Collected Works of Gaston Leroux

by Gaston Leroux

  “Good night, Aunt,” exclaimed a drunken voice. And suddenly the door of our room was flung open and two persons, whom we could scarcely perceive against the darkness entered without more ado. I clutched Rouletabille’s hand in alarm but he remained impassive. The room was as black as pitch.

  “At any rate we can light the lamp,” said the drunken voice, and I heard the man strike a match.

  My eyes at once fell upon two sinister-looking forms. The man who put the match to the Argand lamp hanging from the ceiling was a huge fellow with powerful shoulders and fists. He wore a greasy overcoat with an upturned collar and a shapeless felt hat, the brims of which were lowered and concealed a part of his face. A cigarette hung upon his lower lip. The other man had a thin face and was attired in an old suit of clothes which, in its day, must have possessed some pretension to style. On his head was a cap well flattened over his ears. He looked a typical rascal. I felt a chill at the heart.

  The big man sat down at our table facing us without asking by our leave. He put out his hand to me and no longer disguising his voice said:

  “Well, but I say, Monsieur Sainclair, don’t you know me?”

  “La Candeur!” I exclaimed.

  “Hush! It’s no good trying to keep things from you,” returned the worthy fellow; and without paying any further heed to me entered into conversation with Rouletabille.

  I was well aware how greatly he was devoted to Rouletabille, whom he had accompanied in his worst experiences. Like a faithful dog, he was grateful to him for helping him to a bone and a kennel by finding him a place on the staff of the Epoque when he first came to Paris — he was a schoolmaster — to earn his living by his pen and was almost starving.

  I heard him whisper to Rouletabille:

  “There’s news! Marius Poupardin’s shop is open again, but he has sold the property and his shopman has taken it over.”

  “Really!” exclaimed Rouletabille, obviously delighted with the information. “Poupardin is keeping out of the way.”

  “Yes, and if he settles down in Marseilles, where he was born, it won’t be surprising. That’s all that I have been able to find out.”

  “It’s something, anyway, old man. So Poupardin has suddenly made his fortune?”

  “It looks like it.”

  “What about the imprints?”

  “Vladimir will tell you about that.”

  And so the handsome gentleman, who was with La Candeur, was no other than the famous Vladimir, of whom I had heard a great deal. He had shared Rouletabille and La Candeur’s adventures in the Balkan War. A very good-looking fellow, whose integrity was not above suspicion, he was no coward, but capable like La Candeur of the sort of devotion to Rouletabille which would stand any test. Moreover, I was fully aware that having lost his wife, a wealthy old lady who had falsified his hopes in her will, he was paying attention to a young and be-diamonded actress of the Théâtre des Capucines, who was dazzled by the smartness of an engagement to a man claiming to be descended from one of the highest and richest families in Kieff, and whose former prosperity might be restored at any time with peace and the fall of Bolshevism. In the meantime Mademoiselle Michelette of the Théâtre des Capucines provided him with cigarettes.

  Vladimir had left the room and returned from the cellar, his arms laden with bottles of wine, to La Candeur’s great satisfaction.

  “Did you see the old woman?” asked the big man in a scared tone.

  “Women never refuse me anything,” returned the young Russian lightly.

  “Are you making love to my aunt?”

  “Look here, my dear fellow,” broke in Rouletabille, “you must sample Madame Peau de Lapin’s Bourgueil after I’ve gone. Meantime, I’m longing to hear your news, Vladimir.” The fascinating hooligan did not wait to be asked a second time. Without paying any further attention to the precious liquor which he left in La Candeur’s custody, he took from the inside pocket of his jacket a smart looking pocket-book, a recent present from his fiancée, and drew from it a sheet of paper cut to a particular pattern, and laid it on the table. It was the exact size and shape of the imprint which Rouletabille himself had obtained the night before at Passy.

  “I say, have you brought me the measurements of Théodora’s foot,” asked Rouletabille anxiously.

  “Well, no, Monsieur,” returned Vladimir, who, though he had been through many adventures with Rouletabille, never attempted to overstep the limits of a deferential friendship, and for good reasons, “but don’t be upset, for I think I have done even better. This is what I’ve brought you.”

