Collected Works of Gaston Leroux

by Gaston Leroux

  At that moment their eyes met and the Dodger gave a start, clutching the rail of a ladder to prevent himself from falling.

  When the Marquis had disappeared he murmured:

  “What’s wrong with me? I can’t set eyes on a Marquis without feeling as if I were going to faint. True the look of him makes me feel ill. Perhaps it is because he has blue eyes like Chéri-Bibi. And, curse me, everything that reminds me of Chéri-Bibi, makes my head go round.... All the same, they were not like Chéri-Bibi’s little round eyes which smiled so funnily when we were having a joke together... But what’s wrong with me!.... What’s wrong with me?”

  He could not help it. A strange force which he was powerless to resist impelled him to seek out those eyes once more...

  He waited for a couple of hours until the Marquis du Touchais, who was shut up with the Kanaka and the principal officers, came out from the ward room. But he was disappointed for the Marquis was wearing dark spectacles.

  The officers had formed certain resolutions with a view to secure the safety of the crew. The Marquis was to be landed in a small fishing village on the coast of Borneo from which it would be impossible for him to obtain help by messenger under some three weeks.

  From there he would be able to reach the China line of steamers, and return to France as he pleased. Moreover the Marquis had undertaken not to divulge his adventure until two months had elapsed under pain of severe reprisals. Thus he was receiving quick and favourable treatment because he was the owner of the millions which were to be paid for his liberation. When once the programme was executed in its entirety the Marquis would have nothing to fear from the convicts who, on the contrary, would regard him as one of their benefactors.

  The shipwrecked friends of du Touchais, the old officers Captain Barrachon, Lieutenant de Vilène and the rest, and the old crew and military overseers and their families, would be landed, with two months provisions, on a small desert island in the Pacific which was sheltered from storms and wind by coral reefs. The little island was remote from the trade routes. The Kanaka would take measures to inform the Australian Government of the existence of this new colony so that these persons might be rescued in due course, within two months at most.

  The convict staff, of course, were not such simpletons as to expect all on board to keep the secret, and it was for this reason that they deemed it desirable to take every precaution of time and circumstance.

  All parties, for that matter, declared themselves satisfied with the arrangements since it was no use going back on them, and the crew in the very natural delight with which their newly-found wealth had filled them, were bent on celebrating the happy day; but the Kanaka called to mind that they had that very morning attended Chéri-Bibi’s funeral, and they must honour his memory by postponing public rejoicings until the time came when they could “enjoy themselves among themselves.”

  They passed a vote of thanks and suggested a complimentary reception to the Dodger who declined to accept “anything.” They ended by respecting his grief.

  The “Estrella” was shaping her course for Borneo. During the short voyage the Dodger continued to live with the shade of Chéri-Bibi. He was like a man under a delusion and his shipmates began to look upon him and to treat him almost as a madman. Sometimes he talked to himself, or at least the men thought that he was talking to himself, but he himself imagined that Chéri-Bibi was with him and understood him. He was sailing not with the memory of him but with him.

  “He’s still on board. I feel it, and I’m certain of it.”

  And when in his over-excited imagination he fancied that Chéri-Bibi was not with him he looked about for him.

  He looked for him everywhere as if Chéri-Bibi were having a game with him and hiding himself. He hardly ate anything, and his meagre form fell away still more. It seemed as if the least breeze would sweep him from the deck and fling him to the waves or the clouds. A mere shadow so to speak.

  One evening the Dodger dropped in an increasingly lugubrious state of mind on to a bench on the upper deck. He felt worn out, ready to give up the ghost. Suddenly a white object on the bench attracted his attention. It was a handkerchief which had been left behind; a rather fine handkerchief which he was mechanically passing through his fingers, when he was stopped by a knot, a large and curiously formed knot tied in the handkerchief. The Dodger scrambled to his feet, distraught, trembling in every limb. The knot was a very special one which Chéri-Bibi used to tie in his handkerchiefs when he wanted to remember anything... What did it mean?... Who was daring to tie Chéri-Bibi’s knots... unless it were Chéri-Bibi himself?

