Collected Works of Gaston Leroux Read online

  I placed an emphasis upon these last words.

  “Oh!” she cried, bitterly. “Your friend has as many good reasons to keep silence as I have! And I dread only one thing, M. Sainclair — I dread only one thing!”

  “And what is that?”

  She arose, her eyes shining with fever.

  “I fear lest he has saved my uncle from the authorities only to ruin him more completely.”

  “How can you think such a thing for a moment?” I asked her, convinced that her fears were robbing her of her senses.

  “I am sure that I could read some such plan in the eyes of your friend a little while ago. If I were sure that I were right, I would rather hand my uncle over to the mercies of the authorities!”

  I managed to quiet her a little and to make her cast aside such an impossible supposition, and, at length, she said:

  “At all events, it is necessary to be ready for anything, and I know how to defend him so long as I draw breath.”

  And she showed me a tiny revolver which was hidden in her gown.

  “Ah!” she cried again. “Why is Prince Galitch not here?”

  “Again?” I exclaimed, angrily.

  “Is it actual truth that you are ready to defend me?” she demanded, turning her beautiful eyes full upon my own.

  “I am ready.”

  “Against the whole world?”

  I hesitated. She repeated the words again:

  “Against the whole world?”

  “Yes.”

  “Against your friend even?”

  “If it should be necessary,” I answered with a sigh, passing my hand across my forehead.

  “Very well: I believe you!” she answered. “In that case, I will leave you here for a few minutes. You will guard this door for me!”

  And she pointed to the door behind which Old Bob was resting. Then she ran out of the room. Where was she going? She confessed to me later. She was going to look for the Prince Galitch! Oh, woman, woman!

  She had scarcely disappeared under the arch when Rouletabille and M. Darzac entered the room. They had heard all that had passed. Rouletabille advanced to my side and told me quietly that he was aware that I had betrayed him.

  “You are using a large word, Rouletabille!” I exclaimed. “You know that I am not in the habit of betraying anyone! Mme. Edith is really very much to be pitied and you do not pity her enough, my friend.”

  “Ah, well! you pity her too much!”

  I blushed to the roots of my hair. I started to make some reply but Rouletabille cut short my words with a dry gesture.

  “I ask you only one thing — only one, you understand. It is that, no matter what may happen — no matter what may happen — you shall not address one word to either M. Darzac or to myself.”

  “That will be a very easy thing to promise!” I replied, foolishly irritated, and I turned my back upon him. It seemed to me that it was with difficulty that he refrained from uttering some angry speech.

  But at the same moment, the officers, coming out of the New Castle, called to us. The inquest was at an end. There was no doubt, in their eyes, after the declaration of the doctors, that the affair had been an accident and that was the verdict which they felt obliged to render. M. Darzac and Rouletabille accompanied them to the outer gate. And as I stood leaning on my elbows, at the window which opens upon the Court of the Bold, assailed by a thousand sinister presentiments and awaiting with an increasing anxiety for the return of Mme. Edith, while a few steps away in the lodge, where the candles had been lighted around Bernier’s bier, Mere Bernier kept on sobbing and praying beside the corpse of her husband, I suddenly heard a sound which fell upon the evening air like the blow of an immense gong; and I knew that it was Rouletabille who had ordered the iron gates to be closed.

  Not a single minute passed after that when I saw Mme. Edith rush into the room and hurry to me as though I were her only refuge.

  Then I saw M. Darzac appear —

  Then Rouletabille, and leaning on his arm was the Lady in Black.

  CHAPTER XX

  IN WHICH ROULETABILLE GIVES A CORPOREAL DEMONSTRATION OF THE POSSIBILITY OF “THE BODY TOO MANY”

  THROUGH THE WINDOW I could see Rouletabille and the Lady in Black entering the Square Tower. Never had the young reporter walked with such solemn stateliness. His demeanor might have made one smile, if instead, at this tragic moment, it had not added to our apprehensions. Never had magistrate or counsellor, wearing the purple or the ermine, entered the court room where the accused waited him with more of threatening yet tranquil majesty. But I fancy, too, that never had a judge looked so pale.

