In order that this kind of supplementation should not become as monotonous as the customary schedule of punishments, Monsieur Sevanter and Jean Funeste elaborated it considerably as their careers progressed over decades. One man who stole a bolt of fine velvet cloth—an item of great value in civilized Bretagne—not only lost a hand but was condemned to go abroad by day clad in a shirt of prickly hair, which tickled his skin so horribly that it eventually drove him to suicide. A man convicted of poisoning his wife was not only placed in the public pillory for a day, as the written law demanded, but given a series of noxious brews to drink while he was there, so that he was subjected to continual explosive diarrhea—which did not inhibit the usual routine of assaults from behind once dusk fell. He, too, did not long survive the uncomfortable experience.
Even the poorer people of Teirbrun were able to perceive an exquisite intelligence at work in these augmented punishments, and the loyal public who flocked to see the public executioner at work thought Alphonse Sevanter and Jean Funeste a pair of fine fellows. Monsieur Sevanter was therefore a very popular man in the town, frequently called “the Great Judge.” Even the Phantom’s most avid admirers could not help wondering what ingeniously amusing indignities the Great Judge would inflict upon the burglar when he was finally caught, before he was hanged and left to rot upon the gibbet. The Phantom’s afflictions occurred in the twenty-fifth year of Monsieur Sevanter’s magistracy, when the Great Judge was at the pinnacle of his fame.
III.
The so-called Phantom been at his work for some time before anyone noticed that a strange pattern was becoming discernible within the elaborate sequence of his more recent crimes.
Paul Mansard’s wife had long hosted a soirée once a week for family friends, at which Alphonse Sevanter was an invariable guest—the only fixture at the table who was not a merchant. Every guest had his allotted seat at the table, and the arrangement never varied; whenever one of the merchants was away on business, his seat remained empty. Monsieur Sevanter, as Mansard’s son-in-law, had the seat to the host’s right. It was not surprising that the regulars at this soirée were numbered among the Phantom’s victims, as they were among the most prosperous of the town’s citizens, but it did seem surprising, once the fact was noticed and pointed out, that they were targeted in order of the seating plan, starting at the lower end of the table, alternating between the left and right and working gradually towards its head.
The Phantom did not, of course, restrict himself to plundering the guests at Madame Mansard’s table, and it was rare for two of the attendees to be robbed one after another; there were unusually two or three robberies in between those afflicting the soirée’s population. Even so, it eventually became apparent that that once a particular person at the table had been robbed, the next person in the seating sequence would be victimized before any of the other guests.
When this pattern was noticed, the discovery seemed fortunate, for it indicated a possible means of predicting the Phantom’s predations. As each guest’s turn arrived, he would borrow extra watchmen and alert the constables, who would often lie in wait for days on end, waiting for the anticipated raid. The first effect of this practice was, however, that the people unconnected with Madame Mansard’s soirées who were robbed in the interim began to protest that they had been deprived of protection, and that the favor given to Mansard’s friends was making it easier for the robber to victimize them. The fact that the extra protection given to the anticipated victims never prevented the Phantom from gaining access to their homes and making off with his chosen loot did not lessen this resentment.
As the fundamental pattern advanced, drawing ever nearer to the head of Paul Mansard’s table, another peculiarity began to manifest itself in the Phantom’s other raids. A number of burglaries occurred in which no objects of real value were removed, but only single items whose value was chiefly sentimental. All these burglaries took place at the houses of Monsieur Sevanter’s relatives: one at his father’s old manor house—where the self-styled Duc, long widowed and approaching his eightieth year, now lived with a handful of ancient retainers—and the other four at the homes of his children.
