did not even shake hands with her, I presume that
+Madame d'Ormeval is your friend?"
+
+He gave her no time to reflect, drew her into the next room, closed the
+door and, at once pouncing upon Madame d'Ormeval, who was trying to go out
+and return to her own room, said:
+
+"No, madame, listen, I implore you. Madame Astaing's presence need not
+drive you away. We have very serious matters to discuss, without losing a
+minute."
+
+The two women, standing face to face, were looking at each other with the
+same expression of implacable hatred, in which might be read the same
+confusion of spirit and the same restrained anger. Hortense, who believed
+them to be friends and who might, up to a certain point, have believed them
+to be accomplices, foresaw with terror the hostile encounter which she felt
+to be inevitable. She compelled Madame d'Ormeval to resume her seat, while
+Renine took up his position in the middle of the room and spoke in resolute
+tones:
+
+"Chance, which has placed me in possession of part of the truth, will
+enable me to save you both, if you are willing to assist me with a frank
+explanation that will give me the particulars which I still need. Each of
+you knows the danger in which she stands, because each of you is conscious
+in her heart of the evil for which she is responsible. But you are
+carried away by hatred; and it is for me to see clearly and to act. The
+examining-magistrate will be here in half-an-hour. By that time, you must
+have come to an agreement."
+
+They both started, as though offended by such a word.
+
+"Yes, an agreement," he repeated, in a more imperious tone. "Whether you
+like it or not, you will come to an agreement. You are not the only ones to
+be considered. There are your two little daughters, Madame d'Ormeval. Since
+circumstances have set me in their path, I am intervening in their defence
+and for their safety. A blunder, a word too much; and they are ruined. That
+must not happen."
+
+At the mention of her children, Madame d'Ormeval broke down and sobbed.
+Germaine Astaing shrugged her shoulders and made a movement towards the
+door. Renine once more blocked the way:
+
+"Where are you going?"
+
+"I have been summoned by the examining-magistrate."
+
+"No, you have not."
+
+"Yes, I have. Just as all those have been who have any evidence to give."
+
+"You were not on the spot. You know nothing of what happened. Nobody knows
+anything of the murder."
+
+"I know who committed it."
+
+"That's impossible."
+
+"It was Therese d'Ormeval."
+
+The accusation was hurled forth in an outburst of rage and with a fiercely
+threatening gesture.
+
+"You wretched creature!" exclaimed madame d'Ormeval, rushing at her. "Go!
+Leave the room! Oh, what a wretch the woman is!"
+
+Hortense was trying to restrain her, but Renine whispered:
+
+"Let them be. It's what I wanted ... to pitch them one against the other
+and so to let in the day-light."
+
+Madame Astaing had made a convulsive effort to ward off the insult with a
+jest; and she sniggered:
+
+"A wretched creature? Why? Because I have accused you?"
+
+"Why? For every reason! You're a wretched creature! You hear what I say,
+Germaine: you're a wretch!"
+
+Therese d'Ormeval was repeating the insult as though it afforded her some
+relief. Her anger was abating. Very likely also she no longer had the
+strength to keep up the struggle; and it was Madame Astaing who returned
+to the attack, with her fists clenched and her face distorted and suddenly
+aged by fully twenty years:
+
+"You! You dare to insult me, you! You after the murder you have committed!
+You dare to lift up your head when the man whom you killed is lying in
+there on his death-bed! Ah, if one of us is a wretched creature, it's you,
+Therese, and you know it! You have killed your husband! You have killed
+your husband!"
+
+She leapt forward, in the excitement of the terrible words which she was
+uttering; and her finger-nails were almost touching her friend's face.
+
+"Oh, don't tell me you didn't kill him!" she cried. "Don't say
+that: I won't let you. Don't say it. The dagger is there, in your
+bag. My brother felt it, while he was talking to you; and his hand
+came out with stains of blood upon it: your husband's blood, Therese. And
+then, even if I had not discovered anything, do you think that I should not
+have guessed, in the first few minutes? Why, I knew the truth at once,
+Therese! When a sailor down there answered, 'M. d'Ormeval? He has been
+murdered,' I said to myself then and there, 'It's she, it's Therese, she
+killed him.'"
+
+Therese did not reply. She had abandoned her attitude of protest. Hortense,
+who was watching her with anguish, thought that she could perceive in her
+the despondency of those who know themselves to be lost. Her cheeks had
+fallen in and she wore such an expression of despair that Hortense, moved
+to compassion, implored her to defend herself:
+
+"Please, please, explain things. When the murder was committed, you were
+here, on the balcony.... But then the dagger ... how did you come to have
+it ...? How do you explain it?..."
+
+"Explanations!" sneered Germaine Astaing. "How could she possibly explain?
+What do outward appearances matter? What does it matter what any one saw
+or did not see? The proof is the thing that tells.... The dagger is there,
+in your bag, Therese: that's a fact.... Yes, yes, it was you who did it!
+You killed him! You killed him in the end!... Ah, how often I've told my
+brother, 'She will kill him yet!' Frederic used to try to defend you. He
+always had a weakness for you. But in his innermost heart he foresaw what
+would happen.... And now the horrible thing has been done. A stab in the
+back! Coward! Coward!... And you would have me say nothing? Why, I didn't
+hesitate a moment! Nor did Frederic. We looked for proofs at once.... And
+I've denounced you of my own free will, perfectly well aware of what I was
+doing.... And it's over, Therese. You're done for. Nothing can save you
+now. The dagger is in that bag which you are clutching in your hand. The
+magistrate is coming; and the dagger will be found, stained with the blood
+of your husband. So will your pocket-book. They're both there. And they
+will be found...."
+
+Her rage had incensed her so vehemently that she was unable to continue and
+stood with her hand outstretched and her chin twitching with nervous
+tremors.
+
+Renine gently took hold of Madame d'Ormeval's bag. She clung to it, but he
+insisted and said:
+
+"Please allow me, madame. Your friend Germaine is right. The
+examining-magistrate will be here presently; and the fact that the dagger
+and the pocket-book are in your possession will lead to your immediate
+arrest. This must not happen. Please allow me."
+
+His insinuating voice diminished Therese d'Ormeval's resistance. She
+released her fingers, one by one. He took the bag, opened it, produced
+a little dagger with an ebony handle and a grey leather pocket-book and
+quietly slipped the two into the inside pocket of his jacket.
+
+Germaine Astaing gazed at him in amazement: "You're mad, monsieur! What
+right have you ...?"
+
+"These things must not be left lying about. I sha'n't worry now. The
+magistrate will never look for them in my pocket."
+
+"But I shall denounce you to the police," she exclaimed, indignantly.
+"They shall be told!"
+
+"No, no," he said, laughing, "you won't say anything! The police have
+nothing to do with this. The quarrel between you must be settled in
+private. What an idea, to go dragging the police into every incident of
+one's life!"
+
+Madame Astaing was choking with fury:
+
+"But you have no right to talk like this, monsieur! Who are you, after all?
+A friend of that woman's?"
+
+"Since you have been attacking her, yes."
+
+"But I'm only attacking her because she's guilty. For you can't deny it:
+she has killed her husband."
+
+"I don't deny it," said Renine, calmly. "We are all agreed on that point.
+Jacques d'Ormeval was killed by his wife. But, I repeat, the police must
+not know the truth."
+
+"They shall know it through me, monsieur, I swear they shall. That woman
+must be punished: she has committed murder."
+
+Renine went up to her and, touching her on the shoulder:
+
+"You asked me just now by what right I was interfering. And you yourself,
+madame?"
+
+"I was a friend of Jacques d'Ormeval."
+
+"Only a friend?"
+
+She was a little taken aback, but at once pulled herself together and
+replied:
+
+"I was his friend and it is my duty to avenge his death."
+
+"Nevertheless, you will remain silent, as he did."
+
+"He did not know, when he died."
+
+"That's where you are wrong. He could have accused his wife, if he had
+wished. He had ample time to accuse her; and he said nothing."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Because of his children."
+
+Madame Astaing was not appeased; and her attitude displayed the same
+longing for revenge and the same detestation. But she was influenced by
+Renine in spite of herself. In the small, closed room, where there was
+such a clash of hatred, he was gradually becoming the master; and Germaine
+Astaing understood that it was against him that she had to struggle, while
+Madame d'Ormeval felt all the comfort of that unexpected support which was
+offering itself on the brink of the abyss:
+
+"Thank you, monsieur," she said. "As you have seen all this so clearly, you
+also know that it was for my children's sake that I did not give myself up.
+But for that ... I am so tired ...!"
+
+And so the scene was changing and things assuming a different aspect.
+Thanks to a few words let fall in the midst of the dispute, the culprit was
+lifting her head and taking heart, whereas her accuser was hesitating and
+seemed to be uneasy. And it also came about that the accuser dared not say
+anything further and that the culprit was nearing the moment at which the
+need is felt of breaking silence and of speaking, quite naturally, words
+that are at once a confession and a relief.
+
+"The time, I think, has come," said Renine to Therese, with the same
+unvarying gentleness, "when you can and ought to explain yourself."
+
+She was again weeping, lying huddled in a chair. She too revealed a face
+aged and ravaged by sorrow; and, in a very low voice, with no display of
+anger, she spoke, in short, broken sentences:
+
+"She has been his mistress for the last four years.... I can't tell you how
+I suffered.... She herself told me of it ... out of sheer wickedness ...
+Her loathing for me was even greater than her love for Jacques ... and
+every day I had some fresh injury to bear ... She would ring me up to tell
+me of her appointments with my husband ... she hoped to make me suffer so
+much I should end by killing myself.... I did think of it sometimes, but I
+held out, for the children's sake ... Jacques was weakening. She wanted him
+to get a divorce ... and little by little he began to consent ... dominated
+by her and by her brother, who is slyer than she is, but quite as dangerous
+... I felt all this ... Jacques was becoming harsh to me.... He had not the
+courage to leave me, but I was the obstacle and he bore me a grudge....
+Heavens, the tortures I suffered!..."
+
+"You should have given him his liberty," cried Germaine Astaing. "A woman
+doesn't kill her husband for wanting a divorce."
+
+Therese shook her head and answered:
+
+"I did not kill him because he wanted a divorce. If he had really wanted
+it, he would have left me; and what could I have done? But your plans had
+changed, Germaine; divorce was not enough for you; and it was something
+else that you would have obtained from him, another, much more serious
+thing which you and your brother had insisted on ... and to which he had
+consented ... out of cowardice ... in spite of himself...."
+
+"What do you mean?" spluttered Germaine. "What other thing?"
+
+"My death."
+
+"You lie!" cried Madame Astaing.
+
+Therese did not raise her voice. She made not a movement of aversion or
+indignation and simply repeated:
+
+"My death, Germaine. I have read your latest letters, six letters from you
+which he was foolish enough to leave about in his pocket-book and which I
+read last night, six letters in which the terrible word is not set down,
+but in which it appears between every line. I trembled as I read it! That
+Jacques should come to this!... Nevertheless the idea of stabbing him did
+not occur to me for a second. A woman like myself, Germaine, does not
+readily commit murder.... If I lost my head, it was after that ... and it
+was your fault...."
+
+She turned her eyes to Renine as if to ask him if there was no danger in
+her speaking and revealing the truth.
+
+"Don't be afraid," he said. "I will be answerable for everything."
+
+She drew her hand across her forehead. The horrible scene was being
+reenacted within her and was torturing her. Germaine Astaing did not move,
+but stood with folded arms and anxious eyes, while Hortense Daniel sat
+distractedly awaiting the confession of the crime and the explanation of
+the unfathomable mystery.
+
+"It was after that and it was through your fault Germaine ... I had put
+back the pocket-book in the drawer where it was hidden; and I said nothing
+to Jacques this morning ... I did not want to tell him what I knew....
+It was too horrible.... All the same, I had to act quickly; your letters
+announced your secret arrival to-day.... I thought at first of running
+away, of taking the train.... I had mechanically picked up that dagger,
+to defend myself.... But when Jacques and I went down to the beach, I was
+resigned.... Yes, I had accepted death: 'I will die,' I thought, 'and put
+an end to all this nightmare!'... Only, for the children's sake, I was
+anxious that my death should look like an accident and that Jacques should
+have no part in it. That was why your plan of a walk on the cliff suited
+me.... A fall from the top of a cliff seems quite natural ... Jacques
+therefore left me to go to his cabin, from which he was to join you later
+at the Trois Mathildes. On the way, below the terrace, he dropped the key
+of the cabin. I went down and began to look for it with him ... And it
+happened then ... through your fault ... yes, Germaine, through your fault
+... Jacques' pocket-book had slipped from his jacket, without his noticing
+it, and, together with the pocket-book, a photograph which I recognized
+at once: a photograph, taken this year, of myself and my two children. I
+picked it up ... and I saw.... You know what I saw, Germaine. Instead of my
+face, the face in the photograph was _yours_!... You had put in your
+likeness, Germaine, and blotted me out! It was your face! One of your arms
+was round my elder daughter's neck; and the younger was sitting on your
+knees.... It was you, Germaine, the wife of my husband, the future mother
+of my children, you, who were going to bring them up ... you, you! ... Then
+I lost my head. I had the dagger ... Jacques was stooping ... I stabbed
+him...."
+
+Every word of her confession was strictly true. Those who listened to her
+felt this profoundly; and nothing could have given Hortense and Renine a
+keener impression of tragedy.
+
+She had fallen back into her chair, utterly exhausted. Nevertheless, she
+went on speaking unintelligible words; and it was only gradually by leaning
+over her, that they were able to make out:
+
+"I thought that there would be an outcry and that I should be arrested. But
+no. It happened in such a way and under such conditions that no one had
+seen anything. Further, Jacques had drawn himself up at the same time as
+myself; and he actually did not fall. No, he did not fall! I had stabbed
+him; and he remained standing! I saw him from the terrace, to which I had
+returned. He had hung his jacket over his shoulders, evidently to hide his
+wound, and he moved away without staggering ... or staggering so little
+that I alone was able to perceive it. He even spoke to some friends who
+were playing cards. Then he went to his cabin and disappeared.... In a few
+moments, I came back indoors. I was persuaded that all of this was only a
+bad dream ... that I had not killed him ... or that at the worst the wound
+was a slight one. Jacques would come out again. I was certain of it.... I
+watched from my balcony.... If I had thought for a moment that he needed
+assistance, I should have flown to him.... But truly I didn't know ... I
+didn't guess.... People speak of presentiments: there are no such things. I
+was perfectly calm, just as one is after a nightmare of which the memory is
+fading away.... No, I swear to you, I knew nothing ... until the moment..."
+
+She interrupted herself, stifled by sobs.
+
+Renine finished her sentence for her,
+
+"Until the moment when they came and told you, I suppose?"
+
+Therese stammered:
+
+"Yes. It was not till then that I was conscious of what I had done ... and
+I felt that I was going mad and that I should cry out to all those people,
+'Why, it was I who did it! Don't search! Here is the dagger ... I am the
+culprit!' Yes, I was going to say that, when suddenly I caught sight of
+my poor Jacques.... They were carrying him along.... His face was very
+peaceful, very gentle.... And, in his presence, I understood my duty, as he
+had understood his.... He had kept silent, for the sake of the children.
+I would be silent too. We were both guilty of the murder of which he was
+the victim; and we must both do all we could to prevent the crime from
+recoiling upon them.... He had seen this clearly in his dying agony. He
+had had the amazing courage to keep his feet, to answer the people who
+spoke to him and to lock himself up to die. He had done this, wiping out
+all his faults with a single action, and in so doing had granted me his
+forgiveness, because he was not accusing me ... and was ordering me to hold
+my peace ... and to defend myself ... against everybody ... especially
+against you, Germaine."
+
+She uttered these last words more firmly. At first wholly overwhelmed by
+the unconscious act which she had committed in killing her husband, she
+had recovered her strength a little in thinking of what she had done and
+in defending herself with such energy. Faced by the intriguing woman whose
+hatred had driven both of them to death and crime, she clenched her fists,
+ready for the struggle, all quivering with resolution.
+
+Germaine Astaing did not flinch. She had listened without a word, with a
+relentless expression which grew harder and harder as Therese's confessions
+became precise. No emotion seemed to soften her and no remorse to penetrate
+her being. At most, towards the end, her thin lips shaped themselves into a
+faint smile. She was holding her prey in her clutches.
+
+Slowly, with her eyes raised to a mirror, she adjusted her hat and powdered
+her face. Then she walked to the door.
+
+Therese darted forward:
+
+"Where are you going?"
+
+"Where I choose."
+
+"To see the examining-magistrate?"
+
+"Very likely."
+
+"You sha'n't pass!"
+
+"As you please. I'll wait for him here."
+
+"And you'll tell him what?"
+
+"Why, all that you've said, of course, all that you've been silly enough
+to say. How could he doubt the story? You have explained it all to me so
+fully."
+
+Therese took her by the shoulders:
+
+"Yes, but I'll explain other things to him at the same time, Germaine,
+things that concern you. If I'm ruined, so shall you be."
+
+"You can't touch me."
+
+"I can expose you, show your letters."
+
+"What letters?"
+
+"Those in which my death was decided on."
+
+"Lies, Therese! You know that famous plot exists only in your imagination.
+Neither Jacques nor I wished for your death."
+
+"You did, at any rate. Your letters condemn you."
+
+"Lies! They were the letters of a friend to a friend."
+
+"Letters of a mistress to her paramour."
+
+"Prove it."
+
+"They are there, in Jacques' pocket-book."
+
+"No, they're not."
+
+"What's that you say?"
+
+"I say that those letters belonged to me. I've taken them back, or rather
+my brother has."
+
+"You've stolen them, you wretch! And you shall give them back again," cried
+Therese, shaking her.
+
+"I haven't them. My brother kept them. He has gone."
+
+Therese staggered and stretched out her hands to Renine with an expression
+of despair. Renine said:
+
+"What she says is true. I watched the brother's proceedings while he was
+feeling in your bag. He took out the pocket-book, looked through it with
+his sister, came and put it back again and went off with the letters."
+
+Renine paused and added,
+
+"Or, at least, with five of them."
+
+The two women moved closer to him. What did he intend to convey? If
+Frederic Astaing had taken away only five letters, what had become of the
+sixth?
+
+"I suppose," said Renine, "that, when the pocket-book fell on the shingle,
+that sixth letter slipped out at the same time as the photograph and that
+M. d'Ormeval must have picked it up, for I found it in the pocket of his
+blazer, which had been hung up near the bed. Here it is. It's signed
+Germaine Astaing and it is quite enough to prove the writer's intentions
+and the murderous counsels which she was pressing upon her lover."
+
+Madame Astaing had turned grey in the face and was so much disconcerted
+that she did not try to defend herself. Renine continued, addressing his
+remarks to her:
+
+"To my mind, madame, you are responsible for all that happened. Penniless,
+no doubt, and at the end of your resources, you tried to profit by the
+passion with which you inspired M. d'Ormeval in order to make him marry
+you, in spite of all the obstacles, and to lay your hands upon his fortune.
+I have proofs of this greed for money and these abominable calculations and
+can supply them if need be. A few minutes after I had felt in the pocket of
+that jacket, you did the same. I had removed the sixth letter, but had left
+a slip of paper which you looked for eagerly and which also must have
+dropped out of the pocket-book. It was an uncrossed cheque for a hundred
+thousand francs, drawn by M. d'Ormeval in your brother's name ... just a
+little wedding-present ... what we might call pin-money. Acting on your
+instructions, your brother dashed off by motor to Le Havre to reach the
+bank before four o'clock. I may as well tell you that he will not have
+cashed the cheque, for I had a telephone-message sent to the bank to
+announce the murder of M. d'Ormeval, which stops all payments. The upshot
+of all this is that the police, if you persist in your schemes of revenge,
+will have in their hands all the proofs that are wanted against you and
+your brother. I might add, as an edifying piece of evidence, the story of
+the conversation which I overheard between your brother and yourself in a
+dining-car on the railway between Brest and Paris, a fortnight ago. But I
+feel sure that you will not drive me to adopt these extreme measures and
+that we understand each other. Isn't that so?"
+
+Natures like Madame Astaing's, which are violent and headstrong so long as
+a fight is possible and while a gleam of hope remains, are easily swayed in
+defeat. Germaine was too intelligent not to grasp the fact that the least
+attempt at resistance would be shattered by such an adversary as this. She
+was in his hands. She could but yield.
+
+She therefore did not indulge in any play-acting, nor in any demonstration
+such as threats, outbursts of fury or hysterics. She bowed:
+
+"We are agreed," she said. "What are your terms?"
+
+"Go away. If ever you are called upon for your evidence, say that you know
+nothing."
+
+She walked away. At the door, she hesitated and then, between her teeth,
+said:
+
+"The cheque."
+
+Renine looked at Madame d'Ormeval, who declared:
+
+"Let her keep it. I would not touch that money."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+When Renine had given Therese d'Ormeval precise instructions as to how she
+was to behave at the enquiry and to answer the questions put to her, he
+left the chalet, accompanied by Hortense Daniel.
+
+On the beach below, the magistrate and the public prosecutor were
+continuing their investigations, taking measurements, examining the
+witnesses and generally laying their heads together.
+
+"When I think," said Hortense, "that you have the dagger and M. d'Ormeval's
+pocket-book on you!"
+
+"And it strikes you as awfully dangerous, I suppose?" he said, laughing.
+"It strikes _me_ as awfully comic."
+
+"Aren't you afraid?"
+
+"Of what?"
+
+"That they may suspect something?"
+
+"Lord, they won't suspect a thing! We shall tell those good people what
+we saw and our evidence will only increase their perplexity, for we saw
+nothing at all. For prudence sake we will stay a day or two, to see which
+way the wind is blowing. But it's quite settled: they will never be able to
+make head or tail of the matter."
+
+"Nevertheless, _you_ guessed the secret and from the first. Why?"
+
+"Because, instead of seeking difficulties where none exist, as people
+generally do, I always put the question as it should be put; and the
+solution comes quite naturally. A man goes to his cabin and locks himself
+in. Half an hour later, he is found inside, dead. No one has gone in. What
+has happened? To my mind there is only one answer. There is no need to
+think about it. As the murder was not committed in the cabin, it must have
+been committed beforehand and the man was already mortally wounded when
+he entered his cabin. And forthwith the truth in this particular case
+appeared to me. Madame d'Ormeval, who was to have been killed this evening,
+forestalled her murderers and while her husband was stooping to the ground,
+in a moment of frenzy stabbed him in the back. There was nothing left to do
+but look for the reasons that prompted her action. When I knew them, I took
+her part unreservedly. That's the whole story."
+
+The day was beginning to wane. The blue of the sky was becoming darker and
+the sea, even more peaceful than before.
+
+"What are you thinking of?" asked Renine, after a moment.
+
+"I am thinking," she said, "that if I too were the victim of some
+machination, I should trust you whatever happened, trust you through and
+against all. I know, as certainly as I know that I exist, that you would
+save me, whatever the obstacles might be. There is no limit to the power
+of your will."
+
+He said, very softly:
+
+"There is no limit to my wish to please you."
+
+
+
+
+VI
+
+THE LADY WITH THE HATCHET
+
+
+One of the most incomprehensible incidents that preceded the great war
+was certainly the one which was known as the episode of the lady with the
+hatchet. The solution of the mystery was unknown and would never have
+been known, had not circumstances in the cruellest fashion obliged Prince
+Renine--or should I say, Arsene Lupin?--to take up the matter and had I not
+been able to-day to tell the true story from the details supplied by him.
+
+Let me recite the facts. In a space of eighteen months, five women
+disappeared, five women of different stations in life, all between twenty
+and thirty years of age and living in Paris or the Paris district.
+
+I will give their names: Madame Ladoue, the wife of a doctor; Mlle. Ardant,
+the daughter of a banker; Mlle. Covereau, a washer-woman of Courbevoie;
+Mlle. Honorine Vernisset, a dressmaker; and Madame Grollinger, an artist.
+These five women disappeared without the possibility of discovering a
+single particular to explain why they had left their homes, why they did
+not return to them, who had enticed them away, and where and how they were
+detained.
+
+Each of these women, a week after her departure, was found somewhere or
+other in the western outskirts of Paris; and each time it was a dead body
+that was found, the dead body of a woman who had been killed by a blow on
+the head from a hatchet. And each time, not far from the woman, who was
+firmly bound, her face covered with blood and her body emaciated by lack of
+food, the marks of carriage-wheels proved that the corpse had been driven
+to the spot.
+
+The five murders were so much alike that there was only a single
+investigation, embracing all the five enquiries and, for that matter,
+leading to no result. A woman disappeared; a week later, to a day, her body
+was discovered; and that was all. The bonds that fastened her were similar
+in each case; so were the tracks left by the wheels; so were the blows of
+the hatchet, all of which were struck vertically at the top and right in
+the middle of the forehead.
+
+The motive of the crime? The five women had been completely stripped of
+their jewels, purses and other objects of value. But the robberies might
+well have been attributed to marauders or any passersby, since the bodies
+were lying in deserted spots. Were the authorities to believe in the
+execution of a plan of revenge or of a plan intended to do away with the
+series of persons mutually connected, persons, for instance, likely to
+benefit by a future inheritance? Here again the same obscurity prevailed.
+Theories were built up, only to be demolished forthwith by an examination
+of the facts. Trails were followed and at once abandoned.
+
+And suddenly there was a sensation. A woman engaged in sweeping the roads
+picked up on the pavement a little note-book which she brought to the local
+police-station. The leaves of this note-book were all blank, excepting
+one, on which was written a list of the murdered women, with their names
+set down in order of date and accompanied by three figures: Ladoue, 132;
+Vernisset, 118; and so on.
+
+Certainly no importance would have been attached to these entries, which
+anybody might have written, since every one was acquainted with the
+sinister list. But, instead of five names, it included six! Yes, below
+the words "Grollinger, 128," there appeared "Williamson, 114." Did this
+indicate a sixth murder?
+
+The obviously English origin of the name limited the field of the
+investigations, which did not in fact take long. It was ascertained that,
+a fortnight ago, a Miss Hermione Williamson, a governess in a family at
+Auteuil, had left her place to go back to England and that, since then, her
+sisters, though she had written to tell them that she was coming over, had
+heard no more of her.
+
+A fresh enquiry was instituted. A postman found the body in the Meudon
+woods. Miss Williamson's skull was split down the middle.
+
+I need not describe the public excitement at this stage nor the shudder
+of horror which passed through the crowd when it read this list, written
+without a doubt in the murderer's own hand. What could be more frightful
+than such a record, kept up to date like a careful tradesman's ledger:
+
+"On such a day, I killed so-and-so; on such a day so-and-so!"
+
+And the sum total was six dead bodies.
+
+Against all expectation, the experts in handwriting had no difficulty in
+agreeing and unanimously declared that the writing was "that of a woman, an
+educated woman, possessing artistic tastes, imagination and an extremely
+sensitive nature." The "lady with the hatchet," as the journalists
+christened her, was decidedly no ordinary person; and scores of
+newspaper-articles made a special study of her case, exposing her mental
+condition and losing themselves in far-fetched explanations.
+
+Nevertheless it was the writer of one of these articles, a young journalist
+whose chance discovery made him the centre of public attention, who
+supplied the one element of truth and shed upon the darkness the only ray
+of light that was to penetrate it. In casting about for the meaning of the
+figures which followed the six names, he had come to ask himself whether
+those figures did not simply represent the number of the days separating
+one crime from the next. All that he had to do was to check the dates. He
+at once found that his theory was correct. Mlle. Vernisset had been carried
+off one hundred and thirty-two days after Madame Ladoue; Mlle. Covereau one
+hundred and eighteen days after Honorine Vernisset; and so on.
+
+There was therefore no room for doubt; and the police had no choice but to
+accept a solution which so precisely fitted the circumstances: the figures
+corresponded with the intervals. There was no mistake in the records of the
+lady with the hatchet.
+
+But then one deduction became inevitable. Miss Williamson, the latest
+victim, had been carried off on the 26th of June last, and her name was
+followed by the figures 114: was it not to be presumed that a fresh crime
+would be committed a hundred and fourteen days later, that is to say, on
+the 18th of October? Was it not probable that the horrible business would
+be repeated in accordance with the murderer's secret intentions? Were they
+not bound to pursue to its logical conclusion the argument which ascribed
+to the figures--to all the figures, to the last as well as to the
+others--their value as eventual dates?
+
+Now it was precisely this deduction which was drawn and was being weighed
+and discussed during the few days that preceded the 18th of October,
+when logic demanded the performance of yet another act of the abominable
+tragedy. And it was only natural that, on the morning of that day, Prince
+Renine and Hortense, when making an appointment by telephone for the
+evening, should allude to the newspaper-articles which they had both been
+reading:
+
+"Look out!" said Renine, laughing. "If you meet the lady with the hatchet,
+take the other side of the road!"
+
+"And, if the good lady carries me off, what am I to do?"
+
+"Strew your path with little white pebbles and say, until the very moment
+when the hatchet flashes in the air, 'I have nothing to fear; _he_
+will save me.' _He_ is myself ... and I kiss your hands. Till this
+evening, my dear."
+
+That afternoon, Renine had an appointment with Rose Andree and Dalbreque to
+arrange for their departure for the States. [Footnote: See _The Tell-tale
+Film_.] Before four and seven o'clock, he bought the different editions
+of the evening papers. None of them reported an abduction.
+
+At nine o'clock he went to the Gymnase, where he had taken a private box.
+
+At half-past nine, as Hortense had not arrived, he rang her up, though
+without thought of anxiety. The maid replied that Madame Daniel had not
+come in yet.
+
+Seized with a sudden fear, Renine hurried to the furnished flat which
+Hortense was occupying for the time being, near the Parc Monceau, and
+questioned the maid, whom he had engaged for her and who was completely
+devoted to him. The woman said that her mistress had gone out at two
+o'clock, with a stamped letter in her hand, saying that she was going to
+the post and that she would come back to dress. This was the last that had
+been seen of her.
+
+"To whom was the letter addressed?"
+
+"To you, sir. I saw the writing on the envelope: Prince Serge Renine."
+
+He waited until midnight, but in vain. Hortense did not return; nor did she
+return next day.
+
+"Not a word to any one," said Renine to the maid. "Say that your mistress
+is in the country and that you are going to join her."
+
+For his own part, he had not a doubt: Hortense's disappearance was
+explained by the very fact of the date, the 18th of October. She was the
+seventh victim of the lady with the hatchet.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"The abduction," said Renine to himself, "precedes the blow of the hatchet
+by a week. I have, therefore, at the present moment, seven full days before
+me. Let us say six, to avoid any surprise. This is Saturday: Hortense must
+be set free by mid-day on Friday; and, to make sure of this, I must know
+her hiding-place by nine o'clock on Thursday evening at latest."
+
+Renine wrote, "THURSDAY EVENING, NINE O'CLOCK," in big letters, on a card
+which he nailed above the mantelpiece in his study. Then at midday on
+Saturday, the day after the disappearance, he locked himself into the
+study, after telling his man not to disturb him except for meals and
+letters.
+
+He spent four days there, almost without moving. He had immediately sent
+for a set of all the leading newspapers which had spoken in detail of the
+first six crimes. When he had read and reread them, he closed the shutters,
+drew the curtains and lay down on the sofa in the dark, with the door
+bolted, thinking.
+
+By Tuesday evening he was no further advanced than on the Saturday. The
+darkness was as dense as ever. He had not discovered the smallest clue for
+his guidance, nor could he see the slightest reason to hope.
+
+At times, notwithstanding his immense power of self-control and his
+unlimited confidence in the resources at his disposal, at times he would
+quake with anguish. Would he arrive in time? There was no reason why he
+should see more clearly during the last few days than during those which
+had already elapsed. And this meant that Hortense Daniel would inevitably
+be murdered.
+
+The thought tortured him. He was attached to Hortense by a much stronger
+and deeper feeling than the appearance of the relations between them would
+have led an onlooker to believe. The curiosity at the beginning, the first
+desire, the impulse to protect Hortense, to distract her, to inspire her
+with a relish for existence: all this had simply turned to love. Neither of
+them was aware of it, because they barely saw each other save at critical
+times when they were occupied with the adventures of others and not with
+their own. But, at the first onslaught of danger, Renine realized the place
+which Hortense had taken in his life and he was in despair at knowing her
+to be a prisoner and a martyr and at being unable to save her.
+
+He spent a feverish, agitated night, turning the case over and over from
+every point of view. The Wednesday morning was also a terrible time for
+him. He was losing ground. Giving up his hermit-like seclusion, he threw
+open the windows and paced to and fro through his rooms, ran out into the
+street and came in again, as though fleeing before the thought that
+obsessed him:
+
+"Hortense is suffering.... Hortense is in the depths.... She sees the
+hatchet.... She is calling to me.... She is entreating me.... And I can do
+nothing...."
+
+It was at five o'clock in the afternoon that, on examining the list of the
+six names, he received that little inward shock which is a sort of signal
+of the truth that is being sought for. A light shot through his mind. It
+was not, to be sure, that brilliant light in which every detail is made
+plain, but it was enough to tell him in which direction to move.
+
+His plan of campaign was formed at once. He sent Adolphe, his chauffeur,
+to the principal newspapers, with a few lines which were to appear in type
+among the next morning's advertisements. Adolphe was also told to go to the
+laundry at Courbevoie, where Mlle. Covereau, the second of the six victims,
+had been employed.
+
+On the Thursday, Renine did not stir out of doors. In the afternoon, he
+received several letters in reply to his advertisement. Then two telegrams
+arrived. Lastly, at three o'clock, there came a pneumatic letter, bearing
+the Trocadero postmark, which seemed to be what he was expecting.
+
+He turned up a directory, noted an address--"M. de Lourtier-Vaneau, retired
+colonial governor, 47 _bis_, Avenue Kleber"--and ran down to his car:
+
+"Adolphe, 47 _bis_, Avenue Kleber."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+He was shown into a large study furnished with magnificent book-cases
+containing old volumes in costly bindings. M. de Lourtier-Vaneau was a man
+still in the prime of life, wearing a slightly grizzled beard and, by his
+affable manners and genuine distinction, commanding confidence and liking.
+
+"M. de Lourtier," said Renine, "I have ventured to call on your excellency
+because I read in last year's newspapers that you used to know one of the
+victims of the lady with the hatchet, Honorine Vernisset."
+
+"Why, of course we knew her!" cried M. de Lourtier. "My wife used to employ
+her as a dressmaker by the day. Poor girl!"
+
+"M. de Lourtier, a lady of my acquaintance has disappeared as the other six
+victims disappeared.
+
+"What!" exclaimed M. de Lourtier, with a start. "But I have followed the
+newspapers carefully. There was nothing on the 18th of October."
+
+"Yes, a woman of whom I am very fond, Madame Hortense Daniel, was abducted
+on the 17th of October."
+
+"And this is the 22nd!"
+
+"Yes; and the murder will be committed on the 24th."
+
+"Horrible! Horrible! It must be prevented at all costs...."
+
+"And I shall perhaps succeed in preventing it, with your excellency's
+assistance."
+
+"But have you been to the police?"
+
+"No. We are faced by mysteries which are, so to speak, absolute and
+compact, which offer no gap through which the keenest eyes can see and
+which it is useless to hope to clear up by ordinary methods, such as
+inspection of the scenes of the crimes, police enquiries, searching for
+finger-prints and so on. As none of those proceedings served any good
+purpose in the previous cases, it would be waste of time to resort to them
+in a seventh, similar case. An enemy who displays such skill and subtlety
+would not leave behind her any of those clumsy traces which are the first
+things that a professional detective seizes upon."
+
+"Then what have you done?"
+
+"Before taking any action, I have reflected. I gave four days to thinking
+the matter over."
+
+M. de Lourtier-Vaneau examined his visitor closely and, with a touch of
+irony, asked:
+
+"And the result of your meditations ...?"
+
+"To begin with," said Renine, refusing to be put out of countenance, "I
+have submitted all these cases to a comprehensive survey, which hitherto
+no one else had done. This enabled me to discover their general meaning,
+to put aside all the tangle of embarrassing theories and, since no one was
+able to agree as to the motives of all this filthy business, to attribute
+it to the only class of persons capable of it."
+
+"That is to say?"
+
+"Lunatics, your excellency."
+
+M. de Lourtier-Vaneau started:
+
+"Lunatics? What an idea!"
+
+"M. de Lourtier, the woman known as the lady with the hatchet is a
+madwoman."
+
+"But she would be locked up!"
+
+"We don't know that she's not. We don't know that she is not one of those
+half-mad people, apparently harmless, who are watched so slightly that they
+have full scope to indulge their little manias, their wild-beast instincts.
+Nothing could be more treacherous than these creatures. Nothing could be
+more crafty, more patient, more persistent, more dangerous and at the same
+time more absurd and more logical, more slovenly and more methodical. All
+these epithets, M. de Lourtier, may be applied to the doings of the lady
+with the hatchet. The obsession of an idea and the continual repetition
+of an act are characteristics of the maniac. I do not yet know the idea
+by which the lady with the hatchet is obsessed but I do know the act that
+results from it; and it is always the same. The victim is bound with
+precisely similar ropes. She is killed after the same number of days. She
+is struck by an identical blow, with the same instrument, in the same
+place, the middle of the forehead, producing an absolutely vertical wound.
+An ordinary murderer displays some variety. His trembling hand swerves
+aside and strikes awry. The lady with the hatchet does not tremble. It is
+as though she had taken measurements; and the edge of her weapon does not
+swerve by a hair's breadth. Need I give you any further proofs or examine
+all the other details with you? Surely not. You now possess the key to the
+riddle; and you know as I do that only a lunatic can behave in this way,
+stupidly, savagely, mechanically, like a striking clock or the blade of the
+guillotine...."
+
+M. de Lourtier-Vaneau nodded his head:
+
+"Yes, that is so. One can see the whole affair from that angle ... and I
+am beginning to believe that this is how one ought to see it. But, if we
+admit that this madwoman has the sort of mathematical logic which governed
+the murders of the six victims, I see no connection between the victims
+themselves. She struck at random. Why this victim rather than that?"
+
+"Ah," said Renine. "Your excellency is asking me a question which I asked
+myself from the first moment, the question which sums up the whole problem
+and which cost me so much trouble to solve! Why Hortense Daniel rather than
+another? Among two millions of women who might have been selected, why
+Hortense? Why little Vernisset? Why Miss Williamson? If the affair is such
+as I conceived it, as a whole, that is to say, based upon the blind and
+fantastic logic of a madwoman, a choice was inevitably exercised. Now in
+what did that choice consist? What was the quality, or the defect, or the
+sign needed to induce the lady with the hatchet to strike? In a word, if
+she chose--and she must have chosen--what directed her choice?"
+
+"Have you found the answer?"
+
+Renine paused and replied:
+
+"Yes, your excellency, I have. And I could have found it at the very
+outset, since all that I had to do was to make a careful examination of the
+list of victims. But these flashes of truth are never kindled save in a
+brain overstimulated by effort and reflection. I stared at the list twenty
+times over, before that little detail took a definite shape."
+
+"I don't follow you," said M. de Lourtier-Vaneau.
+
+"M. de Lourtier, it may be noted that, if a number of persons are brought
+together in any transaction, or crime, or public scandal or what not, they
+are almost invariably described in the same way. On this occasion, the
+newspapers never mentioned anything more than their surnames in speaking
+of Madame Ladoue, Mlle. Ardent or Mlle. Covereau. On the other hand, Mlle.
+Vernisset and Miss Williamson were always described by their Christian
+names as well: Honorine and Hermione. If the same thing had been done in
+the case of all the six victims, there would have been no mystery."
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"Because we should at once have realized the relation existing between the
+six unfortunate women, as I myself suddenly realized it on comparing those
+two Christian names with that of Hortense Daniel. You understand now, don't
+you? You see the three Christian names before your eyes...."
+
+M. de Lourtier-Vaneau seemed to be perturbed. Turning a little pale, he
+said:
+
+"What do you mean? What do you mean?"
+
+"I mean," continued Renine, in a clear voice, sounding each syllable
+separately, "I mean that you see before your eyes three Christian names
+which all three begin with the same initial and which all three, by a
+remarkable coincidence, consist of the same number of letters, as you may
+prove. If you enquire at the Courbevoie laundry, where Mlle. Covereau
+used to work, you will find that her name was Hilairie. Here again we
+have the same initial and the same number of letters. There is no need
+to seek any farther. We are sure, are we not, that the Christian names
+of all the victims offer the same peculiarities? And this gives us, with
+absolute certainty, the key to the problem which was set us. It explains
+the madwoman's choice. We now know the connection between the unfortunate
+victims. There can be no mistake about it. It's that and nothing else. And
+how this method of choosing confirms my theory! What proof of madness! Why
+kill these women rather than any others? Because their names begin with
+an H and consist of eight letters! You understand me, M. de Lourtier, do
+you not? The number of letters is eight. The initial letter is the eighth
+letter of the alphabet; and the word _huit_, eight, begins with an H.
+Always the letter H. _And the implement used to commit the crime was a
+hatchet_. Is your excellency prepared to tell me that the lady with the
+hatchet is not a madwoman?"
+
+Renine interrupted himself and went up to M. de Lourtier-Vaneau:
+
+"What's the matter, your excellency? Are you unwell?"
+
+"No, no," said M. de Lourtier, with the perspiration streaming down his
+forehead. "No ... but all this story is so upsetting! Only think, I knew
+one of the victims! And then...."
+
+Renine took a water-bottle and tumbler from a small table, filled the glass
+and handed it to M. de Lourtier, who sipped a few mouthfuls from it and
+then, pulling himself together, continued, in a voice which he strove to
+make firmer than it had been:
+
+"Very well. We'll admit your supposition. Even so, it is necessary that it
+should lead to tangible results. What have you done?"
+
+"This morning I published in all the newspapers an advertisement worded as
+follows: 'Excellent cook seeks situation. Write before 5 P.M. to Herminie,
+Boulevard Haussmann, etc.' You continue to follow me, don't you, M. de
+Lourtier? Christian names beginning with an H and consisting of eight
+letters are extremely rare and are all rather out of date: Herminie,
+Hilairie, Hermione. Well, these Christian names, for reasons which I do not
+understand, are essential to the madwoman. She cannot do without them. To
+find women bearing one of these Christian names and for this purpose only
+she summons up all her remaining powers of reason, discernment, reflection
+and intelligence. She hunts about. She asks questions. She lies in wait.
+She reads newspapers which she hardly understands, but in which certain
+details, certain capital letters catch her eye. And consequently I did not
+doubt for a second that this name of Herminie, printed in large type, would
+attract her attention and that she would be caught to-day in the trap of my
+advertisement."
+
+"Did she write?" asked M. de Lourtier-Vaneau, anxiously.
+
+"Several ladies," Renine continued, "wrote the letters which are usual in
+such cases, to offer a home to the so-called Herminie. But I received an
+express letter which struck me as interesting."
+
+"From whom?"
+
+"Read it, M. de Lourtier."
+
+M. de Lourtier-Vaneau snatched the sheet from Renine's hands and cast a
+glance at the signature. His first movement was one of surprise, as though
+he had expected something different. Then he gave a long, loud laugh of
+something like joy and relief.
+
+"Why do you laugh, M. de Lourtier? You seem pleased."
+
+"Pleased, no. But this letter is signed by my wife."
+
+"And you were afraid of finding something else?"
+
+"Oh no! But since it's my wife...."
+
+He did not finish his sentence and said to Renine:
+
+"Come this way."
+
+He led him through a passage to a little drawing-room where a fair-haired
+lady, with a happy and tender expression on her comely face, was sitting in
+the midst of three children and helping them with their lessons.
+
+She rose. M. de Lourtier briefly presented his visitor and asked his wife:
+
+"Suzanne, is this express message from you?"
+
+"To Mlle. Herminie, Boulevard Haussmann? Yes," she said, "I sent it. As you
+know, our parlour-maid's leaving and I'm looking out for a new one."
+
+Renine interrupted her:
+
+"Excuse me, madame. Just one question: where did you get the woman's
+address?"
+
+She flushed. Her husband insisted:
+
+"Tell us, Suzanne. Who gave you the address?"
+
+"I was rung up."
+
+"By whom?"
+
+She hesitated and then said:
+
+"Your old nurse."
+
+"Felicienne?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+M. de Lourtier cut short the conversation and, without permitting Renine to
+ask any more questions, took him back to the study:
+
+"You see, monsieur, that pneumatic letter came from a quite natural source.
+Felicienne, my old nurse, who lives not far from Paris on an allowance
+which I make her, read your advertisement and told Madame de Lourtier of
+it. For, after all," he added laughing, "I don't suppose that you suspect
+my wife of being the lady with the hatchet."
+
+"No."
+
+"Then the incident is closed ... at least on my side. I have done what I
+could, I have listened to your arguments and I am very sorry that I can be
+of no more use to you...."
+
+He drank another glass of water and sat down. His face was distorted.
+Renine looked at him for a few seconds, as a man will look at a failing
+adversary who has only to receive the knock-out blow, and, sitting down
+beside him, suddenly gripped his arm:
+
+"Your excellency, if you do not speak, Hortense Daniel will be the seventh
+victim."
+
+"I have nothing to say, monsieur! What do you think I know?"
+
+"The truth! My explanations have made it plain to you. Your distress, your
+terror are positive proofs."
+
+"But, after all, monsieur, if I knew, why should I be silent?"
+
+"For fear of scandal. There is in your life, so a profound intuition
+assures me, something that you are constrained to hide. The truth about
+this monstrous tragedy, which suddenly flashed upon you, this truth, if
+it were known, would spell dishonour to you, disgrace ... and you are
+shrinking from your duty."
+
+M. de Lourtier did not reply. Renine leant over him and, looking him in
+the eyes, whispered:
+
+"There will be no scandal. I shall be the only person in the world to
+know what has happened. And I am as much interested as yourself in not
+attracting attention, because I love Hortense Daniel and do not wish her
+name to be mixed up in your horrible story."
+
+They remained face to face during a long interval. Renine's expression was
+harsh and unyielding. M. de Lourtier felt that nothing would bend him if
+the necessary words remained unspoken; but he could not bring himself to
+utter them:
+
+"You are mistaken," he said. "You think you have seen things that don't
+exist."
+
+Renine received a sudden and terrifying conviction that, if this man took
+refuge in a stolid silence, there was no hope for Hortense Daniel; and he
+was so much infuriated by the thought that the key to the riddle lay there,
+within reach of his hand, that he clutched M. de Lourtier by the throat and
+forced him backwards:
+
+"I'll have no more lies! A woman's life is at stake! Speak ... and speak at
+once! If not ...!"
+
+M. de Lourtier had no strength left in him. All resistance was impossible.
+It was not that Renine's attack alarmed him, or that he was yielding to
+this act of violence, but he felt crushed by that indomitable will, which
+seemed to admit no obstacle, and he stammered:
+
+"You are right. It is my duty to tell everything, whatever comes of it."
+
+"Nothing will come of it, I pledge my word, on condition that you save
+Hortense Daniel. A moment's hesitation may undo us all. Speak. No details,
+but the actual facts."
+
+"Madame de Lourtier is not my wife. The only woman who has the right to
+bear my name is one whom I married when I was a young colonial official.
+She was a rather eccentric woman, of feeble mentality and incredibly
+subject to impulses that amounted to monomania. We had two children, twins,
+whom she worshipped and in whose company she would no doubt have recovered
+her mental balance and moral health, when, by a stupid accident--a
+passing carriage--they were killed before her eyes. The poor thing went
+mad ... with the silent, secretive madness which you imagined. Some time
+afterwards, when I was appointed to an Algerian station, I brought her to
+France and put her in the charge of a worthy creature who had nursed me and
+brought me up. Two years later, I made the acquaintance of the woman who
+was to become the joy of my life. You saw her just now. She is the mother
+of my children and she passes as my wife. Are we to sacrifice her? Is our
+whole existence to be shipwrecked in horror and must our name be coupled
+with this tragedy of madness and blood?"
+
+Renine thought for a moment and asked:
+
+"What is the other one's name?"
+
+"Hermance."
+
+"Hermance! Still that initial ... still those eight letters!"
+
+"That was what made me realize everything just now," said M. de Lourtier.
+"When you compared the different names, I at once reflected that my unhappy
+wife was called Hermance and that she was mad ... and all the proofs leapt
+to my mind."
+
+"But, though we understand the selection of the victims, how are we to
+explain the murders? What are the symptoms of her madness? Does she suffer
+at all?"
+
+"She does not suffer very much at present. But she has suffered in the
+past, the most terrible suffering that you can imagine: since the moment
+when her two children were run over before her eyes, night and day she had
+the horrible spectacle of their death before her eyes, without a moment's
+interruption, for she never slept for a single second. Think of the torture
+of it! To see her children dying through all the hours of the long day and
+all the hours of the interminable night!"
+
+"Nevertheless," Renine objected, "it is not to drive away that picture that
+she commits murder?"
+
+"Yes, possibly," said M. de Lourtier, thoughtfully, "to drive it away by
+sleep."
+
+"I don't understand."
+
+"You don't understand, because we are talking of a madwoman ... and because
+all that happens in that disordered brain is necessarily incoherent and
+abnormal?"
+
+"Obviously. But, all the same, is your supposition based on facts that
+justify it?"
+
+"Yes, on facts which I had, in a way, overlooked but which to-day assume
+their true significance. The first of these facts dates a few years back,
+to a morning when my old nurse for the first time found Hermance fast
+asleep. Now she was holding her hands clutched around a puppy which she had
+strangled. And the same thing was repeated on three other occasions."
+
+"And she slept?"
+
+"Yes, each time she slept a sleep which lasted for several nights."
+
+"And what conclusion did you draw?"
+
+"I concluded that the relaxation of the nerves provoked by taking life
+exhausted her and predisposed her for sleep."
+
+Renine shuddered:
+
+"That's it! There's not a doubt of it! The taking life, the effort of
+killing makes her sleep. And she began with women what had served her so
+well with animals. All her madness has become concentrated on that one
+point: she kills them to rob them of their sleep! She wanted sleep; and she
+steals the sleep of others! That's it, isn't it? For the past two years,
+she has been sleeping?"
+
+"For the past two years, she has been sleeping," stammered M. de Lourtier.
+
+Renine gripped him by the shoulder:
+
+"And it never occurred to you that her madness might go farther, that she
+would stop at nothing to win the blessing of sleep! Let us make haste,
+monsieur! All this is horrible!"
+
+They were both making for the door, when M. de Lourtier hesitated. The
+telephone-bell was ringing.
+
+"It's from there," he said.
+
+"From there?"
+
+"Yes, my old nurse gives me the news at the same time every day."
+
+He unhooked the receivers and handed one to Renine, who whispered in his
+ear the questions which he was to put.
+
+"Is that you, Felicienne? How is she?"
+
+"Not so bad, sir."
+
+"Is she sleeping well?"
+
+"Not very well, lately. Last night, indeed, she never closed her eyes. So
+she's very gloomy just now."
+
+"What is she doing at the moment?"
+
+"She is in her room."
+
+"Go to her, Felicienne, and don't leave her."
+
+"I can't. She's locked herself in."
+
+"You must, Felicienne. Break open the door. I'm coming straight on....
+Hullo! Hullo!... Oh, damnation, they've cut us off!"
+
+Without a word, the two men left the flat and ran down to the avenue.
+Renine hustled M. de Lourtier into the car:
+
+"What address?"
+
+"Ville d'Avray."
+
+"Of course! In the very center of her operations ... like a spider in the
+middle of her web! Oh, the shame of it!"
+
+He was profoundly agitated. He saw the whole adventure in its monstrous
+reality.
+
+"Yes, she kills them to steal their sleep, as she used to kill the animals.
+It is the same obsession, but complicated by a whole array of utterly
+incomprehensible practices and superstitions. She evidently fancies that
+the similarity of the Christian names to her own is indispensable and that
+she will not sleep unless her victim is an Hortense or an Honorine. It's
+a madwoman's argument; its logic escapes us and we know nothing of its
+origin; but we can't get away from it. She has to hunt and has to find. And
+she finds and carries off her prey beforehand and watches over it for the
+appointed number of days, until the moment when, crazily, through the hole
+which she digs with a hatchet in the middle of the skull, she absorbs the
+sleep which stupefies her and grants her oblivion for a given period. And
+here again we see absurdity and madness. Why does she fix that period at so
+many days? Why should one victim ensure her a hundred and twenty days of
+sleep and another a hundred and twenty-five? What insanity! The calculation
+is mysterious and of course mad; but the fact remains that, at the end of
+a hundred or a hundred and twenty-five days, as the case may be, a fresh
+victim is sacrificed; and there have been six already and the seventh is
+awaiting her turn. Ah, monsieur, what a terrible responsibility for you!
+Such a monster as that! She should never have been allowed out of sight!"
+
+M. de Lourtier-Vaneau made no protest. His air of dejection, his pallor,
+his trembling hands, all proved his remorse and his despair: "She deceived
+me," he murmured. "She was outwardly so quiet, so docile! And, after all,
+she's in a lunatic asylum."
+
+"Then how can she ...?"
+
+"The asylum," explained M. de Lourtier, "is made up of a number of separate
+buildings scattered over extensive grounds. The sort of cottage in which
+Hermance lives stands quite apart. There is first a room occupied by
+Felicienne, then Hermance's bedroom and two separate rooms, one of which
+has its windows overlooking the open country. I suppose it is there that
+she locks up her victims."
+
+"But the carriage that conveys the dead bodies?"
+
+"The stables of the asylum are quite close to the cottage. There's a horse
+and carriage there for station work. Hermance no doubt gets up at night,
+harnesses the horse and slips the body through the window."
+
+"And the nurse who watches her?"
+
+"Felicienne is very old and rather deaf."
+
+"But by day she sees her mistress moving to and fro, doing this and that.
+Must we not admit a certain complicity?"
+
+"Never! Felicienne herself has been deceived by Hermance's hypocrisy."
+
+"All the same, it was she who telephoned to Madame de Lourtier first, about
+that advertisement...."
+
+"Very naturally. Hermance, who talks now and then, who argues, who buries
+herself in the newspapers, which she does not understand, as you were
+saying just now, but reads through them attentively, must have seen the
+advertisement and, having heard that we were looking for a servant, must
+have asked Felicienne to ring me up."
+
+"Yes ... yes ... that is what I felt," said Renine, slowly. "She marks down
+her victims.... With Hortense dead, she would have known, once she had used
+up her allowance of sleep, where to find an eighth victim.... But how did
+she entice the unfortunate women? How did she entice Hortense?"
+
+The car was rushing along, but not fast enough to please Renine, who rated
+the chauffeur:
+
+"Push her along, Adolphe, can't you?... We're losing time, my man."
+
+Suddenly the fear of arriving too late began to torture him. The logic of
+the insane is subject to sudden changes of mood, to any perilous idea that
+may enter the mind. The madwoman might easily mistake the date and hasten
+the catastrophe, like a clock out of order which strikes an hour too soon.
+
+On the other hand, as her sleep was once more disturbed, might she not be
+tempted to take action without waiting for the appointed moment? Was this
+not the reason why she had locked herself into her room? Heavens, what
+agonies her prisoner must be suffering! What shudders of terror at the
+executioner's least movement!
+
+"Faster, Adolphe, or I'll take the wheel myself! Faster, hang it."
+
+At last they reached Ville d'Avray. There was a steep, sloping road on the
+right and walls interrupted by a long railing.
+
+"Drive round the grounds, Adolphe. We mustn't give warning of our presence,
+must we, M. de Lourtier? Where is the cottage?"
+
+"Just opposite," said M. de Lourtier-Vaneau.
+
+They got out a little farther on. Renine began to run along a bank at the
+side of an ill-kept sunken road. It was almost dark. M. de Lourtier said:
+
+"Here, this building standing a little way back.... Look at that window on
+the ground-floor. It belongs to one of the separate rooms ... and that is
+obviously how she slips out."
+
+"But the window seems to be barred."
+
+"Yes; and that is why no one suspected anything. But she must have found
+some way to get through."
+
+The ground-floor was built over deep cellars. Renine quickly clambered up,
+finding a foothold on a projecting ledge of stone.
+
+Sure enough, one of the bars was missing.
+
+He pressed his face to the window-pane and looked in.
+
+The room was dark inside. Nevertheless he was able to distinguish at the
+back a woman seated beside another woman, who was lying on a mattress. The
+woman seated was holding her forehead in her hands and gazing at the woman
+who was lying down.
+
+"It's she," whispered M. de Lourtier, who had also climbed the wall. "The
+other one is bound."
+
+Renine took from his pocket a glazier's diamond and cut out one of the
+panes without making enough noise to arouse the madwoman's attention. He
+next slid his hand to the window-fastening and turned it softly, while with
+his left hand he levelled a revolver.
+
+"You're not going to fire, surely!" M. de Lourtier-Vaneau entreated.
+
+"If I must, I shall."
+
+Renine pushed open the window gently. But there was an obstacle of which he
+was not aware, a chair which toppled over and fell.
+
+He leapt into the room and threw away his revolver in order to seize the
+madwoman. But she did not wait for him. She rushed to the door, opened it
+and fled, with a hoarse cry.
+
+M. de Lourtier made as though to run after her.
+
+"What's the use?" said Renine, kneeling down, "Let's save the victim
+first."
+
+He was instantly reassured: Hortense was alive.
+
+The first thing that he did was to cut the cords and remove the gag that
+was stifling her. Attracted by the noise, the old nurse had hastened to
+the room with a lamp, which Renine took from her, casting its light on
+Hortense.
+
+He was astounded: though livid and exhausted, with emaciated features and
+eyes blazing with fever, Hortense was trying to smile. She whispered:
+
+"I was expecting you ... I did not despair for a moment ... I was sure of
+you...."
+
+She fainted.
+
+An hour later, after much useless searching around the cottage, they found
+the madwoman locked into a large cupboard in the loft. She had hanged
+herself.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Hortense refused to stay another night. Besides, it was better that the
+cottage should be empty when the old nurse announced the madwoman's
+suicide. Renine gave Felicienne minute directions as to what she should do
+and say; and then, assisted by the chauffeur and M. de Lourtier, carried
+Hortense to the car and brought her home.
+
+She was soon convalescent. Two days later, Renine carefully questioned her
+and asked her how she had come to know the madwoman.
