The Perfume of the Lady in Black Read online

  On the site of the most ancient towers, which were also surrounded by a parapet, some palms had been planted which flourished indifferently, exposed as they were to the wind and the sea. When one leaned over the circular parapet surrounding the property and saw how the masonry projected over the rocks on which it was constructed, rocks which themselves projected over into the sea, it was easy to see that access to the castle was still as difficult as in the days when the old towers were still standing.

  What I have just described constitutes the outworks of the Chateau d’Hercule. One can only enter the inner enclosure by gate H, which Mrs Arthur Rance called the Gardener’s Tower, a sort of pavilion that had originally been protected by tower BBB and by another tower situated at C, which had disappeared entirely when the New Castle (C, CC) had been built. A moat and a wall ran from BBB to I at Charles the Bold’s Tower, completely enclosing the first courtyard. The moat was still deep and broad, but the wall had been taken down along the whole length of the New Castle and replaced by the wall of the castle itself. A central gate (D), now closed, opened on to a bridge which had been thrown across the moat, permitting direct communication with the first courtyard. However, this bridge had also been allowed to fall into ruin and, as the windows of the castle were at a considerable height above the moat and still retained their thick iron bars, one could accurately say that the second courtyard was as impenetrable as it had ever been.

  The floor of this second courtyard was slightly raised up from the first. One could only enter the old castle (F) by a little gateway (K). The former inhabitants of the area called this the Square Tower or the Corner Tower. A parapet, similar to that which enclosed the first courtyard, also enclosed the second.

  I have already explained that the Round Tower had been reduced to half its original height and rebuilt according to plans drawn up by Charles the Bold himself. A slight incline led to the ground floor of the tower, which consisted of an octagonal chamber, the iron roof of which rested on four stout cylindrical pillars. Three embrasures intended for large pieces of artillery opened out from this chamber. It was this octagonal chamber that Edith had wanted to turn into a large dining-room, because, as she said, it was always delightfully cool on account of the thickness of the walls, and yet also well lit. The huge window, like the other windows of the castle, had retained its thick iron bars. Edith’s uncle had, however, seized upon the room to turn it into a study and as a storage space for his new collections.

  In the seventeenth-century New Castle wing only two rooms and a small salon, both on the first floor, had been properly renovated. These two rooms had been made ready for Rouletabille and myself. M. and Madame Darzac occupied rooms in the Square Tower, which we will describe presently.

  Two rooms on the ground floor of the Square Tower were reserved for Old Bob, who slept there. M. Stangerson lived on the first floor of La Louve, just beneath the Rances.

  Edith insisted on showing us to our rooms herself. We walked through other rooms in which the ceiling was collapsing and which still retained some of the old furniture, which was magnificent but in a ruinous condition.

  Our own quarters, while in no way evocative of the castle’s noble past, were clean and habitable, with no carpets, but plainly and simply furnished in modern and healthy fashion. The two rooms were separated from one another by a small sitting room.

  As I was doing up my tie, I called to Rouletabille to ask if he was ready. I got no reply. Entering his room, I was surprised to find that he had already gone. I went to his window, which, like mine, looked out on to the courtyard. The courtyard was empty save for the great eucalyptus tree, which I could smell even from my room.

  Beyond the parapet of the outside walls lay the vast, silent sea.

  Then there came a shadow! What was this spectre gliding noiselessly across the waters? Standing upright in the prow of a fisherman’s boat, being rowed steadily along, I recognised the figure of Larsan. There was no mistaking him! He was all too recognisable.

  Yes, it was him! It was the great Frédéric Larsan. The boat, with the sinister figure standing motionless in the bows, moved slowly round the whole castle. Gliding under the windows of the Square Tower, it turned in the direction of Garibaldi Point, towards Rochers Rouges.

  The man stood erect, with arms folded, his head turned towards the tower: a diabolical apparition on the threshold of night, across which, with slow, sinister, silent footsteps, he appeared to walk.

