by William King
M. Voltigeur did not trouble to swear the company to secrecy, for he knew by now how futile such a gesture would be. The whole town seemed to know what had happened almost before the rising sun was clear of the horizon, and by high noon there was not a single detail of the night's events which had escaped the scrupulous attention of the gossips.
When he had eaten a far-from-hearty breakfast the magistrate summoned Jean Malchance, Odo and Hordubal to a conference, and implored all three to help him make some sense out of what had happened. He begged Odo to tell him what kind of magic had been worked to bring the Phantom into his room despite all possible precautions, and to leave it again so cleverly.
"Monsieur," said Odo, who had been racking his brains for some time in the hope of excusing the apparent failure of his magical alarms, "it seems to me we can only conclude that the so-called Phantom is indeed a phantom, in a perfectly literal sense. This is no illusionist protected by a spell or potion of invisibility, for he does not come through the door or the window at all. It can only be a ghost, and if it appears in this house, it is surely the ghost of one who died in this house."
"Ghost!" exclaimed M. Voltigeur, who had not thought of such a possibility, and was loath to consider it now. "Whose ghost?"
Odo hesitated, but felt obliged to say what was in his mind. "I am reluctant, Monsieur, to say what will probably seem a shocking thing, but I think we must consider your late wife the most likely candidate, for the things which the Phantom has taken from you and from your younger daughter are certainly things which your wife once owned. Can you remember, perchance, whether it was your wife who gave to your other children the things which were subsequently removed from their possession?"
While the wizard was speaking a deep frown came upon the magistrate's face, but M. Voltigeur did not react angrily. He was a man used to weighing evidence and drawing scrupulous conclusions, and when he considered the question which Odo had posed he realized that although he had not seen the connection before, all the objects removed from the houses of his sons had indeed been given to them by their mother, and that the trinket stolen from his elder daughter had likewise been a gift from her.
"But what possible reason could my late wife have for haunting me?" complained the magistrate. "I was ever as just and fair in my dealings with her as with the world at large. She lived and died in comfort, with all that a woman could desire, and had the privilege of bearing seven fine children, only two of whom died in infancy. I cannot believe that she might want to hurt me."
"And yet," said Hordubal, who seemed enthused by the possibility of finding an explanation of events which had utterly mystified him, "perhaps there is other evidence to incline us in the direction of an explanation of this kind. My lord Morr is the god of death and the god of dreams, and I felt his nearness when I slept last night in your house. You have admitted that each time you have seen the Phantom you have awakened momentarily from a dream in which graves seemed to open to yield up their dead, and that you have had a sense of being drawn to some fateful rendezvous. Perhaps your encounters with the Phantom were the meetings of which your dreams spoke."
"No doubt it was kind of Morr to send me an illuminating vision," said M. Voltigeur, with a sharpness born of disbelief, "but I might wish that he had made it clearer."
At this, Hordubal shook his head sorrowfully, and said: "It is we who are the servants of the gods - they are not ours. We should be grateful for what they send, not resentful that they do not tell us more."
"Most certainly," agreed Odo, in a pious way.
But M. Voltigeur only scowled, and turned to his friend. "This is nonsense, Jean, is it not?" he said. "Assure me, please, that there is another way of interpreting this case, which these silly men have overlooked."
"Well," said Jean Malchance, smoothly, "it certainly seems to me that there are several facts which are difficult to explain within this theory. The Phantom has certainly not been restricted to the bounds of this house, as true phantoms usually are. He has not even confined his attentions to the houses of M. Voltigeur's kin. He has carried out raids all over Yremy, and he was solid enough to engage the watchman Helinand in a very substantial duel. And if the Phantom were in truth a ghost, how could he break the hinges of the chests? I must remind you that when I burst into M. Voltigeur's room last night the contents of the chest were already strewn across the floor, and it seemed that Odo's magical alarm had proved no more effective than his magical seal."