  “I tell you he’s not dead. I tell you he’s not dead,” some invisible being cried to him in tones that deafened him.

  Moreover it was not the first time that he had come across living traces of Chéri-Bibi since his body had been flung to the sea. As he wandered anew over Chéri-Bibi’s accustomed walks, he found the black ashes of pipe-tobacco still warm in the very places in which Chéri-Bibi liked to sit and smoke and dream; in those places which no one ever frequented, such as the prow, beyond the skylight, at the very ship’s head, where he used to ensconce himself, dangling his legs over the sea... What did it all mean... It was certain that he was not dreaming... And the handkerchief? Whose handkerchief had been tied with Chéri-Bibi’s knot?.... Someone had left it there and someone perhaps would return for it... And he drew back and leant against the davits of the ship’s launch and waited.... waited.

  Meanwhile his thoughts turned to a slight incident which occurred the evening before and to which he was wrong not to attach importance. It was a trifling thing in itself. Someone in the main alley-way had coughed, and the Dodger felt as if he had received a shock. He could have sworn that it was Chéri-Bibi’s cough. He made one bound as quietly as he could to the alley-way, and his eyes fell upon the Marquis walking imperturbably away with his hands in his pockets.

  The Dodger could have cried out in his disappointment and yet he had heard Chéri-Bibi cough. He would have recognised that cough in a thousand, and here was the confounded Marquis coughing like a convict!....

  Therefore the Dodger hid behind the davits. The signalman struck the bell for the ten o’clock watch, and a big shadow, bearing slightly on one side, appeared. The Dodger put his arms round the davit to prevent himself from collapsing... Nevertheless he slipped and fell over on his knees with chattering teeth... That shadow was the very image of Chéri-Bibi’s shadow.

  The sky was slightly overcast and the moon lay behind the clouds. Had the Dodger found himself face to face with the phantom Flying Dutchman he could not have been more affrighted. It was Chéri-Bibi come back from the kingdom of the dead, and walking as he used to walk when he was alive, with the same peculiar carriage, the same waddling gait, the same dragging of the feet, and the same rolling of the shoulders... There was no possibility of doubt. It was not a dream this time. After seeing, with his own eyes, Chéri-Bibi dead, and placed in a sack and thrown to the sea with a good-sized cannon ball at his feet, he now saw him alive, walking placidly on the deck as if he were still in command of the ship.

  “Mother!” cried the Dodger.

  The other who was almost touching him stopped in front of him without the least agitation; and in the rays of the moon which had now wiped the clouds from its face, the Dodger saw with wide open eyes the Marquis once more.

  The Marquis betrayed no surprise at seeing the Dodger on his knees, his teeth chattering with fright. A fellow of such small importance would obviously not be worthy of his attention. He turned his back on him and continued his silent way, and the Dodger no longer saw Chéri-Bibi and his peculiar carriage, his shuffling feet and rolling shoulders. It was indeed the Marquis from behind as well as in front!

  In the Dodger’s brain thoughts were whirling in pitiable confusion. He crept along on deck like a wounded man who has lost the use of his legs; he leant against “the wall” for support. The Marquis came and went as if he were not there.

&nbs
p; “A funny bird, say what you like” thought the Dodger....” The Marquis has turned out to be a funny bird since his illness. We never see him with his friends. He never visits anyone, or speaks to anyone, and he waits until nighttime to take a walk on deck and commune with the stars!”

  At this moment the Marquis who was apparently fatigued, sat down on the bench on which the Dodger had left the handkerchief. He caught sight of the white linen, picked it up, looked at it and used it. The Dodger felt that his hair, which had not been cut during his travels, would stand on end. He had heard Chéri-Bibi blow his nose!

  It was too much for one night and he fell into a dead faint.