  As to the Lady in Black, it could easily be seen that she was making a powerful effort to hide the sentiments of horror which, in spite of all, pierced through her troubled glance, and to hide from us the emotion which made her cling feverishly to the arm of her young companion. Robert Darzac, too, had the sombre and resolute mien of a judge. But that which most of all added to our surprise and affright was the entrance of Pere Jacques, Walter and Mattoni into the Square Tower. All three were armed with muskets, and placed themselves in silence before the door, where they stood with military precision while they received from the lips of Rouletabille the order to let no person go out from the Old château. Edith was overwhelmed with terror, and demanded of Mattoni and Walter, both of whom were greatly attached to her, what their presence signified and what their weapons threatened; but, to my great astonishment, they returned no answer. Then the little woman rushed to the door which gave access to Old Bob’s room, and, extending her two arms across the threshold, as if to bar the passage, she cried:

  “What are you going to do? You do not mean to kill him?”

  “No, Madame,” replied Rouletabille, gravely. “We are going to judge him. And in order to be sure that the judges shall not be executioners we are all going to swear upon the body of Pere Bernier, after having laid down our arms, that each of us will keep guard over himself.”

  And he led us into the chamber where Mere Bernier continued to groan beside the bier of her spouse whom “the oldest knife known to the human race” had smitten. There we laid aside our revolvers and took the oath which Rouletabille exacted. Mrs. Rance alone made some difficulties about giving up the weapon which Rouletabille was well aware that she had concealed in her clothing. But upon the urging of the reporter who made her understand that the general disarming ought to reassure her, she finally consented.

  The oath having been taken, Rouletabille, with the Lady in Black still on his arm, went from the funereal chamber into the corridor; but instead of directing our steps toward the apartment of Old Bob as we expected him to do, he went straight to the door which afforded entrance to the chamber of “the body too many.” And, drawing from his pocket the little special key of which I have spoken, he opened the door.

  We were all astonished in entering the rooms which had been occupied by M. and Mme. Darzac to see upon M. Darzac’s desk the drawing board, the wash drawing upon which our friend had worked at the side of Old Bob in the latter’s workshop in the Court of the Bold, and also the little dish full of red paint and the tiny brush drenched with the paint. And, lastly, in the middle of the desk, there was placed, appearing very much at its ease, upon its bloody jaws, “the oldest skull of humanity.”

  Rouletabille locked and bolted the door and said to us, himself greatly affected, while we listened with stupefaction:

  “Sit down, if you please, ladies and gentlemen.”

  Some chairs were arranged around the table and in these we seated ourselves, a prey to the most disquieting fancies — I might almost say to an agony of suspense. A secret presentiment warned us that all the familiar appurtenances of drawing which were displayed before us might hide, under their apparent commonplace tranquility, the terrible causes which helped to bring about this most fearful of dramas. And as we looked upon it, the skull seemed to smile like Old Bob.

  “You will acknowledge,” began Rouletabille, “th
at there is here, around this table one chair too many, and, in consequence, one person too few — to particularize, M. Arthur Rance, for whom we cannot wait much longer.”

  “Perhaps at this very moment my husband possesses the proofs of Old Bob’s innocence!” observed Mme. Edith, whom all these preparations had disturbed more than anyone else. “I entreat Mme. Darzac to join me in imploring these gentlemen to do nothing until Arthur’s return.”

  The Lady in Black had no opportunity to intervene, for before Mme. Edith finished speaking, we heard a loud noise outside the door of the corridor. A knock came at the door and we heard the voice of Arthur Rance begging us to open immediately. He cried:

  “I have brought the pin with the ruby head!”

  Rouletabille opened the door.

  “Arthur Rance, you are come then at last!” he exclaimed.

  Edith’s husband seemed plunged in the deepest melancholy.

  “What have you to tell me? What has happened? Some new misfortune? Ah, I feared so — feared that I had arrived too late when I saw the iron gate closed and heard the prayers for the dead chanted in the tower. Yes — I knew that you had executed Old Bob!”

