Delphi Collected Works of Maurice Leblanc (Illustrated) (Delphi Series Nine Book 17)

by Maurice Leblanc

  “No, madame — at least not for the present. Later on we’ll see.”

  Only keeping Saint-Quentin with her, she told the children to go and play in the garden. Then she sat down and said:

  “I’m listening, madame.”

  “Just like that? Perfectly simply?”

  “Perfectly simply.”

  “Well, then, mademoiselle—”

  The Countess spoke in a tone the carelessness of which was not perhaps absolutely sincere.

  “Well, then, mademoiselle, you spoke of forgotten dungeons and ancient stones and hidden treasures. Now, the Chateau de Roborey is several centuries old. It has undoubtedly been the scene of adventures and dramas; and it would amuse us to know whether any of its inhabitants have by any chance left in some out-of-way corner one of these fabulous treasures of which you spoke.”

  Dorothy kept silent for some little time. Then she said:

  ‘ “I always answer with all the greater precision if full confidence is placed in me. If there are any reservations, if the question is not put as it ought to be...”

  “What reservations? I assure you, mademoiselle—”

  The young girl broke in firmly:

  “You asked me the question, madame, as if you were giving way to a sudden curiosity, which did not rest, so to speak, on any real base. Now you know as well as I do that excavations have been made in the château.”

  “That’s very possible,” said Count Octave. “But if they were, it must have been dozens of years ago, in the time of my father or grandfather.”

  “There are recent excavations,” Dorothy asserted.

  “But we have only been living in the château a month!”

  “It isn’t a matter of a month, but of some days... of some hours...”

  The Countess declared with animation:

  “I assure you, mademoiselle, that we have not made researches of any kind.”

  “Then the researches must have been made by some one else.”

  “By whom? And under what conditions? And in what spot?” —

  There was another silence. Then Dorothy went on:

  “You will excuse me, madame, if I have been going into matters which do not seem to be any business of mine. It’s one of my faults. Saint-Quentin often says to me: ‘Your craze for trespassing and ferreting about everywhere will lead people to say unpleasant things about you.’ But it happened that, on arriving here, since we had to wait for the hour of the performance, I took a walk. I wandered right and left, looking at things, and in the end I made a certain number of observations which, as it seemed to me, are of some importance. Thus...”

  The Count and Countess drew nearer in their eagerness to hear her. She went on:

  “Thus, while I was admiring the beautiful old fountain in the court of honor, I was able to make sure that, all round it, holes have been dug under the marble basin which catches the water. Was the exploration profitable? I do not know. In any case, the earth has been put back into its place carefully, but not so well that one cannot see that the surface of the soil is raised.”

  The Count and his guests looked at one another in astonishment.

  One of them objected:

  “Perhaps they’ve been repairing the basin... or been putting in a waste pipe?”

  “No,” said the Countess in a tone of decision. “No one has touched that fountain. And, doubtless, mademoiselle, you discovered other, traces of the same kind of work.”

  “Yes,” said Dorothy. “Some one has been doing the same thing a little distance away — under the rockery, the pedestal on which the sun-dial stands. They have been boring across that rockery. An iron rod has been broken. It’s there still.”

  “But why?” cried the excited Countess. “Why these two spots rather than others? What are they searching for? What do they want? Have you any indication?”

  They had not long to wait for her answer; and Dorothy delivered it slowly, as if to make it quite clear that here was the essential point of her inquiry:

  “The motive of these investigations is engraved on the marble of the fountain. You can see it from here? Sirens surround a column surmounted by a capital. Isn’t it so? Well, on one of the faces of the capital are some letters — almost effaced letters.”

  “But we’ve never noticed them!” cried the Countess.

  “They are there,” declared the young girl. “They are worn and hard to distinguish from the cracks in the marble. However, there is one word — a whole word — that one can reconstruct and read easily when once it has appeared to you.”

  “What word?”

  “The word FORTUNA.”

  The three syllables came long-drawn-out in a silence of stupefaction. The Count repeated them in a hushed voice, staring at Dorothy, who went on: “Yes; the word FORTUNA. And this word you find again also on the column of the sun-dial. Even yet more obliterated, to such a degree that one rather divines that it is there rather than actually reads it. But it certainly is there. Each letter is in its place. You cannot doubt it.”

  The Count had not waited for her to finish speaking. Already he was out of the house; and through the open windows they saw him hurry to the fountain. He cast but one glance at it, passed in front of the sun-dial, and came quickly back.

  “Everything that mademoiselle says is the exact truth. They have dug at both spots... and the word FORTUNA, which I saw at once, and which I had never seen before, gives the reason for their digging.... They have searched.,. and perhaps they have found.”

  “No,” the young girl asserted calmly.

  “Why do you say no? What do you know about it?”

  She hesitated. Her eyes met the eyes of d’Estreicher. He knew now, doubtless, that he was unmasked, and he began to understand what the young girl was driving at. But would she dare to go to extremities and join battle? And then what were the reasons for this unforeseen struggle?

  With an air of challenge he repeated the Countess’s question:

  “Yes; why do you say that they hare found nothing?”

