The Nyctalope vs Lucifer 1: Enter Lucifer!

by Jean de La Hire

  The very facility with which she was able to extend this inner monologue convinced Laurence of her victory. She played her role. Her clear and staring eyes became indecisive, as if misting over–which permitted her to escape, by a means less fatiguing than the first, the fascination of von Warteck’s eyes. Then, she became weak at the knees, let herself slump into an armchair and remained still for a moment, with her eyelids half-closed and a puerile smile on her lips. Then she got up, went to the table with a hesitant tread, sat down and began to eat.

  Always keeping in mind that she might have need of a great deal of strength and endurance, as circumstances required, she ate her fill. When she had finished, the servants cleared the table mechanically and disappeared.

  Laurence got up again. The proof was now conclusive. Throughout the meal, she had felt the effluvia of a mind and a will that were not hers whirling around her own, like a noisy swarm of hungry mosquitoes. This time, she had extended a mosquito-net around her by means of her own will, coldly resolved to fight until there was a definitive victory–or a defeat worse than death.

  Good! she said to herself. It’s a good game–let’s carry on playing it!

  She took a few steps, went to sit on the divan beside Baron Glô von Warteck and lowered her head into her cupped hands, while leaning her elbows on her knees. Her eyes stared ahead, expressionlessly.

  “Very important and very urgent things?” she said, slowly, in the voice of a little girl. “Well, Monsieur, I’m listening!”

  During the time that had elapsed since he had repeated the sentence Very important and very urgent things, Mademoiselle! Glô von Warteck had not paid any particular attention to his victim. His reflexes functioned habitually in respect of the special, very attenuated hypnotism that he was accustomed to use on Laurence while waiting. He was preoccupied by the events of the previous day and by what he intended to accomplish today. That certainly made the self-recovery that Laurence was attempting to achieve much easier. It also permitted the young woman’s artfulness to be exercised without any risk of opposition.

  Thus deceived, due in part to his own fault, and not knowing that he was deceived, Baron Glô von Warteck continued, so to speak, to spin the wheels of the formidable mechanism of his will-power without gaining any power over Laurence. He had made a plan the day before. He had come here to execute the part of it that concerned Laurence, and he did so mechanically, without suspecting that Laurence, instead of listening submissively in such a way that she would react in the desired fashion and obey, was observing, reflecting and calculating, and was responding to the exact necessary to maintain her role.

  The conversation was curt, and the play of his features hardly varied–for Lucifer retained an absolute impassivity throughout, his expressionless eyes fixed on Laurence’s left temple. From the very first words, Laurence was petrified, while a tumult of despairing anguish and tenacious hope whirled in her brain, this time without opposition. When it replied to the hard and emphatic voice of Glô von Warteck–who was speaking in French–Laurence’s voice was always the whisper of a perplexed and terrified little girl.

  “Mademoiselle,” he said, “your lover, Leo Saint-Clair, the Nyctalope–yes, your lover, for I have read many things in your thoughts, especially while you slept, and there is nothing I do not know about your past–is in the castle. He is my prisoner. He would obviously have attempted to free you. How did he know that you were here? I would know that soon, if I wished to know it, but it is unnecessary for several reasons. His life is in your hands. Do you want him to remain alive?”

  “Yes, yes... alive! Don’t kill him!” Laurence moaned.

  “I repeat that his life is in your hands. You know that I would only have to will it for you to stretch yourself out at this very moment, smiling and abandoned, on this divan... but no! You know already that I do not want to have you in that fashion. I want you to come to me of your own free will, exercised after a choice on which all your sentiments have had their influence.

  “Never, I tell you!” Laurence said. “I will never be yours by choice.”

  “You will be mine after making a choice, or by the force of my will–but in the second case, it will be a Hell for you and for those you love. Today I speak to you for the last time, with one more element to make you yield. Listen!”

  “I’m listening,” Laurence said, shrugging her shoulders. “You know very well that I can’t help listening.”

