The Nyctalope vs Lucifer 1: Enter Lucifer!
Page 9
“You, Corsat,” the Nyctalope said, “won’t budge from the hotel. Stay in the garden or the lobby, from which you can keep an eye on the whole ground floor. You, Pilou, will follow Dorothée whenever she goes out. She intends to spend three whole days in Antibes.”
“Three whole days!” proffered Pilou, in the familiar but respectful tone that he and Corsat both adopted when talking to the Nyctalope. “Let me have some time off, boss. This is practically my native land.”
“Yes, I know–you were born in Vallauris. Neither of you will sleep or eat, of course, except when Dorothée’s meals and repose afford you the opportunity. As for me, I’ll be wherever circumstances dictate that I should be–and you’ll make a complete report whenever we meet up. Whichever of you doesn’t see me during the day must deposit a succinct, complete and clear report in the usual place, under the old folded newspaper in the drawer of the night-stand in my bedroom. Is all that understood?”
“Understood, boss,” the two men said, in unison.
“Good.”
Saint-Clair got up and left the garden. He only had to take a few steps to find himself beside the calm waters of the cove of Saint-Roch, which were pale blue that day. He followed the shoreline in the direction of old Antibes. Then, having passed a little jetty, he climbed the steps that led to the terrace overlooking the harbor. There, he stopped for a few minutes, studying the quays, the lighthouse and the several boats and small ships that were anchored in the tiny port. Then, he began walking again, at a leisurely pace, along the seafront promenade.
The afternoon sky was a deep blue. The sunlight was joyously bright and the serene air was possessed by a sort of voluptuous languor that was profoundly invigorating. To the left was the bay of Nice, green and silvery, overlooked by the snowy peaks of the violet Alps; to the right was the bay of Antibes, with the indentations of the Plage de la Salis and the Cap d’Antibes, with its pines, palm-trees and countless multicolored roses, which perfumed the breeze as it passed over them.
The view was incomparable, the sensations delightful. Saint-Clair forgot all about the enigmatic Dorothée and the mysterious Lucifer, because this sight and its associated memories–one of the white villas on the Cap d’Antibes, shrouded by pines, eucalyptus trees, palms and roses; the memory of Juan-les-Pins and its beach; Vallauris and its gardens, its flowing waters and its orchard–caused the Nyctalope to recall the most poignant weeks of his entire existence.
“How I loved her!” murmured Saint-Clair, leaning on the parapet and fixing his gaze on the terraced rooftops of a sunlit villa on the flank of the Cap d’Antibes. “We were there. No one knew her name or mine. In Paris, her mother and her friends thought she was staying with a relative, our accomplice. Three weeks, during which we both delighted in one another...
“A virgin, and such an innocent mind! It seemed that it truly was her awakening to life, and that she had not lived until then! How marvelous her beauty was! Oh, the sensuousness of the days and nights! Laurence, my Laure, my only love! Were we right to part, voluntarily, at the height of our joy, so that our happiness could not become banal as we accustomed ourselves to it, under threat of satiety? We wanted our love to be like a flower in our lives, snatched from our fingers by a gust of wind before it could fade. We wanted our embraces to be a memory to which no other could compare, in all the days and nights to come...
“And it’s true that I cannot think of you, my splendid Laure, without loving you still, and desiring you, and calling out to you...
“Since we separated–after which you abruptly became the illustrious La Païli and I acquired fame under the name of the Nyctalope–we have not seen one another, nor heard one another’s voices, nor read one another’s letters... nothing!
“Where is she now, my lover of the Cap d’Antibes, Juan-les-Pins and Vallauris... Of the sea and the roses, of clear springs and odorous fruits, of the beds of carnation-petals, where her mermaid body and spreading hair... Where is she now? Against what stage-setting is she preparing, at this very moment, this evening’s triumph? Laurence, Laurence, how I wish I could forget you! Why has destiny brought me back here, by the strangest of routes, beneath this sky, before this sea, within view of that shuttered villa and its enchanted garden?”
