For once in his life Chéri-Bibi could not regard the departure of his friend Costaud without regret. He wanted this model officer to be present when Rose made her revelations, and to see him lay hands on de Pont-Marie as he was wont, in the old days, to lay hands on Chéri-Bibi. So he said to the Dodger:
“My boy we must make that old crack-brained Rose come to the point. Go and see Sister St. Mary of the Angels and tell her that M. Costaud is leaving the place, but before he goes is to dine with the Marquis du Touchais. The dinner is fixed for to-morrow evening. Convey to her that no one seems more suitable to arrest the old Marquis’s murderer than M. Costaud, the man who arrested Chéri-Bibi.”
The Marquis’s delight knew no bounds when Hilaire returned from his mission with a decisive answer.
“The evidence which Rose placed in safe keeping and for which she was waiting, has now reached her. Rose will speak out to-morrow evening at the Marquis du Touchais’ house, in the presence of Detective Inspector Costaud.”
“I am delighted” exclaimed Chéri-Bibi. “Well, we’ll have some fun. Rely on me, my dear Dodger. It’ll be splendid.”
“May I ask what you mean?” ventured the Dodger diffidently.
“It’s no business of yours. Oh, I say, while I think of it. Nothing will be easier than to invite Rose to the dinner.”
“Don’t do that. Her intention, so the nun tells me, is to appear unexpectedly at dessert time, and she wants every one to be kept in ignorance of her coming, even yourself, Sister St. Mary says.”
“She’s afraid apparently, that at the last moment I may warn de Pont-Marie whose friend I used to be. Well yes, Dodger, I shall warn him. There’s no mistake about that!”
In point of fact on that very evening the Marquis du Touchais sent de Pont-Marie a note which was couched in the following language:
“I agree with you. We must get the business over and done with. Be at the small gate which leads from the Château du Touchais to the cliff steps at six o’clock tomorrow evening. I will admit you myself. Bring with you the photographs of the letters in question. If you give me your word of honour that you are not keeping back a single one, I will give you mine that you shall receive one hundred thousand francs.”
It was the month of October; and when de Pont-Marie arrived at the appointed spot at six o’clock the next evening it was pitch dark. Chéri-Bibi himself opened the door, and led the way through the deserted garden into the Château from which the workmen had departed more than an hour before. He took him up to the first floor, and when he pointed to the staircase leading to the second floor de Pont-Marie made a gesture of impatience. The Marquis turned round, put his finger to his lips as a call for silence, and pointing to the door said:
“The Marchioness is there. Let us settle our business without disturbing her if you don’t mind.”
He was lying; but de Pont-Marie followed without suspicion. When they reached the passage on the second floor, Chéri-Bibi said:
“We shall be quite at home here.”
And savagely, before de Pont-Marie had time to say a word or to make a sign, he sent him sprawling into a small dark room, flung himself upon him, bound him hand and foot as he alone knew how, gagged him, emptied his pockets of a packet of photographs and a revolver, and rising to his feet said:
“See you presently.”
He double-locked the door and then imperturbably left the Château, proceeding to the Villa on the Cliff. On arrival he informed Cecily that the dinner was not to take place at the Villa, but in the large dining room at the Château. Cecily was astonished and asked for an explanation.
“My dearest” he returned, “be glad of the change, and don’t ask me now the reason of it for you will soon know. I have a pleasant surprise in store for you. Only you must do as I say without asking questions. We shall dine to-night at the Château du Touchais. Please have three extra covers laid.”
“But have you reflected dear? We have already invited M. Costaud and Maître Régime. Three extra covers will make a big dinner party of it... A fortnight after the Dowager Marchioness’s funeral!”
“Please do as I say without asking questions.”
“Very well, dear, it shall be as you wish.”
“That’s only what I expected from you, my dear Cecily.”
“May I ask who the three other guests are?”
“Why, certainly. They are the Commissary of Police who saved us a great deal of worry at the time of the enquiry into the murder of Dr. Walter; the Examining Magistrate who was himself very considerate; and the President of the Court who was a great friend of my mother’s.”
