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

by Maurice Leblanc

  Rénine wrote, “THURSDAY EVENING, NINE O’CLOCK,” in big letters, on a card which he nailed above the mantelpiece in his study. Then at midday on Saturday, the day after the disappearance, he locked himself into the study, after telling his man not to disturb him except for meals and letters.

  He spent four days there, almost without moving. He had immediately sent for a set of all the leading newspapers which had spoken in detail of the first six crimes. When he had read and reread them, he closed the shutters, drew the curtains and lay down on the sofa in the dark, with the door bolted, thinking.

  By Tuesday evening he was no further advanced than on the Saturday. The darkness was as dense as ever. He had not discovered the smallest clue for his guidance, nor could he see the slightest reason to hope.

  At times, notwithstanding his immense power of self-control and his unlimited confidence in the resources at his disposal, at times he would quake with anguish. Would he arrive in time? There was no reason why he should see more clearly during the last few days than during those which had already elapsed. And this meant that Hortense Daniel would inevitably be murdered.

  The thought tortured him. He was attached to Hortense by a much stronger and deeper feeling than the appearance of the relations between them would have led an onlooker to believe. The curiosity at the beginning, the first desire, the impulse to protect Hortense, to distract her, to inspire her with a relish for existence: all this had simply turned to love. Neither of them was aware of it, because they barely saw each other save at critical times when they were occupied with the adventures of others and not with their own. But, at the first onslaught of danger, Rénine realized the place which Hortense had taken in his life and he was in despair at knowing her to be a prisoner and a martyr and at being unable to save her.

  He spent a feverish, agitated night, turning the case over and over from every point of view. The Wednesday morning was also a terrible time for him. He was losing ground. Giving up his hermit-like seclusion, he threw open the windows and paced to and fro through his rooms, ran out into the street and came in again, as though fleeing before the thought that obsessed him:

  “Hortense is suffering.... Hortense is in the depths.... She sees the hatchet.... She is calling to me.... She is entreating me.... And I can do nothing....”

  It was at five o’clock in the afternoon that, on examining the list of the six names, he received that little inward shock which is a sort of signal of the truth that is being sought for. A light shot through his mind. It was not, to be sure, that brilliant light in which every detail is made plain, but it was enough to tell him in which direction to move.

  His plan of campaign was formed at once. He sent Adolphe, his chauffeur, to the principal newspapers, with a few lines which were to appear in type among the next morning’s advertisements. Adolphe was also told to go to the laundry at Courbevoie, where Mlle. Covereau, the second of the six victims, had been employed.

  On the Thursday, Rénine did not stir out of doors. In the afternoon, he received several letters in reply to his advertisement. Then two telegrams arrived. Lastly, at three o’clock, there came a pneumatic letter, bearing the Trocadéro postmark, which seemed to be what he was expecting.

  He turned up a directory, noted an address— “M. de Lourtier-Vaneau, retired colonial governor, 47 bis, Avenue Kléber” — and ran down to his car:

  “Adolphe, 47 bis, Avenue Kléber.”

  He was shown into a large study furnished with magnificent book-cases containing old volumes in costly bindings. M. de Lourtier-Vaneau was a man still in the prime of life, wearing a slightly grizzled beard and, by his affable manners and genuine distinction, commanding confidence and liking.

  “M. de Lourtier,” said Rénine, “I have ventured to call on your excellency because I read in last year’s newspapers that you used to know one of the victims of the lady with the hatchet, Honorine Vernisset.”

  “Why, of course we knew her!” cried M. de Lourtier. “My wife used to employ her as a dressmaker by the day. Poor girl!”

  “M. de Lourtier, a lady of my acquaintance has disappeared as the other six victims disappeared.

  “What!” exclaimed M. de Lourtier, with a start. “But I have followed the newspapers carefully. There was nothing on the 18th of October.”

  “Yes, a woman of whom I am very fond, Madame Hortense Daniel, was abducted on the 17th of October.”

