“So this,” thought Patrice, “is my friend and my father’s friend. He loved my father, respected his wishes, was faithful to his memory, raised a tomb to him, prayed on it and swore to avenge him. And now his mind has gone.”
Patrice felt that speech was useless. But, though the sound of his voice roused no echo in that wandering brain, it was possible that the eyes were susceptible to a reminder. He wrote on a clean sheet of paper the words that Siméon had gazed upon so often:
Patrice and Coralie
14 April, 1895
The old man looked, shook his head and repeated his melancholy, foolish chuckle.
The officer added a new line:
Armand Belval
The old man displayed the same torpor. Patrice continued the test. He wrote down the names of Essarès Bey and Colonel Fakhi. He drew a triangle. The old man failed to understand and went on chuckling.
But suddenly his laughter lost some of its childishness. Patrice had written the name of Bournef, the accomplice, and this time the old secretary appeared to be stirred by a recollection. He tried to get up, fell back in his chair, then rose to his feet again and took his hat from a peg on the wall.
He left his room and, followed by Patrice, marched out of the house and turned to the left, in the direction of Auteuil. He moved like a man in a trance who is hypnotized into walking without knowing where he is going. He led the way along the Rue de Boulainvilliers, crossed the Seine and turned down the Quai de Grenelle with an unhesitating step. Then, when he reached the boulevard, he stopped, putting out his arm, made a sign to Patrice to do likewise. A kiosk hid them from view. He put his head round it. Patrice followed his example.
Opposite, at the corner of the boulevard and a side-street, was a café, with a portion of the pavement in front of it marked out by dwarf shrubs in tubs. Behind these tubs four men sat drinking. Three of them had their backs turned to Patrice. He saw the only one that faced him, and he at once recognized Bournef.
By this time Siméon was some distance away, like a man whose part is played and who leaves it to others to complete the work. Patrice looked round, caught sight of a post-office and went in briskly. He knew that M. Masseron was at the Rue Raynouard. He telephoned and told him where Bournef was. M. Masseron replied that he would come at once.
Since the murder of Essarès Bey, M. Masseron’s enquiry had made no progress in so far as Colonel Fakhi’s four accomplices were concerned. True, they discovered the man Grégoire’s sanctuary and the bedrooms with the wall-cupboards; but the whole place was empty. The accomplices had disappeared.
“Old Siméon,” said Patrice to himself, “was acquainted with their habits. He must have known that they were accustomed to meet at this café on a certain day of the week, at a fixed hour, and he suddenly remembered it all at the sight of Bournef’s name.”
A few minutes later M. Masseron alighted from his car with his men. The business did not take long. The open front of the café was surrounded. The accomplices offered no resistance. M. Masseron sent three of them under a strong guard to the Dépôt and hustled Bournef into a private room.
“Come along,” he said to Patrice. “We’ll question him.”
“Mme. Essarès is alone at the house,” Patrice objected.
“Alone? No. There are all your soldier-men.”
“Yes, but I would rather go back, if you don’t mind. It’s the first time that I’ve left her and I’m justified in feeling anxious.”
“It’s only a matter of a few minutes,” M. Masseron insisted. “One should always take advantage of the fluster caused by the arrest.”
Patrice followed him, but they soon saw that Bournef was not one of those men who are easily put out. He simply shrugged his shoulders at their threats:
“It is no use, sir,” he said, “to try and frighten me. I risk nothing. Shot, do you say? Nonsense! You don’t shoot people in France for the least thing; and we are all four subjects of a neutral country. Tried? Sentenced? Imprisoned? Never! You forget that you have kept everything dark so far; and, when you hushed up the murder of Mustapha, of Fakhi and of Essarès, it was not done with the object of reviving the case for no valid reason. No, sir, I am quite easy. The internment-camp is the worst that can await me.”
“Then you refuse to answer?” said M. Masseron.
“Not a bit of it! I accept internment. But there are twenty different ways of treating a man in these camps, and I should like to earn your favor and, in so doing, make sure of reasonable comfort till the end of the war. But first of all, what do you know?”