+
+"It was very simple," she said. "My husband, who is not quite sane, as I
+have told you, is being looked after at Ville d'Avray; and I sometimes go
+to see him, without telling anybody, I admit. That was how I came to speak
+to that poor madwoman and how, the other day, she made signs that she
+wanted me to visit her. We were alone. I went into the cottage. She threw
+herself upon me and overpowered me before I had time to cry for help. I
+thought it was a jest; and so it was, wasn't it: a madwoman's jest? She was
+quite gentle with me.... All the same, she let me starve. But I was so sure
+of you!"
+
+"And weren't you frightened?"
+
+"Of starving? No. Besides, she gave me some food, now and then, when the
+fancy took her.... And then I was sure of you!"
+
+"Yes, but there was something else: that other peril...."
+
+"What other peril?" she asked, ingenuously.
+
+Renine gave a start. He suddenly understood--it seemed strange at first,
+though it was quite natural--that Hortense had not for a moment suspected
+and did not yet suspect the terrible danger which she had run. Her mind had
+not connected with her own adventure the murders committed by the lady with
+the hatchet.
+
+He thought that it would always be time enough to tell her the truth. For
+that matter, a few days later her husband, who had been locked up for
+years, died in the asylum at Ville d'Avray, and Hortense, who had been
+recommended by her doctor a short period of rest and solitude, went to stay
+with a relation living near the village of Bassicourt, in the centre of
+France.
+
+
+
+
+VII
+
+FOOTPRINTS IN THE SNOW
+
+
+_To Prince Serge Renine,
+  Boulevard Haussmann,
+    Paris_
+
+LA RONCIERE
+  NEAR BASSICOURT,
+    14 NOVEMBER.
+
+"MY DEAR FRIEND,--
+
+"You must be thinking me very ungrateful. I have been here three weeks; and
+you have had not one letter from me! Not a word of thanks! And yet I ended
+by realizing from what terrible death you saved me and understanding the
+secret of that terrible business! But indeed, indeed I couldn't help it! I
+was in such a state of prostration after it all! I needed rest and solitude
+so badly! Was I to stay in Paris? Was I to continue my expeditions with
+you? No, no, no! I had had enough adventures! Other people's are very
+interesting, I admit. But when one is one's self the victim and barely
+escapes with one's life?... Oh, my dear friend, how horrible it was! Shall
+I ever forget it?...
+
+"Here, at la Ronciere, I enjoy the greatest peace. My old spinster cousin
+Ermelin pets and coddles me like an invalid. I am getting back my colour
+and am very well, physically ... so much so, in fact, that I no longer
+ever think of interesting myself in other people's business. Never again!
+For instance (I am only telling you this because you are incorrigible, as
+inquisitive as any old charwoman, and always ready to busy yourself with
+things that don't concern you), yesterday I was present at a rather curious
+meeting. Antoinette had taken me to the inn at Bassicourt, where we were
+having tea in the public room, among the peasants (it was market-day), when
+the arrival of three people, two men and a woman, caused a sudden pause in
+the conversation.
+
+"One of the men was a fat farmer in a long blouse, with a jovial, red face,
+framed in white whiskers. The other was younger, was dressed in corduroy
+and had lean, yellow, cross-grained features. Each of them carried a gun
+slung over his shoulder. Between them was a short, slender young woman, in
+a brown cloak and a fur cap, whose rather thin and extremely pale face was
+surprisingly delicate and distinguished-looking.
+
+"'Father, son and daughter-in-law,' whispered my cousin.
+
+"'What! Can that charming creature be the wife of that clod-hopper?'
+
+"'And the daughter-in-law of Baron de Gorne.'
+
+"'Is the old fellow over there a baron?'
+
+"'Yes, descended from a very ancient, noble family which used to own the
+chateau in the old days. He has always lived like a peasant: a great
+hunter, a great drinker, a great litigant, always at law with somebody, now
+very nearly ruined. His son Mathias was more ambitious and less attached to
+the soil and studied for the bar. Then he went to America. Next, the lack
+of money brought him back to the village, whereupon he fell in love with a
+young girl in the nearest town. The poor girl consented, no one knows why,
+to marry him; and for five years past she has been leading the life of a
+hermit, or rather of a prisoner, in a little manor-house close by, the
+Manoir-au-Puits, the Well Manor.'
+
+"'With the father and the son?' I asked.
+
+"'No, the father lives at the far end of the village, on a lonely farm.'
+
+"'And is Master Mathias jealous?'
+
+"'A perfect tiger!'
+
+"'Without reason?'
+
+"'Without reason, for Natalie de Gorne is the straightest woman in the world
+and it is not her fault if a handsome young man has been hanging around the
+manor-house for the past few months. However, the de Gornes can't get over
+it.'
+
+"'What, the father neither?'
+
+"'The handsome young man is the last descendant of the people who bought the
+chateau long ago. This explains old de Gorne's hatred. Jerome Vignal--I
+know him and am very fond of him--is a good-looking fellow and very well
+off; and he has sworn to run off with Natalie de Gorne. It's the old man
+who says so, whenever he has had a drop too much. There, listen!'
+
+"The old chap was sitting among a group of men who were amusing themselves
+by making him drink and plying him with questions. He was already a little
+bit 'on' and was holding forth with a tone of indignation and a mocking
+smile which formed the most comic contrast:
+
+"'He's wasting his time, I tell you, the coxcomb! It's no manner of use his
+poaching round our way and making sheep's-eyes at the wench.... The coverts
+are watched! If he comes too near, it means a bullet, eh, Mathias?'
+
+"He gripped his daughter-in-law's hand:
+
+"'And then the little wench knows how to defend herself too,' he chuckled.
+'Eh, you don't want any admirers, do you Natalie?'
+
+"The young wife blushed, in her confusion at being addressed in these
+terms, while her husband growled:
+
+"'You'd do better to hold your tongue, father. There are things one doesn't
+talk about in public.'
+
+"'Things that affect one's honour are best settled in public,' retorted the
+old one. 'Where I'm concerned, the honour of the de Gornes comes before
+everything; and that fine spark, with his Paris airs, sha'n't....'
+
+"He stopped short. Before him stood a man who had just come in and who
+seemed to be waiting for him to finish his sentence. The newcomer was a
+tall, powerfully-built young fellow, in riding-kit, with a hunting-crop in
+his hand. His strong and rather stern face was lighted up by a pair of fine
+eyes in which shone an ironical smile.
+
+"'Jerome Vignal,' whispered my cousin.
+
+"The young man seemed not at all embarrassed. On seeing Natalie, he made a
+low bow; and, when Mathias de Gorne took a step forward, he eyed him from
+head to foot, as though to say:
+
+"'Well, what about it?'
+
+"And his attitude was so haughty and contemptuous that the de Gornes
+unslung their guns and took them in both hands, like sportsmen about to
+shoot. The son's expression was very fierce.
+
+"Jerome was quite unmoved by the threat. After a few seconds, turning to
+the inn-keeper, he remarked:
+
+"'Oh, I say! I came to see old Vasseur. But his shop is shut. Would you mind
+giving him the holster of my revolver? It wants a stitch or two.'
+
+"He handed the holster to the inn-keeper and added, laughing:
+
+"'I'm keeping the revolver, in case I need it. You never can tell!'
+
+"Then, still very calmly, he took a cigarette from a silver case, lit it
+and walked out. We saw him through the window vaulting on his horse and
+riding off at a slow trot.
+
+"Old de Gorne tossed off a glass of brandy, swearing most horribly.
+
+"His son clapped his hand to the old man's mouth and forced him to sit
+down. Natalie de Gorne was weeping beside them....
+
+"That's my story, dear friend. As you see, it's not tremendously
+interesting and does not deserve your attention. There's no mystery in it
+and no part for you to play. Indeed, I particularly insist that you should
+not seek a pretext for any untimely interference. Of course, I should be
+glad to see the poor thing protected: she appears to be a perfect martyr.
+But, as I said before, let us leave other people to get out of their own
+troubles and go no farther with our little experiments...."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Renine finished reading the letter, read it over again and ended by saying:
+
+"That's it. Everything's right as right can be. She doesn't want to
+continue our little experiments, because this would make the seventh and
+because she's afraid of the eighth, which under the terms of our agreement
+has a very particular significance. She doesn't want to ... and she does
+want to ... without seeming to want to."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+He rubbed his hands. The letter was an invaluable witness to the influence
+which he had gradually, gently and patiently gained over Hortense Daniel.
+It betrayed a rather complex feeling, composed of admiration, unbounded
+confidence, uneasiness at times, fear and almost terror, but also love:
+he was convinced of that. His companion in adventures which she shared
+with a good fellowship that excluded any awkwardness between them, she
+had suddenly taken fright; and a sort of modesty, mingled with a certain
+coquetry; was impelling her to hold back.
+
+That very evening, Sunday, Renine took the train.
+
+And, at break of day, after covering by diligence, on a road white with
+snow, the five miles between the little town of Pompignat, where he
+alighted, and the village of Bassicourt, he learnt that his journey might
+prove of some use: three shots had been heard during the night in the
+direction of the Manoir-au-Puits.
+
+"Three shots, sergeant. I heard them as plainly as I see you standing
+before me," said a peasant whom the gendarmes were questioning in the
+parlour of the inn which Renine had entered.
+
+"So did I," said the waiter. "Three shots. It may have been twelve o'clock
+at night. The snow, which had been falling since nine, had stopped ...
+and the shots sounded across the fields, one after the other: bang, bang,
+bang."
+
+Five more peasants gave their evidence. The sergeant and his men had
+heard nothing, because the police-station backed on the fields. But a
+farm-labourer and a woman arrived, who said that they were in Mathias
+de Gorne's service, that they had been away for two days because of the
+intervening Sunday and that they had come straight from the manor-house,
+where they were unable to obtain admission:
+
+"The gate of the grounds is locked, sergeant," said the man. "It's the
+first time I've known this to happen. M. Mathias comes out to open it
+himself, every morning at the stroke of six, winter and summer. Well, it's
+past eight now. I called and shouted. Nobody answered. So we came on here."
+
+"You might have enquired at old M. de Gorne's," said the sergeant. "He
+lives on the high-road."
+
+"On my word, so I might! I never thought of that."
+
+"We'd better go there now," the sergeant decided. Two of his men went with
+him, as well as the peasants and a locksmith whose services were called
+into requisition. Renine joined the party.
+
+Soon, at the end of the village, they reached old de Gorne's farmyard,
+which Renine recognized by Hortense's description of its position.
+
+The old fellow was harnessing his horse and trap. When they told him what
+had happened, he burst out laughing:
+
+"Three shots? Bang, bang, bang? Why, my dear sergeant, there are only two
+barrels to Mathias' gun!"
+
+"What about the locked gate?"
+
+"It means that the lad's asleep, that's all. Last night, he came and
+cracked a bottle with me ... perhaps two ... or even three; and he'll be
+sleeping it off, I expect ... he and Natalie."
+
+He climbed on to the box of his trap--an old cart with a patched tilt--and
+cracked his whip:
+
+"Good-bye, gentlemen all. Those three shots of yours won't stop me from
+going to market at Pompignat, as I do every Monday. I've a couple of calves
+under the tilt; and they're just fit for the butcher. Good-day to you!"
+
+The others walked on. Renine went up to the sergeant and gave him his name:
+
+"I'm a friend of Mlle. Ermelin, of La Ronciere; and, as it's too early to
+call on her yet, I shall be glad if you'll allow me to go round by the
+manor with you. Mlle. Ermelin knows Madame de Gorne; and it will be a
+satisfaction to me to relieve her mind, for there's nothing wrong at the
+manor-house, I hope?"
+
+"If there is," replied the sergeant, "we shall read all about it as plainly
+as on a map, because of the snow."
+
+He was a likable young man and seemed smart and intelligent. From the very
+first he had shown great acuteness in observing the tracks which Mathias
+had left behind him, the evening before, on returning home, tracks which
+soon became confused with the footprints made in going and coming by the
+farm-labourer and the woman. Meanwhile they came to the walls of a property
+of which the locksmith readily opened the gate.
+
+From here onward, a single trail appeared upon the spotless snow, that of
+Mathias; and it was easy to perceive that the son must have shared largely
+in the father's libations, as the line of footprints described sudden
+curves which made it swerve right up to the trees of the avenue.
+
+Two hundred yards farther stood the dilapidated two-storeyed building of
+the Manoir-au-Puits. The principal door was open.
+
+"Let's go in," said the sergeant.
+
+And, the moment he had crossed the threshold, he muttered:
+
+"Oho! Old de Gorne made a mistake in not coming. They've been fighting in
+here."
+
+The big room was in disorder. Two shattered chairs, the overturned table
+and much broken glass and china bore witness to the violence of the
+struggle. The tall clock, lying on the ground, had stopped at twenty past
+eleven.
+
+With the farm-girl showing them the way, they ran up to the first floor.
+Neither Mathias nor his wife was there. But the door of their bedroom had
+been broken down with a hammer which they discovered under the bed.
+
+Renine and the sergeant went downstairs again. The living-room had a
+passage communicating with the kitchen, which lay at the back of the house
+and opened on a small yard fenced off from the orchard. At the end of this
+enclosure was a well near which one was bound to pass.
+
+Now, from the door of the kitchen to the well, the snow, which was not
+very thick, had been pressed down to this side and that, as though a body
+had been dragged over it. And all around the well were tangled traces of
+trampling feet, showing that the struggle must have been resumed at this
+spot. The sergeant again discovered Mathias' footprints, together with
+others which were shapelier and lighter.
+
+These latter went straight into the orchard, by themselves. And, thirty
+yards on, near the footprints, a revolver was picked up and recognized by
+one of the peasants as resembling that which Jerome Vignal had produced in
+the inn two days before.
+
+The sergeant examined the cylinder. Three of the seven bullets had been
+fired.
+
+And so the tragedy was little by little reconstructed in its main outlines;
+and the sergeant, who had ordered everybody to stand aside and not to step
+on the site of the footprints, came back to the well, leant over, put a few
+questions to the farm-girl and, going up to Renine, whispered:
+
+"It all seems fairly clear to me."
+
+Renine took his arm:
+
+"Let's speak out plainly, sergeant. I understand the business pretty
+well, for, as I told you, I know Mlle. Ermelin, who is a friend of Jerome
+Vignal's and also knows Madame de Gorne. Do you suppose ...?"
+
+"I don't want to suppose anything. I simply declare that some one came
+there last night...."
+
+"By which way? The only tracks of a person coming towards the manor are
+those of M. de Gorne."
+
+"That's because the other person arrived before the snowfall, that is to
+say, before nine o'clock."
+
+"Then he must have hidden in a corner of the living-room and waited for the
+return of M. de Gorne, who came after the snow?"
+
+"Just so. As soon as Mathias came in, the man went for him. There was a
+fight. Mathias made his escape through the kitchen. The man ran after him
+to the well and fired three revolver-shots."
+
+"And where's the body?"
+
+"Down the well."
+
+Renine protested:
+
+"Oh, I say! Aren't you taking a lot for granted?"
+
+"Why, sir, the snow's there, to tell the story; and the snow plainly says
+that, after the struggle, after the three shots, one man alone walked
+away and left the farm, one man only, and his footprints are not those
+of Mathias de Gorne. Then where can Mathias de Gorne be?"
+
+"But the well ... can be dragged?"
+
+"No. The well is practically bottomless. It is known all over the district
+and gives its name to the manor."
+
+"So you really believe ...?"
+
+"I repeat what I said. Before the snowfall, a single arrival, Mathias, and
+a single departure, the stranger."
+
+"And Madame de Gorne? Was she too killed and thrown down the well like her
+husband?"
+
+"No, carried off."
+
+"Carried off?"
+
+"Remember that her bedroom was broken down with a hammer."
+
+"Come, come, sergeant! You yourself declare that there was only one
+departure, the stranger's."
+
+"Stoop down. Look at the man's footprints. See how they sink into the snow,
+until they actually touch the ground. Those are the footprints of a man,
+laden with a heavy burden. The stranger was carrying Madame de Gorne on his
+shoulder."
+
+"Then there's an outlet this way?"
+
+"Yes, a little door of which Mathias de Gorne always had the key on him.
+The man must have taken it from him."
+
+"A way out into the open fields?"
+
+"Yes, a road which joins the departmental highway three quarters of a mile
+from here.... And do you know where?"
+
+"Where?"
+
+"At the corner of the chateau."
+
+"Jerome Vignal's chateau?"
+
+"By Jove, this is beginning to look serious! If the trail leads to the
+chateau and stops there, we shall know where we stand."
+
+The trail did continue to the chateau, as they were able to perceive after
+following it across the undulating fields, on which the snow lay heaped in
+places. The approach to the main gates had been swept, but they saw that
+another trail, formed by the two wheels of a vehicle, was running in the
+opposite direction to the village.
+
+The sergeant rang the bell. The porter, who had also been sweeping the
+drive, came to the gates, with a broom in his hand. In answer to a
+question, the man said that M. Vignal had gone away that morning before
+anyone else was up and that he himself had harnessed the horse to the trap.
+
+"In that case," said Renine, when they had moved away, "all we have to do
+is to follow the tracks of the wheels."
+
+"That will be no use," said the sergeant. "They have taken the railway."
+
+"At Pompignat station, where I came from? But they would have passed
+through the village."
+
+"They have gone just the other way, because it leads to the town, where the
+express trains stop. The procurator-general has an office in the town. I'll
+telephone; and, as there's no train before eleven o'clock, all that they
+need do is to keep a watch at the station."
+
+"I think you're doing the right thing, sergeant," said Renine, "and I
+congratulate you on the way in which you have carried out your
+investigation."
+
+They parted. Renine went back to the inn in the village and sent a note to
+Hortense Daniel by hand:
+
+    "MY VERY DEAR FRIEND,
+
+    "I seemed to gather from your letter that, touched as always by
+    anything that concerns the heart, you were anxious to protect the
+    love-affair of Jerome and Natalie. Now there is every reason to
+    suppose that these two, without consulting their fair protectress,
+    have run away, after throwing Mathias de Gorne down a well.
+
+    "Forgive me for not coming to see you. The whole thing is extremely
+    obscure; and, if I were with you, I should not have the detachment
+    of mind which is needed to think the case over."
+
+It was then half-past ten. Renine went for a walk into the country, with
+his hands clasped behind his back and without vouchsafing a glance at the
+exquisite spectacle of the white meadows. He came back for lunch, still
+absorbed in his thoughts and indifferent to the talk of the customers of
+the inn, who on all sides were discussing recent events.
+
+He went up to his room and had been asleep some time when he was awakened
+by a tapping at the door. He got up and opened it:
+
+"Is it you?... Is it you?" he whispered.
+
+Hortense and he stood gazing at each other for some seconds in silence,
+holding each other's hands, as though nothing, no irrelevant thought and no
+utterance, must be allowed to interfere with the joy of their meeting. Then
+he asked:
+
+"Was I right in coming?"
+
+"Yes," she said, gently, "I expected you."
+
+"Perhaps it would have been better if you had sent for me sooner, instead
+of waiting.... Events did not wait, you see, and I don't quite know what's
+to become of Jerome Vignal and Natalie de Gorne."
+
+"What, haven't you heard?" she said, quickly. "They've been arrested. They
+were going to travel by the express."
+
+"Arrested? No." Renine objected. "People are not arrested like that. They
+have to be questioned first."
+
+"That's what's being done now. The authorities are making a search."
+
+"Where?"
+
+"At the chateau. And, as they are innocent.... For they are innocent,
+aren't they? You don't admit that they are guilty, any more than I do?"
+
+He replied:
+
+"I admit nothing, I can admit nothing, my dear. Nevertheless, I am bound
+to say that everything is against them ... except one fact, which is that
+everything is too much against them. It is not normal for so many proofs to
+be heaped up one on top of the other and for the man who commits a murder
+to tell his story so frankly. Apart from this, there's nothing but mystery
+and discrepancy."
+
+"Well?"
+
+"Well, I am greatly puzzled."
+
+"But you have a plan?"
+
+"None at all, so far. Ah, if I could see him, Jerome Vignal, and her,
+Natalie de Gorne, and hear them and know what they are saying in their own
+defence! But you can understand that I sha'n't be permitted either to ask
+them any questions or to be present at their examination. Besides, it must
+be finished by this time."
+
+"It's finished at the chateau," she said, "but it's going to be continued
+at the manor-house."
+
+"Are they taking them to the manor-house?" he asked eagerly.
+
+"Yes ... at least, judging by what was said to the chauffeur of one of the
+procurator's two cars."
+
+"Oh, in that case," exclaimed Renine, "the thing's done! The manor-house!
+Why, we shall be in the front row of the stalls! We shall see and hear
+everything; and, as a word, a tone of the voice, a quiver of the eyelids
+will be enough to give me the tiny clue I need, we may entertain some hope.
+Come along."
+
+He took her by the direct route which he had followed that morning, leading
+to the gate which the locksmith had opened. The gendarmes on duty at
+the manor-house had made a passage through the snow, beside the line of
+footprints and around the house. Chance enabled Renine and Hortense to
+approach unseen and through a side-window to enter a corridor near a
+back-staircase. A few steps up was a little chamber which received its
+only light through a sort of bull's-eye, from the large room on the
+ground-floor. Renine, during the morning visit, had noticed the bull's-eye,
+which was covered on the inside with a piece of cloth. He removed the cloth
+and cut out one of the panes.
+
+A few minutes later, a sound of voices rose from the other side of the
+house, no doubt near the well. The sound grew more distinct. A number of
+people flocked into the house. Some of them went up stairs to the first
+floor, while the sergeant arrived with a young man of whom Renine and
+Hortense were able to distinguish only the tall figure:
+
+"Jerome Vignal," said she.
+
+"Yes," said Renine. "They are examining Madame de Gorne first, upstairs,
+in her bedroom."
+
+A quarter of an hour passed. Then the persons on the first floor came
+downstairs and went in. They were the procurator's deputy, his clerk, a
+commissary of police and two detectives.
+
+Madame de Gorne was shown in and the deputy asked Jerome Vignal to step
+forward.
+
+Jerome Vignal's face was certainly that of the strong man whom Hortense had
+depicted in her letter. He displayed no uneasiness, but rather decision and
+a resolute will. Natalie, who was short and very slight, with a feverish
+light in her eyes, nevertheless produced the same impression of quiet
+confidence.
+
+The deputy, who was examining the disordered furniture and the traces of
+the struggle, invited her to sit down and said to Jerome:
+
+"Monsieur, I have not asked you many questions so far. This is a summary
+enquiry which I am conducting in your presence and which will be continued
+later by the examining-magistrate; and I wished above all to explain to you
+the very serious reasons for which I asked you to interrupt your journey
+and to come back here with Madame de Gorne. You are now in a position to
+refute the truly distressing charges that are hanging over you. I therefore
+ask you to tell me the exact truth."
+
+"Mr. Deputy," replied Jerome, "the charges in question trouble me very
+little. The truth for which you are asking will defeat all the lies which
+chance has accumulated against me. It is this."
+
+He reflected for an instant and then, in clear, frank tones, said:
+
+"I love Madame de Gorne. The first time I met her, I conceived the greatest
+sympathy and admiration for her. But my affection has always been directed
+by the sole thought of her happiness. I love her, but I respect her even
+more. Madame de Gorne must have told you and I tell you again that she and
+I exchanged our first few words last night."
+
+He continued, in a lower voice:
+
+"I respect her the more inasmuch as she is exceedingly unhappy. All the
+world knows that every minute of her life was a martyrdom. Her husband
+persecuted her with ferocious hatred and frantic jealousy. Ask the
+servants. They will tell you of the long suffering of Natalie de Gorne, of
+the blows which she received and the insults which she had to endure. I
+tried to stop this torture by restoring to the rights of appeal which the
+merest stranger may claim when unhappiness and injustice pass a certain
+limit. I went three times to old de Gorne and begged him to interfere; but
+I found in him an almost equal hatred towards his daughter-in-law, the
+hatred which many people feel for anything beautiful and noble. At last
+I resolved on direct action and last night I took a step with regard to
+Mathias de Gorne which was ... a little unusual, I admit, but which seemed
+likely to succeed, considering the man's character. I swear, Mr. Deputy,
+that I had no other intention than to talk to Mathias de Gorne. Knowing
+certain particulars of his life which enabled me to bring effective
+pressure to bear upon him, I wished to make use of this advantage in order
+to achieve my purpose. If things turned out differently, I am not wholly
+to blame.... So I went there a little before nine o'clock. The servants, I
+knew, were out. He opened the door himself. He was alone."
+
+"Monsieur," said the deputy, interrupting him, "you are saying
+something--as Madame de Gorne, for that matter, did just now--which is
+manifestly opposed to the truth. Mathias de Gorne did not come home last
+night until eleven o'clock. We have two definite proofs of this: his
+father's evidence and the prints of his feet in the snow, which fell from
+a quarter past nine o'clock to eleven."
+
+"Mr. Deputy," Jerome Vignal declared, without heeding the bad effect which
+his obstinacy was producing, "I am relating things as they were and not as
+they may be interpreted. But to continue. That clock marked ten minutes to
+nine when I entered this room. M. de Gorne, believing that he was about to
+be attacked, had taken down his gun. I placed my revolver on the table, out
+of reach of my hand, and sat down: 'I want to speak to you, monsieur,' I
+said. 'Please listen to me.' He did not stir and did not utter a single
+syllable. So I spoke. And straightway, crudely, without any previous
+explanations which might have softened the bluntness of my proposal, I
+spoke the few words which I had prepared beforehand: 'I have spent some
+months, monsieur,' I said, 'in making careful enquiries into your financial
+position. You have mortgaged every foot of your land. You have signed
+bills which will shortly be falling due and which it will be absolutely
+impossible for you to honour. You have nothing to hope for from your
+father, whose own affairs are in a very bad condition. So you are ruined. I
+have come to save you.'... He watched me, still without speaking, and sat
+down, which I took to mean that my suggestion was not entirely displeasing.
+Then I took a sheaf of bank-notes from my pocket, placed it before him
+and continued: 'Here is sixty thousand francs, monsieur. I will buy the
+Manoir-au-Puits, its lands and dependencies and take over the mortgages.
+The sum named is exactly twice what they are worth.'... I saw his eyes
+glittering. He asked my conditions. 'Only one,' I said, 'that you go to
+America.'... Mr. Deputy, we sat discussing for two hours. It was not that
+my offer roused his indignation--I should not have risked it if I had not
+known with whom I was dealing--but he wanted more and haggled greedily,
+though he refrained from mentioning the name of Madame de Gorne, to whom I
+myself had not once alluded. We might have been two men engaged in a
+dispute and seeking an agreement on common ground, whereas it was the
+happiness and the whole destiny of a woman that were at stake. At last,
+weary of the discussion, I accepted a compromise and we came to terms,
+which I resolved to make definite then and there. Two letters were
+exchanged between us: one in which he made the Manoir-au-Puits over to me
+for the sum which I had paid him; and one, which he pocketed immediately,
+by which I was to send him as much more in America on the day on which the
+decree of divorce was pronounced.... So the affair was settled. I am sure
+that at that moment he was accepting in good faith. He looked upon me less
+as an enemy and a rival than as a man who was doing him a service. He even
+went so far as to give me the key of the little door which opens on the
+fields, so that I might go home by the short cut. Unfortunately, while I
+was picking up my cap and greatcoat, I made the mistake of leaving on the
+table the letter of sale which he had signed. In a moment, Mathias de Gorne
+had seen the advantage which he could take of my slip: he could keep his
+property, keep his wife ... and keep the money. Quick as lightning, he
+tucked away the paper, hit me over the head with the butt-end of his gun,
+threw the gun on the floor and seized me by the throat with both hands. He
+had reckoned without his host. I was the stronger of the two; and after a
+sharp but short struggle, I mastered him and tied him up with a cord which
+I found lying in a corner ... Mr. Deputy, if my enemy's resolve was sudden,
+mine was no less so. Since, when all was said, he had accepted the bargain,
+I would force him to keep it, at least in so far as I was interested. A
+very few steps brought me to the first floor ... I had not a doubt that
+Madame de Gorne was there and had heard the sound of our discussion.
+Switching on the light of my pocket-torch, I looked into three bedrooms.
+The fourth was locked. I knocked at the door. There was no reply. But this
+was one of the moments in which a man allows no obstacle to stand in his
+way. I had seen a hammer in one of the rooms. I picked it up and smashed in
+the door.... Yes, Natalie was lying there, on the floor, in a dead faint. I
+took her in my arms, carried her downstairs and went through the kitchen.
+On seeing the snow outside, I at once realized that my footprints would be
+easily traced. But what did it matter? Was there any reason why I should
+put Mathias de Gorne off the scent? Not at all. With the sixty thousand
+francs in his possession, as well as the paper in which I undertook to pay
+him a like sum on the day of his divorce, to say nothing of his house and
+land, he would go away, leaving Natalie de Gorne to me. Nothing was changed
+between us, except one thing: instead of awaiting his good pleasure, I
+had at once seized the precious pledge which I coveted. What I feared,
+therefore, was not so much any subsequent attack on the part of Mathias
+de Gorne, but rather the indignant reproaches of his wife. What would she
+say when she realized that she was a prisoner in my hands?... The reasons
+why I escaped reproach Madame de Gorne has, I believe, had the frankness
+to tell you. Love calls forth love. That night, in my house, broken by
+emotion, she confessed her feeling for me. She loved me as I loved her.
+Our destinies were henceforth mingled. She and I set out at five o'clock
+this morning ... not foreseeing for an instant that we were amenable to
+the law."
+
+Jerome Vignal's story was finished. He had told it straight off the reel,
+like a story learnt by heart and incapable of revision in any detail.
+
+There was a brief pause, during which Hortense whispered:
+
+"It all sounds quite possible and, in any case, very logical."
+
+"There are the objections to come," said Renine. "Wait till you hear them.
+They are very serious. There's one in particular...."
+
+The deputy-procurator stated it at once:
+
+"And what became of M. de Gorne in all this?"
+
+"Mathias de Gorne?" asked Jerome.
+
+"Yes. You have related, with an accent of great sincerity, a series of
+facts which I am quite willing to admit. Unfortunately, you have forgotten
+a point of the first importance: what became of Mathias de Gorne? You tied
+him up here, in this room. Well, this morning he was gone."
+
+"Of course, Mr. Deputy, Mathias de Gorne accepted the bargain in the end
+and went away."
+
+"By what road?"
+
+"No doubt by the road that leads to his father's house."
+
+"Where are his footprints? The expanse of snow is an impartial witness.
+After your fight with him, we see you, on the snow, moving away. Why don't
+we see him? He came and did not go away again. Where is he? There is not a
+trace of him ... or rather...."
+
+The deputy lowered his voice:
+
+"Or rather, yes, there are some traces on the way to the well and around
+the well ... traces which prove that the last struggle of all took place
+there.... And after that there is nothing ... not a thing...."
+
+Jerome shrugged his shoulders:
+
+"You have already mentioned this, Mr. Deputy, and it implies a charge of
+homicide against me. I have nothing to say to it."
+
+"Have you anything to say to the fact that your revolver was picked up
+within fifteen yards of the well?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Or to the strange coincidence between the three shots heard in the night
+and the three cartridges missing from your revolver?"
+
+"No, Mr. Deputy, there was not, as you believe, a last struggle by the
+well, because I left M. de Gorne tied up, in this room, and because I also
+left my revolver here. On the other hand, if shots were heard, they were
+not fired by me."
+
+"A casual coincidence, therefore?"
+
+"That's a matter for the police to explain. My only duty is to tell the
+truth and you are not entitled to ask more of me."
+
+"And if that truth conflicts with the facts observed?"
+
+"It means that the facts are wrong, Mr. Deputy."
+
+"As you please. But, until the day when the police are able to make them
+agree with your statements, you will understand that I am obliged to keep
+you under arrest."
+
+"And Madame de Gorne?" asked Jerome, greatly distressed.
+
+The deputy did not reply. He exchanged a few words with the commissary of
+police and then, beckoning to a detective, ordered him to bring up one of
+the two motor-cars. Then he turned to Natalie:
+
+"Madame, you have heard M. Vignal's evidence. It agrees word for word with
+your own. M. Vignal declares in particular that you had fainted when he
+carried you away. But did you remain unconscious all the way?"
+
+It seemed as though Jerome's composure had increased Madame de Gorne's
+assurance. She replied:
+
+"I did not come to, monsieur, until I was at the chateau."
+
+"It's most extraordinary. Didn't you hear the three shots which were heard
+by almost every one in the village?"
+
+"I did not."
+
+"And did you see nothing of what happened beside the well?"
+
+"Nothing did happen. M. Vignal has told you so."
+
+"Then what has become of your husband?"
+
+"I don't know."
+
+"Come, madame, you really must assist the officers of the law and at least
+tell us what you think. Do you believe that there may have been an accident
+and that possibly M. de Gorne, who had been to see his father and had more
+to drink than usual, lost his balance and fell into the well?"
+
+"When my husband came back from seeing his father, he was not in the least
+intoxicated."
+
+"His father, however, has stated that he was. His father and he had drunk
+two or three bottles of wine."
+
+"His father is not telling the truth."
+
+"But the snow tells the truth, madame," said the deputy, irritably. "And
+the line of his footprints wavers from side to side."
+
+"My husband came in at half-past-eight, monsieur, before the snow had begun
+to fall."
+
+The deputy struck the table with his fist:
+
+"But, really, madame, you're going right against the evidence!... That
+sheet of snow cannot speak false!... I may accept your denial of matters
+that cannot be verified. But these footprints in the snow ... in the
+snow...."
+
+He controlled himself.
+
+The motor-car drew up outside the windows. Forming a sudden resolve, he
+said to Natalie:
+
+"You will be good enough to hold yourself at the disposal of the
+authorities, madame, and to remain here, in the manor-house...."
+
+And he made a sign to the sergeant to remove Jerome Vignal in the car.
+
+The game was lost for the two lovers. Barely united, they had to separate
+and to fight, far away from each other, against the most grievous
+accusations.
+
+Jerome took a step towards Natalie. They exchanged a long, sorrowful look.
+Then he bowed to her and walked to the door, in the wake of the sergeant of
+gendarmes.
+
+"Halt!" cried a voice. "Sergeant, right about ... turn!... Jerome Vignal,
+stay where you are!"
+
+The ruffled deputy raised his head, as did the other people present. The
+voice came from the ceiling. The bulls-eye window had opened and Renine,
+leaning through it, was waving his arms:
+
+"I wish to be heard!... I have several remarks to make ... especially in
+respect of the zigzag footprints!... It all lies in that!... Mathias had
+not been drinking!..."
+
+He had turned round and put his two legs through the opening, saying to
+Hortense, who tried to prevent him:
+
+"Don't move.... No one will disturb you."
+
+And, releasing his hold, he dropped into the room.
+
+The deputy appeared dumfounded:
+
+"But, really, monsieur, who are you? Where do you come from?"
+
+Renine brushed the dust from his clothes and replied:
+
+"Excuse me, Mr. Deputy. I ought to have come the same way as everybody
+else. But I was in a hurry. Besides, if I had come in by the door instead
+of falling from the ceiling, my words would not have made the same
+impression."
+
+The infuriated deputy advanced to meet him:
+
+"Who are you?"
+
+"Prince Renine. I was with the sergeant this morning when he was pursuing
+his investigations, wasn't I, sergeant? Since then I have been hunting
+about for information. That's why, wishing to be present at the hearing,
+I found a corner in a little private room...."
+
+"You were there? You had the audacity?..."
+
+"One must needs be audacious, when the truth's at stake. If I had not
+been there, I should not have discovered just the one little clue which I
+missed. I should not have known that Mathias de Gorne was not the least bit
+drunk. Now that's the key to the riddle. When we know that, we know the
+solution."
+
+The deputy found himself in a rather ridiculous position. Since he
+had failed to take the necessary precautions to ensure the secrecy of
+his enquiry, it was difficult for him to take any steps against this
+interloper. He growled:
+
+"Let's have done with this. What are you asking?"
+
+"A few minutes of your kind attention."
+
+"And with what object?"
+
+"To establish the innocence of M. Vignal and Madame de Gorne."
+
+He was wearing that calm air, that sort of indifferent look which was
+peculiar to him in moments of actions when the crisis of the drama depended
+solely upon himself. Hortense felt a thrill pass through her and at once
+became full of confidence:
+
+"They're saved," she thought, with sudden emotion. "I asked him to protect
+that young creature; and he is saving her from prison and despair."
+
+Jerome and Natalie must have experienced the same impression of sudden
+hope, for they had drawn nearer to each other, as though this stranger,
+descended from the clouds, had already given them the right to clasp hands.
+
+The deputy shrugged his shoulders:
+
+"The prosecution will have every means, when the time comes, of
+establishing their innocence for itself. You will be called."
+
+"It would be better to establish it here and now. Any delay might lead to
+grievous consequences."
+
+"I happen to be in a hurry."
+
+"Two or three minutes will do."
+
+"Two or three minutes to explain a case like this!"
+
+"No longer, I assure you."
+
+"Are you as certain of it as all that?"
+
+"I am now. I have been thinking hard since this morning."
+
+The deputy realized that this was one of those gentry who stick to you
+like a leech and that there was nothing for it but to submit. In a rather
+bantering tone, he asked:
+
+"Does your thinking enable you to tell us the exact spot where M. Mathias
+de Gorne is at this moment?"
+
+Renine took out his watch and answered:
+
+"In Paris, Mr. Deputy."
+
+"In Paris? Alive then?"
+
+"Alive and, what is more, in the pink of health."
+
+"I am delighted to hear it. But then what's the meaning of the footprints
+around the well and the presence of that revolver and those three shots?"
+
+"Simply camouflage."
+
+"Oh, really? Camouflage contrived by whom?"
+
+"By Mathias de Gorne himself."
+
+"That's curious! And with what object?"
+
+"With the object of passing himself off for dead and of arranging
+subsequent matters in such a way that M. Vignal was bound to be accused of
+the death, the murder."
+
+"An ingenious theory," the deputy agreed, still in a satirical tone. "What
+do you think of it, M. Vignal?"
+
+"It is a theory which flashed through my own mind. Mr. Deputy," replied
+Jerome. "It is quite likely that, after our struggle and after I had gone,
+Mathias de Gorne conceived a new plan by which, this time, his hatred would
+be fully gratified. He both loved and detested his wife. He held me in the
+greatest loathing. This must be his revenge."
+
+"His revenge would cost him dear, considering that, according to your
+statement, Mathias de Gorne was to receive a second sum of sixty thousand
+francs from you."
+
+"He would receive that sum in another quarter, Mr. Deputy. My examination
+of the financial position of the de Gorne family revealed to me the fact
+that the father and son had taken out a life-insurance policy in each
+other's favour. With the son dead, or passing for dead, the father would
+receive the insurance-money and indemnify his son."
+
+"You mean to say," asked the deputy, with a smile, "that in all this
+camouflage, as you call it, M. de Gorne the elder would act as his son's
+accomplice?"
+
+Renine took up the challenge:
+
+"Just so, Mr. Deputy. The father and son are accomplices.
+
+"Then we shall find the son at the father's?"
+
+"You would have found him there last night."
+
+"What became of him?"
+
+"He took the train at Pompignat."
+
+"That's a mere supposition."
+
+"No, a certainty."
+
+"A moral certainty, perhaps, but you'll admit there's not the slightest
+proof."
+
+The deputy did not wait for a reply. He considered that he had displayed an
+excessive goodwill and that patience has its limits and he put an end to
+the interview:
+
+"Not the slightest proof," he repeated, taking up his hat. "And, above
+all, ... above all, there's nothing in what you've said that can contradict
+in the very least the evidence of that relentless witness, the snow. To go
+to his father, Mathias de Gorne must have left this house. Which way did he
+go?"
+
+"Hang it all, M. Vignal told you: by the road which leads from here to his
+father's!"
+
+"There are no tracks in the snow."
+
+"Yes, there are."
+
+"But they show him coming here and not going away from here."
+
+"It's the same thing."
+
+"What?"
+
+"Of course it is. There's more than one way of walking. One doesn't always
+go ahead by following one's nose."
+
+"In what other way can one go ahead?"
+
+"By walking backwards, Mr. Deputy."
+
+These few words, spoken very simply, but in a clear tone which gave full
+value to every syllable, produced a profound silence. Those present at
+once grasped their extreme significance and, by adapting it to the actual
+happenings, perceived in a flash the impenetrable truth, which suddenly
+appeared to be the most natural thing in the world.
+
+Renine continued his argument. Stepping backwards in the direction of the
+window, he said:
+
+"If I want to get to that window, I can of course walk straight up to it;
+but I can just as easily turn my back to it and walk that way. In either
+case I reach my goal."
+
+And he at once proceeded in a vigorous tone:
+
+"Here's the gist of it all. At half-past eight, before the snow fell, M. de
+Gorne comes home from his father's house. M. Vignal arrives twenty minutes
+later. There is a long discussion and a struggle, taking up three hours in
+all. It is then, after M. Vignal has carried off Madame de Gorne and made
+his escape, that Mathias de Gorne, foaming at the mouth, wild with rage,
+but suddenly seeing his chance of taking the most terrible revenge, hits
+upon the ingenious idea of using against his enemy the very snowfall upon
+whose evidence you are now relying. He therefore plans his own murder, or
+rather the appearance of his murder and of his fall to the bottom of the
+well and makes off backwards, step by step, thus recording his arrival
+instead of his departure on the white page."
+
+The deputy sneered no longer. This eccentric intruder suddenly appeared to
+him in the light of a person worthy of attention, whom it would not do to
+make fun of. He asked:
+
+"And how could he have left his father's house?"
+
+"In a trap, quite simply."
+
+"Who drove it?"
+
+"The father. This morning the sergeant and I saw the trap and spoke to the
+father, who was going to market as usual. The son was hidden under the
+tilt. He took the train at Pompignat and is in Paris by now."
+
+Renine's explanation, as promised, had taken hardly five minutes. He had
+based it solely on logic and the probabilities of the case. And yet not a
+jot was left of the distressing mystery in which they were floundering. The
+darkness was dispelled. The whole truth appeared.
+
+Madame de Gorne wept for joy and Jerome Vignal thanked the good genius who
+was changing the course of events with a stroke of his magic wand.
+
+"Shall we examine those footprints together, Mr. Deputy?" asked Renine. "Do
+you mind? The mistake which the sergeant and I made this morning was to
+investigate only the footprints left by the alleged murderer and to neglect
+Mathias de Gorne's. Why indeed should they have attracted our attention?
+Yet it was precisely there that the crux of the whole affair was to be
+found."
+
+They stepped into the orchard and went to the well. It did not need a
+long examination to observe that many of the footprints were awkward,
+hesitating, too deeply sunk at the heel and toe and differing from one
+another in the angle at which the feet were turned.
+
+"This clumsiness was unavoidable," said Renine. "Mathias de Gorne would
+have needed a regular apprenticeship before his backward progress could
+have equalled his ordinary gait; and both his father and he must have been
+aware of this, at least as regards the zigzags which you see here since old
+de Gorne went out of his way to tell the sergeant that his son had had too
+much drink." And he added "Indeed it was the detection of this falsehood
+that suddenly enlightened me. When Madame de Gorne stated that her husband
+was not drunk, I thought of the footprints and guessed the truth."
+
+The deputy frankly accepted his part in the matter and began to laugh:
+
+"There's nothing left for it but to send detectives after the bogus
+corpse."
+
+"On what grounds, Mr. Deputy?" asked Renine. "Mathias de Gorne has
+committed no offence against the law. There's nothing criminal in trampling
+the soil around a well, in shifting the position of a revolver that doesn't
+belong to you, in firing three shots or in walking backwards to one's
+father's house. What can we ask of him? The sixty thousand francs? I
+presume that this is not M. Vignal's intention and that he does not mean to
+bring a charge against him?"
+
+"Certainly not," said Jerome.
+
+"Well, what then? The insurance-policy in favour of the survivor? But there
+would be no misdemeanour unless the father claimed payment. And I should be
+greatly surprised if he did.... Hullo, here the old chap is! You'll soon
+know all about it."
+
+Old de Gorne was coming along, gesticulating as he walked. His easy-going
+features were screwed up to express sorrow and anger.
+
+"Where's my son?" he cried. "It seems the brute's killed him!... My poor
+Mathias dead! Oh, that scoundrel of a Vignal!"
+
+And he shook his fist at Jerome.
+
+The deputy said, bluntly:
+
+"A word with you, M. de Gorne. Do you intend to claim your rights under a
+certain insurance-policy?"
+
+"Well, what do _you_ think?" said the old man, off his guard.
+
+"The fact is ... your son's not dead. People are even saying that you were
+a partner in his little schemes and that you stuffed him under the tilt of
+your trap and drove him to the station."
+
+The old fellow spat on the ground, stretched out his hand as though he
+were going to take a solemn oath, stood for an instant without moving and
+then, suddenly, changing his mind and his tactics with ingenuous cynicism,
+he relaxed his features, assumed a conciliatory attitude and burst out
+laughing:
+
+"That blackguard Mathias! So he tried to pass himself off as dead? What a
+rascal! And he reckoned on me to collect the insurance-money and send it
+to him? As if I should be capable of such a low, dirty trick!... You don't
+know me, my boy!"
+
+And, without waiting for more, shaking with merriment like a jolly old
+fellow amused by a funny story, he took his departure, not forgetting,
+however, to set his great hob-nail boots on each of the compromising
+footprints which his son had left behind him.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Later, when Renine went back to the manor to let Hortense out, he found
+that she had disappeared.
+
+He called and asked for her at her cousin Ermelin's. Hortense sent down
+word asking him to excuse her: she was feeling a little tired and was lying
+down.
+
+"Capital!" thought Renine. "Capital! She avoids me, therefore she loves me.
+The end is not far off."
+
+
+
+
+VIII
+
+AT THE SIGN OF MERCURY
+
+
+_To Madame Daniel,
+  La Ronciere,
+    near Bassicourt._
+
+"PARIS 30 NOVEMBER
+
+"My Dearest Friend,--
+
+"There has been no letter from you for a fortnight; so I don't expect now
+to receive one for that troublesome date of the 5th of December, which we
+fixed as the last day of our partnership. I rather wish it would come,
+because you will then be released from a contract which no longer seems to
+give you pleasure. To me the seven battles which we fought and won together
+were a time of endless delight and enthusiasm. I was living beside you. I
+was conscious of all the good which that more active and stirring existence
+was doing you. My happiness was so great that I dared not speak of it to
+you or let you see anything of my secret feelings except my desire to
+please you and my passionate devotion. To-day you have had enough of your
+brother in arms. Your will shall be law.
+
+"But, though I bow to your decree, may I remind I you what it was that I
+always believed our final adventure would be? May I repeat your words, not
+one of which I have forgotten?
+
+"'I demand,' you said, 'that you shall restore to me a small, antique
+clasp, made of a cornelian set in a filigree mount. It came to me from my
+mother; and every one knew that it used to bring her happiness and me too.
+Since the day when it vanished from my jewel-case, I have had nothing but
+unhappiness. Restore it to me, my good genius.'
+
+"And, when I asked you when the clasp had disappeared, you answered, with a
+laugh:
+
+"'Seven years ago ... or eight ... or nine: I don't know exactly.... I
+don't know when ... I don't know how ... I know nothing about it....'
+
+"You were challenging me, were you not, and you set me that condition
+because it was one which I could not fulfil? Nevertheless, I promised and I
+should like to keep my promise. What I have tried to do, in order to place
+life before you in a more favourable light, would seem purposeless, if your
+confidence feels the lack of this talisman to which you attach so great a
+value. We must not laugh at these little superstitions. They are often the
+mainspring of our best actions.
+
+"Dear friend, if you had helped me, I should have achieved yet one more
+victory. Alone and hard pushed by the proximity of the date, I have failed,
+not however without placing things on such a footing that the undertaking
+if you care to follow it up, has the greatest chance of success.
+
+"And you will follow it up, won't you? We have entered into a mutual
+agreement which we are bound to honour. It behooves us, within a fixed
+time, to inscribe in the book of our common life eight good stories, to
+which we shall have brought energy, logic, perseverance, some subtlety and
+occasionally a little heroism. This is the eighth of them. It is for you to
+act so that it may be written in its proper place on the 5th of December,
+before the clock strikes eight in the evening.
+
+"And, on that day, you will act as I shall now tell you.
+
+"First of all--and above all, my dear, do not complain that my instructions
+are fanciful: each of them is an indispensable condition of success--first
+of all, cut in your cousin's garden three slender lengths of rush. Plait
+them together and bind up the two ends so as to make a rude switch, like a
+child's whip-lash.
+
+"When you get to Paris, buy a long necklace of jet beads, cut into facets,
+and shorten it so that it consists of seventy-five beads, of almost equal
+size.
+
+"Under your winter cloak, wear a blue woollen gown. On your head, a toque
+with red leaves on it. Round your neck, a feather boa. No gloves. No rings.
+
+"In the afternoon, take a cab along the left bank of the river to the
+church of Saint-Etienne-du-Mont. At four o'clock exactly, there will be,
+near the holy-water basin, just inside the church, an old woman dressed
+in black, saying her prayers on a silver rosary. She will offer you holy
+water. Give her your necklace. She will count the beads and hand it back
+to you. After this, you will walk behind her, you will cross an arm of the
+Seine and she will lead you, down a lonely street in the Ile Saint-Louis,
+to a house which you will enter by yourself.
+
+"On the ground-floor of this house, you will find a youngish man with a
+very pasty complexion. Take off your cloak and then say to him:
+
+"'I have come to fetch my clasp.'
+
+"Do not be astonished by his agitation or dismay. Keep calm in his
+presence. If he questions you, if he wants to know your reason for applying
+to him or what impels you to make that request, give him no explanation.
+Your replies must be confined to these brief formulas:
+
+"'I have come to fetch what belongs to me. I don't know you, I don't know
+your name; but I am obliged to come to you like this. I must have my clasp
+returned to me. I must.'
+
+"I honestly believe that, if you have the firmness not to swerve from
+that attitude, whatever farce the man may play, you will be completely
+successful. But the contest must be a short one and the issue will depend
+solely on your confidence in yourself and your certainty of success. It
+will be a sort of match in which you must defeat your opponent in the first
+round. If you remain impassive, you will win. If you show hesitation or
+uneasiness, you can do nothing against him. He will escape you and regain
+the upper hand after a first moment of distress; and the game will be lost
+in a few minutes. There is no midway house between victory or ... defeat.
+
+"In the latter event, you would be obliged--I beg you to pardon me for
+saying so--again to accept my collaboration. I offer it you in advance, my
+dear, and without any conditions, while stating quite plainly that all that
+I have been able to do for you and all that I may yet do gives me no other
+right than that of thanking you and devoting myself more than ever to the
+woman who represents my joy, my whole life."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Hortense, after reading the letter, folded it up and put it away at the
+back of a drawer, saying, in a resolute voice:
+
+"I sha'n't go."
+
+To begin with, although she had formerly attached some slight importance
+to this trinket, which she had regarded as a mascot, she felt very little
+interest in it now that the period of her trials was apparently at an end.
+She could not forget that figure eight, which was the serial number of the
+next adventure. To launch herself upon it meant taking up the interrupted
+chain, going back to Renine and giving him a pledge which, with his powers
+of suggestion, he would know how to turn to account.
+
+Two days before the 5th of December, she was still in the same frame of
+mind. So she was on the morning of the 4th; but suddenly, without even
+having to contend against preliminary subterfuges, she ran out into the
+garden, cut three lengths of rush, plaited them as she used to do in her
+childhood and at twelve o'clock had herself driven to the station. She was
+uplifted by an eager curiosity. She was unable to resist all the amusing
+and novel sensations which the adventure, proposed by Renine, promised her.
+It was really too tempting. The jet necklace, the toque with the autumn
+leaves, the old woman with the silver rosary: how could she resist their
+mysterious appeal and how could she refuse this opportunity of showing
+Renine what she was capable of doing?
+
+"And then, after all," she said to herself, laughing, "he's summoning me to
+Paris. Now eight o'clock is dangerous to me at a spot three hundred miles
+from Paris, in that old deserted Chateau de Halingre, but nowhere else. The
+only clock that can strike the threatening hour is down there, under lock
+and key, a prisoner!"
+
+She reached Paris that evening. On the morning of the 5th she went out and
+bought a jet necklace, which she reduced to seventy-five beads, put on
+a blue gown and a toque with red leaves and, at four o'clock precisely,
+entered the church of Saint-Etienne-du-Mont.
+
+Her heart was throbbing violently. This time she was alone; and how acutely
+she now felt the strength of that support which, from unreflecting fear
+rather than any reasonable motive, she had thrust aside! She looked around
+her, almost hoping to see him. But there was no one there ... no one except
+an old lady in black, standing beside the holy water basin.
+
+Hortense went up to her. The old lady, who held a silver rosary in her
+hands, offered her holy water and then began to count the beads of the
+necklace which Hortense gave her.
+
+She whispered:
+
+"Seventy-five. That's right. Come."
+
+Without another word, she toddled along under the light of the
+street-lamps, crossed the Pont des Tournelles to the Ile Saint-Louis and
+went down an empty street leading to a cross-roads, where she stopped in
+front of an old house with wrought-iron balconies:
+
+"Go in," she said.
+
+And the old lady went away.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Hortense now saw a prosperous-looking shop which occupied almost the
+whole of the ground-floor and whose windows, blazing with electric light,
+displayed a huddled array of old furniture and antiquities. She stood there
+for a few seconds, gazing at it absently. A sign-board bore the words "The
+Mercury," together with the name of the owner of the shop, "Pancaldi."
+Higher up, on a projecting cornice which ran on a level with the first
+floor, a small niche sheltered a terra-cotta Mercury poised on one foot,
+with wings to his sandals and the caduceus in his hand, who, as Hortense
+noted, was leaning a little too far forward in the ardour of his flight
+and ought logically to have lost his balance and taken a header into the
+street.
+
+"Now!" she said, under her breath.
+
+She turned the handle of the door and walked in.
+
+Despite the ringing of the bells actuated by the opening door, no one came
+to meet her. The shop seemed to be empty. However, at the extreme end there
+was a room at the back of the shop and after that another, both crammed
+with furniture and knick-knacks, many of which looked very valuable.
+Hortense followed a narrow gangway which twisted and turned between two
+walls built up of cupboards, cabinets and console-tables, went up two steps
+and found herself in the last room of all.
+
+A man was sitting at a writing-desk and looking through some account-books.
+Without turning his head, he said:
+
+"I am at your service, madam.... Please look round you...."
+
+This room contained nothing but articles of a special character which
+gave it the appearance of some alchemist's laboratory in the middle ages:
+stuffed owls, skeletons, skulls, copper alembics, astrolabes and all
+around, hanging on the walls, amulets of every description, mainly hands
+of ivory or coral with two fingers pointing to ward off ill-luck.
+
+"Are you wanting anything in particular, madam?" asked M. Pancaldi, closing
+his desk and rising from his chair.
+
+"It's the man," thought Hortense.
+
+He had in fact an uncommonly pasty complexion. A little forked beard,
+flecked with grey, lengthened his face, which was surmounted by a bald,
+pallid forehead, beneath which gleamed a pair of small, prominent,
+restless, shifty eyes.
+
+Hortense, who had not removed her veil or cloak, replied:
+
+"I want a clasp."
+
+"They're in this show-case," he said, leading the way to the connecting
+room.
+
+Hortense glanced over the glass case and said:
+
+"No, no, ... I don't see what I'm looking for. I don't want just any clasp,
+but a clasp which I lost out of a jewel-case some years ago and which I
+have to look for here."
+
+She was astounded to see the commotion displayed on his features. His eyes
+became haggard.
+
+"Here?... I don't think you are in the least likely.... What sort of clasp
+is it?..."
+
+"A cornelian, mounted in gold filigree ... of the 1830 period."
+
+"I don't understand," he stammered. "Why do you come to me?"
+
+She now removed her veil and laid aside her cloak.
+
+He stepped back, as though terrified by the sight of her, and whispered:
+
+"The blue gown!... The toque!... And--can I believe my eyes?--the jet
+necklace!..."
+
+It was perhaps the whip-lash formed of three rushes that excited him most
+violently. He pointed his finger at it, began to stagger where he stood and
+ended by beating the air with his arms, like a drowning man, and fainting
+away in a chair.
+
+Hortense did not move.
+
+"Whatever farce he may play," Renine had written, "have the courage to
+remain impassive."
+
+Perhaps he was not playing a farce. Nevertheless she forced herself to be
+calm and indifferent.
+
+This lasted for a minute or two, after which M. Pancaldi recovered from
+his swoon, wiped away the perspiration streaming down his forehead and,
+striving to control himself, resumed, in a trembling voice:
+
+"Why do you apply to me?"
+
+"Because the clasp is in your possession."
+
+"Who told you that?" he said, without denying the accusation. "How do you
+know?"
+
+"I know because it is so. Nobody has told me anything. I came here positive
+that I should find my clasp and with the immovable determination to take it
+away with me."
+
+"But do you know me? Do you know my name?"
+
+"I don't know you. I did not know your name before I read it over your
+shop. To me you are simply the man who is going to give me back what
+belongs to me."
+
+He was greatly agitated. He kept on walking to and fro in a small empty
+space surrounded by a circle of piled-up furniture, at which he hit out
+idiotically, at the risk of bringing it down.
+
+Hortense felt that she had the whip hand of him; and, profiting by his
+confusion, she said, suddenly, in a commanding and threatening tone:
+
+"Where is the thing? You must give it back to me. I insist upon it."
+
+Pancaldi gave way to a moment of despair. He folded his hands and mumbled a
+few words of entreaty. Then, defeated and suddenly resigned, he said, more
+distinctly:
+
+"You insist?..."
+
+"I do. You must give it to me."
+
+"Yes, yes, I must ... I agree."
+
+"Speak!" she ordered, more harshly still.
+
+"Speak, no, but write: I will write my secret.... And that will be the end
+of me."
+
+He turned to his desk and feverishly wrote a few lines on a sheet of paper,
+which he put into an envelope and sealed it:
+
+"See," he said, "here's my secret.... It was my whole life...."
+
+And, so saying, he suddenly pressed against his temple a revolver which he
+had produced from under a pile of papers and fired.
+
+With a quick movement, Hortense struck up his arm. The bullet struck the
+mirror of a cheval-glass. But Pancaldi collapsed and began to groan, as
+though he were wounded.
