Here the old man, in the classic phrase ‘paused for a reply’. None came, for Bobby did not feel competent to offer any explanation, keenly conscious though he was of the implications conveyed by the last question. Père Trouché snorted and then continued:
“Evidently, then, the Williams ménage, they told you. Well, do you believe them?”
“I don’t know enough yet to say,” Bobby answered. “You know best what the truth is, I suppose?”
“That,” agreed the old man, evidently pleased, “is the most sensible thing I have ever heard an Englishman say. They are not, I speak as between friends, a race of high intelligence. For me, I answer simply: ‘No.’”
Bobby made no comment. He stood staring at the old man, wondering how to prove whether his blindness was genuine or assumed. One can test deafness simply enough by dropping a small weight behind the suspected person. If he seems to remain unawares, then he is certainly shamming, since a genuinely deaf person, though he would have heard nothing, would yet feel the vibration set up. But Bobby knew of no equally simple and effective test for blindness. He said abruptly:
“Tell me now, are you really blind or can you see?” Père Trouché laughed delightedly.
“Ah, that, it is often asked,” he said through his mirth. “There are those who say I see as well as another. They do not believe that the nose, the ears, the touch, can tell as much and more, too, than the eyes. Whether I see or no, am blind or no, none will ever know for certain, and on my tombstone it may be written: ‘Here lies the Père Trouché, who was blind or else perhaps he wasn’t.’”
In a veritable paroxysm of laughter the old beggar rocked to and fro, and Bobby seized the opportunity to extract from his pockets both a cigarette and a hundred-franc note. He was certain that, absorbed in his eldritch merriment, the old man could not know, however keen his hearing, that both cigarette and hundred-franc note had thus appeared, nor yet be aware that the note had fluttered to the ground as if accidentally dropped. Yet if he had in fact the use of his eyes, he could not fail to notice that significant piece of paper. Hardly a conclusive test, but the best Bobby could think of. He said:
‘‘I am glad you are amused. I did not think I was so pleasant as it seems I am.”
This last phrase, a well known quotation from one of Molière’s plays, caught Père Trouché’s attention and stayed his mirth.
“Yes, yes,” he said, “I have said that myself and it is often wisdom. Yet, too, in another sense, it is why I enjoy so much talking to others, for often they are amusing without intending it. But never mind whether I see or am blind. It is not of importance. Tell me, for it is of importance: How is it the Williams ménage has heard so soon?”
“How do you mean so soon?” asked Bobby, puzzled.
“I only heard myself this morning. The story has spread indeed, since all repeat it, but the Williamses have not been to the village to-day nor has any, I think, from the village, been to the Pépin Mill. How then have they heard so soon?”
Bobby felt puzzled and began to think that possibly they were talking at cross purposes. The old beggar went on:
“It is not possible that it is they who have invented the story? One would be glad to think so and yet it is not likely, for why should they? As for me, I am uneasy, for when such a story springs up on a sudden, well, it is often because it is true, or nearly true. Not, I think, as regards the young Camion, but for Volny—there I have a fear.”
“Camion? Volny?” Bobby repeated, and this last name reawakened in his mind that unease of which lately he had become conscious. “What about them?” he asked “Volny has not returned yet?”
“But you have heard? It is what they told you at the Pépin Mill?” Père Trouché asked. “That Volny is dead and that Camion has killed him and hidden the body, killed for the second time?”
“That is being said?” Bobby muttered.
“You did not know? There is surprise in your voice? But assuredly you knew, or why was there such unease in your footsteps, such questioning and such doubt, you who generally walk so firmly and with such assurance?”
“You hear too much in footsteps,” Bobby said. “You deceive yourself.”
“Never,” retorted the other. “Faces may lie. I do not know for I cannot see them. Yet it is probable, for faces, they are under control, they have been trained to deceive, taught to hide well what lies behind. But the footsteps —no. They are not controlled, they have not been taught to deceive. They tell always what they feel. Your footsteps told me plainly something had been said that disturbed you. What was it if it was not this story that all the village speaks of?”