  Looking down, I saw two shadows in the courtyard of Charles the Bold. They were at the corner of the parapet near the small gate of the Square Tower.

  One of these shadows, the larger one, was obviously pleading with the other not to leave. The smaller shadow, equally obviously, was struggling to escape, anxious to get to the water’s edge. And I heard the voice of Madame Darzac saying:

  ‘Beware, beware! It is a trap he has set for you. I forbid you to leave me this evening!’

  And the voice of Rouletabille.

  ‘He’ll have to land somewhere. Let me go down to the beach.’

  ‘What would you do then?’ said Mathilde in a tremulous voice.

  ‘Whatever was necessary.’

  And again Mathilde’s terror-stricken voice:

  ‘I forbid you so much as to touch that man!’

  Then I heard nothing more.

  I went down and found Rouletabille alone, sitting on the edge of the wall. I spoke to him, but, as often happened, he did not reply. I went into the courtyard and there encountered Darzac, who came up to me, looking mad with fear. As soon as he saw me, he cried out:

  ‘Did you see him?’

  ‘Yes, I saw him,’ I said.

  ‘And do you know if she saw him?’

  ‘She saw him. She was with Rouletabille when he went by. Oh, God, the cruelty of it!’

  Robert Darzac was still trembling at the thought. He told me that as soon as he saw him, he had run like a madman to the beach, but by the time he got to Garibaldi Point, the boat had disappeared as if by magic. Darzac, having told me this, left immediately to go to Mathilde, anxious as to the state of mind he would find her in, only to return a few minutes afterwards, sad and depressed. The door of her room was locked. His wife evidently desired to be left alone for the moment.

  ‘And Rouletabille?’ I asked.

  ‘I haven’t seen him.’

  We remained together for a few minutes on the parapet looking out at the night into which Larsan had disappeared so mysteriously. Robert Darzac seemed infinitely sad.

  In an attempt to divert his thoughts, I asked him various unimportant questions about the house and about the Rances, to which, after a painful silence, he replied only partially.

  I learned, however, by dint of questioning, that after the Versailles trial, Arthur Rance had returned to Philadelphia. One evening, he happened to be at a family dinner sitting opposite a romantically minded girl who had immediately taken his fancy because she showed a charming, literary sentimentality rare among his otherwise bewitching compatriots.

  One night, aware that he was falling deeply in love, Arthur Rance got abominably tipsy. As a result, he forgot himself and made some singularly vulgar remark, which so shocked Miss Edith that she instantly requested him, in her haughtiest tones, never to address another word to her. The following day, Arthur Rance made formal and abject apologies to her and took a solemn oath henceforth to drink nothing but water.

  Arthur Rance knew her uncle, ‘Old Bob’, as they had nicknamed him at the University: an extraordinary character, who was as celebrated for his adventures as an explorer as for his discoveries as a geologist. The old fellow seemed as gentle as a lamb, and yet he had no equal when it came to hunting game on the pampas. Half his life had been spent on the Rio Negro or in Patagonia, hunting for prehistoric man, or, rather, his skeleton, not, be it noted, the missing link, but the giant whom he believed to have been contemporaneous with the antediluvian monsters whose existence geology has so amply demonstrated.

  He gen
erally returned from his expeditions with boxes filled with stones and cartloads of thighbones, over which the learned world forthwith proceeded to quarrel. He also generally returned with a choice collection of ‘rabbit skins’, as he called them, which were proof positive that the old, bespectacled philosopher knew how to use weapons a little less prehistoric than the stone hatchet or the troglodyte club.

  On his return to Philadelphia, he once more took possession of his University Chair, and returned to his library and his papers.

  Many of these details were given to me later by Arthur Rance himself, who had been a pupil of Old Bob’s, but whom he had not seen for many years when he made the acquaintance of Miss Edith. If I have dwelt at some length on these facts, it is because, as a result of quite extraordinary circumstances, we were to meet Old Bob at Rochers Rouges.