"Quite so!" cried the magistrate. "What have you to say to that, Master Spellcaster? And since the alarm on the chest proved to be ineffective, how can we be sure that the alarms on the door and window of my room were not defective also? It is my belief that this Phantom is as solid as you or I, but that he is so clever a magician that your frail spells have been utterly impotent to keep him at bay!"
"Well," replied Odo, in the offended tone which all wizards adopt when their competence is questioned, "you may believe that if you like, but I must agree with my friend the good servant of Morr, that you have too haughty an attitude to man and god alike. My magic is a good and humble magic entirely appropriate to the needs of Yremy's people, and if it is not enough to protect you in this case I can only conclude that you do not enjoy as much favour with the goddess Verena as your calling has led you to suppose."
"Peace!" said Jean Malchance, in a soothing fashion. "It will not help us to become annoyed with one another. Nor will it help us to blame the gods for what they have or have not done, for I cannot believe that they are behind what is happening here. Let us think about this logically, and see where reason might lead us."
"Oh, certainly," replied Odo, unmollified. "Let us do that, and let us discover what feeble creatures we are, who hope to reach the bottom of such mysteries. If my magic has failed, then more powerful magic must be at work, and that is all there is to it."
"Perhaps so," said Malchance, evenly, "but I think that there is another way to interpret what has happened here, and with your permission, M. Voltigeur, I will describe it - though I must warn you that you may not like it any better than what these men have said."
"I am a magistrate," replied his friend, stoutly, "and I am eager to hear all evidence and argument, wherever it may lead."
"Well then," said Malchance, "let us consider the possibility that Odo's precautions were not so easily evaded. We packed the chests together, you will recall, and locked them all. Then I left the room in search of Odo, did I not, returning some minutes later so that the alarm spells could be set?"
"That is so," said the magistrate. "But I did not leave the room. No one could have removed the objects from the chest before the spell was set."
"But it is possible so far as I can tell," said Malchance, "that the objects we later found strewn around the room were not in the chest when the alarm was set, and could have been distributed before the lock was broken. Assessing the evidence purely from my own point of view, I cannot help but ask myself whether it might have been the case that the chest was broken open at exactly the same moment as the lock on the door, when I burst into M. Voltigeur's room. If that were true, there might have been no failure of the alarms."
"But that is absurd!" exclaimed the magistrate. "I tell you, Jean, that the objects were not removed while you were out of the room. Who could have done it, save for me? Who could have secreted them, and later have strewn them around the room, except myself? And who, except myself, could have broken the lock on the chest at precisely the time that you burst through my door?"
Jean Malchance spread his arms wide, and said: "There you have it, in a nutshell. Who has seen the Phantom in this house, except yourself? No one. Who could possibly have done any of these mysterious things, except yourself? No one. Ergo, I must ask that we take seriously the proposition that you are the one who has done them!"
Here Malchance was forced to pause, because M. Voltigeur appeared likely to suffer a fit of apoplexy.
The clerk put a reassuring hand on his friend's s
houlder, and said to him in a kindly tone: "Of course I do not say that you have done these things knowingly, but only that you must have done them. You could have conjured up this ghost. You could have taken these relics of your dead wife from your children's houses. You could be the Phantom, and it is hard to see that anyone else can have done what the Phantom has done. What other explanation is as probable? That you have been bewitched or accursed is certainly possible, but I must in all conscience say that we cannot seriously doubt that yours are the hands which have actually carried out these actions."
M. Voltigeur was of a different opinion. "This is absurd!" he howled. "It is monstrous! I have been your firmest friend for forty years, Jean Malchance, and now you accuse me of this! I am a victim of robbery and evil haunting, and the only conclusion which my friend can reach is that I have robbed myself and haunted myself! It is no wonder, you serpent of ingratitude, that I had the wit and wisdom to become a great judge, while you remained my clerk. Logic be damned! Your contention is the vilest slander I have ever heard, and I only wish that I could find a punishment to fit such a crime, for I would surely exact it. Leave my house, and take your worthless spellcasters with you. Begone! I will face this vicious Phantom alone, and I will find out who he is for myself."