  Rouletabille, who had closed and bolted the door behind Arthur Rance turned to the American and said:

  “Old Bob is alive and Pere Bernier is dead. Be seated, Monsieur.”

  Arthur Rance stared at the speaker in amazement; then looked in consternation at the drawing board, the dish of paint and the bloody skull and demanded:

  “Who killed him?”

  Then, condescending to notice that his wife was there, he pressed her hand, but his eyes were fixed upon the Lady in Black.

  “Before his death, Bernier accused Frederic Larsan,” answered M. Darzac.

  “Do you mean to say by that that he accused Old Bob?” interrupted M. Rance indignantly. “I will not suffer that. I, too, had some doubts in regard to the personality of our beloved uncle, but I tell you that I have the ruby-headed pin!”

  What was he talking about with his “little ruby-headed pin”? I remembered that Mme. Edith had told us that Old Bob had snatched one from her hand when she had playfully pricked him with it on the night of the drama of the Square Tower. But what relation could there be between this pin and the adventure of Old Bob? Arthur Rance did not wait for us to ask him, but hurried on to tell us that this little pin had disappeared at the same time as Old Bob and that he had found it in the possession of “the Hangman of the Sea,” fastening a sheaf of bank notes which the old uncle had paid him on that fated night for his complicity and his silence in having brought him in the fisher boat to the grotto of Romeo and Juliet. And M. Rance told us moreover that Tullio had withdrawn from the spot at dawn, greatly disquieted at the nonappearance of his passenger. Rance concluded, triumphantly:

  “A man who gives a ruby pin to another man in a boat cannot be at the same moment tied up in a potato sack in the Square Tower.”

  Upon which Mrs. Rance inquired:

  “What gave you the idea of going to San Remo? Did you know that Tullio was to be found there?”

  “I received an anonymous letter informing me of his whereabouts.”

  “It was I who sent it to you,” said Rouletabille, tranquilly. And, then, turning to the rest of us, he said in frigid tones:

  “Ladies and gentlemen, I congratulate myself upon the prompt return of M. Arthur Rance. At the present moment there are reunited around this table all the members of the house party of the Château of Hercules for whom my corporeal demonstration of the possibility of the ‘body too many’ may have some interest. I entreat you to give me your undivided attention.”

  But Arthur Rance halted him with a quick movement.

  “What do you mean by the expression: ‘There are united around this table all the members of the party for whom the corporeal demonstration of the possibility of the body too many can have any interest’?”

  “I mean,” declared Rouletabille, “all those among whom we may hope to find Larsan.”

  The Lady in Black, who had up to this time not uttered a word, arose trembling to her feet.

  “Do you mean,” she breathed, her eyes filled with agonized apprehension, “that Larsan is now among us?”

  “I am sure of it,” Rouletabille replied, gravely.

  There was an awful silence during which none of us dared look at each other.

  The reporter continued, still in the same frigid tone:

  “I am sure of it — and there is no reason why the idea should surprise you, Madame, since it has not for a moment left your own mind. As to the rest of us, is it not true, gentlemen, that the idea has occurred to each one of us at the same moment on the day when we took luncheon on the terrace of the Bold when all our eyes were hidden by the black glasses? If I except Mrs. Rance, who is there among us that did not feel the presence of Larsan at that time?”

  “That is a question which ought to be propounded to Professor Stangerson as well as to the rest of us,” interposed Arthur Rance, instantly. “For from the moment when we begin any course of reasoning along these lines, I can see no object in not having the Professor, who was at the table at luncheon with us on that day, here at this time also.”

  “Mr. Rance!” cried the Lady in Black.

  “Yes, I must repeat it, if you will pardon me,” replied Edith’s husband, haughtily. “Monsieur Rouletabille was wrong to generalize when he said, ‘All the members of the house party—’”

  “Professor Stangerson is so far from us in spirit that I have no need of his presence here,” pronounced Rouletabille in a tone so stern and solemn that it fell impressively on the cars of each and every one among us. “Although Professor Stangerson had lived with us in the Château of Hercules, he was not one of us in regard to feeling the presence of Larsan on that day. And Larsan is here among us.”

