The Eight Strokes of the Clock

by Maurice Leblanc

  “Sisters, both of them.”

  “With whom they could go to live?”

  “Yes; and they have sometimes thought of doing so. But there can’t be any question of that. Once more, I assure you …”

  Meantime the car had returned. The two women jumped up hurriedly, ready to speak.

  “Leave it to me,” said Rénine, “and don’t be surprised by anything that I say. It’s not a matter of asking her questions but of frightening her, of flurrying her … The sudden attack,” he added between his teeth.

  The car drove round the lawn and drew up outside the windows. Hortense sprang out and helped an old woman to alight, dressed in a fluted linen cap, a black velvet bodice and a heavy gathered skirt.

  The old woman entered in a great state of alarm. She had a pointed face, like a weasel’s, with a prominent mouth full of protruding teeth.

  “What’s the matter, Madame d’Imbleval?” she asked, timidly stepping into the room from which the doctor had once driven her. “Good day to you, Madame Vaurois.”

  The ladies did not reply. Rénine came forward and said, sternly:

  “Mlle. Boussignol, I have been sent by the Paris police to throw light upon a tragedy which took place here twenty-seven years ago. I have just secured evidence that you have distorted the truth and that, as the result of your false declarations, the birth certificate of one of the children born in the course of that night is inaccurate. Now false declarations in matters of birth certificates are misdemeanours punishable by law. I shall therefore be obliged to take you to Paris to be interrogated … unless you are prepared here and now to confess everything that might repair the consequences of your offence.”

  The old maid was shaking in every limb. Her teeth were chattering. She was evidently incapable of opposing the least resistance to Rénine.

  “Are you ready to confess everything?” he asked.

  “Yes,” she panted.

  “Without delay? I have to catch a train. The business must be settled immediately. If you show the least hesitation, I take you with me. Have you made up your mind to speak?”

  “Yes.”

  He pointed to Jean Louis:

  “Whose son is this gentleman? Madame d’Imbleval’s?”

  “No.”

  “Madame Vaurois’, therefore?”

  “No.”

  A stupefied silence welcomed the two replies.

  “Explain yourself,” Rénine commanded, looking at his watch.

  Then Madame Boussignol fell on her knees and said, in so low and dull a voice that they had to bend over her in order to catch the sense of what she was mumbling:

  “Someone came in the evening … a gentleman with a newborn baby wrapped in blankets, which he wanted the doctor to look after. As the doctor wasn’t there, he waited all night and it was he who did it all.”

  “Did what?” asked Rénine. “What did he do? What happened?”

  “Well, what happened was that it was not one child but the two of them that died: Madame d’Imbleval’s and Madame Vaurois’ too, both in convulsions. Then the gentleman, seeing this, said, ‘This shows me where my duty lies. I must seize this opportunity of making sure that my own boy shall be happy and well cared for. Put him in the place of one of the dead children.’ He offered me a big sum of money, saying that this one payment would save him the expense of providing for his child every month, and I accepted. Only, I did not know in whose place to put him and whether to say that the boy was Louis d’Imbleval or Jean Vaurois. The gentleman thought a moment and said neither. Then he explained to me what I was to do and what I was to say after he had gone. And, while I was dressing his boy in vest and binders the same as one of the dead children, he wrapped the other in the blankets he had brought with him and went out into the night.”

  Mlle. Boussignol bent her head and wept. After a moment, Rénine said:

  “Your deposition agrees with the result of my investigations.”

  “Can I go?”

  “Yes.”

  “And is it over, as far as I’m concerned? They won’t be talking about this all over the district?”

  “No. Oh, just one more question: do you know the man’s name?”

  “No. He didn’t tell me his name.”

  “Have you ever seen him since?”

  “Never.”

  “Have you anything more to say?”

  “No.”

  “Are you prepared to sign the written text of your confession?”

  “Yes.”

  “Very well. I shall send for you in a week or two. Till then, not a word to anybody.”