  “Firstly, the final deadline expires at midnight on June 10. Today is the May 15. You have a calendar here. You shall not see me again until midnight on June 10–unless, by a violent mental effort, you summon me before then to say: ‘I am yours, my beloved!’

  “Secondly, from today until June 10, or until the moment when you summon me, Leo Saint-Clair and his two companions will be, at any moment and according to my whim, subjected to physical and moral torture, which they will come every morning, at 9 a.m., to describe to you in person. You will see the stigmata of the physical torture in their flesh, and what they tell you will enable you to judge the extent of their moral torture.

  “Thirdly, from today until midnight on June 10, or until the moment when you summon me, Minna, Gertrude and Marie will be violated and tortured according to my whim–and every evening, at 8:30 p.m., after you have dined; they will also tell you in detail to what they have been subjected, and how they have suffered.

  “Finally, if, at midnight on June 10 at the latest, you do not come to me in the manner that you know I desire, Saint-Clair and his two companions will be put to death–after having witnessed for 24 hours the spectacle of your giving yourself to me, and meeting an exactly similar fate to Minna, Gertrude and Marie in my hands.

  “This ultimatum is the last, because since 9:10 yesterday morning, I now have in my power the person you love most in all the world: Leo Saint-Clair, the Nyctalope!”

  VI. This Holofernes’ Judith 18

  “Since 9:10 yesterday morning...”

  When Baron Glô von Warteck had pronounced these six words, Laurence could hardly help crying out, getting up and manifesting the joy produced by the certainty added to a discovery she had made, whose consequences she could not have foreseen, but of whose supreme importance, as a matter of life and death, she now had an intuition.

  “Since 9:10 yesterday morning...”

  Here we go! Laurence said to herself. Lucifer is not omniscient, since he doesn’t know what happened here, between 9:10 and approximately 9:30 a.m. His mind has its weaknesses, since he can’t take account of what he doesn’t know. His psychiatric gift is limited, since he hasn’t read in my mind the one fact that I was determined he should not read. His power is not absolute, since he has not been able to force me, by the ordinary mechanism of his will, to have no secrets from him. Finally, his faculties of intelligence, observation, deduction and his mastery of himself are not perfect, since he has, without any necessity, pronounced the worlds that have enlightened me: since 9:10 yesterday morning...

  Long after Baron Glô von Warteck had left the room. Laurence Païli continued sitting on he edge of the divan, with her elbows on her knees and her chin in her cupped hands. The expression on her face gradually changed, at first merely pensive and grave, then contracted, as if by wild and tragic resolution and then been fixed in horror and infinite despair. Finally it became calm, as white as alabaster, as she sat with her eyes closed and a delicately serene smile on her lips, like that of a young woman who had died while enraptured by a happy thought.

  An hour went by, a second, a third. Then, a door suddenly opened and the three servants came in. While they laid the table for lunch, like automata, Laurence went into the dressing-room, get undressed, and put on slippers and an elegant dressing-gown. Then she ate, with a good appetite, but silently and pensively. She did not spare a single glance for Minna, Gertrude and Marie, who cleared the table when she had finished and disappeared.

  Until 2 p.m. Laurence smoked Egyptian cigarettes, paced back and forth, establish
ed that the invisible wall was there, and then went to let down her hair, allowing the beautiful black tresses to undulate gently over her shoulders, down her back and along her bare arms.

  Suddenly, blushing abruptly then immediately becoming quite pale again, she stood still in the middle of the room, her sparkling eyes taking on an implacable resolution.

  “Oh, if I had a weapon!” she murmured. “If I had a revolver, or a dagger... but no! Everything here that might serve as a club or a hammer is solidly fixed. The bronze chandeliers and the clock are bolted to the marble. The central heating means that there’s no fireplace equipped with fire-irons and a basket of logs, with one of which I might strike to kill, or at least to stun. No weapon at all! The silver forks and knives that are brought to my table are so slender... oh, he’s taken every precaution! The bread is sliced, the meat cut up into little morsels. No, no–the search is futile. There’s nothing at all. To fight and conquer, I have nothing but my will, my body, my hands... and if I’m mistaken... if I can’t reproduce the phenomenon of 9:10 to 9:30 yesterday morning with greater intensity... if it’s impossible for Leo to profit from the phenomenon while it lasts... if, in the end, my sacrifice is futile... well, I’ll allow myself to die!”

