“You may or may not know that at the present time the prison is in the builders’ hands. She must have bribed one of the workmen who came out this morning drawing a truck.”
“No,” interrupted Rouletabille in a harsh voice. “She did not bribe that man.”
“Allow me to have my doubts about that, for while you were asleep this morning, or perhaps still ‘thinking things over Madame de Meyrens went to a garage, obtained a car and lay in wait a few hundred yards from the prison, and when the man passed near her she had a talk with him.”
“No,” again interpolated Rouletabille. “She did not bribe that man. It was I who bribed him.”
“You!”
“Yes, and while she was inside the prison carrying out my instructions I, in the meantime, was making all my arrangements outside.”
“With what object?” shouted Jean in amazement. “Not so loud, my boy,” said Rouletabille, forcing him by a peremptory gesture to keep his seat. “I will tell you with what object, seeing that you were not clever enough to guess it.... But drink your coffee quietly and follow my example by assuming a calmness which is only on the surface, I assure you.
I have always told you that the one way of getting at Odette was through Callista. It was to make her talk that I got her and Andréa arrested.”
“I haven’t forgotten that your intervention saved my life.”
“Even if you had been in no danger I should have had them run in just the same, so there’s no need to thank me. We are not in the mood to bandy compliments, and I will not keep from you that I fear some egregious blunder on your part, but first of all follow my line of reasoning. By holding the charge of murder over her I hoped to make her show the white feather. When I was satisfied that neither she nor Andrea would give anything away, I was obliged to make a radical change in my tactics. I caused them to be arrested, and I made up my mind to help them to escape, for it was a moral certainty that after their escape they would attempt to join Odette, more particularly as the Octopus would impress on them that we were already on her track. Then we should follow them — I had arranged that no attempt would be made to catch them again — and reach the goal we had in view. But what’s up with you? Aren’t you feeling well?”
“Rouletabille,” murmured Jean under his breath, “I have made another blunder.”
“I thought as much. What have you done, unhappy man?”
“I came to this very café last night and told Monsieur Crousillat to be on his guard against Madame de Meyrens, for she was your evil genius, and was frustrating all your plans; that I saw her enter the prison and her object could only be to assist the two prisoners to escape.”
“You did that! You did that!” gasped Rouletabille in a muffled voice. “What else?”
“Then the examining magistrate hurried off to the prison to see the governor and they discovered files and bricklayers’ clothes in the prisoners’ cells.”
“That’ll do, that’ll do„ my poor fellow. I knew it as soon as you opened your mouth. Don’t say another word.”
Rouletabille leant his elbows on the table and covered his face with his hands. Jean was staggered. A dead silence fell and one might have heard a pin drop.... At last Rouletabille looked up and said:
“It’s no use worrying about it, for you are sufficiently punished by what you have done. But let it serve you as a lesson. You cannot imagine the amount of craft that I had to employ to make the Octopus fall in with my plans. I knew that she intended to make use of her relations with the police to help Callista to escape, but she did not know how to set about it, and moreover she tried to keep everything from me because her aim was to do us both a bad turn and multiply the obstacles which stood between Odette and us. So it was I who broached the subject first. I said to her: ‘Callista is your friend and if you do her a service, a really great service, she will have confidence in you and won’t refuse any longer to give you the information about Odette which I am anxious to get.... Therefore, help her to escape. Would you like me to lend you a hand?
“That was splendid, and I am a silly ass,” moaned Jean.
“No, you are not a silly ass, but don’t sneer at me again, and try to be more patient when you see me ‘thinking things over.’ And let me in future conspire with the Octopus as I think fit. Of course, I admit that she is very clever, but I have just shown you that on this occasion, as on many others, if you had not interfered I should have been more than a match for her. In any case, we shan’t have occasion to discuss her for some time. I have not succeeded in helping Callista to escape, but I have roused the suspicions of the police with regard to the Octopus.”