“Pretty well everything.”
“That’s a pity: it decreases my value. Do you know about Essarès’ last night?”
“Yes, with the bargain of the four millions. What’s become of the money?”
Bournef made a furious gesture:
“Taken from us! Stolen! It was a trap!”
“Who took it?”
“One Grégoire.”
“Who was he?”
“His familiar, as we have since learnt. We discovered that this Grégoire was no other than a fellow who used to serve as his chauffeur on occasion.”
“And who therefore helped him to convey the bags of gold from the bank to his house.”
“Yes. And we also think, we know . . . Look here, you may as well call it a certainty. Grégoire . . . is a woman.”
“A woman!”
“Exactly. His mistress. We have several proofs of it. But she’s a trustworthy, capable woman, strong as a man and afraid of nothing.”
“Do you know her address?”
“No.”
“As to the gold: have you no clue to its whereabouts, no suspicion?”
“No. The gold is in the garden or in the house in the Rue Raynouard. We saw it being taken in every day for a week. It has not been taken out since. We kept watch every night. The bags are there.”
“No clue either to Essarès’ murderer?”
“No, none.”
“Are you quite sure?”
“Why should I tell a lie?”
“Suppose it was yourself? Or one of your friends?”
“We thought that you would suspect us. Fortunately, we happen to have an alibi.”
“Easy to prove?”
“Impossible to upset.”
“We’ll look into it. So you have nothing more to reveal?”
“No. But I have an idea . . . or rather a question which you will answer or not, as you please. Who betrayed us? Your reply may throw some useful light, for one person only knew of our weekly meetings here from four to five o’clock, one person only, Essarès Bey; and he himself often came here to confer with us. Essarès is dead. Then who gave us away?”
“Old Siméon.”
Bournef started with astonishment:
“What! Siméon? Siméon Diodokis?”
“Yes. Siméon Diodokis, Essarès Bey’s secretary.”
“He? Oh, I’ll make him pay for this, the blackguard! But no, it’s impossible.”
“What makes you say that it’s impossible?’”
“Why, because . . .”
He stopped and thought for some time, no doubt to convince himself that there was no harm in speaking. Then he finished his sentence:
“Because old Siméon was on our side.”
“What’s that you say?” exclaimed Patrice, whose turn it was to be surprised.
“I say and I swear that Siméon Diodokis was on our side. He was our man. It was he who kept us informed of Essarès Bey’s shady tricks. It was he who rang us up at nine o’clock in the evening to tell us that Essarès had lit the furnace of the old hothouses and that the signal of the sparks was going to work. It was he who opened the door to us, pretending to resist, of course, and allowed us to tie him up in the porter’s lodge. It was he, lastly, who paid and dismissed the men-servants.”
“But why? Why this treachery? For the sake of money?”
“No, from hatred. He bore Essarès Bey a hatred that often gave us
the shudders.”
“What prompted it?”
“I don’t know. Siméon keeps his own counsel. But it dated a long way back.”
“Did he know where the gold was hidden?” asked M. Masseron.
“No. And it was not for want of hunting to find out. He never knew how the bags got out the cellar, which was only a temporary hiding-place.”
“And yet they used to leave the grounds. If so, how are we to know that the same thing didn’t happen this time?”
“This time we were keeping watch the whole way round outside, a thing which Siméon could not do by himself.”
Patrice now put the question:
“Can you tell us nothing more about him?”
“No, I can’t. Wait, though; there was one rather curious thing. On the afternoon of the great day, I received a letter in which Siméon gave me certain particulars. In the same envelope was another letter, which had evidently got there by some incredible mistake, for it appeared to be highly important.”
“What did it say?” asked Patrice, anxiously.
“It was all about a key.”
“Don’t you remember the details?”
“Here is the letter. I kept it in order to give it back to him and warn him what he had done. Here, it’s certainly his writing. . . .”