So saying he went out, calling for his car, and Cecily stood for some minutes wondering why her beloved husband was anxious to have so many magistrates round the family table that evening. She could not imagine the reason, but the main point was that the Marquis had given the order for dinner to be served at the Château and she set about it without further ado.
Chéri-Bibi was driven to Dieppe where he paid several visits. He returned to Puys with five men armed to the teeth. They were Costaud and his detectives. The Marquis had informed the Inspector of the Criminal Investigation Department, with an air of mystery, that he was reserving a surprise for him “at dessert time;” a surprise of such a nature that he persuaded him to bring with him some of his most reliable men.
“Are we, after all, going to arrest Chéri-Bibi?” asked M. Costaud who thought of nothing but his pet criminal.
“Who knows?” returned the Marquis with an increasingly mysterious air.
The guests came at eight o’clock and were greatly astonished to meet together at so imposing a dinner party, for as the du Touchais’ were in mourning it was incomprehensible to them. But Costaud winked at them like a man who is in the know, giving them to understand that it was not for nothing that their host had disturbed such distinguished representatives of justice.
They were equally astonished when the dinner was served, not at the Villa but in the Château, which was already disorganised by workmen, and filled with the odour of plaster and turpentine. But Costaud with another wink replied that the Marquis “must have his reasons.”
Detective Inspector Costaud ordered his men, on Chéri-Bibi’s suggestion, to walk about the park and to hold themselves in readiness to come up at the first signal. As to the Dodger, he was left behind at the Villa on the Cliff to wait for Rose and Sister St. Mary of the Angels and to bring them to the Château.
The dinner passed in comparative silence, for the guests had no inkling of what was coming, and each man searched with a look the Marquis’s face who however kept his secret.
Chéri-Bibi continued to watch the park as if he were expecting someone who was late in coming. At last he descried — and he was the only one to notice them in the fight that filtered through the windows — the Dodger accompanied by Rose and Sister St. Mary of the Angels.
The two women seemed to be very pale. The Dodger took them, according to his instructions, to the drawing room next to the dining room. Then Chéri-Bibi rose, made his apologies, and asked the company for permission to leave them for a few minutes, begging them to be patient should his return be slightly delayed, and went up to the second storey where his prisoner lay bound on the floor in the small dark room. He carried him to the next room and placed him in an easy chair. He lighted a lamp, removed the gag, waited until his man had breathed freely to his heart’s content, and stopped, from the outset, de Pont-Marie’s indignant protests.
“Monsieur, I have looked at the photographs and find that they are all there. You promised me that you would not keep back a single one for your own purposes. I believed your word and I did well to do so. But you won’t receive the hundred thousand francs. I shall pay you for your audacity and your crimes, as is proper, by having you arrested at the very place where you murdered the Marquis du Touchais my father.”
CHAPTER XVI
FATALITAS
“WHAT’S THAT!” ROARED de Pont-Marie leap
ing from his chair and striving in vain to set himself free from his bonds. “What do you say?”
“I say that you murdered my father.”
“Well and you?”
“What do you mean ‘you’?” demanded Chéri-Bibi taken aback.
“Look here” growled de Pont-Marie, trembling with rage in the bonds that held him, a threatening look in his eyes, his whole figure expressing revolt as he came up against the face of the sham Marquis. “Look here, you can’t play that game with me for long, my boy, and if you think you’re going to get rid of your friend de Pont-Marie like this, you must have completely lost your head... Ah... you’re not serious.”
“I am so serious” he returned in a voice in which there was less assurance, for there was something in de Pont-Marie’s furious language which he could not understand. “I am so serious that Detective Inspector Costaud is down below with his men waiting to arrest you, and nothing can prevent you from receiving the punishment which you deserve... you murderer and blackmailer!”
De Pont-Marie opened his eyes in amazement endeavouring to understand the Marquis’s attitude towards him, and looking upon him as clean off his head.