  Boldly Dorothy accepted the challenge.

  “Because the digging has gone an. There is in the ravine, under the walls of the château, among the stones which have fallen from the cliff, an ancient slab, which certainly comes from some demolished structure. The word FORTUNA is to be deciphered on the base of it also. Let some one move that slab and they will discover a perfectly fresh excavation, and the tracks of feet muddled up by the hand.”

  CHAPTER III

  EXTRA-LUCID

  THIS LAST BLOW redoubled the uneasiness of the Count and Countess; and they took counsel in a low voice for a moment with their cousins d’Estreicher and Raoul Davernoie.

  Saint-Quentin on hearing Dorothy reveal the events in the ravine and the hiding-place of the man in the blouse had fallen back among the cushions of the great easy chair on which he was sitting. She was going mad! To set them on the trail of the man in the blouse was to set them on their own trail, his and Dorothy’s. What madness!

  She, however, in the midst of all this excitement and anxiety remained wholly calm. She appeared to be following a quite definite course with her goal clearly in view, while the others, without her guidance, stumbled in a panic.

  “Mademoiselle,” said the Countess, “your revelations have upset us considerably. They show how extraordinarily acute you are; and I cannot thank you enough for having given us this warning.”

  “You have treated me so kindly, madame,” she replied, “that I am only too delighted to have been of use to you.”

  “Of immense use to us,” agreed the Countess. “And I beg you to make the service complete.”

  “How?”

  “By telling us what you know.”

  “I don’t know any more.”

  “But perhaps you could learn more?”

  “In what way?”

  The Countess smiled:

  “By means of that skill in divination of which you were telling us a little while ago.”

&nbs
p; “And in which you do not believe, madame.”

  “But in which I’m quite ready to believe now.” Dorothy bowed.

  “I’m quite willing.... But these are experiments which are not always successful.”

  “Let’s try.”

  “Right. We’ll try. But I must ask you not to expect too much.”

  She took a handkerchief from Saint-Quentin’s pocket and bandaged her eyes with it.

  “Astral vision, on condition of being blind,” she said. “The less I see the more I see.”

  And she added gravely:

  “Put your questions, madame. I will answer them to the best of my ability.”

  “Remaining in a state of wakefulness all the? time?”

  “Yes.”

  She rested her two elbows on the table and buried her face in her hands. The Countess at once said: “Who has been digging? Who has been making excavations under the fountain and under the sun-dial?”

  A minute passed slowly. They had the impression she was concentrating and withdrawing from all contact with the world around her. At last she said in measured tones which bore no resemblance to the accents of a pythoness or a somnambulist.

  “I see nothing on the esplanade. In that quarter the excavations must already be several days old, and all traces are obliterated. But in the ravine—”

  “In the ravine?” said the Countess.

  “The slab is standing on end and a man is digging a hole with a mattock.”

  “A man? What man? Describe him.”

  “He is wearing a very long blouse.”

  “But his face?”...

  “His face is encircled by a muffler which passes under a cap with turned-down brim...You cannot even see his eyes. When he has finished digging he lets the slab fall back into its place and carries away the mattock.”

  “Nothing else?”

  “No. He has found nothing.”

  “Are you sure of that?”

  “Absolutely sure.”

  “And which way does he go?”

  “He goes back up the ravine.... He comes to the iron gates of the château.”

  “But they’re locked.”

  “He has the key. He enters.... It is early in the morning.... No one is up.... He directs his steps to the orangerie.... There’s a small room there.”

  “Yes. The gardener keeps his implements in it.”

  “The man sets the mattock in a corner, takes off his blouse and hangs it on a nail in the wall.”

  “But he can’t be the gardener!” exclaimed the Countess. “His face? Can you see his face?”

  “No... no.... It remains covered up.”

  “But his clothes?”

  “His clothes?... I can’t make them out.... He goes out.... He disappears.”

  The young girl broke off as if her attention were fixed on some one whose outline was blurred and lost in the shadow like a phantom.

  “I do not see him any longer,” she said. “I can see nothing any longer... Do I?... Ah yes, the steps of the chateau.... The door is shut quietly.... And then... then the staircase.... A long corridor dimly lighted by small windows.... However I can distinguish some prints... galloping horses... sportsmen in red coats.... Ah! The man!... The man is there, on his knees, before a door.... He turns the handle of the door.... It opens.”

  “It must be one of the servants,” said the Countess in a hollow voice. “And it must be a room on the first floor, since there are prints on the passage walls. What is the room like?”

  “The shutters are closed. The man has lit a pocket-lamp and is hunting about.... There’s a calendar on the chimney-piece.... It’s to-day, Wednesday.... And an Empire clock with gilded columns.”...

  “The clock in my boudoir,” murmured the Countess.

  “The hands point to a quarter of six.... The light of the lamp is directed to the other side of the room, on to a walnut cupboard with two doors. The man opens the two doors and reveals a safe.”

  They were listening to Dorothy in a troubled silence, their faces twitching with emotion. How could any one have failed to believe the whole of the vision the young girl was describing, seeing that she had never been over the chateau, never crossed the threshold of this boudoir, and that nevertheless she was describing things which must have been unknown to her.

