“Here, at la Roncière, I enjoy the greatest peace. My old spinster cousin Ermelin pets and coddles me like an invalid. I am getting back my colour and am very well, physically … so much so, in fact, that I no longer ever think of interesting myself in other people’s business. Never again! For instance (I am only telling you this because you are incorrigible, as inquisitive as any old charwoman, and always ready to busy yourself with things that don’t concern you), yesterday I was present at a rather curious meeting. Antoinette had taken me to the inn at Bassicourt, where we were having tea in the public room, among the peasants (it was market day), when the arrival of three people, two men and a woman, caused a sudden pause in the conversation.
“One of the men was a fat farmer in a long blouse, with a jovial, red face, framed in white whiskers. The other was younger, was dressed in corduroy and had lean, yellow, cross-grained features. Each of them carried a gun slung over his shoulder. Between them was a short, slender young woman, in a brown cloak and a fur cap, whose rather thin and extremely pale face was surprisingly delicate and distinguished-looking.
“‘Father, son and daughter-in-law,’ whispered my cousin.
“‘What! Can that charming creature be the wife of that clodhopper?’
“‘And the daughter-in-law of Baron de Gorne.’
“‘Is the old fellow over there a baron?’
“‘Yes, descended from a very ancient, noble family which used to own the château in the old days. He has always lived like a peasant: a great hunter, a great drinker, a great litigant, always at law with somebody, now very nearly ruined. His son Mathias was more ambitious and less attached to the soil and studied for the bar. Then he went to America. Next, the lack of money brought him back to the village, whereupon he fell in love with a young girl in the nearest town. The poor girl consented, no one knows why, to marry him, and for five years past she has been leading the life of a hermit, or rather of a prisoner, in a little manor house close by, the Manoir-au-Puits, the Well Manor.’
“‘With the father and the son?’ I asked.
“‘No, the father lives at the far end of the village, on a lonely farm.’
“‘And is Master Mathias jealous?’
“‘A perfect tiger!’
“‘Without reason?’
“‘Without reason, for Natalie de Gorne is the straightest woman in the world and it is not her fault if a handsome young man has been hanging around the manor house for the past few months. However, the de Gornes can’t get over it.’
“‘What, the father neither?’
“‘The handsome young man is the last descendant of the people who bought the château long ago. This explains old de Gorne’s hatred. Jérôme Vignal—I know him and am very fond of him—is a good-looking fellow and very well-off, and he has sworn to run off with Natalie de Gorne. It’s the old man who says so, whenever he has had a drop too much. There, listen!’
“The old chap was sitting among a group of men who were amusing themselves by making him drink and plying him with questions. He was already a little bit ‘on’ and was holding forth with a tone of indignation and a mocking smile which formed the most comic contrast:
“‘He’s wasting his time, I tell you, the coxcomb! It’s no manner of use his poaching round our way and making sheep’s eyes at the wench … The coverts are watched! If he comes too near, it means a bullet, eh, Mathias?’
“He gripped his daughter-in-law’s hand:
“‘And then the little wench knows how to defend herself, too,’ he chuckled. ‘Eh, you don’t want any admirers, do you, Natalie?’
“The young wife blushed, in her confusion at being addressed in these terms, while her husband growled:
“‘You’d do better to hold your tongue, father. There are things one doesn’t talk about in public.’
“‘Things that affect one’s honour are best settled in public,’ retorted the old one. ‘Where I’m concerned, the honour of the de Gornes comes before everything, and that fine spark, with his Paris airs, sha’n’t … ’
“He stopped short. Before him stood a man who had just come in and who seemed to be waiting for him to finish his sentence. The newcomer was a tall, powerfully built young fellow, in riding kit, with a hunting crop in his hand. His strong and rather stern face was lighted up by a pair of fine eyes in which shone an ironical smile.
“‘Jérôme Vignal,’ whispered my cousin.
“The young man seemed not at all embarrassed. On seeing Natalie, he made a low bow, and, when Mathias de Gorne took a step forward, he eyed him from head to foot, as though to say:
“‘Well, what about it?’
“And his attitude was so haughty and contemptuous that the de Gornes unslung their guns and took them in both hands, like sportsmen about to shoot. The son’s expression was very fierce.
“Jérôme was quite unmoved by the threat. After a few seconds, turning to the innkeeper, he remarked:
“‘Oh, I say! I came to see old Vasseur. But his shop is shut. Would you mind giving him the holster of my revolver? It wants a stitch or two.’
“He handed the holster to the innkeeper and added, laughing:
“‘I’m keeping the revolver, in case I need it. You never can tell!’
“Then, still very calmly, he took a cigarette from a silver case, lit it and walked out. We saw him through the window vaulting on his horse and riding off at a slow trot.
“Old de Gorne tossed off a glass of brandy, swearing most horribly.