+
+Hortense made a great effort not to lose her composure:
+
+"Renine warned me," she reflected. "The man's a play-actor. He has kept the
+envelope. He has kept his revolver, I won't be taken in by him."
+
+Nevertheless, she realized that, despite his apparent calmness, the attempt
+at suicide and the revolver-shot had completely unnerved her. All her
+energies were dispersed, like the sticks of a bundle whose string has been
+cut; and she had a painful impression that the man, who was grovelling at
+her feet, was in reality slowly getting the better of her.
+
+She sat down, exhausted. As Renine had foretold, the duel had not lasted
+longer than a few minutes but it was she who had succumbed, thanks to her
+feminine nerves and at the very moment when she felt entitled to believe
+that she had won.
+
+The man Pancaldi was fully aware of this; and, without troubling to invent
+a transition, he ceased his jeremiads, leapt to his feet, cut a sort of
+agile caper before Hortense' eyes and cried, in a jeering tone:
+
+"Now we are going to have a little chat; but it would be a nuisance to be
+at the mercy of the first passing customer, wouldn't it?"
+
+He ran to the street-door, opened it and pulled down the iron shutter which
+closed the shop. Then, still hopping and skipping, he came back to
+Hortense:
+
+"Oof! I really thought I was done for! One more effort, madam, and you
+would have pulled it off. But then I'm such a simple chap! It seemed to me
+that you had come from the back of beyond, as an emissary of Providence,
+to call me to account; and, like a fool, I was about to give the thing
+back.... Ah, Mlle. Hortense--let me call you so: I used to know you by that
+name--Mlle. Hortense, what you lack, to use a vulgar expression, is gut."
+
+He sat down beside her and, with a malicious look, said, savagely:
+
+"The time has come to speak out. Who contrived this business? Not you; eh?
+It's not in your style. Then who?... I have always been honest in my life,
+scrupulously honest ... except once ... in the matter of that clasp. And,
+whereas I thought the story was buried and forgotten, here it is suddenly
+raked up again. Why? That's what I want to know."
+
+Hortense was no longer even attempting to fight. He was bringing to bear
+upon her all his virile strength, all his spite, all his fears, all the
+threats expressed in his furious gestures and on his features, which were
+both ridiculous and evil:
+
+"Speak, I want to know. If I have a secret foe, let me defend myself
+against him! Who is he? Who sent you here? Who urged you to take action? Is
+it a rival incensed by my good luck, who wants in his turn to benefit by
+the clasp? Speak, can't you, damn it all ... or, I swear by Heaven, I'll
+make you!..."
+
+She had an idea that he was reaching out for his revolver and stepped back,
+holding her arms before her, in the hope of escaping.
+
+They thus struggled against each other; and Hortense, who was becoming
+more and more frightened, not so much of the attack as of her assailant's
+distorted face, was beginning to scream, when Pancaldi suddenly stood
+motionless, with his arms before him, his fingers outstretched and his eyes
+staring above Hortense's head:
+
+"Who's there? How did you get in?" he asked, in a stifled voice.
+
+Hortense did not even need to turn round to feel assured that Renine was
+coming to her assistance and that it was his inexplicable appearance that
+was causing the dealer such dismay. As a matter of fact, a slender figure
+stole through a heap of easy chairs and sofas: and Renine came forward with
+a tranquil step.
+
+"Who are you?" repeated Pancaldi. "Where do you come from?"
+
+"From up there," he said, very amiably, pointing to the ceiling.
+
+"From up there?"
+
+"Yes, from the first floor. I have been the tenant of the floor above this
+for the past three months. I heard a noise just now. Some one was calling
+out for help. So I came down."
+
+"But how did you get in here?"
+
+"By the staircase."
+
+"What staircase?"
+
+"The iron staircase, at the end of the shop. The man who owned it before
+you had a flat on my floor and used to go up and down by that hidden
+staircase. You had the door shut off. I opened it."
+
+"But by what right, sir? It amounts to breaking in."
+
+"Breaking in is allowed, when there's a fellow-creature to be rescued."
+
+"Once more, who are you?"
+
+"Prince Renine ... and a friend of this lady's," said Renine, bending over
+Hortense and kissing her hand.
+
+Pancaldi seemed to be choking, and mumbled:
+
+"Oh, I understand!... You instigated the plot ... it was you who sent the
+lady...."
+
+"It was, M. Pancaldi, it was!"
+
+"And what are your intentions?"
+
+"My intentions are irreproachable. No violence. Simply a little interview.
+When that is over, you will hand over what I in my turn have come to
+fetch."
+
+"What?"
+
+"The clasp."
+
+"That, never!" shouted the dealer.
+
+"Don't say no. It's a foregone conclusion."
+
+"No power on earth, sir, can compel me to do such a thing!"
+
+"Shall we send for your wife? Madame Pancaldi will perhaps realize the
+position better than you do."
+
+The idea of no longer being alone with this unexpected adversary seemed to
+appeal to Pancaldi. There was a bell on the table beside him. He struck it
+three times.
+
+"Capital!" exclaimed Renine "You see, my dear, M. Pancaldi is becoming
+quite amiable. Not a trace left of the devil broken loose who was going for
+you just now. No, M. Pancaldi only has to find himself dealing with a man
+to recover his qualities of courtesy and kindness. A perfect sheep! Which
+does not mean that things will go quite of themselves. Far from it! There's
+no more obstinate animal than a sheep...."
+
+Right at the end of the shop, between the dealer's writing-desk and the
+winding staircase, a curtain was raised, admitting a woman who was holding
+a door open. She might have been thirty years of age. Very simply dressed,
+she looked, with the apron on her, more like a cook than like the mistress
+of a household. But she had an attractive face and a pleasing figure.
+
+Hortense, who had followed Renine, was surprised to recognize her as a maid
+whom she had had in her service when a girl:
+
+"What! Is that you, Lucienne? Are you Madame Pancaldi?"
+
+The newcomer looked at her, recognized her also and seemed embarrassed.
+Renine said to her:
+
+"Your husband and I need your assistance, Madame Pancaldi, to settle a
+rather complicated matter a matter in which you played an important
+part...."
+
+She came forward without a word, obviously ill at ease, asking her husband,
+who did not take his eyes off her:
+
+"What is it?... What do they want with me?... What is he referring to?"
+
+"It's about the clasp!" Pancaldi whispered, under his breath.
+
+These few words were enough to make Madame Pancaldi realize to the full the
+seriousness of her position. And she did not try to keep her countenance or
+to retort with futile protests. She sank into a chair, sighing:
+
+"Oh, that's it!... I understand.... Mlle. Hortense has found the track....
+Oh, it's all up with us!"
+
+There was a moment's respite. The struggle between the adversaries had
+hardly begun, before the husband and wife adopted the attitude of defeated
+persons whose only hope lay in the victor's clemency. Staring motionless
+before her, Madame Pancaldi began to cry. Renine bent over her and said:
+
+"Do you mind if we go over the case from the beginning? We shall then
+see things more clearly; and I am sure that our interview will lead to a
+perfectly natural solution.... This is how things happened: nine years ago,
+when you were lady's maid to Mlle. Hortense in the country, you made the
+acquaintance of M. Pancaldi, who soon became your lover. You were both of
+you Corsicans, in other words, you came from a country where superstitions
+are very strong and where questions of good and bad luck, the evil eye, and
+spells and charms exert a profound influence over the lives of one and all.
+Now it was said that your young mistress' clasp had always brought luck to
+its owners. That was why, in a weak moment prompted by M. Pancaldi, you
+stole the clasp. Six months afterwards, you became Madame Pancaldi.... That
+is your whole story, is it not, told in a few sentences? The whole story
+of two people who would have remained honest members of society, if they
+had been able to resist that casual temptation?... I need not tell you how
+you both succeeded in life and how, possessing the talisman, believing
+its powers and trusting in yourselves, you rose to the first rank of
+antiquarians. To-day, well-off, owning this shop, "The Mercury," you
+attribute the success of your undertakings to that clasp. To lose it would
+to your eyes spell bankruptcy and poverty. Your whole life has been centred
+upon it. It is your fetish. It is the little household god who watches over
+you and guides your steps. It is there, somewhere, hidden in this jungle;
+and no one of course would ever have suspected anything--for I repeat, you
+are decent people, but for this one lapse--if an accident had not led me to
+look into your affairs."
+
+Renine paused and continued:
+
+"That was two months ago, two months of minute investigations, which
+presented no difficulty to me, because, having discovered your trail, I
+hired the flat overhead and was able to use that staircase ... but, all
+the same, two months wasted to a certain extent because I have not yet
+succeeded. And Heaven knows how I have ransacked this shop of yours! There
+is not a piece of furniture that I have left unsearched, not a plank in
+the floor that I have not inspected. All to no purpose. Yes, there was one
+thing, an incidental discovery. In a secret recess in your writing-table,
+Pancaldi, I turned up a little account-book in which you have set down your
+remorse, your uneasiness, your fear of punishment and your dread of God's
+wrath.... It was highly imprudent of you, Pancaldi! People don't write
+such confessions! And, above all, they don't leave them lying about! Be
+this as it may, I read them and I noted one passage, which struck me
+as particularly important and was of use to me in preparing my plan of
+campaign: 'Should she come to me, the woman whom I robbed, should she come
+to me as I saw her in her garden, while Lucienne was taking the clasp;
+should she appear to me wearing the blue gown and the toque of red leaves,
+with the jet necklace and the whip of three plaited rushes which she was
+carrying that day; should she appear to me thus and say: "I have come to
+claim my property," then I shall understand that her conduct is inspired
+from on high and that I must obey the decree of Providence.' That is what
+is written in your book, Pancaldi, and it explains the conduct of the lady
+whom you call Mlle. Hortense. Acting on my instructions and in accordance
+with the setting thought out by yourself, she came to you, from the back of
+beyond, to use your own expression. A little more self-possession on her
+part; and you know that she would have won the day. Unfortunately, you are
+a wonderful actor; your sham suicide put her out; and you understood that
+this was not a decree of Providence, but simply an offensive on the part of
+your former victim. I had no choice, therefore, but to intervene. Here I
+am.... And now let's finish the business. Pancaldi, that clasp!"
+
+"No," said the dealer, who seemed to recover all his energy at the very
+thought of restoring the clasp.
+
+"And you, Madame Pancaldi."
+
+"I don't know where it is," the wife declared.
+
+"Very well. Then let us come to deeds. Madame Pancaldi, you have a son of
+seven whom you love with all your heart. This is Thursday and, as on every
+Thursday, your little boy is to come home alone from his aunt's. Two of my
+friends are posted on the road by which he returns and, in the absence of
+instructions to the contrary, will kidnap him as he passes."
+
+Madame Pancaldi lost her head at once:
+
+"My son! Oh, please, please ... not that!... I swear that I know nothing.
+My husband would never consent to confide in me."
+
+Renine continued:
+
+"Next point. This evening, I shall lodge an information with the public
+prosecutor. Evidence: the confessions in the account-book. Consequences:
+action by the police, search of the premises and the rest."
+
+Pancaldi was silent. The others had a feeling that all these threats did
+not affect him and that, protected by his fetish, he believed himself
+to be invulnerable. But his wife fell on her knees at Renine's feet and
+stammered:
+
+"No, no ... I entreat you!... It would mean going to prison and I don't
+want to go!... And then my son!... Oh, I entreat you!..."
+
+Hortense, seized with compassion, took Renine to one side:
+
+"Poor woman! Let me intercede for her."
+
+"Set your mind at rest," he said. "Nothing is going to happen to her son."
+
+"But your two friends?"
+
+"Sheer bluff."
+
+"Your application to the public prosecutor?"
+
+"A mere threat."
+
+"Then what are you trying to do?"
+
+"To frighten them out of their wits, in the hope of making them drop a
+remark, a word, which will tell us what we want to know. We've tried every
+other means. This is the last; and it is a method which, I find, nearly
+always succeeds. Remember our adventures."
+
+"But if the word which you expect to hear is not spoken?"
+
+"It must be spoken," said Renine, in a low voice. "We must finish the
+matter. The hour is at hand."
+
+His eyes met hers; and she blushed crimson at the thought that the hour to
+which he was alluding was the eighth and that he had no other object than
+to finish the matter before that eighth hour struck.
+
+"So you see, on the one hand, what you are risking," he said to the
+Pancaldi pair. "The disappearance of your child ... and prison: prison for
+certain, since there is the book with its confessions. And now, on the
+other hand, here's my offer: twenty thousand francs if you hand over the
+clasp immediately, this minute. Remember, it isn't worth three louis."
+
+No reply. Madame Pancaldi was crying.
+
+Renine resumed, pausing between each proposal:
+
+"I'll double my offer.... I'll treble it.... Hang it all, Pancaldi, you're
+unreasonable!... I suppose you want me to make it a round sum? All right: a
+hundred thousand francs."
+
+He held out his hand as if there was no doubt that they would give him the
+clasp.
+
+Madame Pancaldi was the first to yield and did so with a sudden outburst of
+rage against her husband:
+
+"Well, confess, can't you?... Speak up!... Where have you hidden it?...
+Look here, you aren't going to be obstinate, what? If you are, it means
+ruin ... and poverty.... And then there's our boy!... Speak out, do!"
+
+Hortense whispered:
+
+"Renine, this is madness; the clasp has no value...."
+
+"Never fear," said Renine, "he's not going to accept.... But look at
+him.... How excited he is! Exactly what I wanted.... Ah, this, you know,
+is really exciting!... To make people lose their heads! To rob them of all
+control over what they are thinking and saying!... And, in the midst of
+this confusion, in the storm that tosses them to and fro, to catch sight of
+the tiny spark which will flash forth somewhere or other!... Look at him!
+Look at the fellow! A hundred thousand francs for a valueless pebble ... if
+not, prison: it's enough to turn any man's head!"
+
+Pancaldi, in fact, was grey in the face; his lips were trembling and a
+drop of saliva was trickling from their corners. It was easy to guess the
+seething turmoil of his whole being, shaken by conflicting emotions, by the
+clash between greed and fear. Suddenly he burst out; and it was obvious
+that his words were pouring forth at random, without his knowing in the
+least what he was saying:
+
+"A hundred thousand francs! Two hundred thousand! Five hundred thousand! A
+million! A two fig for your millions! What's the use of millions? One loses
+them. They disappear.... They go.... There's only one thing that counts:
+luck. It's on your side or else against you. And luck has been on my side
+these last nine years. It has never betrayed me; and you expect me to
+betray it? Why? Out of fear? Prison? My son? Bosh!... No harm will come to
+me so long as I compel luck to work on my behalf. It's my servant, it's my
+friend. It clings to the clasp. How? How can I tell? It's the cornelian,
+no doubt.... There are magic stones, which hold happiness, as others hold
+fire, or sulphur, or gold...."
+
+Renine kept his eyes fixed upon him, watching for the least word, the least
+modulation of the voice. The curiosity-dealer was now laughing, with a
+nervous laugh, while resuming the self-control of a man who feels sure of
+himself: and he walked up to Renine with jerky movements that revealed an
+increasing resolution:
+
+"Millions? My dear sir, I wouldn't have them as a gift. The little bit of
+stone which I possess is worth much more than that. And the proof of it
+lies in all the pains which you are at to take it from me. Aha! Months
+devoted to looking for it, as you yourself confess! Months in which you
+turned everything topsy-turvy, while I, who suspected nothing, did not even
+defend myself! Why should I? The little thing defended itself all alone....
+It does not want to be discovered and it sha'n't be.... It likes being
+here.... It presides over a good, honest business that satisfies it....
+Pancaldi's luck! Why, it's known to all the neighbourhood, among all the
+dealers! I proclaim it from the house-tops: 'I'm a lucky man!' I even made
+so bold as to take the god of luck, Mercury, as my patron! He too protects
+me. See, I've got Mercuries all over my shop! Look up there, on that shelf,
+a whole row of statuettes, like the one over the front-door, proofs signed
+by a great sculptor who went smash and sold them to me.... Would you like
+one, my dear sir? It will bring you luck too. Take your pick! A present
+from Pancaldi, to make up to you for your defeat! Does that suit you?"
+
+He put a stool against the wall, under the shelf, took down a statuette and
+plumped it into Renine's arms. And, laughing heartily, growing more and
+more excited as his enemy seemed to yield ground and to fall back before
+his spirited attack, he explained:
+
+"Well done! He accepts! And the fact that he accepts shows that we are all
+agreed! Madame Pancaldi, don't distress yourself. Your son's coming back and
+nobody's going to prison! Good-bye, Mlle. Hortense! Good-day, sir! Hope
+to see you again! If you want to speak to me at any time, just give three
+thumps on the ceiling. Good-bye ... don't forget your present ... and
+may Mercury be kind to you! Good-bye, my dear Prince! Good-bye, Mlle.
+Hortense!..."
+
+He hustled them to the iron staircase, gripped each of them by the arm in
+turn and pushed them up to the little door hidden at the top of the stairs.
+
+And the strange thing was that Renine made no protest. He did not attempt
+to resist. He allowed himself to be led along like a naughty child that is
+taken up to bed.
+
+Less than five minutes had elapsed between the moment when he made his
+offer to Pancaldi and the moment when Pancaldi turned him out of the shop
+with a statuette in his arms.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The dining-room and drawing-room of the flat which Renine had taken on the
+first floor looked out upon the street. The table in the dining-room was
+laid for two.
+
+"Forgive me, won't you?" said Renine, as he opened the door of the
+drawing-room for Hortense. "I thought that, whatever happened, I should
+most likely see you this evening and that we might as well dine together.
+Don't refuse me this kindness, which will be the last favour granted in our
+last adventure."
+
+Hortense did not refuse him. The manner in which the battle had ended was
+so different from everything that she had seen hitherto that she felt
+disconcerted. At any rate, why should she refuse, seeing that the terms of
+the contract had not been fulfilled?
+
+Renine left the room to give an order to his manservant. Two minutes later,
+he came back for Hortense. It was then a little past seven.
+
+There were flowers on the table; and the statue of Mercury, Pancaldi's
+present, stood overtopping them.
+
+"May the god of luck preside over our repast," said Renine.
+
+He was full of animation and expressed his great delight at having her
+sitting opposite him:
+
+"Yes," he exclaimed, "I had to resort to powerful means and attract you by
+the bait of the most fabulous enterprises. You must confess that my letter
+was jolly smart! The three rushes, the blue gown; simply irresistible!
+And, when I had thrown in a few puzzles of my own invention, such as the
+seventy-five beads of the necklace and the old woman with the silver
+rosary, I knew that you were bound to succumb to the temptation. Don't be
+angry with me. I wanted to see you and I wanted it to be today. You have
+come and I thank you."
+
+He next told her how he had got on the track of the stolen trinket:
+
+"You hoped, didn't you, in laying down that condition, that I shouldn't be
+able to fulfil it? You made a mistake, my dear. The test, at least at the
+beginning, was easy enough, because it was based upon an undoubted fact:
+the talismanic character attributed to the clasp. I had only to hunt about
+and see whether among the people around you, among your servants, there was
+ever any one upon whom that character may have exercised some attraction.
+Now, on the list of persons which I succeeded in drawing up. I at once
+noticed the name of Mlle. Lucienne, as coming from Corsica. This was my
+starting-point. The rest was a mere concatenation of events."
+
+Hortense stared at him in amazement. How was it that he was accepting his
+defeat with such a careless air and even talking in a tone of triumph,
+whereas really he had been soundly beaten by Pancaldi and even made to look
+just a trifle ridiculous?
+
+She could not help letting him feel this; and the fashion in which she did
+so betrayed a certain disappointment, a certain humiliation:
+
+"Everything is a concatenation of events: very well. But the chain is
+broken, because, when all is said, though you know the thief, you did not
+succeed in laying hands upon the stolen clasp."
+
+The reproach was obvious. Renine had not accustomed her to failure. And
+furthermore she was irritated to see how heedlessly he was accepting a
+blow which, after all, entailed the ruin of any hopes that he might have
+entertained.
+
+He did not reply. He had filled their two glasses with champagne and was
+slowly emptying his own, with his eyes fixed on the statuette of Mercury.
+He turned it about on its pedestal and examined it with the eye of a
+delighted connoisseur:
+
+"What a beautiful thing is a harmonious line! Colour does not uplift me
+so much as outline, proportion, symmetry and all the wonderful properties
+of form. Look at this little statue. Pancaldi's right: it's the work of
+a great artist. The legs are both slender and muscular; the whole figure
+gives an impression of buoyancy and speed. It is very well done. There's
+only one fault, a very slight one: perhaps you've not noticed it?"
+
+"Yes, I have," said Hortense. "It struck me the moment I saw the sign,
+outside. You mean, don't you, a certain lack of balance? The god is leaning
+over too far on the leg that carries him. He looks as though he were going
+to pitch forward."
+
+"That's very clever of you," said Renine. "The fault is almost
+imperceptible and it needs a trained eye to see it. Really, however, as
+a matter of logic, the weight of the body ought to have its way and, in
+accordance with natural laws, the little god ought to take a header."
+
+After a pause he continued:
+
+"I noticed that flaw on the first day. How was it that I did not draw an
+inference at once? I was shocked because the artist had sinned against
+an aesthetic law, whereas I ought to have been shocked because he had
+overlooked a physical law. As though art and nature were not blended
+together! And as though the laws of gravity could be disturbed without
+some fundamental reason!"
+
+"What do you mean?" asked Hortense, puzzled by these reflections, which
+seemed so far removed from their secret thoughts. "What do you mean?"
+
+"Oh, nothing!" he said. "I am only surprised that I didn't understand
+sooner why Mercury did not plump forward, as he should have done."
+
+"And what is the reason?"
+
+"The reason? I imagine that Pancaldi, when pulling the statuette about to
+make it serve his purpose, must have disturbed its balance, but that this
+balance was restored by something which holds the little god back and which
+makes up for his really too dangerous posture."
+
+"Something, you say?"
+
+"Yes, a counterweight."
+
+Hortense gave a start. She too was beginning to see a little light. She
+murmured:
+
+"A counterweight?... Are you thinking that it might be ... in the
+pedestal?"
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"Is that possible? But, if so, how did Pancaldi come to give you this
+statuette?"
+
+"He never gave me _this_ one," Renine declared. "I took this one
+myself."
+
+"But where? And when?"
+
+"Just now, while you were in the drawing-room. I got out of that window,
+which is just over the signboard and beside the niche containing the little
+god. And I exchanged the two, that is to say, I took the statue which was
+outside and put the one which Pancaldi gave me in its place."
+
+"But doesn't that one lean forward?"
+
+"No, no more than the others do, on the shelf in his shop. But Pancaldi
+is not an artist. A lack of equilibrium does not impress him; he will see
+nothing wrong; and he will continue to think himself favoured by luck,
+which is another way of saying that luck will continue to favour him.
+Meanwhile, here's the statuette, the one used for the sign. Am I to break
+the pedestal and take your clasp out of the leaden sheath, soldered to the
+back of the pedestal, which keeps Mercury steady?"
+
+"No, no, there's no need for that," Hortense hurriedly murmured.
+
+Renine's intuition, his subtlety, the skill with which he had managed the
+whole business: to her, for the moment, all these things remained in the
+background. But she suddenly remembered that the eighth adventure was
+completed, that Renine had surmounted every obstacle, that the test had
+turned to his advantage and that the extreme limit of time fixed for the
+last of the adventures was not yet reached.
+
+He had the cruelty to call attention to the fact:
+
+"A quarter to eight," he said.
+
+An oppressive silence fell between them. Both felt its discomfort to such
+a degree that they hesitated to make the least movement. In order to break
+it, Renine jested:
+
+"That worthy M. Pancaldi, how good it was of him to tell me what I wished
+to know! I knew, however, that by exasperating him, I should end by picking
+up the missing clue in what he said. It was just as though one were to hand
+some one a flint and steel and suggest to him that he was to use it. In the
+end, the spark is obtained. In my case, what produced the spark was the
+unconscious but inevitable comparison which he drew between the cornelian
+clasp, the element of luck, and Mercury, the god of luck. That was enough.
+I understood that this association of ideas arose from his having actually
+associated the two factors of luck by embodying one in the other, or, to
+speak more plainly, by hiding the trinket in the statuette. And I at once
+remembered the Mercury outside the door and its defective poise...."
+
+Renine suddenly interrupted himself. It seemed to him that all his remarks
+were falling on deaf ears. Hortense had put her hand to her forehead and,
+thus veiling her eyes, sat motionless and remote.
+
+She was indeed not listening. The end of this particular adventure and the
+manner in which Renine had acted on this occasion no longer interested her.
+What she was thinking of was the complex series of adventures amid which
+she had been living for the past three months and the wonderful behaviour
+of the man who had offered her his devotion. She saw, as in a magic
+picture, the fabulous deeds performed by him, all the good that he had
+done, the lives saved, the sorrows assuaged, the order restored wherever
+his masterly will had been brought to bear. Nothing was impossible to
+him. What he undertook to do he did. Every aim that he set before him
+was attained in advance. And all this without excessive effort, with the
+calmness of one who knows his own strength and knows that nothing can
+resist it.
+
+Then what could she do against him? Why should she defend herself and how?
+If he demanded that she should yield, would he not know how to make her do
+so and would this last adventure be any more difficult for him than the
+others? Supposing that she ran away: did the wide world contain a retreat
+in which she would be safe from his pursuit? From the first moment of their
+first meeting, the end was certain, since Renine had decreed that it should
+be so.
+
+However, she still cast about for weapons, for protection of some sort; and
+she said to herself that, though he had fulfilled the eight conditions and
+restored the cornelian clasp to her before the eighth hour had struck, she
+was nevertheless protected by the fact that this eighth hour was to strike
+on the clock of the Chateau de Halingre and not elsewhere. It was a formal
+compact. Renine had said that day, gazing on the lips which he longed to
+kiss:
+
+"The old brass pendulum will start swinging again; and, when, on the fixed
+date, the clock once more strikes eight, then...."
+
+She looked up. He was not moving either, but sat solemnly, patiently
+waiting.
+
+She was on the point of saying, she was even preparing her words:
+
+"You know, our agreement says it must be the Halingre clock. All the other
+conditions have been fulfilled ... but not this one. So I am free, am I
+not? I am entitled not to keep my promise, which, moreover, I never made,
+but which in any case falls to the ground?... And I am perfectly free ...
+released from any scruple of conscience?..."
+
+She had not time to speak. At that precise moment, there was a click behind
+her, like that of a clock about to strike.
+
+A first stroke sounded, then a second, then a third.
+
+Hortense moaned. She had recognized the very sound of the old clock, the
+Halingre clock, which three months ago, by breaking in a supernatural
+manner the silence of the deserted chateau, had set both of them on the
+road of the eight adventures.
+
+She counted the strokes. The clock struck eight.
+
+"Ah!" she murmured, half swooning and hiding her face in her hands. "The
+clock ... the clock is here ... the one from over there ... I recognize its
+voice...."
+
+She said no more. She felt that Renine had his eyes fixed upon her and this
+sapped all her energies. Besides, had she been able to recover them, she
+would have been no better off nor sought to offer him the least resistance,
+for the reason that she did not wish to resist. All the adventures were
+over, but one remained to be undertaken, the anticipation of which wiped
+out the memory of all the rest. It was the adventure of love, the most
+delightful, the most bewildering, the most adorable of all adventures. She
+accepted fate's decree, rejoicing in all that might come, because she was
+in love. She smiled in spite of herself, as she reflected that happiness
+was again to enter her life at the very moment when her well-beloved was
+bringing her the cornelian clasp.
+
+The clock struck the hour for the second time.
+
+Hortense raised her eyes to Renine. She struggled a few seconds longer. But
+she was like a charmed bird, incapable of any movement of revolt; and at
+the eighth stroke she fell upon his breast and offered him her lips....
+
+THE END
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's The Eight Strokes of the Clock, by Maurice Le Blanc
+
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+Project Gutenberg's The Eight Strokes of the Clock, by Maurice Le Blanc
+#3 in our series by Maurice Le Blanc
+
+Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the
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+*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!*****
+
+
+Title: The Eight Strokes of the Clock
+
+Author: Maurice Le Blanc
+
+Release Date: April, 2005 [EBook #7896]
+[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule]
+[This file was first posted on May 31, 2003]
+[Date last updated: November 16, 2004]
+
+Edition: 10
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-Latin-1
+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE EIGHT STROKES OF THE CLOCK ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Eric Eldred, William Flis
+and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team.
+
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: The girl gasped as Renine (Arsene Lupin) drew forth the
+mysterious telescope.]
+
+
+              THE EIGHT STROKES OF THE CLOCK
+
+                           BY
+
+                    MAURICE LE BLANC
+
+
+
+
+AUTHOR'S NOTE
+
+These adventures were told to me in the old days by Arsène Lupin, as
+though they had happened to a friend of his, named Prince Rénine. As for
+me, considering the way in which they were conducted, the actions, the
+behaviour and the very character of the hero, I find it very difficult not
+to identify the two friends as one and the same person. Arsène Lupin is
+gifted with a powerful imagination and is quite capable of attributing to
+himself adventures which are not his at all and of disowning those which
+are really his. The reader will judge for himself.
+
+M. L.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+I ON THE TOP OF THE TOWER
+
+II THE WATER BOTTLE
+
+III THE CASE OF JEAN LOUIS
+
+IV THE TELL-TALE FILM
+
+V THÉRÈSE AND GERMAINE
+
+VI THE LADY WITH THE HATCHET
+
+VII FOOTPRINTS IN THE SNOW
+
+VIII AT THE SIGN OF MERCURY
+
+
+
+
+I
+
+ON THE TOP OF THE TOWER
+
+
+Hortense Daniel pushed her window ajar and whispered:
+
+"Are you there, Rossigny?"
+
+"I am here," replied a voice from the shrubbery at the front of the house.
+
+Leaning forward, she saw a rather fat man looking up at her out of a gross
+red face with its cheeks and chin set in unpleasantly fair whiskers.
+
+"Well?" he asked.
+
+"Well, I had a great argument with my uncle and aunt last night. They
+absolutely refuse to sign the document of which my lawyer sent them the
+draft, or to restore the dowry squandered by my husband."
+
+"But your uncle is responsible by the terms of the marriage-settlement."
+
+"No matter. He refuses."
+
+"Well, what do you propose to do?"
+
+"Are you still determined to run away with me?" she asked, with a laugh.
+
+"More so than ever."
+
+"Your intentions are strictly honourable, remember!"
+
+"Just as you please. You know that I am madly in love with you."
+
+"Unfortunately I am not madly in love with you!"
+
+"Then what made you choose me?"
+
+"Chance. I was bored. I was growing tired of my humdrum existence. So I'm
+ready to run risks.... Here's my luggage: catch!"
+
+She let down from the window a couple of large leather kit-bags. Rossigny
+caught them in his arms.
+
+"The die is cast," she whispered. "Go and wait for me with your car at the
+If cross-roads. I shall come on horseback."
+
+"Hang it, I can't run off with your horse!"
+
+"He will go home by himself."
+
+"Capital!... Oh, by the way...."
+
+"What is it?"
+
+"Who is this Prince Rénine, who's been here the last three days and whom
+nobody seems to know?"
+
+"I don't know much about him. My uncle met him at a friend's shoot and
+asked him here to stay."
+
+"You seem to have made a great impression on him. You went for a long ride
+with him yesterday. He's a man I don't care for."
+
+"In two hours I shall have left the house in your company. The scandal will
+cool him off.... Well, we've talked long enough. We have no time to lose."
+
+For a few minutes she stood watching the fat man bending under the weight
+of her traps as he moved away in the shelter of an empty avenue. Then she
+closed the window.
+
+Outside, in the park, the huntsmen's horns were sounding the reveille. The
+hounds burst into frantic baying. It was the opening day of the hunt that
+morning at the Château de la Marèze, where, every year, in the first week
+in September, the Comte d'Aigleroche, a mighty hunter before the Lord,
+and his countess were accustomed to invite a few personal friends and the
+neighbouring landowners.
+
+Hortense slowly finished dressing, put on a riding-habit, which
+revealed the lines of her supple figure, and a wide-brimmed felt hat,
+which encircled her lovely face and auburn hair, and sat down to her
+writing-desk, at which she wrote to her uncle, M. d'Aigleroche, a farewell
+letter to be delivered to him that evening. It was a difficult letter to
+word; and, after beginning it several times, she ended by giving up the
+idea.
+
+"I will write to him later," she said to herself, "when his anger has
+cooled down."
+
+And she went downstairs to the dining-room.
+
+Enormous logs were blazing in the hearth of the lofty room. The walls were
+hung with trophies of rifles and shotguns. The guests were flocking in from
+every side, shaking hands with the Comte d'Aigleroche, one of those typical
+country squires, heavily and powerfully built, who lives only for hunting
+and shooting. He was standing before the fire, with a large glass of old
+brandy in his hand, drinking the health of each new arrival.
+
+Hortense kissed him absently:
+
+"What, uncle! You who are usually so sober!"
+
+"Pooh!" he said. "A man may surely indulge himself a little once a
+year!..."
+
+"Aunt will give you a scolding!"
+
+"Your aunt has one of her sick headaches and is not coming down. Besides,"
+he added, gruffly, "it is not her business ... and still less is it yours,
+my dear child."
+
+Prince Rénine came up to Hortense. He was a young man, very smartly
+dressed, with a narrow and rather pale face, whose eyes held by turns
+the gentlest and the harshest, the most friendly and the most satirical
+expression. He bowed to her, kissed her hand and said:
+
+"May I remind you of your kind promise, dear madame?"
+
+"My promise?"
+
+"Yes, we agreed that we should repeat our delightful excursion of yesterday
+and try to go over that old boarded-up place the look of which made us so
+curious. It seems to be known as the Domaine de Halingre."
+
+She answered a little curtly:
+
+"I'm extremely sorry, monsieur, but it would be rather far and I'm feeling
+a little done up. I shall go for a canter in the park and come indoors
+again."
+
+There was a pause. Then Serge Rénine said, smiling, with his eyes fixed on
+hers and in a voice which she alone could hear:
+
+"I am sure that you'll keep your promise and that you'll let me come with
+you. It would be better."
+
+"For whom? For you, you mean?"
+
+"For you, too, I assure you."
+
+She coloured slightly, but did not reply, shook hands with a few people
+around her and left the room.
+
+A groom was holding the horse at the foot of the steps. She mounted and set
+off towards the woods beyond the park.
+
+It was a cool, still morning. Through the leaves, which barely quivered,
+the sky showed crystalline blue. Hortense rode at a walk down winding
+avenues which in half an hour brought her to a country-side of ravines and
+bluffs intersected by the high-road.
+
+She stopped. There was not a sound. Rossigny must have stopped his engine
+and concealed the car in the thickets around the If cross-roads.
+
+She was five hundred yards at most from that circular space. After
+hesitating for a few seconds, she dismounted, tied her horse carelessly, so
+that he could release himself by the least effort and return to the house,
+shrouded her face in the long brown veil that hung over her shoulders and
+walked on.
+
+As she expected, she saw Rossigny directly she reached the first turn in
+the road. He ran up to her and drew her into the coppice!
+
+"Quick, quick! Oh, I was so afraid that you would be late ... or even
+change your mind! And here you are! It seems too good to be true!"
+
+She smiled:
+
+"You appear to be quite happy to do an idiotic thing!"
+
+"I should think I _am_ happy! And so will you be, I swear you will!
+Your life will be one long fairy-tale. You shall have every luxury, and all
+the money you can wish for."
+
+"I want neither money nor luxuries."
+
+"What then?"
+
+"Happiness."
+
+"You can safely leave your happiness to me."
+
+She replied, jestingly:
+
+"I rather doubt the quality of the happiness which you would give me."
+
+"Wait! You'll see! You'll see!"
+
+They had reached the motor. Rossigny, still stammering expressions of
+delight, started the engine. Hortense stepped in and wrapped herself in a
+wide cloak. The car followed the narrow, grassy path which led back to the
+cross-roads and Rossigny was accelerating the speed, when he was suddenly
+forced to pull up. A shot had rung out from the neighbouring wood, on the
+right. The car was swerving from side to side.
+
+"A front tire burst," shouted Rossigny, leaping to the ground.
+
+"Not a bit of it!" cried Hortense. "Somebody fired!"
+
+"Impossible, my dear! Don't be so absurd!"
+
+At that moment, two slight shocks were felt and two more reports were
+heard, one after the other, some way off and still in the wood.
+
+Rossigny snarled:
+
+"The back tires burst now ... both of them.... But who, in the devil's
+name, can the ruffian be?... Just let me get hold of him, that's all!..."
+
+He clambered up the road-side slope. There was no one there. Moreover, the
+leaves of the coppice blocked the view.
+
+"Damn it! Damn it!" he swore. "You were right: somebody was firing at the
+car! Oh, this is a bit thick! We shall be held up for hours! Three tires to
+mend!... But what are you doing, dear girl?"
+
+Hortense herself had alighted from the car. She ran to him, greatly
+excited:
+
+"I'm going."
+
+"But why?"
+
+"I want to know. Some one fired. I want to know who it was."
+
+"Don't let us separate, please!"
+
+"Do you think I'm going to wait here for you for hours?"
+
+"What about your running away?... All our plans ...?"
+
+"We'll discuss that to-morrow. Go back to the house. Take back my things
+with you.... And good-bye for the present."
+
+She hurried, left him, had the good luck to find her horse and set off at a
+gallop in a direction leading away from La Marèze.
+
+There was not the least doubt in her mind that the three shots had been
+fired by Prince Rénine.
+
+"It was he," she muttered, angrily, "it was he. No one else would be
+capable of such behaviour."
+
+Besides, he had warned her, in his smiling, masterful way, that he would
+expect her.
+
+She was weeping with rage and humiliation. At that moment, had she found
+herself face to face with Prince Rénine, she could have struck him with her
+riding-whip.
+
+Before her was the rugged and picturesque stretch of country which lies
+between the Orne and the Sarthe, above Alençon, and which is known as
+Little Switzerland. Steep hills compelled her frequently to moderate her
+pace, the more so as she had to cover some six miles before reaching her
+destination. But, though the speed at which she rode became less headlong,
+though her physical effort gradually slackened, she nevertheless persisted
+in her indignation against Prince Rénine. She bore him a grudge not only
+for the unspeakable action of which he had been guilty, but also for his
+behaviour to her during the last three days, his persistent attentions, his
+assurance, his air of excessive politeness.
+
+She was nearly there. In the bottom of a valley, an old park-wall, full
+of cracks and covered with moss and weeds, revealed the ball-turret of a
+château and a few windows with closed shutters. This was the Domaine de
+Halingre.
+
+She followed the wall and turned a corner. In the middle of the
+crescent-shaped space before which lay the entrance-gates, Serge Rénine
+stood waiting beside his horse.
+
+She sprang to the ground, and, as he stepped forward, hat in hand, thanking
+her for coming, she cried:
+
+"One word, monsieur, to begin with. Something quite inexplicable happened
+just now. Three shots were fired at a motor-car in which I was sitting. Did
+you fire those shots?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+She seemed dumbfounded:
+
+"Then you confess it?"
+
+"You have asked a question, madame, and I have answered it."
+
+"But how dared you? What gave you the right?"
+
+"I was not exercising a right, madame; I was performing a duty!"
+
+"Indeed! And what duty, pray?"
+
+"The duty of protecting you against a man who is trying to profit by your
+troubles."
+
+"I forbid you to speak like that. I am responsible for my own actions, and
+I decided upon them in perfect liberty."
+
+"Madame, I overheard your conversation with M. Rossigny this morning and it
+did not appear to me that you were accompanying him with a light heart. I
+admit the ruthlessness and bad taste of my interference and I apologise for
+it humbly; but I risked being taken for a ruffian in order to give you a
+few hours for reflection."
+
+"I have reflected fully, monsieur. When I have once made up my mind to a
+thing, I do not change it."
+
+"Yes, madame, you do, sometimes. If not, why are you here instead of
+there?"
+
+Hortense was confused for a moment. All her anger had subsided. She looked
+at Rénine with the surprise which one experiences when confronted with
+certain persons who are unlike their fellows, more capable of performing
+unusual actions, more generous and disinterested. She realised perfectly
+that he was acting without any ulterior motive or calculation, that he was,
+as he had said, merely fulfilling his duty as a gentleman to a woman who
+has taken the wrong turning.
+
+Speaking very gently, he said:
+
+"I know very little about you, madame, but enough to make me wish to be of
+use to you. You are twenty-six years old and have lost both your parents.
+Seven years ago, you became the wife of the Comte d'Aigleroche's nephew by
+marriage, who proved to be of unsound mind, half insane indeed, and had
+to be confined. This made it impossible for you to obtain a divorce and
+compelled you, since your dowry had been squandered, to live with your
+uncle and at his expense. It's a depressing environment. The count and
+countess do not agree. Years ago, the count was deserted by his first wife,
+who ran away with the countess' first husband. The abandoned husband and
+wife decided out of spite to unite their fortunes, but found nothing but
+disappointment and ill-will in this second marriage. And you suffer the
+consequences. They lead a monotonous, narrow, lonely life for eleven months
+or more out of the year. One day, you met M. Rossigny, who fell in love
+with you and suggested an elopement. You did not care for him. But you were
+bored, your youth was being wasted, you longed for the unexpected, for
+adventure ... in a word, you accepted with the very definite intention of
+keeping your admirer at arm's length, but also with the rather ingenuous
+hope that the scandal would force your uncle's hand and make him account
+for his trusteeship and assure you of an independent existence. That is how
+you stand. At present you have to choose between placing yourself in M.
+Rossigny's hands ... or trusting yourself to me."
+
+She raised her eyes to his. What did he mean? What was the purport of this
+offer which he made so seriously, like a friend who asks nothing but to
+prove his devotion?
+
+After a moment's silence, he took the two horses by the bridle and tied
+them up. Then he examined the heavy gates, each of which was strengthened
+by two planks nailed cross-wise. An electoral poster, dated twenty years
+earlier, showed that no one had entered the domain since that time.
+
+Rénine tore up one of the iron posts which supported a railing that ran
+round the crescent and used it as a lever. The rotten planks gave way. One
+of them uncovered the lock, which he attacked with a big knife, containing
+a number of blades and implements. A minute later, the gate opened on a
+waste of bracken which led up to a long, dilapidated building, with a
+turret at each corner and a sort of a belvedere, built on a taller tower,
+in the middle.
+
+The Prince turned to Hortense:
+
+"You are in no hurry," he said. "You will form your decision this evening;
+and, if M. Rossigny succeeds in persuading you for the second time, I give
+you my word of honour that I shall not cross your path. Until then, grant
+me the privilege of your company. We made up our minds yesterday to inspect
+the château. Let us do so. Will you? It is as good a way as any of passing
+the time and I have a notion that it will not be uninteresting."
+
+He had a way of talking which compelled obedience. He seemed to be
+commanding and entreating at the same time. Hortense did not even seek
+to shake off the enervation into which her will was slowly sinking. She
+followed him to a half-demolished flight of steps at the top of which was
+a door likewise strengthened by planks nailed in the form of a cross.
+
+Rénine went to work in the same way as before. They entered a spacious
+hall paved with white and black flagstones, furnished with old sideboards
+and choir-stalls and adorned with a carved escutcheon which displayed the
+remains of armorial bearings, representing an eagle standing on a block of
+stone, all half-hidden behind a veil of cobwebs which hung down over a pair
+of folding-doors.
+
+"The door of the drawing-room, evidently," said Rénine.
+
+He found this more difficult to open; and it was only by repeatedly
+charging it with his shoulder that he was able to move one of the doors.
+
+Hortense had not spoken a word. She watched not without surprise this
+series of forcible entries, which were accomplished with a really masterly
+skill. He guessed her thoughts and, turning round, said in a serious voice:
+
+"It's child's-play to me. I was a locksmith once."
+
+She seized his arm and whispered:
+
+"Listen!"
+
+"To what?" he asked.
+
+She increased the pressure of her hand, to demand silence. The next moment,
+he murmured:
+
+"It's really very strange."
+
+"Listen, listen!" Hortense repeated, in bewilderment. "Can it be possible?"
+
+They heard, not far from where they were standing, a sharp sound, the sound
+of a light tap recurring at regular intervals; and they had only to listen
+attentively to recognise the ticking of a clock. Yes, it was this and
+nothing else that broke the profound silence of the dark room; it was
+indeed the deliberate ticking, rhythmical as the beat of a metronome,
+produced by a heavy brass pendulum. That was it! And nothing could be more
+impressive than the measured pulsation of this trivial mechanism, which by
+some miracle, some inexplicable phenomenon, had continued to live in the
+heart of the dead château.
+
+"And yet," stammered Hortense, without daring to raise her voice, "no one
+has entered the house?"
+
+"No one."
+
+"And it is quite impossible for that clock to have kept going for twenty
+years without being wound up?"
+
+"Quite impossible."
+
+"Then ...?"
+
+Serge Rénine opened the three windows and threw back the shutters.
+
+He and Hortense were in a drawing-room, as he had thought; and the room
+showed not the least sign of disorder. The chairs were in their places. Not
+a piece of furniture was missing. The people who had lived there and who
+had made it the most individual room in their house had gone away leaving
+everything just as it was, the books which they used to read, the
+knick-knacks on the tables and consoles.
+
+Rénine examined the old grandfather's clock, contained in its tall carved
+case which showed the disk of the pendulum through an oval pane of glass.
+He opened the door of the clock. The weights hanging from the cords were at
+their lowest point.
+
+At that moment there was a click. The clock struck eight with a serious
+note which Hortense was never to forget.
+
+"How extraordinary!" she said.
+
+"Extraordinary indeed," said he, "for the works are exceedingly simple and
+would hardly keep going for a week."
+
+"And do you see nothing out of the common?"
+
+"No, nothing ... or, at least...."
+
+He stooped and, from the back of the case, drew a metal tube which was
+concealed by the weights. Holding it up to the light:
+
+"A telescope," he said, thoughtfully. "Why did they hide it?... And they
+left it drawn out to its full length.... That's odd.... What does it mean?"
+
+The clock, as is sometimes usual, began to strike a second time, sounding
+eight strokes. Rénine closed the case and continued his inspection without
+putting his telescope down. A wide arch led from the drawing-room to a
+smaller apartment, a sort of smoking-room. This also was furnished, but
+contained a glass case for guns of which the rack was empty. Hanging on
+a panel near by was a calendar with the date of the 5th of September.
+
+"Oh," cried Hortense, in astonishment, "the same date as to-day!... They
+tore off the leaves until the 5th of September.... And this is the
+anniversary! What an astonishing coincidence!"
+
+"Astonishing," he echoed. "It's the anniversary of their departure ...
+twenty years ago to-day."
+
+"You must admit," she said, "that all this is incomprehensible.
+
+"Yes, of course ... but, all the same ... perhaps not."
+
+"Have you any idea?"
+
+He waited a few seconds before replying:
+
+"What puzzles me is this telescope hidden, dropped in that corner, at
+the last moment. I wonder what it was used for.... From the ground-floor
+windows you see nothing but the trees in the garden ... and the same, I
+expect, from all the windows.... We are in a valley, without the least open
+horizon.... To use the telescope, one would have to go up to the top of the
+house.... Shall we go up?"
+
+She did not hesitate. The mystery surrounding the whole adventure excited
+her curiosity so keenly that she could think of nothing but accompanying
+Rénine and assisting him in his investigations.
+
+They went upstairs accordingly, and, on the second floor, came to a landing
+where they found the spiral staircase leading to the belvedere.
+
+At the top of this was a platform in the open air, but surrounded by a
+parapet over six feet high.
+
+"There must have been battlements which have been filled in since,"
+observed Prince Rénine. "Look here, there were loop-holes at one time. They
+may have been blocked."
+
+"In any case," she said, "the telescope was of no use up here either and we
+may as well go down again."
+
+"I don't agree," he said. "Logic tells us that there must have been some
+gap through which the country could be seen and this was the spot where the
+telescope was used."
+
+He hoisted himself by his wrists to the top of the parapet and then saw
+that this point of vantage commanded the whole of the valley, including the
+park, with its tall trees marking the horizon; and, beyond, a depression
+in a wood surmounting a hill, at a distance of some seven or eight hundred
+yards, stood another tower, squat and in ruins, covered with ivy from top
+to bottom.
+
+Rénine resumed his inspection. He seemed to consider that the key to the
+problem lay in the use to which the telescope was put and that the problem
+would be solved if only they could discover this use.
+
+He studied the loop-holes one after the other. One of them, or rather the
+place which it had occupied, attracted his attention above the rest. In
+the middle of the layer of plaster, which had served to block it, there
+was a hollow filled with earth in which plants had grown. He pulled out
+the plants and removed the earth, thus clearing the mouth of a hole some
+five inches in diameter, which completely penetrated the wall. On bending
+forward, Rénine perceived that this deep and narrow opening inevitably
+carried the eye, above the dense tops of the trees and through the
+depression in the hill, to the ivy-clad tower.
+
+At the bottom of this channel, in a sort of groove which ran through it
+like a gutter, the telescope fitted so exactly that it was quite impossible
+to shift it, however little, either to the right or to the left.
+
+Rénine, after wiping the outside of the lenses, while taking care not to
+disturb the lie of the instrument by a hair's breadth, put his eye to the
+small end.
+
+He remained for thirty or forty seconds, gazing attentively and silently.
+Then he drew himself up and said, in a husky voice:
+
+"It's terrible ... it's really terrible."
+
+"What is?" she asked, anxiously.
+
+"Look."
+
+She bent down but the image was not clear to her and the telescope had to
+be focussed to suit her sight. The next moment she shuddered and said:
+
+"It's two scarecrows, isn't it, both stuck up on the top? But why?"
+
+"Look again," he said. "Look more carefully under the hats ... the
+faces...."
+
+"Oh!" she cried, turning faint with horror, "how awful!"
+
+The field of the telescope, like the circular picture shown by a magic
+lantern, presented this spectacle: the platform of a broken tower, the
+walls of which were higher in the more distant part and formed as it were
+a back-drop, over which surged waves of ivy. In front, amid a cluster of
+bushes, were two human beings, a man and a woman, leaning back against a
+heap of fallen stones.
+
+But the words man and woman could hardly be applied to these two forms,
+these two sinister puppets, which, it is true, wore clothes and hats--or
+rather shreds of clothes and remnants of hats--but had lost their eyes,
+their cheeks, their chins, every particle of flesh, until they were
+actually and positively nothing more than two skeletons.
+
+"Two skeletons," stammered Hortense. "Two skeletons with clothes on. Who
+carried them up there?"
+
+"Nobody."
+
+"But still...."
+
+"That man and that woman must have died at the top of the tower, years and
+years ago ... and their flesh rotted under their clothes and the ravens ate
+them."
+
+"But it's hideous, hideous!" cried Hortense, pale as death, her face drawn
+with horror.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Half an hour later, Hortense Daniel and Rénine left the Château de
+Halingre. Before their departure, they had gone as far as the ivy-grown
+tower, the remains of an old donjon-keep more than half demolished. The
+inside was empty. There seemed to have been a way of climbing to the top,
+at a comparatively recent period, by means of wooden stairs and ladders
+which now lay broken and scattered over the ground. The tower backed
+against the wall which marked the end of the park.
+
+A curious fact, which surprised Hortense, was that Prince Rénine had
+neglected to pursue a more minute enquiry, as though the matter had lost
+all interest for him. He did not even speak of it any longer; and, in the
+inn at which they stopped and took a light meal in the nearest village, it
+was she who asked the landlord about the abandoned château. But she learnt
+nothing from him, for the man was new to the district and could give her no
+particulars. He did not even know the name of the owner.
+
+They turned their horses' heads towards La Marèze. Again and again Hortense
+recalled the squalid sight which had met their eyes. But Rénine, who was
+in a lively mood and full of attentions to his companion, seemed utterly
+indifferent to those questions.
+
+"But, after all," she exclaimed, impatiently, "we can't leave the matter
+there! It calls for a solution."
+
+"As you say," he replied, "a solution is called for. M. Rossigny has to
+know where he stands and you have to decide what to do about him."
+
+She shrugged her shoulders: "He's of no importance for the moment. The
+thing to-day...."
+
+"Is what?"
+
+"Is to know what those two dead bodies are."
+
+"Still, Rossigny...."
+
+"Rossigny can wait. But I can't. You have shown me a mystery which is now
+the only thing that matters. What do you intend to do?"
+
+"To do?"
+
+"Yes. There are two bodies.... You'll inform the police, I suppose."
+
+"Gracious goodness!" he exclaimed, laughing. "What for?"
+
+"Well, there's a riddle that has to be cleared up at all costs, a terrible
+tragedy."
+
+"We don't need any one to do that."
+
+"What! Do you mean to say that you understand it?"
+
+"Almost as plainly as though I had read it in a book, told in full detail,
+with explanatory illustrations. It's all so simple!"
+
+She looked at him askance, wondering if he was making fun of her. But he
+seemed quite serious.
+
+"Well?" she asked, quivering with curiosity.
+
+The light was beginning to wane. They had trotted at a good pace; and the
+hunt was returning as they neared La Marèze.
+
+"Well," he said, "we shall get the rest of our information from people
+living round about ... from your uncle, for instance; and you will see how
+logically all the facts fit in. When you hold the first link of a chain,
+you are bound, whether you like it or not, to reach the last. It's the
+greatest fun in the world."
+
+Once in the house, they separated. On going to her room, Hortense found her
+luggage and a furious letter from Rossigny in which he bade her good-bye
+and announced his departure.
+
+Then Rénine knocked at her door:
+
+"Your uncle is in the library," he said. "Will you go down with me? I've
+sent word that I am coming."
+
+She went with him. He added:
+
+"One word more. This morning, when I thwarted your plans and begged you to
+trust me, I naturally undertook an obligation towards you which I mean to
+fulfill without delay. I want to give you a positive proof of this."
+
+She laughed:
+
+"The only obligation which you took upon yourself was to satisfy my
+curiosity."
+
+"It shall be satisfied," he assured her, gravely, "and more fully than you
+can possibly imagine."
+
+M. d'Aigleroche was alone. He was smoking his pipe and drinking sherry. He
+offered a glass to Rénine, who refused.
+
+"Well, Hortense!" he said, in a rather thick voice. "You know that it's
+pretty dull here, except in these September days. You must make the most
+of them. Have you had a pleasant ride with Rénine?"
+
+"That's just what I wanted to talk about, my dear sir," interrupted the
+prince.
+
+"You must excuse me, but I have to go to the station in ten minutes, to
+meet a friend of my wife's."
+
+"Oh, ten minutes will be ample!"
+
+"Just the time to smoke a cigarette?"
+
+"No longer."
+
+He took a cigarette from the case which M. d'Aigleroche handed to him, lit
+it and said:
+
+"I must tell you that our ride happened to take us to an old domain which
+you are sure to know, the Domaine de Halingre."
+
+"Certainly I know it. But it has been closed, boarded up for twenty-five
+years or so. You weren't able to get in, I suppose?"
+
+"Yes, we were."
+
+"Really? Was it interesting?"
+
+"Extremely. We discovered the strangest things."
+
+"What things?" asked the count, looking at his watch.
+
+Rénine described what they had seen:
+
+"On a tower some way from the house there were two dead bodies, two
+skeletons rather ... a man and a woman still wearing the clothes which
+they had on when they were murdered."
+
+"Come, come, now! Murdered?"
+
+"Yes; and that is what we have come to trouble you about. The tragedy must
+date back to some twenty years ago. Was nothing known of it at the time?"
+
+"Certainly not," declared the count. "I never heard of any such crime or
+disappearance."
+
+"Oh, really!" said Rénine, looking a little disappointed. "I hoped to
+obtain a few particulars."
+
+"I'm sorry."
+
+"In that case, I apologise."
+
+He consulted Hortense with a glance and moved towards the door. But on
+second thought:
+
+"Could you not at least, my dear sir, bring me into touch with some persons
+in the neighbourhood, some members of your family, who might know more
+about it?"
+
+"Of my family? And why?"
+
+"Because the Domaine de Halingre used to belong and no doubt still belongs
+to the d'Aigleroches. The arms are an eagle on a heap of stones, on a rock.
+This at once suggested the connection."
+
+This time the count appeared surprised. He pushed back his decanter and his
+glass of sherry and said:
+
+"What's this you're telling me? I had no idea that we had any such
+neighbours."
+
+Rénine shook his head and smiled:
+
+"I should be more inclined to believe, sir, that you were not very eager to
+admit any relationship between yourself ... and the unknown owner of the
+property."
+
+"Then he's not a respectable man?"
+
+"The man, to put it plainly, is a murderer."
+
+"What do you mean?"
+
+The count had risen from his chair. Hortense, greatly excited, said:
+
+"Are you really sure that there has been a murder and that the murder was
+done by some one belonging to the house?"
+
+"Quite sure."
+
+"But why are you so certain?"
+
+"Because I know who the two victims were and what caused them to be
+killed."
+
+Prince Rénine was making none but positive statements and his method
+suggested the belief that he supported by the strongest proofs.
+
+M. d'Aigleroche strode up and down the room, with his hands behind his
+back. He ended by saying:
+
+"I always had an instinctive feeling that something had happened, but I
+never tried to find out.... Now, as a matter of fact, twenty years ago,
+a relation of mine, a distant cousin, used to live at the Domaine de
+Halingre. I hoped, because of the name I bear, that this story, which,
+as I say, I never knew but suspected, would remain hidden for ever."
+
+"So this cousin killed somebody?"
+
+"Yes, he was obliged to."
+
+Rénine shook his head:
+
+"I am sorry to have to amend that phrase, my dear sir. The truth, on the
+contrary, is that your cousin took his victims' lives in cold blood and in
+a cowardly manner. I never heard of a crime more deliberately and craftily
+planned."
+
+"What is it that you know?"
+
+The moment had come for Rénine to explain himself, a solemn and
+anguish-stricken moment, the full gravity of which Hortense understood,
+though she had not yet divined any part of the tragedy which the prince
+unfolded step by step."