“It is of no importance,” Bobby said.
“You do not wish to tell me? Why? I warn you. I shall find out. I always do. What is told me, I respect. What I find out, it is mine to tell to others or not, as I choose. Also, it is not good when friends hide things from each other, and it is as a friend that I came here to wait for you.”
“You were waiting for me, then?”
“But naturally, or why should I have been sitting here? They told me you had gone this way and so I waited your return. For, you see, Mr. Englishman, it is not pleasant, this story that is going about. And it is not pleasant that you and I, we heard a shot, a single shot. You remember?”
“I remember well enough,” Bobby answered reluctantly.
“But you wish that you did not? I also, I have that wish. The memory has ruined my afternoon. In general, after a storm, it is very calm, very beautiful. One can sit quietly and listen to all those lovely sounds that make up the world. Eh, it is worth something then to be alive, to sit, to feel the warm sun, to hear and notice each little sound that tells how the good earth is alive again, strong and refreshed as if the rain were wine. For the rain, monsieur, makes glad the earth, as wine makes glad the heart of man. Eh, there is the veritable joy of life, the birds so busy, the buzzing of the bees, the song of the cigales, the air so richly full of every kind of scent from flower and herb, and then the air itself fresh as if just breathed from the lips of God. All that, monsieur, I have lost this afternoon, lost for ever, for the only thing that I have heard, it is the report of a pistol shot, fired once and not again.”
Bobby asked a few questions. But the old man had no idea how the story had originated. It had seemed to be all over the village almost simultaneously. Possibly some hint Volny or Camion had dropped about their proposed duel had been remembered, repeated, and, in the light of Volny’s disappearance, suddenly invested with significance. Père Trouché protested that he had breathed no word of that early morning scene when they found Charles Camion alone in the chestnut grove, and Bobby, for his part, declared that he had been equally reticent. To be assured of this, and to suggest that their silence should still be preserved, was, it now appeared, the real reason why Père Trouché had followed Bobby here. He was also very anxious to be further assured that Bobby had actually had a look round on that morning and had noticed nothing in any way disturbing.
“It is one of those rare cases,” Père Trouché confessed with his usual reluctance to admit that the use of the eyes conferred any special advantage, “when to have sight is actually a help. A dead man makes no sound, does not move, and I might pass not far away and know nothing of it. But with the eyes one might, I suppose, note a dead body from afar. It is so?” he asked, a little as though hoping for a denial.
I had a good look round,” Bobby said. “I saw nothing.”
Père Trouché looked a good deal relieved. Changing the subject, he tried again to induce Bobby to tell him what Williams had said.
“For there was trouble in your footsteps, monsieur,” he repeated, ‘and since it was not because of this talk of Volny and the young Camion, what was it they said to you? Tell the old blind beggar,” he said, falling into a kind of professional whine, “for there is so much he knows, so much he can explain to clear away troubles and misunderstandings.”
“Very likely, but we’ll leave it at that,�
� Bobby said and went back to the village, leaving Père Trouché sitting there with in front of him that hundred-franc note of which so far he seemed quite unaware.
In the village when Bobby reached it, he noticed even more of the inhabitants than usual clustered in small groups and talking together. At the door of the shop kept by Lucille’s aunt, Lucille herself was standing. As he drew nearer Bobby saw that she was looking at him and when he lifted his hat, she gave a slight bow in acknowledgement and went back quickly inside the shop. Somehow Bobby thought that an invitation was intended. He entered accordingly. Lucille was standing just inside and now that he could see her more plainly, it was easy to make out that she was looking very pale and troubled. She said nothing and he began to occupy himself with the postcards as if his sole purpose was to buy some more. She remained silent, though watching him intently, and presently he said:
“I hear, mademoiselle, that there is gossip in the village. One talks.”
“It is not true,” she burst out. “It is not true what they are saying.”
“That Volny is dead?” Bobby asked. “I hope it is not true, but is there news of him?”
She shook her head and then murmured in a low, choking voice:
“I cannot believe that he is dead.”
