Enter the Nyctalope

by Jean de La Hire

  He shook his head, took a cigarette, lit it, and took three draughts upon it, then went on, his voice a trifle heavy: “Oh, I know full well that if Vassily hadn’t been there, you’d have succeeded in insinuating yourself among us, thanks to that trick with the bomb and the clues the police had given you about the cafés, restaurants and other places where exiled Russians—almost all of them nihilists—hung out, along with pro-German spies many of whom are Russian…and you would have attained your ends, if Katia…”

  He interrupted himself again, smoked a little, then said, in a confident tone: “Katia you see, is incomparably useful to us, because she knows how to make everyone love her, while she only loves me.”

  These unexpected words made Leo Saint-Clair shiver, as he felt a dull pain in his heart—but he clenched his teeth in order not to let any exclamation of his indignation, pain and hatred escape.

  Grigoryi was, in any case, continuing. “She’s intelligent, refined and clever, my Katyushka. She has a prodigious memory. She never forgets the expression of a gaze, the sound of a word, the direction of the most furtive gesture. For your debut in life and love, my lad, you had to play a hand that was too difficult, and you lost the game. For you, now, it’s a matter of paying the price.”

  Just then, for the first time since he had fallen into the trap, the Nyctalope saw a ray of light in the menacing darkness of his situation. He recalled that, before leaving his friends at 3:30 that morning, he had issued this instruction: “Listen to me carefully! If I haven’t returned by 7 a.m., or rather, if I haven’t telephoned Professor Dorsang, warn General Breuil immediately and go with the police to number 18, Rue du Fossé in the Rive neighborhood. That’s it!” And his ears clearly heard Champeau’s firm voice repeating: “18, Rue du Fossé, Rive neighborhood.”

  Then, forgetting everything that the colossus Grigoryi had just said, Leo Saint-Clair had a smile on his lips and a gleam of confident hope in his eyes. His eyes immediately went to check the clock conventionally set between two flower-vases on the mantelpiece of the studio—and he saw that the hands stood at 6:43 a.m.

  In about 17 minutes, he thought, my three friends will alert the General. At 7:30 at the latest, the secret police will be alerted. At 8 a.m., I’ll be free.

  And as Grigoryi had not retied his hands, Saint-Clair lifted his right hand, extended it toward the other and said, casually: “Would you care to give me a cigarette?”

  “Willingly, but not immediately,” the Russian replied, “for I still have a few words to say to you and something to show you. Afterwards, you may smoke as much as you want; a full box of cigarettes will be placed at your disposal.”

  He got up. Visibly ready to fight, with his fists clenched and his body slightly inclined toward the still-seated Saint-Clair, he said: “You know that my laboratory is here. Precious! You’ll certainly understand that from the very start, when it was first installed in this house, we’ve worked to put it as far as possible out of the reach of the police. Good!

  “You’ve learned many things about us, but not those which constitute our real secrets, which are only known to five or six men in the world, and only one woman—Katia. You shall now see one of those secrets with your own eyes…”

  As Saint-Clair made as if to get up, however, the colossus said: “No, not yet. Let me finish speaking. Now that you’ve been unmasked, I suspect that you must have remained in contact with your friends, perhaps with the police…in fact, I’m sure of it. And I think you must have told your friends that if, at some appointed time, they haven’t heard from you, then it’s in this house that you’ll be found, alive or dead. Hey—don’t move or I’ll hit you!”

  Tense, with all his muscles taught, Leo Saint-Clair suppressed the instinctive movement that impelled him once again to get to his feet. And Grigoryi continued, with heavy sarcasm: “My dear beautiful Katia has taught me to observe a physiognomy, to interpret a smile or a grimace, to follow the direction and understand the significance of a glance. A few moments ago, my boy, you smiled and looked at the clock. Eh? I’ve guessed it! No need for us to explain further. Well, as Dante wrote, and I’ll translate in case you don’t understand Italian: “Abandon all hope ye who enter here.” Yes, you shall see—for I’ve almost finished speaking, and I’ll show you the thing. Get up!”

  His heart gripped by an anguished curiosity, Leo got up.

  “Walk toward the door, open it, go out and go down to the bottom of the staircase—and don’t forget that I’m at your heels and can knock you down with a single blow of my fist. Don’t bother to cry out; even someone listening expressly, in the street, wouldn’t hear the most desperate and panic-stricken howls. The walls of this old building are very thick, and you’ll see… March!”

  Saint-Clair obeyed. While he opened the door to the landing he did not see what Grigoryi was doing behind him. He did not see Grigoryi put his open hand into a sort of cranny between two thick volumes on a bookshelf, so that his entire forearm disappeared therein, operate a turning movement through a quarter-circle in two opposite directions, one after another, and then withdraw his arm and hand—after which the two stout volumes came together again.

  Although Saint-Clair did not see that, he did hear a noise—an unfamiliar noise, which did not capture his attention and which he did not “realize” and understand until a few minutes later.

  He was on the landing, which was feebly lit by an electric bulb suspended from a wire.

  “Go down to the bottom of the staircase,” Grigoryi repeated.

  The young man continued to obey. At the bottom of the staircase, however, which was illuminated by a second bulb, he stopped, suddenly stupefied.

  Twenty times in the last week he had passed that way, coming from the street or going to it. He knew that there was a direct and free route from the staircase along the corridor terminated by the deep porch, without any obstacle of any sort. For someone entering, the open stairway was a continuation of the corridor; for someone leaving, the corridor extended the stairway horizontally. Now, having reached the bottom of the staircase, Leo Saint-Clair was no longer confronted by the corridor, but by a wall. A wall! A wall that blocked the stairway completely, from left to right and top to bottom. A wall that made the bottom of he stairway into a cul-de-sac with no exit or gap.

  “Oh!” he exclaimed, dully.

  Behind him, Grigoryi burst out laughing.

  Shivering, Saint-Clair turned round.

  He saw Grigoryi back up against the wall and heard him say: “You see, my lad? Good. Go past me and climb back up—let’s go back to the studio. You’ll see something else, in the laboratory and the kitchen too. Afterwards, I’ll explain. Come on, be brave! Up you go!”

  Bravely containing his emotion, and beginning to work it out, to understand, Saint-Clair obeyed again.

  In the studio, the laboratory and he kitchen, Grigoryi instructed him to open the casements of the windows, which he did. As he expected, instead of empty space, in which he should have been able to open and the shutters, now non-existent, there was a wall!

  “Well, Monsieur the son of the engineer Pierre Saint-Clair,” said Grigoryi, “that’s nice work, as they say in France. It’s me, Grigoryi the architect and technologist, who contrived that. Ordinarily, downstairs and up here, those walls, build inside steel frames, are hidden in the thickness of the old walls of the house. In times of danger, they come out of their hiding-places. And where visitors would have seen a staircase in the corridor, or three ordinary windows by looking up from the courtyard…they only see the wall, so carefully made up and stained, maintained in a superficial decrepitude, that the movable plates are indistinguishable from the thick walls of the old house. You understand now eh?”

  Saint-Clair was facing him now. Sniggering, the colossus repeated: “You understand? Your friends or the police, or the police and your friends, will be able to come to number 18, Rue du Fossé, which you must have indicated to them, with that laudable precision of mind that I’ve noticed. At the en
d of the corridor, as you can imagine, they won’t bang on the wall. They’ll knock on the door to the right, which you must have noticed. That door will open, and they’ll find themselves in the presence of an old maidservant, who will introduce them to her mistress, an old lady with spectacles and bandeaux, very respectable, whom you’ve met in Doctor Ivanov’s house and heard called Helena, but who is better known in Geneva as Olga Cheminska, a doctor of medicine, the worthy patroness of several charitable endeavors, holder of a gold medal earned during epidemics, etc. etc. And if your friends and the policemen visit the whole house, if they even go into the interior courtyard, they’ll see nothing but the least suspicious of walls, the most ordinary of roofs, while the venerable Doctor Olga Cheminska will say to them: ‘You must have got the wrong address…’ Well, young Nyctalope, isn’t that nicely put together? And aren’t you admirably served for the commencement of your life of adventures? For you were born under the sign of Adventure, and you’ll have a very interesting life…if you get out of here safe and sound!”