Monsieur Sevanter’s son and two older daughters had all married tolerably well, but the youngest daughter had been banished from his house in disgrace when she had fallen in love with a young portrait-painter. The portrait-painter’s house was the second of the five to be burgled, after the Duc’s, and was by far the poorest of all those so far raided by the Phantom; it was hardly surprising that he had found no coin or jewels in such a place to steal, although it seemed distinctly odd that he should bother to steal a carved wooden heart, which had been given to the painter’s wife by the mother she had lost in infancy. This became less astonishing in retrospect, though, when he took similar trinkets from the houses of Monsieur Sevanter’s other three children, ignoring objects of more manifest value and not even bothering to search for hidden coin. It was quite obvious that the Phantom was deliberately targeting the relatives of the Great Judge, not for personal gain, but merely, it seemed, in order to taunt and insult him.
When the news of this new departure in the Phantom’s procedure spread through the town, the general opinion was that the Phantom must be engaged in exacting revenge upon Alphonse Sevanter for some indignity inflicted upon him in the Great Judge’s court. Everyone in the neighborhood who had ever appeared before Monsieur Sevanter and had lived to tell the tale immediately became the object of curious speculation. Amazingly, even having discounted all those who only had one hand, there were more than a hundred; twenty-five years is a long time. Most of those who attracted attention in this way hastened to provide alibis for as many as possible of the nights when the Phantom had perpetrated his crimes, but a few actually enjoyed the notoriety and were eager to make sure that their vehement denials had a hint of irony about them.
Following this short series of exceptional, and seemingly-personal, burglaries, all the town’s law-enforcement agents began to concentrate their efforts of Monsieur Sevanter’s own house. Not only did he seem to be the next likely victim in that sequence, but it was also his turn to be robbed by virtue of his position at Paul Mansard’s dinner-table; all the other guests had already fallen victim to the Phantom, except for Paul Mansard himself, whose position at its head entitled him to be the last in the sequence.
Monsieur Sevanter was, by now, extremely annoyed with the Phantom. Although even his faithful and devoted friend Jean Funeste would never have described him as a loving man, he had a very strong sense of family. He had been very careful not to spoil his own children in the manner that he had been spoiled by his parents, because the last thing in the world he wanted was to be subjected in his turn to the kind of tantrums to which he had subjected them, but he was nevertheless very aware of the responsibilities of fatherhood. Why else would he have been so annoyed about the fact that his youngest daughter had married for love? Even though he had not spoken to his daughter for more than a year, he was moved to wrath when he heard of the theft of the wooden heart, and when the robberies at his other children’s homes made it appear that the Phantom was teasing him, that wrath became very bitter indeed.
Unwilling merely to wait for the anticipated raid on his own home, Alphonse Sevanter let it be known through the town that he would personally double the price that the mayor had already been persuaded to place on the robber’s head, so that the men who caught the rogue would have a thousand silver sequins to divide between them. No reward of that dimension had ever been offered in Teirbrun for the apprehension of a felon, and the sum was quoted with avaricious wonderment in the town’s meaner streets. Every honest beggar and as-yet-unapprehended thief began to watch his friends with avaricious care, and every unhappy child yearned to discover proof that one or other of his parents might prove to be the burglar, and thus exchangeable for ready money—but when none of the poor could find the Phantom among his acquaintances, the rumor began to be put about that the robber must be a g
entleman.
The opinion that the Phantom might be a gentleman was given further credence when the burglar was very nearly apprehended in the garden of a pork-butcher from whom he had just stolen a bag of silver and a pair of brand-new dueling-pistols, of a sort that had only recently come on to the market in Bretagne. This time, the man who tried to stop him was no nightshirted milksop but a burly watchman named Hernand, armed with a halberd. The watchman engaged the masked thief with alacrity, the pressure of his duty reinforced by greed.
Hernand thrust at the Phantom as cunningly as he knew how, but his halberd was a rather cumbersome weapon and his opponent somehow contrived to parry every blow with his own much smaller weapon.