  Dumfounded, the Countess exclaimed:

  “The safe was unlocked!... I’m certain of it... I shut it after putting my jewels away... I can still hear the sound of the door banging!”

  “Shut — yes. But the key there.”

  “What does that matter? I have muddled up the letters of the combination.”

  “Not so. The key turns.”

  “Impossible!”

  “The key turns. I see the three letters.”

  “The three letters! You see them!”

  “Clearly — an R, an O, and a B, that is to say the first three letters of the word Roborey. The safe is open. There’s a jewel-case inside it. The man’s hand gropes in it... and takes...”

  “What? What? What has he taken?”

  “Two earrings.”

  “Two sapphires, aren’t they? Two sapphires?”

  “Yes, madame, two sapphires.”

  Thoroughly upset and moving jerkily, the Countess went quickly out of the room, followed by her husband, and Raoul Davernoie. And Dorothy heard the Count say:

  “If this is true, you’ll admit, Davernoie, that this instance of divination would be uncommonly strange.”

  “Uncommonly strange indeed,” replied d’Estreicher who had gone as far as the door with them.

  He shut the door on them and came back to the middle of the drawingroom with the manifest intention of speaking to the young girl.

  Dorothy had removed the handkerchief from her eyes and was rubbing them like a person who has come out of the dark. The bearded nobleman and she looked at one another for a few moments. Then, after some hesitation, he took a couple of steps back towards the door. But once more he changed his mind and turning towards Dorothy, stroked his beard at length, and at last broke into a quiet, delighted chuckle.

  Dorothy, who was never behindhand when it came to laughing, did as the bearded nobleman had done.

  “You laugh?” said he.

  “I laugh because you laugh. But I am ignorant of the reason of your gayety. May I learn it?”

  “Certainly, mademoiselle. I laugh because I find all that very amusing.”

  “What is very amusing?”

  D’Estreicher came a few steps further into the room and replied:

  “What is very amusing is to mix up into one and the same person the individual who was making an excavation under the slab of stone and this other individual who broke into the château last night and stole the jewels.”

  “That is to say?” asked the young girl.

  “That is to say, to be yet more precise, the idea of throwing beforehand the burden of robbery committed by M. Saint-Quentin—”

  “Onto the back of M. d’Estreicher,” said Dorothy, ending his sentence for him.

  The bearded nobleman made a wry face, but did not protest. He bowed and said:

  “That’s it, exactly. We may just as well play with our cards on the table, mayn’t we? We’re neither of us people who have eyes for the purpose of not seeing. And if I saw a black silhouette slip out of a window last night. You, for your part, have seen—”

  “A gentleman who received a stone slab on his head.”

  “Exactly. And I repeat, it’s very ingenious of you to try to make them out to be one and the same person. Very ingenious... and very dangerous.”

  “In what way is it dangerous?”

  “In the sense that every attack provokes a counter-attack.”

  “I haven’t made any attack. But I wished to make it quite clear that I was ready to go to any lengths.”

  “Even to the length of attributing the theft of this pair of earrings to me?”

  “Perhaps.”

  “Oh! Then I’d better
lose no time proving that they’re in your hands.”

  “Be quick about it.”

  Once mere he stopped short on the threshold of the door and said:

  “Then we’re enemies?”

  “We’re enemies.”

  “Why? You’re quite unacquainted with me.”

  “I don’t need to be acquainted with you to know who you are.”

  “What? Who I am? I’m the Chevalier Maxime d’Estreicher.”

  “Possibly. But you’re also the gentleman who, secretly and without his cousins’ knowledge, seeks... that which he has no right to seek. With what object if not to steal it?”

  “And that’s your business?”

  “Yes.”

  “On what grounds?”

  “It won’t be long before you learn.”

  He made a movement — of anger or contempt? He controlled himself and mumbled:

  “All the worse for you and all the worse for Saint-Quentin. Good-bye for the present.”

  Without another word he bowed and went out.

  It was an odd fact, but in this kind of brutal and violent duel, Dorothy had kept so cool that hardly had the door closed before, following her instincts of a street Arab, she indulged in a high kick and pirouetted half across the room. Then, satisfied with herself and the way things were going, she opened a glass-case, took from it a bottle of smelling-salts, and went to Saint-Quentin who was lying back in his easy chair.

  “Smell it, old chap.”

  He sniffed it, began to sneeze, and stuttered:

  “We’re lost!”

  “You’re a fine fellow, Saint-Quentin! Why do you think we’re lost?”

  “He’s off to denounce us.”

  “Undoubtedly he’s off to buck up the inquiries about us. But as for denouncing us, for telling what he saw this morning, he daren’t do it. If he does, I tell in my turn what I saw.”

  “All the same, Dorothy, there was no point in telling them of the disappearance of the jewels.”

  “They were bound to discover it sooner or later. The fact of having been the first to speak of it diverts suspicion.”

  “Or turns it on to us, Dorothy.”

  “In that case I accuse the bearded nobleman.”

  “You need proofs.”

  “I shall find them.”