Patrice took the sheet of notepaper; and the first thing that he saw was his own name. The letter was addressed to him, as he anticipated:
“Patrice,
“You will this evening receive a key. The key opens two doors midway down a lane leading to the river: one, on the right, is that of the garden of the woman you love; the other, on the left, that of a garden where I want you to meet me at nine o’clock in the morning on the 14th of April. She will be there also. You shall learn who I am and the object which I intend to attain. You shall both hear things about the past that will bring you still closer together.
“From now until the 14th the struggle which begins to-night will be a terrible one. If anything happens to me, it is certain that the woman you love will run the greatest dangers. Watch over her, Patrice; do not leave her for an instant unprotected. But I do not intend to let anything happen to me; and you shall both know the happiness which I have been preparing for you so long.
“My best love to you.”
“It’s not signed,” said Bournef, “but, I repeat, it’s in Siméon’s handwriting. As for the lady, she is obviously Mme. Essarès.”
“But what danger can she be running?” exclaimed Patrice, uneasily. “Essarès is dead, so there is nothing to fear.”
“I wouldn’t say that. He would take some killing.”
“Whom can he have instructed to avenge him? Who would continue his work?”
“I can’t say, but I should take no risks.”
Patrice waited to hear no more. He thrust the letter into M. Masseron’s hand and made his escape.
“Rue Raynouard, fast as you can,” he said, springing into a taxi.
He was eager to reach his destination. The dangers of which old Siméon spoke seemed suddenly to hang over Coralie’s head. Already the enemy, taking advantage of Patrice’s absence, might be attacking his beloved. And who could defend her?
“If anything happens to me,” Siméon had said.
And the supposition was partly realized, since he had lost his wits.
“Come, come,” muttered Patrice, “this is sheer idiocy. . . . I am fancying things. . . . There is no reason . . .”
But his mental anguish increased every minute. He reminded himself that old Siméon was still in full possession of his faculties at the time when he wrote that letter and gave the advice which it contained. He reminded himself that old Siméon had purposely informed him that the key opened the door of Coralie’s garden, so that he, Patrice, might keep an effective watch by coming to her in case of need.
He saw Siméon some way ahead of him. It was growing late, and the old fellow was going home. Patrice passed him just outside the porter’s lodge and heard him humming to himself.
“Any news?” Patrice asked the soldier on duty.
“No, sir.”
“Where’s Little Mother Coralie?”
“She had a walk in the garden and went upstairs half an hour ago.”
“Ya-Bon?”
“Ya-Bon went up with Little Mother Coralie. He should be at her door.”
Patrice climbed the stairs, feeling a good deal calmer. But, when he came to the first floor, he was astonished to find that the electric light was not on. He turned on the switch. Then he saw, at the end of the passage, Ya-Bon on his knees outside Coralie’s room, with his head leaning against the wall. The door was open.
“What are you doing there?” he shouted, running up.
Ya-Bon made no reply. Patrice saw that there was blood on the shoulder of his jacket. At that moment the Senegalese sank to the floor.
“Damn it! He’s wounded! Dead perhaps.”
He leapt over the body and rushed into the room, switching on the light at once.
Coralie was lying at full length on a sofa. Round her neck was the terrible little red-silk cord. And yet Patrice did not experience that awful, numbing despair which we feel in the presence of irretrievable misfortunes. It seemed to him that Coralie’s face had not the pallor of death.
He found that she was in fact breathing:
“She’s not dead. She’s not dead,” said Patrice to himself. “And she’s not going to die, I’m sure of it . . . nor Ya-Bon either. . . . They’ve failed this time.”
He loosened the cords. In a few seconds Coralie heaved a deep breath and recovered consciousness. A smile lit up her eyes at the sight of him. But, suddenly remembering, she threw her arms, still so weak, around him:
“Oh, Patrice,” she said, in a trembling voice, “I’m frightened . . . frightened for you!”
“What are you frightened of, Coralie? Who is the scoundrel?”