+
+"It's a very simple story," he said. "There is every reason to believe that
+M. d'Aigleroche was married and that there was another couple living in
+the neighbourhood with whom the owner of the Domaine de Halingre were on
+friendly terms. What happened one day, which of these four persons first
+disturbed the relations between the two households, I am unable to say. But
+a likely version, which at once occurs to the mind, is that your cousin's
+wife, Madame d'Aigleroche, was in the habit of meeting the other husband
+in the ivy-covered tower, which had a door opening outside the estate. On
+discovering the intrigue, your cousin d'Aigleroche resolved to be revenged,
+but in such a manner that there should be no scandal and that no one
+even should ever know that the guilty pair had been killed. Now he had
+ascertained--as I did just now--that there was a part of the house, the
+belvedere, from which you can see, over the trees and the undulations of
+the park, the tower standing eight hundred yards away, and that this was
+the only place that overlooked the top of the tower. He therefore pierced
+a hole in the parapet, through one of the former loopholes, and from
+there, by using a telescope which fitted exactly in the grove which he
+had hollowed out, he watched the meetings of the two lovers. And it was
+from there, also, that, after carefully taking all his measurements, and
+calculating all his distances, on a Sunday, the 5th of September, when the
+house was empty, he killed them with two shots."
+
+The truth was becoming apparent. The light of day was breaking. The count
+muttered:
+
+"Yes, that's what must have happened. I expect that my cousin
+d'Aigleroche...."
+
+"The murderer," Rénine continued, "stopped up the loophole neatly with a
+clod of earth. No one would ever know that two dead bodies were decaying
+on the top of that tower which was never visited and of which he took the
+precaution to demolish the wooden stairs. Nothing therefore remained for
+him to do but to explain the disappearance of his wife and his friend. This
+presented no difficulty. He accused them of having eloped together."
+
+Hortense gave a start. Suddenly, as though the last sentence were a
+complete and to her an absolutely unexpected revelation, she understood
+what Rénine was trying to convey:
+
+"What do you mean?" she asked.
+
+"I mean that M. d'Aigleroche accused his wife and his friend of eloping
+together."
+
+"No, no!" she cried. "I can't allow that!... You are speaking of a cousin
+of my uncle's? Why mix up the two stories?"
+
+"Why mix up this story with another which took place at that time?" said
+the prince. "But I am not mixing them up, my dear madame; there is only one
+story and I am telling it as it happened."
+
+Hortense turned to her uncle. He sat silent, with his arms folded; and
+his head remained in the shadow cast by the lamp-shade. Why had he not
+protested?
+
+Rénine repeated in a firm tone:
+
+"There is only one story. On the evening of that very day, the 5th of
+September at eight o'clock, M. d'Aigleroche, doubtless alleging as his
+reason that he was going in pursuit of the runaway couple, left his house
+after boarding up the entrance. He went away, leaving all the rooms as
+they were and removing only the firearms from their glass case. At the
+last minute, he had a presentiment, which has been justified to-day, that
+the discovery of the telescope which had played so great a part in the
+preparation of his crime might serve as a clue to an enquiry; and he threw
+it into the clock-case, where, as luck would have it, it interrupted
+the swing of the pendulum. This unreflecting action, one of those which
+every criminal inevitably commits, was to betray him twenty years later.
+Just now, the blows which I struck to force the door of the drawing-room
+released the pendulum. The clock was set going, struck eight o'clock ...
+and I possessed the clue of thread which was to lead me through the
+labyrinth."
+
+"Proofs!" stammered Hortense. "Proofs!"
+
+"Proofs?" replied Rénine, in a loud voice. "Why, there are any number
+of proofs; and you know them as well as I do. Who could have killed at
+that distance of eight hundred yards, except an expert shot, an ardent
+sportsman? You agree, M. d'Aigleroche, do you not?... Proofs? Why was
+nothing removed from the house, nothing except the guns, those guns
+which an ardent sportsman cannot afford to leave behind--you agree, M.
+d'Aigleroche--those guns which we find here, hanging in trophies on the
+walls!... Proofs? What about that date, the 5th of September, which was
+the date of the crime and which has left such a horrible memory in the
+criminal's mind that every year at this time--at this time alone--he
+surrounds himself with distractions and that every year, on this same 5th
+of September, he forgets his habits of temperance? Well, to-day, is the 5th
+of September.... Proofs? Why, if there weren't any others, would that not
+be enough for you?"
+
+And Rénine, flinging out his arm, pointed to the Comte d'Aigleroche, who,
+terrified by this evocation of the past, had sunk huddled into a chair and
+was hiding his head in his hands.
+
+Hortense did not attempt to argue with him. She had never liked her uncle,
+or rather her husband's uncle. She now accepted the accusation laid against
+him.
+
+Sixty seconds passed. Then M. d'Aigleroche walked up to them and said:
+
+"Whether the story be true or not, you can't call a husband a criminal for
+avenging his honour and killing his faithless wife."
+
+"No," replied Rénine, "but I have told only the first version of the story.
+There is another which is infinitely more serious ... and more probable,
+one to which a more thorough investigation would be sure to lead."
+
+"What do you mean?"
+
+"I mean this. It may not be a matter of a husband taking the law into his
+own hands, as I charitably supposed. It may be a matter of a ruined man who
+covets his friend's money and his friend's wife and who, with this object
+in view, to secure his freedom, to get rid of his friend and of his own
+wife, draws them into a trap, suggests to them that they should visit that
+lonely tower and kills them by shooting them from a distance safely under
+cover."
+
+"No, no," the count protested. "No, all that is untrue."
+
+"I don't say it isn't. I am basing my accusation on proofs, but also on
+intuitions and arguments which up to now have been extremely accurate. All
+the same, I admit that the second version may be incorrect. But, if so, why
+feel any remorse? One does not feel remorse for punishing guilty people."
+
+"One does for taking life. It is a crushing burden to bear."
+
+"Was it to give himself greater strength to bear this burden that M.
+d'Aigleroche afterwards married his victim's widow? For that, sir, is
+the crux of the question. What was the motive of that marriage? Was M.
+d'Aigleroche penniless? Was the woman he was taking as his second wife
+rich? Or were they both in love with each other and did M. d'Aigleroche
+plan with her to kill his first wife and the husband of his second wife?
+These are problems to which I do not know the answer. They have no interest
+for the moment; but the police, with all the means at their disposal, would
+have no great difficulty in elucidating them."
+
+M. d'Aigleroche staggered and had to steady himself against the back of a
+chair. Livid in the face, he spluttered:
+
+"Are you going to inform the police?"
+
+"No, no," said Rénine. "To begin with, there is the statute of limitations.
+Then there are twenty years of remorse and dread, a memory which will
+pursue the criminal to his dying hour, accompanied no doubt by domestic
+discord, hatred, a daily hell ... and, in the end, the necessity of
+returning to the tower and removing the traces of the two murders, the
+frightful punishment of climbing that tower, of touching those skeletons,
+of undressing them and burying them. That will be enough. We will not ask
+for more. We will not give it to the public to batten on and create a
+scandal which would recoil upon M. d'Aigleroche's niece. No, let us leave
+this disgraceful business alone."
+
+The count resumed his seat at the table, with his hands clutching his
+forehead, and asked:
+
+"Then why ...?"
+
+"Why do I interfere?" said Rénine. "What you mean is that I must have
+had some object in speaking. That is so. There must indeed be a penalty,
+however slight, and our interview must lead to some practical result. But
+have no fear: M. d'Aigleroche will be let off lightly."
+
+The contest was ended. The count felt that he had only a small formality to
+fulfil, a sacrifice to accept; and, recovering some of his self-assurance,
+he said, in an almost sarcastic tone:
+
+"What's your price?"
+
+Rénine burst out laughing:
+
+"Splendid! You see the position. Only, you make a mistake in drawing me
+into the business. I'm working for the glory of the thing."
+
+"In that case?"
+
+"You will be called upon at most to make restitution."
+
+"Restitution?"
+
+Rénine leant over the table and said:
+
+"In one of those drawers is a deed awaiting your signature. It is a draft
+agreement between you and your niece Hortense Daniel, relating to her
+private fortune, which fortune was squandered and for which you are
+responsible. Sign the deed."
+
+M. d'Aigleroche gave a start:
+
+"Do you know the amount?"
+
+"I don't wish to know it."
+
+"And if I refuse?..."
+
+"I shall ask to see the Comtesse d'Aigleroche."
+
+Without further hesitation, the count opened a drawer, produced a document
+on stamped paper and quickly signed it:
+
+"Here you are," he said, "and I hope...."
+
+"You hope, as I do, that you and I may never have any future dealings? I'm
+convinced of it. I shall leave this evening; your niece, no doubt,
+tomorrow. Good-bye."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In the drawing-room, which was still empty, while the guests at the
+house were dressing for dinner, Rénine handed the deed to Hortense. She
+seemed dazed by all that she had heard; and the thing that bewildered her
+even more than the relentless light shed upon her uncle's past was the
+miraculous insight and amazing lucidity displayed by this man: the man who
+for some hours had controlled events and conjured up before her eyes the
+actual scenes of a tragedy which no one had beheld.
+
+"Are you satisfied with me?" he asked.
+
+She gave him both her hands:
+
+"You have saved me from Rossigny. You have given me back my freedom and my
+independence. I thank you from the bottom of my heart."
+
+"Oh, that's not what I am asking you to say!" he answered. "My first and
+main object was to amuse you. Your life seemed so humdrum and lacking in
+the unexpected. Has it been so to-day?"
+
+"How can you ask such a question? I have had the strangest and most
+stirring experiences."
+
+"That is life," he said. "When one knows how to use one's eyes. Adventure
+exists everywhere, in the meanest hovel, under the mask of the wisest of
+men. Everywhere, if you are only willing, you will find an excuse for
+excitement, for doing good, for saving a victim, for ending an injustice."
+
+Impressed by his power and authority, she murmured:
+
+"Who are you exactly?"
+
+"An adventurer. Nothing more. A lover of adventures. Life is not worth
+living except in moments of adventure, the adventures of others or personal
+adventures. To-day's has upset you because it affected the innermost depths
+of your being. But those of others are no less stimulating. Would you like
+to make the experiment?"
+
+"How?"
+
+"Become the companion of my adventures. If any one calls on me for help,
+help him with me. If chance or instinct puts me on the track of a crime or
+the trace of a sorrow, let us both set out together. Do you consent?"
+
+"Yes," she said, "but...."
+
+She hesitated, as though trying to guess Rénine's secret intentions.
+
+"But," he said, expressing her thoughts for her, with a smile, "you are a
+trifle sceptical. What you are saying to yourself is, 'How far does that
+lover of adventures want to make me go? It is quite obvious that I attract
+him; and sooner or later he would not be sorry to receive payment for his
+services.' You are quite right. We must have a formal contract."
+
+"Very formal," said Hortense, preferring to give a jesting tone to the
+conversation. "Let me hear your proposals."
+
+He reflected for a moment and continued:
+
+"Well, we'll say this. The clock at Halingre gave eight strokes this
+afternoon, the day of the first adventure. Will you accept its decree and
+agree to carry out seven more of these delightful enterprises with me,
+during a period, for instance, of three months? And shall we say that, at
+the eighth, you will be pledged to grant me...."
+
+"What?"
+
+He deferred his answer:
+
+"Observe that you will always be at liberty to leave me on the road if I
+do not succeed in interesting you. But, if you accompany me to the end, if
+you allow me to begin and complete the eighth enterprise with you, in three
+months, on the 5th of December, at the very moment when the eighth stroke
+of that clock sounds--and it will sound, you may be sure of that, for the
+old brass pendulum will not stop swinging again--you will be pledged to
+grant me...."
+
+"What?" she repeated, a little unnerved by waiting.
+
+He was silent. He looked at the beautiful lips which he had meant to claim
+as his reward. He felt perfectly certain that Hortense had understood and
+he thought it unnecessary to speak more plainly:
+
+"The mere delight of seeing you will be enough to satisfy me. It is not for
+me but for you to impose conditions. Name them: what do you demand?"
+
+She was grateful for his respect and said, laughingly:
+
+"What do I demand?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Can I demand anything I like, however difficult and impossible?"
+
+"Everything is easy and everything is possible to the man who is bent on
+winning you."
+
+Then she said:
+
+"I demand that you shall restore to me a small, antique clasp, made of a
+cornelian set in a silver mount. It came to me from my mother and everyone
+knew that it used to bring her happiness and me too. Since the day when it
+vanished from my jewel-case, I have had nothing but unhappiness. Restore it
+to me, my good genius."
+
+"When was the clasp stolen?"
+
+She answered gaily:
+
+"Seven years ago ... or eight ... or nine; I don't know exactly ... I don't
+know where ... I don't know how ... I know nothing about it...."
+
+"I will find it," Rénine declared, "and you shall be happy."
+
+
+
+
+II
+
+THE WATER-BOTTLE
+
+
+Four days after she had settled down in Paris, Hortense Daniel agreed to
+meet Prince Rénine in the Bois. It was a glorious morning and they sat down
+on the terrace of the Restaurant Impérial, a little to one side.
+
+Hortense, feeling glad to be alive, was in a playful mood, full of
+attractive grace. Rénine, lest he should startle her, refrained from
+alluding to the compact into which they had entered at his suggestion.
+She told him how she had left La Marèze and said that she had not heard
+of Rossigny.
+
+"I have," said Rénine. "I've heard of him."
+
+"Oh?"
+
+"Yes, he sent me a challenge. We fought a duel this morning. Rossigny got
+a scratch in the shoulder. That finished the duel. Let's talk of something
+else."
+
+There was no further mention of Rossigny. Rénine at once expounded to
+Hortense the plan of two enterprises which he had in view and in which he
+offered, with no great enthusiasm, to let her share:
+
+"The finest adventure," he declared, "is that which we do not foresee. It
+comes unexpectedly, unannounced; and no one, save the initiated, realizes
+that an opportunity to act and to expend one's energies is close at hand.
+It has to be seized at once. A moment's hesitation may mean that we are too
+late. We are warned by a special sense, like that of a sleuth-hound which
+distinguishes the right scent from all the others that cross it."
+
+The terrace was beginning to fill up around them. At the next table sat
+a young man reading a newspaper. They were able to see his insignificant
+profile and his long, dark moustache. From behind them, through an open
+window of the restaurant, came the distant strains of a band; in one of
+the rooms a few couples were dancing.
+
+As Rénine was paying for the refreshments, the young man with the long
+moustache stifled a cry and, in a choking voice, called one of the waiters:
+
+"What do I owe you?... No change? Oh, good Lord, hurry up!"
+
+Rénine, without a moment's hesitation, had picked up the paper. After
+casting a swift glance down the page, he read, under his breath:
+
+    "Maître Dourdens, the counsel for the defence in the trial of Jacques
+    Aubrieux, has been received at the Élysée. We are informed that the
+    President of the Republic has refused to reprieve the condemned man
+    and that the execution will take place to-morrow morning."
+
+After crossing the terrace, the young man found himself faced, at the
+entrance to the garden, by a lady and gentleman who blocked his way; and
+the latter said:
+
+"Excuse me, sir, but I noticed your agitation. It's about Jacques Aubrieux,
+isn't it?"
+
+"Yes, yes, Jacques Aubrieux," the young man stammered. "Jacques, the friend
+of my childhood. I'm hurrying to see his wife. She must be beside herself
+with grief."
+
+"Can I offer you my assistance? I am Prince Rénine. This lady and I would
+be happy to call on Madame Aubrieux and to place our services at her
+disposal."
+
+The young man, upset by the news which he had read, seemed not to
+understand. He introduced himself awkwardly:
+
+"My name is Dutreuil, Gaston Dutreuil."
+
+Rénine beckoned to his chauffeur, who was waiting at some little distance,
+and pushed Gaston Dutreuil into the car, asking:
+
+"What address? Where does Madame Aubrieux live?"
+
+"23 _bis_, Avenue du Roule."
+
+After helping Hortense in, Rénine repeated the address to the chauffeur
+and, as soon as they drove off, tried to question Gaston Dutreuil:
+
+"I know very little of the case," he said. "Tell it to me as briefly as you
+can. Jacques Aubrieux killed one of his near relations, didn't he?"
+
+"He is innocent, sir," replied the young man, who seemed incapable of
+giving the least explanation. "Innocent, I swear it. I've been Jacques'
+friend for twenty years ... He is innocent ... and it would be
+monstrous...."
+
+There was nothing to be got out of him. Besides, it was only a short drive.
+They entered Neuilly through the Porte des Sablons and, two minutes later,
+stopped before a long, narrow passage between high walls which led them to
+a small, one-storeyed house.
+
+Gaston Dutreuil rang.
+
+"Madame is in the drawing-room, with her mother," said the maid who opened
+the door.
+
+"I'll go in to the ladies," he said, taking Rénine and Hortense with him.
+
+It was a fair-sized, prettily-furnished room, which, in ordinary times,
+must have been used also as a study. Two women sat weeping, one of whom,
+elderly and grey-haired, came up to Gaston Dutreuil. He explained the
+reason for Rénine's presence and she at once cried, amid her sobs:
+
+"My daughter's husband is innocent, sir. Jacques? A better man never lived.
+He was so good-hearted! Murder his cousin? But he worshipped his cousin! I
+swear that he's not guilty, sir! And they are going to commit the infamy of
+putting him to death? Oh, sir, it will kill my daughter!"
+
+Rénine realized that all these people had been living for months under the
+obsession of that innocence and in the certainty that an innocent man could
+never be executed. The news of the execution, which was now inevitable, was
+driving them mad.
+
+He went up to a poor creature bent in two whose face, a quite young face,
+framed in pretty, flaxen hair, was convulsed with desperate grief.
+Hortense, who had already taken a seat beside her, gently drew her head
+against her shoulder. Rénine said to her:
+
+"Madame, I do not know what I can do for you. But I give you my word of
+honour that, if any one in this world can be of use to you, it is myself.
+I therefore implore you to answer my questions as though the clear and
+definite wording of your replies were able to alter the aspect of things
+and as though you wished to make me share your opinion of Jacques Aubrieux.
+For he is innocent, is he not?"
+
+"Oh, sir, indeed he is!" she exclaimed; and the woman's whole soul was in
+the words.
+
+"You are certain of it. But you were unable to communicate your certainty
+to the court. Well, you must now compel me to share it. I am not asking you
+to go into details and to live again through the hideous torment which you
+have suffered, but merely to answer certain questions. Will you do this?"
+
+"I will."
+
+Rénine's influence over her was complete. With a few sentences Rénine had
+succeeded in subduing her and inspiring her with the will to obey. And once
+more Hortense realized all the man's power, authority and persuasion.
+
+"What was your husband?" he asked, after begging the mother and Gaston
+Dutreuil to preserve absolute silence.
+
+"An insurance-broker."
+
+"Lucky in business?"
+
+"Until last year, yes."
+
+"So there have been financial difficulties during the past few months?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"And the murder was committed when?"
+
+"Last March, on a Sunday."
+
+"Who was the victim?"
+
+"A distant cousin, M. Guillaume, who lived at Suresnes."
+
+"What was the sum stolen?"
+
+"Sixty thousand-franc notes, which this cousin had received the day before,
+in payment of a long-outstanding debt."
+
+"Did your husband know that?"
+
+"Yes. His cousin told him of it on the Sunday, in the course of a
+conversation on the telephone, and Jacques insisted that his cousin ought
+not to keep so large a sum in the house and that he ought to pay it into a
+bank next day."
+
+"Was this in the morning?"
+
+"At one o'clock in the afternoon. Jacques was to have gone to M. Guillaume
+on his motor-cycle. But he felt tired and told him that he would not go
+out. So he remained here all day."
+
+"Alone?"
+
+"Yes. The two servants were out. I went to the Cinéma des Ternes with my
+mother and our friend Dutreuil. In the evening, we learnt that M. Guillaume
+had been murdered. Next morning, Jacques was arrested."
+
+"On what evidence?"
+
+The poor creature hesitated to reply: the evidence of guilt had evidently
+been overwhelming. Then, obeying a sign from Rénine, she answered without
+a pause:
+
+"The murderer went to Suresnes on a motorcycle and the tracks discovered
+were those of my husband's machine. They found a handkerchief with my
+husband's initials; and the revolver which was used belonged to him.
+Lastly, one of our neighbours maintains that he saw my husband go out
+on his bicycle at three o'clock and another that he saw him come in at
+half-past four. The murder was committed at four o'clock."
+
+"And what does Jacques Aubrieux say in his defence?"
+
+"He declares that he slept all the afternoon. During that time, some one
+came who managed to unlock the cycle-shed and take the motor-cycle to go
+to Suresnes. As for the handkerchief and the revolver, they were in the
+tool-bag. There would be nothing surprising in the murderer's using them."
+
+"It seems a plausible explanation."
+
+"Yes, but the prosecution raised two objections. In the first place,
+nobody, absolutely nobody, knew that my husband was going to stay at
+home all day, because, on the contrary, it was his habit to go out on
+his motor-cycle every Sunday afternoon."
+
+"And the second objection?"
+
+She flushed and murmured:
+
+"The murderer went to the pantry at M. Guillaume's and drank half a bottle
+of wine straight out of the bottle, which shows my husband's fingerprints."
+
+It seemed as though her strength was exhausted and as though, at the same
+time, the unconscious hope which Rénine's intervention had awakened in her
+had suddenly vanished before the accumulation of adverse facts. Again she
+collapsed, withdrawn into a sort of silent meditation from which Hortense's
+affectionate attentions were unable to distract her.
+
+The mother stammered:
+
+"He's not guilty, is he, sir? And they can't punish an innocent man. They
+haven't the right to kill my daughter. Oh dear, oh dear, what have we done
+to be tortured like this? My poor little Madeleine!"
+
+"She will kill herself," said Dutreuil, in a scared voice. "She will never
+be able to endure the idea that they are guillotining Jacques. She will
+kill herself presently ... this very night...."
+
+Rénine was striding up and down the room.
+
+"You can do nothing for her, can you?" asked Hortense.
+
+"It's half-past eleven now," he replied, in an anxious tone, "and it's to
+happen to-morrow morning."
+
+"Do you think he's guilty?"
+
+"I don't know.... I don't know.... The poor woman's conviction is too
+impressive to be neglected. When two people have lived together for years,
+they can hardly be mistaken about each other to that degree. And yet...."
+
+He stretched himself out on a sofa and lit a cigarette. He smoked three in
+succession, without a word from any one to interrupt his train of thought.
+From time to time he looked at his watch. Every minute was of such
+importance!
+
+At last he went back to Madeleine Aubrieux, took her hands and said, very
+gently:
+
+"You must not kill yourself. There is hope left until the last minute has
+come; and I promise you that, for my part, I will not be disheartened until
+that last minute. But I need your calmness and your confidence."
+
+"I will be calm," she said, with a pitiable air.
+
+"And confident?"
+
+"And confident."
+
+"Well, wait for me. I shall be back in two hours from now. Will you come
+with us, M. Dutreuil?"
+
+As they were stepping into his car, he asked the young man:
+
+"Do you know any small, unfrequented restaurant, not too far inside Paris?"
+
+"There's the Brasserie Lutetia, on the ground-floor of the house in which I
+live, on the Place des Ternes."
+
+"Capital. That will be very handy."
+
+They scarcely spoke on the way. Rénine, however, said to Gaston Dutreuil:
+
+"So far as I remember, the numbers of the notes are known, aren't they?"
+
+"Yes. M. Guillaume had entered the sixty numbers in his pocket-book."
+
+Rénine muttered, a moment later:
+
+"That's where the whole problem lies. Where are the notes? If we could lay
+our hands on them, we should know everything."
+
+At the Brasserie Lutetia there was a telephone in the private room where
+he asked to have lunch served. When the waiter had left him alone with
+Hortense and Dutreuil, he took down the receiver with a resolute air:
+
+"Hullo!... Prefecture of police, please.... Hullo! Hullo!... Is that the
+Prefecture of police? Please put me on to the criminal investigation
+department. I have a very important communication to make. You can say it's
+Prince Rénine."
+
+Holding the receiver in his hand, he turned to Gaston Dutreuil:
+
+"I can ask some one to come here, I suppose? We shall be quite
+undisturbed?"
+
+"Quite."
+
+He listened again:
+
+"The secretary to the head of the criminal investigation department? Oh,
+excellent! Mr. Secretary, I have on several occasions been in communication
+with M. Dudouis and have given him information which has been of great use
+to him. He is sure to remember Prince Rénine. I may be able to-day to show
+him where the sixty thousand-franc notes are hidden which Aubrieux the
+murderer stole from his cousin. If he's interested in the proposal, beg him
+to send an inspector to the Brasserie Lutetia, Place des Ternes. I shall
+be there with a lady and M. Dutreuil, Aubrieux's friend. Good day, Mr.
+Secretary."
+
+When Rénine hung up the instrument, he saw the amazed faces of Hortense and
+of Gaston Dutreuil confronting him.
+
+Hortense whispered:
+
+"Then you know? You've discovered ...?"
+
+"Nothing," he said, laughing.
+
+"Well?"
+
+"Well, I'm acting as though I knew. It's not a bad method. Let's have some
+lunch, shall we?"
+
+The clock marked a quarter to one.
+
+"The man from the prefecture will be here," he said, "in twenty minutes at
+latest."
+
+"And if no one comes?" Hortense objected.
+
+"That would surprise me. Of course, if I had sent a message to M. Dudouis
+saying, 'Aubrieux is innocent,' I should have failed to make any
+impression. It's not the least use, on the eve of an execution, to attempt
+to convince the gentry of the police or of the law that a man condemned
+to death is innocent. No. From henceforth Jacques Aubrieux belongs to
+the executioner. But the prospect of securing the sixty bank-notes is a
+windfall worth taking a little trouble over. Just think: that was the
+weak point in the indictment, those sixty notes which they were unable
+to trace."
+
+"But, as you know nothing of their whereabouts...."
+
+"My dear girl--I hope you don't mind my calling you so?--my dear girl, when
+a man can't explain this or that physical phenomenon, he adopts some sort
+of theory which explains the various manifestations of the phenomenon and
+says that everything happened as though the theory were correct. That's
+what I am doing."
+
+"That amounts to saying that you are going upon a supposition?"
+
+Rénine did not reply. Not until some time later, when lunch was over, did
+he say:
+
+"Obviously I am going upon a supposition. If I had several days before me,
+I should take the trouble of first verifying my theory, which is based upon
+intuition quite as much as upon a few scattered facts. But I have only two
+hours; and I am embarking on the unknown path as though I were certain that
+it would lead me to the truth."
+
+"And suppose you are wrong?"
+
+"I have no choice. Besides, it is too late. There's a knock. Oh, one word
+more! Whatever I may say, don't contradict me. Nor you, M. Dutreuil."
+
+He opened the door. A thin man, with a red imperial, entered:
+
+"Prince Rénine?"
+
+"Yes, sir. You, of course, are from M. Dudouis?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+And the newcomer gave his name:
+
+"Chief-inspector Morisseau."
+
+"I am obliged to you for coming so promptly, Mr. Chief-inspector," said
+Prince Rénine, "and I hope that M. Dudouis will not regret having placed
+you at my disposal."
+
+"At your entire disposal, in addition to two inspectors whom I have left in
+the square outside and who have been in the case, with me, from the first."
+
+"I shall not detain you for any length of time," said Rénine, "and I will
+not even ask you to sit down. We have only a few minutes in which to settle
+everything. You know what it's all about?"
+
+"The sixty thousand-franc notes stolen from M. Guillaume. I have the
+numbers here."
+
+Rénine ran his eyes down the slip of paper which the chief-inspector handed
+him and said:
+
+"That's right. The two lists agree."
+
+Inspector Morisseau seemed greatly excited:
+
+"The chief attaches the greatest importance to your discovery. So you will
+be able to show me?..."
+
+Rénine was silent for a moment and then declared:
+
+"Mr. Chief-inspector, a personal investigation--and a most exhaustive
+investigation it was, as I will explain to you presently--has revealed
+the fact that, on his return from Suresnes, the murderer, after replacing
+the motor-cycle in the shed in the Avenue du Roule, ran to the Ternes and
+entered this house."
+
+"This house?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"But what did he come here for?"
+
+"To hide the proceeds of his theft, the sixty bank-notes."
+
+"How do you mean? Where?"
+
+"In a flat of which he had the key, on the fifth floor."
+
+Gaston Dutreuil exclaimed, in amazement:
+
+"But there's only one flat on the fifth floor and that's the one I live
+in!"
+
+"Exactly; and, as you were at the cinema with Madame Aubrieux and her
+mother, advantage was taken of your absence...."
+
+"Impossible! No one has the key except myself."
+
+"One can get in without a key."
+
+"But I have seen no marks of any kind."
+
+Morisseau intervened:
+
+"Come, let us understand one another. You say the bank-notes were hidden in
+M. Dutreuil's flat?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Then, as Jacques Aubrieux was arrested the next morning, the notes ought
+to be there still?"
+
+"That's my opinion."
+
+Gaston Dutreuil could not help laughing:
+
+"But that's absurd! I should have found them!"
+
+"Did you look for them?"
+
+"No. But I should have come across them at any moment. The place isn't big
+enough to swing a cat in. Would you care to see it?"
+
+"However small it may be, it's large enough to hold sixty bits of paper."
+
+"Of course, everything is possible," said Dutreuil. "Still, I must repeat
+that nobody, to my knowledge, has been to my rooms; that there is only one
+key; that I am my own housekeeper; and that I can't quite understand...."
+
+Hortense too could not understand. With her eyes fixed on Prince Rénine's,
+she was trying to read his innermost thoughts. What game was he playing?
+Was it her duty to support his statements? She ended by saying:
+
+"Mr. Chief-inspector, since Prince Rénine maintains that the notes have
+been put away upstairs, wouldn't the simplest thing be to go and look? M.
+Dutreuil will take us up, won't you?"
+
+"This minute," said the young man. "As you say, that will be simplest."
+
+They all four climbed the five storys of the house and, after Dutreuil
+had opened the door, entered a tiny set of chambers consisting of a
+sitting-room, bedroom, kitchen and bathroom, all arranged with fastidious
+neatness. It was easy to see that every chair in the sitting-room occupied
+a definite place. The pipes had a rack to themselves; so had the matches.
+Three walking-sticks, arranged according to their length, hung from
+three nails. On a little table before the window a hat-box, filled with
+tissue-paper, awaited the felt hat which Dutreuil carefully placed in it.
+He laid his gloves beside it, on the lid.
+
+He did all this with sedate and mechanical movements, like a man who loves
+to see things in the places which he has chosen for them. Indeed, no sooner
+did Rénine shift something than Dutreuil made a slight gesture of protest,
+took out his hat again, stuck it on his head, opened the window and rested
+his elbows on the sill, with his back turned to the room, as though he were
+unable to bear the sight of such vandalism.
+
+"You're positive, are you not?" the inspector asked Rénine.
+
+"Yes, yes, I'm positive that the sixty notes were brought here after the
+murder."
+
+"Let's look for them."
+
+This was easy and soon done. In half an hour, not a corner remained
+unexplored, not a knick-knack unlifted.
+
+"Nothing," said Inspector Morisseau. "Shall we continue?"
+
+"No," replied Rénine, "The notes are no longer here."
+
+"What do you mean?"
+
+"I mean that they have been removed."
+
+"By whom? Can't you make a more definite accusation?"
+
+Rénine did not reply. But Gaston Dutreuil wheeled round. He was choking
+and spluttered:
+
+"Mr. Inspector, would you like _me_ to make the accusation more
+definite, as conveyed by this gentleman's remarks? It all means that
+there's a dishonest man here, that the notes hidden by the murderer were
+discovered and stolen by that dishonest man and deposited in another and
+safer place. That is your idea, sir, is it not? And you accuse me of
+committing this theft don't you?"
+
+He came forward, drumming his chest with his fists: "Me! Me! I found the
+notes, did I, and kept them for myself? You dare to suggest that!"
+
+Rénine still made no reply. Dutreuil flew into a rage and, taking Inspector
+Morisseau aside, exclaimed:
+
+"Mr. Inspector, I strongly protest against all this farce and against
+the part which you are unconsciously playing in it. Before your arrival,
+Prince Rénine told this lady and myself that he knew nothing, that he was
+venturing into this affair at random and that he was following the first
+road that offered, trusting to luck. Do you deny it, sir?"
+
+Rénine did not open his lips.
+
+"Answer me, will you? Explain yourself; for, really, you are putting
+forward the most improbable facts without any proof whatever. It's easy
+enough to say that I stole the notes. And how were you to know that they
+were here at all? Who brought them here? Why should the murderer choose
+this flat to hide them in? It's all so stupid, so illogical and absurd!...
+Give us your proofs, sir ... one single proof!"
+
+Inspector Morisseau seemed perplexed. He questioned Rénine with a glance.
+Rénine said:
+
+"Since you want specific details, we will get them from Madame Aubrieux
+herself. She's on the telephone. Let's go downstairs. We shall know all
+about it in a minute."
+
+Dutreuil shrugged his shoulders:
+
+"As you please; but what a waste of time!"
+
+He seemed greatly irritated. His long wait at the window, under a blazing
+sun, had thrown him into a sweat. He went to his bedroom and returned with
+a bottle of water, of which he took a few sips, afterwards placing the
+bottle on the window-sill:
+
+"Come along," he said.
+
+Prince Rénine chuckled.
+
+"You seem to be in a hurry to leave the place."
+
+"I'm in a hurry to show you up," retorted Dutreuil, slamming the door.
+
+They went downstairs to the private room containing the telephone. The room
+was empty. Rénine asked Gaston Dutreuil for the Aubrieuxs' number, took
+down the instrument and was put through.
+
+The maid who came to the telephone answered that Madame Aubrieux had
+fainted, after giving way to an access of despair, and that she was now
+asleep.
+
+"Fetch her mother, please. Prince Rénine speaking. It's urgent."
+
+He handed the second receiver to Morisseau. For that matter, the voices
+were so distinct that Dutreuil and Hortense were able to hear every word
+exchanged.
+
+"Is that you, madame?"
+
+"Yes. Prince Rénine, I believe?"
+
+"Prince Rénine."
+
+"Oh, sir, what news have you for me? Is there any hope?" asked the old
+lady, in a tone of entreaty.
+
+"The enquiry is proceeding very satisfactorily," said Rénine, "and you
+may hope for the best. For the moment, I want you to give me some very
+important particulars. On the day of the murder, did Gaston Dutreuil come
+to your house?"
+
+"Yes, he came to fetch my daughter and myself, after lunch."
+
+"Did he know at the time that M. Guillaume had sixty thousand francs at his
+place?"
+
+"Yes, I told him."
+
+"And that Jacques Aubrieux was not feeling very well and was proposing not
+to take his usual cycle-ride but to stay at home and sleep?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"You are sure?"
+
+"Absolutely certain."
+
+"And you all three went to the cinema together?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"And you were all sitting together?"
+
+"Oh, no! There was no room. He took a seat farther away."
+
+"A seat where you could see him?"
+
+"No."
+
+"But he came to you during the interval?"
+
+"No, we did not see him until we were going out."
+
+"There is no doubt of that?"
+
+"None at all."
+
+"Very well, madame. I will tell you the result of my efforts in an hour's
+time. But above all, don't wake up Madame Aubrieux."
+
+"And suppose she wakes of her own accord?"
+
+"Reassure her and give her confidence. Everything is going well, very well
+indeed."
+
+He hung up the receiver and turned to Dutreuil, laughing:
+
+"Ha, ha, my boy! Things are beginning to look clearer. What do you say?"
+
+It was difficult to tell what these words meant or what conclusions Rénine
+had drawn from his conversation. The silence was painful and oppressive.
+
+"Mr. Chief-Inspector, you have some of your men outside, haven't you?"
+
+"Two detective-sergeants."
+
+"It's important that they should be there. Please also ask the manager not
+to disturb us on any account."
+
+And, when Morisseau returned, Rénine closed the door, took his stand in
+front of Dutreuil and, speaking in a good-humoured but emphatic tone, said:
+
+"It amounts to this, young man, that the ladies saw nothing of you between
+three and five o'clock on that Sunday. That's rather a curious detail."
+
+"A perfectly natural detail," Dutreuil retorted, "and one, moreover, which
+proves nothing at all."
+
+"It proves, young man, that you had a good two hours at your disposal."
+
+"Obviously. Two hours which I spent at the cinema."
+
+"Or somewhere else."
+
+Dutreuil looked at him:
+
+"Somewhere else?"
+
+"Yes. As you were free, you had plenty of time to go wherever you liked ...
+to Suresnes, for instance."
+
+"Oh!" said the young man, jesting in his turn. "Suresnes is a long way
+off!"
+
+"It's quite close! Hadn't you your friend Jacques Aubrieux's motor-cycle?"
+
+A fresh pause followed these words. Dutreuil had knitted his brows as
+though he were trying to understand. At last he was heard to whisper:
+
+"So that is what he was trying to lead up to!... The brute!..."
+
+Rénine brought down his hand on Dutreuil's shoulder:
+
+"No more talk! Facts! Gaston Dutreuil, you are the only person who on that
+day knew two essential things: first, that Cousin Guillaume had sixty
+thousand francs in his house; secondly, that Jacques Aubrieux was not
+going out. You at once saw your chance. The motor-cycle was available. You
+slipped out during the performance. You went to Suresnes. You killed Cousin
+Guillaume. You took the sixty bank-notes and left them at your rooms. And
+at five o'clock you went back to fetch the ladies."
+
+Dutreuil had listened with an expression at once mocking and flurried,
+casting an occasional glance at Inspector Morisseau as though to enlist
+him as a witness:
+
+"The man's mad," it seemed to say. "It's no use being angry with him."
+
+When Rénine had finished, he began to laugh:
+
+"Very funny!... A capital joke!... So it was I whom the neighbours saw
+going and returning on the motor-cycle?"
+
+"It was you disguised in Jacques Aubrieux's clothes."
+
+"And it was my finger-prints that were found on the bottle in M.
+Guillaume's pantry?"
+
+"The bottle had been opened by Jacques Aubrieux at lunch, in his own house,
+and it was you who took it with you to serve as evidence."
+
+"Funnier and funnier!" cried Dutreuil, who had the air of being frankly
+amused. "Then I contrived the whole affair so that Jacques Aubrieux might
+be accused of the crime?"
+
+"It was the safest means of not being accused yourself."
+
+"Yes, but Jacques is a friend whom I have known from childhood."
+
+"You're in love with his wife."
+
+The young man gave a sudden, infuriated start:
+
+"You dare!... What! You dare make such an infamous suggestion?"
+
+"I have proof of it."
+
+"That's a lie! I have always respected Madeleine Aubrieux and revered
+her...."
+
+"Apparently. But you're in love with her. You desire her. Don't contradict
+me. I have abundant proof of it."
+
+"That's a lie, I tell you! You have only known me a few hours!"
+
+"Come, come! I've been quietly watching you for days, waiting for the
+moment to pounce upon you."
+
+He took the young man by the shoulders and shook him:
+
+"Come, Dutreuil, confess! I hold all the proofs in my hand. I have
+witnesses whom we shall meet presently at the criminal investigation
+department. Confess, can't you? In spite of everything, you're tortured
+by remorse. Remember your dismay, at the restaurant, when you had seen
+the newspaper. What? Jacques Aubrieux condemned to die? That's more than
+you bargained for! Penal servitude would have suited your book; but the
+scaffold!... Jacques Aubrieux executed to-morrow, an innocent man!...
+Confess, won't you? Confess to save your own skin! Own up!"
+
+Bending over the other, he was trying with all his might to extort a
+confession from him. But Dutreuil drew himself up and coldly, with a sort
+of scorn in his voice, said:
+
+"Sir, you are a madman. Not a word that you have said has any sense in it.
+All your accusations are false. What about the bank-notes? Did you find
+them at my place as you said you would?"
+
+Rénine, exasperated, clenched his fist in his face:
+
+"Oh, you swine, I'll dish you yet, I swear I will!"
+
+He drew the inspector aside:
+
+"Well, what do you say to it? An arrant rogue, isn't he?"
+
+The inspector nodded his head:
+
+"It may be.... But, all the same ... so far there's no real evidence."
+
+"Wait, M. Morisseau," said Rénine. "Wait until we've had our interview with
+M. Dudouis. For we shall see M. Dudouis at the prefecture, shall we not?"
+
+"Yes, he'll be there at three o'clock."
+
+"Well, you'll be convinced, Mr. Inspector! I tell you here and now that you
+will be convinced."
+
+Rénine was chuckling like a man who feels certain of the course of events.
+Hortense, who was standing near him and was able to speak to him without
+being heard by the others, asked, in a low voice:
+
+"You've got him, haven't you?"
+
+He nodded his head in assent:
+
+"Got him? I should think I have! All the same, I'm no farther forward than
+I was at the beginning."
+
+"But this is awful! And your proofs?"
+
+"Not the shadow of a proof ... I was hoping to trip him up. But he's kept
+his feet, the rascal!"
+
+"Still, you're certain it's he?"
+
+"It can't be any one else. I had an intuition at the very outset; and I've
+not taken my eyes off him since. I have seen his anxiety increasing as my
+investigations seemed to centre on him and concern him more closely. Now I
+know."
+
+"And he's in love with Madame Aubrieux?"
+
+"In logic, he's bound to be. But so far we have only hypothetical
+suppositions, or rather certainties which are personal to myself. We shall
+never intercept the guillotine with those. Ah, if we could only find the
+bank-notes! Given the bank-notes, M. Dudouis would act. Without them, he
+will laugh in my face."
+
+"What then?" murmured Hortense, in anguished accents.
+
+He did not reply. He walked up and down the room, assuming an air of gaiety
+and rubbing his hands. All was going so well! It was really a treat to take
+up a case which, so to speak, worked itself out automatically.
+
+"Suppose we went on to the prefecture, M. Morisseau? The chief must be
+there by now. And, having gone so far, we may as well finish. Will M.
+Dutreuil come with us?"
+
+"Why not?" said Dutreuil, arrogantly.
+
+But, just as Rénine was opening the door, there was a noise in the passage
+and the manager ran up, waving his arms:
+
+"Is M. Dutreuil still here?... M. Dutreuil, your flat is on fire!... A man
+outside told us. He saw it from the square."
+
+The young man's eyes lit up. For perhaps half a second his mouth was
+twisted by a smile which Rénine noticed:
+
+"Oh, you ruffian!" he cried. "You've given yourself away, my beauty! It was
+you who set fire to the place upstairs; and now the notes are burning."
+
+He blocked his exit.
+
+"Let me pass," shouted Dutreuil. "There's a fire and no one can get in,
+because no one else has a key. Here it is. Let me pass, damn it!"
+
+Rénine snatched the key from his hand and, holding him by the collar of his
+coat:
+
+"Don't you move, my fine fellow! The game's up! You precious blackguard! M.
+Morisseau, will you give orders to the sergeant not to let him out of his
+sight and to blow out his brains if he tries to get away? Sergeant, we rely
+on you! Put a bullet into him, if necessary!..."
+
+He hurried up the stairs, followed by Hortense and the chief inspector, who
+was protesting rather peevishly:
+
+"But, I say, look here, it wasn't he who set the place on fire! How do you
+make out that he set it on fire, seeing that he never left us?"
+
+"Why, he set it on fire beforehand, to be sure!"
+
+"How? I ask you, how?"
+
+"How do I know? But a fire doesn't break out like that, for no reason at
+all, at the very moment when a man wants to burn compromising papers."
+
+They heard a commotion upstairs. It was the waiters of the restaurant
+trying to burst the door open. An acrid smell filled the well of the
+stair-case.
+
+Rénine reached the top floor:
+
+"By your leave, friends. I have the key."
+
+He inserted it in the lock and opened the door.
+
+He was met by a gust of smoke so dense that one might well have supposed
+the whole floor to be ablaze. Rénine at once saw that the fire had gone out
+of its own accord, for lack of fuel, and that there were no more flames:
+
+"M. Morisseau, you won't let any one come in with us, will you? An intruder
+might spoil everything. Bolt the door, that will be best."
+
+He stepped into the front room, where the fire had obviously had its chief
+centre. The furniture, the walls and the ceiling, though blackened by the
+smoke, had not been touched. As a matter of fact, the fire was confined to
+a blaze of papers which was still burning in the middle of the room, in
+front of the window.
+
+Rénine struck his forehead:
+
+"What a fool I am! What an unspeakable ass!"
+
+"Why?" asked the inspector.
+
+"The hat-box, of course! The cardboard hat-box which was standing on the
+table. That's where he hid the notes. They were there all through our
+search."
+
+"Impossible!"
+
+"Why, yes, we always overlook that particular hiding-place, the one just
+under our eyes, within reach of our hands! How could one imagine that a
+thief would leave sixty thousand francs in an open cardboard box, in which
+he places his hat when he comes in, with an absent-minded air? That's just
+the one place we don't look in.... Well played, M. Dutreuil!"
+
+The inspector, who remained incredulous, repeated:
+
+"No, no, impossible! We were with him and he could not have started the
+fire himself."
+
+"Everything was prepared beforehand on the supposition that there might be
+an alarm.... The hat-box ... the tissue paper ... the bank-notes: they must
+all have been steeped in some inflammable liquid. He must have thrown a
+match, a chemical preparation or what not into it, as we were leaving."
+
+"But we should have seen him, hang it all! And then is it credible that
+a man who has committed a murder for the sake of sixty thousand francs
+should do away with the money in this way? If the hiding-place was such
+a good one--and it was, because we never discovered it--why this useless
+destruction?"
+
+"He got frightened, M. Morisseau. Remember that his head is at stake
+and he knows it. Anything rather than the guillotine; and they--the
+bank-notes--were the only proof which we had against him. How could he
+have left them where they were?"
+
+Morisseau was flabbergasted:
+
+"What! The only proof?"
+
+"Why, obviously!"
+
+"But your witnesses? Your evidence? All that you were going to tell the
+chief?"
+
+"Mere bluff."
+
+"Well, upon my word," growled the bewildered inspector, "you're a cool
+customer!"
+
+"Would you have taken action without my bluff?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Then what more do you want?"
+
+Rénine stooped to stir the ashes. But there was nothing left, not even
+those remnants of stiff paper which still retain their shape.
+
+"Nothing," he said. "It's queer, all the same! How the deuce did he manage
+to set the thing alight?"
+
+He stood up, looking attentively about him. Hortense had a feeling that he
+was making his supreme effort and that, after this last struggle in the
+dark, he would either have devised his plan of victory or admit that he was
+beaten.
+
+Faltering with anxiety, she asked:
+
+"It's all up, isn't it?"
+
+"No, no," he said, thoughtfully, "it's not all up. It was, a few seconds
+ago. But now there is a gleam of light ... and one that gives me hope."
+
+"God grant that it may be justified!"
+
+"We must go slowly," he said. "It is only an attempt, but a fine, a very
+fine attempt; and it may succeed."
+
+He was silent for a moment; then, with an amused smile and a click of the
+tongue, he said:
+
+"An infernally clever fellow, that Dutreuil! His trick of burning the
+notes: what a fertile imagination! And what coolness! A pretty dance the
+beggar has led me! He's a master!"
+
+He fetched a broom from the kitchen and swept a part of the ashes into the
+next room, returning with a hat-box of the same size and appearance as the
+one which had been burnt. After crumpling the tissue paper with which it
+was filled, he placed the hat-box on the little table and set fire to it
+with a match.
+
+It burst into flames, which he extinguished when they had consumed half
+the cardboard and nearly all the paper. Then he took from an inner pocket
+of his waistcoat a bundle of bank-notes and selected six, which he burnt
+almost completely, arranging the remains and hiding the rest of the notes
+at the bottom of the box, among the ashes and the blackened bits of paper:
+
+"M. Morisseau," he said, when he had done, "I am asking for your assistance
+for the last time. Go and fetch Dutreuil. Tell him just this: 'You are
+unmasked. The notes did not catch fire. Come with me.' And bring him up
+here."
+
+Despite his hesitation and his fear of exceeding his instructions from the
+head of the detective service, the chief-inspector was powerless to throw
+off the ascendancy which Rénine had acquired over him. He left the room.
+
+Rénine turned to Hortense:
+
+"Do you understand my plan of battle?"
+
+"Yes," she said, "but it's a dangerous experiment. Do you think that
+Dutreuil will fall into the trap?"
+
+"Everything depends on the state of his nerves and the degree of
+demoralization to which he is reduced. A surprise attack may very well do
+for him."
+
+"Nevertheless, suppose he recognizes by some sign that the box has been
+changed?"
+
+"Oh, of course, he has a few chances in his favour! The fellow is much more
+cunning than I thought and quite capable of wriggling out of the trap.
+On the other hand, however, how uneasy he must be! How the blood must be
+buzzing in his ears and obscuring his sight! No, I don't think that he will
+avoid the trap.... He will give in.... He will give in...."
+
+They exchanged no more words. Rénine did not move. Hortense was stirred to
+the very depths of her being. The life of an innocent man hung trembling in
+the balance. An error of judgment, a little bad luck ... and, twelve hours
+later, Jacques Aubrieux would be put to death. And together with a horrible
+anguish she experienced, in spite of all, a feeling of eager curiosity.
+What was Prince Rénine going to do? What would be the outcome of the
+experiment on which he was venturing? What resistance would Gaston Dutreuil
+offer? She lived through one of those minutes of superhuman tension in
+which life becomes intensified until it reaches its utmost value.
+
+They heard footsteps on the stairs, the footsteps of men in a hurry. The
+sound drew nearer. They were reaching the top floor.
+
+Hortense looked at her companion. He had stood up and was listening, his
+features already transfigured by action. The footsteps were now echoing in
+the passage. Then, suddenly, he ran to the door and cried:
+
+"Quick! Let's make an end of it!"
+
+Two or three detectives and a couple of waiters entered. He caught hold of
+Dutreuil in the midst of the detectives and pulled him by the arm, gaily
+exclaiming:
+
+"Well done, old man! That trick of yours with the table and the
+water-bottle was really splendid! A masterpiece, on my word! Only, it
+didn't come off!"
+
+"What do you mean? What's the matter?" mumbled Gaston Dutreuil, staggering.
+
+"What I say: the fire burnt only half the tissue-paper and the hat-box;
+and, though some of the bank-notes were destroyed, like the tissue-paper,
+the others are there, at the bottom.... You understand? The long-sought
+notes, the great proof of the murder: they're there, where you hid them....
+As chance would have it, they've escaped burning.... Here, look: there
+are the numbers; you can check them.... Oh, you're done for, done for, my
+beauty!"
+
+The young man drew himself up stiffly. His eyelids quivered. He did not
+accept Rénine's invitation to look; he examined neither the hat-box nor
+the bank-notes. From the first moment, without taking the time to reflect
+and before his instinct could warn him, he believed what he was told and
+collapsed heavily into a chair, weeping.
+
+The surprise attack, to use Rénine's expression, had succeeded. On seeing
+all his plans baffled and the enemy master of his secrets, the wretched man
+had neither the strength nor the perspicacity necessary to defend himself.
+He threw up the sponge.
+
+Rénine gave him no time to breathe:
+
+"Capital! You're saving your head; and that's all, my good youth! Write
+down your confession and get it off your chest. Here's a fountain-pen....
+The luck has been against you, I admit. It was devilishly well thought
+out, your trick of the last moment. You had the bank-notes which were in
+your way and which you wanted to destroy. Nothing simpler. You take a big,
+round-bellied water-bottle and stand it on the window-sill. It acts as
+a burning-glass, concentrating the rays of the sun on the cardboard and
+tissue-paper, all nicely prepared. Ten minutes later, it bursts into
+flames. A splendid idea! And, like all great discoveries, it came quite
+by chance, what? It reminds one of Newton's apple.... One day, the sun,
+passing through the water in that bottle, must have set fire to a scrap of
+cotton or the head of a match; and, as you had the sun at your disposal
+just now, you said to yourself, 'Now's the time,' and stood the bottle in
+the right position. My congratulations, Gaston!... Look, here's a sheet of
+paper. Write down: 'It was I who murdered M. Guillaume.' Write, I tell
+you!"
+
+Leaning over the young man, with all his implacable force of will he
+compelled him to write, guiding his hand and dictating the sentences.
+Dutreuil, exhausted, at the end of his strength, wrote as he was told.
+
+"Here's the confession, Mr. Chief-inspector," said Rénine. "You will be
+good enough to take it to M. Dudouis. These gentlemen," turning to the
+waiters, from the restaurant, "will, I am sure, consent to serve as
+witnesses."
+
+And, seeing that Dutreuil, overwhelmed by what had happened, did not move,
+he gave him a shake:
+
+"Hi, you, look alive! Now that you've been fool enough to confess, make an
+end of the job, my gentle idiot!"
+
+The other watched him, standing in front of him.
+
+"Obviously," Rénine continued, "you're only a simpleton. The hat-box was
+fairly burnt to ashes: so were the notes. That hat-box, my dear fellow, is
+a different one; and those notes belong to me. I even burnt six of them to
+make you swallow the stunt. And you couldn't make out what had happened.
+What an owl you must be! To furnish me with evidence at the last moment,
+when I hadn't a single proof of my own! And such evidence! A written
+confession! Written before witnesses!... Look here, my man, if they do cut
+off your head--as I sincerely hope they will--upon my word, you'll have
+jolly well deserved it! Good-bye, Dutreuil!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Downstairs, in the street, Rénine asked Hortense Daniel to take the car, go
+to Madeleine Aubrieux and tell her what had happened.
+
+"And you?" asked Hortense.
+
+"I have a lot to do ... urgent appointments...."
+
+"And you deny yourself the pleasure of bringing the good news?"
+
+"It's one of the pleasures that pall upon one. The only pleasure that never
+flags is that of the fight itself. Afterwards, things cease to be
+interesting."
+
+She took his hand and for a moment held it in both her own. She would have
+liked to express all her admiration to that strange man, who seemed to
+do good as a sort of game and who did it with something like genius. But
+she was unable to speak. All these rapid incidents had upset her. Emotion
+constricted her throat and brought the tears to her eyes.
+
+Rénine bowed his head, saying:
+
+"Thank you. I have my reward."
+
+
+
+
+III
+
+THE CASE OF JEAN LOUIS
+
+
+"Monsieur," continued the young girl, addressing Serge Rénine, "it was
+while I was spending the Easter holidays at Nice with my father that I made
+the acquaintance of Jean Louis d'Imbleval...."
+
+Rénine interrupted her:
+
+"Excuse me, mademoiselle, but just now you spoke of this young man as Jean
+Louis Vaurois."
+
+"That's his name also," she said.
+
+"Has he two names then?"
+
+"I don't know ... I don't know anything about it," she said, with some
+embarrassment, "and that is why, by Hortense's advice, I came to ask for
+your help."
+
+This conversation was taking place in Rénine's flat on the Boulevard
+Haussmann, to which Hortense had brought her friend Geneviève Aymard, a
+slender, pretty little creature with a face over-shadowed by an expression
+of the greatest melancholy.
+
+"Rénine will be successful, take my word for it, Geneviève. You will,
+Rénine, won't you?"
+
+"Please tell me the rest of the story, mademoiselle," he said.
+
+Geneviève continued:
+
+"I was already engaged at the time to a man whom I loathe and detest. My
+father was trying to force me to marry him and is still trying to do so.
+Jean Louis and I felt the keenest sympathy for each other, a sympathy that
+soon developed into a profound and passionate affection which, I can assure
+you, was equally sincere on both sides. On my return to Paris, Jean Louis,
+who lives in the country with his mother and his aunt, took rooms in our
+part of the town; and, as I am allowed to go out by myself, we used to see
+each other daily. I need not tell you that we were engaged to be married. I
+told my father so. And this is what he said: 'I don't particularly like the
+fellow. But, whether it's he or another, what I want is that you should get
+married. So let him come and ask for your hand. If not, you must do as I
+say.' In the middle of June, Jean Louis went home to arrange matters with
+his mother and aunt. I received some passionate letters; and then just
+these few words:
+
+    'There are too many obstacles in the way of our happiness. I give up.
+    I am mad with despair. I love you more than ever. Good-bye and forgive
+    me.'
+
+"Since then, I have received nothing: no reply to my letters and
+telegrams."
+
+"Perhaps he has fallen in love with somebody else?" asked Rénine. "Or there
+may be some old connection which he is unable to shake off."
+
+Geneviève shook her head:
+
+"Monsieur, believe me, if our engagement had been broken off for an
+ordinary reason, I should not have allowed Hortense to trouble you. But it
+is something quite different, I am absolutely convinced. There's a mystery
+in Jean Louis' life, or rather an endless number of mysteries which hamper
+and pursue him. I never saw such distress in a human face; and, from
+the first moment of our meeting, I was conscious in him of a grief and
+melancholy which have always persisted, even at times when he was giving
+himself to our love with the greatest confidence."
+
+"But your impression must have been confirmed by minor details, by things
+which happened to strike you as peculiar?"
+
+"I don't quite know what to say."
+
+"These two names, for instance?"
+
+"Yes, there was certainly that."
+
+"By what name did he introduce himself to you?"
+
+"Jean Louis d'Imbleval."
+
+"But Jean Louis Vaurois?"
+
+"That's what my father calls him."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Because that was how he was introduced to my father, at Nice, by a
+gentleman who knew him. Besides, he carries visiting-cards which describe
+him under either name."
+
+"Have you never questioned him on this point?"
+
+"Yes, I have, twice. The first time, he said that his aunt's name was
+Vaurois and his mother's d'Imbleval."
+
+"And the second time?"
+
+"He told me the contrary: he spoke of his mother as Vaurois and of his aunt
+as d'Imbleval. I pointed this out. He coloured up and I thought it better
+not to question him any further."
+
+"Does he live far from Paris?"
+
+"Right down in Brittany: at the Manoir d'Elseven, five miles from Carhaix."
+
+Rénine rose and asked the girl, seriously:
+
+"Are you quite certain that he loves you, mademoiselle?"
+
+"I am certain of it and I know too that he represents all my life and all
+my happiness. He alone can save me. If he can't, then I shall be married
+in a week's time to a man whom I hate. I have promised my father; and the
+banns have been published."
+
+"We shall leave for Carhaix, Madame Daniel and I, this evening," said
+Rénine.
+
+That evening he and Hortense took the train for Brittany. They reached
+Carhaix at ten o'clock in the morning; and, after lunch, at half past
+twelve o'clock they stepped into a car borrowed from a leading resident of
+the district.
+
+"You're looking a little pale, my dear," said Rénine, with a laugh, as they
+alighted by the gate of the garden at Elseven.
+
+"I'm very fond of Geneviève," she said. "She's the only friend I have. And
+I'm feeling frightened."