Supporting himself on his elbows, Saint-Clair put his forehead in his hands and closed his eyes. Minutes fell into the past. Then, he drew himself abruptly upright.
“Let’s go,” he said, aloud. “That’s enough dreaming. Let’s get back to work.”
He turned his back on the Cap d’Antibes, went along the seafront boulevard and through the network of old streets to the Place Nationale, where the post office was. He addressed an encrypted telegram to Monsieur Alexandre Prillant, whose deciphered text read: Am in Antibes, probably for three days.
Afterwards, he went back to the cove of Saint-Roch via the market-place and the marine port. Corsat was alone in the garden, sitting at a table with a bottle of lemonade and three glasses. Saint-Clair leaned over him, his gaze questioning.
“She went out five minutes ago,” the Burgundian said. “Pilou’s on her heels, of course.”
“That’s good.”
He went up to his room, turned the key and shot the bolt. He released the secret catch of the suitcase which Pilou had deposited on a table. With the aid of a few small instruments, he had no difficulty in opening the communicating door between his room and Dorothée’s.
In the course of the journey, during a long halt at Toulon, Dorothée had scribbled in pencil on a few pages of a little notebook that she had bought from a newsvendor on the outskirts of Marseilles. Saint-Clair surveyed the room with an investigative gaze. The enigmatic woman’s traveling-bag was not on any of the tables, nor on the floor, but the Nyctalope immediately noticed that the key of the mirror-fronted wardrobe was not in the lock. He opened the wardrobe with a turn of his lock-pick; the bag was there.
Two minutes later, seated beside the open wardrobe, he was rifling through the notebook. If some noise outside were to announce the arrival of the young woman, everything would be back in its proper place in less than 20 seconds, and Saint-Clair would be back in his own room.
Thirty-two of the notebook’ pages were covered with lines written skillfully and concisely in Gothic script, without any corrections.
The woman must be educated, the Nyctalope thought. At any rate, she’s well-accustomed to writing. Let’s see!
Saint-Clair read, wrote and spoke half a dozen languages almost as well as French; German held no secrets from him. He read very quickly. As he knew that he was alone, he did not bother to keep his face impassive, and his expression soon testified to his considerable satisfaction.
Having read everything, he replaced the notebook carefully in the bag and locked the wardrobe again. He went back into his room–without closing the communicating door–and opened the window overlooking the garden. He whistled the eight notes of the scale, clearly and carefully-spaced. Then, he closed the window again, lit a cigarette and paced pensively back and forth across the room while he smoked.
Three minutes went by; then the door opened soundlessly. Corsat came in, closed the door behind him and waited. Saint-Clair continued pacing back and forth while the cigarette was still sweet, but when the tobacco took on the bitter taste of moist nicotine, he threw the butt into the empty fireplace and stopped in front of the Burgundian.
“When Dorothée comes back in,” the Nyctalope said, “you must follow her immediately, without bothering with Pilou. Climb the staircase directly behind her. In the corridor, you must slow down as you follow her, as if giving her time to open her door, which is locked. When she’s on the threshold, about to go in, you must be immediately behind her. Push her inside violently with one hand; put the other one over her mouth, to prevent her crying out, and go in with her. That’s all. Go!”
“OK, boss.”
Corsat returned to his seat beside the table in the garden. He ordered another bottle of lemonade, carefully filled
a stout short-stemmed pipe and began to smoke.
Up above, Saint-Clair reopened the window, sat down in a position from which he could see the garden and filled a pipe that was narrower and longer-stemmed than Corsat’s, just as carefully as the Burgundian. He too began to smoke.
Time passed.
A distant clock had just sounded the last chime of 7 p.m. when Saint-Clair abruptly put down his pipe and drew himself away from the splendors of the setting Sun. He had just seen Dorothée walking towards the hotel, some 20 paces from the garden. He waited, standing by the window. Three meters behind the young woman, Pilou appeared. One behind the other, the followed and the follower came into the garden.
