Collected Works of Gaston Leroux

by Gaston Leroux

  “If I die before you, Chéri-Bibi, you know that I forgive you.”

  And as there was still no response she motioned to them to take her away. The hatches were opened in succession — the magazine, the cordage, the cargo, the baggage holds — all of them. They visited every part of the ship, and the nun’s voice was raised above the dark cavities calling her brother, but her brother did not answer. And the procession returned to the sickbay, and Sister St. Mary went back to bed in the operating room.

  She asked that no operation should be performed on her because she wanted to die, and then she realized that since the doctor maintained that he could save her life, it was her duty to allow him to have his way. She was destined still to suffer here on earth. She submitted to the inevitable.

  Nevertheless it was with the Captain’s support, but in spite of the doctor’s warning, that she had attempted to appeal to the memories of a brother whom she had tenderly loved, but to no purpose. She was now in a burning fever, and the extraction of the bullet had to be postponed.

  The Captain held her hand and she wept. Above the little iron bedstead was hung the placard which she took with her wherever she went, and which was her only article of personal property. It contained these words:

  “For a convent they have the houses of the sick, for a cell the room that charity lends them, for a chapel their parish church, for a cloister the poor house, for seclusion the duty of obedience, for iron bars the fear of God, and for a veil a saintly modesty.”

  Although she was forbidden to speak she murmured in her tears:

  “He did not answer me, he did not come to me, he has forgotten the sound of my voice. It was I who gave him the name of Chéri-Bibi when he was quite young. It was the name which I chose out of my love for him. Alas! What has he made of it?”

  Her grief seemed to know no bounds. Her eyes, raised to heaven, were bedewed with tears.

  “Oh God, I am the cause of his misfortune.... Forgive me.... Forgive him.”

  A few moments later she said in a still fainter tone:

  “Oh, I did think that when he heard my voice he would come....”

  At that moment a great commotion arose in the alley-way.

  “Captain.... Captain.... It’s Chéri-Bibi!

  .. It’s Chéri-Bibi!”

  “Oh, I knew he would come,” she cried, and she clasped her hands, transfixed.

  The Captain made a dash outside. A terrible tragedy was being enacted near the galleys. Chéri-Bibi had, indeed, appeared in an alley-way for the space of a second, and a sentry fired on him. Of course he missed him. With one bound Chéri-Bibi took refuge in the mess store-room, and was firing on everyone who attempted to come near him. The fight had all the appearance of a regular siege.

  The sound of firing could be heard from the upper deck and from the direction of the galleys.

  The mess store-room, as it was called on the Bayard, was a somewhat roomy pantry, between the two galleys, in which the provisions intended for the daily consumption of crew, passengers and convicts were stored. The main store-room was in the fore part below the third deck. The mess store-room led into one of the galleys only, but it was the largest and used for the convicts, and it contained hardly anything but three immense boilers, which were, in fact, receptacles, as deep as vats and large enough to hold an entire regiment’s washing, in which the convicts soup was made. This “bare” galley was managed by the Dodger, a journeyman baker who had been promoted in an emergency to the rank of cook, while the real chief cook lorded it in the officers’ galley. The galleys were situated nearly amidships between the two funnels. They could be reached almost direct from the upper deck by stairways called “ladders,” and one could go up to them very quickly by iron steps which led from the deck where the Captain and his little group were standing.

  When the Captain arrived at the bottom of the ladder men shouted to him to get out of the way quickly for the ladder faced the outer door of the mess store-room. It was wide open, and Chéri-Bibi, who was right at the back and could not be seen, was shooting straight down into the lower deck.

  De Kerrosgouët, revolver in hand, and de Vilène stood on the upper side ladders conducting the attack which, up to then, presented great difficulties.

  Two military overseers who went too near the galley door were shot; one man in the leg and the other in the hand.

  Thus Chéri-Bibi was rushing from one room to the other according to the necessities of his defense, and was ready to fire even before there was time to take aim at him, for he did not allow anyone to set foot in the hatchway in front of him.

