He said good-bye once more and carried him, as if he were a child, on to the landing while the Dodger broke down as he lay in Chéri-Bibi’s powerful arms.
“Come, think of what I said to you. Go and save them. In five minutes I shall have set the place on fire.” He locked the door on the landing.
The Dodger clasped his hands and made his way downstairs like a drunken man. He crept along the walls, passed the dining room like a shadow and caught the sound of conversation. The President of the Court was telling a story.... He entered the drawing room. He went up to Rose who was leaning for support on the arm of Sister St. Mary of the Angels, and the ghostly pallor of her face could be discerned underneath her mourning veil.
“Monsieur le Marquis says that he quite understands and that you will be satisfied,” he said. And he left her lest he should kill her.
He plunged into the garden, walked round the Château, reached some rising ground, and looked to see if he could distinguish anything on the second floor in which there was at that moment but a feeble glimmer. Then he saw clearly, almost flattened against the window, the face of the Marquis du Touchais over whose mouth Chéri-Bibi was placing a gag.
“Poor fellow! He is doing that to prevent any one from hearing him shriek. Not another man in the world would show courage like that.... My poor Chéri-Bibi, my poor Chéri-Bibi! And you are doing this for your wife and kid.... Oh you are in very truth an honest man!”
He recalled to mind his promise to take care of those two dear creatures, and he returned to the Château still under the influence of grief. He must save Cecily’s life. As to the two boys, they had remained at the Villa.
Cecily in the dining room was beginning to feel extremely anxious about her husband’s prolonged absence. It was in vain that she remembered his warning, she could not conceal the agitation that beset her. The mystery in which the dinner was enveloped, became more and more incomprehensible to her; and the attitude of the guests and even the grimaces of M. Costaud added greatly to her anguish. Costaud, in particular, who seemed to be much better informed than the others, alarmed her instead of reassuring her by his assumption of special knowledge. Feeling that the hour was at hand he ventured to say:
“I think, madame, that we shall do a fine piece of work this evening, thanks to the Marquis. But don’t upset yourself. We’ve taken every precaution and my men are here.”
“What piece of work?” asked Cecily in great agitation. “Ah that’s just it.... It’s a secret.”
“Are you going to arrest Chéri-Bibi?” asked the President of the Court in a jesting tone.
“Very likely,” replied Costaud gravely. “But you must ask the Marquis that question.”
“You terrify me,” exclaimed Cecily rising from her chair.
But she did not say another word, nor did she stir again, and the faces round her became, like hers, extraordinarily vigilant for they began to hear a sort of long drawn out wail, dull, faint, and funereal, which came from the upper floors and sent a shiver of fear through them.
“What’s that?” stammered Cecily.
“Yes, what a peculiar wail,” murmured the Examining Magistrate.
“It’s like someone being smothered,” said the President.
“Oh, but it’s awful,” said Cecily, who seemed about to faint.
Costaud not less startled than the others was instantly on his feet.
“We must see about this.”
The wail penetrating the floors and walls grew louder and more painful, and the entire house rang with it as from a deep-toned drum.
They made a rush for the door with Cecily at their head, but at that moment it was violently opened and the Dodger appeared with the gestures of a man who was beside himself, shouting:
“Fire!... Fire!... Run for your lives.... Run for your lives.”
The party was thrown into an immense confusion. Fortunately the Dodger took Cecily under his protection or she might have been trampled under foot.
“Maxime... Maxime... Where’s the Marquis?... Maxime where are you?” she cried.
She endeavoured to release herself from the Dodger’s grasp, for he had taken her out of the Château by force.
“It’s Chéri-Bibi... Chéri-Bibi who has fired the place” Costaud shouted.
He summoned his men who came hurrying up from all parts of the park attracted by the first gleams of the conflagration. The fire had broken out on the second floor, and the roofing was already in a blaze. The rapidity of its progress was startling, and a tremendous flame licked up the darkness of the night. The men, too, shouted:
“Chéri-Bibi!... Chéri-Bibi!... Chéri-Bibi has set the place on fire. We saw him running about the top floor. He’s still in the house. Can’t you hear him? Can’t you hear him shouting?... He must be burning.”
“Ah we’ve got him this time. He’ll be caught or roasted to death “bellowed Costaud.
Above the general uproar, the cries of the servants as they left the basements, the shouts of the detectives and magistrates who were searching for the Marquis; above even the despairing sobs of Cecily as she continued to call for Maxime and implore the men to rescue him; above all these things, the long drawn out, terrible, muffled lamentation could be heard; and the sound did not cease until the floor of the second storey collapsed.
“If only he’s had time to clear off!” muttered the Dodger who still supported Cecily dreading every moment lest she should give way to some act of despair.
It was useless to tell the Marchioness that her husband must have left the Château, and that this was the explanation of his absence, she tried to go back to the burning house, and make sure that he was not there, or if he were there, to save him or to die with him.
“Maxime!... Maxime!”
It suddenly occurred to her that she might reach the first floor by the servants’ staircase which was as yet untouched by the flames, and violently pushing the Dodger aside she ran towards it. The men darted after her.