  This time we stole stealthy glances at each other as though we suspected each other of stealing, and the idea that Larsan might really be among us appeared to me so mad that I exclaimed, forgetting that I had promised not to address Rouletabille:

  “But at that luncheon on the terrace, there was still another person whom I do not see here.”

  Rouletabille cast an angry look at me as he answered:

  “Still Prince Galitch! I have already told you, Sainclair, with what task the Prince is occupying himself on this frontier and I swear to you that it is not the trouble of Professor Stangerson’s daughter which concerns him. Leave Prince Galitch to his humanitarian labors!”

  “All that is not reasonable,” I remarked almost mechanically.

  “To tell the truth, Sainclair, your nonsense prevents me from reasoning.”

  But I had launched out, and, forgetting that I had promised Mme. Edith to defend Old Bob, I started in to attack him for the pleasure of proving Rouletabille in the wrong — and, besides, I felt, Edith would not bear rancor against me for very long.

  “Old Bob,” I began, in the clearest and most assured tones that I could command, “was also at that luncheon on the terrace and you take him entirely out of your calculations on account of this little ruby pin. But of what use is this little pin to prove to us that Old Bob was rowed away by Tullio, who waited for him at the orifice of a gallery leading from the shaft to the sea, if we cannot discover how Old Bob could, as he said, have gone by way of the shaft which we found closed from above and on the outside?”

  “Which you found closed, you mean,” returned Rouletabille, fixing his eyes upon me with a strange expression which somehow embarrassed me. “I, on the contrary, found the shaft open. I had sent you after Mattoni and Pere Jacques. When you came back, you found me in the same place in the Court of the Bold, but I had had time to run to the shaft and find out that it had been opened!”

  “And to close it again!” I cried. “And why did you close it? Whom did you wish to deceive?”

  “You, monsieur!”

  He pronounced these two words with a contempt so crushing that the blood rushed to my face. I
arose. Every eye was turned upon me and as I remembered the rudeness with which Rouletabille had treated me a little while ago before M. Darzac, I had the horrible feeling that every eye was suspecting me — accusing me! Yes! I felt myself entirely wrapped around by the atrocious fancy in the mind of each and all that I might be Larsan!

  I! Larsan!

  I looked at each one in turn. Rouletabille did not lower his eyes while my own were seeking to make him feel the fierce protestation of my whole being and my indignation against such a monstrous supposition. Anger ran through my veins like a flame.

  “Now, it is high time to end this farce!” I cried. “If Old Bob is removed from consideration and Professor Stangerson and Prince Galitch, there remain only ourselves — we who are locked up in this room — and if Larsan is among us, show us to him, Rouletabille!”

  I repeated the words furiously, for the eyes of the boy, although they were piercing through me, seemed to be fixed upon something outside of and apart from me.

  “Show him to us! Name him! You are as slow here as you were at the Court of Assizes.”

  “Had I not good reason at the Court of Assizes for being as slow as I was?” he replied, without betraying any emotion.

  “You want him to escape this time, too, then?”

  “No! I swear to you, that this time he shall not escape.”

  Why did his voice continue to be so threatening when he addressed me? Could it be really — really that he suspected me of being Larsan? My eyes wandered to those of the Lady in Black. She was gazing on me in terror.

  “Rouletabille!” I cried madly, feeling my voice almost smothered in my throat. “You do not — you cannot suspect — !”

  At this moment, a pistol shot sounded outside, very near to the Square Tower. We all leaped to our feet, remembering the order given by the reporter to the three servants to fire upon anyone who should attempt to go out of the Square Tower. Edith uttered a cry and tried to run out of the room, but Rouletabille, who had not made so much as a gesture, calmed her with a word.

  “If anyone had drawn upon him,” he said, “the three men would have fired together. That pistol shot was merely a signal — a direction for me to begin.”