  “And this is the 22nd!”

  “Yes; and the murder will be committed on the 24th.”

  “Horrible! Horrible! It must be prevented at all costs....”

  “And I shall perhaps succeed in preventing it, with your excellency’s assistance.”

  “But have you been to the police?”

  “No. We are faced by mysteries which are, so to speak, absolute and compact, which offer no gap through which the keenest eyes can see and which it is useless to hope to clear up by ordinary methods, such as inspection of the scenes of the crimes, police enquiries, searching for finger-prints and so on. As none of those proceedings served any good purpose in the previous cases, it would be waste of time to resort to them in a seventh, similar case. An enemy who displays such skill and subtlety would not leave behind her any of those clumsy traces which are the first things that a professional detective seizes upon.”

  “Then what have you done?”

  “Before taking any action, I have reflected. I gave four days to thinking the matter over.”

  M. de Lourtier-Vaneau examined his visitor closely and, with a touch of irony, asked:

  “And the result of your meditations ...?”

  “To begin with,” said Rénine, refusing to be put out of countenance, “I have submitted all these cases to a comprehensive survey, which hitherto no one else had done. This enabled me to discover their general meaning, to put aside all the tangle of embarrassing theories and, since no one was able to agree as to the motives of all this filthy business, to attribute it to the only class of persons capable of it.”

  “That is to say?”

  “Lunatics, your excellency.”

  M. de Lourtier-Vaneau started:

  “Lunatics? What an idea!”

  “M. de Lourtier, the woman known as the lady with the hatchet is a madwoman.”

  “But she would be locked up!”

  “We don’t know that she’s not. We don’t know that she is not one of those half-mad people, apparently harmless, who are watched so slightly that they have full scope to indulge their little manias, their wild-beast instincts. Nothing could be more treacherous than these creatures. Nothing could be more crafty, more patient, more persistent, more dangerous and at the same time more absurd and more logical, more slovenly and more methodical. All these epithets, M. de Lourtier, may be applied to the doings of the lady with the hatchet. The obsession of an idea and the continual repetition of an act are characteristics of the maniac. I do not yet know the idea by which the lady with the hatchet is obsessed but I do know the act that results from it; and it is always the same. The victim is bound with precisely similar ropes. She is killed after the same number of days. She is struck by an identical blow, with the same instrument, in the same place, the middle of the forehead, producing an absolutely vertical wound. An ordinary murderer displays some variety. His trembling hand swerves aside and strikes awry. The lady with the hatchet does not tremble. It is as though she had taken measurements; and the edge of her weapon does not swerve by a hair’s breadth. Need I give you any further proofs or examine all the other details with you? Surely not. You now possess the key to the riddle; and you know as I do that only a lunatic can behave in this way, stupidly, savagely, mechanically, like a striking clock or the blade of the guillotine....”

  M. de Lourtier-Vaneau nodded his head:

  “Yes, that is so. One can see the whole affair from that angle ... and I am beginning to believe that this is how one ought to see it. But, if we admit that this madwoman has the sort of mathematical logic which governed the mur
ders of the six victims, I see no connection between the victims themselves. She struck at random. Why this victim rather than that?”

  “Ah,” said Rénine. “Your excellency is asking me a question which I asked myself from the first moment, the question which sums up the whole problem and which cost me so much trouble to solve! Why Hortense Daniel rather than another? Among two millions of women who might have been selected, why Hortense? Why little Vernisset? Why Miss Williamson? If the affair is such as I conceived it, as a whole, that is to say, based upon the blind and fantastic logic of a madwoman, a choice was inevitably exercised. Now in what did that choice consist? What was the quality, or the defect, or the sign needed to induce the lady with the hatchet to strike? In a word, if she chose — and she must have chosen — what directed her choice?”

  “Have you found the answer?”