  He saw her to the door and closed it after her. When he returned, Jean Louis was between the two old ladies, and all three were holding hands. The bond of hatred and wretchedness which had bound them had suddenly snapped; and this rupture, without requiring them to reflect upon the matter, filled them with a gentle tranquillity of which they were hardly conscious, but which made them serious and thoughtful.

  “Let’s rush things,” said Rénine to Hortense. “This is the decisive moment of the battle. We must get Jean Louis on board.”

  Hortense seemed preoccupied. She whispered:

  “Why did you let the woman go? Were you satisfied with her statement?”

  “I don’t need to be satisfied. She told us what happened. What more do you want?”

  “Nothing … I don’t know …”

  “We’ll talk about it later, my dear. For the moment, I repeat, we must get Jean Louis on board. And immediately … Otherwise …”

  He turned to the young man:

  “You agree with me, don’t you, that, things being as they are, it is best for you and Madame Vaurois and Madame d’Imbleval to separate for a time? That will enable you all to see matters more clearly and to decide in perfect freedom what is to be done. Come with us, monsieur. The most pressing thing is to save Geneviève Aymard, your fiancée.”

  Jean Louis stood perplexed and undecided. Rénine turned to the two women:

  “That is your opinion, too, I am sure, ladies?”

  They nodded.

  “You see, monsieur,” he said to Jean Louis, “we are all agreed. In great crises, there is nothing like separation … a few days’ respite. Quickly now, monsieur.”

  And, without giving him time to hesitate, he drove him towards his bedroom to pack up.

  Half an hour later, Jean Louis left the manor house with his new friends.

  “And he won’t go back until he’s married,” said Rénine to Hortense, as they were waiting at Carhaix station, to which the car had taken them, while Jean Louis was attending to his luggage. “Everything’s for the best. Are you satisfied?”

  “Yes, Geneviève will be glad,” she replied, absently.

  When they had taken their seats in the train, Rénine and she repaired to the dining car. Rénine, who had asked Hortense several questions to which she had replied only in monosyllables, protested:

  “What’s the matter with you, my child? You look worried!”

  “I? Not at all!”

  “Yes, yes, I know you. Now, no secrets, no mysteries!”

  She smiled:

  “Well, since you insist on knowing if I am satisfied, I am bound to admit that of course I am … as regards my friend Geneviève, but that, in another respect—from the point of view of the adventure—I have an uncomfortable sort of feeling …”

  “To speak frankly, I haven’t ‘staggered’ you this time?”

  “Not very much.”

  “I seem to you to have played a secondary part. For, after all, what have I done? We arrived. We listened to Jean Louis’ tale of woe. I had a midwife fetched. And that was all.”

  “Exactly. I want to know if that was all, and I’m not quite sure. To tell you the truth, our other adventures left behind them an impression which was—how shall I put it?—more definite, clearer.”

  “And this one strikes you as obscure?” />
  “Obscure, yes, and incomplete.”

  “But in what way?”

  “I don’t know. Perhaps it has something to do with that woman’s confession. Yes, very likely that is it. It was all so unexpected and so short.”

  “Well, of course, I cut it short, as you can readily imagine!” said Rénine, laughing. “We didn’t want too many explanations.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Why, if she had given her explanations with too much detail, we should have ended by doubting what she was telling us.”

  “By doubting it?”

  “Well, hang it all, the story is a trifle far-fetched! That fellow arriving at night, with a live baby in his pocket, and going away with a dead one: the thing hardly holds water. But you see, my dear, I hadn’t much time to coach the unfortunate woman in her part.”

  Hortense stared at him in amazement:

  “What on earth do you mean?”

  “Well, you know how dull-witted these countrywomen are. And she and I had no time to spare. So we worked out a little scene in a hurry … and she really didn’t act it so badly. It was all in the right key: terror, tremolo, tears …”

  “Is it possible?” murmured Hortense. “Is it possible? You had seen her beforehand?”