“No, no, you won’t do that” he snapped out, “You take me for someone else. You won’t rake up that story. You’ll do better to hand over the hundred thousand francs, I assure you, and let me clear out. You can’t frighten me. Though I am your prisoner I hold the whip hand.”
“And why may I ask?”
“Why? Because you know that I shan’t let you have your own way. What’s the use of pretending to have a short memory my boy? You can’t have forgotten that when I stabbed him you were a consenting party.”
It was now Chéri-Bibi’s turn to give a start for he was beginning to understand, and the horror of the position which he had brought on himself without suspecting it, made his hair stand on end. He lent over de Pont-Marie and gasped, foaming at the mouth.
“You lie... You lie.”
“That won’t do” returned the other. “No, no, that won’t do. You hold your jaw, or I’ll give you away.”
“You lie” repeated Chéri-Bibi in a smothered voice, “You know that you’re lying.”
“If you are absolutely bent on it, all the world shall be told that the real murderer of the Marquis du Touchais was his son” de Pont-Marie threw at him furiously and with harsh contempt.
Chéri-Bibi let go de Pont-Marie and drew back uttering a hoarse groan. Breathing heavily, wild-eyed, he stared at his prisoner who in sullen and sneering accents, sure of himself, went on:
“I was never anything but your accomplice, you see. You know that quite well. It was only to save you that I stabbed him. Some things are never forgotten my dear man. Come release me, and have the kindness to show me the door with as little fuss as possible. We’ll resume this conversation some other day. This evening, my pool Maxime, you have a screw loose.”
And as Chéri-Bibi seemed now to be turned to stone and did not move a muscle, he went on:
“Come on, hurry up. What’s the meaning of this farce? You intended to terrorize me. You don’t want to hand over any more dibs. Since you came back you’ve been deuced miserly. Possibly you think that I have already cost you a pretty penny. You ass! Think of the time when you were head over ears in debt, when we were hard up for a thousand francs.... Think of the night when you said to me;— ‘Old Bourrelier has gone to Dieppe this afternoon to collect a large amount of cash. His pocket book will be well lined.’ Think of when, still acting on your information, I went for him on the cliff. Think of our rage when we found that this famous pocket book contained only an insignificant sum compared with the amount that we stood in need of, so that I regretted the deed for which the police were already trying to find poor young Chéri-Bibi.... Think of the night — the following night — when you said to me: ‘Nothing is left to us but to rob my father,’ and when you sent me a note making an appointment for that night in the park and requesting me to bring with me the needful....
“Good Lord, how you trembled that night when you met me. Oh, I’ll refresh your memory for you!... Well.
I brought the needful with me. I even brought the knife with which I stabbed your father when he came upon us and caught us starting on the job, and you came to grips with him, and I thought you would have choked the life out of each other. Think how I made him let go his hold — and not a moment too soon — and how your teeth chattered when you hid me in your bedroom, under the bed, while we listened to the commotion in the house, and the police arrested the heaven-sent Chéri-Bibi which saved us... Well, what’s the matter? What’s up? Are you ill?”
“Fatalitas,” groaned Chéri-Bibi, sinking in a huddled heap on the sofa and tearing his hair. “Fatalitas I took the skin of an honest man and even he was a murderer!”
He uttered this fantastic sentence the meaning of which de Pont-Marie of course was unable to comprehend, in an accent of such utter and infinite sorrow and hopelessness that de Pont-Marie really believed this time that his mind had given way. He saw him draw himself up once more, heave a frightful sigh, raise his clenched and trembling fists to the ceiling as to an unseen victim and cry in a frenzied voice: “I have shed the blood of my father... my father...”
“Well, don’t shout so loud about it if it affects you so much as all that — as you say it does. Bet me go.”
“My son’s father is a murderer.”
“Oh he’s absolutely mad.... Let me go. Do you hear?”