Saint-Clair whistled the eight notes of the scale as before, but very rapidly, save for the first one, which he prolonged. Then he closed the window.
Pilou, pressing his pace, overtook Dorothée and climbed the steps to the main door in front of her. He went up the staircase precipitately, ran along the corridor, and came into his employer’s room without knocking, rapidly closing the door behind him.
“No time to talk,” said Saint-Clair. “Stay close to me–and when I say go, help Corsat tie up the girl without a sound.” They both took up positions behind the communicating door between the two rooms. It stood slightly ajar, so that Saint-Clair could see what he needed to see.
Footsteps sounded on the landing, then in the corridor, followed by the noise of a key inserted into a lock and being turned. Hinges creaked.
The door opened. Dorothée appeared, tall and slender, with Corsat behind her, taller and broader. The young woman took a single step–and a strong hand came up, grabbed her head, and plastered itself over the lower part of her face.
“Go!” said Saint-Clair, throwing the communicating door wide open.
Pilou slipped through. In less than a minute, the doors to the corridor were firmly closed, locked and bolted. Dorothée, bound and gagged by Corsat and Pilou, was seated in the only armchair. Terrorized, her eyes already moist with tears, she looked up at Saint-Clair who stood in front of her. He immediately began speaking very softly in German.
“Please don’t be afraid, Fräulein,” he said. “No one will do you any harm–but it is necessary that you do not make a noise. Will you promise me, by blinking your eyes three times, not to cry out or to attempt to resist? These men will release you then, and leave you alone with me. I need to tell you some very important things–and also to save you from the abominable power that has made your life a martyrdom for two months. Yes, yes, I know everything you have suffered–but I shall save you! Come on–promise me now, Fräulein.”
Dorothée’s long blonde eyelashes were lowered and raised again convulsively, three times.
“Go into my room!” Saint-Clair ordered Corsat and Pilou.
They disappeared immediately–but in order to keep track of everything that was said and done, they left the door slightly ajar and watched and listened.
The young woman’s dolorous face and mystified eyes soon became calm again. Her features took on a surprisingly trusting and relaxed expression. Dorothée was already submissive to the magnetism of the Nyctalope’s gaze and will-power. Her body seemed to collapse slightly into the armchair and she babbled in German: “Who are you? What do you want?”
“Whoever I am,” Saint-Clair replied, in the same tongue, “I wish you nothing but good. Yes, look at me–and don’t resist. That which has been done so many times to your detriment, I shall do for your benefit. Go to sleep, Edwige, go to sleep–that is what I want!”
“You know my name too?” she whispered, already in the grip of the magnetic influence.
“I know what I know,” the Nyctalope supplied, gravely. His beautiful long hands–which, when necessary, had a grip of steel–had been making ritual passes in the air a moment earlier; now they brushed the young woman’s forehead and temples caressingly. The woman whom he had called Dorothée before the little notebook had revealed that her name was Edwige–the enigmatic instrument of Lucifer, one of his slaves–fell into a hypnotic trance.
There followed a long dialogue in German: affirmations and energetically-formulated questions; answers extracted, with difficulty at first, then more easily, then extended by details spontaneously furnished by the works of a memory that had finally been unlocked and freed.
“Edwige!” intoned the Nyctalope, “Edwige! Hear my words and obey! I am more powerful than the demon who has, until now, dominated you and imposed his will upon you. It was by virtue of my influence that, when you came out of the hospital in Paris, you were progressively freed from his infernal grasp. Thanks to me, you had the strength to flee, and instead of turning towards the Rhine, you came to the Mediterranean. You are now trying to sail for Brazil, where you have been offered employment. Is that what you want to do?”
“Oh, yes! Yes! But I am suffering! I was never able...”
“You will be able to do it, thanks to me. Answer my questions. I want you to. I order you to. Where did you meet the evil man?”
“In Colmar.”
“On what date?”
“December 25... Last year...”
“In what circumstances? Where were you? What were you doing?”
