“I’m sorry for your dear Edwige, but really, you’ve got to accept that, in spite of her courage, it’s impossible to start filming with her under the present circumstances. We can’t risk a delay. Think of the money already invested… So we need somebody else and you don’t find a Mephista on every street’s corner… or in every studio.”
Tragny wrinkled his nose.
“Please, Trempont, stop talking about Mephista. You know that, after what happened, just mentioning her name makes Edwige sick… She doesn’t need this anymore.”
“But, my friend, there has to be a sequel to The Vampires of Paris. More adventures of Mephista.”
“I doubt Edwige will agree to film them. When she’s back on her feet, I’ll find another script for her. As for Mephista…”
“Well then, I’ll use my beautiful nobody! What’s her name? Olga Mervil… ten letters. Excellent. Theater and movie people are superstitious, and believe in the magical power of numbers. Look at these examples: Gaby Morlay, Alain Delon, Serge Lifar… I forget the others...”
He took one of the photos from the file that Eva had left with him.
“She’s magnificent. But especially what you saw just now… That flame in her eyes…”
“I admit, it was impressive.”
“Look, this doesn’t have to take anything from your marvelous Edwige… But you must admit that with a girl like that, we can…”
Marcel Trempont paused to daydream a little.
“She impresses me. I can’t say how much… She’s not like Edwige, the perfect actress for the roles of diabolical women. She’s not an ideal Mephista. She’s more than that…”
All dressed now, Olga appeared before them.
Trempont managed to mutter:
“She’s Mephista herself.”
CHAPTER III
The thick fog was drifting everywhere and the nearby Seine remained invisible. Through the café’s window, Martine tried to see something, but only the lights from the cars speeding by pierced the dark. The silhouettes of passers-by were ghostly. They hurried, rushing to escape the desolate night.
The small café was pretty run-down. The walls were still decorated with paintings by an artist long since disappeared, who had left nothing to posterity but these gloomy landscapes that ironically conjured up sunny fields.
People came and went in to get warm at the bar. Regulars. Probably most of them worked in various jobs at the nearby studios. More than one gazed at the pretty girl alone, but she knew how to cool the enthusiasm of eager eyes by veiling her ruby red lips and pert nose behind her blond hair.
It’s taking so long, my God!
She was still jobless, but the atmosphere had changed over the last three days, thanks to Olga. Since her visit to Tragny’s house, she’d been waiting to do the screen test for Marcel Trempont. Two days later, they had called her back and asked her to come to the Boulogne-Billancourt studios at 6 p.m.
“You’ll come with me, honey.”
But Martine was scared for some unknown reason, intimidated by all the weird coincidences, and she had refused.
“No, I’ll wait for you,” she’d said. “I’d rather not go with you into… that world.”
Olga had insisted, but Martine, normally timid, remained obstinate. Therefore, they had agreed that she would go to Boulogne and have a drink while waiting for Olga.
6 p.m. was the time of the meeting. It was now past 8 p.m. Martine felt awkward being stared at by the owner and the waitress, pretty rudely it seemed to the girl waiting for someone who was not coming, sitting in front of her glass in which the withering lemon festered in the cold rum.
Olga had left her a ten-franc bill, but still feeling shy, a little hung up, lovely Martine had not dared to order another drink. There was so little money in their shared purse that it seemed outrageous for her to have another grog. If she had any cigarettes left, she would have felt better.
A few tables away, a couple had their arms around each other and were whispering. She thought they were talking about her, making fun of her.
She did not know how to act. She was feeling more and more uncomfortable. A newspaper boy had walked by earlier. To buy a France Soir would give her something to do. But she had no money, nothing but the bill left by Olga. So she did not dare buy one.
Martine was not the type of girl to take risks, which was another reason why she was afraid of the adventure that Olga had just embarked on.
Why was she late? What could have happened?
She imagined something horrible.
Olga took risks, yes. But what had she risked?
Martine thought it must have been something totally shameful. A bunch of details came rushing back in her mind about Olga’s look, certain comments with a double meaning, and sentences Olga had not finished, as if she were afraid of saying too much. Martine tried to tell herself that Olga was free, after all, and owed her nothing. But she also knew that you could not wipe out such a deep friendship after so many months of hardship.
And Olga certainly did not lie when she had said she would include her friend in what she was already calling her promising future.
The lovers burst out laughing. Martine blushed. And yet, they must have had other things to talk about than this poor little girl waiting alone (probably for a man). She wanted to remove all doubts by screaming out that her friend was coming, that she was not being stood up like an idiot.
Annoyed by the couple she turned to the window that dripped with steam on the inside, and mist on the outside. She was sitting right next to it, having chosen the seat so that she could see Olga coming without thinking that, at this hour, at this time of the year, and with the ugly weather, it was hard to see the people walking by.
Then, in the crowd she saw...
...Not Olga, not her elegant form, but someone standing rigidly by the window. Someone who seemed to be looking at her.