  Rénine paused and replied:

  “Yes, your excellency, I have. And I could have found it at the very outset, since all that I had to do was to make a careful examination of the list of victims. But these flashes of truth are never kindled save in a brain overstimulated by effort and reflection. I stared at the list twenty times over, before that little detail took a definite shape.”

  “I don’t follow you,” said M. de Lourtier-Vaneau.

  “M. de Lourtier, it may be noted that, if a number of persons are brought together in any transaction, or crime, or public scandal or what not, they are almost invariably described in the same way. On this occasion, the newspapers never mentioned anything more than their surnames in speaking of Madame Ladoue, Mlle. Ardent or Mlle. Covereau. On the other hand, Mlle. Vernisset and Miss Williamson were always described by their Christian names as well: Honorine and Hermione. If the same thing had been done in the case of all the six victims, there would have been no mystery.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because we should at once have realized the relation existing between the six unfortunate women, as I myself suddenly realized it on comparing those two Christian names with that of Hortense Daniel. You understand now, don’t you? You see the three Christian names before your eyes....”

  M. de Lourtier-Vaneau seemed to be perturbed. Turning a little pale, he said:

  “What do you mean? What do you mean?”

  “I mean,” continued Rénine, in a clear voice, sounding each syllable separately, “I mean that you see before your eyes three Christian names which all three begin with the same initial and which all three, by a remarkable coincidence, consist of the same number of letters, as you may prove. If you enquire at the Courbevoie laundry, where Mlle. Covereau used to work, you will find that her name was Hilairie. Here again we have the same initial and the same number of letters. There is no need to seek any farther. We are sure, are we not, that the Christian names of all the victims offer the same peculiarities? And this gives us, with absolute certainty, the key to the problem which was set us. It explains the madwoman’s choice. We now know the connection between the unfortunate victims. There can be no mistake about it. It’s that and nothing else. And how this method of choosing confirms my theory! What proof of madness! Why kill these women rather than any others? Because their names begin with an H and consist of eight letters! You understand me, M. de Lourtier, do you not? The number of letters is eight. The initial letter is the eighth letter of the alphabet; and the word huit, eight, begins with an H. Always the letter H. And the implement used to commit the crime was a hatchet. Is your excellency prepared to tell me that the lady with the hatchet is not a madwoman?”

  Rénine interrupted himself and went up to M. de Lourtier-Vaneau:

  “What’s the matter, your excellency? Are you unwell?”

  “No, no,” said M. de Lourtier, with the perspiration streaming down his forehead. “No ... but all this story is so upsetting! Only think, I knew one of the victims! And then....”

  Rénine took a water-bottle and tumbler from a small table, filled the glass and handed it to M. de Lourtier, who sipped a few mouthfuls from it and then, pulling himself together, continued, in a voice which he strove to make firmer than it had been:

  “Very well. We’ll admit your supposition. Even so, it is necessary that it should lead to tangible results. What have you done?”

  “This morning I published in all the newspapers an advertisement worded as follows: ‘Excellent cook seeks situation. Write before 5 P.M. to Herminie, Boulevard Haussmann, etc.’ You continue to follow me, don’t you, M. de Lourtier? Christian names beginning with an H and consisting of eight letters are extremely rare and are all rather out of date: Herminie, Hilairie, Hermione. Well, these Christian names, for reasons which I do not understand, are essential to the madwoman. She cannot do without them. To find women bearing one of these Christian names and for this purpose only she summons up all her remaining powers of reason, discernment, reflection and intelligence. She hunts about. She asks questions. She lies in wait. She reads newspapers which she hardly understands, but in which certain details, certain capital letters catch her eye. And consequently I did not doubt for a second that this name of Herminie, printed in large type, would attract her attention and that she would be caught to-day in the trap of my advertisement.”

  “Did she write?” asked M. de Lourtier-Vaneau, anxiously.

  “Several ladies,” Rénine continued, “wrote the letters which are usual in such cases, to offer a home to the so-called Herminie. But I received an express letter which struck me as interesting.”