  He took from another pocket a dainty walking shoe and held it over the paper pattern:

  “You see how it fits,” he exclaimed with vain-glorious satisfaction.

  “Does that shoe belong to Theodora Luigi?” asked Rouletabille breathlessly.

  “It doesn’t belong to her now. The beautiful creature made a present of it to her maid a few weeks ago. I might even say that Theodora’s generosity went so far as to give the maid the pair. She was not very grateful to Théodora for her gift, for, as you know, she recently left her somewhat hard and unsatisfactory service to become lady’s maid to Mademoiselle Michelette, who is pleased to show her liking for me.... By the way, Monsieur, I think I am in a position to tell you that my marriage to this young and promising actress is a settled affair.”

  “I wish you good luck,” said Rouletabille, putting the shoe and the imprint in his pocket. “You have done well, — old chap.”

  And turning to me:

  “Sainclair, you had better leave us. Be here the day after to-morrow at eleven o’clock in the evening, if it’s not asking you too much.”

  “The one thing I fear is that I may be followed and bring upon you disagreeable consequences.”

  “Make a point of going to the dress rehearsal at the Renaissance. Invite a few friends, and I’ll send you a box. During the interval give my kind regards to Cora Laparcerie, and leave the theatre by the passage in the Rue de Bondy. A taxi with La Candeur as driver will be waiting for you.... Of course I don’t advise you to tell the President of the Corporation of Barristers the story of how you set to work to give consultations to your clients!”

  “Oh, life has become much easier at the Law Courts since the election of the new President!”

  Thereupon I squeezed his hand with considerable feeling and left him.

  As I was closing the door I heard him say to his companions:

  “It’s a fight to the death with Police Headquarters.”

  CHAPTER XVII

  NEW THEORIES

  NO INCIDENT MARKED my return home, but my mind was obsessed during the entire night by Rouletabille’s last words.

  The fate which still pursued him in this mysterious business seemed to redouble its blows. It was now no longer a question of my hapless friend fighting against a blunder, but of measuring himself single-handed in the darkness in which he was being pursued, against an omnipotent secret police, who were bent upon maintaining that error, whatever happened, by every public and private means in their power, for “reasons of high policy.”

  Theodora was a terrible woman, but obviously she was also, since it is necessary to call a thing by its right name, a wonderful spy, whose services to the country were such that it was inconceivable that they should be interrupted by an item in the crimes columns of the newspapers, however important it might be.

  No doubt the police would have to pass through a disagreeable time with the formidable courtesan with her fierce passions, but that could not be helped. Was it not the means by which they could reward their uncommon tool by screening her offence and protecting her from exposure, even and particularly if she had gone out of it with blood on her hands?

  I have seen or heard too much of that sort of thing during the thirty years in which I have lived in the shadow of Police Headquarters to be surprised at anything.

  It was in this light, therefore, that the part played by Théodora appeared to me after my las
t conversation with Rouletabille. It assumed proportions which terrified me; and, in spite of our past experiences in which we witnessed Rouletabille’s triumph over the worst misfortunes, I feared lest he should be crushed in this case in which he himself counted for so little.

  It was with intense anxiety, therefore, that I asked after him when two days later I flung myself into the car which stood waiting for me in the obscurity of the Rue de Bondy. La Candeur assured me that his health was excellent, but that he had “returned from a journey with fresh news, news which had dashed his hopes to the ground.”

  With that the good fellow shut the door, and I was still racking my brains over the enigma when we reached the low haunt in the Rue de la Charonne.

  Here, I was given no time to alight. A whistle rang out in the night, and Rouletabille jumped into the car beside me.

  “Make off! There’s danger to-night. I’ve got to change my headquarters.”

  And leaning out of the window he rapped out to La Candeur:

  “Go by a roundabout way to the corner of the Quay and Place Saint Michel.”

  “Are we being followed?” I asked.

  “Yes, by Vladimir,” he returned, shrugging his shoulders.

  I heaved a deep breath.

  “I’ve come back from Havre,” he at once began.

  “From Havre! What have you been doing at Havre?”

  “I learnt that Theodora Luigi made a short visit there before the crime.”