+
+He called her attention to the fact that the central gate was flanked by
+two wickets bearing the names of Madame d'Imbleval and Madame Vaurois
+respectively. Each of these wickets opened on a narrow path which ran among
+the shrubberies of box and aucuba to the left and right of the main avenue.
+The avenue itself led to an old manor-house, long, low and picturesque, but
+provided with two clumsily-built, ugly wings, each in a different style of
+architecture and each forming the destination of one of the side-paths.
+Madame d'Imbleval evidently lived on the left and Madame Vaurois on the
+right.
+
+Hortense and Rénine listened. Shrill, hasty voices were disputing inside
+the house. The sound came through one of the windows of the ground-floor,
+which was level with the garden and covered throughout its length with red
+creepers and white roses.
+
+"We can't go any farther," said Hortense. "It would be indiscreet."
+
+"All the more reason," whispered Rénine. "Look here: if we walk straight
+ahead, we shan't be seen by the people who are quarrelling."
+
+The sounds of conflict were by no means abating; and, when they reached the
+window next to the front-door, through the roses and creepers they could
+both see and hear two old ladies shrieking at the tops of their voices and
+shaking their fists at each other.
+
+The women were standing in the foreground, in a large dining-room where
+the table was not yet cleared; and at the farther side of the table sat a
+young man, doubtless Jean Louis himself, smoking his pipe and reading a
+newspaper, without appearing to trouble about the two old harridans.
+
+One of these, a thin, tall woman, was wearing a purple silk dress; and her
+hair was dressed in a mass of curls much too yellow for the ravaged face
+around which they tumbled. The other, who was still thinner, but quite
+short, was bustling round the room in a cotton dressing-gown and displayed
+a red, painted face blazing with anger:
+
+"A baggage, that's what you are!" she yelped. "The wickedest woman in the
+world and a thief into the bargain!"
+
+"I, a thief!" screamed the other.
+
+"What about that business with the ducks at ten francs apiece: don't you
+call that thieving?"
+
+"Hold your tongue, you low creature! Who stole the fifty-franc note from my
+dressing-table? Lord, that I should have to live with such a wretch!"
+
+The other started with fury at the outrage and, addressing the young man,
+cried:
+
+"Jean, are you going to sit there and let me be insulted by your hussy of a
+d'Imbleval?"
+
+And the tall one retorted, furiously:
+
+"Hussy! Do you hear that, Louis? Look at her, your Vaurois! She's got the
+airs of a superannuated barmaid! Make her stop, can't you?"
+
+Suddenly Jean Louis banged his fist upon the table, making the plates and
+dishes jump, and shouted:
+
+"Be quiet, both of you, you old lunatics!"
+
+They turned upon him at once and loaded him with abuse:
+
+"Coward!... Hypocrite!... Liar!... A pretty sort of son you are!... The son
+of a slut and not much better yourself!..."
+
+The insults rained down upon him. He stopped his ears with his fingers and
+writhed as he sat at table like a man who has lost all patience and has
+need to restrain himself lest he should fall upon his enemy.
+
+Rénine whispered:
+
+"Now's the time to go in."
+
+"In among all those infuriated people?" protested Hortense.
+
+"Exactly. We shall see them better with their masks off."
+
+And, with a determined step, he walked to the door, opened it and entered
+the room, followed by Hortense.
+
+His advent gave rise to a feeling of stupefaction. The two women stopped
+yelling, but were still scarlet in the face and trembling with rage. Jean
+Louis, who was very pale, stood up.
+
+Profiting by the general confusion, Rénine said briskly:
+
+"Allow me to introduce myself. I am Prince Rénine. This is Madame Daniel.
+We are friends of Mlle. Geneviève Aymard and we have come in her name. I
+have a letter from her addressed to you, monsieur."
+
+Jean Louis, already disconcerted by the newcomers' arrival, lost
+countenance entirely on hearing the name of Geneviève. Without quite
+knowing what he was saying and with the intention of responding to Rénine's
+courteous behaviour, he tried in his turn to introduce the two ladies and
+let fall the astounding words:
+
+"My mother, Madame d'Imbleval; my mother, Madame Vaurois."
+
+For some time no one spoke. Rénine bowed. Hortense did not know with whom
+she should shake hands, with Madame d'Imbleval, the mother, or with Madame
+Vaurois, the mother. But what happened was that Madame d'Imbleval and
+Madame Vaurois both at the same time attempted to snatch the letter which
+Rénine was holding out to Jean Louis, while both at the same time mumbled:
+
+"Mlle. Aymard!... She has had the coolness ... she has had the
+audacity...!"
+
+Then Jean Louis, recovering his self-possession, laid hold of his mother
+d'Imbleval and pushed her out of the room by a door on the left and next of
+his mother Vaurois and pushed her out of the room by a door on the right.
+Then, returning to his two visitors, he opened the envelope and read, in an
+undertone:
+
+    "I am to be married in a week, Jean Louis. Come to my rescue, I beseech
+    you. My friend Hortense and Prince Rénine will help you to overcome the
+    obstacles that baffle you. Trust them. I love you.
+
+    "GENEVIÈVE."
+
+He was a rather dull-looking young man, whose very swarthy, lean and bony
+face certainly bore the expression of melancholy and distress described by
+Geneviève. Indeed, the marks of suffering were visible in all his harassed
+features, as well as in his sad and anxious eyes.
+
+He repeated Geneviève's name over and over again, while looking about him
+with a distracted air. He seemed to be seeking a course of conduct.
+
+He seemed on the point of offering an explanation but could find nothing
+to say. The sudden intervention had taken him at a disadvantage, like an
+unforseen attack which he did not know how to meet.
+
+Rénine felt that the adversary would capitulate at the first summons. The
+man had been fighting so desperately during the last few months and had
+suffered so severely in the retirement and obstinate silence in which he
+had taken refuge that he was not thinking of defending himself. Moreover,
+how could he do so, now that they had forced their way into the privacy of
+his odious existence?
+
+"Take my word for it, monsieur," declared Rénine, "that it is in your best
+interests to confide in us. We are Geneviève Aymard's friends. Do not
+hesitate to speak."
+
+"I can hardly hesitate," he said, "after what you have just heard. This is
+the life I lead, monsieur. I will tell you the whole secret, so that you
+may tell it to Geneviève. She will then understand why I have not gone back
+to her ... and why I have not the right to do so."
+
+He pushed a chair forward for Hortense. The two men sat down, and, without
+any need of further persuasion, rather as though he himself felt a certain
+relief in unburdening himself, he said:
+
+"You must not be surprised, monsieur, if I tell my story with a certain
+flippancy, for, as a matter of fact, it is a frankly comical story and
+cannot fail to make you laugh. Fate often amuses itself by playing these
+imbecile tricks, these monstrous farces which seem as though they must have
+been invented by the brain of a madman or a drunkard. Judge for yourself.
+Twenty-seven years ago, the Manoir d'Elseven, which at that time consisted
+only of the main building, was occupied by an old doctor who, to increase
+his modest means, used to receive one or two paying guests. In this way,
+Madame d'Imbleval spent the summer here one year and Madame Vaurois the
+following summer. Now these two ladies did not know each other. One of them
+was married to a Breton of a merchant-vessel and the other to a commercial
+traveller from the Vendée.
+
+"It so happened that they lost their husbands at the same time, at a period
+when each of them was expecting a baby. And, as they both lived in the
+country, at places some distance from any town, they wrote to the old
+doctor that they intended to come to his house for their confinement....
+He agreed. They arrived almost on the same day, in the autumn. Two small
+bedrooms were prepared for them, behind the room in which we are sitting.
+The doctor had engaged a nurse, who slept in this very room. Everything
+was perfectly satisfactory. The ladies were putting the finishing touches
+to their baby-clothes and were getting on together splendidly. They were
+determined that their children should be boys and had chosen the names of
+Jean and Louis respectively.... One evening the doctor was called out to a
+case and drove off in his gig with the man-servant, saying that he would
+not be back till next day. In her master's absence, a little girl who
+served as maid-of-all-work ran out to keep company with her sweetheart.
+These accidents destiny turned to account with diabolical malignity. At
+about midnight, Madame d'Imbleval was seized with the first pains. The
+nurse, Mlle. Boussignol, had had some training as a midwife and did not
+lose her head. But, an hour later, Madame Vaurois' turn came; and the
+tragedy, or I might rather say the tragi-comedy, was enacted amid the
+screams and moans of the two patients and the bewildered agitation of the
+nurse running from one to the other, bewailing her fate, opening the window
+to call out for the doctor or falling on her knees to implore the aid of
+Providence.... Madame Vaurois was the first to bring a son into the world.
+Mlle. Boussignol hurriedly carried him in here, washed and tended him and
+laid him in the cradle prepared for him.... But Madame d'Imbleval was
+screaming with pain; and the nurse had to attend to her while the newborn
+child was yelling like a stuck pig and the terrified mother, unable to stir
+from her bed, fainted.... Add to this all the wretchedness of darkness and
+disorder, the only lamp, without any oil, for the servant had neglected to
+fill it, the candles burning out, the moaning of the wind, the screeching
+of the owls, and you will understand that Mlle. Boussignol was scared
+out of her wits. However, at five o'clock in the morning, after many
+tragic incidents, she came in here with the d'Imbleval baby, likewise a
+boy, washed and tended him, laid him in his cradle and went off to help
+Madame Vaurois, who had come to herself and was crying out, while Madame
+d'Imbleval had fainted in her turn. And, when Mlle. Boussignol, having
+settled the two mothers, but half-crazed with fatigue, her brain in a
+whirl, returned to the new-born children, she realized with horror that she
+had wrapped them in similar binders, thrust their feet into similar woolen
+socks and laid them both, side by side, _in the same cradle_, so that
+it was impossible to tell Louis d'Imbleval from Jean Vaurois!... To make
+matters worse, when she lifted one of them out of the cradle, she found
+that his hands were cold as ice and that he had ceased to breathe. He was
+dead. What was his name and what the survivor's?... Three hours later, the
+doctor found the two women in a condition of frenzied delirium, while the
+nurse was dragging herself from one bed to the other, entreating the two
+mothers to forgive her. She held me out first to one, then to the other,
+to receive their caresses--for I was the surviving child--and they first
+kissed me and then pushed me away; for, after all, who was I? The son of
+the widowed Madame d'Imbleval and the late merchant-captain or the son of
+the widowed Madame Vaurois and the late commercial traveller? There was
+not a clue by which they could tell.... The doctor begged each of the two
+mothers to sacrifice her rights, at least from the legal point of view,
+so that I might be called either Louis d'Imbleval or Jean Vaurois. They
+refused absolutely. 'Why Jean Vaurois, if he's a d'Imbleval?' protested the
+one. 'Why Louis d'Imbleval, if he's a Vaurois?' retorted the other. And I
+was registered under the name of Jean Louis, the son of an unknown father
+and mother."
+
+Prince Rénine had listened in silence. But Hortense, as the story
+approached its conclusion, had given way to a hilarity which she could no
+longer restrain and suddenly, in spite of all her efforts, she burst into
+a fit of the wildest laughter:
+
+"Forgive me," she said, her eyes filled with tears, "do forgive me; it's
+too much for my nerves...."
+
+"Don't apologize, madame," said the young man, gently, in a voice free
+from resentment. "I warned you that my story was laughable; I, better than
+any one, know how absurd, how nonsensical it is. Yes, the whole thing is
+perfectly grotesque. But believe me when I tell you that it was no fun in
+reality. It seems a humorous situation and it remains humorous by the force
+of circumstances; but it is also horrible. You can see that for yourself,
+can't you? The two mothers, neither of whom was certain of being a mother,
+but neither of whom was certain that she was not one, both clung to Jean
+Louis. He might be a stranger; on the other hand, he might be their own
+flesh and blood. They loved him to excess and fought for him furiously.
+And, above all, they both came to hate each other with a deadly hatred.
+Differing completely in character and education and obliged to live
+together because neither was willing to forego the advantage of her
+possible maternity, they lived the life of irreconcilable enemies who can
+never lay their weapons aside.... I grew up in the midst of this hatred and
+had it instilled into me by both of them. When my childish heart, hungering
+for affection, inclined me to one of them, the other would seek to inspire
+me with loathing and contempt for her. In this manor-house, which they
+bought on the old doctor's death and to which they added the two wings, I
+was the involuntary torturer and their daily victim. Tormented as a child,
+and, as a young man, leading the most hideous of lives, I doubt if any one
+on earth ever suffered more than I did."
+
+"You ought to have left them!" exclaimed Hortense, who had stopped
+laughing.
+
+"One can't leave one's mother; and one of those two women was my mother.
+And a woman can't abandon her son; and each of them was entitled to believe
+that I was her son. We were all three chained together like convicts, with
+chains of sorrow, compassion, doubt and also of hope that the truth might
+one day become apparent. And here we still are, all three, insulting one
+another and blaming one another for our wasted lives. Oh, what a hell! And
+there was no escaping it. I tried often enough ... but in vain. The broken
+bonds became tied again. Only this summer, under the stimulus of my love
+for Geneviève, I tried to free myself and did my utmost to persuade the two
+women whom I call mother. And then ... and then! I was up against their
+complaints, their immediate hatred of the wife, of the stranger, whom I
+was proposing to force upon them.... I gave way. What sort of a life would
+Geneviève have had here, between Madame d'Imbleval and Madame Vaurois? I
+had no right to victimize her."
+
+Jean Louis, who had been gradually becoming excited, uttered these last
+words in a firm voice, as though he would have wished his conduct to
+be ascribed to conscientious motives and a sense of duty. In reality,
+as Rénine and Hortense clearly saw, his was an unusually weak nature,
+incapable of reacting against a ridiculous position from which he had
+suffered ever since he was a child and which he had come to look upon as
+final and irremediable. He endured it as a man bears a cross which he has
+no right to cast aside; and at the same time he was ashamed of it. He had
+never spoken of it to Geneviève, from dread of ridicule; and afterwards, on
+returning to his prison, he had remained there out of habit and weakness.
+
+He sat down to a writing-table and quickly wrote a letter which he handed
+to Rénine:
+
+"Would you be kind enough to give this note to Mlle. Aymard and beg her
+once more to forgive me?"
+
+Rénine did not move and, when the other pressed the letter upon him, he
+took it and tore it up.
+
+"What does this mean?" asked the young man.
+
+"It means that I will not charge myself with any message."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Because you are coming with us."
+
+"I?"
+
+"Yes. You will see Mlle. Aymard to-morrow and ask for her hand in
+marriage."
+
+Jean Louis looked at Rénine with a rather disdainful air, as though he were
+thinking:
+
+"Here's a man who has not understood a word of what I've been explaining to
+him."
+
+But Hortense went up to Rénine:
+
+"Why do you say that?"
+
+"Because it will be as I say."
+
+"But you must have your reasons?"
+
+"One only; but it will be enough, provided this gentleman is so kind as to
+help me in my enquiries."
+
+"Enquiries? With what object?" asked the young man.
+
+"With the object of proving that your story is not quite accurate."
+
+Jean Louis took umbrage at this:
+
+"I must ask you to believe, monsieur, that I have not said a word which is
+not the exact truth."
+
+"I expressed myself badly," said Rénine, with great kindliness. "Certainly
+you have not said a word that does not agree with what you believe to be
+the exact truth. But the truth is not, cannot be what you believe it to
+be."
+
+The young man folded his arms:
+
+"In any case, monsieur, it seems likely that I should know the truth better
+than you do."
+
+"Why better? What happened on that tragic night can obviously be known to
+you only at secondhand. You have no proofs. Neither have Madame d'Imbleval
+and Madame Vaurois."
+
+"No proofs of what?" exclaimed Jean Louis, losing patience.
+
+"No proofs of the confusion that took place."
+
+"What! Why, it's an absolute certainty! The two children were laid in the
+same cradle, with no marks to distinguish one from the other; and the nurse
+was unable to tell...."
+
+"At least, that's her version of it," interrupted Rénine.
+
+"What's that? Her version? But you're accusing the woman."
+
+"I'm accusing her of nothing."
+
+"Yes, you are: you're accusing her of lying. And why should she lie? She
+had no interest in doing so; and her tears and despair are so much evidence
+of her good faith. For, after all, the two mothers were there ... they saw
+the woman weeping ... they questioned her.... And then, I repeat, what
+interest had she ...?"
+
+Jean Louis was greatly excited. Close beside him, Madame d'Imbleval and
+Madame Vaurois, who had no doubt been listening behind the doors and who
+had stealthily entered the room, stood stammering, in amazement:
+
+"No, no ... it's impossible.... We've questioned her over and over again.
+Why should she tell a lie?..."
+
+"Speak, monsieur, speak," Jean Louis enjoined. "Explain yourself. Give your
+reasons for trying to cast doubt upon an absolute truth!"
+
+"Because that truth is inadmissible," declared Rénine, raising his voice
+and growing excited in turn to the point of punctuating his remarks by
+thumping the table. "No, things don't happen like that. No, fate does not
+display those refinements of cruelty and chance is not added to chance with
+such reckless extravagance! It was already an unprecedented chance that, on
+the very night on which the doctor, his man-servant and his maid were out
+of the house, the two ladies should be seized with labour-pains at the same
+hour and should bring two sons into the world at the same time. Don't let
+us add a still more exceptional event! Enough of the uncanny! Enough of
+lamps that go out and candles that refuse to burn! No and again no, it
+is not admissable that a midwife should become confused in the essential
+details of her trade. However bewildered she may be by the unforeseen
+nature of the circumstances, a remnant of instinct is still on the alert,
+so that there is a place prepared for each child and each is kept distinct
+from the other. The first child is here, the second is there. Even if they
+are lying side by side, one is on the left and the other on the right.
+Even if they are wrapped in the same kind of binders, some little detail
+differs, a trifle which is recorded by the memory and which is inevitably
+recalled to the mind without any need of reflection. Confusion? I refuse
+to believe in it. Impossible to tell one from the other? It isn't true. In
+the world of fiction, yes, one can imagine all sorts of fantastic accidents
+and heap contradiction on contradiction. But, in the world of reality, at
+the very heart of reality, there is always a fixed point, a solid nucleus,
+about which the facts group themselves in accordance with a logical order.
+I therefore declare most positively that Nurse Boussignol could not have
+mixed up the two children."
+
+All this he said decisively, as though he had been present during the night
+in question; and so great was his power of persuasion that from the very
+first he shook the certainty of those who for more than a quarter of a
+century had never doubted.
+
+The two women and their son pressed round him and questioned him with
+breathless anxiety:
+
+"Then you think that she may know ... that she may be able to tell us....?"
+
+He corrected himself:
+
+"I don't say yes and I don't say no. All I say is that there was something
+in her behaviour during those hours that does not tally with her statements
+and with reality. All the vast and intolerable mystery that has weighed
+down upon you three arises not from a momentary lack of attention but from
+something of which we do not know, but of which she does. That is what I
+maintain; and that is what happened."
+
+Jean Louis said, in a husky voice:
+
+"She is alive.... She lives at Carhaix.... We can send for her...."
+
+Hortense at once proposed:
+
+"Would you like me to go for her? I will take the motor and bring her back
+with me. Where does she live?"
+
+"In the middle of the town, at a little draper's shop. The chauffeur will
+show you. Mlle. Boussignol: everybody knows her...."
+
+"And, whatever you do," added Rénine, "don't warn her in any way. If she's
+uneasy, so much the better. But don't let her know what we want with her."
+
+Twenty minutes passed in absolute silence. Rénine paced the room, in which
+the fine old furniture, the handsome tapestries, the well-bound books and
+pretty knick-knacks denoted a love of art and a seeking after style in Jean
+Louis. This room was really his. In the adjoining apartments on either
+side, through the open doors, Rénine was able to note the bad taste of the
+two mothers.
+
+He went up to Jean Louis and, in a low voice, asked:
+
+"Are they well off?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"And you?"
+
+"They settled the manor-house upon me, with all the land around it, which
+makes me quite independent."
+
+"Have they any relations?"
+
+"Sisters, both of them."
+
+"With whom they could go to live?"
+
+"Yes; and they have sometimes thought of doing so. But there can't be any
+question of that. Once more, I assure you...."
+
+Meantime the car had returned. The two women jumped up hurriedly, ready to
+speak.
+
+"Leave it to me," said Rénine, "and don't be surprised by anything that I
+say. It's not a matter of asking her questions but of frightening her, of
+flurrying her.... The sudden attack," he added between his teeth.
+
+The car drove round the lawn and drew up outside the windows. Hortense
+sprang out and helped an old woman to alight, dressed in a fluted linen
+cap, a black velvet bodice and a heavy gathered skirt.
+
+The old woman entered in a great state of alarm. She had a pointed face,
+like a weasel's, with a prominent mouth full of protruding teeth.
+
+"What's the matter, Madame d'Imbleval?" she asked, timidly stepping into
+the room from which the doctor had once driven her. "Good day to you,
+Madame Vaurois."
+
+The ladies did not reply. Rénine came forward and said, sternly:
+
+"Mlle. Boussignol, I have been sent by the Paris police to throw light
+upon a tragedy which took place here twenty-seven years ago. I have just
+secured evidence that you have distorted the truth and that, as the result
+of your false declarations, the birth-certificate of one of the children
+born in the course of that night is inaccurate. Now false declarations in
+matters of birth-certificates are misdemeanours punishable by law. I shall
+therefore be obliged to take you to Paris to be interrogated ... unless
+you are prepared here and now to confess everything that might repair the
+consequences of your offence."
+
+The old maid was shaking in every limb. Her teeth were chattering. She was
+evidently incapable of opposing the least resistance to Rénine.
+
+"Are you ready to confess everything?" he asked.
+
+"Yes," she panted.
+
+"Without delay? I have to catch a train. The business must be settled
+immediately. If you show the least hesitation, I take you with me. Have
+you made up your mind to speak?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+He pointed to Jean Louis:
+
+"Whose son is this gentleman? Madame d'Imbleval's?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Madame Vaurois', therefore?"
+
+"No."
+
+A stupefied silence welcomed the two replies.
+
+"Explain yourself," Rénine commanded, looking at his watch.
+
+Then Madame Boussignol fell on her knees and said, in so low and dull a
+voice that they had to bend over her in order to catch the sense of what
+she was mumbling:
+
+"Some one came in the evening ... a gentleman with a new-born baby wrapped
+in blankets, which he wanted the doctor to look after. As the doctor wasn't
+there, he waited all night and it was he who did it all."
+
+"Did what?" asked Rénine. "What did he do? What happened?"
+
+"Well, what happened was that it was not one child but the two of them that
+died: Madame d'Imbleval's and Madame Vaurois' too, both in convulsions.
+Then the gentleman, seeing this, said, 'This shows me where my duty lies. I
+must seize this opportunity of making sure that my own boy shall be happy
+and well cared for. Put him in the place of one of the dead children.' He
+offered me a big sum of money, saying that this one payment would save him
+the expense of providing for his child every month; and I accepted. Only, I
+did not know in whose place to put him and whether to say that the boy was
+Louis d'Imbleval or Jean Vaurois. The gentleman thought a moment and said
+neither. Then he explained to me what I was to do and what I was to say
+after he had gone. And, while I was dressing his boy in vest and binders
+the same as one of the dead children, he wrapped the other in the blankets
+he had brought with him and went out into the night."
+
+Mlle. Boussignol bent her head and wept. After a moment, Rénine said:
+
+"Your deposition agrees with the result of my investigations."
+
+"Can I go?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"And is it over, as far as I'm concerned? They won't be talking about this
+all over the district?"
+
+"No. Oh, just one more question: do you know the man's name?"
+
+"No. He didn't tell me his name."
+
+"Have you ever seen him since?"
+
+"Never."
+
+"Have you anything more to say?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Are you prepared to sign the written text of your confession?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Very well. I shall send for you in a week or two. Till then, not a word to
+anybody."
+
+He saw her to the door and closed it after her. When he returned, Jean
+Louis was between the two old ladies and all three were holding hands. The
+bond of hatred and wretchedness which had bound them had suddenly snapped;
+and this rupture, without requiring them to reflect upon the matter, filled
+them with a gentle tranquillity of which they were hardly conscious, but
+which made them serious and thoughtful.
+
+"Let's rush things," said Rénine to Hortense. "This is the decisive moment
+of the battle. We must get Jean Louis on board."
+
+Hortense seemed preoccupied. She whispered:
+
+"Why did you let the woman go? Were you satisfied with her statement?"
+
+"I don't need to be satisfied. She told us what happened. What more do you
+want?"
+
+"Nothing.... I don't know...."
+
+"We'll talk about it later, my dear. For the moment, I repeat, we must get
+Jean Louis on board. And immediately.... Otherwise...."
+
+He turned to the young man:
+
+"You agree with me, don't you, that, things being as they are, it is best
+for you and Madame Vaurois and Madame d'Imbleval to separate for a time?
+That will enable you all to see matters more clearly and to decide in
+perfect freedom what is to be done. Come with us, monsieur. The most
+pressing thing is to save Geneviève Aymard, your _fiancée_."
+
+Jean Louis stood perplexed and undecided. Rénine turned to the two women:
+
+"That is your opinion too, I am sure, ladies?"
+
+They nodded.
+
+"You see, monsieur," he said to Jean Louis, "we are all agreed. In great
+crises, there is nothing like separation ... a few days' respite. Quickly
+now, monsieur."
+
+And, without giving him time to hesitate, he drove him towards his bedroom
+to pack up.
+
+Half an hour later, Jean Louis left the manor-house with his new friends.
+
+"And he won't go back until he's married," said Rénine to Hortense, as they
+were waiting at Carhaix station, to which the car had taken them, while
+Jean Louis was attending to his luggage. "Everything's for the best. Are
+you satisfied?"
+
+"Yes, Geneviève will be glad," she replied, absently.
+
+When they had taken their seats in the train, Rénine and she repaired to
+the dining-car. Rénine, who had asked Hortense several questions to which
+she had replied only in monosyllables, protested:
+
+"What's the matter with you, my child? You look worried!"
+
+"I? Not at all!"
+
+"Yes, yes, I know you. Now, no secrets, no mysteries!"
+
+She smiled:
+
+"Well, since you insist on knowing if I am satisfied, I am bound to
+admit that of course I am ... as regards my friend Geneviève, but that,
+in another respect--from the point of view of the adventure--I have an
+uncomfortable sort of feeling...."
+
+"To speak frankly, I haven't 'staggered' you this time?"
+
+"Not very much."
+
+"I seem to you to have played a secondary part. For, after all, what have I
+done? We arrived. We listened to Jean Louis' tale of woe. I had a midwife
+fetched. And that was all."
+
+"Exactly. I want to know if that _was_ all; and I'm not quite sure.
+To tell you the truth, our other adventures left behind them an impression
+which was--how shall I put it?--more definite, clearer."
+
+"And this one strikes you as obscure?"
+
+"Obscure, yes, and incomplete."
+
+"But in what way?"
+
+"I don't know. Perhaps it has something to do with that woman's confession.
+Yes, very likely that is it. It was all so unexpected and so short."
+
+"Well, of course, I cut it short, as you can readily imagine!" said Rénine,
+laughing. "We didn't want too many explanations."
+
+"What do you mean?"
+
+"Why, if she had given her explanations with too much detail, we should
+have ended by doubting what she was telling us."
+
+"By doubting it?"
+
+"Well, hang it all, the story is a trifle far-fetched! That fellow arriving
+at night, with a live baby in his pocket, and going away with a dead one:
+the thing hardly holds water. But you see, my dear, I hadn't much time to
+coach the unfortunate woman in her part."
+
+Hortense stared at him in amazement:
+
+"What on earth do you mean?"
+
+"Well, you know how dull-witted these countrywomen are. And she and I
+had no time to spare. So we worked out a little scene in a hurry ... and
+she really didn't act it so badly. It was all in the right key: terror,
+_tremolo_, tears...."
+
+"Is it possible?" murmured Hortense. "Is it possible? You had seen her
+beforehand?"
+
+"I had to, of course."
+
+"But when?"
+
+"This morning, when we arrived. While you were titivating yourself at
+the hotel at Carhaix, I was running round to see what information I
+could pick up. As you may imagine, everybody in the district knows the
+d'Imbleval-Vaurois story. I was at once directed to the former midwife,
+Mlle. Boussignol. With Mlle. Boussignol it did not take long. Three minutes
+to settle a new version of what had happened and ten thousand francs to
+induce her to repeat that ... more or less credible ... version to the
+people at the manor-house."
+
+"A quite incredible version!"
+
+"Not so bad as all that, my child, seeing that you believed it ... and
+the others too. And that was the essential thing. What I had to do was to
+demolish at one blow a truth which had been twenty-seven years in existence
+and which was all the more firmly established because it was founded on
+actual facts. That was why I went for it with all my might and attacked it
+by sheer force of eloquence. Impossible to identify the children? I deny
+it. Inevitable confusion? It's not true. 'You're all three,' I say, 'the
+victims of something which I don't know but which it is your duty to clear
+up!' 'That's easily done,' says Jean Louis, whose conviction is at once
+shaken. 'Let's send for Mlle. Boussignol.' 'Right! Let's send for her.'
+Whereupon Mlle. Boussignol arrives and mumbles out the little speech which
+I have taught her. Sensation! General stupefaction ... of which I take
+advantage to carry off our young man!"
+
+Hortense shook her head:
+
+"But they'll get over it, all three of them, on thinking!"
+
+"Never! Never! They will have their doubts, perhaps. But they will
+never consent to feel certain! They will never agree to think! Use your
+imagination! Here are three people whom I have rescued from the hell in
+which they have been floundering for a quarter of a century. Do you think
+they're going back to it? Here are three people who, from weakness or a
+false sense of duty, had not the courage to escape. Do you think that they
+won't cling like grim death to the liberty which I'm giving them? Nonsense!
+Why, they would have swallowed a hoax twice as difficult to digest as that
+which Mlle. Boussignol dished up for them! After all, my version was no
+more absurd than the truth. On the contrary. And they swallowed it whole!
+Look at this: before we left, I heard Madame d'Imbleval and Madame Vaurois
+speak of an immediate removal. They were already becoming quite
+affectionate at the thought of seeing the last of each other."
+
+"But what about Jean Louis?"
+
+"Jean Louis? Why, he was fed up with his two mothers! By Jingo, one can't
+do with two mothers in a life-time! What a situation! And when one has the
+luck to be able to choose between having two mothers or none at all, why,
+bless me, one doesn't hesitate! And, besides, Jean Louis is in love with
+Geneviève." He laughed. "And he loves her well enough, I hope and trust,
+not to inflict two mothers-in-law upon her! Come, you may be easy in your
+mind. Your friend's happiness is assured; and that is all you asked for.
+All that matters is the object which we achieve and not the more or less
+peculiar nature of the methods which we employ. And, if some adventures
+are wound up and some mysteries elucidated by looking for and finding
+cigarette-ends, or incendiary water-bottles and blazing hat-boxes as on our
+last expedition, others call for psychology and for purely psychological
+solutions. I have spoken. And I charge you to be silent."
+
+"Silent?"
+
+"Yes, there's a man and woman sitting behind us who seem to be saying
+something uncommonly interesting."
+
+"But they're talking in whispers."
+
+"Just so. When people talk in whispers, it's always about something shady."
+
+He lit a cigarette and sat back in his chair. Hortense listened, but in
+vain. As for him, he was emitting little slow puffs of smoke.
+
+Fifteen minutes later, the train stopped and the man and woman got out.
+
+"Pity," said Rénine, "that I don't know their names or where they're going.
+But I know where to find them. My dear, we have a new adventure before us."
+
+Hortense protested:
+
+"Oh, no, please, not yet!... Give me a little rest!... And oughtn't we to
+think of Geneviève?"
+
+He seemed greatly surprised:
+
+"Why, all that's over and done with! Do you mean to say you want to waste
+any more time over that old story? Well, I for my part confess that I've
+lost all interest in the man with the two mammas."
+
+And this was said in such a comical tone and with such diverting sincerity
+that Hortense was once more seized with a fit of giggling. Laughter alone
+was able to relax her exasperated nerves and to distract her from so many
+contradictory emotions.
+
+
+
+
+IV
+
+THE TELL-TALE FILM
+
+
+"Do look at the man who's playing the butler," said Serge Rénine.
+
+"What is there peculiar about him?" asked Hortense.
+
+They were sitting in the balcony at a picture-palace, to which Hortense had
+asked to be taken so that she might see on the screen the daughter of a
+lady, now dead, who used to give her piano-lessons. Rose Andrée, a lovely
+girl with lissome movements and a smiling face, was that evening figuring
+in a new film, _The Happy Princess_, which she lit up with her high
+spirits and her warm, glowing beauty.
+
+Rénine made no direct reply, but, during a pause in the performance,
+continued:
+
+"I sometimes console myself for an indifferent film by watching the
+subordinate characters. It seems to me that those poor devils, who are made
+to rehearse certain scenes ten or twenty times over, must often be thinking
+of other things than their parts at the time of the final exposure. And
+it's great fun noting those little moments of distraction which reveal
+something of their temperament, of their instinct self. As, for instance,
+in the case of that butler: look!"
+
+The screen now showed a luxuriously served table. The Happy Princess sat at
+the head, surrounded by all her suitors. Half-a-dozen footmen moved about
+the room, under the orders of the butler, a big fellow with a dull, coarse
+face, a common appearance and a pair of enormous eyebrows which met across
+his forehead in a single line.
+
+"He looks a brute," said Hortense, "but what do you see in him that's
+peculiar?"
+
+"Just note how he gazes at the princess and tell me if he doesn't stare at
+her oftener than he ought to."
+
+"I really haven't noticed anything, so far," said Hortense.
+
+"Why, of course he does!" Serge Rénine declared. "It is quite obvious that
+in actual life he entertains for Rose Andrée personal feelings which are
+quite out of place in a nameless servant. It is possible that, in real
+life, no one has any idea of such a thing; but, on the screen, when he is
+not watching himself, or when he thinks that the actors at rehearsal cannot
+see him, his secret escapes him. Look...."
+
+The man was standing still. It was the end of dinner. The princess was
+drinking a glass of champagne and he was gloating over her with his
+glittering eyes half-hidden behind their heavy lids.
+
+Twice again they surprised in his face those strange expressions to which
+Rénine ascribed an emotional meaning which Hortense refused to see:
+
+"It's just his way of looking at people," she said.
+
+The first part of the film ended. There were two parts, divided by an
+_entr'acte_. The notice on the programme stated that "a year had
+elapsed and that the Happy Princess was living in a pretty Norman cottage,
+all hung with creepers, together with her husband, a poor musician."
+
+The princess was still happy, as was evident on the screen, still as
+attractive as ever and still besieged by the greatest variety of suitors.
+Nobles and commoners, peasants and financiers, men of all kinds fell
+swooning at her feet; and prominent among them was a sort of boorish
+solitary, a shaggy, half-wild woodcutter, whom she met whenever she went
+out for a walk. Armed with his axe, a formidable, crafty being, he prowled
+around the cottage; and the spectators felt with a sense of dismay that a
+peril was hanging over the Happy Princess' head.
+
+"Look at that!" whispered Rénine. "Do you realise who the man of the woods
+is?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Simply the butler. The same actor is doubling the two parts."
+
+In fact, notwithstanding the new figure which he cut, the butler's
+movements and postures were apparent under the heavy gait and rounded
+shoulders of the woodcutter, even as under the unkempt beard and long,
+thick hair the once clean-shaven face was visible with the cruel expression
+and the bushy line of the eyebrows.
+
+The princess, in the background, was seen to emerge from the thatched
+cottage. The man hid himself behind a clump of trees. From time to time,
+the screen displayed, on an enormously enlarged scale, his fiercely rolling
+eyes or his murderous hands with their huge thumbs.
+
+"The man frightens me," said Hortense. "He is really terrifying."
+
+"Because he's acting on his own account," said Rénine. "You must understand
+that, in the space of three or four months that appears to separate the
+dates at which the two films were made, his passion has made progress; and
+to him it is not the princess who is coming but Rose Andrée."
+
+The man crouched low. The victim approached, gaily and unsuspectingly. She
+passed, heard a sound, stopped and looked about her with a smiling air
+which became attentive, then uneasy, and then more and more anxious. The
+woodcutter had pushed aside the branches and was coming through the copse.
+
+They were now standing face to face. He opened his arms as though to seize
+her. She tried to scream, to call out for help; but the arms closed around
+her before she could offer the slightest resistance. Then he threw her over
+his shoulder and began to run.
+
+"Are you satisfied?" whispered Rénine. "Do you think that this fourth-rate
+actor would have had all that strength and energy if it had been any other
+woman than Rose Andrée?"
+
+Meanwhile the woodcutter was crossing the skirt of a forest and plunging
+through great trees and masses of rocks. After setting the princess down,
+he cleared the entrance to a cave which the daylight entered by a slanting
+crevice.
+
+A succession of views displayed the husband's despair, the search and the
+discovery of some small branches which had been broken by the princess
+and which showed the path that had been taken. Then came the final scene,
+with the terrible struggle between the man and the woman when the woman,
+vanquished and exhausted, is flung to the ground, the sudden arrival of the
+husband and the shot that puts an end to the brute's life....
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Well," said Rénine, when they had left the picture-palace--and he
+spoke with a certain gravity--"I maintain that the daughter of your old
+piano-teacher has been in danger ever since the day when that last scene
+was filmed. I maintain that this scene represents not so much an assault by
+the man of the woods on the Happy Princess as a violent and frantic attack
+by an actor on the woman he desires. Certainly it all happened within the
+bounds prescribed by the part and nobody saw anything in it--nobody except
+perhaps Rose Andrée herself--but I, for my part, have detected flashes
+of passion which leave not a doubt in my mind. I have seen glances that
+betrayed the wish and even the intention to commit murder. I have seen
+clenched hands, ready to strangle, in short, a score of details which prove
+to me that, at that time, the man's instinct was urging him to kill the
+woman who could never be his."
+
+"And it all amounts to what?"
+
+"We must protect Rose Andrée if she is still in danger and if it is not too
+late."
+
+"And to do this?"
+
+"We must get hold of further information."
+
+"From whom?"
+
+"From the World's Cinema Company, which made the film. I will go to them
+to-morrow morning. Will you wait for me in your flat about lunch-time?"
+
+At heart, Hortense was still sceptical. All these manifestations of
+passion, of which she denied neither the ardour nor the ferocity, seemed
+to her to be the rational behaviour of a good actor. She had seen nothing
+of the terrible tragedy which Rénine contended that he had divined; and
+she wondered whether he was not erring through an excess of imagination.
+
+"Well," she asked, next day, not without a touch of irony, "how far have
+you got? Have you made a good bag? Anything mysterious? Anything
+thrilling?"
+
+"Pretty good."
+
+"Oh, really? And your so-called lover...."
+
+"Is one Dalbrèque, originally a scene-painter, who played the butler in the
+first part of the film and the man of the woods in the second and was so
+much appreciated that they engaged him for a new film. Consequently, he has
+been acting lately. He was acting near Paris. But, on the morning of Friday
+the 18th of September, he broke into the garage of the World's Cinema
+Company and made off with a magnificent car and forty thousand francs
+in money. Information was lodged with the police; and on the Sunday the
+car was found a little way outside Dreux. And up to now the enquiry has
+revealed two things, which will appear in the papers to-morrow: first,
+Dalbrèque is alleged to have committed a murder which created a great stir
+last year, the murder of Bourguet, the jeweller; secondly, on the day after
+his two robberies, Dalbrèque was driving through Le Havre in a motor-car
+with two men who helped him to carry off, in broad daylight and in a
+crowded street, a lady whose identity has not yet been discovered."
+
+"Rose Andrée?" asked Hortense, uneasily.
+
+"I have just been to Rose Andrée's: the World's Cinema Company gave me her
+address. Rose Andrée spent this summer travelling and then stayed for a
+fortnight in the Seine-inférieure, where she has a small place of her own,
+the actual cottage in _The Happy Princess_. On receiving an invitation
+from America to do a film there, she came back to Paris, registered her
+luggage at the Gare Saint-Lazare and left on Friday the 18th of September,
+intending to sleep at Le Havre and take Saturday's boat."
+
+"Friday the 18th," muttered Hortense, "the same day on which that man...."
+
+"And it was on the Saturday that a woman was carried off by him at
+Le Havre. I looked in at the Compagnie Transatlantique and a brief
+investigation showed that Rose Andrée had booked a cabin but that the
+cabin remained unoccupied. The passenger did not turn up."
+
+"This is frightful. She has been carried off. You were right."
+
+"I fear so."
+
+"What have you decided to do?"
+
+"Adolphe, my chauffeur, is outside with the car. Let us go to Le Havre. Up
+to the present, Rose Andrée's disappearance does not seem to have become
+known. Before it does and before the police identify the woman carried off
+by Dalbrèque with the woman who did not turn up to claim her cabin, we will
+get on Rose Andrée's track."
+
+There was not much said on the journey. At four o'clock Hortense and Rénine
+reached Rouen. But here Rénine changed his road.
+
+"Adolphe, take the left bank of the Seine."
+
+He unfolded a motoring-map on his knees and, tracing the route with his
+finger, showed Hortense that, if you draw a line from Le Havre, or rather
+from Quillebeuf, where the road crosses the Seine, to Dreux, where the
+stolen car was found, this line passes through Routot, a market-town lying
+west of the forest of Brotonne:
+
+"Now it was in the forest of Brotonne," he continued, "according to what I
+heard, that the second part of _The Happy Princess_ was filmed. And
+the question that arises is this: having got hold of Rose Andrée, would it
+not occur to Dalbrèque, when passing near the forest on the Saturday night,
+to hide his prey there, while his two accomplices went on to Dreux and from
+there returned to Paris? The cave was quite near. Was he not bound to go to
+it? How should he do otherwise? Wasn't it while running to this cave, a few
+months ago, that he held in his arms, against his breast, within reach of
+his lips, the woman whom he loved and whom he has now conquered? By every
+rule of fate and logic, the adventure is being repeated all over again ...
+but this time in reality. Rose Andrée is a captive. There is no hope
+of rescue. The forest is vast and lonely. That night, or on one of the
+following nights, Rose Andrée must surrender ... or die."
+
+Hortense gave a shudder:
+
+"We shall be too late. Besides, you don't suppose that he's keeping her a
+prisoner?"
+
+"Certainly not. The place I have in mind is at a cross-roads and is not a
+safe retreat. But we may discover some clue or other."
+
+The shades of night were falling from the tall trees when they entered the
+ancient forest of Brotonne, full of Roman remains and mediaeval relics.
+Rénine knew the forest well and remembered that near a famous oak, known
+as the Wine-cask, there was a cave which must be the cave of the Happy
+Princess. He found it easily, switched on his electric torch, rummaged in
+the dark corners and brought Hortense back to the entrance:
+
+"There's nothing inside," he said, "but here is the evidence which I was
+looking for. Dalbrèque was obsessed by the recollection of the film, but so
+was Rose Andrée. The Happy Princess had broken off the tips of the branches
+on the way through the forest. Rose Andrée has managed to break off some to
+the right of this opening, in the hope that she would be discovered as on
+the first occasion."
+
+"Yes," said Hortense, "it's a proof that she has been here; but the proof
+is three weeks old. Since that time...."
+
+"Since that time, she is either dead and buried under a heap of leaves or
+else alive in some hole even lonelier than this."
+
+"If so, where is he?"
+
+Rénine pricked up his ears. Repeated blows of the axe were sounding from
+some distance, no doubt coming from a part of the forest that was being
+cleared.
+
+"He?" said Rénine, "I wonder whether he may not have continued to behave
+under the influence of the film and whether the man of the woods in _The
+Happy Princess_ has not quite naturally resumed his calling. For how is
+the man to live, to obtain his food, without attracting attention? He will
+have found a job."
+
+"We can't make sure of that."
+
+"We might, by questioning the woodcutters whom we can hear."
+
+The car took them by a forest-road to another cross-roads where they
+entered on foot a track which was deeply rutted by waggon-wheels. The sound
+of axes ceased. After walking for a quarter of an hour, they met a dozen
+men who, having finished work for the day, were returning to the villages
+near by.
+
+"Will this path take us to Routot?" ask Rénine, in order to open a
+conversation with them.
+
+"No, you're turning your backs on it," said one of the men, gruffly.
+
+And he went on, accompanied by his mates.
+
+Hortense and Rénine stood rooted to the spot. They had recognized the
+butler. His cheeks and chin were shaved, but his upper lip was covered by
+a black moustache, evidently dyed. The eyebrows no longer met and were
+reduced to normal dimensions.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Thus, in less than twenty hours, acting on the vague hints supplied by the
+bearing of a film-actor, Serge Rénine had touched the very heart of the
+tragedy by means of purely psychological arguments.
+
+"Rose Andrée is alive," he said. "Otherwise Dalbrèque would have left the
+country. The poor thing must be imprisoned and bound up; and he takes her
+some food at night."
+
+"We will save her, won't we?"
+
+"Certainly, by keeping a watch on him and, if necessary, but in the last
+resort, compelling him by force to give up his secret."
+
+They followed the woodcutter at a distance and, on the pretext that the car
+needed overhauling, engaged rooms in the principal inn at Routot.
+
+Attached to the inn was a small café from which they were separated by the
+entrance to the yard and above which were two rooms, reached by a wooden
+outer staircase, at one side. Dalbrèque occupied one of these rooms and
+Rénine took the other for his chauffeur.
+
+Next morning he learnt from Adolphe that Dalbrèque, on the previous
+evening, after all the lights were out, had carried down a bicycle from his
+room and mounted it and had not returned until shortly before sunrise.
+
+The bicycle tracks led Rénine to the uninhabited Château des Landes, five
+miles from the village. They disappeared in a rocky path which ran beside
+the park down to the Seine, opposite the Jumièges peninsula.
+
+Next night, he took up his position there. At eleven o'clock, Dalbrèque
+climbed a bank, scrambled over a wire fence, hid his bicycle under the
+branches and moved away. It seemed impossible to follow him in the pitchy
+darkness, on a mossy soil that muffled the sound of footsteps. Rénine did
+not make the attempt; but, at daybreak, he came with his chauffeur and
+hunted through the park all the morning. Though the park, which covered
+the side of a hill and was bounded below by the river, was not very large,
+he found no clue which gave him any reason to suppose that Rose Andrée was
+imprisoned there.
+
+He therefore went back to the village, with the firm intention of taking
+action that evening and employing force:
+
+"This state of things cannot go on," he said to Hortense. "I must rescue
+Rose Andrée at all costs and save her from that ruffian's clutches. He must
+be made to speak. He must. Otherwise there's a danger that we may be too
+late."
+
+That day was Sunday; and Dalbrèque did not go to work. He did not leave his
+room except for lunch and went upstairs again immediately afterwards. But
+at three o'clock Rénine and Hortense, who were keeping a watch on him from
+the inn, saw him come down the wooden staircase, with his bicycle on his
+shoulder. Leaning it against the bottom step, he inflated the tires and
+fastened to the handle-bar a rather bulky object wrapped in a newspaper.
+
+"By Jove!" muttered Rénine.
+
+"What's the matter?"
+
+In front of the café was a small terrace bordered on the right and left by
+spindle-trees planted in boxes, which were connected by a paling. Behind
+the shrubs, sitting on a bank but stooping forward so that they could see
+Dalbrèque through the branches, were four men.
+
+"Police!" said Rénine. "What bad luck! If those fellows take a hand, they
+will spoil everything."
+
+"Why? On the contrary, I should have thought...."
+
+"Yes, they will. They will put Dalbrèque out of the way ... and then? Will
+that give us Rose Andrée?"
+
+Dalbrèque had finished his preparations. Just as he was mounting his
+bicycle, the detectives rose in a body, ready to make a dash for him. But
+Dalbrèque, though quite unconscious of their presence, changed his mind and
+went back to his room as though he had forgotten something.
+
+"Now's the time!" said Rénine. "I'm going to risk it. But it's a difficult
+situation and I've no great hopes."
+
+He went out into the yard and, at a moment when the detectives were not
+looking, ran up the staircase, as was only natural if he wished to give an
+order to his chauffeur. But he had no sooner reached the rustic balcony at
+the back of the house, which gave admission to the two bedrooms than he
+stopped. Dalbrèque's door was open. Rénine walked in.
+
+Dalbrèque stepped back, at once assuming the defensive:
+
+"What do you want? Who said you could...."
+
+"Silence!" whispered Rénine, with an imperious gesture. "It's all up with
+you!"
+
+"What are you talking about?" growled the man, angrily.
+
+"Lean out of your window. There are four men below on the watch for you to
+leave, four detectives."
+
+Dalbrèque leant over the terrace and muttered an oath:
+
+"On the watch for me?" he said, turning round. "What do I care?"
+
+"They have a warrant."
+
+He folded his arms:
+
+"Shut up with your piffle! A warrant! What's that to me?"
+
+"Listen," said Rénine, "and let us waste no time. It's urgent. Your name's
+Dalbrèque, or, at least, that's the name under which you acted in _The
+Happy Princess_ and under which the police are looking for you as being
+the murderer of Bourguet the jeweller, the man who stole a motor-car and
+forty thousand francs from the World's Cinema Company and the man who
+abducted a woman at Le Havre. All this is known and proved ... and here's
+the upshot. Four men downstairs. Myself here, my chauffeur in the next
+room. You're done for. Do you want me to save you?"
+
+Dalbrèque gave his adversary a long look:
+
+"Who are you?"
+
+"A friend of Rose Andrée's," said Rénine.
+
+The other started and, to some extent dropping his mask, retorted:
+
+"What are your conditions?"
+
+"Rose Andrée, whom you have abducted and tormented, is dying in some hole
+or corner. Where is she?"
+
+A strange thing occurred and impressed Rénine. Dalbrèque's face, usually so
+common, was lit up by a smile that made it almost attractive. But this was
+only a flashing vision: the man immediately resumed his hard and impassive
+expression.
+
+"And suppose I refuse to speak?" he said.
+
+"So much the worse for you. It means your arrest."
+
+"I dare say; but it means the death of Rose Andrée. Who will release her?"
+
+"You. You will speak now, or in an hour, or two hours hence at least. You
+will never have the heart to keep silent and let her die."
+
+Dalbrèque shrugged his shoulders. Then, raising his hand, he said:
+
+"I swear on my life that, if they arrest me, not a word will leave my
+lips."
+
+"What then?"
+
+"Then save me. We will meet this evening at the entrance to the Parc des
+Landes and say what we have to say."
+
+"Why not at once?"
+
+"I have spoken."
+
+"Will you be there?"
+
+"I shall be there."
+
+Rénine reflected. There was something in all this that he failed to grasp.
+In any case, the frightful danger that threatened Rose Andrée dominated the
+whole situation; and Rénine was not the man to despise this threat and to
+persist out of vanity in a perilous course. Rose Andrée's life came before
+everything.
+
+He struck several blows on the wall of the next bedroom and called his
+chauffeur.
+
+"Adolphe, is the car ready?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"Set her going and pull her up in front of the terrace outside the café,
+right against the boxes so as to block the exit. As for you," he continued,
+addressing Dalbrèque, "you're to jump on your machine and, instead of
+making off along the road, cross the yard. At the end of the yard is a
+passage leading into a lane. There you will be free. But no hesitation and
+no blundering ... else you'll get yourself nabbed. Good luck to you."
+
+He waited till the car was drawn up in accordance with his instructions
+and, when he reached it, he began to question his chauffeur, in order to
+attract the detectives' attention.
+
+One of them, however, having cast a glance through the spindle-trees,
+caught sight of Dalbrèque just as he reached the bottom of the staircase.
+He gave the alarm and darted forward, followed by his comrades, but had
+to run round the car and bumped into the chauffeur, which gave Dalbrèque
+time to mount his bicycle and cross the yard unimpeded. He thus had some
+seconds' start. Unfortunately for him as he was about to enter the passage
+at the back, a troop of boys and girls appeared, returning from vespers. On
+hearing the shouts of the detectives, they spread their arms in front of
+the fugitive, who gave two or three lurches and ended by falling.
+
+Cries of triumph were raised:
+
+"Lay hold of him! Stop him!" roared the detectives as they rushed forward.
+
+Rénine, seeing that the game was up, ran after the others and called out:
+
+"Stop him!"
+
+He came up with them just as Dalbrèque, after regaining his feet, knocked
+one of the policemen down and levelled his revolver. Rénine snatched it out
+of his hands. But the two other detectives, startled, had also produced
+their weapons. They fired. Dalbrèque, hit in the leg and the chest, pitched
+forward and fell.
+
+"Thank you, sir," said the inspector to Rénine introducing himself. "We owe
+a lot to you."
+
+"It seems to me that you've done for the fellow," said Rénine. "Who is he?"
+
+"One Dalbrèque, a scoundrel for whom we were looking."
+
+Rénine was beside himself. Hortense had joined him by this time; and he
+growled:
+
+"The silly fools! Now they've killed him!"
+
+"Oh, it isn't possible!"
+
+"We shall see. But, whether he's dead or alive, it's death to Rose Andrée.
+How are we to trace her? And what chance have we of finding the place--some
+inaccessible retreat--where the poor thing is dying of misery and
+starvation?"
+
+The detectives and peasants had moved away, bearing Dalbrèque with them on
+an improvised stretcher. Rénine, who had at first followed them, in order
+to find out what was going to happen, changed his mind and was now standing
+with his eyes fixed on the ground. The fall of the bicycle had unfastened
+the parcel which Dalbrèque had tied to the handle-bar; and the newspaper
+had burst, revealing its contents, a tin saucepan, rusty, dented, battered
+and useless.
+
+"What's the meaning of this?" he muttered. "What was the idea?..."
+
+He picked it up examined it. Then he gave a grin and a click of the tongue
+and chuckled, slowly:
+
+"Don't move an eyelash, my dear. Let all these people clear off. All this
+is no business of ours, is it? The troubles of police don't concern us. We
+are two motorists travelling for our pleasure and collecting old saucepans
+if we feel so inclined."
+
+He called his chauffeur:
+
+"Adolphe, take us to the Parc des Landes by a roundabout road."
+
+Half an hour later they reached the sunken track and began to scramble down
+it on foot beside the wooded slopes. The Seine, which was very low at this
+time of day, was lapping against a little jetty near which lay a
+worm-eaten, mouldering boat, full of puddles of water.
+
+Rénine stepped into the boat and at once began to bale out the puddles with
+his saucepan. He then drew the boat alongside of the jetty, helped Hortense
+in and used the one oar which he shipped in a gap in the stern to work her
+into midstream:
+
+"I believe I'm there!" he said, with a laugh. "The worst that can happen
+to us is to get our feet wet, for our craft leaks a trifle. But haven't we
+a saucepan? Oh, blessings on that useful utensil! Almost as soon as I set
+eyes upon it, I remembered that people use those articles to bale out the
+bottoms of leaky boats. Why, there was bound to be a boat in the Landes
+woods! How was it I never thought of that? But of course Dalbrèque made use
+of her to cross the Seine! And, as she made water, he brought a saucepan."
+
+"Then Rose Andrée ...?" asked Hortense.
+
+"Is a prisoner on the other bank, on the Jumièges peninsula. You see the
+famous abbey from here."
+
+They ran aground on a beach of big pebbles covered with slime.
+
+"And it can't be very far away," he added. "Dalbrèque did not spend the
+whole night running about."
+
+A tow-path followed the deserted bank. Another path led away from it. They
+chose the second and, passing between orchards enclosed by hedges, came to
+a landscape that seemed strangely familiar to them. Where had they seen
+that pool before, with the willows overhanging it? And where had they seen
+that abandoned hovel?
+
+Suddenly both of them stopped with one accord:
+
+"Oh!" said Hortense. "I can hardly believe my eyes!"
+
+Opposite them was the white gate of a large orchard, at the back of which,
+among groups of old, gnarled apple-trees, appeared a cottage with blue
+shutters, the cottage of the Happy Princess.
+
+"Of course!" cried Rénine. "And I ought to have known it, considering
+that the film showed both this cottage and the forest close by. And isn't
+everything happening exactly as in _The Happy Princess_? Isn't
+Dalbrèque dominated by the memory of it? The house, which is certainly the
+one in which Rose Andrée spent the summer, was empty. He has shut her up
+there."
+
+"But the house, you told me, was in the Seine-inférieure."
+
+"Well, so are we! To the left of the river, the Eure and the forest of
+Brotonne; to the right, the Seine-inférieure. But between them is the
+obstacle of the river, which is why I didn't connect the two. A hundred and
+fifty yards of water form a more effective division than dozens of miles."
+
+The gate was locked. They got through the hedge a little lower down and
+walked towards the house, which was screened on one side by an old wall
+shaggy with ivy and roofed with thatch.
+
+"It seems as if there was somebody there," said Hortense. "Didn't I hear
+the sound of a window?"
+
+"Listen."
+
+Some one struck a few chords on a piano. Then a voice arose, a woman's
+voice softly and solemnly singing a ballad that thrilled with restrained
+passion. The woman's whole soul seemed to breathe itself into the melodious
+notes.
+
+They walked on. The wall concealed them from view, but they saw a
+sitting-room furnished with bright wall-paper and a blue Roman carpet. The
+throbbing voice ceased. The piano ended with a last chord; and the singer
+rose and appeared framed in the window.
+
+"Rose Andrée!" whispered Hortense.
+
+"Well!" said Rénine, admitting his astonishment. "This is the last thing
+that I expected! Rose Andrée! Rose Andrée at liberty! And singing Massenet
+in the sitting room of her cottage!"
+
+"What does it all mean? Do you understand?"
+
+"Yes, but it has taken me long enough! But how could we have guessed ...?"
+
+Although they had never seen her except on the screen, they had not the
+least doubt that this was she. It was really Rose Andrée, or rather,
+the Happy Princess, whom they had admired a few days before, amidst the
+furniture of that very sitting-room or on the threshold of that very
+cottage. She was wearing the same dress; her hair was done in the same way;
+she had on the same bangles and necklaces as in _The Happy Princess_;
+and her lovely face, with its rosy cheeks and laughing eyes, bore the same
+look of joy and serenity.
+
+Some sound must have caught her ear, for she leant over towards a clump of
+shrubs beside the cottage and whispered into the silent garden:
+
+"Georges ... Georges ... Is that you, my darling?"
+
+Receiving no reply, she drew herself up and stood smiling at the happy
+thoughts that seemed to flood her being.