It was a man. Tall. Taller, probably, than natural, but it must have been an illusion from the fog. Martine could not say what he was wearing. She was also unable, if someone had asked her two minutes later, to describe him. But he was disturbing enough to strike terror in her with the only thing that she could make out in the fog. His eyes. Eyes that glowed strangely, abnormally, because all the other faces passing by were shadowy masks.
It was so sudden, so unexpected, that Martine stifled a cry. She realized right away the disastrous effect that her reaction was causing.
The two lovers looked at her strangely; the owner behind the bar stared at her while drying a glass; the waitress, who was busy with some new customers, had whirled around; there were caustic looks from the two guys in overalls lingering over their drinks at the bar.
Martine froze, but still blushed.
She did what she could to fool them. She grabbed her handbag, took out her compact and lipstick, and started redoing her makeup, as if to prove to all these people that everything was all right, that she was not scared, that they were all wrong.
While putting on her lipstick, admittedly with a trembling hand, Martine turned the little mirror so that she could see (if anything could be seen) the street, the foggy riverbank where the washed out missiles of headlights shot through almost continually.
Nobody.
Was I dreaming?
No, she would have sworn to it. He was there a second ago, gazing at her through the grimy window. His fearsome eyes bore into her.
But the tall figure was gone.
Martine brightened her face and her mind as well. This could not last long, she thought, as she followed the movement of the outdated wall clock stuck between the bottles filled with multi-colored liquids on the shelf. For the umpteenth time, she compared the verdict of the hands with her own wristwatch. In about two minutes, they would confirm that it had been two and half hours since Olga had headed out for the studio.
A screen test… It should only take a few minutes to film…
Martine was imagining things…
She
almost screamed with joy when Olga entered the café. An Olga whom she had not seen coming, too absorbed as she was in her sad thoughts. An Olga whom Martine had no need to question.
“Olga! Is it done?”
“Filmed. Developed. Signed, honey.”
“Signed? You mean, a contract? Really? Truly?”
“Yes, it’s crazy. I’ll tell you all about it. Let’s go.”
Martine did not have to be asked twice. She called the waitress over and threw the ten-franc bill at her, dying to know more, but not wanting the good news to be spelled out in these abominable surroundings. She left a big tip. Olga also looked anxious to leave, so the two of them left behind the curious eyes of the audience, whose male part seemed very interested in Olga’s strange beauty.
“Let’s walk a little… toward Paris. I’ll tell you on the way.”
Martine needed to get some air, even if it meant this foggy night air. She said nothing else as the two girls began to walk arm in arm along the riverbank.
“We’ll take a taxi a little farther up.”
“But… you have money?”
“Of course. Don’t worry. We’ll go back home, get dressed, and go celebrate with the men…”
“What?” asked Martine, astonished.
Olga explained that the director and the producers (Tragny plus two others) had invited her to a nightclub around 11:30 p.m. Olga had mentioned her dear Martine and “the men,” being anxious to please their new star, were quick to invite her close friend along.
“Me… me… but I wouldn’t dare…”
“Silly girl! You’ll see. Wait, listen…”
She told in detail the story of the screen test in the private room, the obvious satisfaction of Marcel Trempont and the production managers, and even the opinion of a woman who must have been the script girl. All the way to Eva Mellion who was there and congratulated her.
They promised her a wonderful career. They were counting on Horror at Midnight to be a hit and were already talking about another production, for television, which would be a sequel to the famous Vampires of Paris and Olga could play Mephista, the diabolical heroine.
“But,” Martine was surprised, “I don’t know much about all this, but shouldn’t Edwige Hossegor play that role?”
“Of course. But listen, some things I heard… Edwige is still sick… or there’s something else they’re not telling me… In short, even Tragny, her lover and her backer, is okay with it. She wants to leave these kinds of roles behind her.”
“But that’s what made her famous, like Barbara Steele or Maxa, when she was the star of the Grand-Guignol.”
“Yes, but Edwige Hossegor wants no more of it. I don’t know why. I just know I arrived at the right time.”
“You’re lucky,” Martine said naïvely.
Olga grabbed her arm and squeezed it so hard it felt like it was breaking.
“Hey, you’re hurting me!”
Olga loosened her grip and spoke to Martine in a weird voice, a voice that was not usually hers, but had popped up at certain moments over the past few days.
“Luck… Chance… that’s for idiots, my little Martine. For everyone else—listen carefully to what I tell you: it has to be bought.”
Martine was taken aback. Oh, she certainly guessed (it did not take a genius) that Olga must have agreed to some big sacrifice in order to “force” her destiny like this. But she could not figure out what.
They started off again in silence.
There was practically no one along the Seine. Only the cars rushed by on an endless, haunting carrousel, as if the passengers were in a hurry to flee these foggy gulfs.
The two girls walked along the Seine and barely saw it. They sunk deeper into the cold, thick fog that seeped into them insidiously. Martine shivered, but she felt Olga next to her burning with a strange fire.
“You see,” the future star said a minute later, “when I got the message, when they offered me to be her double, I was a little disappointed, I admit. I was expecting more… at least a small part. Later, I realized that it was all wonderfully orchestrated, and what people call ‘luck’ had just arrived. Everything fell right in step, a natural course of events. You’re right, I came at the right time.”