“Have you seen Charles Camion to-day?” Bobby asked.
“Ah, that, it is a lie,” she cried. “Even if Volny is dead, it is not Charles who killed him. Ah, it is wicked that they should say such things. Monsieur, it is not true that you and Père Trouché—that you know, that you saw...?”
“Is that being said, too?” Bobby asked. “We only know what I suppose plenty of others know—that Camion went out early one morning. Why is every one so ready to believe such a story? Is it because there was a murder here before when also his name was spoken of?”
“They told lies about him before,” she said vehemently, “and so they tell more lies about him again and then it sounds as if it must be true.”
“What does Camion say himself?”
“Nothing,” she answered. “He is mad. He wraps himself in himself. He says nothing. I do not think he understands that it is real.”
“Perhaps that is it,” Bobby said thoughtfully. Lucille’s remark had flashed out suddenly, as if it had broken spontaneously from the depths of a half unconscious understanding, but it seemed to him that possibly it shed light on a good deal he found puzzling. But how it affected the main problem in his mind, he was not sure, for a man who dramatizes himself too much may sometimes dramatize himself in strange ways. He said presently as Lucille still watched him:
“Do you think Mademoiselle Polthwaite was murdered?” She became very pale, her eyes grew large and terrified. Though she did not speak, made no sign, he understood. He said:
“It is what I think, too.”
“It was not Camion,” she burst out. “He was foolish, he was worse, it was shameful what he did. I told him so. I said that never would I have more to do with him. It was a quarrel when we were both so angry that we did not know what we said.”
“And now?” Bobby asked.
“Now,” she said proudly, lifting her head, “now I have sent him word that if he wishes to, he can arrange our fiangailles.”
She was less pale now. Her eyes had lost their fear and were bright and eager and defiant, so that for the moment it was a light, clear beauty that hung about her, like a garment. Bobby remembered a little sadly how often women had put in men they loved an eager faith for which there proved in the end to be but small justification. He did not say that, but watched her as she glowed there in her perfect trust and then he said:
“If Miss Polthwaite was murdered, some one murdered her. Who was it? To-day I have been told it was Père Trouché.”
Lucille’s surprise was evident. She forgot for the moment her anger and her fear over the gossip about Camion. She stared with open mouth and then she said:
“Oh, no, why should he? He is not like that, though he says himself that once—but others say it is only that he loves to boast.”
“What is it he says?” Bobby asked.
“Those who follow the road,” she answered, using the expression ‘faire la route’ Bobby had heard before and that perhaps is best translated by our expression ‘tramp’, “are angry if others, who are strangers, try to follow the same roads. Those who were the first think they have the best right and join together to drive away intruders. Père Trouché has always been jealous to allow no other on what he calls his territory. Years ago when I was a child a stranger tried to push himself in and presently he was found dead at the foot of a steep rock. It was thought that he had lost his way and fallen, but afterwards the Père Trouché boasted that he had struck him with his staff and then thrown him over. But some said it was only a story Père Trouché told to scare others away.”
“That was a long time ago?” Bobby asked and before Lucille could answer old Madame Simone came in hurriedly.
“The commissaire of police has arrived,” she said. “Look, there is his car. Monsieur Volny père rang for him on the telephone—eh, to think that in these days a functionary can be rung for like any maid of all work. Well, if the young man has been murdered, now we shall soon know all about it.”
CHAPTER XVI
M. LE COMMISSAIRE ARRIVES
When Bobby went out again into the village street, he found it strange to see how great a change there was, how utterly the general atmosphere and feeling of the place had altered, how oddly visible was the uneasiness and common fear now prevalent. Even the children had ceased to play and run about and were gathered near their elders, listening and alarmed. No longer were the little groups of older people chattering together in pleasant and excited comment, each member eager to express his own ideas and to contradict those of others. Now for the most part they stood in silence, or exchanging only muttered observations to which most often no reply was made. But the eyes of all were turned towards the car standing before the door of the Hotel de la Belle Alliance, de la Victoire, et des États-Unis. What had been before a subject for amusing gossip or malicious speculation had now become a common dread, as into the general silence and reserve, as a stone into some deep and quiet pool, was dropped from time to time the one word: Volny.