  It appears that shortly after the memorable evening at which Arthur Rance had met Miss Edith, the latter received some very worrying reports concerning the health of the old Professor, who was engaged in some exploration work in Araucania. She determined to join him there, but, meantime, had been much impressed by the faithfulness with which Rance had kept to his resolve to drink nothing but water, especially when she learned that he had only started drinking heavily as the result of having been crossed in love. Such a romantic plight could not, of course, be lost on one as sentimental as Miss Edith, and it was not surprising, therefore, that when she left for Araucania, she was immediately followed by Arthur Rance.

  Miss Edith discovered, when they reached San Luis, that her uncle was in excellent health and in the best of moods. Rance, who had not seen him for some years, was impudent enough to tell him that he looked younger than ever, which, under the circumstances, was a very clever compliment. It naturally follows that when, later on, his niece told him that she was engaged to this charming young man, her uncle was well pleased.

  They all returned to Philadelphia, where the marriage took place. Miss Edith had never been to France, and Arthur Rance decided to take her there for their honeymoon. And thus it was, as will be shown later, that they found a scientific reason for settling in the neighbourhood of Menton, not, as a matter of fact, in France, but about one hundred yards from the frontier, in Italy, just opposite Rochers Rouges.

  The gong having sounded, and with Arthur Rance preceding us, we walked slowly to the ground floor room where dinner was served that evening. When we were all there (apart from Old Bob, who was away from the Castle), Edith asked if any of us had seen a boat in which a man had been standing in the prow with folded arms. As no one replied, she went on:

  ‘Oh, I know who it is, because I know the sailor who was rowing the boat! He’s a great friend of Old Bob’s.’

  ‘Indeed! ‘said Rouletabille. ‘You know this sailor, then?’

  ‘He comes to the castle sometimes to sell fish. The country people have given him a strange nickname, which I cannot tell you, as they speak in their own impossible patois, but I have had them translate it for me. It means “The Scourge of the Sea”. A charming name, don’t you think?’

  CHAPTER VII

  Concerning some precautions taken by Joseph Rouletabille to defend the Chateau d’Hercule against attack by an enemy

  Rouletabille was not even polite enough to ask the reason for this extraordinary nickname, for he seemed to be deep in thought. What a strange dinner, what a strange castle and what strange people! Even the fickle Mrs Rance’s witty, piquant remarks seemed to fall flat, and although there were amongst us two newly married couples, who should have been the life and soul of the party, the atmosphere at the meal was incredibly gloomy. The spectre of Larsan cast a cloud over us all, even those who did not know how near he was.

  It should be stated that ever since Professor Stangerson had learned the cruel truth, he had been haunted by the villain’s shadow. It is no exaggeration to say that the main victim of the tragedy at Glandier was Professor Stangerson. He had lost everything: his faith in science, his love of his work and, most terrible of all, his belief in his daughter! He had had such trust in her! She had been the one thing he had looked upon with pride!

  For many years, she had worked with him on his researches into the unknown. He had been dazzled by the unbending will she had shown in refusing to give herself to anyone who would take her from her father and from science. And, while he was still enraptured in the contemplation of so marvellous a sacrifice, he discovered that the reason his daughter would not marry was because she was already married to a scoundrel!

  On the day that Mathilde decided to confess everything to her father, unveiling to him a past which would open his eyes to what lay behind the tragedy at Glandier, on the day that she had knelt beside him, thrown her arms about him and told him the sad story of her youth, Professor Stangerson had pressed his darling child to his heart and had placed the kiss of forgiveness upon her brow.

  Mingling his tears with those of his daughter, who had paid for her sins with near-madness, he had sworn to her that, knowing how she had suffered, she had never been more precious to him. She had gone on her way somewhat comforted, but he had shown himself, once alone, to be another man, a very lonely man. Professor Stangerson had lost his daughter and, with her, his ideals.