  She breathed in deeply, like a diver about to hurl himself into the abyss–and, after concentrating her thoughts, she slowly pronounced, in a whisper: “Baron Glô von Warteck, I summon you. Come!”

  The previous day, at 9:10 a.m., when Leo Saint-Clair had seen two identical red-haired men at the same time–one free and standing in front of him, the other tied up and sitting behind him—he had thought at first that he was prey to a hallucination. Immediately, though, he, Corsat and Pilou saw Wolf, acting as if he had received a very precise verbal order, set about ungagging and untying not merely the seated man but the hauptmann too.

  The three captives established then that there were indeed two red-haired men, for they saw both of them in front of them, with the spluttering and sweating hauptmann to their left and the livid and tremulous Wolf to their right. Then they experienced an abrupt vertigo, and they perceived vaguely that one of the two red-haired men made some strange gestures in their direction. They felt themselves grow weak at the knees and faint–and everything ceased to exist.

  When they recovered consciousness, they were in a high-ceilinged room with bare stone walls, into which daylight entered through four narrow glazed loopholes. The room was round and the loopholes marked the extremities of two perpendicular diameters, along whose imaginary lines were set four camp-beds. Each bed was occupied by a man: Saint-Clair, Corsat, Pilou and Wolf, each dressed as he had been in the sentry post. The three Frenchmen even had their weapons–Brownings and knives.

  To his great amazement, Saint-Clair saw their equipment, including Corsat’s satchel and Pilou’s lassos, set on a round table in the middle of the cell. The four men, opening their eyes at the same time, pushed themselves up with their elbows into sitting positions. They looked at one another, and saw that they had all seen everything. The Frenchmen made certain that their Brownings had not been unloaded.

  Almost immediately, Saint-Clair began to speak, quickly and briefly. “Are you entirely lucid, Corsat, Pilou?”

  “I think so,” Pilou replied.

  “Me too,” said Corsat.

  “Let’s put it to the proof. Reply to some questions. How many individuals comprise the Nortmund family, You, Pilou...”

  “Six,” the Provençal replied, without hesitation. “The grandfather, the father, the mother, one son, two daughters,”

  “What are their names? You Corsat...”

  Straight away, the Burgundian said: “Messieurs Charles and Louis, Madame Blanche, Monsieur Paul, Mesdemoiselles Pierrette and Jacqueline.”

  “Good. And you, Wolf–do you know why you’re here, with us?”

  “I only know,” Wolf replied, dejectedly, “that we have not long to live.”

  “What makes you so certain?”

  “This round room with four beds is legendary among the castle personnel. They call it the vestibule of death. To my knowledge, eight men have already been shut up here for offences that were more or less serious but were all punished by the same penalty: death. I saw them–two on the first occasion, three on the second and third occasions–for whenever men are condemned to death, all the castle staff, men and women like, file through this room, coming in by that door and going out by the one on the right. Then they’re never seen again–never again! We’re in the vestibule of death. Nothing can save us now.”

  “Well, that’s another question,” said the Nyctalope. “We say nothing can save us now when we see death before us, a millimeter and a second away, in distance and time–and then...! Isn’t that right, Corsat and Pilou?”

  “Dead right!”

  “To a T!”

  At these words and the two exclamations that followed, Wolf’s blue eyes opened wide. “Ach,” he said, “you’re mad!”

  “Perhaps,” said Saint-Clair, smiling. “Since you consider us to be utterly lost, you must think that nothing can make the situation worse?”

  “I do think that,” said Wolf, with fatalistic resignation.

  “Then you won’t have any difficulty answering the questions I put to you.”

  “None, Monsieur–but I warn you that I told you everything I know in the sentry post. Everything!”