  How did he get there? How was he discovered? The story went that it was the Dodger who raised the alarm. The Lieutenant was on the point of entering the mess store-room when he stumbled against the Dodger, who was coming out, shouting:

  “Don’t go in! I’ve seen something move under the vegetables.”

  By an extraordinary chance the Lieutenant was unarmed. He called the two guards who were passing and they opened the store-room door without encountering any resistance; but as soon as the door was opened, the ruffian inside fired two revolvers simultaneously, and both guards had to make for the ladders.

  De Vilène was in time to catch a glimpse of a demoniacal figure which sprang from the mess storeroom to the galley. He recognized it. It was Chéri-Bibi.

  “Now we’ve got him!” he shouted with delight. “Fetch the Captain.”

  As a matter of fact it seemed impossible for Chéri-Bibi to escape. The cook’s mates had slipped out of the galleys and fled, leaving the field entirely in the scoundrel’s possession; but what could he do? The guards came hurrying up from all quarters. Doubtless a great deal of damage would be caused, but he was trapped!... he was trapped! Passengers and even women showed themselves on the companion-ways which were not under the enemy’s fire and shouted: “Shoot him!... Shoot him!”

  Chéri-Bibi, feeling at that moment that the guards would risk everything to effect an entrance into one of the two rooms, galley or store-room, and thus take him between two fires, managed swiftly to close the galley door and to get back to the store-room when the Captain, leading half a dozen men, rushed in.

  He fired.

  Three men fell to the ground, impeding the onrush of the others.

  The remarkable thing was that although a hot fire was directed against the convict, he did not seem in the slightest degree inconvenienced by it. True, they were firing at haphazard at a shadow which appeared and disappeared with amazing rapidity.

  The Captain ordered de Vilène and de Kerrosgouët to remain in their positions, and to guard the ladders against any desperate attempt at flight in that direction.

  A deafening clamor surged up from every part of the ship. The convicts below sang and shouted:

  “Cheerily, Chéri-Bibi!... Cheerily!”

  Who blows the blooming lot UP?

  Sing ho for Chéri-Bibi.... Chéri-Bibi.

  And the warders behind the Captain wavered.

  Barrachon determined to bring matters to a climax whatever happened. He dashed ahead, exposing himself to the enemy’s fire, and he would inevitably have been laid low if a form, all white, like a wan ghost, had not come between and shielded him.

  Sister St. Mary!...

  Yes, it was she who had risen from her bed in spite of her weakness, and hurried to meet the shouts and the shot. Had she not called Chéri-Bibi? Well, he had answered the appeal. But his hand was still dealing out death.... And blood was being shed in streams around him.

  She walked in front of the Captain, but with so light a tread that it looked as if her feet under her long drapery scarcely touched the deck.... She was a saint.... But she said in her gentle voice, which was growing still weaker:

  “Here I am, Chéri-Bibi.... Don’t you recognize me?... Here I am.... If you must kill someone, kill me.... Kill me, my brother in Jesus Christ....”

  But no shot was fired, and as she moved forward, followed by the Captain and his men, they
all entered the store-room.

  Chéri-Bibi was no longer there!

  He had closed the door between the two rooms, and was now in the convicts’ galley.

  It was his last resource.

  The men were already trying the door. It was here that the quarry would be found. Sister St. Mary implored the wretch to give himself up and not to make any more victims.

  “You’ve done enough killing,” she cried. “Chéri-Bibi, have pity on us. Have pity on me. I’ve come to die with you....”

  They had to take her away before they could break down the door. There was a whirlwind rush into the galley....

  It was empty.

  Smoke was escaping from the three great soup boilers, and he, too, like smoke, had escaped.

  Once more the question arose how did he get away? The galley did not lead into any room — except the store-room from which they had just come. There were no scuttles looking on to the sea. Light penetrated from the great upper-deck skylights, which were riddled with bullets, and it was impossible for a man to force his way through them owing to the iron sashes. And, moreover, guards were on the lookout for him on deck.

  Where was he?

  Suddenly the Dodger’s voice was heard shouting:

  “This way!... This way!... There he is! .. There he is!”