“Three times I drove him to the wall,” the watchman declared, when he gave an account of his adventure to the mayor, Paul Mansard, Odo and Monsieur Sevanter, “and thrice he slipped away, as delicately as if he were dancing. I could not see his face, but I know now that he is a well-schooled fencer, who fights as only a light-footed sportsman fights, and very cleverly. Although he dresses himself in the plainest leather when he undertakes his larcenies, I would wager everything I have that he is used to calfskin and lace!”
“Did the wretch speak to you at all?” demanded Monsieur Sevanter, who found this ration of information far too meager to assuage his hunger for news.
“Yes, he did,” Hernand admitted. “When he finally tripped me up and took my halberd away, he said that he was sorry to have put me to the inconvenience of chasing him, but that he could not be caught until he had settled his account with the so-called Great Judge which he hoped to do within the week. I did not recognize his voice, alas!”
When Monsieur Sevanter heard of this amazing insolence his hands literally shook with wrath, and he had to ask Jean Funeste—who was well-used to taking dictation from him—to write down a proclamation for him, which he then gave to the Town Crier, demanding that it be loudly read in every quarter of the town.
The message that the crier gave out was this:
“I, Alphonse Sevanter, Magistrate of Teirbrun, am sorely annoyed by the miseries inflicted upon my friends and my children by that low felon whom the silly common folk have named the Phantom. I declare that this so-called Phantom is in reality worthy of no name save that of Rascal and Coward, and I say to him that if he bears any grudge against me, then he ought now to direct his attentions to my own house, and to no other. Should he care to answer this challenge, I promise him that he will be caught, exposed for the shabby trickster that he is, and delivered to the kind of justice that his horrid crimes deserve.”
This was an unprecedented event. Never before had a magistrate of any town in Bretagne sent such a message in such a fashion. Whether the man for whom it was intended heard it declaimed by the crier, no one could be sure, but wherever it was broadcast there were hundreds of interested ears to catch it and thousands of clucking tongues to pass it on—with the inevitable result that, when the curfew tolled that day, there was no one within the town wall or a three leagues around who had not heard it repeated. The fateful words had been shouted at the eardrums of ancients so deaf they could hardly hear them, and burbled at youngsters so small they could barely understand them, and there was no doubt at all that if the Phantom was anywhere near the town that day, the challenge must have been delivered. The citizens waited, thrilled by excitement, to see what would happen next.
IV.
In the meantime, Monsieur Sevanter had not been idle. Even in the normal course of affairs there was always a militiaman on duty outside his front gate, and another at the rear. He obtained six more from the mayor, in order that the perimeter of his grounds might be regularly patrolled by two pairs of armed guards, working in shifts. He posted watchmen within the surrounding wall, who similarly worked in shifts, four being on duty at all times. The positions these sentries took up, and the numerous lanterns hung from hooks on the outer wall of the house, ensured that there was not a single shadowed covert available to a stealthy intruder.
Within the house Monsieur Sevanter had a staff of thirteen domestics in residence, including six men. Not one of the six was frail, and three of them—the coachman, the groom and his personal valet—were powerful fellows that no intruder would be eager to fight. Monsieur Sevanter ordered that no more than two of these men should be asleep at any time, and that the others should all go armed; to those who were practiced he gave short swords, while those who were unskilled were instructed to carry cudgels.
In addition to these faithful servants, the worthy Jean Funeste also lived in the house as a sort of permanent guest. Although he normally slept in a tiny attic, the clerk declared that he would henceforth sleep in a hammock strung across the outer face of Monsieur Sevanter’s bedroom door, so that no one would be able to enter without waking him, and that he would keep a pistol about his person at all times. He showed his friend a pair of dueling-pistols of the very latest model, and insisted that Monsieur Sevanter should keep the second member of the pair himself, hidden under the pillows of his capacious bed.