“Take care... Take care” the detectives shouted “Chéri-Bibi... Chéri-Bibi... We saw him again just now... there... there at the turret window.”
Costaud rushed up behind Cecily and this time a cry went up, a terrible cry from Cecily as she pointed out to Costaud and his men Chéri-Bibi himself.
The kitchen door was opened and emerging from a cloud of smoke, diabolically illuminated by the crackling sparks, a sort of half-nude monster loomed up, a hideous being whose face was one large wound, whose mouth emitted but one long hoarse cry and whose chest bore as though it were a flag the infamous sign Chéri-Bibi. There could be no mistake It was he right enough.
He was mustering all his strength to charge through Costaud’s men, in the darkness, when he perceived Cecily in front of him pointing him out to them and barring his way, shouting “Chéri-Bibi! Chéri-Bibi!” like a woman who had gone mad. Then they saw the monster strike himself on the heart, and with a savage cry draw back into the furnace.
His flaming outline appeared here and there like an evil spirit in this inferno, and for the last time Chéri-Bibi hurled forth into the night his terrible battle cry “Fatalitas!”
And then confusion reigned... And the fire at the Château burnt itself out undisturbed and in silence... for they carried away Cecily unconscious.
Next morning were discovered the mortal remains of the Marquis whom everyone pitied as Chéri-Bibi’s last victim. But no trace was ever found of the remains of Chéri-Bibi which impelled the obstinate Costaud to observe:
“Do you think he is dead? We shall probably hear of him again one of these days.”
THE END
The Dark Road (1921)
Translated by Hannaford Bennett, 1924
Original French Title: ‘Nouvelles Aventures de Chéri-Bibi’
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I
CHAPTER II
CHAPTER III
CHAPTER IV
CHAPTER V
CHAPTER VI
CHAPTER VII
&
nbsp; CHAPTER VIII
CHAPTER IX
CHAPTER X
CHAPTER XI
CHAPTER XII
CHAPTER XIII
CHAPTER XIV
CHAPTER XV
CHAPTER XVI
CHAPTER XVII
CHAPTER XVIII
CHAPTER XIX
CHAPTER XX
CHAPTER XXI
CHAPTER XXII
CHAPTER XXIII
CHAPTER XXIV
CHAPTER I
THE NUT
THE NUT LAY on the scorching beach facing the terrible sea in which the hungry sharks, the warders of his prison, were disporting. The convict was like a weary animal at rest. In truth, he had availed himself of the “relaxation” at ten o’clock to seek out a little fresh air and seclusion between two precipitous crags which cut him off from the rest of the convict settlement. If only he could live alone! No longer to hear anything. No longer to see anything! No longer to think of anything. But how could he help thinking of what he had seen, of what he had been compelled to see, that morning?
A double execution had taken place that very morning as an awful but necessary example. It was a smart piece of work by Pernambouc, the prison executioner, and his assistant, “Monsieur Désiré.”... Oh the horror of it!
The Nut was still shuddering from the sight of it. He was a young man in the fullness of his supple strength. He lay resting on his elbows, holding his chin in the cup of his hands, apparently indulging in an impossible dream. His broad-brimmed straw hat cast its shadow over the gloom of his penetrating gaze which stole to the distant skyline. The outline of his clean-shaven face as far as could be seen indicated strength of character and shrewdness. Notwithstanding the ineffaceable marks of prison life which soon transforms the youngest convict into an old man, the Nut seemed to be scarcely more than forty years of age.
It was this combination of strength and refinement which had brought down on him the nickname of The Nut. It is a word which in the language of the Pré, or convict settlement, denotes a man whom nature has endowed with a fine bearing usually appreciated by women. “He acted as if he were the master.” But the Nut’s real name, Raoul de Saint-Dalmas, had been in famous criminal records some ten years before when the jury of the Seine Assize Court condemned him to death. He was a young man of good family who, after squandering his substance, had been charged with murdering his employer in order to rob him.
He owed his reprieve to his youth, to his mother, who in her despair died of grief, and to the persistence with which he proclaimed his innocence in spite of proofs which were seemingly overwhelming. And now he was in the convict settlement undergoing a sentence of penal servitude for life.
“Why do you sigh, Nut?”
He gave a start and turned round.
Bursts of coarse laughter rang out, and his eyes encountered seated round him the Parisian, the Burglar, the Caid and the Joker. His dreams had carried him so far away that he had failed to hear their approach.
The four men were his worst enemies. They never relented, and as a result he had not hesitated latterly to get himself imprisoned for months together in the Ile St. Joseph, the island of silence, which was near, and reserved for those who committed offenses in the convict settlement or whose feelings rebelled against the convict gang.
In order to avoid those four monsters who tormented him with their infernal mischief-making and their abominable jokes, he tried to fasten a quarrel on one of the convict guards by seriously threatening him, for which he suffered the terrible punishment of internment on the adjoining island, where the overseers themselves were not permitted to communicate with the prisoners by word of mouth, but only by signs and in writing.