“His son clapped his hand to the old man’s mouth and forced him to sit down. Natalie de Gorne was weeping beside them …
“That’s my story, dear friend. As you see, it’s not tremendously interesting and does not deserve your attention. There’s no mystery in it and no part for you to play. Indeed, I particularly insist that you should not seek a pretext for any untimely interference. Of course, I should be glad to see the poor thing protected: she appears to be a perfect martyr. But, as I said before, let us leave other people to get out of their own troubles and go no farther with our little experiments …”
Rénine finished reading the letter, read it over again and ended by saying:
“That’s it. Everything’s right as right can be. She doesn’t want to continue our little experiments, because this would make the seventh and because she’s afraid of the eighth, which under the terms of our agreement has a very particular significance. She doesn’t want to … and she does want to … without seeming to want to.”
He rubbed his hands. The letter was an invaluable witness to the influence which he had gradually, gently and patiently gained over Hortense Daniel. It betrayed a rather complex feeling, composed of admiration, unbounded confidence, uneasiness at times, fear and almost terror, but also love: he was convinced of that. His companion in adventures which she shared with a good fellowship that excluded any awkwardness between them, she had suddenly taken fright, and a sort of modesty, mingled with a certain coquetry, was impelling her to hold back.
That very evening, Sunday, Rénine took the train.
And, at break of day, after covering by diligence, on a road white with snow, the five miles between the little town of Pompignat, where he alighted, and the village of Bassicourt, he learnt that his journey might prove of some use: three shots had been heard during the night in the direction of the Manoir-au-Puits.
“Three shots, sergeant. I heard them as plainly as I see you standing before me,” said a peasant whom the gendarmes were questioning in the parlour of the inn which Rénine had entered.
“So did I,” said the waiter. “Three shots. It may have been twelve o’clock at night. The snow, which had been falling since nine, had stopped … and the shots sounded across the fields, one after the other: bang, bang, bang.”
Five more peasants gave their evidence. The sergeant and his men had heard nothing, because the police station backed on the fields. But a farm labourer and a woman arrived, who said tha
t they were in Mathias de Gorne’s service, that they had been away for two days because of the intervening Sunday and that they had come straight from the manor house, where they were unable to obtain admission:
“The gate of the grounds is locked, sergeant,” said the man. “It’s the first time I’ve known this to happen. M. Mathias comes out to open it himself, every morning at the stroke of six, winter and summer. Well, it’s past eight now. I called and shouted. Nobody answered. So we came on here.”
“You might have enquired at old M. de Gorne’s,” said the sergeant. “He lives on the high road.”
“On my word, so I might! I never thought of that.”
“We’d better go there now,” the sergeant decided. Two of his men went with him, as well as the peasants and a locksmith whose services were called into requisition. Rénine joined the party.
Soon, at the end of the village, they reached old de Gorne’s farmyard, which Rénine recognized by Hortense’s description of its position.
The old fellow was harnessing his horse and trap. When they told him what had happened, he burst out laughing:
“Three shots? Bang, bang, bang? Why, my dear sergeant, there are only two barrels to Mathias’ gun!”
“What about the locked gate?”
“It means that the lad’s asleep, that’s all. Last night, he came and cracked a bottle with me … perhaps two … or even three, and he’ll be sleeping it off, I expect … he and Natalie.”
He climbed onto the box of his trap—an old cart with a patched tilt—and cracked his whip:
“Good-bye, gentlemen all. Those three shots of yours won’t stop me from going to market at Pompignat, as I do every Monday. I’ve a couple of calves under the tilt, and they’re just fit for the butcher. Good day to you!”
The others walked on. Rénine went up to the sergeant and gave him his name:
“I’m a friend of Mlle. Ermelin, of La Roncière; and, as it’s too early to call on her yet, I shall be glad if you’ll allow me to go round by the manor with you. Mlle. Ermelin knows Madame de Gorne, and it will be a satisfaction to me to relieve her mind, for there’s nothing wrong at the manor house, I hope?”
“If there is,” replied the sergeant, “we shall read all about it as plainly as on a map, because of the snow.”
He was a likable young man and seemed smart and intelligent. From the very first he had shown great acuteness in observing the tracks which Mathias had left behind him, the evening before, on returning home, tracks which soon became confused with the footprints made in going and coming by the farm labourer and the woman. Meanwhile they came to the walls of a property of which the locksmith readily opened the gate.
From here onward, a single trail appeared upon the spotless snow, that of Mathias; and it was easy to perceive that the son must have shared largely in the father’s libations, as the line of footprints described sudden curves which made it swerve right up to the trees of the avenue.
Two hundred yards farther stood the dilapidated two-storeyed building of the Manoir-au-Puits. The principal door was open.
“Let’s go in,” said the sergeant.
And, the moment he had crossed the threshold, he muttered:
“Oho! Old de Gorne made a mistake in not coming. They’ve been fighting in here.”
The big room was in disorder. Two shattered chairs, the overturned table and much broken glass and china bore witness to the violence of the struggle. The tall clock, lying on the ground, had stopped at twenty past eleven.
With the farm girl showing them the way, they ran up to the first floor. Neither Mathias nor his wife was there. But the door of their bedroom had been broken down with a hammer which they discovered under the bed.
Rénine and the sergeant went downstairs again. The living room had a passage communicating with the kitchen, which lay at the back of the house and opened on a small yard fenced off from the orchard. At the end of this enclosure was a well near which one was bound to pass.