“It was a godsend,” said Martine.
But she did not expect a reaction from Olga after such a trivial comment, or so she thought. Olga let go of her arm and growled:
“Don’t ever say that word.”
“What word? Oh, you mean ‘god’?”
“Hush!”
“But why, Olga?”
“I can’t tell you.”
Silence again. They walked on, but no longer arm in arm. Suddenly, Martine, more troubled than ever, swung around.
“What’s wrong with you, now?” asked Olga, annoyed.
“Someone’s following us.”
“I don’t see anyone.”
“Yes, yes… I’m sure of it. Oh, it’s him again!”
“Who are you talking about?”
“That man… at the café…”
Feverishly, like dropping baggage that was too heavy, Martine described her vision and the mysterious apparition of the man with the glowing eyes.
Olga listened in silence while walking. Almost in spite of herself, Martine kept turning around, more frequently, afraid to see the man she had just described.
“You must have been day-dreaming,” Olga finally said. “Besides, sweetie, how could you see a man’s eyes in a fog like this?”
“Exactly, Olga. I wonder… if they weren’t the eyes of a man…”
“Oh, be quiet… be quiet…”
Once again, their conversation was cut off, stopped short. A taxi was passing by and Olga left Martine to rush into the fog. She managed to get seen by the cab driver, and called out for Martine who joined her with a sigh of relief. She was more than happy to escape this oppressive evening. She was cold and she was scared.
A minute later, the two girls were sitting in the back of the taxi, being driven to their small apartment in Montmartre, the address of which Olga had given to the driver. At the moment the taxi had taken off, it had seemed to them that there was indeed someone on the riverbank. A tall man, who looked unnaturally big in the night and the fog. A man whose eyes, despite the distance and the dark fog, looked like they were glowing.
But the girls said nothing to each other, as if the vision was unimportant, or as if it was just some unimportant wanderer in the night.
The taxi took them away.
CHAPTER IV
“What exactly are you afraid of?” Teddy Verano asked.
Edwige Hossegor did not answer right away. She laid her cigarette in the beautiful, emerald green ashtray, stood up and went to the small bar.
“Red or bianco?” she asked.
“Bianco,” the detective replied, smiling.
Edwige Hossegor started measuring out the Americanos. Teddy watched her pouring the Cinzano silently, skillfully and elegantly.
“My dear friend, why are you delaying your answer? What you’re doing instead is certainly a pleasure, but it’s really only a cover for you?”
Edwige came back holding out the glass with dancing liquid.
“Teddy, you’re not here to pester me. I’m miserable and you know it.”
“Of course. Otherwise, you wouldn’t have called me.”
She went away again and came back to sit down. She was very beautiful in her flattering, sweeping dress, a beautiful, brocaded, electric blue.
“Teddy, in my eyes you’re not just someone who gets paid to investigate. After what you did for me, you’re a friend… Do we call friends over only when things are bad? I’ve proven to you the opposite happens often enough already. And I haven’t forgotten what you did to free me from that monster who had put me under his spell… or the part that your stepson, Gerard, played in that awful ordeal.”
“Don’t tell me that it’s starting all over again.”
Edwige nervously crushed out
her cigarette and clasped her hands together.
“Well, yes, it is.”
“Come on!” Teddy Verano objected. “Like all cases of sorcery, the spell ended when the sorcerer was destroyed. And the sorcerer, in your case, was not really the man who started it all, but the evil machine that he built, that used cameras to perfect what occultists call the volt, the wax figure representing the person targeted…”
“I know all this, Teddy. Before this encounter with Mephista, I didn’t pay much attention to what you call magic, but because of it, I was forced to look into it...”
“So you know that you’re free from Mephista’s control.”
“No, I don’t think so.”
“But the machine, the spell caster, was destroyed. The volt, that monstrous wax robot in your image, was also demolished, twice in fact. All that’s left is the mad genius that was behind it—that film buff cum physicist, Jules Verrier. As you know, he’s safely locked up at the Henri Rousselle Insane Asylum, and only death will get him out of there.”
Very clearly, with that beautiful voice that had done so much to make her reputation as an actress, Edwige Hossegor said::
“And yet, Teddy, it’s not over.”
Teddy Verano sank back a little more comfortably into the armchair.
“I’m all ears, Edwige.”
“You know that after filming The Vampires of Paris,” the actress explained slowly, “after the crimes committed by this Mephista wax-doll in my image, after the cataleptic fits during which Verrier’s evil machine took hold of my spirit and my appearance, and after our victory over that damned madman, I had to take a few months off to rest. Tragny took me to Switzerland, to a remote castle. I have to say that he was, as always, the perfect friend, discreet and devoted. Our marriage had to be put off once again… But what did that matter! The premiere of The Vampires of Paris was a hit and I kept up on reading the trade papers, my fan mail… In short, when I got back to Paris, a new contract had already been signed on my behalf…”
“Yes. For Horror at Midnight,” Teddy Verano said. “I read about it. Teleor, for business reasons, temporarily branched out of their television production, to make a big budget feature film. Baron Tragny, the main partner in the firm, gave his approval.”
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