  “I had to, of course.”

  “But when?”

  “This morning, when we arrived. While you were titivating yourself at the hotel at Carhaix, I was running round to see what information I could pick up. As you may imagine, everybody in the district knows the d’Imbleval-Vaurois story. I was at once directed to the former midwife, Mlle. Boussignol. With Mlle. Boussignol it did not take long. Three minutes to settle a new version of what had happened and ten thousand francs to induce her to repeat that … more or less credible … version to the people at the manor house.”

  “A quite incredible version!”

  “Not so bad as all that, my child, seeing that you believed it … and the others too. And that was the essential thing. What I had to do was to demolish at one blow a truth which had been twenty-seven years in existence and which was all the more firmly established because it was founded on actual facts. That was why I went for it with all my might and attacked it by sheer force of eloquence. Impossible to identify the children? I deny it. Inevitable confusion? It’s not true. ‘You’re all three,’ I say, ‘the victims of something which I don’t know but which it is your duty to clear up!’ ‘That’s easily done,’ says Jean Louis, whose conviction is at once shaken. ‘Let’s send for Mlle. Boussignol.’ ‘Right! Let’s send for her.’ Whereupon Mlle. Boussignol arrives and mumbles out the little speech which I have taught her. Sensation! General stupefaction … of which I take advantage to carry off our young man!”

  Hortense shook her head:

  “But they’ll get over it, all three of them, on thinking!”

  “Never! Never! They will have their doubts, perhaps. But they will never consent to feel certain! They will never agree to think! Use your imagination! Here are three people whom I have rescued from the hell in which they have been floundering for a quarter of a century. Do you think they’re going back to it? Here are three people who, from weakness or a false sense of duty, had not the courage to escape. Do you think that they won’t cling like grim death to the liberty which I’m giving them? Nonsense! Why, they would have swallowed a hoax twice as difficult to digest as that which Mlle. Boussignol dished up for them! After all, my version was no more absurd than the truth. On the contrary. And they swallowed it whole! Look at this: before we left, I heard Madame d’Imbleval and Madame Vaurois speak of an immediate removal. They were already becoming quite affectionate at the thought of seeing the last of each other.”

  “But what about Jean Louis?”

  “Jean Louis? Why, he was fed up with his two mothers! By Jingo, one can’t do with two mothers in a lifetime! What a situation! And when one has the luck to be able to choose between having two mothers or none at all, why, bless me, one doesn’t hesitate! And, besides, Jean Louis is in love with Geneviève.” He laughed. “And he loves her well enough, I hope and trust, not to inflict two mothers-in-law upon her! Come, you may be easy in your mind. Your friend’s happiness is assured; and that is all you asked for. All that matters is the object which we achieve and not the more or less peculiar nature of the methods which we employ. And, if some adventures are wound up and some mysteries elucidated by looking for and finding cigarette ends, or incendiary water bottles and blazing hatboxes as on our last expedition, others call for psychology and for purely psychological solutions. I have spoken. And I charge you to be silent.”

  “Silent?”

  “Yes, there’s a man and woman sitting behind us who seem to be saying something uncommonly interesting.”

  “But they’re talking in whispers.”

  “Just so. When people talk in whispers, it’s always about something shady.”

  He lit a cigarette and sat back in his chair. Hortense listened, but in vain. As for him, he was emitting little slow puffs of smoke.

  Fifteen minutes later, the train stopped and the man and woman got out.

  “Pity,” said Rénine, “that I don’t know their names or where they’re going. But I know where to find them. My dear, we have a new adventure before us.”

  Hortense protested:

  “Oh, no, please, not yet! … Give me a little rest! … And oughtn’t we to think of Geneviève?”

  He seemed greatly surprised:

  “Why, all that’s over and done with! Do you mean to say you want to waste any more time over that old story? Well, I for my part confess that I’ve lost all interest in the man with the two mammas.”