  In a twinkling galley and store-room were cleared, and everyone followed the Dodger, who ran like one possessed along the alley-ways, rushed into a stairway, scrambled down, fell his length on the deck, and looking up exclaimed to those who were around him:

  “I saw him.... Oh, I saw him.... Look, he vanished through there.... Sure enough, he’s the very devil.”

  CHAPTER VI

  CHÉRI-BIBI

  THE SIGNALMAN HAD struck the eight bells of midnight when Captain Barrachon returned to his cabin. He sat down at his desk, and prepared to resume, at the point at which he had left off, the special report of the exceptional incidents which had occurred during a remarkable voyage. He had come from the sickbay, where he had been visiting the guards disabled by Chéri-Bibi’s shots, and he had stayed for a space by the bedside of Sister St. Mary of the Angels, who had become delirious. He was anxious to put in writing, in a detailed form, the events of that disastrous day. The weather was fine and the sea quite smooth. The Bayard, oppressed by its cargo of convicts, continued its course in “peace and quietness” towards the Iles du Salut. After the recent storms — the storms of heaven as well as those on board ship — this interval of calm was so unexpected and so greatly appreciated that the Captain, who was already bending over a table to write, raised his head with a sigh of relief as though he were coming to himself after a bad dream.

  But he sat stock still, open-mouthed, wide-eyed, for he suddenly saw standing before him a gloomy figure which was smiling at him.

  “Chéri-Bibi!”

  He sprang to his feet.

  But he at once fell back in his chair. The gloomy figure leant over the desk and leveled the muzzle of a revolver between his eyes. And it was no longer smiling. He felt his pocket. He was unarmed. Someone had stolen his weapon from him. Someone had foreseen everything. And the figure standing between him and the door was smiling once more.

  “Be sensible.... Not a word.... Fatalitas!” Having said which the ominous visitor took a seat without being invited and went on:

  “Monsieur, I am an honest man!”

  He was silent after making this declaration as if he were weighing deliberately in his mind what he had said, so that it seemed after a few moments as if he must add:

  “Or, I have been.”

  The statement seemed to plunge him anew into an abyss of cogitation from which he emerged to say: “Oh, I might have been.... Fatalitas!”

  The Captain, observing that his visitor was so selfpossessed, was infected by this air of placidity. He listened and looked at him. He had seen that frightful face before, but he did not recognize it. So far he had regarded him with disgust and dismay. Now he took stock of him with curiosity. He saw before him a man with a big square head, wide mouth and thick lips, short, squat nose, immense ears, small, round, extremely piercing eyes, always on the alert underneath the arch of their harsh and bushy eyebrows; hair closely cropped in accordance with the regulations, revealing the exact outline of the skull in which Gall or Lavater would easily have discerned bumps of amativeness, combativeness, and destructiveness which might pertain alike to a ragamuffin who would defend his mistress to the death, or to a soldier who would die for his country.

  Every instinct was expressed in that face. The broad, lined forehead showed that Chéri-Bibi was capable of great things, but the perpendicular wrinkles at the base of the nose denoted the capacity for hatred and revenge. Small, round, piercing eyes, we know, indicate shrewdness and cunning, and a mischievous and sarcastic disposition. Next, the wide, squat nose was that of a person of simple nature, easily deceived. The jaw was formidable, but the mouth with its thick, fleshy lips, slightly apart, expressed good nature and candor. And the impression as a whole which the vision of this man produced was enormously disturbing inasmuch as it was impossible to obtain an impression of the face as a whole.

  One could not tell what to trust in that face. It might be that, at one time, it possessed some harmony which the barber, by depriving him of his natural covering, had got rid of. If Chéri-Bibi had had a forked beard and long hair he would have resembled a somewhat countrified preacher, and if he had worn side whiskers he would have looked like a valet in a great household who had murdered his master.

  He might once have been handsome. Satan before the fall was the most beautiful of the angels.

  And over and above all this he loved a joke and to seem to be laughing. When he did laugh he looked awful.