  The coolness of the early morning revived him. He looked around him. The Marquis was gone. That part of the deck was deserted. He collected his thoughts. Obviously the Marquis had recognised his handkerchief since he had used it; therefore it was he who had tied the knot. The Marquis when he was not wearing spectacles had a certain look in his eyes of Chéri-Bibi; the Marquis at night-time when he thought that he was unobserved walked like Chéri-Bibi. It was as though he found relief from the restraints of daytime. But, indeed, in spite of all, the Marquis was the Marquis and Chéri-Bibi was Chéri-Bibi. No; if he were Chéri-Bibi what had become of his ears and his squat nose and a number of other peculiarities which disfigured him in the eyes of everyone but the Dodger? They were buried in the sea with Chéri-Bibi himself.

  Suddenly the Dodger gave a start as if he had received an electric shock. His thoughts went back to the Kanaka and the Countess covered with blood coming from the cabin in which the Marquis and Chéri-Bibi were held prisoners by the strange illness which they treated with the surgeon’s knife... He recalled the cries and groans and the sudden silences such as occur when patients have been given an anaesthetic prior to an operation. He remembered, too, what had been said about the Kanaka and the Countess’s trial, and the strips of human flesh that they were said to have cut from their patients... Well, was he on the right track! Was it possible?... Was it possible that... If they were not cannibals what had they done with those strips of flesh?.... They had always refused to say what they had done with them. It may have been that their tricks were not invariably successful. And the proof of it was that on the “Estrella” one of the sick persons had died from them... Oh, but... Oh, but... it would not be safe to change the flesh of people, particularly if it were done against the will of one of them... Oh but... Oh but... Was such a thing really possible?

  It was claimed that such things were possible. The Dodger remembered how amused he was one evening, after supper, when the boatswain read an article from the “Matin” in which it was stated that surgeons were now able to graft on a living animal any organ or limb taken from another living animal.

  [NOTE: Here is the article in question:

  “At a meeting of doctors, surgeons, physiologists and scientists held at the Academy of Medicine in Paris, Professor Pozzi read a paper of the highest importance dealing with the very successful experiments in grafting on animals which had been made by M. Alexis Carrel, a French surgeon established in New York. M. Carrel is one of the governors of the Rockefeller Institute.

  During a recent journey to the United States undertaken in scientific interests Professor Pozzi verified for himself the surprising results obtained by M. Carrel. He returned to France profoundly impressed by them.

  The first experiments made by the French scientist consisted of the patching up of undeveloped parts. In January, 1917, M. Carre) cut from a bitch of medium size a part of the abdominal aorta covering an extent of two centimetres. He patched up the duct with a piece of peritoneum previously taken from the same animal and preserved for some days in vaseline. The dog was none the worse for the experiment. Twenty-two months later, on the 22nd November, 1918, he made a laparotomy; the abdominal cavity of the animal was opened, and it was found that no trace remained of the first operation.

  “I saw the animal,” said Professor Pozzi “at the end of the séance, last month, and she was in perfect health.”

  But that was not all.

  M. Carrel emboldened by his first success experimented in the substitution of entire portions of veins or arteries by other veins previously taken from other animals.

  On the 7th June, 1917, he grafted a segment of a jugular vein on the carotid of a dog. On the 28th October of the same year the circulation was entirely normal. On the 1st February, 1919, the dog was killed in a fight with other dogs. It was found that the vein had “arterialised” and that the line of suture was almost invisible.

  “This series of experiments is particularly interesting” said Professor Pozzi. “They admit of being surgically applied to human beings and they suggest the possibility of treating aneurism by the removal of the tumour, and the substitution for the carotid of a segment of the femoral vein taken from the subject himself.”

  Grafting various organs from animal to animal was likewise successfully attempted by M. Carrel.

  “I saw two dogs from which he had temporarily removed and then replaced the spleen. They were quite healthy, but the result of the experiment cannot be decided until the dogs have been killed for dissecting purposes.

  “The left kidney of a bitch was removed on the 6th February, 1918. A few minutes later after washing it and plunging it in Locke’s solution, the kidney was replaced in the abdominal cavity. The same operation was made with the right kidney a fortnight later. On the 5th May last the dog was frisking round me. A few days before she had had in quite normal circumstances eleven pups.