“After what she’s done the police will nab her,” cried Jean.
You’ve said another foolish thing. The Octopus will have no difficulty in explaining to the police that as her instructions were to ‘pump’ Callista, she could not do better, in order to win her confidence and ensure some disclosure, than to agree to help her in this plan to escape — a plan which she will father on to me without a scruple of remorse. No, she will not be embarrased by the police, but the police, when confronted with the report of the prison governor, will find it difficult to employ her again for some time to come. A good riddance! You think that I am very smitten with her. I assure you that I’ve had enough of her. I am thinking only of Odette.”
The last words rose naturally to Rouletabille’s lips, but they were uttered so simply and in such a peculiar accent, and seemed so fully to complete the significance of what he had said before, that they rang with an almost painful echo in Jean’s as well as in his own ears.
The latter grew; slightly pale.
I have promised you happiness and I intend to keep my word. And now let’s adjourn,” he said, passing his arm through Jean’s in the friendliest manner. “Callista’s escape is essential and we shall manage it. I know the prison thoroughly and have been considering other methods.”
They left the café. Rouletabille could feel Jean swaying against his arm. —
“What’s the matter now? You’re not going to faint?”
“I feel inclined to put an end to myself,” sighed Jean.
“Don’t do that,” said Rouletabille, pretending to burst out laughing. “Don’t put me under the necessity of breaking such unpleasant news to Odette.”
“Oh, my dear fellow, even now I haven’t told you everything. I called at the prison this morning.”
“Well?”
“Well, Andréa and Callista are not there now.”
“What’s that?”
“An order to transfer Andréa and Callista to Aix prison was signed last night by Monsieur Crousillat and the instructions were carried out this morning.”
“Hell and fury!” shouted Rouletabille, making use of an oath which he specially reserved for great occasions. “Hell and fury, that’s the limit. It’s too much of a good thing. We’ve come a mucker.... Have you anything more to tell me? No?... Thanks!.,. Well, now, old man, we must part. I’ve taken an oath and I’ll stick to it in any case. I’ll make you the gift of Odette, but on one condition: that you swear not to attempt to come after me, and not to budge from Lavardens until you receive word from me. Is that settled? Is that fully understood?”
“Oh, forgive me,” said Jean, with tears in his eyes, offering him his hand.
“I forgive you, you ass!”
Rouletabille shook hands with him quite stiffly and left him standing there in the street, while he turned on his heel. But at the corner of the street he looked round and shouted:
“If you meet the Octopus, don’t tell her which way I’ve gone.”
Five minutes later it would have been difficult for anyone to say which way Rouletabille had gone.
CHAPTER XXIII
ROULETABILLE AND LA FINETTE
IT IS A long road from Arles to Aix under the blazing sun. Shade is scarce apart from that which is thrown by the telegraph poles. And yet now and again a small copse, a screen of fir and close-ranked cypress trees,
break the intense monotony of the landscape.
I was Sergeant La Finette who received orders to conduct Andréa and Callista to Aix prison, and as he was called upon also to take two horses, which had just been purchased at Arles, to the Gendarmery of the ancient Roman town, he did not feel disposed to suggest that a journey by railway, even if it involved a circuitous route and the unpleasantness of frequent changes, would have saved a great deal of worry and fatigue. —
He took his comrade Cornouilles with him, and from early dawn they had been riding, one on each side of the road, with their handcuffed prisoners walking between them.
Neither the gendarmes nor the prisoners spoke. Cornouilles seemed to be still asleep, and La Finette was smoking his pipe. Andréa was watching Callista out of the corner of his eye with a look of mingled gloom and love. Callista, on the other hand, proudly erect, stepped forward along the dusty road seemingly leading the way for the little company. Nothing could be heard but the sound of their footsteps, the clank of the horses curb-chains, the cry of the peewft as it flew through the inexorable blue in quest of an infrequent pool.