+
+But a door opened at the back of the room and an old peasant woman entered
+with a tray laden with bread, butter and milk:
+
+"Here, Rose, my pretty one, I've brought you your supper. Milk fresh from
+the cow...."
+
+And, putting down the tray, she continued:
+
+"Aren't you afraid, Rose, of the chill of the night air? Perhaps you're
+expecting your sweetheart?"
+
+"I haven't a sweetheart, my dear old Catherine."
+
+"What next!" said the old woman, laughing. "Only this morning there were
+footprints under the window that didn't look at all proper!"
+
+"A burglar's footprints perhaps, Catherine."
+
+"Well, I don't say they weren't, Rose dear, especially as in your calling
+you have a lot of people round you whom it's well to be careful of. For
+instance, your friend Dalbrèque, eh? Nice goings on his are! You saw the
+paper yesterday. A fellow who has robbed and murdered people and carried
+off a woman at Le Havre ...!"
+
+Hortense and Rénine would have much liked to know what Rose Andrée thought
+of the revelations, but she had turned her back to them and was sitting at
+her supper; and the window was now closed, so that they could neither hear
+her reply nor see the expression of her features.
+
+They waited for a moment. Hortense was listening with an anxious face. But
+Rénine began to laugh:
+
+"Very funny, really funny! And such an unexpected ending! And we who were
+hunting for her in some cave or damp cellar, a horrible tomb where the poor
+thing was dying of hunger! It's a fact, she knew the terrors of that first
+night of captivity; and I maintain that, on that first night, she was
+flung, half-dead, into the cave. Only, there you are: the next morning
+she was alive! One night was enough to tame the little rogue and to
+make Dalbrèque as handsome as Prince Charming in her eyes! For see the
+difference. On the films or in novels, the Happy Princesses resist or
+commit suicide. But in real life ... oh, woman, woman!"
+
+"Yes," said Hortense, "but the man she loves is almost certainly dead."
+
+"And a good thing too! It would be the best solution. What would be the
+outcome of this criminal love for a thief and murderer?"
+
+A few minutes passed. Then, amid the peaceful silence of the waning day,
+mingled with the first shadows of the twilight, they again heard the
+grating of the window, which was cautiously opened. Rose Andrée leant over
+the garden and waited, with her eyes turned to the wall, as though she saw
+something there.
+
+Presently, Rénine shook the ivy-branches.
+
+"Ah!" she said. "This time I know you're there! Yes, the ivy's moving.
+Georges, Georges darling, why do you keep me waiting? Catherine has gone.
+I am all alone...."
+
+She had knelt down and was distractedly stretching out her shapely arms
+covered with bangles which clashed with a metallic sound:
+
+"Georges!... Georges!..."
+
+Her every movement, the thrill of her voice, her whole being expressed
+desire and love. Hortense, deeply touched, could not help saying:
+
+"How the poor thing loves him! If she but knew...."
+
+"Ah!" cried the girl. "You've spoken. You're there, and you want me to come
+to you, don't you? Here I am, Georges!..."
+
+She climbed over the window-ledge and began to run, while Rénine went round
+the wall and advanced to meet her.
+
+She stopped short in front of him and stood choking at the sight of this
+man and woman whom she did not know and who were stepping out of the very
+shadow from which her beloved appeared to her each night.
+
+Rénine bowed, gave his name and introduced his companion:
+
+"Madame Hortense Daniel, a pupil and friend of your mother's."
+
+Still motionless with stupefaction, her features drawn, she stammered:
+
+"You know who I am?... And you were there just now?... You heard what I
+was saying ...?"
+
+Rénine, without hesitating or pausing in his speech, said:
+
+"You are Rose Andrée, the Happy Princess. We saw you on the films the other
+evening; and circumstances led us to set out in search of you ... to Le
+Havre, where you were abducted on the day when you were to have left for
+America, and to the forest of Brotonne, where you were imprisoned."
+
+She protested eagerly, with a forced laugh:
+
+"What is all this? I have not been to Le Havre. I came straight here.
+Abducted? Imprisoned? What nonsense!"
+
+"Yes, imprisoned, in the same cave as the Happy Princess; and you broke off
+some branches to the right of the cave."
+
+"But how absurd! Who would have abducted me? I have no enemy."
+
+"There is a man in love with you: the one whom you were expecting just
+now."
+
+"Yes, my lover," she said, proudly. "Have I not the right to receive whom I
+like?"
+
+"You have the right; you are a free agent. But the man who comes to see you
+every evening is wanted by the police. His name is Georges Dalbrèque. He
+killed Bourguet the jeweller."
+
+The accusation made her start with indignation and she exclaimed:
+
+"It's a lie! An infamous fabrication of the newspapers! Georges was in
+Paris on the night of the murder. He can prove it."
+
+"He stole a motor car and forty thousand francs in notes."
+
+She retorted vehemently:
+
+"The motor-car was taken back by his friends and the notes will be
+restored. He never touched them. My leaving for America had made him lose
+his head."
+
+"Very well. I am quite willing to believe everything that you say. But the
+police may show less faith in these statements and less indulgence."
+
+She became suddenly uneasy and faltered:
+
+"The police.... There's nothing to fear from them.... They won't know...."
+
+"Where to find him? I succeeded, at all events. He's working as a
+woodcutter, in the forest of Brotonne."
+
+"Yes, but ... you ... that was an accident ... whereas the police...."
+
+The words left her lips with the greatest difficulty. Her voice was
+trembling. And suddenly she rushed at Rénine, stammering:
+
+"He is arrested?... I am sure of it!... And you have come to tell me....
+Arrested! Wounded! Dead perhaps?... Oh, please, please!..."
+
+She had no strength left. All her pride, all the certainty of her great
+love gave way to an immense despair and she sobbed out.
+
+"No, he's not dead, is he? No, I feel that he's not dead. Oh, sir, how
+unjust it all is! He's the gentlest man, the best that ever lived. He has
+changed my whole life. Everything is different since I began to love him.
+And I love him so! I love him! I want to go to him. Take me to him. I want
+them to arrest me too. I love him.... I could not live without him...."
+
+An impulse of sympathy made Hortense put her arms around the girl's neck
+and say warmly:
+
+"Yes, come. He is not dead, I am sure, only wounded; and Prince Rénine will
+save him. You will, won't you, Rénine?... Come. Make up a story for your
+servant: say that you're going somewhere by train and that she is not to
+tell anybody. Be quick. Put on a wrap. We will save him, I swear we will."
+
+Rose Andrée went indoors and returned almost at once, disguised beyond
+recognition in a long cloak and a veil that shrouded her face; and they all
+took the road back to Routot. At the inn, Rose Andrée passed as a friend
+whom they had been to fetch in the neighbourhood and were taking to Paris
+with them. Rénine ran out to make enquiries and came back to the two women.
+
+"It's all right. Dalbrèque is alive. They have put him to bed in a private
+room at the mayor's offices. He has a broken leg and a rather high
+temperature; but all the same they expect to move him to Rouen to-morrow
+and they have telephoned there for a motor-car."
+
+"And then?" asked Rose Andrée, anxiously.
+
+Rénine smiled:
+
+"Why, then we shall leave at daybreak. We shall take up our positions in a
+sunken road, rifle in hand, attack the motor-coach and carry off Georges!"
+
+"Oh, don't laugh!" she said, plaintively. "I am so unhappy!"
+
+But the adventure seemed to amuse Rénine; and, when he was alone with
+Hortense, he exclaimed:
+
+"You see what comes of preferring dishonour to death! But hang it all, who
+could have expected this? It isn't a bit the way in which things happen
+in the pictures! Once the man of the woods had carried off his victim and
+considering that for three weeks there was no one to defend her, how could
+we imagine--we who had been proceeding all along under the influence of
+the pictures--that in the space of a few hours the victim would become a
+princess in love? Confound that Georges! I now understand the sly, humorous
+look which I surprised on his mobile features! He remembered, Georges did,
+and he didn't care a hang for me! Oh, he tricked me nicely! And you, my
+dear, he tricked you too! And it was all the influence of the film. They
+show us, at the cinema, a brute beast, a sort of long-haired, ape-faced
+savage. What can a man like that be in real life? A brute, inevitably,
+don't you agree? Well, he's nothing of the kind; he's a Don Juan! The
+humbug!"
+
+"You will save him, won't you?" said Hortense, in a beseeching tone.
+
+"Are you very anxious that I should?"
+
+"Very."
+
+"In that case, promise to give me your hand to kiss."
+
+"You can have both hands, Rénine, and gladly."
+
+The night was uneventful. Rénine had given orders for the two ladies to
+be waked at an early hour. When they came down, the motor was leaving the
+yard and pulling up in front of the inn. It was raining; and Adolphe, the
+chauffeur, had fixed up the long, low hood and packed the luggage inside.
+
+Rénine called for his bill. They all three took a cup of coffee. But, just
+as they were leaving the room, one of the inspector's men came rushing in:
+
+"Have you seen him?" he asked. "Isn't he here?"
+
+The inspector himself arrived at a run, greatly excited:
+
+"The prisoner has escaped! He ran back through the inn! He can't be far
+away!"
+
+A dozen rustics appeared like a whirlwind. They ransacked the lofts, the
+stables, the sheds. They scattered over the neighbourhood. But the search
+led to no discovery.
+
+"Oh, hang it all!" said Rénine, who had taken his part in the hunt. "How
+can it have happened?"
+
+"How do I know?" spluttered the inspector in despair. "I left my three men
+watching in the next room. I found them this morning fast asleep, stupefied
+by some narcotic which had been mixed with their wine! And the Dalbrèque
+bird had flown!"
+
+"Which way?"
+
+"Through the window. There were evidently accomplices, with ropes and a
+ladder. And, as Dalbrèque had a broken leg, they carried him off on the
+stretcher itself."
+
+"They left no traces?"
+
+"No traces of footsteps, true. The rain has messed everything up. But they
+went through the yard, because the stretcher's there."
+
+"You'll find him, Mr. Inspector, there's no doubt of that. In any case, you
+may be sure that you won't have any trouble over the affair. I shall be in
+Paris this evening and shall go straight to the prefecture, where I have
+influential friends."
+
+Rénine went back to the two women in the coffee-room and Hortense at once
+said:
+
+"It was you who carried him off, wasn't it? Please put Rose Andrée's mind
+at rest. She is so terrified!"
+
+He gave Rose Andrée his arm and led her to the car. She was staggering and
+very pale; and she said, in a faint voice:
+
+"Are we going? And he: is he safe? Won't they catch him again?"
+
+Looking deep into her eyes, he said:
+
+"Swear to me, Rose Andrée, that in two months, when he is well and when
+I have proved his innocence, swear that you will go away with him to
+America."
+
+"I swear."
+
+"And that, once there, you will marry him."
+
+"I swear."
+
+He spoke a few words in her ear.
+
+"Ah!" she said. "May Heaven bless you for it!"
+
+Hortense took her seat in front, with Rénine, who sat at the wheel. The
+inspector, hat in hand, fussed around the car until it moved off.
+
+They drove through the forest, crossed the Seine at La Mailleraie and
+struck into the Havre-Rouen road.
+
+"Take off your glove and give me your hand to kiss," Rénine ordered. "You
+promised that you would."
+
+"Oh!" said Hortense. "But it was to be when Dalbrèque was saved."
+
+"He is saved."
+
+"Not yet. The police are after him. They may catch him again. He will not
+be really saved until he is with Rose Andrée."
+
+"He is with Rose Andrée," he declared.
+
+"What do you mean?"
+
+"Turn round."
+
+She did so.
+
+In the shadow of the hood, right at the back, behind the chauffeur, Rose
+Andrée was kneeling beside a man lying on the seat.
+
+"Oh," stammered Hortense, "it's incredible! Then it was you who hid him
+last night? And he was there, in front of the inn, when the inspector was
+seeing us off?"
+
+"Lord, yes! He was there, under the cushions and rugs!"
+
+"It's incredible!" she repeated, utterly bewildered. "It's incredible! How
+were you able to manage it all?"
+
+"I wanted to kiss your hand," he said.
+
+She removed her glove, as he bade her, and raised her hand to his lips.
+
+The car was speeding between the peaceful Seine and the white cliffs that
+border it. They sat silent for a long while. Then he said:
+
+"I had a talk with Dalbrèque last night. He's a fine fellow and is ready
+to do anything for Rose Andrée. He's right. A man must do anything for
+the woman he loves. He must devote himself to her, offer her all that is
+beautiful in this world: joy and happiness ... and, if she should be bored,
+stirring adventures to distract her, to excite her and to make her smile
+... or even weep."
+
+Hortense shivered; and her eyes were not quite free from tears. For the
+first time he was alluding to the sentimental adventure that bound them by
+a tie which as yet was frail, but which became stronger and more enduring
+with each of the ventures on which they entered together, pursuing them
+feverishly and anxiously to their close. Already she felt powerless and
+uneasy with this extraordinary man, who subjected events to his will and
+seemed to play with the destinies of those whom he fought or protected. He
+filled her with dread and at the same time he attracted her. She thought of
+him sometimes as her master, sometimes as an enemy against whom she must
+defend herself, but oftenest as a perturbing friend, full of charm and
+fascination....
+
+
+
+
+V
+
+THÉRÈSE AND GERMAINE
+
+
+The weather was so mild that autumn that, on the 12th of October, in the
+morning, several families still lingering in their villas at Étretat had
+gone down to the beach. The sea, lying between the cliffs and the clouds on
+the horizon, might have suggested a mountain-lake slumbering in the hollow
+of the enclosing rocks, were it not for that crispness in the air and those
+pale, soft and indefinite colours in the sky which give a special charm to
+certain days in Normandy.
+
+"It's delicious," murmured Hortense. But the next moment she added: "All
+the same, we did not come here to enjoy the spectacle of nature or to
+wonder whether that huge stone Needle on our left was really at one time
+the home of Arsène Lupin."
+
+"We came here," said Prince Rénine, "because of the conversation which I
+overheard, a fortnight ago, in a dining-car, between a man and a woman."
+
+"A conversation of which I was unable to catch a single word."
+
+"If those two people could have guessed for an instant that it was possible
+to hear a single word of what they were saying, they would not have spoken,
+for their conversation was one of extraordinary gravity and importance. But
+I have very sharp ears; and though I could not follow every sentence, I
+insist that we may be certain of two things. First, that man and woman, who
+are brother and sister, have an appointment at a quarter to twelve this
+morning, the 12th of October, at the spot known as the Trois Mathildes,
+with a third person, who is married and who wishes at all costs to recover
+his or her liberty. Secondly, this appointment, at which they will come
+to a final agreement, is to be followed this evening by a walk along the
+cliffs, when the third person will bring with him or her the man or woman,
+I can't definitely say which, whom they want to get rid of. That is the
+gist of the whole thing. Now, as I know a spot called the Trois Mathildes
+some way above Étretat and as this is not an everyday name, we came down
+yesterday to thwart the plan of these objectionable persons."
+
+"What plan?" asked Hortense. "For, after all, it's only your assumption
+that there's to be a victim and that the victim is to be flung off the
+top of the cliffs. You yourself told me that you heard no allusion to a
+possible murder."
+
+"That is so. But I heard some very plain words relating to the marriage of
+the brother or the sister with the wife or the husband of the third person,
+which implies the need for a crime."
+
+They were sitting on the terrace of the casino, facing the stairs which run
+down to the beach. They therefore overlooked the few privately-owned cabins
+on the shingle, where a party of four men were playing bridge, while a
+group of ladies sat talking and knitting.
+
+A short distance away and nearer to the sea was another cabin, standing by
+itself and closed.
+
+Half-a-dozen bare-legged children were paddling in the water.
+
+"No," said Hortense, "all this autumnal sweetness and charm fails to
+attract me. I have so much faith in all your theories that I can't help
+thinking, in spite of everything, of this dreadful problem. Which of those
+people yonder is threatened? Death has already selected its victim. Who is
+it? Is it that young, fair-haired woman, rocking herself and laughing? Is
+it that tall man over there, smoking his cigar? And which of them has the
+thought of murder hidden in his heart? All the people we see are quietly
+enjoying themselves. Yet death is prowling among them."
+
+"Capital!" said Rénine. "You too are becoming enthusiastic. What did I tell
+you? The whole of life's an adventure; and nothing but adventure is worth
+while. At the first breath of coming events, there you are, quivering in
+every nerve. You share in all the tragedies stirring around you; and the
+feeling of mystery awakens in the depths of your being. See, how closely
+you are observing that couple who have just arrived. You never can tell:
+that may be the gentleman who proposes to do away with his wife? Or perhaps
+the lady contemplates making away with her husband?"
+
+"The d'Ormevals? Never! A perfectly happy couple! Yesterday, at the hotel,
+I had a long talk with the wife. And you yourself...."
+
+"Oh, I played a round of golf with Jacques d'Ormeval, who rather fancies
+himself as an athlete, and I played at dolls with their two charming little
+girls!"
+
+The d'Ormevals came up and exchanged a few words with them. Madame
+d'Ormeval said that her two daughters had gone back to Paris that morning
+with their governess. Her husband, a great tall fellow with a yellow beard,
+carrying his blazer over his arm and puffing out his chest under a cellular
+shirt, complained of the heat:
+
+"Have you the key of the cabin, Thérèse?" he asked his wife, when they had
+left Rénine and Hortense and stopped at the top of the stairs, a few yards
+away.
+
+"Here it is," said the wife. "Are you going to read your papers?"
+
+"Yes. Unless we go for a stroll?..."
+
+"I had rather wait till the afternoon: do you mind? I have a lot of letters
+to write this morning."
+
+"Very well. We'll go on the cliff."
+
+Hortense and Rénine exchanged a glance of surprise. Was this suggestion
+accidental? Or had they before them, contrary to their expectations, the
+very couple of whom they were in search?
+
+Hortense tried to laugh:
+
+"My heart is thumping," she said. "Nevertheless, I absolutely refuse to
+believe in anything so improbable. 'My husband and I have never had the
+slightest quarrel,' she said to me. No, it's quite clear that those two get
+on admirably."
+
+"We shall see presently, at the Trois Mathildes, if one of them comes to
+meet the brother and sister."
+
+M. d'Ormeval had gone down the stairs, while his wife stood leaning on the
+balustrade of the terrace. She had a beautiful, slender, supple figure. Her
+clear-cut profile was emphasized by a rather too prominent chin when at
+rest; and, when it was not smiling, the face gave an expression of sadness
+and suffering.
+
+"Have you lost something, Jacques?" she called out to her husband, who was
+stooping over the shingle.
+
+"Yes, the key," he said. "It slipped out of my hand."
+
+She went down to him and began to look also. For two or three minutes,
+as they sheered off to the right and remained close to the bottom of the
+under-cliff, they were invisible to Hortense and Rénine. Their voices were
+covered by the noise of a dispute which had arisen among the
+bridge-players.
+
+They reappeared almost simultaneously. Madame d'Ormeval slowly climbed a
+few steps of the stairs and then stopped and turned her face towards the
+sea. Her husband had thrown his blazer over his shoulders and was making
+for the isolated cabin. As he passed the bridge-players, they asked him for
+a decision, pointing to their cards spread out upon the table. But, with a
+wave of the hand, he refused to give an opinion and walked on, covered the
+thirty yards which divided them from the cabin, opened the door and went
+in.
+
+Thérèse d'Ormeval came back to the terrace and remained for ten minutes
+sitting on a bench. Then she came out through the casino. Hortense, on
+leaning forward, saw her entering one of the chalets annexed to the Hôtel
+Hauville and, a moment later, caught sight of her again on the balcony.
+
+"Eleven o'clock," said Rénine. "Whoever it is, he or she, or one of the
+card-players, or one of their wives, it won't be long before some one goes
+to the appointed place."
+
+Nevertheless, twenty minutes passed and twenty-five; and no one stirred.
+
+"Perhaps Madame d'Ormeval has gone." Hortense suggested, anxiously. "She is
+no longer on her balcony."
+
+"If she is at the Trois Mathildes," said Rénine, "we will go and catch her
+there."
+
+He was rising to his feet, when a fresh discussion broke out among the
+bridge-players and one of them exclaimed:
+
+"Let's put it to d'Ormeval."
+
+"Very well," said his adversary. "I'll accept his decision ... if he
+consents to act as umpire. He was rather huffy just now."
+
+They called out:
+
+"D'Ormeval! D'Ormeval!"
+
+They then saw that d'Ormeval must have shut the door behind him, which kept
+him in the half dark, the cabin being one of the sort that has no window.
+
+"He's asleep," cried one. "Let's wake him up."
+
+All four went to the cabin, began by calling to him and, on receiving no
+answer, thumped on the door:
+
+"Hi! D'Ormeval! Are you asleep?"
+
+On the terrace Serge Rénine suddenly leapt to his feet with so uneasy an
+air that Hortense was astonished. He muttered:
+
+"If only it's not too late!"
+
+And, when Hortense asked him what he meant, he tore down the steps and
+started running to the cabin. He reached it just as the bridge-players were
+trying to break in the door:
+
+"Stop!" he ordered. "Things must be done in the regular fashion."
+
+"What things?" they asked.
+
+He examined the Venetian shutters at the top of each of the folding-doors
+and, on finding that one of the upper slats was partly broken, hung on as
+best he could to the roof of the cabin and cast a glance inside. Then he
+said to the four men:
+
+"I was right in thinking that, if M. d'Ormeval did not reply, he must have
+been prevented by some serious cause. There is every reason to believe that
+M. d'Ormeval is wounded ... or dead."
+
+"Dead!" they cried. "What do you mean? He has only just left us."
+
+Rénine took out his knife, prized open the lock and pulled back the two
+doors.
+
+There were shouts of dismay. M. d'Ormeval was lying flat on his face,
+clutching his jacket and his newspaper in his hands. Blood was flowing
+from his back and staining his shirt.
+
+"Oh!" said some one. "He has killed himself!"
+
+"How can he have killed himself?" said Rénine. "The wound is right in the
+middle of the back, at a place which the hand can't reach. And, besides,
+there's not a knife in the cabin."
+
+The others protested:
+
+"If so, he has been murdered. But that's impossible! There has been nobody
+here. We should have seen, if there had been. Nobody could have passed us
+without our seeing...."
+
+The other men, all the ladies and the children paddling in the sea had come
+running up. Rénine allowed no one to enter the cabin, except a doctor who
+was present. But the doctor could only say that M. d'Ormeval was dead,
+stabbed with a dagger.
+
+At that moment, the mayor and the policeman arrived, together with some
+people of the village. After the usual enquiries, they carried away the
+body.
+
+A few persons went on ahead to break the news to Thérèse d'Ormeval, who was
+once more to be seen on her balcony.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+And so the tragedy had taken place without any clue to explain how a man,
+protected by a closed door with an uninjured lock, could have been murdered
+in the space of a few minutes and in front of twenty witnesses, one might
+almost say, twenty spectators. No one had entered the cabin. No one had
+come out of it. As for the dagger with which M. d'Ormeval had been stabbed
+between the shoulders, it could not be traced. And all this would have
+suggested the idea of a trick of sleight-of-hand performed by a clever
+conjuror, had it not concerned a terrible murder, committed under the most
+mysterious conditions.
+
+Hortense was unable to follow, as Rénine would have liked, the small party
+who were making for Madame d'Ormeval; she was paralysed with excitement and
+incapable of moving. It was the first time that her adventures with Rénine
+had taken her into the very heart of the action and that, instead of noting
+the consequences of a murder, or assisting in the pursuit of the criminals,
+she found herself confronted with the murder itself.
+
+It left her trembling all over; and she stammered: "How horrible!... The
+poor fellow!... Ah, Rénine, you couldn't save him this time!... And that's
+what upsets me more than anything, that we could and should have saved him,
+since we knew of the plot...."
+
+Rénine made her sniff at a bottle of salts; and when she had quite
+recovered her composure, he said, while observing her attentively:
+
+"So you think that there is some connection between the murder and the
+plot which we were trying to frustrate?"
+
+"Certainly," said she, astonished at the question.
+
+"Then, as that plot was hatched by a husband against his wife or by a wife
+against her husband, you admit that Madame d'Ormeval ...?"
+
+"Oh, no, impossible!" she said. "To begin with, Madame d'Ormeval did not
+leave her rooms ... and then I shall never believe that pretty woman
+capable.... No, no, of course there was something else...."
+
+"What else?"
+
+"I don't know.... You may have misunderstood what the brother and sister
+were saying to each other.... You see, the murder has been committed under
+quite different conditions ... at another hour and another place...."
+
+"And therefore," concluded Rénine, "the two cases are not in any way
+related?"
+
+"Oh," she said, "there's no making it out! It's all so strange!"
+
+Rénine became a little satirical:
+
+"My pupil is doing me no credit to-day," he said. "Why, here is a perfectly
+simple story, unfolded before your eyes. You have seen it reeled off like
+a scene in the cinema; and it all remains as obscure to you as though you
+were hearing of an affair that happened in a cave a hundred miles away!"
+
+Hortense was confounded:
+
+"What are you saying? Do you mean that you have understood it? What clues
+have you to go by?"
+
+Rénine looked at his watch:
+
+"I have not understood everything," he said. "The murder itself, the mere
+brutal murder, yes. But the essential thing, that is to say, the psychology
+of the crime: I've no clue to that. Only, it is twelve o'clock. The brother
+and sister, seeing no one come to the appointment at the Trois Mathildes,
+will go down to the beach. Don't you think that we shall learn something
+then of the accomplice whom I accuse them of having and of the connection
+between the two cases?"
+
+They reached the esplanade in front of the Hauville chalets, with the
+capstans by which the fishermen haul up their boats to the beach. A number
+of inquisitive persons were standing outside the door of one of the
+chalets. Two coastguards, posted at the door, prevented them from entering.
+
+The mayor shouldered his way eagerly through the crowd. He was back from
+the post-office, where he had been telephoning to Le Havre, to the office
+of the procurator-general, and had been told that the public prosecutor
+and an examining-magistrate would come on to Étretat in the course of the
+afternoon.
+
+"That leaves us plenty of time for lunch," said Rénine. "The tragedy will
+not be enacted before two or three o'clock. And I have an idea that it will
+be sensational."
+
+They hurried nevertheless. Hortense, overwrought by fatigue and her desire
+to know what was happening, continually questioned Rénine, who replied
+evasively, with his eyes turned to the esplanade, which they could see
+through the windows of the coffee-room.
+
+"Are you watching for those two?" asked Hortense.
+
+"Yes, the brother and sister."
+
+"Are you sure that they will venture?..."
+
+"Look out! Here they come!"
+
+He went out quickly.
+
+Where the main street opened on the sea-front, a lady and gentleman were
+advancing with hesitating steps, as though unfamiliar with the place. The
+brother was a puny little man, with a sallow complexion. He was wearing a
+motoring-cap. The sister too was short, but rather stout, and was wrapped
+in a large cloak. She struck them as a woman of a certain age, but still
+good-looking under the thin veil that covered her face.
+
+They saw the groups of bystanders and drew nearer. Their gait betrayed
+uneasiness and hesitation.
+
+The sister asked a question of a seaman. At the first words of his answer,
+which no doubt conveyed the news of d'Ormeval's death, she uttered a cry
+and tried to force her way through the crowd. The brother, learning in his
+turn what had happened, made great play with his elbows and shouted to the
+coast-guards:
+
+"I'm a friend of d'Ormeval's!... Here's my card! Frédéric Astaing.... My
+sister, Germaine Astaing, knows Madame d'Ormeval intimately!... They were
+expecting us.... We had an appointment!..."
+
+They were allowed to pass. Rénine, who had slipped behind them, followed
+them in without a word, accompanied by Hortense.
+
+The d'Ormevals had four bedrooms and a sitting-room on the second floor.
+The sister rushed into one of the rooms and threw herself on her knees
+beside the bed on which the corpse lay stretched. Thérèse d'Ormeval was in
+the sitting-room and was sobbing in the midst of a small company of silent
+persons. The brother sat down beside her, eagerly seized her hands and
+said, in a trembling voice:
+
+"My poor friend!... My poor friend!..."
+
+Rénine and Hortense gazed at the pair of them: and Hortense whispered:
+
+"And she's supposed to have killed him for that? Impossible!"
+
+"Nevertheless," observed Rénine, "they are acquaintances; and we know that
+Astaing and his sister were also acquainted with a third person who was
+their accomplice. So that...."
+
+"It's impossible!" Hortense repeated.
+
+And, in spite of all presumption, she felt so much attracted by Thérèse
+that, when Frédéric Astaing stood up, she proceeded straightway to sit down
+beside her and consoled her in a gentle voice. The unhappy woman's tears
+distressed her profoundly.
+
+Rénine, on the other hand, applied himself from the outset to watching
+the brother and sister, as though this were the only thing that mattered,
+and did not take his eyes off Frédéric Astaing, who, with an air of
+indifference, began to make a minute inspection of the premises, examining
+the sitting-room, going into all the bedrooms, mingling with the various
+groups of persons present and asking questions about the manner in which
+the murder had been committed. Twice his sister came up and spoke to him.
+Then he went back to Madame d'Ormeval and again sat down beside her, full
+of earnest sympathy. Lastly, in the lobby, he had a long conversation with
+his sister, after which they parted, like people who have come to a perfect
+understanding. Frédéric then left. These manoeuvers had lasted quite thirty
+or forty minutes.
+
+It was at this moment that the motor-car containing the
+examining-magistrate and the public prosecutor pulled up outside the
+chalets. Rénine, who did not expect them until later, said to Hortense:
+
+"We must be quick. On no account leave Madame d'Ormeval."
+
+Word was sent up to the persons whose evidence might be of any service
+that they were to go to the beach, where the magistrate was beginning a
+preliminary investigation. He would call on Madame d'Ormeval afterwards.
+Accordingly, all who were present left the chalet. No one remained behind
+except the two guards and Germaine Astaing.
+
+Germaine knelt down for the last time beside the dead man and, bending low,
+with her face in her hands, prayed for a long time. Then she rose and was
+opening the door on the landing, when Rénine came forward:
+
+"I should like a few words with you, madame."
+
+She seemed surprised and replied:
+
+"What is it, monsieur? I am listening."
+
+"Not here."
+
+"Where then, monsieur?"
+
+"Next door, in the sitting-room."
+
+"No," she said, sharply.
+
+"Why not? Though you did not even shake hands with her, I presume that
+Madame d'Ormeval is your friend?"
+
+He gave her no time to reflect, drew her into the next room, closed the
+door and, at once pouncing upon Madame d'Ormeval, who was trying to go out
+and return to her own room, said:
+
+"No, madame, listen, I implore you. Madame Astaing's presence need not
+drive you away. We have very serious matters to discuss, without losing a
+minute."
+
+The two women, standing face to face, were looking at each other with the
+same expression of implacable hatred, in which might be read the same
+confusion of spirit and the same restrained anger. Hortense, who believed
+them to be friends and who might, up to a certain point, have believed them
+to be accomplices, foresaw with terror the hostile encounter which she felt
+to be inevitable. She compelled Madame d'Ormeval to resume her seat, while
+Rénine took up his position in the middle of the room and spoke in resolute
+tones:
+
+"Chance, which has placed me in possession of part of the truth, will
+enable me to save you both, if you are willing to assist me with a frank
+explanation that will give me the particulars which I still need. Each of
+you knows the danger in which she stands, because each of you is conscious
+in her heart of the evil for which she is responsible. But you are
+carried away by hatred; and it is for me to see clearly and to act. The
+examining-magistrate will be here in half-an-hour. By that time, you must
+have come to an agreement."
+
+They both started, as though offended by such a word.
+
+"Yes, an agreement," he repeated, in a more imperious tone. "Whether you
+like it or not, you will come to an agreement. You are not the only ones to
+be considered. There are your two little daughters, Madame d'Ormeval. Since
+circumstances have set me in their path, I am intervening in their defence
+and for their safety. A blunder, a word too much; and they are ruined. That
+must not happen."
+
+At the mention of her children, Madame d'Ormeval broke down and sobbed.
+Germaine Astaing shrugged her shoulders and made a movement towards the
+door. Rénine once more blocked the way:
+
+"Where are you going?"
+
+"I have been summoned by the examining-magistrate."
+
+"No, you have not."
+
+"Yes, I have. Just as all those have been who have any evidence to give."
+
+"You were not on the spot. You know nothing of what happened. Nobody knows
+anything of the murder."
+
+"I know who committed it."
+
+"That's impossible."
+
+"It was Thérèse d'Ormeval."
+
+The accusation was hurled forth in an outburst of rage and with a fiercely
+threatening gesture.
+
+"You wretched creature!" exclaimed madame d'Ormeval, rushing at her. "Go!
+Leave the room! Oh, what a wretch the woman is!"
+
+Hortense was trying to restrain her, but Rénine whispered:
+
+"Let them be. It's what I wanted ... to pitch them one against the other
+and so to let in the day-light."
+
+Madame Astaing had made a convulsive effort to ward off the insult with a
+jest; and she sniggered:
+
+"A wretched creature? Why? Because I have accused you?"
+
+"Why? For every reason! You're a wretched creature! You hear what I say,
+Germaine: you're a wretch!"
+
+Thérèse d'Ormeval was repeating the insult as though it afforded her some
+relief. Her anger was abating. Very likely also she no longer had the
+strength to keep up the struggle; and it was Madame Astaing who returned
+to the attack, with her fists clenched and her face distorted and suddenly
+aged by fully twenty years:
+
+"You! You dare to insult me, you! You after the murder you have committed!
+You dare to lift up your head when the man whom you killed is lying in
+there on his death-bed! Ah, if one of us is a wretched creature, it's you,
+Thérèse, and you know it! You have killed your husband! You have killed
+your husband!"
+
+She leapt forward, in the excitement of the terrible words which she was
+uttering; and her finger-nails were almost touching her friend's face.
+
+"Oh, don't tell me you didn't kill him!" she cried. "Don't say
+that: I won't let you. Don't say it. The dagger is there, in your
+bag. My brother felt it, while he was talking to you; and his hand
+came out with stains of blood upon it: your husband's blood, Thérèse. And
+then, even if I had not discovered anything, do you think that I should not
+have guessed, in the first few minutes? Why, I knew the truth at once,
+Thérèse! When a sailor down there answered, 'M. d'Ormeval? He has been
+murdered,' I said to myself then and there, 'It's she, it's Thérèse, she
+killed him.'"
+
+Thérèse did not reply. She had abandoned her attitude of protest. Hortense,
+who was watching her with anguish, thought that she could perceive in her
+the despondency of those who know themselves to be lost. Her cheeks had
+fallen in and she wore such an expression of despair that Hortense, moved
+to compassion, implored her to defend herself:
+
+"Please, please, explain things. When the murder was committed, you were
+here, on the balcony.... But then the dagger ... how did you come to have
+it ...? How do you explain it?..."
+
+"Explanations!" sneered Germaine Astaing. "How could she possibly explain?
+What do outward appearances matter? What does it matter what any one saw
+or did not see? The proof is the thing that tells.... The dagger is there,
+in your bag, Thérèse: that's a fact.... Yes, yes, it was you who did it!
+You killed him! You killed him in the end!... Ah, how often I've told my
+brother, 'She will kill him yet!' Frédéric used to try to defend you. He
+always had a weakness for you. But in his innermost heart he foresaw what
+would happen.... And now the horrible thing has been done. A stab in the
+back! Coward! Coward!... And you would have me say nothing? Why, I didn't
+hesitate a moment! Nor did Frédéric. We looked for proofs at once.... And
+I've denounced you of my own free will, perfectly well aware of what I was
+doing.... And it's over, Thérèse. You're done for. Nothing can save you
+now. The dagger is in that bag which you are clutching in your hand. The
+magistrate is coming; and the dagger will be found, stained with the blood
+of your husband. So will your pocket-book. They're both there. And they
+will be found...."
+
+Her rage had incensed her so vehemently that she was unable to continue and
+stood with her hand outstretched and her chin twitching with nervous
+tremors.
+
+Rénine gently took hold of Madame d'Ormeval's bag. She clung to it, but he
+insisted and said:
+
+"Please allow me, madame. Your friend Germaine is right. The
+examining-magistrate will be here presently; and the fact that the dagger
+and the pocket-book are in your possession will lead to your immediate
+arrest. This must not happen. Please allow me."
+
+His insinuating voice diminished Thérèse d'Ormeval's resistance. She
+released her fingers, one by one. He took the bag, opened it, produced
+a little dagger with an ebony handle and a grey leather pocket-book and
+quietly slipped the two into the inside pocket of his jacket.
+
+Germaine Astaing gazed at him in amazement: "You're mad, monsieur! What
+right have you ...?"
+
+"These things must not be left lying about. I sha'n't worry now. The
+magistrate will never look for them in my pocket."
+
+"But I shall denounce you to the police," she exclaimed, indignantly.
+"They shall be told!"
+
+"No, no," he said, laughing, "you won't say anything! The police have
+nothing to do with this. The quarrel between you must be settled in
+private. What an idea, to go dragging the police into every incident of
+one's life!"
+
+Madame Astaing was choking with fury:
+
+"But you have no right to talk like this, monsieur! Who are you, after all?
+A friend of that woman's?"
+
+"Since you have been attacking her, yes."
+
+"But I'm only attacking her because she's guilty. For you can't deny it:
+she has killed her husband."
+
+"I don't deny it," said Rénine, calmly. "We are all agreed on that point.
+Jacques d'Ormeval was killed by his wife. But, I repeat, the police must
+not know the truth."
+
+"They shall know it through me, monsieur, I swear they shall. That woman
+must be punished: she has committed murder."
+
+Rénine went up to her and, touching her on the shoulder:
+
+"You asked me just now by what right I was interfering. And you yourself,
+madame?"
+
+"I was a friend of Jacques d'Ormeval."
+
+"Only a friend?"
+
+She was a little taken aback, but at once pulled herself together and
+replied:
+
+"I was his friend and it is my duty to avenge his death."
+
+"Nevertheless, you will remain silent, as he did."
+
+"He did not know, when he died."
+
+"That's where you are wrong. He could have accused his wife, if he had
+wished. He had ample time to accuse her; and he said nothing."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Because of his children."
+
+Madame Astaing was not appeased; and her attitude displayed the same
+longing for revenge and the same detestation. But she was influenced by
+Rénine in spite of herself. In the small, closed room, where there was
+such a clash of hatred, he was gradually becoming the master; and Germaine
+Astaing understood that it was against him that she had to struggle, while
+Madame d'Ormeval felt all the comfort of that unexpected support which was
+offering itself on the brink of the abyss:
+
+"Thank you, monsieur," she said. "As you have seen all this so clearly, you
+also know that it was for my children's sake that I did not give myself up.
+But for that ... I am so tired ...!"
+
+And so the scene was changing and things assuming a different aspect.
+Thanks to a few words let fall in the midst of the dispute, the culprit was
+lifting her head and taking heart, whereas her accuser was hesitating and
+seemed to be uneasy. And it also came about that the accuser dared not say
+anything further and that the culprit was nearing the moment at which the
+need is felt of breaking silence and of speaking, quite naturally, words
+that are at once a confession and a relief.
+
+"The time, I think, has come," said Rénine to Thérèse, with the same
+unvarying gentleness, "when you can and ought to explain yourself."
+
+She was again weeping, lying huddled in a chair. She too revealed a face
+aged and ravaged by sorrow; and, in a very low voice, with no display of
+anger, she spoke, in short, broken sentences:
+
+"She has been his mistress for the last four years.... I can't tell you how
+I suffered.... She herself told me of it ... out of sheer wickedness ...
+Her loathing for me was even greater than her love for Jacques ... and
+every day I had some fresh injury to bear ... She would ring me up to tell
+me of her appointments with my husband ... she hoped to make me suffer so
+much I should end by killing myself.... I did think of it sometimes, but I
+held out, for the children's sake ... Jacques was weakening. She wanted him
+to get a divorce ... and little by little he began to consent ... dominated
+by her and by her brother, who is slyer than she is, but quite as dangerous
+... I felt all this ... Jacques was becoming harsh to me.... He had not the
+courage to leave me, but I was the obstacle and he bore me a grudge....
+Heavens, the tortures I suffered!..."
+
+"You should have given him his liberty," cried Germaine Astaing. "A woman
+doesn't kill her husband for wanting a divorce."
+
+Thérèse shook her head and answered:
+
+"I did not kill him because he wanted a divorce. If he had really wanted
+it, he would have left me; and what could I have done? But your plans had
+changed, Germaine; divorce was not enough for you; and it was something
+else that you would have obtained from him, another, much more serious
+thing which you and your brother had insisted on ... and to which he had
+consented ... out of cowardice ... in spite of himself...."
+
+"What do you mean?" spluttered Germaine. "What other thing?"
+
+"My death."
+
+"You lie!" cried Madame Astaing.
+
+Thérèse did not raise her voice. She made not a movement of aversion or
+indignation and simply repeated:
+
+"My death, Germaine. I have read your latest letters, six letters from you
+which he was foolish enough to leave about in his pocket-book and which I
+read last night, six letters in which the terrible word is not set down,
+but in which it appears between every line. I trembled as I read it! That
+Jacques should come to this!... Nevertheless the idea of stabbing him did
+not occur to me for a second. A woman like myself, Germaine, does not
+readily commit murder.... If I lost my head, it was after that ... and it
+was your fault...."
+
+She turned her eyes to Rénine as if to ask him if there was no danger in
+her speaking and revealing the truth.
+
+"Don't be afraid," he said. "I will be answerable for everything."
+
+She drew her hand across her forehead. The horrible scene was being
+reenacted within her and was torturing her. Germaine Astaing did not move,
+but stood with folded arms and anxious eyes, while Hortense Daniel sat
+distractedly awaiting the confession of the crime and the explanation of
+the unfathomable mystery.
+
+"It was after that and it was through your fault Germaine ... I had put
+back the pocket-book in the drawer where it was hidden; and I said nothing
+to Jacques this morning ... I did not want to tell him what I knew....
+It was too horrible.... All the same, I had to act quickly; your letters
+announced your secret arrival to-day.... I thought at first of running
+away, of taking the train.... I had mechanically picked up that dagger,
+to defend myself.... But when Jacques and I went down to the beach, I was
+resigned.... Yes, I had accepted death: 'I will die,' I thought, 'and put
+an end to all this nightmare!'... Only, for the children's sake, I was
+anxious that my death should look like an accident and that Jacques should
+have no part in it. That was why your plan of a walk on the cliff suited
+me.... A fall from the top of a cliff seems quite natural ... Jacques
+therefore left me to go to his cabin, from which he was to join you later
+at the Trois Mathildes. On the way, below the terrace, he dropped the key
+of the cabin. I went down and began to look for it with him ... And it
+happened then ... through your fault ... yes, Germaine, through your fault
+... Jacques' pocket-book had slipped from his jacket, without his noticing
+it, and, together with the pocket-book, a photograph which I recognized
+at once: a photograph, taken this year, of myself and my two children. I
+picked it up ... and I saw.... You know what I saw, Germaine. Instead of my
+face, the face in the photograph was _yours_!... You had put in your
+likeness, Germaine, and blotted me out! It was your face! One of your arms
+was round my elder daughter's neck; and the younger was sitting on your
+knees.... It was you, Germaine, the wife of my husband, the future mother
+of my children, you, who were going to bring them up ... you, you! ... Then
+I lost my head. I had the dagger ... Jacques was stooping ... I stabbed
+him...."
+
+Every word of her confession was strictly true. Those who listened to her
+felt this profoundly; and nothing could have given Hortense and Rénine a
+keener impression of tragedy.
+
+She had fallen back into her chair, utterly exhausted. Nevertheless, she
+went on speaking unintelligible words; and it was only gradually by leaning
+over her, that they were able to make out:
+
+"I thought that there would be an outcry and that I should be arrested. But
+no. It happened in such a way and under such conditions that no one had
+seen anything. Further, Jacques had drawn himself up at the same time as
+myself; and he actually did not fall. No, he did not fall! I had stabbed
+him; and he remained standing! I saw him from the terrace, to which I had
+returned. He had hung his jacket over his shoulders, evidently to hide his
+wound, and he moved away without staggering ... or staggering so little
+that I alone was able to perceive it. He even spoke to some friends who
+were playing cards. Then he went to his cabin and disappeared.... In a few
+moments, I came back indoors. I was persuaded that all of this was only a
+bad dream ... that I had not killed him ... or that at the worst the wound
+was a slight one. Jacques would come out again. I was certain of it.... I
+watched from my balcony.... If I had thought for a moment that he needed
+assistance, I should have flown to him.... But truly I didn't know ... I
+didn't guess.... People speak of presentiments: there are no such things. I
+was perfectly calm, just as one is after a nightmare of which the memory is
+fading away.... No, I swear to you, I knew nothing ... until the moment..."
+
+She interrupted herself, stifled by sobs.
+
+Rénine finished her sentence for her,
+
+"Until the moment when they came and told you, I suppose?"
+
+Thérèse stammered:
+
+"Yes. It was not till then that I was conscious of what I had done ... and
+I felt that I was going mad and that I should cry out to all those people,
+'Why, it was I who did it! Don't search! Here is the dagger ... I am the
+culprit!' Yes, I was going to say that, when suddenly I caught sight of
+my poor Jacques.... They were carrying him along.... His face was very
+peaceful, very gentle.... And, in his presence, I understood my duty, as he
+had understood his.... He had kept silent, for the sake of the children.
+I would be silent too. We were both guilty of the murder of which he was
+the victim; and we must both do all we could to prevent the crime from
+recoiling upon them.... He had seen this clearly in his dying agony. He
+had had the amazing courage to keep his feet, to answer the people who
+spoke to him and to lock himself up to die. He had done this, wiping out
+all his faults with a single action, and in so doing had granted me his
+forgiveness, because he was not accusing me ... and was ordering me to hold
+my peace ... and to defend myself ... against everybody ... especially
+against you, Germaine."
+
+She uttered these last words more firmly. At first wholly overwhelmed by
+the unconscious act which she had committed in killing her husband, she
+had recovered her strength a little in thinking of what she had done and
+in defending herself with such energy. Faced by the intriguing woman whose
+hatred had driven both of them to death and crime, she clenched her fists,
+ready for the struggle, all quivering with resolution.
+
+Germaine Astaing did not flinch. She had listened without a word, with a
+relentless expression which grew harder and harder as Thérèse's confessions
+became precise. No emotion seemed to soften her and no remorse to penetrate
+her being. At most, towards the end, her thin lips shaped themselves into a
+faint smile. She was holding her prey in her clutches.
+
+Slowly, with her eyes raised to a mirror, she adjusted her hat and powdered
+her face. Then she walked to the door.
+
+Thérèse darted forward:
+
+"Where are you going?"
+
+"Where I choose."
+
+"To see the examining-magistrate?"
+
+"Very likely."
+
+"You sha'n't pass!"
+
+"As you please. I'll wait for him here."
+
+"And you'll tell him what?"
+
+"Why, all that you've said, of course, all that you've been silly enough
+to say. How could he doubt the story? You have explained it all to me so
+fully."
+
+Thérèse took her by the shoulders:
+
+"Yes, but I'll explain other things to him at the same time, Germaine,
+things that concern you. If I'm ruined, so shall you be."
+
+"You can't touch me."
+
+"I can expose you, show your letters."
+
+"What letters?"
+
+"Those in which my death was decided on."
+
+"Lies, Thérèse! You know that famous plot exists only in your imagination.
+Neither Jacques nor I wished for your death."
+
+"You did, at any rate. Your letters condemn you."
+
+"Lies! They were the letters of a friend to a friend."
+
+"Letters of a mistress to her paramour."
+
+"Prove it."
+
+"They are there, in Jacques' pocket-book."
+
+"No, they're not."
+
+"What's that you say?"
+
+"I say that those letters belonged to me. I've taken them back, or rather
+my brother has."
+
+"You've stolen them, you wretch! And you shall give them back again," cried
+Thérèse, shaking her.
+
+"I haven't them. My brother kept them. He has gone."
+
+Thérèse staggered and stretched out her hands to Rénine with an expression
+of despair. Rénine said:
+
+"What she says is true. I watched the brother's proceedings while he was
+feeling in your bag. He took out the pocket-book, looked through it with
+his sister, came and put it back again and went off with the letters."
+
+Rénine paused and added,
+
+"Or, at least, with five of them."
+
+The two women moved closer to him. What did he intend to convey? If
+Frédéric Astaing had taken away only five letters, what had become of the
+sixth?
+
+"I suppose," said Rénine, "that, when the pocket-book fell on the shingle,
+that sixth letter slipped out at the same time as the photograph and that
+M. d'Ormeval must have picked it up, for I found it in the pocket of his
+blazer, which had been hung up near the bed. Here it is. It's signed
+Germaine Astaing and it is quite enough to prove the writer's intentions
+and the murderous counsels which she was pressing upon her lover."
+
+Madame Astaing had turned grey in the face and was so much disconcerted
+that she did not try to defend herself. Rénine continued, addressing his
+remarks to her:
+
+"To my mind, madame, you are responsible for all that happened. Penniless,
+no doubt, and at the end of your resources, you tried to profit by the
+passion with which you inspired M. d'Ormeval in order to make him marry
+you, in spite of all the obstacles, and to lay your hands upon his fortune.
+I have proofs of this greed for money and these abominable calculations and
+can supply them if need be. A few minutes after I had felt in the pocket of
+that jacket, you did the same. I had removed the sixth letter, but had left
+a slip of paper which you looked for eagerly and which also must have
+dropped out of the pocket-book. It was an uncrossed cheque for a hundred
+thousand francs, drawn by M. d'Ormeval in your brother's name ... just a
+little wedding-present ... what we might call pin-money. Acting on your
+instructions, your brother dashed off by motor to Le Havre to reach the
+bank before four o'clock. I may as well tell you that he will not have
+cashed the cheque, for I had a telephone-message sent to the bank to
+announce the murder of M. d'Ormeval, which stops all payments. The upshot
+of all this is that the police, if you persist in your schemes of revenge,
+will have in their hands all the proofs that are wanted against you and
+your brother. I might add, as an edifying piece of evidence, the story of
+the conversation which I overheard between your brother and yourself in a
+dining-car on the railway between Brest and Paris, a fortnight ago. But I
+feel sure that you will not drive me to adopt these extreme measures and
+that we understand each other. Isn't that so?"
+
+Natures like Madame Astaing's, which are violent and headstrong so long as
+a fight is possible and while a gleam of hope remains, are easily swayed in
+defeat. Germaine was too intelligent not to grasp the fact that the least
+attempt at resistance would be shattered by such an adversary as this. She
+was in his hands. She could but yield.
+
+She therefore did not indulge in any play-acting, nor in any demonstration
+such as threats, outbursts of fury or hysterics. She bowed:
+
+"We are agreed," she said. "What are your terms?"
+
+"Go away. If ever you are called upon for your evidence, say that you know
+nothing."
+
+She walked away. At the door, she hesitated and then, between her teeth,
+said:
+
+"The cheque."
+
+Rénine looked at Madame d'Ormeval, who declared:
+
+"Let her keep it. I would not touch that money."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+When Rénine had given Thérèse d'Ormeval precise instructions as to how she
+was to behave at the enquiry and to answer the questions put to her, he
+left the chalet, accompanied by Hortense Daniel.
+
+On the beach below, the magistrate and the public prosecutor were
+continuing their investigations, taking measurements, examining the
+witnesses and generally laying their heads together.
+
+"When I think," said Hortense, "that you have the dagger and M. d'Ormeval's
+pocket-book on you!"
+
+"And it strikes you as awfully dangerous, I suppose?" he said, laughing.
+"It strikes _me_ as awfully comic."
+
+"Aren't you afraid?"
+
+"Of what?"
+
+"That they may suspect something?"
+
+"Lord, they won't suspect a thing! We shall tell those good people what
+we saw and our evidence will only increase their perplexity, for we saw
+nothing at all. For prudence sake we will stay a day or two, to see which
+way the wind is blowing. But it's quite settled: they will never be able to
+make head or tail of the matter."
+
+"Nevertheless, _you_ guessed the secret and from the first. Why?"
+
+"Because, instead of seeking difficulties where none exist, as people
+generally do, I always put the question as it should be put; and the
+solution comes quite naturally. A man goes to his cabin and locks himself
+in. Half an hour later, he is found inside, dead. No one has gone in. What
+has happened? To my mind there is only one answer. There is no need to
+think about it. As the murder was not committed in the cabin, it must have
+been committed beforehand and the man was already mortally wounded when
+he entered his cabin. And forthwith the truth in this particular case
+appeared to me. Madame d'Ormeval, who was to have been killed this evening,
+forestalled her murderers and while her husband was stooping to the ground,
+in a moment of frenzy stabbed him in the back. There was nothing left to do
+but look for the reasons that prompted her action. When I knew them, I took
+her part unreservedly. That's the whole story."
+
+The day was beginning to wane. The blue of the sky was becoming darker and
+the sea, even more peaceful than before.
+
+"What are you thinking of?" asked Rénine, after a moment.
+
+"I am thinking," she said, "that if I too were the victim of some
+machination, I should trust you whatever happened, trust you through and
+against all. I know, as certainly as I know that I exist, that you would
+save me, whatever the obstacles might be. There is no limit to the power
+of your will."
+
+He said, very softly:
+
+"There is no limit to my wish to please you."
+
+
+
+
+VI
+
+THE LADY WITH THE HATCHET
+
+
+One of the most incomprehensible incidents that preceded the great war
+was certainly the one which was known as the episode of the lady with the
+hatchet. The solution of the mystery was unknown and would never have
+been known, had not circumstances in the cruellest fashion obliged Prince
+Rénine--or should I say, Arsène Lupin?--to take up the matter and had I not
+been able to-day to tell the true story from the details supplied by him.
+
+Let me recite the facts. In a space of eighteen months, five women
+disappeared, five women of different stations in life, all between twenty
+and thirty years of age and living in Paris or the Paris district.
+
+I will give their names: Madame Ladoue, the wife of a doctor; Mlle. Ardant,
+the daughter of a banker; Mlle. Covereau, a washer-woman of Courbevoie;
+Mlle. Honorine Vernisset, a dressmaker; and Madame Grollinger, an artist.
+These five women disappeared without the possibility of discovering a
+single particular to explain why they had left their homes, why they did
+not return to them, who had enticed them away, and where and how they were
+detained.
+
+Each of these women, a week after her departure, was found somewhere or
+other in the western outskirts of Paris; and each time it was a dead body
+that was found, the dead body of a woman who had been killed by a blow on
+the head from a hatchet. And each time, not far from the woman, who was
+firmly bound, her face covered with blood and her body emaciated by lack of
+food, the marks of carriage-wheels proved that the corpse had been driven
+to the spot.
+
+The five murders were so much alike that there was only a single
+investigation, embracing all the five enquiries and, for that matter,
+leading to no result. A woman disappeared; a week later, to a day, her body
+was discovered; and that was all. The bonds that fastened her were similar
+in each case; so were the tracks left by the wheels; so were the blows of
+the hatchet, all of which were struck vertically at the top and right in
+the middle of the forehead.
+
+The motive of the crime? The five women had been completely stripped of
+their jewels, purses and other objects of value. But the robberies might
+well have been attributed to marauders or any passersby, since the bodies
+were lying in deserted spots. Were the authorities to believe in the
+execution of a plan of revenge or of a plan intended to do away with the
+series of persons mutually connected, persons, for instance, likely to
+benefit by a future inheritance? Here again the same obscurity prevailed.
+Theories were built up, only to be demolished forthwith by an examination
+of the facts. Trails were followed and at once abandoned.
+
+And suddenly there was a sensation. A woman engaged in sweeping the roads
+picked up on the pavement a little note-book which she brought to the local
+police-station. The leaves of this note-book were all blank, excepting
+one, on which was written a list of the murdered women, with their names
+set down in order of date and accompanied by three figures: Ladoue, 132;
+Vernisset, 118; and so on.
+
+Certainly no importance would have been attached to these entries, which
+anybody might have written, since every one was acquainted with the
+sinister list. But, instead of five names, it included six! Yes, below
+the words "Grollinger, 128," there appeared "Williamson, 114." Did this
+indicate a sixth murder?
+
+The obviously English origin of the name limited the field of the
+investigations, which did not in fact take long. It was ascertained that,
+a fortnight ago, a Miss Hermione Williamson, a governess in a family at
+Auteuil, had left her place to go back to England and that, since then, her
+sisters, though she had written to tell them that she was coming over, had
+heard no more of her.
+
+A fresh enquiry was instituted. A postman found the body in the Meudon
+woods. Miss Williamson's skull was split down the middle.
+
+I need not describe the public excitement at this stage nor the shudder
+of horror which passed through the crowd when it read this list, written
+without a doubt in the murderer's own hand. What could be more frightful
+than such a record, kept up to date like a careful tradesman's ledger:
+
+"On such a day, I killed so-and-so; on such a day so-and-so!"
+
+And the sum total was six dead bodies.
+
+Against all expectation, the experts in handwriting had no difficulty in
+agreeing and unanimously declared that the writing was "that of a woman, an
+educated woman, possessing artistic tastes, imagination and an extremely
+sensitive nature." The "lady with the hatchet," as the journalists
+christened her, was decidedly no ordinary person; and scores of
+newspaper-articles made a special study of her case, exposing her mental
+condition and losing themselves in far-fetched explanations.
+
+Nevertheless it was the writer of one of these articles, a young journalist
+whose chance discovery made him the centre of public attention, who
+supplied the one element of truth and shed upon the darkness the only ray
+of light that was to penetrate it. In casting about for the meaning of the
+figures which followed the six names, he had come to ask himself whether
+those figures did not simply represent the number of the days separating
+one crime from the next. All that he had to do was to check the dates. He
+at once found that his theory was correct. Mlle. Vernisset had been carried
+off one hundred and thirty-two days after Madame Ladoue; Mlle. Covereau one
+hundred and eighteen days after Honorine Vernisset; and so on.
+
+There was therefore no room for doubt; and the police had no choice but to
+accept a solution which so precisely fitted the circumstances: the figures
+corresponded with the intervals. There was no mistake in the records of the
+lady with the hatchet.
+
+But then one deduction became inevitable. Miss Williamson, the latest
+victim, had been carried off on the 26th of June last, and her name was
+followed by the figures 114: was it not to be presumed that a fresh crime
+would be committed a hundred and fourteen days later, that is to say, on
+the 18th of October? Was it not probable that the horrible business would
+be repeated in accordance with the murderer's secret intentions? Were they
+not bound to pursue to its logical conclusion the argument which ascribed
+to the figures--to all the figures, to the last as well as to the
+others--their value as eventual dates?