  “I myself saw her at the Opéra Comique on the Saturday before.”

  “When she was obeying orders and spying no Parapapoulos, but the following morning, letting everything slide to the intense consternation, moreover, of certain persons, she went to Havre and shut herself up at St. Adresse, where she told Mother Merlin — the caretaker at the Villa Fleurie — that she was not at home to anyone on any pretence. Théodora had retained her tenancy of the house on the cliff, and came there to be alone with her memories. It seems that she was like a masque of death and lived from the Sunday on fruit and opium; but a letter came for her which restored her to life again. An hour after the receipt of this letter, that is on the Monday evening, she went back to Paris with a radiant face, changed beyond recognition. The caretaker could not believe her own eyes. Now on the Wednesday, the day after the tragedy at Passy, Detective-Inspector Tamar, of the secret police, whom we run up against all over the place, arrived at Havre, and turned everything upside down in the Villa Fleurie. His business was to discover the letter which Théodora received and which caused her to leave St. Adresse so hurriedly. In her mad joy she had left it behind. Doubtless the letter meant a great deal to her. Now this letter, which Tamar was unable to find — for he looked in the wrong place for it as if it were carefully put away and not as if it were lost — this letter was found by me, not in the house, but in the ditch in the road outside the house. It must have slipped from her glove or muff at the moment when she was stepping into her car. Here it is.”

  And he drew from his pocket-book a crumpled sheet of paper which, however, was carefully folded.

  “I can’t read it in this light,” I said. “You must know it by heart....”

  “I should like you to see it,” he insisted, and turned the rays of a dark lantern upon it.

  “That’s Roland Boulenger’s writing,” I at once cried.

  The handwriting was in fact easily recognizable with its many words crossed out and curious little twists like flourishes to every capital letter.

  “Read it.”

  I read the letter.

  “MY ADORED ONE, — Come soon. I cannot do without you. I live only for you. Love or Death — anything you please... but in your arms — with you! Nothing else matters. Come to Passy on Tuesday at the usual hour. Be punctual. I shall be counting the moments until I see you.

  “Your Own ROLAND.”

  “What do you think of that?” asked Rouletabille dispassionately.

  “To tell you the truth,” I stammered, “my ideas are all in a jumble. I should want to think things over. The letter is so unexpected....”

  “But say what you do think,” burst out Rouletabille. “Say that since Théodora and Roland had an appointment at Passy on the Tuesday, the third person who tragically intervened in that appointment was Ivana.”

  His reasoning was unanswerable, and I did not know what to say, nevertheless I returned:

  “It was Ivana who was murdered. I can’t forget that....”

  “It’s not the first time,” he said with a grin, continuing to act the part of the devil’s advocate, “it’s not the first time that persons who are bent on mischief have in the end fallen into their own trap. The revolver which had just shot down Roland to begin with was not fastened to the Intruder’s wrist, and the beautiful Theodora was no lamb led to the slaughter, waiting with limbs shaking beneath her, for the blow which was about to fall.... And how it explains everything! Does not the bullet in the ceiling, the grazed wrist, the lacerated hand, bear witness to the struggle? Come, gentlemen, I need not enlarge upon this,” ended Rouletabille, as if he were addressing a jury whose minds were already made up. “Taken from the weak hands of the Intruder into the revengeful hands of Théodora, the weapon quickly laid low the culprit beside her victim. After that lucky stroke Théodora had nothing to do but make herself scarce, which, moreover, she promptly did... and you, gentlemen, have nothing to do but to acquit Rouletabille.... Thanks, Sainclair.”

  At that moment the car came to a stand and Rouletabille bundled me out without ceremony.

  I suddenly found myself alone on the pavement. I took my bearings, slightly confused. I was in the Place Saint Michel a few steps From my own door.

  CHAPTER XVIII

  STRANGE ADVENTURERS IN A SLEEPING-CAR

  NEXT DAY LA Candeur told me that Rouletabille had left for Marseilles. I gathered that he was continuing steadily to pursue Parapapoulos’s dangerous lady friend. It was a question, obviously, of encountering the barber from the shop at the corner of La Roche Lane, because Marius Poupardin was bound to know a great deal about what had happened in the house at Passy on that particular afternoon.