  “Experiments of a still more daring character were then undertaken. In 1918 M. Carrel succeeded for the first time in grafting the leg of a fox terrier, which had been recently killed, on to a dog whose leg he had just amputated. The muscles, nerves and ducts were joined one to the other. The circulation was established in the dead limb. The dog died twenty days later from bronchopneumonia.

  “During my visit I saw a black dog on which three days before a leg belonging to a white dog had been grafted. The dog’s condition was quite satisfactory.”

  One question of importance had to be solved, namely how to have at command for the surgery of the future the necessary ducts and limbs in order that they might be utilised as occasion requires.

  M. Carrel had discovered means of preserving the vitality of the tissues, which are to be transplanted, by immersing them in a special chemical solution, and in placing them in a refrigerator the temperature of which is maintained between Zero and one degree centigrade below zero.

  M. Carrel does not hesitate to affirm that the grafting of limbs will be attempted, in the near future, on man with limbs obtained by amputation or from the bodies of persons who have died violent deaths.

  “All the same” added Professor Pozzi “ M. Carrel declares that it behoves us to be extremely careful, and not to draw inferences too hastily from these experiments on animals and apply them to man. Thus he has resisted up to now the requests of two of his patients who, with the daring characteristic of Americans, entreated him, one to replace an arm that had been amputated, and the other to substitute a healthy kidney for his own which suffered from Bright’s disease, by obtaining the limb or the viscera from the body of an executed criminal.

  “In the present state of his investigations I would not allow “ said the Professor with a smile, “an unhealthy kidney of mine to be replaced by a healthy one; but I unhesitatingly say that I would allow an artery to be replaced by a piece of fresh vein if I were threatened with aneurism.

  “However that may be, M. Carrel’s brilliant experiments hold out splendid hopes to the science of healing, and they pave the way to a new era in surgery.”]

  Well, what surgeons had done so far with animals only the Kanaka had done with men. Nevertheless it must have cost the men dear. And that was why he preferred to put up with his ten years’ hard labour and to keep silent.

  Such strenuous cogitation caused heavy drops of perspiration to break out on the imaginative Dodger�
��s temples.... Good Heavens, it was possible for people’s faces to be altered in that way.... Not forgetting that if it were possible, it would not have been very difficult since Chéri-Bibi and the Marquis’s heads in length and breadth and shape were pretty well of the same dimensions.... But how had the Kanaka managed with the nose... to place the Marquis’s Bourbon nose on Chéri-Bibi’s face? He must have removed Chéri-Bibi’s nose and grafted that of the Marquis on his face. What a piece of work! What a piece of work!...

  “In any case, he’s got some pluck has the Kanaka,” thought the Dodger admiringly. “They say that surgeons now-a-days shrink from nothing.... And his hands. He must have done the same thing with his hands.... And I took the dead man’s hand and wept over it.... Without a doubt it was Chéri-Bibi’s hand... and it didn’t belong to him any longer.... To change the hands must have been more painful than anything else....”

  His thoughts sped back to Chéri-Bibi’s terrible moans: “Not his hands.... Not his hands.”

  “Oh, well, if anybody had told me about it... I shouldn’t have got in such a state, of course.... Damn it Chéri-Bibi get out! He’s the only man who’d have played us such a trick. It’s up against old Bertillon and the finger print dodge now that a man can change his hands as he changes his gloves.... And what about the tatoo marks on his skin? Did Chéri-Bibi change his skin from head to foot?...I’m sorry they dressed the corpse. I should have liked to see for the last time the flowery designs that Chéri-Bibi had had tatooed on his skin over his heart.... What a queer business.... His big ears and his thin nose... and so on and so forth. It’s all up with the measurements of prisoners now.... No, hang it all, it’s too good... it’s too good to be true. It’s out of the question... I’m talking nonsense.”

  He began to laugh like a madman not knowing what to make of the many grotesque thoughts which were “buzzing in his head.” That Chéri-Bibi’s death had sent him “dotty” was self-evident. He crawled to his cabin and threw himself on his bunk where he lay awake and dreamed until about six o’clock in the morning when he fell into a heavy slumber.