The gendarmes themselves were feeling thirsty. Comouilles’ first words when he awoke were:
“It will be all right at Salon.”
And, in fact, they had to pass through Salon where they would halt, in order to make an official call, and breakfast. La Finette emptied his pipe against his boot, and echoed with emphasis:
“It will be all right at Salon.”
And they relapsed once more into silence. Suddenly the road made a bend, and as they passed a dump of tamarisks a number of strange figures appeared before them on the road-side bank.
They were dark, glossy-haired, amber-skinned and splendid in their squalor. They seemed the very monarchs of destitution as they stood in the pride of their rags and stature, grown fat on the things which they had picked up on the road and from cunning visits to the rabbit hutches in the farms.
They had no fear of gendarmes, for somewhere in their caravans lay hidden passports with every country, which gave them a few weeks respite during which they could reach the frontier and disappear into space.
Three men and two women and five little imps of gipsies stared in silence as the procession moved over the dusty road. Their eyes were fixed on Andréa, and they betrayed neither astonishment nor concern when they beheld his manacled hands and woeful plight. Despite the indignation in their hearts they remained impassive. Callista turned her head away. La Finette made his horse shy against them to show his contempt for the race whose passports were always in order when examined by any gendarme in the world. Cornouilles stuttered:— “Ugly mugs!” whereupon Andréa retorted between his teeth: “Noutchousia!” which implied an incitement to murder the gendarmery, but as Cornouilles was ignorant of the Romany tongue, no harm was done and the incident for the moment was closed.
The gipsies watched the little party march past. Nevertheless there was one person whose eyes were fixed upon the gipsies, and when a few minutes later they went back to their encampment, this person went straight up to them. It was a certain youth with the amber skin and black moustache of a Hungarian violinist. He emerged from a small wood of chestnut trees which threw their shade over the first slopes leading to the village next to Salon.
The gipsies squatting round the remnants of a highly-flavoured sheep condescended to look up.
The newcomer acted in a somewhat mysterious manner, stepping now and again on tiptoe to see if anything fresh was happening on the road in the distance.
The gipsies began to eye him with obvious hostility, when he drew from his pocket a certain clasp fixed to a chain which at once made the impression upon them which he clearly expected from it.
“The sign!” mumbled the gipsies in their jargon, and stood up politely. Of course this youth with the amber skin and black moustache of a Hungarian violinist had gipsy blood in his veins.
He led them to understand, in a few words, that he was one of themselves, and his object or rather his mission was to liberate Andréa and his companion. Their eyes at once lit up. They all knew Andréa. The woman was a stranger to them, but there was no possibility of doubt that she was their shaia, their sister. The young man explained that he would “see to the gendarmes” but that as soon as he had relieved Andréa and Callista of their guards they must look after them. He had come a long way round by car knowing that the party would pass through Salon. He then took them to the wood of chestnut trees and showed them his small racing car:
“This is where you must bring the prisoners as soon as they are free,” he said.
When the entire plan of campaign was fully understood he added:
“And now go.... Make haste.... Don’t let the gendarmes out of sight, but try to keep out of sight yourselves. They must not see you.”
“What about you?”
“You will find me again here. Don’t worry about me.
They separated, scampering away with the utmost speed, and their bare feet made no more sound on the road than a flight of sparrows skimming over the tall grass....
On the outskirts of the village, La Finette turned round in his saddle. He caught the sound of a bicycle and straightway shouted out his famous “Quèsaco? What’s that?” whereupon the entire company looked round.
“Well, upon my word, if it isn’t Rouletabille himself!” said La Finette.
“You’ve hit it in one, fathead,” rapped out the journalist as he leapt from his bicycle. “Whew! It is hot on these Provençal roads. I thought I should never come up to you.”
The reader will recall that La Finette and Rouletabille since their expedition to Roseaux plain had become the best of friends.
“This is a surprise!” cried La Finette. “To what do we owe the pleasure of your company?”