Nor did Jean Funeste stop at such ordinary precautions as these. Mindful of the possibility that the Phantom’s elusiveness might be the result of magic, he offered the use of his own attic room to an astrologer named Furalor, who had as good a reputation for casting defensive spells as he had for predicting the future, even though he was not recognized by the church as an authority on magic. The principal guest-room was made up for Odo, the Archbishop’s investigator, in the hope that some evidence might materialize that would justify the summoning of an official witchfinder. Furalor assured Monsieur Sevanter that he would deploy his very best protective measures, setting magical alarms upon the all the doorways and windows, which would make the entire house into a cunning trap, while Odo told the magistrate that he would be very careful to include him in his specific prayers.
Jean Funeste also suggested that Monsieur Sevanter should gather his most precious possessions—especially those that the Phantom might imagine to have sentimental value—into three strong chests fitted with ingenious locks, which should be placed in a locked cupboard in the magistrate’s bedroom. The clerk spent an entire evening closeted with his friend, compiling an inventory as the things were put away. The key to the cupboard was placed under Monsieur Sevanter’s pillow, along with the pistol, while Jean Funeste kept the keys to the three chests on his person.
Monsieur Sevanter declared himself very satisfied with all these precautions, although he also expressed the opinion that he might perhaps have made his house so utterly impregnable that the Phantom would not even dare try to get into it.
“There are, after all, plenty of houses left in Teirbrun that he has not yet visited,” the Great Judge observed, “and it would not be the first time that he has exploited our anticipations as a distraction.”
“I suppose a few more greengrocers, fish-factors and candle-makers might suffer at his hands before he plucks up the courage to respond to your challenge” Jean Funeste admitted, “but he has shown every sign of having become addicted to his work. One day—sooner rather than later, I suspect—he will decide that the time has come to risk all our precautions, and will finally bite off more than he can chew. Then, we shall punish him very thoroughly for his impetuousness.”
That night, Monsieur Sevanter went to his bed fully determined to sleep as soundly as he normally did, in order to demonstrate his contempt for the Phantom and his faith in the precautions that he had taken. Unfortunately, his composure was not quite adequate to this intention, and he lay tossing and turning for several hours.
Whenever he dozed off briefly, the magistrate found himself beset by horrid nightmares in which men he had sentenced to unusual fatal punishments rose from their paupers’ graves to march through the empty streets, heading for an appointed rendezvous with him, which he felt that he would somehow be obliged to keep, whether it might be in the graveyard, a church or the lunatic asylum in Is.
The fourth or fifth time that a bad
dream sent him urgently back to wakefulness he felt such an overwhelming impression of dread that he reached for the fire-cord that he had laid beside the bed, ready for an emergency. Having blown vigorously upon it to make it glow brightly he applied it to the tallow nightlight that was nearby.
As soon as the flame caught, he took up the nightlight, holding it before him so that its faint radiance spread as far as it could into the four corners of the room. He did this to reassure himself that he was still alone and safe, but the plan misfired.
He was not alone.
Nor, he felt, as his heart seemed to sink into his belly, was he safe.
Seated at the foot of the bed was a very curious individual. Monsieur Sevanter could not tell whether it was man or woman, not merely because the light shed by the tallow candle was so very meager but because the figure seemed almost to be made of shadow itself. A dark hood concealed the cut of the person’s hair, a black cloak depended shapelessly over the contours of the body and a black silk mask hid the upper part of the face. There was no doubt in the magistrate’s mind that he was confronted by the infamous Phantom of Teirbrun.
Sevanter opened his mouth to shout for help, but the figure put a slender finger to the lips of its unsmiling mask. The gesture seemed more conspiratorial than threatening, and the magistrate was very well aware of the absurdity of keeping silent, but he nevertheless stifled his call. “How on Earth did you get in here?” he asked, instead, his voice hardly above a whisper.
“Did you really think that you could keep me out?” asked the visitor. The voice was light, but had an odd throaty quality. Monsieur Sevanter could not tell whether it was man’s or woman’s. “My magic is far more powerful than your petty precautions.”
The Cosmic Perspective and Other Black Comedies Page 5