+
+Now it was precisely this deduction which was drawn and was being weighed
+and discussed during the few days that preceded the 18th of October,
+when logic demanded the performance of yet another act of the abominable
+tragedy. And it was only natural that, on the morning of that day, Prince
+Rénine and Hortense, when making an appointment by telephone for the
+evening, should allude to the newspaper-articles which they had both been
+reading:
+
+"Look out!" said Rénine, laughing. "If you meet the lady with the hatchet,
+take the other side of the road!"
+
+"And, if the good lady carries me off, what am I to do?"
+
+"Strew your path with little white pebbles and say, until the very moment
+when the hatchet flashes in the air, 'I have nothing to fear; _he_
+will save me.' _He_ is myself ... and I kiss your hands. Till this
+evening, my dear."
+
+That afternoon, Rénine had an appointment with Rose Andrée and Dalbrèque to
+arrange for their departure for the States. [Footnote: See _The Tell-tale
+Film_.] Before four and seven o'clock, he bought the different editions
+of the evening papers. None of them reported an abduction.
+
+At nine o'clock he went to the Gymnase, where he had taken a private box.
+
+At half-past nine, as Hortense had not arrived, he rang her up, though
+without thought of anxiety. The maid replied that Madame Daniel had not
+come in yet.
+
+Seized with a sudden fear, Rénine hurried to the furnished flat which
+Hortense was occupying for the time being, near the Parc Monceau, and
+questioned the maid, whom he had engaged for her and who was completely
+devoted to him. The woman said that her mistress had gone out at two
+o'clock, with a stamped letter in her hand, saying that she was going to
+the post and that she would come back to dress. This was the last that had
+been seen of her.
+
+"To whom was the letter addressed?"
+
+"To you, sir. I saw the writing on the envelope: Prince Serge Rénine."
+
+He waited until midnight, but in vain. Hortense did not return; nor did she
+return next day.
+
+"Not a word to any one," said Rénine to the maid. "Say that your mistress
+is in the country and that you are going to join her."
+
+For his own part, he had not a doubt: Hortense's disappearance was
+explained by the very fact of the date, the 18th of October. She was the
+seventh victim of the lady with the hatchet.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"The abduction," said Rénine to himself, "precedes the blow of the hatchet
+by a week. I have, therefore, at the present moment, seven full days before
+me. Let us say six, to avoid any surprise. This is Saturday: Hortense must
+be set free by mid-day on Friday; and, to make sure of this, I must know
+her hiding-place by nine o'clock on Thursday evening at latest."
+
+Rénine wrote, "THURSDAY EVENING, NINE O'CLOCK," in big letters, on a card
+which he nailed above the mantelpiece in his study. Then at midday on
+Saturday, the day after the disappearance, he locked himself into the
+study, after telling his man not to disturb him except for meals and
+letters.
+
+He spent four days there, almost without moving. He had immediately sent
+for a set of all the leading newspapers which had spoken in detail of the
+first six crimes. When he had read and reread them, he closed the shutters,
+drew the curtains and lay down on the sofa in the dark, with the door
+bolted, thinking.
+
+By Tuesday evening he was no further advanced than on the Saturday. The
+darkness was as dense as ever. He had not discovered the smallest clue for
+his guidance, nor could he see the slightest reason to hope.
+
+At times, notwithstanding his immense power of self-control and his
+unlimited confidence in the resources at his disposal, at times he would
+quake with anguish. Would he arrive in time? There was no reason why he
+should see more clearly during the last few days than during those which
+had already elapsed. And this meant that Hortense Daniel would inevitably
+be murdered.
+
+The thought tortured him. He was attached to Hortense by a much stronger
+and deeper feeling than the appearance of the relations between them would
+have led an onlooker to believe. The curiosity at the beginning, the first
+desire, the impulse to protect Hortense, to distract her, to inspire her
+with a relish for existence: all this had simply turned to love. Neither of
+them was aware of it, because they barely saw each other save at critical
+times when they were occupied with the adventures of others and not with
+their own. But, at the first onslaught of danger, Rénine realized the place
+which Hortense had taken in his life and he was in despair at knowing her
+to be a prisoner and a martyr and at being unable to save her.
+
+He spent a feverish, agitated night, turning the case over and over from
+every point of view. The Wednesday morning was also a terrible time for
+him. He was losing ground. Giving up his hermit-like seclusion, he threw
+open the windows and paced to and fro through his rooms, ran out into the
+street and came in again, as though fleeing before the thought that
+obsessed him:
+
+"Hortense is suffering.... Hortense is in the depths.... She sees the
+hatchet.... She is calling to me.... She is entreating me.... And I can do
+nothing...."
+
+It was at five o'clock in the afternoon that, on examining the list of the
+six names, he received that little inward shock which is a sort of signal
+of the truth that is being sought for. A light shot through his mind. It
+was not, to be sure, that brilliant light in which every detail is made
+plain, but it was enough to tell him in which direction to move.
+
+His plan of campaign was formed at once. He sent Adolphe, his chauffeur,
+to the principal newspapers, with a few lines which were to appear in type
+among the next morning's advertisements. Adolphe was also told to go to the
+laundry at Courbevoie, where Mlle. Covereau, the second of the six victims,
+had been employed.
+
+On the Thursday, Rénine did not stir out of doors. In the afternoon, he
+received several letters in reply to his advertisement. Then two telegrams
+arrived. Lastly, at three o'clock, there came a pneumatic letter, bearing
+the Trocadéro postmark, which seemed to be what he was expecting.
+
+He turned up a directory, noted an address--"M. de Lourtier-Vaneau, retired
+colonial governor, 47 _bis_, Avenue Kléber"--and ran down to his car:
+
+"Adolphe, 47 _bis_, Avenue Kléber."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+He was shown into a large study furnished with magnificent book-cases
+containing old volumes in costly bindings. M. de Lourtier-Vaneau was a man
+still in the prime of life, wearing a slightly grizzled beard and, by his
+affable manners and genuine distinction, commanding confidence and liking.
+
+"M. de Lourtier," said Rénine, "I have ventured to call on your excellency
+because I read in last year's newspapers that you used to know one of the
+victims of the lady with the hatchet, Honorine Vernisset."
+
+"Why, of course we knew her!" cried M. de Lourtier. "My wife used to employ
+her as a dressmaker by the day. Poor girl!"
+
+"M. de Lourtier, a lady of my acquaintance has disappeared as the other six
+victims disappeared.
+
+"What!" exclaimed M. de Lourtier, with a start. "But I have followed the
+newspapers carefully. There was nothing on the 18th of October."
+
+"Yes, a woman of whom I am very fond, Madame Hortense Daniel, was abducted
+on the 17th of October."
+
+"And this is the 22nd!"
+
+"Yes; and the murder will be committed on the 24th."
+
+"Horrible! Horrible! It must be prevented at all costs...."
+
+"And I shall perhaps succeed in preventing it, with your excellency's
+assistance."
+
+"But have you been to the police?"
+
+"No. We are faced by mysteries which are, so to speak, absolute and
+compact, which offer no gap through which the keenest eyes can see and
+which it is useless to hope to clear up by ordinary methods, such as
+inspection of the scenes of the crimes, police enquiries, searching for
+finger-prints and so on. As none of those proceedings served any good
+purpose in the previous cases, it would be waste of time to resort to them
+in a seventh, similar case. An enemy who displays such skill and subtlety
+would not leave behind her any of those clumsy traces which are the first
+things that a professional detective seizes upon."
+
+"Then what have you done?"
+
+"Before taking any action, I have reflected. I gave four days to thinking
+the matter over."
+
+M. de Lourtier-Vaneau examined his visitor closely and, with a touch of
+irony, asked:
+
+"And the result of your meditations ...?"
+
+"To begin with," said Rénine, refusing to be put out of countenance, "I
+have submitted all these cases to a comprehensive survey, which hitherto
+no one else had done. This enabled me to discover their general meaning,
+to put aside all the tangle of embarrassing theories and, since no one was
+able to agree as to the motives of all this filthy business, to attribute
+it to the only class of persons capable of it."
+
+"That is to say?"
+
+"Lunatics, your excellency."
+
+M. de Lourtier-Vaneau started:
+
+"Lunatics? What an idea!"
+
+"M. de Lourtier, the woman known as the lady with the hatchet is a
+madwoman."
+
+"But she would be locked up!"
+
+"We don't know that she's not. We don't know that she is not one of those
+half-mad people, apparently harmless, who are watched so slightly that they
+have full scope to indulge their little manias, their wild-beast instincts.
+Nothing could be more treacherous than these creatures. Nothing could be
+more crafty, more patient, more persistent, more dangerous and at the same
+time more absurd and more logical, more slovenly and more methodical. All
+these epithets, M. de Lourtier, may be applied to the doings of the lady
+with the hatchet. The obsession of an idea and the continual repetition
+of an act are characteristics of the maniac. I do not yet know the idea
+by which the lady with the hatchet is obsessed but I do know the act that
+results from it; and it is always the same. The victim is bound with
+precisely similar ropes. She is killed after the same number of days. She
+is struck by an identical blow, with the same instrument, in the same
+place, the middle of the forehead, producing an absolutely vertical wound.
+An ordinary murderer displays some variety. His trembling hand swerves
+aside and strikes awry. The lady with the hatchet does not tremble. It is
+as though she had taken measurements; and the edge of her weapon does not
+swerve by a hair's breadth. Need I give you any further proofs or examine
+all the other details with you? Surely not. You now possess the key to the
+riddle; and you know as I do that only a lunatic can behave in this way,
+stupidly, savagely, mechanically, like a striking clock or the blade of the
+guillotine...."
+
+M. de Lourtier-Vaneau nodded his head:
+
+"Yes, that is so. One can see the whole affair from that angle ... and I
+am beginning to believe that this is how one ought to see it. But, if we
+admit that this madwoman has the sort of mathematical logic which governed
+the murders of the six victims, I see no connection between the victims
+themselves. She struck at random. Why this victim rather than that?"
+
+"Ah," said Rénine. "Your excellency is asking me a question which I asked
+myself from the first moment, the question which sums up the whole problem
+and which cost me so much trouble to solve! Why Hortense Daniel rather than
+another? Among two millions of women who might have been selected, why
+Hortense? Why little Vernisset? Why Miss Williamson? If the affair is such
+as I conceived it, as a whole, that is to say, based upon the blind and
+fantastic logic of a madwoman, a choice was inevitably exercised. Now in
+what did that choice consist? What was the quality, or the defect, or the
+sign needed to induce the lady with the hatchet to strike? In a word, if
+she chose--and she must have chosen--what directed her choice?"
+
+"Have you found the answer?"
+
+Rénine paused and replied:
+
+"Yes, your excellency, I have. And I could have found it at the very
+outset, since all that I had to do was to make a careful examination of the
+list of victims. But these flashes of truth are never kindled save in a
+brain overstimulated by effort and reflection. I stared at the list twenty
+times over, before that little detail took a definite shape."
+
+"I don't follow you," said M. de Lourtier-Vaneau.
+
+"M. de Lourtier, it may be noted that, if a number of persons are brought
+together in any transaction, or crime, or public scandal or what not, they
+are almost invariably described in the same way. On this occasion, the
+newspapers never mentioned anything more than their surnames in speaking
+of Madame Ladoue, Mlle. Ardent or Mlle. Covereau. On the other hand, Mlle.
+Vernisset and Miss Williamson were always described by their Christian
+names as well: Honorine and Hermione. If the same thing had been done in
+the case of all the six victims, there would have been no mystery."
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"Because we should at once have realized the relation existing between the
+six unfortunate women, as I myself suddenly realized it on comparing those
+two Christian names with that of Hortense Daniel. You understand now, don't
+you? You see the three Christian names before your eyes...."
+
+M. de Lourtier-Vaneau seemed to be perturbed. Turning a little pale, he
+said:
+
+"What do you mean? What do you mean?"
+
+"I mean," continued Rénine, in a clear voice, sounding each syllable
+separately, "I mean that you see before your eyes three Christian names
+which all three begin with the same initial and which all three, by a
+remarkable coincidence, consist of the same number of letters, as you may
+prove. If you enquire at the Courbevoie laundry, where Mlle. Covereau
+used to work, you will find that her name was Hilairie. Here again we
+have the same initial and the same number of letters. There is no need
+to seek any farther. We are sure, are we not, that the Christian names
+of all the victims offer the same peculiarities? And this gives us, with
+absolute certainty, the key to the problem which was set us. It explains
+the madwoman's choice. We now know the connection between the unfortunate
+victims. There can be no mistake about it. It's that and nothing else. And
+how this method of choosing confirms my theory! What proof of madness! Why
+kill these women rather than any others? Because their names begin with
+an H and consist of eight letters! You understand me, M. de Lourtier, do
+you not? The number of letters is eight. The initial letter is the eighth
+letter of the alphabet; and the word _huit_, eight, begins with an H.
+Always the letter H. _And the implement used to commit the crime was a
+hatchet_. Is your excellency prepared to tell me that the lady with the
+hatchet is not a madwoman?"
+
+Rénine interrupted himself and went up to M. de Lourtier-Vaneau:
+
+"What's the matter, your excellency? Are you unwell?"
+
+"No, no," said M. de Lourtier, with the perspiration streaming down his
+forehead. "No ... but all this story is so upsetting! Only think, I knew
+one of the victims! And then...."
+
+Rénine took a water-bottle and tumbler from a small table, filled the glass
+and handed it to M. de Lourtier, who sipped a few mouthfuls from it and
+then, pulling himself together, continued, in a voice which he strove to
+make firmer than it had been:
+
+"Very well. We'll admit your supposition. Even so, it is necessary that it
+should lead to tangible results. What have you done?"
+
+"This morning I published in all the newspapers an advertisement worded as
+follows: 'Excellent cook seeks situation. Write before 5 P.M. to Herminie,
+Boulevard Haussmann, etc.' You continue to follow me, don't you, M. de
+Lourtier? Christian names beginning with an H and consisting of eight
+letters are extremely rare and are all rather out of date: Herminie,
+Hilairie, Hermione. Well, these Christian names, for reasons which I do not
+understand, are essential to the madwoman. She cannot do without them. To
+find women bearing one of these Christian names and for this purpose only
+she summons up all her remaining powers of reason, discernment, reflection
+and intelligence. She hunts about. She asks questions. She lies in wait.
+She reads newspapers which she hardly understands, but in which certain
+details, certain capital letters catch her eye. And consequently I did not
+doubt for a second that this name of Herminie, printed in large type, would
+attract her attention and that she would be caught to-day in the trap of my
+advertisement."
+
+"Did she write?" asked M. de Lourtier-Vaneau, anxiously.
+
+"Several ladies," Rénine continued, "wrote the letters which are usual in
+such cases, to offer a home to the so-called Herminie. But I received an
+express letter which struck me as interesting."
+
+"From whom?"
+
+"Read it, M. de Lourtier."
+
+M. de Lourtier-Vaneau snatched the sheet from Rénine's hands and cast a
+glance at the signature. His first movement was one of surprise, as though
+he had expected something different. Then he gave a long, loud laugh of
+something like joy and relief.
+
+"Why do you laugh, M. de Lourtier? You seem pleased."
+
+"Pleased, no. But this letter is signed by my wife."
+
+"And you were afraid of finding something else?"
+
+"Oh no! But since it's my wife...."
+
+He did not finish his sentence and said to Rénine:
+
+"Come this way."
+
+He led him through a passage to a little drawing-room where a fair-haired
+lady, with a happy and tender expression on her comely face, was sitting in
+the midst of three children and helping them with their lessons.
+
+She rose. M. de Lourtier briefly presented his visitor and asked his wife:
+
+"Suzanne, is this express message from you?"
+
+"To Mlle. Herminie, Boulevard Haussmann? Yes," she said, "I sent it. As you
+know, our parlour-maid's leaving and I'm looking out for a new one."
+
+Rénine interrupted her:
+
+"Excuse me, madame. Just one question: where did you get the woman's
+address?"
+
+She flushed. Her husband insisted:
+
+"Tell us, Suzanne. Who gave you the address?"
+
+"I was rung up."
+
+"By whom?"
+
+She hesitated and then said:
+
+"Your old nurse."
+
+"Félicienne?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+M. de Lourtier cut short the conversation and, without permitting Rénine to
+ask any more questions, took him back to the study:
+
+"You see, monsieur, that pneumatic letter came from a quite natural source.
+Félicienne, my old nurse, who lives not far from Paris on an allowance
+which I make her, read your advertisement and told Madame de Lourtier of
+it. For, after all," he added laughing, "I don't suppose that you suspect
+my wife of being the lady with the hatchet."
+
+"No."
+
+"Then the incident is closed ... at least on my side. I have done what I
+could, I have listened to your arguments and I am very sorry that I can be
+of no more use to you...."
+
+He drank another glass of water and sat down. His face was distorted.
+Rénine looked at him for a few seconds, as a man will look at a failing
+adversary who has only to receive the knock-out blow, and, sitting down
+beside him, suddenly gripped his arm:
+
+"Your excellency, if you do not speak, Hortense Daniel will be the seventh
+victim."
+
+"I have nothing to say, monsieur! What do you think I know?"
+
+"The truth! My explanations have made it plain to you. Your distress, your
+terror are positive proofs."
+
+"But, after all, monsieur, if I knew, why should I be silent?"
+
+"For fear of scandal. There is in your life, so a profound intuition
+assures me, something that you are constrained to hide. The truth about
+this monstrous tragedy, which suddenly flashed upon you, this truth, if
+it were known, would spell dishonour to you, disgrace ... and you are
+shrinking from your duty."
+
+M. de Lourtier did not reply. Rénine leant over him and, looking him in
+the eyes, whispered:
+
+"There will be no scandal. I shall be the only person in the world to
+know what has happened. And I am as much interested as yourself in not
+attracting attention, because I love Hortense Daniel and do not wish her
+name to be mixed up in your horrible story."
+
+They remained face to face during a long interval. Rénine's expression was
+harsh and unyielding. M. de Lourtier felt that nothing would bend him if
+the necessary words remained unspoken; but he could not bring himself to
+utter them:
+
+"You are mistaken," he said. "You think you have seen things that don't
+exist."
+
+Rénine received a sudden and terrifying conviction that, if this man took
+refuge in a stolid silence, there was no hope for Hortense Daniel; and he
+was so much infuriated by the thought that the key to the riddle lay there,
+within reach of his hand, that he clutched M. de Lourtier by the throat and
+forced him backwards:
+
+"I'll have no more lies! A woman's life is at stake! Speak ... and speak at
+once! If not ...!"
+
+M. de Lourtier had no strength left in him. All resistance was impossible.
+It was not that Rénine's attack alarmed him, or that he was yielding to
+this act of violence, but he felt crushed by that indomitable will, which
+seemed to admit no obstacle, and he stammered:
+
+"You are right. It is my duty to tell everything, whatever comes of it."
+
+"Nothing will come of it, I pledge my word, on condition that you save
+Hortense Daniel. A moment's hesitation may undo us all. Speak. No details,
+but the actual facts."
+
+"Madame de Lourtier is not my wife. The only woman who has the right to
+bear my name is one whom I married when I was a young colonial official.
+She was a rather eccentric woman, of feeble mentality and incredibly
+subject to impulses that amounted to monomania. We had two children, twins,
+whom she worshipped and in whose company she would no doubt have recovered
+her mental balance and moral health, when, by a stupid accident--a
+passing carriage--they were killed before her eyes. The poor thing went
+mad ... with the silent, secretive madness which you imagined. Some time
+afterwards, when I was appointed to an Algerian station, I brought her to
+France and put her in the charge of a worthy creature who had nursed me and
+brought me up. Two years later, I made the acquaintance of the woman who
+was to become the joy of my life. You saw her just now. She is the mother
+of my children and she passes as my wife. Are we to sacrifice her? Is our
+whole existence to be shipwrecked in horror and must our name be coupled
+with this tragedy of madness and blood?"
+
+Rénine thought for a moment and asked:
+
+"What is the other one's name?"
+
+"Hermance."
+
+"Hermance! Still that initial ... still those eight letters!"
+
+"That was what made me realize everything just now," said M. de Lourtier.
+"When you compared the different names, I at once reflected that my unhappy
+wife was called Hermance and that she was mad ... and all the proofs leapt
+to my mind."
+
+"But, though we understand the selection of the victims, how are we to
+explain the murders? What are the symptoms of her madness? Does she suffer
+at all?"
+
+"She does not suffer very much at present. But she has suffered in the
+past, the most terrible suffering that you can imagine: since the moment
+when her two children were run over before her eyes, night and day she had
+the horrible spectacle of their death before her eyes, without a moment's
+interruption, for she never slept for a single second. Think of the torture
+of it! To see her children dying through all the hours of the long day and
+all the hours of the interminable night!"
+
+"Nevertheless," Rénine objected, "it is not to drive away that picture that
+she commits murder?"
+
+"Yes, possibly," said M. de Lourtier, thoughtfully, "to drive it away by
+sleep."
+
+"I don't understand."
+
+"You don't understand, because we are talking of a madwoman ... and because
+all that happens in that disordered brain is necessarily incoherent and
+abnormal?"
+
+"Obviously. But, all the same, is your supposition based on facts that
+justify it?"
+
+"Yes, on facts which I had, in a way, overlooked but which to-day assume
+their true significance. The first of these facts dates a few years back,
+to a morning when my old nurse for the first time found Hermance fast
+asleep. Now she was holding her hands clutched around a puppy which she had
+strangled. And the same thing was repeated on three other occasions."
+
+"And she slept?"
+
+"Yes, each time she slept a sleep which lasted for several nights."
+
+"And what conclusion did you draw?"
+
+"I concluded that the relaxation of the nerves provoked by taking life
+exhausted her and predisposed her for sleep."
+
+Rénine shuddered:
+
+"That's it! There's not a doubt of it! The taking life, the effort of
+killing makes her sleep. And she began with women what had served her so
+well with animals. All her madness has become concentrated on that one
+point: she kills them to rob them of their sleep! She wanted sleep; and she
+steals the sleep of others! That's it, isn't it? For the past two years,
+she has been sleeping?"
+
+"For the past two years, she has been sleeping," stammered M. de Lourtier.
+
+Rénine gripped him by the shoulder:
+
+"And it never occurred to you that her madness might go farther, that she
+would stop at nothing to win the blessing of sleep! Let us make haste,
+monsieur! All this is horrible!"
+
+They were both making for the door, when M. de Lourtier hesitated. The
+telephone-bell was ringing.
+
+"It's from there," he said.
+
+"From there?"
+
+"Yes, my old nurse gives me the news at the same time every day."
+
+He unhooked the receivers and handed one to Rénine, who whispered in his
+ear the questions which he was to put.
+
+"Is that you, Félicienne? How is she?"
+
+"Not so bad, sir."
+
+"Is she sleeping well?"
+
+"Not very well, lately. Last night, indeed, she never closed her eyes. So
+she's very gloomy just now."
+
+"What is she doing at the moment?"
+
+"She is in her room."
+
+"Go to her, Félicienne, and don't leave her."
+
+"I can't. She's locked herself in."
+
+"You must, Félicienne. Break open the door. I'm coming straight on....
+Hullo! Hullo!... Oh, damnation, they've cut us off!"
+
+Without a word, the two men left the flat and ran down to the avenue.
+Rénine hustled M. de Lourtier into the car:
+
+"What address?"
+
+"Ville d'Avray."
+
+"Of course! In the very center of her operations ... like a spider in the
+middle of her web! Oh, the shame of it!"
+
+He was profoundly agitated. He saw the whole adventure in its monstrous
+reality.
+
+"Yes, she kills them to steal their sleep, as she used to kill the animals.
+It is the same obsession, but complicated by a whole array of utterly
+incomprehensible practices and superstitions. She evidently fancies that
+the similarity of the Christian names to her own is indispensable and that
+she will not sleep unless her victim is an Hortense or an Honorine. It's
+a madwoman's argument; its logic escapes us and we know nothing of its
+origin; but we can't get away from it. She has to hunt and has to find. And
+she finds and carries off her prey beforehand and watches over it for the
+appointed number of days, until the moment when, crazily, through the hole
+which she digs with a hatchet in the middle of the skull, she absorbs the
+sleep which stupefies her and grants her oblivion for a given period. And
+here again we see absurdity and madness. Why does she fix that period at so
+many days? Why should one victim ensure her a hundred and twenty days of
+sleep and another a hundred and twenty-five? What insanity! The calculation
+is mysterious and of course mad; but the fact remains that, at the end of
+a hundred or a hundred and twenty-five days, as the case may be, a fresh
+victim is sacrificed; and there have been six already and the seventh is
+awaiting her turn. Ah, monsieur, what a terrible responsibility for you!
+Such a monster as that! She should never have been allowed out of sight!"
+
+M. de Lourtier-Vaneau made no protest. His air of dejection, his pallor,
+his trembling hands, all proved his remorse and his despair: "She deceived
+me," he murmured. "She was outwardly so quiet, so docile! And, after all,
+she's in a lunatic asylum."
+
+"Then how can she ...?"
+
+"The asylum," explained M. de Lourtier, "is made up of a number of separate
+buildings scattered over extensive grounds. The sort of cottage in which
+Hermance lives stands quite apart. There is first a room occupied by
+Félicienne, then Hermance's bedroom and two separate rooms, one of which
+has its windows overlooking the open country. I suppose it is there that
+she locks up her victims."
+
+"But the carriage that conveys the dead bodies?"
+
+"The stables of the asylum are quite close to the cottage. There's a horse
+and carriage there for station work. Hermance no doubt gets up at night,
+harnesses the horse and slips the body through the window."
+
+"And the nurse who watches her?"
+
+"Félicienne is very old and rather deaf."
+
+"But by day she sees her mistress moving to and fro, doing this and that.
+Must we not admit a certain complicity?"
+
+"Never! Félicienne herself has been deceived by Hermance's hypocrisy."
+
+"All the same, it was she who telephoned to Madame de Lourtier first, about
+that advertisement...."
+
+"Very naturally. Hermance, who talks now and then, who argues, who buries
+herself in the newspapers, which she does not understand, as you were
+saying just now, but reads through them attentively, must have seen the
+advertisement and, having heard that we were looking for a servant, must
+have asked Félicienne to ring me up."
+
+"Yes ... yes ... that is what I felt," said Rénine, slowly. "She marks down
+her victims.... With Hortense dead, she would have known, once she had used
+up her allowance of sleep, where to find an eighth victim.... But how did
+she entice the unfortunate women? How did she entice Hortense?"
+
+The car was rushing along, but not fast enough to please Rénine, who rated
+the chauffeur:
+
+"Push her along, Adolphe, can't you?... We're losing time, my man."
+
+Suddenly the fear of arriving too late began to torture him. The logic of
+the insane is subject to sudden changes of mood, to any perilous idea that
+may enter the mind. The madwoman might easily mistake the date and hasten
+the catastrophe, like a clock out of order which strikes an hour too soon.
+
+On the other hand, as her sleep was once more disturbed, might she not be
+tempted to take action without waiting for the appointed moment? Was this
+not the reason why she had locked herself into her room? Heavens, what
+agonies her prisoner must be suffering! What shudders of terror at the
+executioner's least movement!
+
+"Faster, Adolphe, or I'll take the wheel myself! Faster, hang it."
+
+At last they reached Ville d'Avray. There was a steep, sloping road on the
+right and walls interrupted by a long railing.
+
+"Drive round the grounds, Adolphe. We mustn't give warning of our presence,
+must we, M. de Lourtier? Where is the cottage?"
+
+"Just opposite," said M. de Lourtier-Vaneau.
+
+They got out a little farther on. Rénine began to run along a bank at the
+side of an ill-kept sunken road. It was almost dark. M. de Lourtier said:
+
+"Here, this building standing a little way back.... Look at that window on
+the ground-floor. It belongs to one of the separate rooms ... and that is
+obviously how she slips out."
+
+"But the window seems to be barred."
+
+"Yes; and that is why no one suspected anything. But she must have found
+some way to get through."
+
+The ground-floor was built over deep cellars. Rénine quickly clambered up,
+finding a foothold on a projecting ledge of stone.
+
+Sure enough, one of the bars was missing.
+
+He pressed his face to the window-pane and looked in.
+
+The room was dark inside. Nevertheless he was able to distinguish at the
+back a woman seated beside another woman, who was lying on a mattress. The
+woman seated was holding her forehead in her hands and gazing at the woman
+who was lying down.
+
+"It's she," whispered M. de Lourtier, who had also climbed the wall. "The
+other one is bound."
+
+Rénine took from his pocket a glazier's diamond and cut out one of the
+panes without making enough noise to arouse the madwoman's attention. He
+next slid his hand to the window-fastening and turned it softly, while with
+his left hand he levelled a revolver.
+
+"You're not going to fire, surely!" M. de Lourtier-Vaneau entreated.
+
+"If I must, I shall."
+
+Rénine pushed open the window gently. But there was an obstacle of which he
+was not aware, a chair which toppled over and fell.
+
+He leapt into the room and threw away his revolver in order to seize the
+madwoman. But she did not wait for him. She rushed to the door, opened it
+and fled, with a hoarse cry.
+
+M. de Lourtier made as though to run after her.
+
+"What's the use?" said Rénine, kneeling down, "Let's save the victim
+first."
+
+He was instantly reassured: Hortense was alive.
+
+The first thing that he did was to cut the cords and remove the gag that
+was stifling her. Attracted by the noise, the old nurse had hastened to
+the room with a lamp, which Rénine took from her, casting its light on
+Hortense.
+
+He was astounded: though livid and exhausted, with emaciated features and
+eyes blazing with fever, Hortense was trying to smile. She whispered:
+
+"I was expecting you ... I did not despair for a moment ... I was sure of
+you...."
+
+She fainted.
+
+An hour later, after much useless searching around the cottage, they found
+the madwoman locked into a large cupboard in the loft. She had hanged
+herself.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Hortense refused to stay another night. Besides, it was better that the
+cottage should be empty when the old nurse announced the madwoman's
+suicide. Rénine gave Félicienne minute directions as to what she should do
+and say; and then, assisted by the chauffeur and M. de Lourtier, carried
+Hortense to the car and brought her home.
+
+She was soon convalescent. Two days later, Rénine carefully questioned her
+and asked her how she had come to know the madwoman.
+
+"It was very simple," she said. "My husband, who is not quite sane, as I
+have told you, is being looked after at Ville d'Avray; and I sometimes go
+to see him, without telling anybody, I admit. That was how I came to speak
+to that poor madwoman and how, the other day, she made signs that she
+wanted me to visit her. We were alone. I went into the cottage. She threw
+herself upon me and overpowered me before I had time to cry for help. I
+thought it was a jest; and so it was, wasn't it: a madwoman's jest? She was
+quite gentle with me.... All the same, she let me starve. But I was so sure
+of you!"
+
+"And weren't you frightened?"
+
+"Of starving? No. Besides, she gave me some food, now and then, when the
+fancy took her.... And then I was sure of you!"
+
+"Yes, but there was something else: that other peril...."
+
+"What other peril?" she asked, ingenuously.
+
+Rénine gave a start. He suddenly understood--it seemed strange at first,
+though it was quite natural--that Hortense had not for a moment suspected
+and did not yet suspect the terrible danger which she had run. Her mind had
+not connected with her own adventure the murders committed by the lady with
+the hatchet.
+
+He thought that it would always be time enough to tell her the truth. For
+that matter, a few days later her husband, who had been locked up for
+years, died in the asylum at Ville d'Avray, and Hortense, who had been
+recommended by her doctor a short period of rest and solitude, went to stay
+with a relation living near the village of Bassicourt, in the centre of
+France.
+
+
+
+
+VII
+
+FOOTPRINTS IN THE SNOW
+
+
+_To Prince Serge Rénine,
+  Boulevard Haussmann,
+    Paris_
+
+LA RONCIÈRE
+  NEAR BASSICOURT,
+    14 NOVEMBER.
+
+"MY DEAR FRIEND,--
+
+"You must be thinking me very ungrateful. I have been here three weeks; and
+you have had not one letter from me! Not a word of thanks! And yet I ended
+by realizing from what terrible death you saved me and understanding the
+secret of that terrible business! But indeed, indeed I couldn't help it! I
+was in such a state of prostration after it all! I needed rest and solitude
+so badly! Was I to stay in Paris? Was I to continue my expeditions with
+you? No, no, no! I had had enough adventures! Other people's are very
+interesting, I admit. But when one is one's self the victim and barely
+escapes with one's life?... Oh, my dear friend, how horrible it was! Shall
+I ever forget it?...
+
+"Here, at la Roncière, I enjoy the greatest peace. My old spinster cousin
+Ermelin pets and coddles me like an invalid. I am getting back my colour
+and am very well, physically ... so much so, in fact, that I no longer
+ever think of interesting myself in other people's business. Never again!
+For instance (I am only telling you this because you are incorrigible, as
+inquisitive as any old charwoman, and always ready to busy yourself with
+things that don't concern you), yesterday I was present at a rather curious
+meeting. Antoinette had taken me to the inn at Bassicourt, where we were
+having tea in the public room, among the peasants (it was market-day), when
+the arrival of three people, two men and a woman, caused a sudden pause in
+the conversation.
+
+"One of the men was a fat farmer in a long blouse, with a jovial, red face,
+framed in white whiskers. The other was younger, was dressed in corduroy
+and had lean, yellow, cross-grained features. Each of them carried a gun
+slung over his shoulder. Between them was a short, slender young woman, in
+a brown cloak and a fur cap, whose rather thin and extremely pale face was
+surprisingly delicate and distinguished-looking.
+
+"'Father, son and daughter-in-law,' whispered my cousin.
+
+"'What! Can that charming creature be the wife of that clod-hopper?'
+
+"'And the daughter-in-law of Baron de Gorne.'
+
+"'Is the old fellow over there a baron?'
+
+"'Yes, descended from a very ancient, noble family which used to own the
+château in the old days. He has always lived like a peasant: a great
+hunter, a great drinker, a great litigant, always at law with somebody, now
+very nearly ruined. His son Mathias was more ambitious and less attached to
+the soil and studied for the bar. Then he went to America. Next, the lack
+of money brought him back to the village, whereupon he fell in love with a
+young girl in the nearest town. The poor girl consented, no one knows why,
+to marry him; and for five years past she has been leading the life of a
+hermit, or rather of a prisoner, in a little manor-house close by, the
+Manoir-au-Puits, the Well Manor.'
+
+"'With the father and the son?' I asked.
+
+"'No, the father lives at the far end of the village, on a lonely farm.'
+
+"'And is Master Mathias jealous?'
+
+"'A perfect tiger!'
+
+"'Without reason?'
+
+"'Without reason, for Natalie de Gorne is the straightest woman in the world
+and it is not her fault if a handsome young man has been hanging around the
+manor-house for the past few months. However, the de Gornes can't get over
+it.'
+
+"'What, the father neither?'
+
+"'The handsome young man is the last descendant of the people who bought the
+château long ago. This explains old de Gorne's hatred. Jérôme Vignal--I
+know him and am very fond of him--is a good-looking fellow and very well
+off; and he has sworn to run off with Natalie de Gorne. It's the old man
+who says so, whenever he has had a drop too much. There, listen!'
+
+"The old chap was sitting among a group of men who were amusing themselves
+by making him drink and plying him with questions. He was already a little
+bit 'on' and was holding forth with a tone of indignation and a mocking
+smile which formed the most comic contrast:
+
+"'He's wasting his time, I tell you, the coxcomb! It's no manner of use his
+poaching round our way and making sheep's-eyes at the wench.... The coverts
+are watched! If he comes too near, it means a bullet, eh, Mathias?'
+
+"He gripped his daughter-in-law's hand:
+
+"'And then the little wench knows how to defend herself too,' he chuckled.
+'Eh, you don't want any admirers, do you Natalie?'
+
+"The young wife blushed, in her confusion at being addressed in these
+terms, while her husband growled:
+
+"'You'd do better to hold your tongue, father. There are things one doesn't
+talk about in public.'
+
+"'Things that affect one's honour are best settled in public,' retorted the
+old one. 'Where I'm concerned, the honour of the de Gornes comes before
+everything; and that fine spark, with his Paris airs, sha'n't....'
+
+"He stopped short. Before him stood a man who had just come in and who
+seemed to be waiting for him to finish his sentence. The newcomer was a
+tall, powerfully-built young fellow, in riding-kit, with a hunting-crop in
+his hand. His strong and rather stern face was lighted up by a pair of fine
+eyes in which shone an ironical smile.
+
+"'Jérôme Vignal,' whispered my cousin.
+
+"The young man seemed not at all embarrassed. On seeing Natalie, he made a
+low bow; and, when Mathias de Gorne took a step forward, he eyed him from
+head to foot, as though to say:
+
+"'Well, what about it?'
+
+"And his attitude was so haughty and contemptuous that the de Gornes
+unslung their guns and took them in both hands, like sportsmen about to
+shoot. The son's expression was very fierce.
+
+"Jérôme was quite unmoved by the threat. After a few seconds, turning to
+the inn-keeper, he remarked:
+
+"'Oh, I say! I came to see old Vasseur. But his shop is shut. Would you mind
+giving him the holster of my revolver? It wants a stitch or two.'
+
+"He handed the holster to the inn-keeper and added, laughing:
+
+"'I'm keeping the revolver, in case I need it. You never can tell!'
+
+"Then, still very calmly, he took a cigarette from a silver case, lit it
+and walked out. We saw him through the window vaulting on his horse and
+riding off at a slow trot.
+
+"Old de Gorne tossed off a glass of brandy, swearing most horribly.
+
+"His son clapped his hand to the old man's mouth and forced him to sit
+down. Natalie de Gorne was weeping beside them....
+
+"That's my story, dear friend. As you see, it's not tremendously
+interesting and does not deserve your attention. There's no mystery in it
+and no part for you to play. Indeed, I particularly insist that you should
+not seek a pretext for any untimely interference. Of course, I should be
+glad to see the poor thing protected: she appears to be a perfect martyr.
+But, as I said before, let us leave other people to get out of their own
+troubles and go no farther with our little experiments...."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Rénine finished reading the letter, read it over again and ended by saying:
+
+"That's it. Everything's right as right can be. She doesn't want to
+continue our little experiments, because this would make the seventh and
+because she's afraid of the eighth, which under the terms of our agreement
+has a very particular significance. She doesn't want to ... and she does
+want to ... without seeming to want to."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+He rubbed his hands. The letter was an invaluable witness to the influence
+which he had gradually, gently and patiently gained over Hortense Daniel.
+It betrayed a rather complex feeling, composed of admiration, unbounded
+confidence, uneasiness at times, fear and almost terror, but also love:
+he was convinced of that. His companion in adventures which she shared
+with a good fellowship that excluded any awkwardness between them, she
+had suddenly taken fright; and a sort of modesty, mingled with a certain
+coquetry; was impelling her to hold back.
+
+That very evening, Sunday, Rénine took the train.
+
+And, at break of day, after covering by diligence, on a road white with
+snow, the five miles between the little town of Pompignat, where he
+alighted, and the village of Bassicourt, he learnt that his journey might
+prove of some use: three shots had been heard during the night in the
+direction of the Manoir-au-Puits.
+
+"Three shots, sergeant. I heard them as plainly as I see you standing
+before me," said a peasant whom the gendarmes were questioning in the
+parlour of the inn which Rénine had entered.
+
+"So did I," said the waiter. "Three shots. It may have been twelve o'clock
+at night. The snow, which had been falling since nine, had stopped ...
+and the shots sounded across the fields, one after the other: bang, bang,
+bang."
+
+Five more peasants gave their evidence. The sergeant and his men had
+heard nothing, because the police-station backed on the fields. But a
+farm-labourer and a woman arrived, who said that they were in Mathias
+de Gorne's service, that they had been away for two days because of the
+intervening Sunday and that they had come straight from the manor-house,
+where they were unable to obtain admission:
+
+"The gate of the grounds is locked, sergeant," said the man. "It's the
+first time I've known this to happen. M. Mathias comes out to open it
+himself, every morning at the stroke of six, winter and summer. Well, it's
+past eight now. I called and shouted. Nobody answered. So we came on here."
+
+"You might have enquired at old M. de Gorne's," said the sergeant. "He
+lives on the high-road."
+
+"On my word, so I might! I never thought of that."
+
+"We'd better go there now," the sergeant decided. Two of his men went with
+him, as well as the peasants and a locksmith whose services were called
+into requisition. Rénine joined the party.
+
+Soon, at the end of the village, they reached old de Gorne's farmyard,
+which Rénine recognized by Hortense's description of its position.
+
+The old fellow was harnessing his horse and trap. When they told him what
+had happened, he burst out laughing:
+
+"Three shots? Bang, bang, bang? Why, my dear sergeant, there are only two
+barrels to Mathias' gun!"
+
+"What about the locked gate?"
+
+"It means that the lad's asleep, that's all. Last night, he came and
+cracked a bottle with me ... perhaps two ... or even three; and he'll be
+sleeping it off, I expect ... he and Natalie."
+
+He climbed on to the box of his trap--an old cart with a patched tilt--and
+cracked his whip:
+
+"Good-bye, gentlemen all. Those three shots of yours won't stop me from
+going to market at Pompignat, as I do every Monday. I've a couple of calves
+under the tilt; and they're just fit for the butcher. Good-day to you!"
+
+The others walked on. Rénine went up to the sergeant and gave him his name:
+
+"I'm a friend of Mlle. Ermelin, of La Roncière; and, as it's too early to
+call on her yet, I shall be glad if you'll allow me to go round by the
+manor with you. Mlle. Ermelin knows Madame de Gorne; and it will be a
+satisfaction to me to relieve her mind, for there's nothing wrong at the
+manor-house, I hope?"
+
+"If there is," replied the sergeant, "we shall read all about it as plainly
+as on a map, because of the snow."
+
+He was a likable young man and seemed smart and intelligent. From the very
+first he had shown great acuteness in observing the tracks which Mathias
+had left behind him, the evening before, on returning home, tracks which
+soon became confused with the footprints made in going and coming by the
+farm-labourer and the woman. Meanwhile they came to the walls of a property
+of which the locksmith readily opened the gate.
+
+From here onward, a single trail appeared upon the spotless snow, that of
+Mathias; and it was easy to perceive that the son must have shared largely
+in the father's libations, as the line of footprints described sudden
+curves which made it swerve right up to the trees of the avenue.
+
+Two hundred yards farther stood the dilapidated two-storeyed building of
+the Manoir-au-Puits. The principal door was open.
+
+"Let's go in," said the sergeant.
+
+And, the moment he had crossed the threshold, he muttered:
+
+"Oho! Old de Gorne made a mistake in not coming. They've been fighting in
+here."
+
+The big room was in disorder. Two shattered chairs, the overturned table
+and much broken glass and china bore witness to the violence of the
+struggle. The tall clock, lying on the ground, had stopped at twenty past
+eleven.
+
+With the farm-girl showing them the way, they ran up to the first floor.
+Neither Mathias nor his wife was there. But the door of their bedroom had
+been broken down with a hammer which they discovered under the bed.
+
+Rénine and the sergeant went downstairs again. The living-room had a
+passage communicating with the kitchen, which lay at the back of the house
+and opened on a small yard fenced off from the orchard. At the end of this
+enclosure was a well near which one was bound to pass.
+
+Now, from the door of the kitchen to the well, the snow, which was not
+very thick, had been pressed down to this side and that, as though a body
+had been dragged over it. And all around the well were tangled traces of
+trampling feet, showing that the struggle must have been resumed at this
+spot. The sergeant again discovered Mathias' footprints, together with
+others which were shapelier and lighter.
+
+These latter went straight into the orchard, by themselves. And, thirty
+yards on, near the footprints, a revolver was picked up and recognized by
+one of the peasants as resembling that which Jérôme Vignal had produced in
+the inn two days before.
+
+The sergeant examined the cylinder. Three of the seven bullets had been
+fired.
+
+And so the tragedy was little by little reconstructed in its main outlines;
+and the sergeant, who had ordered everybody to stand aside and not to step
+on the site of the footprints, came back to the well, leant over, put a few
+questions to the farm-girl and, going up to Rénine, whispered:
+
+"It all seems fairly clear to me."
+
+Rénine took his arm:
+
+"Let's speak out plainly, sergeant. I understand the business pretty
+well, for, as I told you, I know Mlle. Ermelin, who is a friend of Jérôme
+Vignal's and also knows Madame de Gorne. Do you suppose ...?"
+
+"I don't want to suppose anything. I simply declare that some one came
+there last night...."
+
+"By which way? The only tracks of a person coming towards the manor are
+those of M. de Gorne."
+
+"That's because the other person arrived before the snowfall, that is to
+say, before nine o'clock."
+
+"Then he must have hidden in a corner of the living-room and waited for the
+return of M. de Gorne, who came after the snow?"
+
+"Just so. As soon as Mathias came in, the man went for him. There was a
+fight. Mathias made his escape through the kitchen. The man ran after him
+to the well and fired three revolver-shots."
+
+"And where's the body?"
+
+"Down the well."
+
+Rénine protested:
+
+"Oh, I say! Aren't you taking a lot for granted?"
+
+"Why, sir, the snow's there, to tell the story; and the snow plainly says
+that, after the struggle, after the three shots, one man alone walked
+away and left the farm, one man only, and his footprints are not those
+of Mathias de Gorne. Then where can Mathias de Gorne be?"
+
+"But the well ... can be dragged?"
+
+"No. The well is practically bottomless. It is known all over the district
+and gives its name to the manor."
+
+"So you really believe ...?"
+
+"I repeat what I said. Before the snowfall, a single arrival, Mathias, and
+a single departure, the stranger."
+
+"And Madame de Gorne? Was she too killed and thrown down the well like her
+husband?"
+
+"No, carried off."
+
+"Carried off?"
+
+"Remember that her bedroom was broken down with a hammer."
+
+"Come, come, sergeant! You yourself declare that there was only one
+departure, the stranger's."
+
+"Stoop down. Look at the man's footprints. See how they sink into the snow,
+until they actually touch the ground. Those are the footprints of a man,
+laden with a heavy burden. The stranger was carrying Madame de Gorne on his
+shoulder."
+
+"Then there's an outlet this way?"
+
+"Yes, a little door of which Mathias de Gorne always had the key on him.
+The man must have taken it from him."
+
+"A way out into the open fields?"
+
+"Yes, a road which joins the departmental highway three quarters of a mile
+from here.... And do you know where?"
+
+"Where?"
+
+"At the corner of the château."
+
+"Jérôme Vignal's château?"
+
+"By Jove, this is beginning to look serious! If the trail leads to the
+château and stops there, we shall know where we stand."
+
+The trail did continue to the château, as they were able to perceive after
+following it across the undulating fields, on which the snow lay heaped in
+places. The approach to the main gates had been swept, but they saw that
+another trail, formed by the two wheels of a vehicle, was running in the
+opposite direction to the village.
+
+The sergeant rang the bell. The porter, who had also been sweeping the
+drive, came to the gates, with a broom in his hand. In answer to a
+question, the man said that M. Vignal had gone away that morning before
+anyone else was up and that he himself had harnessed the horse to the trap.
+
+"In that case," said Rénine, when they had moved away, "all we have to do
+is to follow the tracks of the wheels."
+
+"That will be no use," said the sergeant. "They have taken the railway."
+
+"At Pompignat station, where I came from? But they would have passed
+through the village."
+
+"They have gone just the other way, because it leads to the town, where the
+express trains stop. The procurator-general has an office in the town. I'll
+telephone; and, as there's no train before eleven o'clock, all that they
+need do is to keep a watch at the station."
+
+"I think you're doing the right thing, sergeant," said Rénine, "and I
+congratulate you on the way in which you have carried out your
+investigation."
+
+They parted. Rénine went back to the inn in the village and sent a note to
+Hortense Daniel by hand:
+
+    "MY VERY DEAR FRIEND,
+
+    "I seemed to gather from your letter that, touched as always by
+    anything that concerns the heart, you were anxious to protect the
+    love-affair of Jérôme and Natalie. Now there is every reason to
+    suppose that these two, without consulting their fair protectress,
+    have run away, after throwing Mathias de Gorne down a well.
+
+    "Forgive me for not coming to see you. The whole thing is extremely
+    obscure; and, if I were with you, I should not have the detachment
+    of mind which is needed to think the case over."
+
+It was then half-past ten. Rénine went for a walk into the country, with
+his hands clasped behind his back and without vouchsafing a glance at the
+exquisite spectacle of the white meadows. He came back for lunch, still
+absorbed in his thoughts and indifferent to the talk of the customers of
+the inn, who on all sides were discussing recent events.
+
+He went up to his room and had been asleep some time when he was awakened
+by a tapping at the door. He got up and opened it:
+
+"Is it you?... Is it you?" he whispered.
+
+Hortense and he stood gazing at each other for some seconds in silence,
+holding each other's hands, as though nothing, no irrelevant thought and no
+utterance, must be allowed to interfere with the joy of their meeting. Then
+he asked:
+
+"Was I right in coming?"
+
+"Yes," she said, gently, "I expected you."
+
+"Perhaps it would have been better if you had sent for me sooner, instead
+of waiting.... Events did not wait, you see, and I don't quite know what's
+to become of Jérôme Vignal and Natalie de Gorne."
+
+"What, haven't you heard?" she said, quickly. "They've been arrested. They
+were going to travel by the express."
+
+"Arrested? No." Rénine objected. "People are not arrested like that. They
+have to be questioned first."
+
+"That's what's being done now. The authorities are making a search."
+
+"Where?"
+
+"At the château. And, as they are innocent.... For they are innocent,
+aren't they? You don't admit that they are guilty, any more than I do?"
+
+He replied:
+
+"I admit nothing, I can admit nothing, my dear. Nevertheless, I am bound
+to say that everything is against them ... except one fact, which is that
+everything is too much against them. It is not normal for so many proofs to
+be heaped up one on top of the other and for the man who commits a murder
+to tell his story so frankly. Apart from this, there's nothing but mystery
+and discrepancy."
+
+"Well?"
+
+"Well, I am greatly puzzled."
+
+"But you have a plan?"
+
+"None at all, so far. Ah, if I could see him, Jérôme Vignal, and her,
+Natalie de Gorne, and hear them and know what they are saying in their own
+defence! But you can understand that I sha'n't be permitted either to ask
+them any questions or to be present at their examination. Besides, it must
+be finished by this time."
+
+"It's finished at the château," she said, "but it's going to be continued
+at the manor-house."
+
+"Are they taking them to the manor-house?" he asked eagerly.
+
+"Yes ... at least, judging by what was said to the chauffeur of one of the
+procurator's two cars."
+
+"Oh, in that case," exclaimed Rénine, "the thing's done! The manor-house!
+Why, we shall be in the front row of the stalls! We shall see and hear
+everything; and, as a word, a tone of the voice, a quiver of the eyelids
+will be enough to give me the tiny clue I need, we may entertain some hope.
+Come along."
+
+He took her by the direct route which he had followed that morning, leading
+to the gate which the locksmith had opened. The gendarmes on duty at
+the manor-house had made a passage through the snow, beside the line of
+footprints and around the house. Chance enabled Rénine and Hortense to
+approach unseen and through a side-window to enter a corridor near a
+back-staircase. A few steps up was a little chamber which received its
+only light through a sort of bull's-eye, from the large room on the
+ground-floor. Rénine, during the morning visit, had noticed the bull's-eye,
+which was covered on the inside with a piece of cloth. He removed the cloth
+and cut out one of the panes.
+
+A few minutes later, a sound of voices rose from the other side of the
+house, no doubt near the well. The sound grew more distinct. A number of
+people flocked into the house. Some of them went up stairs to the first
+floor, while the sergeant arrived with a young man of whom Rénine and
+Hortense were able to distinguish only the tall figure:
+
+"Jérôme Vignal," said she.
+
+"Yes," said Rénine. "They are examining Madame de Gorne first, upstairs,
+in her bedroom."
+
+A quarter of an hour passed. Then the persons on the first floor came
+downstairs and went in. They were the procurator's deputy, his clerk, a
+commissary of police and two detectives.
+
+Madame de Gorne was shown in and the deputy asked Jérôme Vignal to step
+forward.
+
+Jérôme Vignal's face was certainly that of the strong man whom Hortense had
+depicted in her letter. He displayed no uneasiness, but rather decision and
+a resolute will. Natalie, who was short and very slight, with a feverish
+light in her eyes, nevertheless produced the same impression of quiet
+confidence.
+
+The deputy, who was examining the disordered furniture and the traces of
+the struggle, invited her to sit down and said to Jérôme:
+
+"Monsieur, I have not asked you many questions so far. This is a summary
+enquiry which I am conducting in your presence and which will be continued
+later by the examining-magistrate; and I wished above all to explain to you
+the very serious reasons for which I asked you to interrupt your journey
+and to come back here with Madame de Gorne. You are now in a position to
+refute the truly distressing charges that are hanging over you. I therefore
+ask you to tell me the exact truth."
+
+"Mr. Deputy," replied Jérôme, "the charges in question trouble me very
+little. The truth for which you are asking will defeat all the lies which
+chance has accumulated against me. It is this."
+
+He reflected for an instant and then, in clear, frank tones, said:
+
+"I love Madame de Gorne. The first time I met her, I conceived the greatest
+sympathy and admiration for her. But my affection has always been directed
+by the sole thought of her happiness. I love her, but I respect her even
+more. Madame de Gorne must have told you and I tell you again that she and
+I exchanged our first few words last night."
+
+He continued, in a lower voice:
+
+"I respect her the more inasmuch as she is exceedingly unhappy. All the
+world knows that every minute of her life was a martyrdom. Her husband
+persecuted her with ferocious hatred and frantic jealousy. Ask the
+servants. They will tell you of the long suffering of Natalie de Gorne, of
+the blows which she received and the insults which she had to endure. I
+tried to stop this torture by restoring to the rights of appeal which the
+merest stranger may claim when unhappiness and injustice pass a certain
+limit. I went three times to old de Gorne and begged him to interfere; but
+I found in him an almost equal hatred towards his daughter-in-law, the
+hatred which many people feel for anything beautiful and noble. At last
+I resolved on direct action and last night I took a step with regard to
+Mathias de Gorne which was ... a little unusual, I admit, but which seemed
+likely to succeed, considering the man's character. I swear, Mr. Deputy,
+that I had no other intention than to talk to Mathias de Gorne. Knowing
+certain particulars of his life which enabled me to bring effective
+pressure to bear upon him, I wished to make use of this advantage in order
+to achieve my purpose. If things turned out differently, I am not wholly
+to blame.... So I went there a little before nine o'clock. The servants, I
+knew, were out. He opened the door himself. He was alone."
+
+"Monsieur," said the deputy, interrupting him, "you are saying
+something--as Madame de Gorne, for that matter, did just now--which is
+manifestly opposed to the truth. Mathias de Gorne did not come home last
+night until eleven o'clock. We have two definite proofs of this: his
+father's evidence and the prints of his feet in the snow, which fell from
+a quarter past nine o'clock to eleven."
+
+"Mr. Deputy," Jérôme Vignal declared, without heeding the bad effect which
+his obstinacy was producing, "I am relating things as they were and not as
+they may be interpreted. But to continue. That clock marked ten minutes to
+nine when I entered this room. M. de Gorne, believing that he was about to
+be attacked, had taken down his gun. I placed my revolver on the table, out
+of reach of my hand, and sat down: 'I want to speak to you, monsieur,' I
+said. 'Please listen to me.' He did not stir and did not utter a single
+syllable. So I spoke. And straightway, crudely, without any previous
+explanations which might have softened the bluntness of my proposal, I
+spoke the few words which I had prepared beforehand: 'I have spent some
+months, monsieur,' I said, 'in making careful enquiries into your financial
+position. You have mortgaged every foot of your land. You have signed
+bills which will shortly be falling due and which it will be absolutely
+impossible for you to honour. You have nothing to hope for from your
+father, whose own affairs are in a very bad condition. So you are ruined. I
+have come to save you.'... He watched me, still without speaking, and sat
+down, which I took to mean that my suggestion was not entirely displeasing.
+Then I took a sheaf of bank-notes from my pocket, placed it before him
+and continued: 'Here is sixty thousand francs, monsieur. I will buy the
+Manoir-au-Puits, its lands and dependencies and take over the mortgages.
+The sum named is exactly twice what they are worth.'... I saw his eyes
+glittering. He asked my conditions. 'Only one,' I said, 'that you go to
+America.'... Mr. Deputy, we sat discussing for two hours. It was not that
+my offer roused his indignation--I should not have risked it if I had not
+known with whom I was dealing--but he wanted more and haggled greedily,
+though he refrained from mentioning the name of Madame de Gorne, to whom I
+myself had not once alluded. We might have been two men engaged in a
+dispute and seeking an agreement on common ground, whereas it was the
+happiness and the whole destiny of a woman that were at stake. At last,
+weary of the discussion, I accepted a compromise and we came to terms,
+which I resolved to make definite then and there. Two letters were
+exchanged between us: one in which he made the Manoir-au-Puits over to me
+for the sum which I had paid him; and one, which he pocketed immediately,
+by which I was to send him as much more in America on the day on which the
+decree of divorce was pronounced.... So the affair was settled. I am sure
+that at that moment he was accepting in good faith. He looked upon me less
+as an enemy and a rival than as a man who was doing him a service. He even
+went so far as to give me the key of the little door which opens on the
+fields, so that I might go home by the short cut. Unfortunately, while I
+was picking up my cap and greatcoat, I made the mistake of leaving on the
+table the letter of sale which he had signed. In a moment, Mathias de Gorne
+had seen the advantage which he could take of my slip: he could keep his
+property, keep his wife ... and keep the money. Quick as lightning, he
+tucked away the paper, hit me over the head with the butt-end of his gun,
+threw the gun on the floor and seized me by the throat with both hands. He
+had reckoned without his host. I was the stronger of the two; and after a
+sharp but short struggle, I mastered him and tied him up with a cord which
+I found lying in a corner ... Mr. Deputy, if my enemy's resolve was sudden,
+mine was no less so. Since, when all was said, he had accepted the bargain,
+I would force him to keep it, at least in so far as I was interested. A
+very few steps brought me to the first floor ... I had not a doubt that
+Madame de Gorne was there and had heard the sound of our discussion.