“I didn’t see him. . . . He put out the light, caught me by the throat and whispered, ‘You first. . . . To-night it will be your lover’s turn!’ . . . Oh, Patrice, I’m frightened for you! . . .”
CHAPTER XI. ON THE BRINK
PATRICE AT ONCE made up his mind what to do. He lifted Coralie to her bed and asked her not to move or call out. Then he made sure that Ya-Bon was not seriously wounded. Lastly, he rang violently, sounding all the bells that communicated with the posts which he had placed in different parts of the house.
The men came hurrying up.
“You’re a pack of nincompoops,” he said. “Some one’s been here. Little Mother Coralie and Ya-Bon have had a narrow escape from being killed.”
They began to protest loudly.
“Silence!” he commanded. “You deserve a good hiding, every one of you. I’ll forgive you on one condition, which is that, all this evening and all to-night, you speak of Little Mother Coralie as though she were dead.”
“But whom are we to speak to, sir?” one of them objected. “There’s nobody here.”
“Yes, there is, you silly fool, since Little Mother Coralie and Ya-Bon have been attacked. Unless it was yourselves who did it! . . . It wasn’t? Very well then. . . . And let me have no more nonsense. It’s not a question of speaking to others, but of talking among yourselves . . . and of thinking, even, without speaking. There are people listening to you, spying on you, people who hear what you say and who guess what you don’t say. So, until to-morrow, Little Mother Coralie will not leave her room. You shall keep watch over her by turns. Those who are not watching will go to bed immediately after dinner. No moving about the house, do you understand? Absolute silence and quiet.”
“And old Siméon, sir?”
“Lock him up in his room. He’s dangerous because he’s mad. They may have taken advantage of his madness to make him open the door to them. Lock him up!”
Patrice’s plan was a simple one. As the enemy, believing Coralie to be on the point of death, had revealed to her his intention, which was to kill Patrice as well
, it was necessary that he should think himself free to act, with nobody to suspect his schemes or to be on his guard against him. He would enter upon the struggle and would then be caught in a trap.
Pending this struggle, for which he longed with all his might, Patrice saw to Ya-Bon’s wound, which proved to be only slight, and questioned him and Coralie. Their answers tallied at all points. Coralie, feeling a little tired, was lying down reading. Ya-Bon remained in the passage, outside the open door, squatting on the floor, Arab-fashion. Neither of them heard anything suspicious. And suddenly Ya-Bon saw a shadow between himself and the light in the passage. This light, which came from an electric lamp, was put out at just about the same time as the light in the bed-room. Ya-Bon, already half-erect, felt a violent blow in the back of the neck and lost consciousness. Coralie tried to escape by the door of her boudoir, was unable to open it, began to cry out and was at once seized and thrown down. All this had happened within the space of a few seconds.
The only hint that Patrice succeeded in obtaining was that the man came not from the staircase but from the servants’ wing. This had a smaller staircase of its own, communicating with the kitchen through a pantry by which the tradesmen entered from the Rue Raynouard. The door leading to the street was locked. But some one might easily possess a key.
After dinner Patrice went in to see Coralie for a moment and then, at nine o’clock, retired to his bedroom, which was situated a little lower down, on the same side. It had been used, in Essarès Bey’s lifetime, as a smoking-room.
As the attack from which he expected such good results was not likely to take place before the middle of the night, Patrice sat down at a roll-top desk standing against the wall and took out the diary in which he had begun his detailed record of recent events. He wrote on for half an hour or forty minutes and was about to close the book when he seemed to hear a vague rustle, which he would certainly not have noticed if his nerves had not been stretched to their utmost state of tension. And he remembered the day when he and Coralie had once before been shot at. This time, however, the window was not open nor even ajar.
He therefore went on writing without turning his head or doing anything to suggest that his attention had been aroused; and he set down, almost unconsciously, the actual phases of his anxiety:
Delphi Collected Works of Maurice Leblanc (Illustrated) (Delphi Series Nine Book 17) Page 200