Now, from the door of the kitchen to the well, the snow, which was not very thick, had been pressed down to this side and that, as though a body had been dragged over it. And all around the well were tangled traces of trampling feet, showing that the struggle must have been resumed at this spot. The sergeant again discovered Mathias’ footprints, together with others which were shapelier and lighter.
These latter went straight into the orchard, by themselves. And, thirty yards on, near the footprints, a revolver was picked up and recognized by one of the peasants as resembling that which Jérôme Vignal had produced in the inn two days before.
The sergeant examined the cylinder. Three of the seven bullets had been fired.
And so the tragedy was little by little reconstructed in its main outlines, and the sergeant, who had ordered everybody to stand aside and not to step on the site of the footprints, came back to the well, leaned over, put a few questions to the farm girl and, going up to Rénine, whispered:
“It all seems fairly clear to me.”
Rénine took his arm:
“Let’s speak out plainly, sergeant. I understand the business pretty well, for, as I told you, I know Mlle. Ermelin, who is a friend of Jérôme Vignal’s and also knows Madame de Gorne. Do you suppose …?”
“I don’t want to suppose anything. I simply declare that someone came there last night …”
“By which way? The only tracks of a person coming towards the manor are those of M. de Gorne.”
“That’s because the other person arrived before the snowfall, that is to say, before nine o’clock.”
“Then he must have hidden in a corner of the living room and waited for the return of M. de Gorne, who came after the snow?”
“Just so. As soon as Mathias came in, the man went for him. There was a fight. Mathias made his escape through the kitchen. The man ran after him to the well and fired three revolver shots.”
“And where’s the body?”
“Down the well.”
Rénine protested:
“Oh, I say! Aren’t you taking a lot for granted?”
“Why, sir, the snow’s there, to tell the story, and the snow plainly says that, after the struggle, after the three shots, one man alone walked away and left the farm, one man only, and his footprints are not those of Mathias de Gorne. Then where can Mathias de Gorne be?”
“But the well … can be dragged?”
“No. The well is practically bottomless. It is known all over the district and gives its name to the manor.”
“So you really believe …?”
“I repeat what I said. Before the snowfall, a single arrival, Mathias, and a single departure, the stranger.”
“And Madame de Gorne? Was she too killed and thrown down the well like her husband?”
“No, carried off.”
“Carried off?”
“Remember that her bedroom was broken down with a hammer.”
“Come, come, sergeant! You yourself declare that there was only one departure, the stranger’s.”
“Stoop down. Look at the man’s footprints. See how they sink into the snow, until they actually touch the ground. Those are the footprints of a man, laden with a heavy burden. The stranger was carrying Madame de Gorne on his shoulder.”
“Then there’s an outlet this way?”
“Yes, a little door of which Mathias de Gorne always had the key on him. The man must have taken it from him.”
“A way out into the open fields?”
“Yes, a road which joins the departmental highway three quarters of a mile from here … And do you know where?”
“Where?”
“At the corner of the château.”
“Jérôme Vignal’s château?”
“By Jove, this is beginning to look serious! If the trail leads to the château and stops there, we shall know where we stand.”
The trail did continue to the château, as they were able to perceive after foll
owing it across the undulating fields, on which the snow lay heaped in places. The approach to the main gates had been swept, but they saw that another trail, formed by the two wheels of a vehicle, was running in the opposite direction to the village.
The sergeant rang the bell. The porter, who had also been sweeping the drive, came to the gates, with a broom in his hand. In answer to a question, the man said that M. Vignal had gone away that morning before anyone else was up and that he himself had harnessed the horse to the trap.
“In that case,” said Rénine, when they had moved away, “all we have to do is to follow the tracks of the wheels.”
“That will be no use,” said the sergeant. “They have taken the railway.”
“At Pompignat station, where I came from? But they would have passed through the village.”
“They have gone just the other way, because it leads to the town, where the express trains stop. The procurator general has an office in the town. I’ll telephone, and, as there’s no train before eleven o’clock, all that they need do is to keep a watch at the station.”
“I think you’re doing the right thing, sergeant,” said Rénine, “and I congratulate you on the way in which you have carried out your investigation.”
They parted. Rénine went back to the inn in the village and sent a note to Hortense Daniel by hand:
“MY VERY DEAR FRIEND,
“I seemed to gather from your letter that, touched as always by anything that concerns the heart, you were anxious to protect the love affair of Jérôme and Natalie. Now there is every reason to suppose that these two, without consulting their fair protectress, have run away, after throwing Mathias de Gorne down a well.
“Forgive me for not coming to see you. The whole thing is extremely obscure, and, if I were with you, I should not have the detachment of mind which is needed to think the case over.”
It was then half past ten. Rénine went for a walk into the country, with his hands clasped behind his back and without vouchsafing a glance at the exquisite spectacle of the white meadows. He came back for lunch, still absorbed in his thoughts and indifferent to the talk of the customers of the inn, who on all sides were discussing recent events.
The Eight Strokes of the Clock Page 16