  “From whom?”

  “Read it, M. de Lourtier.”

  M. de Lourtier-Vaneau snatched the sheet from Rénine’s hands and cast a glance at the signature. His first movement was one of surprise, as though he had expected something different. Then he gave a long, loud laugh of something like joy and relief.

  “Why do you laugh, M. de Lourtier? You seem pleased.”

  “Pleased, no. But this letter is signed by my wife.”

  “And you were afraid of finding something else?”

  “Oh no! But since it’s my wife....”

  He did not finish his sentence and said to Rénine:

  “Come this way.”

  He led him through a passage to a little drawing-room where a fair-haired lady, with a happy and tender expression on her comely face, was sitting in the midst of three children and helping them with their lessons.

  She rose. M. de Lourtier briefly presented his visitor and asked his wife:

  “Suzanne, is this express message from you?”

  “To Mlle. Herminie, Boulevard Haussmann? Yes,” she said, “I sent it. As you know, our parlour-maid’s leaving and I’m looking out for a new one.”

  Rénine interrupted her:

  “Excuse me, madame. Just one question: where did you get the woman’s address?”

  She flushed. Her husband insisted:

  “Tell us, Suzanne. Who gave you the address?”

  “I was rung up.”

  “By whom?”

  She hesitated and then said:

  “Your old nurse.”

  “Félicienne?”

  “Yes.”

  M. de Lourtier cut short the conversation and, without permitting Rénine to ask any more questions, took him back to the study:

  “You see, monsieur, that pneumatic letter came from a quite natural source. Félicienne, my old nurse, who lives not far from Paris on an allowance which I make her, read your advertisement and told Madame de Lourtier of it. For, after all,” he added laughing, “I don’t suppose that you suspect my wife of being the lady with the hatchet.”

  “No.”

  “Then the incident is closed ... at least on my side. I have done what I could, I have listened to your arguments and I am very sorry that I can be of no more use to you....”

  He drank another glass of water and sat down. His face was distorted. Rénine looked at him for a few seconds, as a man will look at a failing adversary who has only to receive the knock-out blow, and, sitting down beside him, suddenly gripped his arm:r />
  “Your excellency, if you do not speak, Hortense Daniel will be the seventh victim.”

  “I have nothing to say, monsieur! What do you think I know?”

  “The truth! My explanations have made it plain to you. Your distress, your terror are positive proofs.”

  “But, after all, monsieur, if I knew, why should I be silent?”

  “For fear of scandal. There is in your life, so a profound intuition assures me, something that you are constrained to hide. The truth about this monstrous tragedy, which suddenly flashed upon you, this truth, if it were known, would spell dishonour to you, disgrace ... and you are shrinking from your duty.”

  M. de Lourtier did not reply. Rénine leant over him and, looking him in the eyes, whispered:

  “There will be no scandal. I shall be the only person in the world to know what has happened. And I am as much interested as yourself in not attracting attention, because I love Hortense Daniel and do not wish her name to be mixed up in your horrible story.”

  They remained face to face during a long interval. Rénine’s expression was harsh and unyielding. M. de Lourtier felt that nothing would bend him if the necessary words remained unspoken; but he could not bring himself to utter them:

  “You are mistaken,” he said. “You think you have seen things that don’t exist.”

  Rénine received a sudden and terrifying conviction that, if this man took refuge in a stolid silence, there was no hope for Hortense Daniel; and he was so much infuriated by the thought that the key to the riddle lay there, within reach of his hand, that he clutched M. de Lourtier by the throat and forced him backwards:

  “I’ll have no more lies! A woman’s life is at stake! Speak ... and speak at once! If not ...!”

  M. de Lourtier had no strength left in him. All resistance was impossible. It was not that Rénine’s attack alarmed him, or that he was yielding to this act of violence, but he felt crushed by that indomitable will, which seemed to admit no obstacle, and he stammered: