Devil's Score: A Tale of decadent omen….

by Edouard Jourdan

  - Yes, a lot of mysteries are explained, Johan. But not all.

  - Yet you know what motives I obeyed by locking me ... It was to read and reread in peace the story of the criminal ... It was to study criminology, palmistry - a nice joke, palmistry! I was able to check it on my ... on Danvers hands. Go! it is not with the lines of the palm that one can trust to know the character of a man!

  - That's not what I want to talk about, Johan. My turn to make you confidences. Follow me:

  "Sir Melchior appeared to me, clearly, indisputably, several times, at the most critical moments of this adventure: at Saint Maur, behind the stretcher that carried you away; St. Galilee, while Petiot weighed your chances of life and death; rue Lesueur, on the door pierced with a knife; finally, in our bedroom, when I discovered the disappearance of the jewels.

  "I do not mention his photographic passage as part of Mom Monet, since Regina is certainly the author of this cruel joke. I had told her about these appearances, she was a traitor, she wanted to scare me and, warned of your intentions by her spying, she made coincide with the restitution of jewels the incident of this photograph, that she is provided in some way ...

  "Indeed," said Johan, "Danvers has alluded to it.

  - ... But the other appearances of Sir are inexplicable!

  "He was a ghost, a real specter. I had nicknamed it "Demonoplasm", a dark day and torment, a day when I thought never to see him again! It was an ephemeral shadow, dark and edged with a flaming braid ...

  "How do you explain it?

  - I do not explain it, my friend. We must suppose here some trick of those who pursued our fall, some phantasmagoria likely to terrify you! You know I do not believe in spirits ...

  "In my trouble, however, I wanted to know what lies in the depths of spiritualism and whether the late Danvers could chat ... But two attempts with M. de Varmand reassured me. Souls do not come back. All this is only illusion. The subconscious of the evocator plays the role of the Spirit. The spiritist converses with himself, as I have already told you. And what proves it is that Danvers is alive and that, nevertheless, his name came to my lips at the beginning of the first session with the painting and at the beginning of the second with the model! It was because I thought him dead, and my subconscious mind, all occupied with him, whispered his name to me as that of the dead man who wanted to be heard. Fortunately, I parried grain. I did not mean to pronounce that name which could suggest many ideas to M. de Varmand, keen on his science, but rather incredulous and well aware of the role played by the subconscious in the discourses of talking tables - that these tables are, if I may say, pictures or models! Perhaps, at worst, he realized that I was cheating; but, in any case, it was for his two negations.

  "Ah! Katarina thought. Two negations are worth an affirmation! These are the two negations that put the Marquis on the path of truth! The first time, he understood that Johan was refusing to pronounce the name of a dead person. The second time, helped by some other clue (like the near simultaneity of the disaster of Saint Maur and the ordeal of Danvers) and relying on the fact that he and Johan evoked souls of murderers, he guessed that Johan was silent. the name of Danvers! And that's what Petiot would have confirmed to him, if death had not taken our Marquis with his discoveries! Cunning Marquis! He knew well that the first name that would appear to Johan's mind would be the one that haunted him constantly, and perhaps he hoped that his pupil would lose his head enough to let him escape! "

  But Johan was astonished:

  - "Demonoplasm"! ... what else is this ghost? ...

  "On reflection, how could we accuse our opponents of having caused it to appear before you a few minutes after the disaster, a few seconds after your discovery of Melchior Chadiot, dead against me, and an hour before my arrival at the clinic? ...

  "How to admit that Danvers and his sidekick are for something in the second vision that you had of this spectrum, manifesting itself in your eyes in the waiting room of the clinic? Danvers was still alive that night, and there was no mention of him about me! His accomplice, Petiot's help, had just seen me for the first time on the examination table; maybe even he did not see me until the next day ... At last, rue Lesueur, on the door, I did not see anything of what you saw! I do not understand anything. It would be necessary to make a revision of the events, to note the coincidences of the appearances with the facts which we know ...

  - Oh! said Katarina, coincidences! They cheat too often. True relationships are only revealed after the fact when one is in possession of the true. Who would have told me, after your return to the Rue Lesueur, that the improvement of your health was only the slowing down of persecution, due to material obstacles and to the honesty of our servants? Who would have told me, later, that the aggravation of your condition came from the commitment of this Regina Delrio, and not, as I assumed in turn, the change of domicile to which you had been cornered, or Of those rings that you had put back to wear and which came back from I do not know where? ... but I did not see anything! I could not suppose that this little black woman was planting bloody blades, sowing poisonous bills, reading our letters and watching our actions, the hussy! You never know a small part of what you think you know totally; so, what can we say about what we think we only know halfway! ... I had dark forebodings at the Gare de l'Est, waiting for you on December 13th. Well! do you know what it was, my presentiments? I am aware of it today. Here it was: I had read in the paper that Danvers would probably be guillotined the day after tomorrow. Me, it always returns to me, these things. And I did not think about it anymore, notice! But my "subconscious", as you say, did not forget it! I was uncomfortable; and after the disaster, I said to myself: "These were forebodings! "...

  "No, no, my dear heart, let the coincidences rest! The number "666" ... Danvers' hands pushed me towards the Devil. I kept thinking of a sneering demon ... And when I found the jewelry chest empty of his deposit, what did I say? "Chance cannot explain a coincidence so harmful to such considerable interests! Because it just happened when I was thinking about selling my jewelry. God knows, however, that chance alone had determined the day and the hour! ...

  "Ah! we did not have five million at that time!

  "We only have four left," Johan said.

  - What! Would you like to pay? To submit to this man?

  - He's holding me!

  - It's to do.

  " Oh! he and his accomplice - or his accomplices - are not children! Okay.

  They have pushed you to the bottom of the impasse, and certainly nothing is cleverer, having murdered a rich personwhose property consists of buildings and values​​buried in the basement of a bank, than to intimidate his heir and make him give a million in thousand-franc notes!

  "But are you sure it would not be better to denounce the singers? You're bewitched, possessed, Johan. Satan is playing with your weaknesses an effort! Straighten up!

  - Denounce them! We will not take them. They will denounce me before disappearing. I will stay alone, having all the evidence against me ...

  "In the absence of Danvers, in the impossibility of confronting him, of measuring him, of recognizing him, who would then admit his survival? The witnesses of his unhealthy resurrection are in cahoots with him, and no doubt cannot be found! Nobody will believe me, if I certify that it is Danvers resurrected who killed my father and the Marquis!

  But tell me, what these people are looking for is not your loss, it is money.

  - For lack of money, they will lose me by revenge.

  - Hum! Well! Let's reason, will you?

  "Or you sing, or you do not sing. If you sing, if the day after tomorrow you give Danvers the million asked, what happens?

  "A blackmailer is never satiated. In six months, under the same threats, he will demand from you another million. In one year, another. In two years you will be on the straw. And then, who knows what he will order you to do, for the price of his silence? Because his blackmail is of indestructible nature: it is not a compromising object to recover and whose
return would remove all power to the master singer. In vain you will cover him with gold, he will always remain so dangerous; and as long as the prescription of crimes will not be acquired, you will live the most miserable life: subjugated, slave, the neck ready to be sliced​​in the guillotine! Not to mention that the prescription will not extinguish much! Even unpunished, a man convinced of parricide is, for everyone, a scoundrel. And if, after a few months or a few years, you decided to shake off the yoke; if you belatedly took the liberty of denouncing Danvers, how much you would regret the time lost, the money spoiled, the superfluous sufferings! But would Danvers let you go that far? He will constantly monitor you. At the slightest sign of revolt, at the first appearance of lassitude, or simply as soon as you have no money, he will suppress you! Are you not, according to him, with some rogues whose accomplice he is, the only depository of the secret of his life?

  "That's right," said Johan.

  "Suppose now that you do not sing, and that you denounce Danvers on the spot. In this case, he escapes the police or the police seize him.

  "If he escapes, it's bad. To stop him, you will have brought justice to everything; the secret of your hands will be known; and, the existence of Danvers remaining problematic, your defense will be difficult. We'll call you a liar or a madman. Petiot, freed from professional secrecy, will confirm the transplant of the hands, but he does not know what has become of the body of Danvers. This body was destined to go in small pieces under the scalpel of his pupils; the teacher abandoned him to one of them; and the disappearance of this help, and perhaps of some others, will not demonstrate the resurrection of Danvers. We'll only see one thing: the imprint of your hands is identified with the imprint of the bloody blades ... But if Danvers does not escape, if we stop it the day after tomorrow morning, at the rendezvous he gave you, everything changes!

  - Do you believe? Johan objected. Even in his presence, if I argue that the fatal prints do not come from my hands, the judge will shrug!

  "Did not you tell me Danvers would bring you the molded glove, the glove-seal?

  - And if he does not bring it?

  - Give and take! ...

  - He can refuse. He did not answer me about it. He holds me of other kinds!

  - No! It is you who hold it, because he thinks he holds you, because he is convinced that you are no more than a machine whose key he has, when he is not, and that we are two! Think how much this man is full of his despotism! His triumph over you the blind. He does not imagine that you can rebel!

  - And if he does not come himself?

  - He will come. Everything indicates it. His sufficiency, first.

  - Hum! Finally, let's admit. Let's admit that he comes, that he is arrested and that he is not wearing the glove! After? ...

  "Remember that he compromised me by ready letters in the murder of M. de Varmand. Reflect that the very day of this first assassination, I held in my hands the wooden hands of the model. Sicot did not say anything, but he was able to find on these hands of wood, all disassembled that they are, the same imprints as on the weapon of the crime! It does not take more to suspect me of having done to the assassin of the Marquis, before the crime, the demonstration of a Machiavellian staging! ...

  "As for the second murder, alas! I do not really see any escape!

  "This Danvers is inexorable! He wears it on his face. It is Satan incarnate!

  - What does it look like?

  - He is blond, with black eyes and brown skin. He looks at you like a cruel eagle. For the look, it looks like a craftsman who has pretensions as an artist. But his language confuses you: he is multiple, sometimes trivial, sometimes almost chosen. Slang words follow pretentious technical terms. This man seems to have dyes of everything. He is very confident. He is scary.

  - We must, we must deliver it to justice! exclaimed Katarina. It is impossible that the truth does not make light! Stop him! It is impossible for the victim to be punished when the culprit is there, to be held at mercy, under lock and key! ... Johan, trust! The reasoning fails me, but the reason shouts me that it must be denounced!

  - So, I must admit my disgrace, Katarina? Publish that Johan Bansberg has assassin hands, as King Midas had donkey ears? To sink into the deadliest ridicule! ...

  - The end word will not be rumored. But, all in all, would not it be better to vegetate in the trances, the knife on the throat and the chopper on the head? Finally, our duty is not to pursue the murderer of your father and our old friend, the executioner who persecuted you, the master singer who wants to steal your fortune, and - what am I saying! - a fearsome assassin, who has already committed terrible crimes, who can commit others, and who has not paid his debt? ... what is this Danvers? A convict breaking a guillotine! An escape from the basket of his! His freedom, his life is illegal! His presence in the sun is an insult to the law! It offends society! It offends even the reason ... It offends God. Only Satan can inhabit such a being.

  Katarina stopped abruptly and began to think with intensity. She placed herself in the spirit of events. She "went up into Sirius" and tried to contemplate the facts with a new and disinterested eye. Indulgently, she remembered the heat and wild freedom that the greasy penis of the Marquis had brought her, deep in her Then she lowered her eyes to Johan.

  He was without strength and without color. We could not blame him. Since the catastrophe of Saint Maur, he endured the torments of a damned. Others would have come out of such passes with white hair; other mutes or stammers; other counterfeits; others feet in front. She felt it diminished, uncertain. Earlier, in the account he told her, she had been much surprised by the stratagems invented by his wild imagination to conceal the size of his hands, superior to the old. What's the use of these gloves scraping? What good is the widening of the rings, which entailed the burglary of the jewels? The wounds, the seams and the scars would have justified the swelling of the hands and the deformation of the fingers! Now, since that time, what jolts Johan had still borne: these notes, these crimes, these suspicions he had twice felt prowling! ...

  She says:

  - Let me do it, will you? I have my idea. I take everything on me. But advice is essential to me. Authorized advice. To ask of them some magistrate, it is not necessary to think of it; that would be tantamount to a denunciation. Someone I know meets all the conditions. He is a man for whom justice has no secrets, yet he is not an official. His friendship answers me for his discretion. I appointed Mr. Ray, who is a judicial reporter. Do you agree to give me the rudder?

  Johan, overcome with fatigue, made a gesture of abandonment:

  - Ah! willingly!

  The young woman continued her inner work. She caressed with a pink finger the bright purple of her lips, and in her devouring eyes sparkled that flame she had noticed in the eyes of the Marquis de Varmand the very night of their antics.

  12 – HALL OF JUSTICE

  Mrs. Bansberg, who knew the price of time and did not disdain luxury amenities, had not waited to live in a mansion to pick up a car and re-subscribe on the phone.

  I was at dinner when my device rang.

  - Hello! Mr. Ray? ... here Mrs Bansberg.

  - At your service, dear Madam.

  - Do not pronounce my name if you are not alone.

  - Very good. I am alone. What is there for your service?

  - I must see you as soon as possible, secretly. Perhaps I am waiting in the street; it is unlikely, but possible. How to do? Tonight?

  - No. If you are watched, your night out would betray you for sure, and then, at night, through the deserted streets, spinning mills are much easier. On the contrary, come in broad daylight tomorrow morning when employees go to work, where women go to the market; enjoy the hustle and bustle.

  - Good! Can I see you somewhere other than at home? ... For your information, I have races to do; Regina has fled, so my release will be justified.

  - Perfect. So, do you want at half-past eight? ... where the hell can I wait for you ... I'm looking for a place that cannot give rise
to any suspicion ... your fashion designer. Who?

  - Alexis, rue de la Paix.

  - You will find me at his place. Let us agree with a feint: I will be your businessman, to whom you will have orders to give.

  - In your opinion, should I take the car?

  - Not important. But one more word: is your husband being watched too?

  - If I am, he is.

  - And your approach to me is known to him?

  - Of course!

  "So, let him come out before you tomorrow morning, and make a good walk. It will not hurt him, and if he is watched, it will always be one of your supervisors.

  I heard a beaded laugh, a little constrained, and the conversation ended with an exchange of courtesies.

  In view of the off-season and the almost abnormal hour for a great couturier, I found in the salons of Alexis only two or three vendors who had scarcely removed their hats. I would not swear that they were fooled by our comedy, nor that the second, acting first, did not think to close the door of the boudoir on a couple of lovers ... It did not matter. The main thing for the Alexis house was that the client had ordered two dresses of irresistible mourning. The essential thing for us was to be what we were and to be able to talk freely.