  The last part of the sentence was pronounced in such a tone that Leo Saint-Clair immediately forgot about everything he had just seen and heard, in order to concentrate on his own plight.

  That’s true, he said to himself. That’s true! If I get out of here safe and sound…I can no longer count on anyone else. I’m alone. Speak or die! We shall see!

  Gathering all the strength of his inner being in order to master his nerves, command his muscles and control the beating of his heart and the circulation of his blood, the son of the engineer Pierre Saint-Clair, facing the enemy, said in the calmest possible tone; “Would you care to give me a cigarette?”

  Grigoryi Alexandrovich was amazed, but he soon collected himself, and assumed a most ambiguous expression to sway: “Well, Leo Saint-Clair, you’ve got guts. It’s a great pity that you’re not with us but against us. Yes, you could be one of the great leaders of the impending world revolution, in spite of your youth. But it’ll only go all the harder with you, and I play a tight game. I’ve got all the trumps in my hand, to be sure, and…”

  “No you haven’t,” the Nyctalope put in.

  “What?”

  “No—you haven’t got the secret of Radiant Z.”

  Grigoryi clenched his fists and growled: “I’ll get it.”

  “You shan’t!”

  “I’ll kill you.”

  “So be it! In the meantime, give me that box of cigarettes that you promised me. And as you’ve also promised me 24 hours, leave me in peace!”

  When he is naturally endowed with courage and endurance, with solid physical health, a young man is incapable of despair; he braves all suffering, and death appears to him to be impossible. If, in addition, he is animated by the sentiment of a grave duty, he is rich in every interior strength and capable of any heroism. These are excellent dispositions for fighting the enemy and forcing victory, or for finally accepting the death in which one did not believe, rather than deeming it a disaster by which one is horrified.

  Thus was Leo Saint-Clair, the Nyctalope, throughout the day of Wednesday March 20.

  In anticipation of the total and hermetic imprisonment to which events might consign him, Grigoryi always had significant reserves of canned food in his sealed apartment. There was an inexhaustible supply of drinking-water from the tap in the kitchen. As for the necessary ventilation, it was delivered by the air currents that could be established between the hearths of the studio-bedroom, the kitchen and the laboratory by opening the interior doors. In consequence, the state of absolute imprisonment could be maintained for at least a fortnight. This time, Grigoryi estimated that if he had not obtained any information from his captive within a week, he never would obtain any, and the captivity would end with the death of his prisoner.

  As for the principle of respect for human life, that was nothing to the nihilist Grigoryi Alexandrovich. If the occasion arose, he would unhesitatingly give the last drop of his blood and the last breath in his body for his furiously fanatical cause; he had no scruples at all about taking anyone else’s life.

  As for Saint-Clair, he thought that the first condition of possible salvation was to remain lucid in mind and sturdy in body. He smoked very little, and drank moderately of the wine—which was quite good—that Grigoryi offered him with two meals, and he ate in a manner appropriate to his hunger, which was normal. As he had not slept for a single moment the previous night, he gladly accepted the divan that Grigoryi yielded to him, contenting himself with two armchairs pushed together facing one another, extended by a pouf set between them.

  The captive slept profoundly, but the jailer slept with one eye and one ear open; he was accustomed to it, and the slightest sound or displacement of air within the room would have woken him up instantly and put him on the defensive, ready for an attack. The Nyctalope, however, had no thought of attempting an offensive action in which, without a weapon, he would immediately be placed in an inferior position. He needed sleep, so he slept—and he would probably have had “a lie-in,” as they say, if he had not been woken up by a sharp impact on his left shoulder.

  “Ow!” he said, sitting up.

  He did not realize immediately where he was, or in what circumstances—but a harsh voice brought him round and reintegrated him into the situation at a stroke.

  “Hey there, Leo Saint-Clair! On this Thursday March 21, sunrise is at 5:54 a.m. It’s exactly 6 a.m. Stand up! The moment has come to choose.”