“I learnt this morning of our prisoners’ attempt to escape, and the order to transfer them. I said to myself. Those dogs will stick at nothing, and besides, are as clever as monkeys. They might play some trick on my friend La Finette.”
“I say, you don’t mean it!” cried La Finette, scarlet with indignation. “Do you take me for a baby? Never on your life! You don’t know Lou Fineto, Monsieur Rouletabille. If you only knew Lou Fineto!”
“Calm yourself, La Finette. I have the utmost confidence in you; the truth is that I have a little business which takes me to Aix, so I thought that we might do the journey together.... Don’t you feel a bit thirsty, La Finette?”
La Finette possessed, as the saying goes, a bulbous nose.... The party had arrived outside a small inn of high repute in the countryside, where on Sundays and holidays, visitors from Salon came to make good cheer and play bowls. The fare was excellent, but the charges were higher than some pockets could afford, and it would never have occurred to La Finette to stop there if Rouletabille, who was very considerate and tactful, had not invited him and his comrade to lunch with him.
“All right,” said Comouilles simply, while La Finette would have liked to embrace Rouletabille.
“Wait a bit! What are you going to do with the prisoners?” asked the latter.
“Well, my boy, I’ll fix them to my boots if necessary, but they shan’t get away, I give you my word.”
The two gendarmes had already dismounted. They tied their steeds to a ring in the stable wall near the manger. After assuring themselves that the animals wanted for nothing, they turned their attention to the prisoners. On the suggestion of the proprietor, they locked them in a kind of lean-to built of brick, and used for the storage of wood. The door possessed a substantial lock. Clearly the two prisoners would have no chance of escape during the short time in which they would be kept there. Moreover, their handcuffs were not removed even for their frugal meal, which Cornouilles had brought with him in his haversack; and the door of the lean-to stood exactly opposite the cool little room in which Rouletabille had ordered the table to be laid. The prisoners were within reach and within sight.
“Lord bless me, did you notice what a
face they pulled when they saw you?” asked La Finette as he entered the inn.
“Yes, I’m no friend of theirs! What do you say to some of this saveloy, an omelette, a rabbit, a nice little salad, and a bottle of wine of Provence?”
“Only one!” cried La Finette and Cornouilles in unison. “What should we do with one bottle?”
“Well, let’s say a couple, but no more. I don’t want anyone to get ‘tight.’ Let me tell you one thing, La Finette: Three fourths of the cases where prisoners escape would never occur if the guards hadn’t got drunk beforehand.”
“Beforehand! Perhaps you’re right, young man,” agreed the sergeant with a somewhat doleful air. “Beforehand!... We’ll be satisfied with a couple of bottles.”
“But there’ll be coffee and a liqueur brandy.”
“Only one!” cried the representatives of law and order once more.
“Let’s make it a couple, and we’ll say no more about it. And now for lunch.”
“What are you going to do outside?” asked the sergeant, seeing Rouletabille make for the wood-shed in which the two prisoners were confined.
“I want to make sure that our birds can’t fly away.”
“There’s no window and I’ve got the key of the door in my pocket,” returned the sergeant, bursting out laughing.
But Rouletabille seized the handle, and gave the door a vigorous shake, eager doubtless to ascertain the truth for himself.
“It’s all right,” he said. “We can be easy in our minds.”
Just then the waiter put the first bottle on the table.
“Speaking of guards who drink too much,” he said, taking his seat, “I must tell you a little story.”
“This devil of a Rouletabille! He’s always got a yarn to tell,” exclaimed La Finette with a laugh, as he poured out his first bumper and cut himself a fairsized slice of saveloy. “That comes of being a newspaper man. Ah, these bally journalists! A regular lot of jokers!”
“Have you ever been to St. Martin-de-Ré?” asked Rouletabille.
“Never. I’m not a warder.”
Collected Works of Gaston Leroux Page 116