It is doubtful that Odo or Hordubal would have been overanxious to agree with the curious hypothesis which Jean Malchance had advanced, but when M. Voltigeur exploded in this manner, and called them worthless, they were by no means inclined to dispute it. In fact, they each came quickly to the conclusion that M. Voltigeur was equally excessive in his ingratitude and his ungraciousness, and that Jean Malchance's charges, however unlikely they might seem, must have struck a spot made sore by conscience.
Jean Malchance, on the other hand, seemed to repent his reckless words, and begged to be allowed to remain - in order, as he put it, to help M. Voltigeur defend himself against himelf - but this only roused M. Voltigeur's anger to a higher pitch, and he would not be content until his former friend was banished from his house.
The two spellcasters went with him, feeling very aggrieved by the way that their sincere attempts to help had not been better appreciated.
By nightfall, the story of the quarrel was all around the town, and so was the rumour that the notorious Phantom had all along been none other than M. Voltigeur himself, turned to a life of crime by arrogance and impiety. Many people who had never imagined such a possibility soon began to say that they had expected it, having always been certain that a judge who handed down such unusual sentences could have no real respect for the law.
Thanks to the incautious suspicions of Jean Malchance, M. Voltigeur went to bed that night a much less admirable man, in the estimation of his neighbours, than he had been before. In his own mind, however, he was absolutely certain that he was not guilty of the perverse charges which Malchance had so unexpectedly levelled against him, and he was enthusiastic to prove it in whatever manner he could.
He distributed his servants about the house as before, and the guardsmen about the grounds, but he was not prepared to trouble himself with magical alarms and magical locks in whose efficacy he could no longer trust.
Before he went to bed he carefully searched through the one chest which had not been plundered, and removed from it a small oval portrait of his dead wife, which had been painted before their marriage, and presented to him as a token of her respect - for she had ever been a respectful woman, who had never taken advantage of their intimacy to excuse any lapse of politeness.
He could not be entirely certain that this portrait was the article most likely to be sought by the Phantom, but it seemed altogether likely. He placed the portrait beneath his pillow.
He had kept the pistol, having persuaded himself that he had missed his shot on the previous night only because he had not understood how the cursed thing was supposed to work, and had failed to hold the barrel straight when he was bewildered by the smoke and the recoil. He was determined that his hand should be steadier this time, if he had the opportunity to fire another shot.
The careful taking of these precautions calmed his anger somewhat, but they could not quiet his anxiety, and when he went to bed he felt as though an iron band had been drawn around his waist, squeezing his belly. His head was like a seething cauldron, his thoughts like bubbles bursting randomly upon his consciousness, so that he hardly needed to fall asleep in order to experience delirium.
Two images kept coming back to him while he waited: the image of the graveyard where the dead were rising from their tombs, bent on keeping their appointment with the man who had sentenced them to death; and the image of Jean Malchance, who had undergone in a single instant of time a dramatic transformation from friend to foe.
It was the latter image which possessed him more firmly. What had made Jean do it? Was he, too, the victim of some awful magic? Might he too be accursed?
Because these images kept rising into his mind despite the fact that he was wide awake he was forced to search for something solid to look at, for the purpose of distraction. He took the portrait from his pillow, and occupied himself in staring at the face of the young girl whose wise and careful father had done him the honour of accepting his most generous offer for her hand.
Remarkably, the sight of the picture calmed him more than anything else he had done. As he stared into the painted eyes he became convinced that if this really was the face of the fiend which haunted him, then the ghost had certainly not risen of its own volition, but had been torn from its rest by the foullest necromancy.
But that, he thought, can hardly be possible. A necromancer must hate his victim more than he loves his own life, for he who injures others with the aid of daemons or vile spells must also injure himself. No one could hate me thus, for in all that I have done I have only been the humble instrument of the law.