  “Fatalitas” he said, “there you have my enemy. If you knew what a run of ill-luck I’ve had in my life, you’d scarcely credit it. My fellow-prisoners complain of their failures. But I, what shall I say about mine? By the way, I am considered an anarchist. I should like to say positively at the beginning of this talk that I am anything but an anarchist. I, Monsieur, find society, such as it is at present, extremely well constituted. And I have always had the desire to make for myself a humble but honorable place in it. The unfortunate part is that I have never been able to succeed in doing so.

  “Fatalitas! I have read Kropotkine. His theory of society hasn’t a leg to stand on; and as for Karl Marx, I must tell you at once that I should regret all my life the efforts that I have made to secure for myself other people’s property if I were forced to share that property with persons whom I don’t know.... I like to do charitable deeds, of course, but I shouldn’t like to be compelled to do them with a knife at my throat.... The boot should be on the other leg!... I am neither an anarchist nor a socialist.... You must understand that once for all. And if you want to know what I am, well, I myself will tell you, Monsieur. I am a capitalist. At any rate, you understand, all that I ask is to become one!

  “The most surprising thing in my career is the obstinacy with which the anarchists who defend me and the judges who prosecute me are at one in hurting my feelings! I am not an anarchist. I will go a step further — I am certain that if you knew me better, my dear Captain, you would agree with me — I am not at all an ill-disposed person. It would never have occurred to me, for instance, to write a book, like Little Buddha’s, on the ‘Reform of the Magistrature.’ Judges do their best, and it would not be right to forget that they are men like ourselves! I grant you that, every now and then, one of them goes wrong. It’s a pity, but it can’t be helped, and of a certainty it’s not because one glazier murders his mother-in-law that, we should regard all glaziers as rascals.

  “Look here, as we’re talking of judges I will admit that I bear them no ill-will for their mistakes, seeing that to err is human. And yet, Monsieur, the man who is talking to you like this, and is entered on the convicts’ register as No. 3216, is innocent.

  “You seem to be astonished, and I will
admit that you have good reason to he. But it is God’s truth, as my sister says..

  “Will you have a glass of water?” asked the Captain.

  “No, thank you. You’re too kind. Don’t disturb anyone on my account.”

  The Captain bowed in assent. What was the object of the peculiar and remarkable farce that was being played by these two men? The Captain, in so far as Chéri-Bibi was concerned, wondered. “He must have some reason for wanting to gain time,” he said to himself, “and as he is a criminal of the most impudent type, he’s trying to stagger me.”

  As a matter of fact Chéri-Bibi was showing off, and the sight of Chéri-Bibi showing off was a monstrous one. It was only necessary to hear him say:— “I am innocent.... That’s God’s truth as my sister says.” The phrase “as my sister says” added to the words “God’s truth” were uttered in a tone that seemed to set the whole world at defiance. He went on with his explanation:

  “When I say ‘as my sister says’ I don’t want you to think that my sister believes in my innocence, but that she believes in God. I, Monsieur, I do not believe in God. Brought up from infancy in principles which enabled me to do without any such belief, I shall not have the final satisfaction of knowing exactly on whom to lay the blame for all my misfortunes. Well, Monsieur, if the Supreme Being, as we say at school, existed he would have a devilish bad time of it with me, please believe. There is only one thing which can explain my case, and which it is really worth while to dwell on, only one thing, and that thing is a confounded she: I’ve called her Fatality. Monsieur, you see before you a victim by decree of fate: Fatalitas! I was good, I am bad. I was gentle, I am violent. I used to love, I now hate. Monsieur, I will tell you the story of my first offense, and you will at once pity me. As a stroke of bad luck, my first offense goes beyond anything that you can imagine. And yet it was very ordinary. Here it is...

  “I was born at Dieppe of poor but honest parents. My parents were servants in an old and honorable family. My father was the gardener, and my mother the lodge-keeper. We lived in a small cottage at the park gates. I have nothing to hide from you. I will mention names. My name is Jean Mascart. Our master’s name was Bourrelier, and the Bourreliers belong to an old middle-class family of extremely wealthy shipowners who, however, were greatly worried by having such a common name.