+Switching on the light of my pocket-torch, I looked into three bedrooms.
+The fourth was locked. I knocked at the door. There was no reply. But this
+was one of the moments in which a man allows no obstacle to stand in his
+way. I had seen a hammer in one of the rooms. I picked it up and smashed in
+the door.... Yes, Natalie was lying there, on the floor, in a dead faint. I
+took her in my arms, carried her downstairs and went through the kitchen.
+On seeing the snow outside, I at once realized that my footprints would be
+easily traced. But what did it matter? Was there any reason why I should
+put Mathias de Gorne off the scent? Not at all. With the sixty thousand
+francs in his possession, as well as the paper in which I undertook to pay
+him a like sum on the day of his divorce, to say nothing of his house and
+land, he would go away, leaving Natalie de Gorne to me. Nothing was changed
+between us, except one thing: instead of awaiting his good pleasure, I
+had at once seized the precious pledge which I coveted. What I feared,
+therefore, was not so much any subsequent attack on the part of Mathias
+de Gorne, but rather the indignant reproaches of his wife. What would she
+say when she realized that she was a prisoner in my hands?... The reasons
+why I escaped reproach Madame de Gorne has, I believe, had the frankness
+to tell you. Love calls forth love. That night, in my house, broken by
+emotion, she confessed her feeling for me. She loved me as I loved her.
+Our destinies were henceforth mingled. She and I set out at five o'clock
+this morning ... not foreseeing for an instant that we were amenable to
+the law."
+
+Jérôme Vignal's story was finished. He had told it straight off the reel,
+like a story learnt by heart and incapable of revision in any detail.
+
+There was a brief pause, during which Hortense whispered:
+
+"It all sounds quite possible and, in any case, very logical."
+
+"There are the objections to come," said Rénine. "Wait till you hear them.
+They are very serious. There's one in particular...."
+
+The deputy-procurator stated it at once:
+
+"And what became of M. de Gorne in all this?"
+
+"Mathias de Gorne?" asked Jérôme.
+
+"Yes. You have related, with an accent of great sincerity, a series of
+facts which I am quite willing to admit. Unfortunately, you have forgotten
+a point of the first importance: what became of Mathias de Gorne? You tied
+him up here, in this room. Well, this morning he was gone."
+
+"Of course, Mr. Deputy, Mathias de Gorne accepted the bargain in the end
+and went away."
+
+"By what road?"
+
+"No doubt by the road that leads to his father's house."
+
+"Where are his footprints? The expanse of snow is an impartial witness.
+After your fight with him, we see you, on the snow, moving away. Why don't
+we see him? He came and did not go away again. Where is he? There is not a
+trace of him ... or rather...."
+
+The deputy lowered his voice:
+
+"Or rather, yes, there are some traces on the way to the well and around
+the well ... traces which prove that the last struggle of all took place
+there.... And after that there is nothing ... not a thing...."
+
+Jérôme shrugged his shoulders:
+
+"You have already mentioned this, Mr. Deputy, and it implies a charge of
+homicide against me. I have nothing to say to it."
+
+"Have you anything to say to the fact that your revolver was picked up
+within fifteen yards of the well?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Or to the strange coincidence between the three shots heard in the night
+and the three cartridges missing from your revolver?"
+
+"No, Mr. Deputy, there was not, as you believe, a last struggle by the
+well, because I left M. de Gorne tied up, in this room, and because I also
+left my revolver here. On the other hand, if shots were heard, they were
+not fired by me."
+
+"A casual coincidence, therefore?"
+
+"That's a matter for the police to explain. My only duty is to tell the
+truth and you are not entitled to ask more of me."
+
+"And if that truth conflicts with the facts observed?"
+
+"It means that the facts are wrong, Mr. Deputy."
+
+"As you please. But, until the day when the police are able to make them
+agree with your statements, you will understand that I am obliged to keep
+you under arrest."
+
+"And Madame de Gorne?" asked Jérôme, greatly distressed.
+
+The deputy did not reply. He exchanged a few words with the commissary of
+police and then, beckoning to a detective, ordered him to bring up one of
+the two motor-cars. Then he turned to Natalie:
+
+"Madame, you have heard M. Vignal's evidence. It agrees word for word with
+your own. M. Vignal declares in particular that you had fainted when he
+carried you away. But did you remain unconscious all the way?"
+
+It seemed as though Jérôme's composure had increased Madame de Gorne's
+assurance. She replied:
+
+"I did not come to, monsieur, until I was at the château."
+
+"It's most extraordinary. Didn't you hear the three shots which were heard
+by almost every one in the village?"
+
+"I did not."
+
+"And did you see nothing of what happened beside the well?"
+
+"Nothing did happen. M. Vignal has told you so."
+
+"Then what has become of your husband?"
+
+"I don't know."
+
+"Come, madame, you really must assist the officers of the law and at least
+tell us what you think. Do you believe that there may have been an accident
+and that possibly M. de Gorne, who had been to see his father and had more
+to drink than usual, lost his balance and fell into the well?"
+
+"When my husband came back from seeing his father, he was not in the least
+intoxicated."
+
+"His father, however, has stated that he was. His father and he had drunk
+two or three bottles of wine."
+
+"His father is not telling the truth."
+
+"But the snow tells the truth, madame," said the deputy, irritably. "And
+the line of his footprints wavers from side to side."
+
+"My husband came in at half-past-eight, monsieur, before the snow had begun
+to fall."
+
+The deputy struck the table with his fist:
+
+"But, really, madame, you're going right against the evidence!... That
+sheet of snow cannot speak false!... I may accept your denial of matters
+that cannot be verified. But these footprints in the snow ... in the
+snow...."
+
+He controlled himself.
+
+The motor-car drew up outside the windows. Forming a sudden resolve, he
+said to Natalie:
+
+"You will be good enough to hold yourself at the disposal of the
+authorities, madame, and to remain here, in the manor-house...."
+
+And he made a sign to the sergeant to remove Jérôme Vignal in the car.
+
+The game was lost for the two lovers. Barely united, they had to separate
+and to fight, far away from each other, against the most grievous
+accusations.
+
+Jérôme took a step towards Natalie. They exchanged a long, sorrowful look.
+Then he bowed to her and walked to the door, in the wake of the sergeant of
+gendarmes.
+
+"Halt!" cried a voice. "Sergeant, right about ... turn!... Jérôme Vignal,
+stay where you are!"
+
+The ruffled deputy raised his head, as did the other people present. The
+voice came from the ceiling. The bulls-eye window had opened and Rénine,
+leaning through it, was waving his arms:
+
+"I wish to be heard!... I have several remarks to make ... especially in
+respect of the zigzag footprints!... It all lies in that!... Mathias had
+not been drinking!..."
+
+He had turned round and put his two legs through the opening, saying to
+Hortense, who tried to prevent him:
+
+"Don't move.... No one will disturb you."
+
+And, releasing his hold, he dropped into the room.
+
+The deputy appeared dumfounded:
+
+"But, really, monsieur, who are you? Where do you come from?"
+
+Rénine brushed the dust from his clothes and replied:
+
+"Excuse me, Mr. Deputy. I ought to have come the same way as everybody
+else. But I was in a hurry. Besides, if I had come in by the door instead
+of falling from the ceiling, my words would not have made the same
+impression."
+
+The infuriated deputy advanced to meet him:
+
+"Who are you?"
+
+"Prince Rénine. I was with the sergeant this morning when he was pursuing
+his investigations, wasn't I, sergeant? Since then I have been hunting
+about for information. That's why, wishing to be present at the hearing,
+I found a corner in a little private room...."
+
+"You were there? You had the audacity?..."
+
+"One must needs be audacious, when the truth's at stake. If I had not
+been there, I should not have discovered just the one little clue which I
+missed. I should not have known that Mathias de Gorne was not the least bit
+drunk. Now that's the key to the riddle. When we know that, we know the
+solution."
+
+The deputy found himself in a rather ridiculous position. Since he
+had failed to take the necessary precautions to ensure the secrecy of
+his enquiry, it was difficult for him to take any steps against this
+interloper. He growled:
+
+"Let's have done with this. What are you asking?"
+
+"A few minutes of your kind attention."
+
+"And with what object?"
+
+"To establish the innocence of M. Vignal and Madame de Gorne."
+
+He was wearing that calm air, that sort of indifferent look which was
+peculiar to him in moments of actions when the crisis of the drama depended
+solely upon himself. Hortense felt a thrill pass through her and at once
+became full of confidence:
+
+"They're saved," she thought, with sudden emotion. "I asked him to protect
+that young creature; and he is saving her from prison and despair."
+
+Jérôme and Natalie must have experienced the same impression of sudden
+hope, for they had drawn nearer to each other, as though this stranger,
+descended from the clouds, had already given them the right to clasp hands.
+
+The deputy shrugged his shoulders:
+
+"The prosecution will have every means, when the time comes, of
+establishing their innocence for itself. You will be called."
+
+"It would be better to establish it here and now. Any delay might lead to
+grievous consequences."
+
+"I happen to be in a hurry."
+
+"Two or three minutes will do."
+
+"Two or three minutes to explain a case like this!"
+
+"No longer, I assure you."
+
+"Are you as certain of it as all that?"
+
+"I am now. I have been thinking hard since this morning."
+
+The deputy realized that this was one of those gentry who stick to you
+like a leech and that there was nothing for it but to submit. In a rather
+bantering tone, he asked:
+
+"Does your thinking enable you to tell us the exact spot where M. Mathias
+de Gorne is at this moment?"
+
+Rénine took out his watch and answered:
+
+"In Paris, Mr. Deputy."
+
+"In Paris? Alive then?"
+
+"Alive and, what is more, in the pink of health."
+
+"I am delighted to hear it. But then what's the meaning of the footprints
+around the well and the presence of that revolver and those three shots?"
+
+"Simply camouflage."
+
+"Oh, really? Camouflage contrived by whom?"
+
+"By Mathias de Gorne himself."
+
+"That's curious! And with what object?"
+
+"With the object of passing himself off for dead and of arranging
+subsequent matters in such a way that M. Vignal was bound to be accused of
+the death, the murder."
+
+"An ingenious theory," the deputy agreed, still in a satirical tone. "What
+do you think of it, M. Vignal?"
+
+"It is a theory which flashed through my own mind. Mr. Deputy," replied
+Jérôme. "It is quite likely that, after our struggle and after I had gone,
+Mathias de Gorne conceived a new plan by which, this time, his hatred would
+be fully gratified. He both loved and detested his wife. He held me in the
+greatest loathing. This must be his revenge."
+
+"His revenge would cost him dear, considering that, according to your
+statement, Mathias de Gorne was to receive a second sum of sixty thousand
+francs from you."
+
+"He would receive that sum in another quarter, Mr. Deputy. My examination
+of the financial position of the de Gorne family revealed to me the fact
+that the father and son had taken out a life-insurance policy in each
+other's favour. With the son dead, or passing for dead, the father would
+receive the insurance-money and indemnify his son."
+
+"You mean to say," asked the deputy, with a smile, "that in all this
+camouflage, as you call it, M. de Gorne the elder would act as his son's
+accomplice?"
+
+Rénine took up the challenge:
+
+"Just so, Mr. Deputy. The father and son are accomplices.
+
+"Then we shall find the son at the father's?"
+
+"You would have found him there last night."
+
+"What became of him?"
+
+"He took the train at Pompignat."
+
+"That's a mere supposition."
+
+"No, a certainty."
+
+"A moral certainty, perhaps, but you'll admit there's not the slightest
+proof."
+
+The deputy did not wait for a reply. He considered that he had displayed an
+excessive goodwill and that patience has its limits and he put an end to
+the interview:
+
+"Not the slightest proof," he repeated, taking up his hat. "And, above
+all, ... above all, there's nothing in what you've said that can contradict
+in the very least the evidence of that relentless witness, the snow. To go
+to his father, Mathias de Gorne must have left this house. Which way did he
+go?"
+
+"Hang it all, M. Vignal told you: by the road which leads from here to his
+father's!"
+
+"There are no tracks in the snow."
+
+"Yes, there are."
+
+"But they show him coming here and not going away from here."
+
+"It's the same thing."
+
+"What?"
+
+"Of course it is. There's more than one way of walking. One doesn't always
+go ahead by following one's nose."
+
+"In what other way can one go ahead?"
+
+"By walking backwards, Mr. Deputy."
+
+These few words, spoken very simply, but in a clear tone which gave full
+value to every syllable, produced a profound silence. Those present at
+once grasped their extreme significance and, by adapting it to the actual
+happenings, perceived in a flash the impenetrable truth, which suddenly
+appeared to be the most natural thing in the world.
+
+Rénine continued his argument. Stepping backwards in the direction of the
+window, he said:
+
+"If I want to get to that window, I can of course walk straight up to it;
+but I can just as easily turn my back to it and walk that way. In either
+case I reach my goal."
+
+And he at once proceeded in a vigorous tone:
+
+"Here's the gist of it all. At half-past eight, before the snow fell, M. de
+Gorne comes home from his father's house. M. Vignal arrives twenty minutes
+later. There is a long discussion and a struggle, taking up three hours in
+all. It is then, after M. Vignal has carried off Madame de Gorne and made
+his escape, that Mathias de Gorne, foaming at the mouth, wild with rage,
+but suddenly seeing his chance of taking the most terrible revenge, hits
+upon the ingenious idea of using against his enemy the very snowfall upon
+whose evidence you are now relying. He therefore plans his own murder, or
+rather the appearance of his murder and of his fall to the bottom of the
+well and makes off backwards, step by step, thus recording his arrival
+instead of his departure on the white page."
+
+The deputy sneered no longer. This eccentric intruder suddenly appeared to
+him in the light of a person worthy of attention, whom it would not do to
+make fun of. He asked:
+
+"And how could he have left his father's house?"
+
+"In a trap, quite simply."
+
+"Who drove it?"
+
+"The father. This morning the sergeant and I saw the trap and spoke to the
+father, who was going to market as usual. The son was hidden under the
+tilt. He took the train at Pompignat and is in Paris by now."
+
+Rénine's explanation, as promised, had taken hardly five minutes. He had
+based it solely on logic and the probabilities of the case. And yet not a
+jot was left of the distressing mystery in which they were floundering. The
+darkness was dispelled. The whole truth appeared.
+
+Madame de Gorne wept for joy and Jérôme Vignal thanked the good genius who
+was changing the course of events with a stroke of his magic wand.
+
+"Shall we examine those footprints together, Mr. Deputy?" asked Rénine. "Do
+you mind? The mistake which the sergeant and I made this morning was to
+investigate only the footprints left by the alleged murderer and to neglect
+Mathias de Gorne's. Why indeed should they have attracted our attention?
+Yet it was precisely there that the crux of the whole affair was to be
+found."
+
+They stepped into the orchard and went to the well. It did not need a
+long examination to observe that many of the footprints were awkward,
+hesitating, too deeply sunk at the heel and toe and differing from one
+another in the angle at which the feet were turned.
+
+"This clumsiness was unavoidable," said Rénine. "Mathias de Gorne would
+have needed a regular apprenticeship before his backward progress could
+have equalled his ordinary gait; and both his father and he must have been
+aware of this, at least as regards the zigzags which you see here since old
+de Gorne went out of his way to tell the sergeant that his son had had too
+much drink." And he added "Indeed it was the detection of this falsehood
+that suddenly enlightened me. When Madame de Gorne stated that her husband
+was not drunk, I thought of the footprints and guessed the truth."
+
+The deputy frankly accepted his part in the matter and began to laugh:
+
+"There's nothing left for it but to send detectives after the bogus
+corpse."
+
+"On what grounds, Mr. Deputy?" asked Rénine. "Mathias de Gorne has
+committed no offence against the law. There's nothing criminal in trampling
+the soil around a well, in shifting the position of a revolver that doesn't
+belong to you, in firing three shots or in walking backwards to one's
+father's house. What can we ask of him? The sixty thousand francs? I
+presume that this is not M. Vignal's intention and that he does not mean to
+bring a charge against him?"
+
+"Certainly not," said Jérôme.
+
+"Well, what then? The insurance-policy in favour of the survivor? But there
+would be no misdemeanour unless the father claimed payment. And I should be
+greatly surprised if he did.... Hullo, here the old chap is! You'll soon
+know all about it."
+
+Old de Gorne was coming along, gesticulating as he walked. His easy-going
+features were screwed up to express sorrow and anger.
+
+"Where's my son?" he cried. "It seems the brute's killed him!... My poor
+Mathias dead! Oh, that scoundrel of a Vignal!"
+
+And he shook his fist at Jérôme.
+
+The deputy said, bluntly:
+
+"A word with you, M. de Gorne. Do you intend to claim your rights under a
+certain insurance-policy?"
+
+"Well, what do _you_ think?" said the old man, off his guard.
+
+"The fact is ... your son's not dead. People are even saying that you were
+a partner in his little schemes and that you stuffed him under the tilt of
+your trap and drove him to the station."
+
+The old fellow spat on the ground, stretched out his hand as though he
+were going to take a solemn oath, stood for an instant without moving and
+then, suddenly, changing his mind and his tactics with ingenuous cynicism,
+he relaxed his features, assumed a conciliatory attitude and burst out
+laughing:
+
+"That blackguard Mathias! So he tried to pass himself off as dead? What a
+rascal! And he reckoned on me to collect the insurance-money and send it
+to him? As if I should be capable of such a low, dirty trick!... You don't
+know me, my boy!"
+
+And, without waiting for more, shaking with merriment like a jolly old
+fellow amused by a funny story, he took his departure, not forgetting,
+however, to set his great hob-nail boots on each of the compromising
+footprints which his son had left behind him.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Later, when Rénine went back to the manor to let Hortense out, he found
+that she had disappeared.
+
+He called and asked for her at her cousin Ermelin's. Hortense sent down
+word asking him to excuse her: she was feeling a little tired and was lying
+down.
+
+"Capital!" thought Rénine. "Capital! She avoids me, therefore she loves me.
+The end is not far off."
+
+
+
+
+VIII
+
+AT THE SIGN OF MERCURY
+
+
+_To Madame Daniel,
+  La Roncière,
+    near Bassicourt._
+
+"PARIS 30 NOVEMBER
+
+"My Dearest Friend,--
+
+"There has been no letter from you for a fortnight; so I don't expect now
+to receive one for that troublesome date of the 5th of December, which we
+fixed as the last day of our partnership. I rather wish it would come,
+because you will then be released from a contract which no longer seems to
+give you pleasure. To me the seven battles which we fought and won together
+were a time of endless delight and enthusiasm. I was living beside you. I
+was conscious of all the good which that more active and stirring existence
+was doing you. My happiness was so great that I dared not speak of it to
+you or let you see anything of my secret feelings except my desire to
+please you and my passionate devotion. To-day you have had enough of your
+brother in arms. Your will shall be law.
+
+"But, though I bow to your decree, may I remind I you what it was that I
+always believed our final adventure would be? May I repeat your words, not
+one of which I have forgotten?
+
+"'I demand,' you said, 'that you shall restore to me a small, antique
+clasp, made of a cornelian set in a filigree mount. It came to me from my
+mother; and every one knew that it used to bring her happiness and me too.
+Since the day when it vanished from my jewel-case, I have had nothing but
+unhappiness. Restore it to me, my good genius.'
+
+"And, when I asked you when the clasp had disappeared, you answered, with a
+laugh:
+
+"'Seven years ago ... or eight ... or nine: I don't know exactly.... I
+don't know when ... I don't know how ... I know nothing about it....'
+
+"You were challenging me, were you not, and you set me that condition
+because it was one which I could not fulfil? Nevertheless, I promised and I
+should like to keep my promise. What I have tried to do, in order to place
+life before you in a more favourable light, would seem purposeless, if your
+confidence feels the lack of this talisman to which you attach so great a
+value. We must not laugh at these little superstitions. They are often the
+mainspring of our best actions.
+
+"Dear friend, if you had helped me, I should have achieved yet one more
+victory. Alone and hard pushed by the proximity of the date, I have failed,
+not however without placing things on such a footing that the undertaking
+if you care to follow it up, has the greatest chance of success.
+
+"And you will follow it up, won't you? We have entered into a mutual
+agreement which we are bound to honour. It behooves us, within a fixed
+time, to inscribe in the book of our common life eight good stories, to
+which we shall have brought energy, logic, perseverance, some subtlety and
+occasionally a little heroism. This is the eighth of them. It is for you to
+act so that it may be written in its proper place on the 5th of December,
+before the clock strikes eight in the evening.
+
+"And, on that day, you will act as I shall now tell you.
+
+"First of all--and above all, my dear, do not complain that my instructions
+are fanciful: each of them is an indispensable condition of success--first
+of all, cut in your cousin's garden three slender lengths of rush. Plait
+them together and bind up the two ends so as to make a rude switch, like a
+child's whip-lash.
+
+"When you get to Paris, buy a long necklace of jet beads, cut into facets,
+and shorten it so that it consists of seventy-five beads, of almost equal
+size.
+
+"Under your winter cloak, wear a blue woollen gown. On your head, a toque
+with red leaves on it. Round your neck, a feather boa. No gloves. No rings.
+
+"In the afternoon, take a cab along the left bank of the river to the
+church of Saint-Étienne-du-Mont. At four o'clock exactly, there will be,
+near the holy-water basin, just inside the church, an old woman dressed
+in black, saying her prayers on a silver rosary. She will offer you holy
+water. Give her your necklace. She will count the beads and hand it back
+to you. After this, you will walk behind her, you will cross an arm of the
+Seine and she will lead you, down a lonely street in the Ile Saint-Louis,
+to a house which you will enter by yourself.
+
+"On the ground-floor of this house, you will find a youngish man with a
+very pasty complexion. Take off your cloak and then say to him:
+
+"'I have come to fetch my clasp.'
+
+"Do not be astonished by his agitation or dismay. Keep calm in his
+presence. If he questions you, if he wants to know your reason for applying
+to him or what impels you to make that request, give him no explanation.
+Your replies must be confined to these brief formulas:
+
+"'I have come to fetch what belongs to me. I don't know you, I don't know
+your name; but I am obliged to come to you like this. I must have my clasp
+returned to me. I must.'
+
+"I honestly believe that, if you have the firmness not to swerve from
+that attitude, whatever farce the man may play, you will be completely
+successful. But the contest must be a short one and the issue will depend
+solely on your confidence in yourself and your certainty of success. It
+will be a sort of match in which you must defeat your opponent in the first
+round. If you remain impassive, you will win. If you show hesitation or
+uneasiness, you can do nothing against him. He will escape you and regain
+the upper hand after a first moment of distress; and the game will be lost
+in a few minutes. There is no midway house between victory or ... defeat.
+
+"In the latter event, you would be obliged--I beg you to pardon me for
+saying so--again to accept my collaboration. I offer it you in advance, my
+dear, and without any conditions, while stating quite plainly that all that
+I have been able to do for you and all that I may yet do gives me no other
+right than that of thanking you and devoting myself more than ever to the
+woman who represents my joy, my whole life."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Hortense, after reading the letter, folded it up and put it away at the
+back of a drawer, saying, in a resolute voice:
+
+"I sha'n't go."
+
+To begin with, although she had formerly attached some slight importance
+to this trinket, which she had regarded as a mascot, she felt very little
+interest in it now that the period of her trials was apparently at an end.
+She could not forget that figure eight, which was the serial number of the
+next adventure. To launch herself upon it meant taking up the interrupted
+chain, going back to Rénine and giving him a pledge which, with his powers
+of suggestion, he would know how to turn to account.
+
+Two days before the 5th of December, she was still in the same frame of
+mind. So she was on the morning of the 4th; but suddenly, without even
+having to contend against preliminary subterfuges, she ran out into the
+garden, cut three lengths of rush, plaited them as she used to do in her
+childhood and at twelve o'clock had herself driven to the station. She was
+uplifted by an eager curiosity. She was unable to resist all the amusing
+and novel sensations which the adventure, proposed by Rénine, promised her.
+It was really too tempting. The jet necklace, the toque with the autumn
+leaves, the old woman with the silver rosary: how could she resist their
+mysterious appeal and how could she refuse this opportunity of showing
+Rénine what she was capable of doing?
+
+"And then, after all," she said to herself, laughing, "he's summoning me to
+Paris. Now eight o'clock is dangerous to me at a spot three hundred miles
+from Paris, in that old deserted Château de Halingre, but nowhere else. The
+only clock that can strike the threatening hour is down there, under lock
+and key, a prisoner!"
+
+She reached Paris that evening. On the morning of the 5th she went out and
+bought a jet necklace, which she reduced to seventy-five beads, put on
+a blue gown and a toque with red leaves and, at four o'clock precisely,
+entered the church of Saint-Étienne-du-Mont.
+
+Her heart was throbbing violently. This time she was alone; and how acutely
+she now felt the strength of that support which, from unreflecting fear
+rather than any reasonable motive, she had thrust aside! She looked around
+her, almost hoping to see him. But there was no one there ... no one except
+an old lady in black, standing beside the holy water basin.
+
+Hortense went up to her. The old lady, who held a silver rosary in her
+hands, offered her holy water and then began to count the beads of the
+necklace which Hortense gave her.
+
+She whispered:
+
+"Seventy-five. That's right. Come."
+
+Without another word, she toddled along under the light of the
+street-lamps, crossed the Pont des Tournelles to the Ile Saint-Louis and
+went down an empty street leading to a cross-roads, where she stopped in
+front of an old house with wrought-iron balconies:
+
+"Go in," she said.
+
+And the old lady went away.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Hortense now saw a prosperous-looking shop which occupied almost the
+whole of the ground-floor and whose windows, blazing with electric light,
+displayed a huddled array of old furniture and antiquities. She stood there
+for a few seconds, gazing at it absently. A sign-board bore the words "The
+Mercury," together with the name of the owner of the shop, "Pancaldi."
+Higher up, on a projecting cornice which ran on a level with the first
+floor, a small niche sheltered a terra-cotta Mercury poised on one foot,
+with wings to his sandals and the caduceus in his hand, who, as Hortense
+noted, was leaning a little too far forward in the ardour of his flight
+and ought logically to have lost his balance and taken a header into the
+street.
+
+"Now!" she said, under her breath.
+
+She turned the handle of the door and walked in.
+
+Despite the ringing of the bells actuated by the opening door, no one came
+to meet her. The shop seemed to be empty. However, at the extreme end there
+was a room at the back of the shop and after that another, both crammed
+with furniture and knick-knacks, many of which looked very valuable.
+Hortense followed a narrow gangway which twisted and turned between two
+walls built up of cupboards, cabinets and console-tables, went up two steps
+and found herself in the last room of all.
+
+A man was sitting at a writing-desk and looking through some account-books.
+Without turning his head, he said:
+
+"I am at your service, madam.... Please look round you...."
+
+This room contained nothing but articles of a special character which
+gave it the appearance of some alchemist's laboratory in the middle ages:
+stuffed owls, skeletons, skulls, copper alembics, astrolabes and all
+around, hanging on the walls, amulets of every description, mainly hands
+of ivory or coral with two fingers pointing to ward off ill-luck.
+
+"Are you wanting anything in particular, madam?" asked M. Pancaldi, closing
+his desk and rising from his chair.
+
+"It's the man," thought Hortense.
+
+He had in fact an uncommonly pasty complexion. A little forked beard,
+flecked with grey, lengthened his face, which was surmounted by a bald,
+pallid forehead, beneath which gleamed a pair of small, prominent,
+restless, shifty eyes.
+
+Hortense, who had not removed her veil or cloak, replied:
+
+"I want a clasp."
+
+"They're in this show-case," he said, leading the way to the connecting
+room.
+
+Hortense glanced over the glass case and said:
+
+"No, no, ... I don't see what I'm looking for. I don't want just any clasp,
+but a clasp which I lost out of a jewel-case some years ago and which I
+have to look for here."
+
+She was astounded to see the commotion displayed on his features. His eyes
+became haggard.
+
+"Here?... I don't think you are in the least likely.... What sort of clasp
+is it?..."
+
+"A cornelian, mounted in gold filigree ... of the 1830 period."
+
+"I don't understand," he stammered. "Why do you come to me?"
+
+She now removed her veil and laid aside her cloak.
+
+He stepped back, as though terrified by the sight of her, and whispered:
+
+"The blue gown!... The toque!... And--can I believe my eyes?--the jet
+necklace!..."
+
+It was perhaps the whip-lash formed of three rushes that excited him most
+violently. He pointed his finger at it, began to stagger where he stood and
+ended by beating the air with his arms, like a drowning man, and fainting
+away in a chair.
+
+Hortense did not move.
+
+"Whatever farce he may play," Rénine had written, "have the courage to
+remain impassive."
+
+Perhaps he was not playing a farce. Nevertheless she forced herself to be
+calm and indifferent.
+
+This lasted for a minute or two, after which M. Pancaldi recovered from
+his swoon, wiped away the perspiration streaming down his forehead and,
+striving to control himself, resumed, in a trembling voice:
+
+"Why do you apply to me?"
+
+"Because the clasp is in your possession."
+
+"Who told you that?" he said, without denying the accusation. "How do you
+know?"
+
+"I know because it is so. Nobody has told me anything. I came here positive
+that I should find my clasp and with the immovable determination to take it
+away with me."
+
+"But do you know me? Do you know my name?"
+
+"I don't know you. I did not know your name before I read it over your
+shop. To me you are simply the man who is going to give me back what
+belongs to me."
+
+He was greatly agitated. He kept on walking to and fro in a small empty
+space surrounded by a circle of piled-up furniture, at which he hit out
+idiotically, at the risk of bringing it down.
+
+Hortense felt that she had the whip hand of him; and, profiting by his
+confusion, she said, suddenly, in a commanding and threatening tone:
+
+"Where is the thing? You must give it back to me. I insist upon it."
+
+Pancaldi gave way to a moment of despair. He folded his hands and mumbled a
+few words of entreaty. Then, defeated and suddenly resigned, he said, more
+distinctly:
+
+"You insist?..."
+
+"I do. You must give it to me."
+
+"Yes, yes, I must ... I agree."
+
+"Speak!" she ordered, more harshly still.
+
+"Speak, no, but write: I will write my secret.... And that will be the end
+of me."
+
+He turned to his desk and feverishly wrote a few lines on a sheet of paper,
+which he put into an envelope and sealed it:
+
+"See," he said, "here's my secret.... It was my whole life...."
+
+And, so saying, he suddenly pressed against his temple a revolver which he
+had produced from under a pile of papers and fired.
+
+With a quick movement, Hortense struck up his arm. The bullet struck the
+mirror of a cheval-glass. But Pancaldi collapsed and began to groan, as
+though he were wounded.
+
+Hortense made a great effort not to lose her composure:
+
+"Rénine warned me," she reflected. "The man's a play-actor. He has kept the
+envelope. He has kept his revolver, I won't be taken in by him."
+
+Nevertheless, she realized that, despite his apparent calmness, the attempt
+at suicide and the revolver-shot had completely unnerved her. All her
+energies were dispersed, like the sticks of a bundle whose string has been
+cut; and she had a painful impression that the man, who was grovelling at
+her feet, was in reality slowly getting the better of her.
+
+She sat down, exhausted. As Rénine had foretold, the duel had not lasted
+longer than a few minutes but it was she who had succumbed, thanks to her
+feminine nerves and at the very moment when she felt entitled to believe
+that she had won.
+
+The man Pancaldi was fully aware of this; and, without troubling to invent
+a transition, he ceased his jeremiads, leapt to his feet, cut a sort of
+agile caper before Hortense' eyes and cried, in a jeering tone:
+
+"Now we are going to have a little chat; but it would be a nuisance to be
+at the mercy of the first passing customer, wouldn't it?"
+
+He ran to the street-door, opened it and pulled down the iron shutter which
+closed the shop. Then, still hopping and skipping, he came back to
+Hortense:
+
+"Oof! I really thought I was done for! One more effort, madam, and you
+would have pulled it off. But then I'm such a simple chap! It seemed to me
+that you had come from the back of beyond, as an emissary of Providence,
+to call me to account; and, like a fool, I was about to give the thing
+back.... Ah, Mlle. Hortense--let me call you so: I used to know you by that
+name--Mlle. Hortense, what you lack, to use a vulgar expression, is gut."
+
+He sat down beside her and, with a malicious look, said, savagely:
+
+"The time has come to speak out. Who contrived this business? Not you; eh?
+It's not in your style. Then who?... I have always been honest in my life,
+scrupulously honest ... except once ... in the matter of that clasp. And,
+whereas I thought the story was buried and forgotten, here it is suddenly
+raked up again. Why? That's what I want to know."
+
+Hortense was no longer even attempting to fight. He was bringing to bear
+upon her all his virile strength, all his spite, all his fears, all the
+threats expressed in his furious gestures and on his features, which were
+both ridiculous and evil:
+
+"Speak, I want to know. If I have a secret foe, let me defend myself
+against him! Who is he? Who sent you here? Who urged you to take action? Is
+it a rival incensed by my good luck, who wants in his turn to benefit by
+the clasp? Speak, can't you, damn it all ... or, I swear by Heaven, I'll
+make you!..."
+
+She had an idea that he was reaching out for his revolver and stepped back,
+holding her arms before her, in the hope of escaping.
+
+They thus struggled against each other; and Hortense, who was becoming
+more and more frightened, not so much of the attack as of her assailant's
+distorted face, was beginning to scream, when Pancaldi suddenly stood
+motionless, with his arms before him, his fingers outstretched and his eyes
+staring above Hortense's head:
+
+"Who's there? How did you get in?" he asked, in a stifled voice.
+
+Hortense did not even need to turn round to feel assured that Rénine was
+coming to her assistance and that it was his inexplicable appearance that
+was causing the dealer such dismay. As a matter of fact, a slender figure
+stole through a heap of easy chairs and sofas: and Rénine came forward with
+a tranquil step.
+
+"Who are you?" repeated Pancaldi. "Where do you come from?"
+
+"From up there," he said, very amiably, pointing to the ceiling.
+
+"From up there?"
+
+"Yes, from the first floor. I have been the tenant of the floor above this
+for the past three months. I heard a noise just now. Some one was calling
+out for help. So I came down."
+
+"But how did you get in here?"
+
+"By the staircase."
+
+"What staircase?"
+
+"The iron staircase, at the end of the shop. The man who owned it before
+you had a flat on my floor and used to go up and down by that hidden
+staircase. You had the door shut off. I opened it."
+
+"But by what right, sir? It amounts to breaking in."
+
+"Breaking in is allowed, when there's a fellow-creature to be rescued."
+
+"Once more, who are you?"
+
+"Prince Rénine ... and a friend of this lady's," said Rénine, bending over
+Hortense and kissing her hand.
+
+Pancaldi seemed to be choking, and mumbled:
+
+"Oh, I understand!... You instigated the plot ... it was you who sent the
+lady...."
+
+"It was, M. Pancaldi, it was!"
+
+"And what are your intentions?"
+
+"My intentions are irreproachable. No violence. Simply a little interview.
+When that is over, you will hand over what I in my turn have come to
+fetch."
+
+"What?"
+
+"The clasp."
+
+"That, never!" shouted the dealer.
+
+"Don't say no. It's a foregone conclusion."
+
+"No power on earth, sir, can compel me to do such a thing!"
+
+"Shall we send for your wife? Madame Pancaldi will perhaps realize the
+position better than you do."
+
+The idea of no longer being alone with this unexpected adversary seemed to
+appeal to Pancaldi. There was a bell on the table beside him. He struck it
+three times.
+
+"Capital!" exclaimed Rénine "You see, my dear, M. Pancaldi is becoming
+quite amiable. Not a trace left of the devil broken loose who was going for
+you just now. No, M. Pancaldi only has to find himself dealing with a man
+to recover his qualities of courtesy and kindness. A perfect sheep! Which
+does not mean that things will go quite of themselves. Far from it! There's
+no more obstinate animal than a sheep...."
+
+Right at the end of the shop, between the dealer's writing-desk and the
+winding staircase, a curtain was raised, admitting a woman who was holding
+a door open. She might have been thirty years of age. Very simply dressed,
+she looked, with the apron on her, more like a cook than like the mistress
+of a household. But she had an attractive face and a pleasing figure.
+
+Hortense, who had followed Rénine, was surprised to recognize her as a maid
+whom she had had in her service when a girl:
+
+"What! Is that you, Lucienne? Are you Madame Pancaldi?"
+
+The newcomer looked at her, recognized her also and seemed embarrassed.
+Rénine said to her:
+
+"Your husband and I need your assistance, Madame Pancaldi, to settle a
+rather complicated matter a matter in which you played an important
+part...."
+
+She came forward without a word, obviously ill at ease, asking her husband,
+who did not take his eyes off her:
+
+"What is it?... What do they want with me?... What is he referring to?"
+
+"It's about the clasp!" Pancaldi whispered, under his breath.
+
+These few words were enough to make Madame Pancaldi realize to the full the
+seriousness of her position. And she did not try to keep her countenance or
+to retort with futile protests. She sank into a chair, sighing:
+
+"Oh, that's it!... I understand.... Mlle. Hortense has found the track....
+Oh, it's all up with us!"
+
+There was a moment's respite. The struggle between the adversaries had
+hardly begun, before the husband and wife adopted the attitude of defeated
+persons whose only hope lay in the victor's clemency. Staring motionless
+before her, Madame Pancaldi began to cry. Rénine bent over her and said:
+
+"Do you mind if we go over the case from the beginning? We shall then
+see things more clearly; and I am sure that our interview will lead to a
+perfectly natural solution.... This is how things happened: nine years ago,
+when you were lady's maid to Mlle. Hortense in the country, you made the
+acquaintance of M. Pancaldi, who soon became your lover. You were both of
+you Corsicans, in other words, you came from a country where superstitions
+are very strong and where questions of good and bad luck, the evil eye, and
+spells and charms exert a profound influence over the lives of one and all.
+Now it was said that your young mistress' clasp had always brought luck to
+its owners. That was why, in a weak moment prompted by M. Pancaldi, you
+stole the clasp. Six months afterwards, you became Madame Pancaldi.... That
+is your whole story, is it not, told in a few sentences? The whole story
+of two people who would have remained honest members of society, if they
+had been able to resist that casual temptation?... I need not tell you how
+you both succeeded in life and how, possessing the talisman, believing
+its powers and trusting in yourselves, you rose to the first rank of
+antiquarians. To-day, well-off, owning this shop, "The Mercury," you
+attribute the success of your undertakings to that clasp. To lose it would
+to your eyes spell bankruptcy and poverty. Your whole life has been centred
+upon it. It is your fetish. It is the little household god who watches over
+you and guides your steps. It is there, somewhere, hidden in this jungle;
+and no one of course would ever have suspected anything--for I repeat, you
+are decent people, but for this one lapse--if an accident had not led me to
+look into your affairs."
+
+Rénine paused and continued:
+
+"That was two months ago, two months of minute investigations, which
+presented no difficulty to me, because, having discovered your trail, I
+hired the flat overhead and was able to use that staircase ... but, all
+the same, two months wasted to a certain extent because I have not yet
+succeeded. And Heaven knows how I have ransacked this shop of yours! There
+is not a piece of furniture that I have left unsearched, not a plank in
+the floor that I have not inspected. All to no purpose. Yes, there was one
+thing, an incidental discovery. In a secret recess in your writing-table,
+Pancaldi, I turned up a little account-book in which you have set down your
+remorse, your uneasiness, your fear of punishment and your dread of God's
+wrath.... It was highly imprudent of you, Pancaldi! People don't write
+such confessions! And, above all, they don't leave them lying about! Be
+this as it may, I read them and I noted one passage, which struck me
+as particularly important and was of use to me in preparing my plan of
+campaign: 'Should she come to me, the woman whom I robbed, should she come
+to me as I saw her in her garden, while Lucienne was taking the clasp;
+should she appear to me wearing the blue gown and the toque of red leaves,
+with the jet necklace and the whip of three plaited rushes which she was
+carrying that day; should she appear to me thus and say: "I have come to
+claim my property," then I shall understand that her conduct is inspired
+from on high and that I must obey the decree of Providence.' That is what
+is written in your book, Pancaldi, and it explains the conduct of the lady
+whom you call Mlle. Hortense. Acting on my instructions and in accordance
+with the setting thought out by yourself, she came to you, from the back of
+beyond, to use your own expression. A little more self-possession on her
+part; and you know that she would have won the day. Unfortunately, you are
+a wonderful actor; your sham suicide put her out; and you understood that
+this was not a decree of Providence, but simply an offensive on the part of
+your former victim. I had no choice, therefore, but to intervene. Here I
+am.... And now let's finish the business. Pancaldi, that clasp!"
+
+"No," said the dealer, who seemed to recover all his energy at the very
+thought of restoring the clasp.
+
+"And you, Madame Pancaldi."
+
+"I don't know where it is," the wife declared.
+
+"Very well. Then let us come to deeds. Madame Pancaldi, you have a son of
+seven whom you love with all your heart. This is Thursday and, as on every
+Thursday, your little boy is to come home alone from his aunt's. Two of my
+friends are posted on the road by which he returns and, in the absence of
+instructions to the contrary, will kidnap him as he passes."
+
+Madame Pancaldi lost her head at once:
+
+"My son! Oh, please, please ... not that!... I swear that I know nothing.
+My husband would never consent to confide in me."
+
+Rénine continued:
+
+"Next point. This evening, I shall lodge an information with the public
+prosecutor. Evidence: the confessions in the account-book. Consequences:
+action by the police, search of the premises and the rest."
+
+Pancaldi was silent. The others had a feeling that all these threats did
+not affect him and that, protected by his fetish, he believed himself
+to be invulnerable. But his wife fell on her knees at Rénine's feet and
+stammered:
+
+"No, no ... I entreat you!... It would mean going to prison and I don't
+want to go!... And then my son!... Oh, I entreat you!..."
+
+Hortense, seized with compassion, took Rénine to one side:
+
+"Poor woman! Let me intercede for her."
+
+"Set your mind at rest," he said. "Nothing is going to happen to her son."
+
+"But your two friends?"
+
+"Sheer bluff."
+
+"Your application to the public prosecutor?"
+
+"A mere threat."
+
+"Then what are you trying to do?"
+
+"To frighten them out of their wits, in the hope of making them drop a
+remark, a word, which will tell us what we want to know. We've tried every
+other means. This is the last; and it is a method which, I find, nearly
+always succeeds. Remember our adventures."
+
+"But if the word which you expect to hear is not spoken?"
+
+"It must be spoken," said Rénine, in a low voice. "We must finish the
+matter. The hour is at hand."
+
+His eyes met hers; and she blushed crimson at the thought that the hour to
+which he was alluding was the eighth and that he had no other object than
+to finish the matter before that eighth hour struck.
+
+"So you see, on the one hand, what you are risking," he said to the
+Pancaldi pair. "The disappearance of your child ... and prison: prison for
+certain, since there is the book with its confessions. And now, on the
+other hand, here's my offer: twenty thousand francs if you hand over the
+clasp immediately, this minute. Remember, it isn't worth three louis."
+
+No reply. Madame Pancaldi was crying.
+
+Rénine resumed, pausing between each proposal:
+
+"I'll double my offer.... I'll treble it.... Hang it all, Pancaldi, you're
+unreasonable!... I suppose you want me to make it a round sum? All right: a
+hundred thousand francs."
+
+He held out his hand as if there was no doubt that they would give him the
+clasp.
+
+Madame Pancaldi was the first to yield and did so with a sudden outburst of
+rage against her husband:
+
+"Well, confess, can't you?... Speak up!... Where have you hidden it?...
+Look here, you aren't going to be obstinate, what? If you are, it means
+ruin ... and poverty.... And then there's our boy!... Speak out, do!"
+
+Hortense whispered:
+
+"Rénine, this is madness; the clasp has no value...."
+
+"Never fear," said Rénine, "he's not going to accept.... But look at
+him.... How excited he is! Exactly what I wanted.... Ah, this, you know,
+is really exciting!... To make people lose their heads! To rob them of all
+control over what they are thinking and saying!... And, in the midst of
+this confusion, in the storm that tosses them to and fro, to catch sight of
+the tiny spark which will flash forth somewhere or other!... Look at him!
+Look at the fellow! A hundred thousand francs for a valueless pebble ... if
+not, prison: it's enough to turn any man's head!"
+
+Pancaldi, in fact, was grey in the face; his lips were trembling and a
+drop of saliva was trickling from their corners. It was easy to guess the
+seething turmoil of his whole being, shaken by conflicting emotions, by the
+clash between greed and fear. Suddenly he burst out; and it was obvious
+that his words were pouring forth at random, without his knowing in the
+least what he was saying:
+
+"A hundred thousand francs! Two hundred thousand! Five hundred thousand! A
+million! A two fig for your millions! What's the use of millions? One loses
+them. They disappear.... They go.... There's only one thing that counts:
+luck. It's on your side or else against you. And luck has been on my side
+these last nine years. It has never betrayed me; and you expect me to
+betray it? Why? Out of fear? Prison? My son? Bosh!... No harm will come to
+me so long as I compel luck to work on my behalf. It's my servant, it's my
+friend. It clings to the clasp. How? How can I tell? It's the cornelian,
+no doubt.... There are magic stones, which hold happiness, as others hold
+fire, or sulphur, or gold...."
+
+Rénine kept his eyes fixed upon him, watching for the least word, the least
+modulation of the voice. The curiosity-dealer was now laughing, with a
+nervous laugh, while resuming the self-control of a man who feels sure of
+himself: and he walked up to Rénine with jerky movements that revealed an
+increasing resolution:
+
+"Millions? My dear sir, I wouldn't have them as a gift. The little bit of
+stone which I possess is worth much more than that. And the proof of it
+lies in all the pains which you are at to take it from me. Aha! Months
+devoted to looking for it, as you yourself confess! Months in which you
+turned everything topsy-turvy, while I, who suspected nothing, did not even
+defend myself! Why should I? The little thing defended itself all alone....
+It does not want to be discovered and it sha'n't be.... It likes being
+here.... It presides over a good, honest business that satisfies it....
+Pancaldi's luck! Why, it's known to all the neighbourhood, among all the
+dealers! I proclaim it from the house-tops: 'I'm a lucky man!' I even made
+so bold as to take the god of luck, Mercury, as my patron! He too protects
+me. See, I've got Mercuries all over my shop! Look up there, on that shelf,
+a whole row of statuettes, like the one over the front-door, proofs signed
+by a great sculptor who went smash and sold them to me.... Would you like
+one, my dear sir? It will bring you luck too. Take your pick! A present
+from Pancaldi, to make up to you for your defeat! Does that suit you?"
+
+He put a stool against the wall, under the shelf, took down a statuette and
+plumped it into Rénine's arms. And, laughing heartily, growing more and
+more excited as his enemy seemed to yield ground and to fall back before
+his spirited attack, he explained:
+
+"Well done! He accepts! And the fact that he accepts shows that we are all
+agreed! Madame Pancaldi, don't distress yourself. Your son's coming back and
+nobody's going to prison! Good-bye, Mlle. Hortense! Good-day, sir! Hope
+to see you again! If you want to speak to me at any time, just give three
+thumps on the ceiling. Good-bye ... don't forget your present ... and
+may Mercury be kind to you! Good-bye, my dear Prince! Good-bye, Mlle.
+Hortense!..."
+
+He hustled them to the iron staircase, gripped each of them by the arm in
+turn and pushed them up to the little door hidden at the top of the stairs.
+
+And the strange thing was that Rénine made no protest. He did not attempt
+to resist. He allowed himself to be led along like a naughty child that is
+taken up to bed.
+
+Less than five minutes had elapsed between the moment when he made his
+offer to Pancaldi and the moment when Pancaldi turned him out of the shop
+with a statuette in his arms.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The dining-room and drawing-room of the flat which Rénine had taken on the
+first floor looked out upon the street. The table in the dining-room was
+laid for two.
+
+"Forgive me, won't you?" said Rénine, as he opened the door of the
+drawing-room for Hortense. "I thought that, whatever happened, I should
+most likely see you this evening and that we might as well dine together.
+Don't refuse me this kindness, which will be the last favour granted in our
+last adventure."
+
+Hortense did not refuse him. The manner in which the battle had ended was
+so different from everything that she had seen hitherto that she felt
+disconcerted. At any rate, why should she refuse, seeing that the terms of
+the contract had not been fulfilled?
+
+Rénine left the room to give an order to his manservant. Two minutes later,
+he came back for Hortense. It was then a little past seven.
+
+There were flowers on the table; and the statue of Mercury, Pancaldi's
+present, stood overtopping them.
+
+"May the god of luck preside over our repast," said Rénine.
+
+He was full of animation and expressed his great delight at having her
+sitting opposite him:
+
+"Yes," he exclaimed, "I had to resort to powerful means and attract you by
+the bait of the most fabulous enterprises. You must confess that my letter
+was jolly smart! The three rushes, the blue gown; simply irresistible!
+And, when I had thrown in a few puzzles of my own invention, such as the
+seventy-five beads of the necklace and the old woman with the silver
+rosary, I knew that you were bound to succumb to the temptation. Don't be
+angry with me. I wanted to see you and I wanted it to be today. You have
+come and I thank you."
+
+He next told her how he had got on the track of the stolen trinket:
+
+"You hoped, didn't you, in laying down that condition, that I shouldn't be
+able to fulfil it? You made a mistake, my dear. The test, at least at the
+beginning, was easy enough, because it was based upon an undoubted fact:
+the talismanic character attributed to the clasp. I had only to hunt about
+and see whether among the people around you, among your servants, there was
+ever any one upon whom that character may have exercised some attraction.
+Now, on the list of persons which I succeeded in drawing up. I at once
+noticed the name of Mlle. Lucienne, as coming from Corsica. This was my
+starting-point. The rest was a mere concatenation of events."
+
+Hortense stared at him in amazement. How was it that he was accepting his
+defeat with such a careless air and even talking in a tone of triumph,
+whereas really he had been soundly beaten by Pancaldi and even made to look
+just a trifle ridiculous?
+
+She could not help letting him feel this; and the fashion in which she did
+so betrayed a certain disappointment, a certain humiliation:
+
+"Everything is a concatenation of events: very well. But the chain is
+broken, because, when all is said, though you know the thief, you did not
+succeed in laying hands upon the stolen clasp."
+
+The reproach was obvious. Rénine had not accustomed her to failure. And
+furthermore she was irritated to see how heedlessly he was accepting a
+blow which, after all, entailed the ruin of any hopes that he might have
+entertained.
+
+He did not reply. He had filled their two glasses with champagne and was
+slowly emptying his own, with his eyes fixed on the statuette of Mercury.
+He turned it about on its pedestal and examined it with the eye of a
+delighted connoisseur:
+
+"What a beautiful thing is a harmonious line! Colour does not uplift me
+so much as outline, proportion, symmetry and all the wonderful properties
+of form. Look at this little statue. Pancaldi's right: it's the work of
+a great artist. The legs are both slender and muscular; the whole figure
+gives an impression of buoyancy and speed. It is very well done. There's
+only one fault, a very slight one: perhaps you've not noticed it?"
+
+"Yes, I have," said Hortense. "It struck me the moment I saw the sign,
+outside. You mean, don't you, a certain lack of balance? The god is leaning
+over too far on the leg that carries him. He looks as though he were going
+to pitch forward."
+
+"That's very clever of you," said Rénine. "The fault is almost
+imperceptible and it needs a trained eye to see it. Really, however, as
+a matter of logic, the weight of the body ought to have its way and, in
+accordance with natural laws, the little god ought to take a header."
+
+After a pause he continued:
+
+"I noticed that flaw on the first day. How was it that I did not draw an
+inference at once? I was shocked because the artist had sinned against
+an aesthetic law, whereas I ought to have been shocked because he had
+overlooked a physical law. As though art and nature were not blended
+together! And as though the laws of gravity could be disturbed without
+some fundamental reason!"
+
+"What do you mean?" asked Hortense, puzzled by these reflections, which
+seemed so far removed from their secret thoughts. "What do you mean?"
+
+"Oh, nothing!" he said. "I am only surprised that I didn't understand
+sooner why Mercury did not plump forward, as he should have done."
+
+"And what is the reason?"
+
+"The reason? I imagine that Pancaldi, when pulling the statuette about to
+make it serve his purpose, must have disturbed its balance, but that this
+balance was restored by something which holds the little god back and which
+makes up for his really too dangerous posture."
+
+"Something, you say?"
+
+"Yes, a counterweight."
+
+Hortense gave a start. She too was beginning to see a little light. She
+murmured:
+
+"A counterweight?... Are you thinking that it might be ... in the
+pedestal?"
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"Is that possible? But, if so, how did Pancaldi come to give you this
+statuette?"
+
+"He never gave me _this_ one," Rénine declared. "I took this one
+myself."
+
+"But where? And when?"
+
+"Just now, while you were in the drawing-room. I got out of that window,
+which is just over the signboard and beside the niche containing the little
+god. And I exchanged the two, that is to say, I took the statue which was
+outside and put the one which Pancaldi gave me in its place."
+
+"But doesn't that one lean forward?"
+
+"No, no more than the others do, on the shelf in his shop. But Pancaldi
+is not an artist. A lack of equilibrium does not impress him; he will see
+nothing wrong; and he will continue to think himself favoured by luck,
+which is another way of saying that luck will continue to favour him.
+Meanwhile, here's the statuette, the one used for the sign. Am I to break
+the pedestal and take your clasp out of the leaden sheath, soldered to the
+back of the pedestal, which keeps Mercury steady?"
+
+"No, no, there's no need for that," Hortense hurriedly murmured.
+
+Rénine's intuition, his subtlety, the skill with which he had managed the
+whole business: to her, for the moment, all these things remained in the
+background. But she suddenly remembered that the eighth adventure was
+completed, that Rénine had surmounted every obstacle, that the test had
+turned to his advantage and that the extreme limit of time fixed for the
+last of the adventures was not yet reached.
+
+He had the cruelty to call attention to the fact:
+
+"A quarter to eight," he said.
+
+An oppressive silence fell between them. Both felt its discomfort to such
+a degree that they hesitated to make the least movement. In order to break
+it, Rénine jested:
+
+"That worthy M. Pancaldi, how good it was of him to tell me what I wished
+to know! I knew, however, that by exasperating him, I should end by picking
+up the missing clue in what he said. It was just as though one were to hand
+some one a flint and steel and suggest to him that he was to use it. In the
+end, the spark is obtained. In my case, what produced the spark was the
+unconscious but inevitable comparison which he drew between the cornelian
+clasp, the element of luck, and Mercury, the god of luck. That was enough.
+I understood that this association of ideas arose from his having actually
+associated the two factors of luck by embodying one in the other, or, to
+speak more plainly, by hiding the trinket in the statuette. And I at once
+remembered the Mercury outside the door and its defective poise...."
+
+Rénine suddenly interrupted himself. It seemed to him that all his remarks
+were falling on deaf ears. Hortense had put her hand to her forehead and,
+thus veiling her eyes, sat motionless and remote.
+
+She was indeed not listening. The end of this particular adventure and the
+manner in which Rénine had acted on this occasion no longer interested her.
+What she was thinking of was the complex series of adventures amid which
+she had been living for the past three months and the wonderful behaviour
+of the man who had offered her his devotion. She saw, as in a magic
+picture, the fabulous deeds performed by him, all the good that he had
+done, the lives saved, the sorrows assuaged, the order restored wherever
+his masterly will had been brought to bear. Nothing was impossible to
+him. What he undertook to do he did. Every aim that he set before him
+was attained in advance. And all this without excessive effort, with the
+calmness of one who knows his own strength and knows that nothing can
+resist it.
+
+Then what could she do against him? Why should she defend herself and how?
+If he demanded that she should yield, would he not know how to make her do
+so and would this last adventure be any more difficult for him than the
+others? Supposing that she ran away: did the wide world contain a retreat
+in which she would be safe from his pursuit? From the first moment of their
+first meeting, the end was certain, since Rénine had decreed that it should
+be so.
+
+However, she still cast about for weapons, for protection of some sort; and
+she said to herself that, though he had fulfilled the eight conditions and
+restored the cornelian clasp to her before the eighth hour had struck, she
+was nevertheless protected by the fact that this eighth hour was to strike
+on the clock of the Château de Halingre and not elsewhere. It was a formal
+compact. Rénine had said that day, gazing on the lips which he longed to
+kiss:
+
+"The old brass pendulum will start swinging again; and, when, on the fixed
+date, the clock once more strikes eight, then...."
+
+She looked up. He was not moving either, but sat solemnly, patiently
+waiting.
+
+She was on the point of saying, she was even preparing her words:
+
+"You know, our agreement says it must be the Halingre clock. All the other
+conditions have been fulfilled ... but not this one. So I am free, am I
+not? I am entitled not to keep my promise, which, moreover, I never made,
+but which in any case falls to the ground?... And I am perfectly free ...
+released from any scruple of conscience?..."
+
+She had not time to speak. At that precise moment, there was a click behind
+her, like that of a clock about to strike.
+
+A first stroke sounded, then a second, then a third.
+
+Hortense moaned. She had recognized the very sound of the old clock, the
+Halingre clock, which three months ago, by breaking in a supernatural
+manner the silence of the deserted château, had set both of them on the
+road of the eight adventures.
+
+She counted the strokes. The clock struck eight.
+
+"Ah!" she murmured, half swooning and hiding her face in her hands. "The
+clock ... the clock is here ... the one from over there ... I recognize its
+voice...."
+
+She said no more. She felt that Rénine had his eyes fixed upon her and this
+sapped all her energies. Besides, had she been able to recover them, she
+would have been no better off nor sought to offer him the least resistance,
+for the reason that she did not wish to resist. All the adventures were
+over, but one remained to be undertaken, the anticipation of which wiped
+out the memory of all the rest. It was the adventure of love, the most
+delightful, the most bewildering, the most adorable of all adventures. She
+accepted fate's decree, rejoicing in all that might come, because she was
+in love. She smiled in spite of herself, as she reflected that happiness
+was again to enter her life at the very moment when her well-beloved was
+bringing her the cornelian clasp.
+
+The clock struck the hour for the second time.
+
+Hortense raised her eyes to Rénine. She struggled a few seconds longer. But
+she was like a charmed bird, incapable of any movement of revolt; and at
+the eighth stroke she fell upon his breast and offered him her lips....
+
+THE END
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's The Eight Strokes of the Clock, by Maurice Le Blanc
+
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