  “So you didn’t know that there were two physically identical Barons von Warteck?”

  “I had no idea.”

  “You didn’t mention this vestibule of death.”

  “Indeed–but it’s the only thing, I swear to you, that I omitted.”

  “Prepare your soul for death, then, Wolf, since you’re convinced that you’re going to die. If I can save you at the same time as the rest of us, though, will you consent to live?”

  “Certainly–but you can no more save yourselves than you can save me.”

  “We’ll see! Prepare your soul for death, Wolf–but also for life. In the meantime, my companions and I will examine the situation.

  Throughout this dialogue each of the four men had stayed exactly as he was immediately after their awakening, Saint-Clair sitting up, Corsat leaning to his left on a hard bolster, Pilou leaning to his right on the edge of the bed, Wolf sitting crossways, his legs dangling. Turning away from Wolf, who was facing him, Saint-Clair turned to his right, towards Corsat, then to his left, towards Pilou, and said: “Come together!”

  Each one moved to sit at the foot of his bed, facing the central table. In that position, Saint-Clair only had to extend his arms to seize Corsat’s left hand and Pilou’s right, provided that they extended their arms too. Given that their bedheads touched the wall beneath each of the loopholes and that the beds were about two meters long; given also that in order to touch the table in front of them the three men had to lean forwards and reach out their arms; and given, finally, that the table was about a hundred and fifty centimeters in diameter, the exact dimensions of the vast circular room cold be calculated.

  “Let’s see,” said Saint-Clair, after having made the calculation, by virtue of his habit of leaving no observation neglected. “What do you think about what happened to us? Corsat?”

  “I only know this,” Corsat relied. “To have left us our weapons, and to have had my equipment, my satchel and those two lassos set down at our disposal, the red-haired twins must be very sure of their power.”

  “Fair enough,” Saint-Clair agreed. “You don’t have any thoughts about the scene in the sentry post, then?”

  “None. It’s too complicated. I’ll leave that to you, boss.”

  “What about you, Pilou?”

  “Me, I only have one question.”

  “What?”

  “Why did we faint before the red-haired twins, without being struck, touched, or even slightly brushed by anything whatsoever?”

  “Because the sight of a second red-haired man identical to the first disorientated us,” Saint-Clair replied,
“and the newcomer simply put us into a hypnotic trance.” After a moment’s pause, he continued: “Personally, knowing what I know, I wouldn’t give a farthing for our lives. There’s no use bluffing any more. We’ve found ourselves facing death 20 times before, Corsat and Pilou, and I’ve always said to you: ‘Bah–we’ll escape yet!’–for I was sure that we would escape. And I was right, for we’re here. This time, though, while repeating what I said to Wolf, that it’s only necessary to despair of life when one is actually dead, I say to you: ‘it will be very difficult, and perhaps impossible, to escape again!’ To succeed, we shall have to bring to bear all of our will-power. Will-power, will-power, will-power! Three times I say it to you–for that’s the issue: to exert our will, and to do it powerfully enough to prevail, despite the terrible will that opposes us.

  “Doors that are bolted or electrified, walls that are thick and steep, armed men–all that is nothing. Imagination, coolness, courage and decisiveness are all that’s needed to defeat them. Here, though, it’s a mind that we must overcome–and with our own minds, essentially! Corsat, Pilou, my good men, we let ourselves be taken by surprise once, and Lucifer hypnotized us. That’s stupid–and so dangerous that we are now prisoners, in graver danger of death than we have ever been before. I’m not at all sure that we can save ourselves; I scarcely dare to nurture the hope–but I desire it with all the might of my being... all the might of the love that is the intimate foundation of my being.

  “Why are there two red-haired men? It might be explained by the birth of identical twins, or skillful make-up. Therefore, the question is unimportant. What is important is this thought: only one of the two red-haired men is endowed with the psychic power; only one of them is the true Baron. That was the second of the two–I mean the one who was the second to enter the sentry post yesterday. We may have to distinguish between them, for safety’s sake. How can we make that distinction? I have no idea.