In the distance, down a side turning, Bobby caught sight of Eudes, the schoolmaster. He was almost running, like a man pursued, and in his progress there was something, Bobby thought, that seemed furtive and alarmed. Eudes vanished from sight round a corner of one of the houses. Bobby turned and found he was not the only man who had been watching Eudes, for by his side was the curé. The curé said:
“That was Monsieur Eudes.” Bobby made no answer. The curé said: “Monsieur the commissaire is here. That has not happened since Mademoiselle Polthwaite’s death. Before that, never had it happened in living memory. Now he comes again. It is as though the reign of Satan had begun. It is because the teaching of the church is neglected and that of Monsieur Eudes and his like is preferred.”
“Monsieur Eudes,” Bobby remarked, “never I think received a present of diamonds from Mademoiselle Polthwaite?”
“It was not because he did not desire it, work for it,” retorted the curé. “I know for a fact, because he had heard she was an artist, and therefore he thought she must be of a loose and careless life and an enemy of the Church, that he spoke of trying to obtain money from her. It was an intrigue he contemplated—ah, these intrigues that are the curse of France, that lead people astray before even they are aware of what they do.”
“But surely,” Bobby protested, “Miss Polthwaite was a foreigner here, she would never have given money for any political purpose?”
“Eudes schemed to secure it under pretence of educating children of special promise. It would have begun in a small way. It would have continued. It was to be in the end support of a weekly journal Eudes dreams of establishing. If ever he succeeds in carrying out his cunning schemes to publish here such a journal as a fresh centre of deg
radation and atheism—”
He paused, apparently unable to find words in which to express his horror at such a prospect, and then, without saying anything more, he walked away.
Bobby went back to the hotel. There was no one at the reception desk, no one in the entrance hall. A thing unprecedented. He went up to his room and sat for a time at the window, smoking a cigarette. When the hour came for dinner he went downstairs. There were fewer guests than usual. Curiosity, no doubt, was strong, but prudence was stronger still, and for that evening many had preferred to seek their evening meal elsewhere. At one table sat a man Bobby had not seen before, a small, stout, smiling man Bobby guessed must be the commissaire by his alert, authoritative air. He wore a close-cropped beard and had grown a little bald, and Bobby did not think that smile of his had much of mirth in it; assumed, Bobby thought, in an effort to put witnesses at their ease. He seemed to be enjoying his meal but behind his glasses his eyes were quick and watchful, and Bobby noticed, with little pleasure, that more than once they flashed a rapid glance in his direction.
“Going to put the hat on it,” Bobby thought, “if I’m to be mixed up in a fresh murder mystery. I hope to goodness Volny turns up all right.”
But he remembered with an inner chill how the name, Volny, had been whispered down the village street as in a kind of secret dirge.
The serving doors opened and Charles Camion came in, though that is but a tame way of putting it. Effected an entrance would be a more suitable description. Anyhow, there he was, drawn to his full height, fully aware that everyone was looking at him, himself looking at no one but with a stern and haughty glance fixed challengingly upon a spot several feet above the commissaire’s head.
“The young ass,” Bobby said to himself. “He’s enjoying it.”
An exaggeration, no doubt, and any enjoyment the young man felt was probably quite unconscious, more justly indeed to be described as a sort of profound inner satisfaction in a knowledge that it was about his personality that events were clustering. At any rate his whole bearing seemed to proclaim a kind of gloomy yet deep satisfaction in his knowledge that though Fate had chosen him to launch her thunderbolts against, yet none the less he was showing under that assault a proud tranquillity. The manner, too, in which he stood for a moment or two, quite still, then removed his eyes from the wall above the commissaire’s head, gave a slow look all around, finally resuming his progress down the room, told clearly that his every movement was carefully, though perhaps instinctively, studied. Bobby found himself wondering what had happened to the limelight man, and had to check an impulse to applaud.
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