  The Nyctalope rubbed his eyes, which had initially been dazzled by the light of all the electric lamps illuminated in the studio. Then, clear-sighted and perfectly self-controlled, he stood up, looked the cruel-faced colossus straight in the face, although slightly from below because of the difference in their heights, and said: “Well, here I am.”

  The 24 hours of reflection have elapsed,” growled Grigoryi. “You have to make a decision, my lad. I repeat the alternatives: either you give me all the technical information necessary to the practical construction and setting up of Radiant Z, or I’ll start submitting you, in five minutes, to the triple torture of fire, thirst and hunger.”

  Leo Saint-Clair went pale, to the point of becoming livid, for all his blood flowed to his heart, which almost burst, and was extremely painful for a few seconds. Then a long and violent shiver ran through him. Immediately afterwards, the color flowed back into his cheeks and his eyes sparkled. He slowly folded his arms, and more slowly still he said, in a firm voice: “If you are an executioner, Grigoryi Alexandrovich, do your work. Personally, I shall do my duty; I won’t talk.”

  “Very well,” said the Russian, furiously. And he slapped Saint-Clair full in the face. The latter, unready for that immediate brutality, had not steeled himself against it, and he fell to the floor on his side. Before he was able to tense his muscles, collect himself and get up—for he had only lost his balance and not his consciousness of everything—he was grabbed by Grigoryi, who put his arms behind him, brought his wrists together and clasped them in steel handcuffs, which he had ready to hand.

  “Get up now,” said the executioner. “Stay upright, sit down or lie down—it’s all the same to me. Wherever you are and however you arrange yourself, you’ll be subjected to torture. Listen and reply, if you have the courage. Did you notice, yesterday evening, that the soup made from concentrated stock tasted a little too strong and salty?”

  Saint-Clair was standing up, leaning his back and his clenched fists on the edge of the massive table. He was panting slightly. “Yes, perhaps,” he gasped.

  “That was to make you thirsty. Personally, I’ll drink a large glass of water before making my breakfast. You can watch me drink. Soon, my lad, you’ll start to know what it is to be thirsty, to see a glass of clear water in front of you, and to hear the kitchen tap running, without being able to touch it…”

  He disappeared through the glazed door to the kitchen, leaving it open, and he came back, holding up a glass of delightfully pure fresh water, making it sparkle in the ele
ctric light. Slowly, spacing out his gulps, he drank it in front of his victim, who had become impassive again.

  When the glass was empty, he put it on the mantelpiece. Then he lit a cigarette and…he suddenly jabbed the still-incandescent match into Saint-Clair’s forehead.

  “Ah!” howled the unfortunate, recoiling so violently with his entire body that he lay on his back on the table-top, as if broken in two.

  Above him, Grigoryi’s frightful leaning face wore a cruel mocking smile, and from the awful mouth of the sadistic torturer these words emerged, slightly deformed by the cigarette maintained in the corner of his lips: “The first caress of the fire, my lad! I’m going to take all your clothes off, and lay bare your neck, your arms, and your entire torso. You can run this way and that, but I’ll always catch up with you. There are matches, there are the lighted ends of cigarettes and cigars, there are irons reddened by the flame of a blow-torch. The pain of the burns will augment your thirst, the thirst will give you a fever, which the hunger will bring down, but which will soon rise again, a torture in itself. Burned from moment to moment, panting with thirst, racked by hunger, shivering with fever but with a lucid mind—for I know how to measure out the torture—you’ll go from day to night and from night to day…until you talk or die… There!”

  And with a punch in the ribs, he sent the martyr sprawling on the carpet, where he grabbed him, turned him over, tore off his jacket and his short, and burned him in the hollow of his throat by stubbing out the lighted cigarette, which he had abruptly revived with a whistling breath.

  Chapter III: Jean Degains’ Idea

  The previous day, at 7 a.m, Robert Champeau, René Croqui and Jean Degains, in their chalet in the Sanatorium du Bouchet, had been standing in the middle of a little room austerely furnished as a study, around a table on which stood a telephone apparatus.