Having reached this conclusion, he began to think as a judge again, and as a man of reason, with his thoughts quite unclouded by wrath and barely upset by tremors of fear.
And then, quite suddenly, he saw all that had happened in a different light, and guessed at last who the Phantom must be.
He looked up then, and saw that the Phantom was with him, standing at the foot of the bed, just as he had on the previous night. Those shadowed eyes were watching him through the holes of his mask.
M. Voltigeur raised the pistol, and pointed it carefully at the mask.
"My hand is steady tonight, Jean Malchance," he said. "I promise that I will not miss again."
Jean Malchance reached up without delay to remove the mask from his face, as though he had become tired of the masquerade in any case. He looked at his friend with eyes as hard as flints, and replied: "You cannot kill me, Monsieur. I have already seen to that"
M. Voltigeur licked his lips, and stared into the naked face of the man who was most definitely not his friend, but must have been his enemy for longer than he cared to think.
"I believe that you have," he whispered. "Or that you think so. But whatever wicked spell you have used, or whatever daemon it may be to whom you have sold yourself, you cannot be entirely sure. Dark magic is ever treacherous, and is said to be very likely to misfire, destroying its user instead of his victim."
"The same is said of pistols," the other retorted, calmly.
"But pistols do not care what they may destroy," said M. Voltigeur. "I have always believed that even the instruments of the foulest magic must hesitate to harm the good. And whatever hatred you nurse against me, you must allow that I have ever been a good and honest man, always as fair as I knew how to be."
"I believe that you underestimate the power of dark magic," said Malchance, "and I know full well that you overestimate your worth as a man. Fair as you knew how to be you always were, but your failing always lay in what you knew how to be."
M. Voltigeur's finger tightened a little on the trigger of his weapon, but he did not press it yet. He was not so very frightened, now that he knew what it was that he had to face.
"I thought you were my friend, Jean," he said, piteously. "Why were you not my friend, when I was always friend to you?"
"You hold the answer in your hand," replied Malchance. "I could have forgiven you the rest. I could have forgiven you for winning every other contest in which we took part as boys or men. I could have forgiven you for becoming a magistrate while I remained a clerk. I could even have forgiven you for becoming famous for those cunning sentences you passed, though fully three in four were ideas which I put into your head. I am the man who fits punishments to crimes, Monsieur, and I am doing now what I have always done."
M. Voltigeur looked at the portrait which he held in his hand.
"I remember that you liked her," he said, quietly.
"Liked her!" said Malchance, stifling a cry of pain and showing for the fist time that ire which he must have kept hidden for many long years. "I loved her with all my heart, and she loved me. But she could see that there was a magistrate in you and a clerk in me, just as she could see that there was gold in your family coffers and only silver in mine. She loved me, but she would not marry for love. She would rather have a man without a heart, whose fine clothes and full pockets made up for the emptiness that was inside him. If you had loved her as I loved her, I would have understood, and forgiven, but I could not forgive you what you are, and what you made of her."
"But men and women should not marry for love!" said the Great Judge, with the air of one stating the obvious. "It is our reason which sets us above the beasts, and we must live by that reason and not by silly passion. It is passion which drives men to use dark magic, and to sell their souls, thus to hurt themselves more horribly than any penalty of the law ever could."
"I have not used much magic," Malchance told him. "Far less than you think, I do believe. I had only to use a petty spell which would blind you to my actions unless I desired that you should see them. I was beside you while you packed your chests, and removed whatever I wished before you closed them and before Odo put his seals upon them. I slept within your door, not without, and could do what I wished, unnoticed, even while you kept your vigil. It was from within that I opened the door - and thus broke the magic seal - on each of the two occasions. I admit, though, that my arms were at full stretch the night I had to break the weakened chest as well, having earlier strewn its pilfered contents about the floor."