“Beside the Nortmund family’s Christmas tree... In a house called The Willows... In a corner of the big drawing-room. I was the children’s governess...”
“Governess to the Nortmund family’s children? You?”
“Yes. I had succeeded in passing myself off as a native of the Alsace...”
“What did the evil man look like?”
“Tall, red-haired, thin, with fiery eyes–terrible!”
“Tell me his name?”
“I don’t know it.”
“Had you seen him before?”
“Never.”
“How did he come to be there?”
“I don’t know... Everyone in the world was there... There were a great many faces unknown to me...”
“What did he say to you? What did he do to you?”
“He did not speak to me. He looked at me, while putting his hands on me... And I felt my soul passing through them. That was all, that evening.”
“Afterwards? Speak! Tell me everything. I want you to, Edwige. I command it!”
“The next day, as I came out of evening Mass, alone, I encountered him again. He looked at me. I had to follow him, without his saying a word to me. Outside the town, he took me by the hands and said: ‘You are mine!’ Oh, the horror, the horror! He took me to an isolated house. I could not put up any resistance. I went back to The Willows, broken. I was questioned, for I had the face of a dead woman. I could not say anything, except that I was tired, very tired...”
“Afterwards? Keep talking, Edwige. Talk.”
“Afterwards, months passed. I was able to believe that it was a horrible nightmare. Then, one day, I received an envelope in the post which contained nothing but a card bearing this message: Next Sunday, at 4 p.m., I shall be waiting for you outside the Basle Gate. Burn this card, be silent, and come. I obeyed in every detail. He took me to a little house on the bank of the Lauch, on the right bank–a little red house. He... Oh, the horror, the horror! Then he put me into a trance, dictated a series of orders, gave me a wallet containing money and a blue envelope... That same evening, I took the train to Paris and I...”
“Enough! I know the rest. But the man, the man–where did he come from?”
“I don’t know.”
“He never called himself by any name whatsoever?”
“Never.”
“What language did he speak?”
“German.”
“With what accent?”
“Without any particular accent... Correct speech... No specific provincialism... Classical German–yes, classical...”
“You know nothing about him, then? Nothing but his features, his thinness, his voice...”
“His voice was harsh and imperious, metallic, his elocution often too rapid and jerky.”
“That’s all... And I’m glad that’s all, for now you won’t make me say any more. I’m tired, so tired...”
“You’ll sleep peacefully, Edwige. And you’ll rest... And you’ll forget this whole nightmare.”
The Nyctalope took the young woman by the waist, raised her up gently and carried her as far as the bed, where he set her down. By means of the appropriate rhythmic movements, he made her pass from the hypnotic trance into a natural sleep. He drew the curtains, went to make sure that the door to the corridor was securely locked, then went back into his own room and bolted the communicating door.
To Corsat and Pilou, who were standing there waiting for him, he simply said: “There’s a train to Paris at 8:48 p.m. You’ll be there tomorrow morning. Get the car and go immediately to Dijon. Wait for me there at the Hotel Terminus. Get your personal belongings out of the suitcase. Keep the portmanteau.”
“Yes, boss,” the two men said, in unison. But Corsat, stiffening into a military pose, immediately added: “Boss, would you permit me, on behalf of both of us, to ask one question?”
“Spit it out.”
“How did you already know what you needed to know in order to interrogate the young woman in such a fashion?”
“I’ll satisfy your curiosity,” the Nyctalope said, smiling. “It’s as well, in any case, that you know everything about this business, which will take us a long way, I think, along difficult roads, at the end of which we might have to fight something worse than death. When we stopped at Toulon, I saw the woman scribbling extensively in a notebook. I went through her bag and read it. Edwige is obsessed with keeping an intimate diary. Freed from the hypnotic bonds in which Lucifer had wrapped her, she felt her own personality reemerge and wrote an account of that liberation. Conscious of the subjection to which she had been forced, horrified by what she remembered of the past, she wanted to put as much distance as possible between the past and the present. You heard what I said to her? So now you know as much as I do.”