“Yes, yes,” said Chéri-Bibi, passing his hands over his face as if he sought to drive out the hideous shadows which beset him. “Yes, yes. Go!... You must go. You must keep silent. You must keep silent for ever... for ever.”
The last two words “for ever” set his brain on fire and seemed to point to the only gesture which, in very sooth, could set him free. He stared fiercely at de Pont-Marie. “If I kill you, you will never speak again... never.”
De Pont-Marie saw him approach, a determined look on his face, and he grew white giving himself up for lost.
“Be careful,” he shouted, “my dead body might be awkward for you. Have I said a word during all this long time? Haven’t I as much reason as you to keep my mouth shut. No one knows anything about it.”
“That’s where you make a mistake. Someone does know. Someone who is here, someone who came to denounce you, someone who is, perhaps, speaking, at this moment to the magistrates whom I myself invited here, someone who will give a description of you to the police, who at my request are surrounding the Château. Someone to whom you will cry: ‘I murdered the father but the son was my accomplice.’ You see yourself that you must die.”
“What you say is unbelievable,” growled de Pont-Marie huskily, “impossible. Who is this someone? What new thing are you imagining now? What proof has he? He would have made use of it long ago.”
“It’s Rose.”
“Rose, your mother’s companion?”
“Yes. Remember how she fainted when you went up to her at the funeral.”
“But, you infernal lunatic, if she knows that I killed the Marquis she knows that you helped me.”
“Do you think so?” said Chéri-Bibi digging his nails into his face which was bleeding.
“I do think so. Don’t you realise that if she really knows, she has only waited for your mother’s death before speaking?”
“Wretch that I am!... Yes it was on the day of the funeral that she said she would speak.”
“You see! If it were only a question of me she would have denounced me long ago. Well, we must get away... the both of us.”
“Wait a bit.... What proof has she?”
“How can I tell. Before bringing her here and tying me up like a sausage, you ought to have asked her.”
“That’ll do, no jokes. We haven’t a moment to lose. God, let me think things out! Rose... Rose must not speak. If she has any proof she mustn’t produce it.”
“But look here, you who know so much know nothing. Perhaps sh
e saw us on the night of the crime. But that’s not enough, that in itself is no proof.”
“I know there’s a pocket-book.”
“A pocket-book!” exclaimed de Pont-Marie. “Old Bourrelier’s pocket-book.”
“Do you know what it contained?”
“Wait.... Oh damn it all!... I have it. It must be that letter which we looked for everywhere, and which I put in Old Bourrelier’s pocket-book. It was the letter in which you made an appointment for that night at the Château du Touchais, and which you asked me to return to you. Yes, she has that letter. We searched high and low for it. In the end we came to the conclusion that I dropped it in the sea, seeing that I took a boat at Dieppe in order to come to you. Well, she has that letter. I must have dropped it in your room, under the bed, and that’s where she found it.”
“Fatalitas,” growled Chéri-Bibi.
“Well, old man, we are badly done. Oh, curse it all, cut these ropes. She must hold her tongue or it’s all up with both of us. You must not kill me old man, you must kill Rose.”
While de Pont-Marie was speaking Chéri-Bibi’s haggard eyes roamed in all directions. He felt that he was choking weighed down, doomed. He tore off his tie and uttered a cry and it was impossible to say whether he were dying or pulling himself together. The entire room seemed to be swimming round him. ‘You must not kill me, you must kill Rose,’ danced in letters of blood on the white wall.
A knock came at the door. He gave a start. Nevertheless he recognised the Dodger’s way of knocking. He opened the door. It was indeed the Dodger holding a letter in his hand.
“A letter from Rose,” he said.
Chéri-Bibi took the letter and while the Dodger stared wide-eyed and open-mouthed at the sight of de Pont-Marie bound in a chair, like a sausage, he said in a muffled voice:
“Ask Rose to come here.”
“Yes, monsieur le Marquis.”
“Do you understand? She must come up here.”
“Yes, monsieur le Marquis.”
Collected Works of Gaston Leroux Page 183