  He had watched her marriage to Robert Darzac, his dearest pupil, with indifference. It was in vain that Mathilde tried to warm her father’s heart with displays of ever greater tenderness. She felt that he did not belong to her any more, that he avoided her eyes, that he was constantly dwelling upon some image from the past, and that when his glance did fall upon her it was not the figure of an honest man that he saw at her side, but the forever infamous vision of the other, of the man who had been her first husband, the scoundrel who had stolen his daughter!

  He no longer worked. The great secret of the Dissociation of Matter, which he had promised to deliver to mankind, would return to the Nothingness whence he had for an instant drawn it forth, and for centuries men would foolishly continue to repeat: ‘Ex nihilo nihil!’

  The meal was made all the more mournful by the sombre surroundings of the room in which it was served, a room adorned with Oriental tapestries against which were placed old chests dating from the first Saracen invasion and the sieges of Dagobert, and lit only by a Gothic lamp and a few candles set in an old wrought-iron candelabra.

  I looked at each of the guests in turn, and the cause of the prevailing sadness became apparent to me. M. and Madame Robert Darzac were sitting beside each other. The hostess had evidently not wished to separate the bride and groom whose union dated only from the day before yesterday. Of the two, I must say the least cheerful was our friend Robert. He did not speak a word. Madame Darzac took some part in the conversation, exchanging a few empty words with Arthur Rance.

  After the scene that I had witnessed from my window between Mathilde and Rouletabille, I had expected to see her at least partially overcome by the menacing vision of Larsan rising from the waves. But no! I perceived a marked difference between her evident bewilderment when she met us at the station and her current state, which seemed to be one of perfect self-possession. I almost persuaded myself that the vision had taken a weight off her mind, and, later in the evening, when I said as much to Rouletabille, the young reporter quite agreed with me and explained the seeming anomaly in the simplest fashion.

  ‘The one thing Mathilde dreaded most was madness, and the assurance that she had not been the victim of an hallucination – the product of an overwrought mind – had restored to her some calm. She would rather have to defend herself against a living Larsan than against his ghost.’

  During the first interview that she had had with Rouletabille in the Square Tower, while I getting dressed, she must have seemed to my young friend to have been haunted by the idea that she was again losing her reason. When Rouletabille told me of this interview, he confessed that he had only been able to calm her by saying exactly the opposite of what Robert Darzac had said to her, that is, by making no attempt to hide the fact th
at she had actually seen Frédéric Larsan.

  When she learned that Darzac had hidden this fact from her only because he feared that she would be overcome with terror, and that he had been the first to telegraph Rouletabille to come to their assistance, she gave a sigh which closely resembled a sob. She took Rouletabille’s hands in her own and had covered them with kisses, as a mother does the tiny fists of her infant. She was evidently grateful to the young man to whom she felt herself irresistibly drawn by all the mysterious forces of her maternal instinct, because he had, with a few words, banished the madness which seemed always about to take possession of her brain. It was just at that moment when, from the tower window, they both caught sight of Frédéric Larsan standing in the boat. At first, they had stared at him thunderstruck. Then a cry of rage emerged from Rouletabille’s lips, and he had endeavoured to spring forward to overtake the man.

  We saw how Mathilde held him back, clinging to him until he reached the edge of the parapet. This actual resurrection of Larsan was, of course, horrible, but less so than the resurrection of a Larsan who existed only in her unhinged mind. Now she no longer saw Larsan everywhere, she saw him where he actually was!

  Nervous yet gentle, by turns patient and impatient, Mathilde, while chatting with Rance, took the tenderest, most charming care of Darzac. She was full of little attentions to him, serving him herself, with a beautiful smile, taking care that his sight should not be fatigued by too strong a light, and in various other ways. Robert thanked her, but he seemed to me to be utterly wretched. Seeing this, I was reminded that the arch-villain, Larsan, had appeared upon the scene in time to recall to her mind the fact that before she became Madame Darzac, she had been Madame Jean Roussel-Ballmeyer-Larsan.