  And this was said in such a comical tone and with such diverting sincerity that Hortense was once more seized with a fit of giggling. Laughter alone was able to relax her exasperated nerves and to distract her from so many contradictory emotions.

  IV. THE TELLTALE FILM

  “Do look at the man who’s playing the butler,” said Serge Rénine.

  “What is there peculiar about him?” asked Hortense.

  They were sitting in the balcony at a picture palace, to which Hortense had asked to be taken so that she might see on the screen the daughter of a lady, now dead, who used to give her piano lessons. Rose Andrée, a lovely girl with lissome movements and a smiling face, was that evening figuring in a new film, The Happy Princess, which she lit up with her high spirits and her warm, glowing beauty.

  Rénine made no direct reply, but, during a pause in the performance, continued:

  “I sometimes console myself for an indifferent film by watching the subordinate characters. It seems to me that those poor devils, who are made to rehearse certain scenes ten or twenty times over, must often be thinking of other things than their parts at the time of the final exposure. And it’s great fun noting those little moments of distraction which reveal something of their temperament, of their instinct self. As, for instance, in the case of that butler: look!”

  The screen now showed a luxuriously served table. The Happy Princess sat at the head, surrounded by all her suitors. Half a dozen footmen moved about the room, under the orders of the butler, a big fellow with a dull, coarse face, a common appearance and a pair of enormous eyebrows, which met across his forehead in a single line.

  “He looks a brute,” said Hortense, “but what do you see in him that’s peculiar?”

  “Just note how he gazes at the princess and tell me if he doesn’t stare at her oftener than he ought to.”

  “I really haven’t noticed anything, so far,” said Hortense.

  “Why, of course he does!” Serge Rénine declared. “It is quite obvious that in actual life he entertains for Rose Andrée personal feelings which are quite out of place in a nameless servant. It is possible that, in real life, no one has any idea of such a thing; but, on the screen, when he is not watching himself, or when he thinks that the actors at rehearsal cannot see him, hi
s secret escapes him. Look …”

  The man was standing still. It was the end of dinner. The princess was drinking a glass of champagne and he was gloating over her with his glittering eyes half-hidden behind their heavy lids.

  Twice again they surprised in his face those strange expressions to which Rénine ascribed an emotional meaning which Hortense refused to see:

  “It’s just his way of looking at people,” she said.

  The first part of the film ended. There were two parts, divided by an entr’acte. The notice on the programme stated that “a year had elapsed and that the Happy Princess was living in a pretty Norman cottage, all hung with creepers, together with her husband, a poor musician.”

  The princess was still happy, as was evident on the screen, still as attractive as ever and still besieged by the greatest variety of suitors. Nobles and commoners, peasants and financiers, men of all kinds fell swooning at her feet; and prominent among them was a sort of boorish solitary, a shaggy, half-wild woodcutter, whom she met whenever she went out for a walk. Armed with his axe, a formidable, crafty being, he prowled around the cottage; and the spectators felt with a sense of dismay that a peril was hanging over the Happy Princess’ head.

  “Look at that!” whispered Rénine. “Do you realise who the man of the woods is?”

  “No.”

  “Simply the butler. The same actor is doubling the two parts.”

  In fact, notwithstanding the new figure which he cut, the butler’s movements and postures were apparent under the heavy gait and rounded shoulders of the woodcutter, even as under the unkempt beard and long, thick hair the once clean-shaven face was visible with the cruel expression and the bushy line of the eyebrows.

  The princess, in the background, was seen to emerge from the thatched cottage. The man hid himself behind a clump of trees. From time to time, the screen displayed, on an enormously enlarged scale, his fiercely rolling eyes or his murderous hands with their huge thumbs.

  “The man frightens me,” said Hortense. “He is really terrifying.”

  “Because he’s acting on his own account,” said Rénine. “You must understand that, in the space of three or four months that appears to separate the dates at which the two films were made, his passion has made progress; and to him it is not the princess who is coming but Rose Andrée.”