  La Candeur managed to meet me by chance at the Law Courts.

  “They won’t allow him to get at Poupardin,” I said, “I am nervous about him. If I learnt to-morrow that he had met with a fatal accident I shouldn’t be surprised.”

  As I spoke my eyes became moist, and La Candeur, who was himself uneasy in his mind, strove to reassure me:

  “He refused to let me go with him on account of my confounded stature. He declares that it was that which gave us away.

  I may tell you that when you came to the Rue de la Charonne yesterday ‘these gentlemen’ had known for twenty-four hours that he was there. They could have arrested him if they wanted to do so, but they didn’t arrest him. That’s why I am hoping that everything will come out all right.”

  “Heaven grant it!” I exclaimed, “but it’s just because they didn’t arrest him that you see me in such a state of alarm.”

  Meanwhile, strange incidents were taking place with Rouletabille. His journey in a sleeping-car was a unique experience in its own way, and I will set forth the story such as I heard it some time afterwards.

  When he was escaping from prison he received effective assistance from many persons who were under an obligation to him. Among these was a Monsieur Teulat, a very gentlemanly fellow who had entered the Consular service somewhat late in life and whom Rouletabille had been the means of appointing Consul at Barcelona. This Monsieur Teulat had been holiday-making in Paris, and was returning to his duties the day after my last visit to Rouletabille, the circumstances of which I have described.

  Monsieur Teulat had reserved a seat in the sleeping-car. He was travelling to Barcelona by the Paris, Lyons and Mediterranean Railway, changing at Avignon. That evening at eight o’clock Rouletabille was at Lyon station in Paris with Monsieur Teulat’s papers and everything that could make believe that he was the veritable Monsieur
Teulat. He wore a handsome wig with greying curls, an imposing black moustache, gold eye-glasses, heel-pieces in his boots to make him appear taller, a huge overcoat which almost entirely concealed him, and a traveller’s cap of a large check pattern.

  He really believed that he had this time thrown the police off the scent. He arrived at the station, carrying his travelling bag, precisely two minutes before the time of departure and hastened towards the train. As he was about to reach it, his eyes fell upon a figure which from a back view seemed to be suggestive of Detective-Inspector Tamar. He slipped into his compartment without being noticed by the detective, and then going into the corridor of the carriage he cast a glance along the platform. He saw his man in profile, but no longer recognized him as Tamar.

  True, he was obsessed by the thought of Tamar, but there was nothing out of the way in that. The man, however, paid no attention to the passengers, but steadily chatted with a tall, ungainly fellow — in the original Greek sense of the word hupogrupos, meaning thereby “crooked.” His bandy legs, slightly bent back, and queer appearance were crowned by a big red clean-shaven face, pleasant, calm, thoughtful eyes, almost flaxen hair, and a cap of a large check pattern.

  Rouletabille was unable, as I have said, to identify Tamar, but he had a feeling that he had encountered this tall ungainly fellow somewhere before.

  The train started. He closed the door of his carriage, glad to perceive that he was not apparently to have any fellow-passenger, and determined to leave the car as seldom as possible. Unfortunately, almost at once the door was re-opened and the tall, ungainly fellow entered with the porter in charge of the sleeping carriages carrying his bag.

  I will continue the story in Rouletabille’s own words.

  “At that moment of my war with the police, one thing gave me peace of mind. They might have arrested me the night before. Why had they omitted to do so? I could almost positively answer that it was because I had in my possession the letter sent by Roland Boulenger to Theodora Luigi; the letter for which Tamar had hunted in vain at the Villa Fleurie, but which I afterwards found; the letter which was terribly compromising for Theodora. As long as I retained possession of that letter which involved the famous courtesan, a tool where state interests were concerned, in the tragedy at Passy, I felt confident that they could not lay hands on me. With that letter I was in a position to cause too great a scandal and ‘turn the tables’ in the most decisive manner. It was the best possible free pass. They would have to secure the letter first and arrest me afterwards. I really think that they would have preferred to make away with me rather than capture me alive with that letter in my pocket.