He left his solitary confinement with a feeling of regret, especially as Chéri-Bibi, the astonishing bandit who had terrorized the world for so many years — Chéri-Bibi had made a friend of him — was no longer there to silence by a frown the loathsome Burglar or the Parisian himself.
Not that Chéri-Bibi was very far away. He was for the time being behind bars in the principal building, and the Nut peeping through them one morning when he was on fatigue duty, sweeping the courtyards, caught sight of him and exchanged a few secret signs of friendship. It was done in a flash, for the sergeant of the guard had entered the courtyard, and, straightway, such volleys of insults were poured forth from the rows of cells fronted with iron bars, that the hapless sergeant sounded the call for the fatigue party, and ordered the cooks’ mates who were bringing along the soup to clear the courtyard, declaring in his wrath that he would leave the “lifers” to starve and rot for three days.
Above the shouting of threats and the hideous tumult the Nut could hear Chéri-Bibi’s strident and vociferous laugh.
Neither the Parisian nor the Burglar nor the Caid nor the Joker would have run the risk in this way of being sent to solitary confinement. They managed to have a good time, standing in some favor with the authorities, to whom they secretly related what they wanted to know about the state of mind or the plans of escape of their fellow-convicts, reaping no little reward for their treachery.
And even when their natural disposition to fight or plunder got the better of them, they merely “copped,” as a punishment, the job of “taking a stroll with the wood,” which meant that they had to move heavy planks from one place to another for several hours a day, merely to take them back again to the spot whence they came.
Just then, as they began to annoy the Nut, they were working in leisurely fashion at certain odds and ends intended to be exchanged, when a chance visitor appeared, for packets of tobacco or small change. Arigonde, otherwise the Parisian, had just finished engraving with a knife on a shark’s jawbone the fateful words: The Convict’s Tomb.
Arigonde bore a deadly hatred against the Nut for having deposed him from his position as the “man of fashion” in the îles du Salut. Until the Nut came upon the scene it was Arigonde who wielded the scepter of elegance, if such a term may be allowed. Needless to say, this reputation for elegance depended less upon the cut of his clothes or the way in which he tied his tie than upon his manners, which were not met with in the usual run of convicts, and bore witness to his superior education. In spite of the Parisian’s bragging — he was never at a loss in telling the story of his successes with the fair sex in high circles and crying up his relations in society — he seemed, compared with the Nut, none the less to be what he was to begin with — a shopman in a small firm bowing and scraping to the customers.
The Nut resumed his original posture on the beach, and it was as though he did not hear the Joker, who squeaked:
“He lacks most who sighs most.”
The others grinned.
“M’sieu Nut does not condescend to enter into conversation with humble ‘jail-birds’ like us,” went on the Joker, who had once been a clerk to a sheriff’s officer and had assisted a client to murder his master. “M’sieu Nut puts on airs and graces and fancies himself a bit.”
“M’sieu Nut is grieving over the misfortunes of France,” interjected the rascally Burglar, a short man with disjointed limbs, who walked sideways like a crab, and was wont to enter other people’s houses by way of the roof.
“The Caid, too, would like to make bang, bang on the Boches. The Caid good soldier.”
The Nut bit his fingers to prevent a groan slipping from him when he heard the awful Ben Aissa, the Mohammedan “jail-bird,” a robber and procurer of girls, ask to take part in the world struggle.
Alas, did he not himself long to play a part in it? And was it not because they heard him on the evening when they learned of the declaration of war proclaim once again his innocence and his despair, and demand to be allowed to shoulder a rifle, that the wretched men in their spite made game of him?
“I’ve just seen the postman on his way from the town,” declared the Parisian, “and he brings some very great news. It seems that Joffre wants the Nut as his Chief of Staff!”
The Nut leaped to his feet,
and the four men fell back, for he was a match for them. Only they knew he shrank from the task of “pitching into jail-birds,” and indeed he contented himself with shouting a few threats against them, which roused their laughter, though they kept their distance.
“Do you think you can bounce us with the things you say,” sneered the Burglar. “Hold your jaw.”
“All my eye and tommy rot,” said the Burglar, prudently retiring into the background. “All brag.”
“When you’ve done talking I may have something to get off my chest,” said the Parisian, who did not venture to try conclusions with the Nut, but whose hatred of him was so intense that he would have liked to kill him.
He made a step towards the Nut, who clenched his fists and began to see red, when the arrival of another person put the four miscreants to flight as if by magic. There was no need for the newcomer to open his mouth. He had but to show his face.
It was Chéri-Bibi!
CHAPTER II
CHÉRI-BIBI “HAVE you left the black hole?” asked the Nut.
“YES,” RETURNED CHÉRI-BIBI, who held in his hand a peculiarly shaped piece of hard wood which he was carving with the point of his knife.
It was an appalling face, was Chéri-Bibi’s. His amazing adventures, the long years passed in the convict settlement, broken by innumerable escapes, his fierce passions and the martyrdom of the flesh even to the corrosive marks of vitriol, had ravaged that terrible face so that no one could look upon it without a shudder.
Nevertheless ever and anon — when his gaze rested upon the Nut for instance — a curious gleam of kindliness would flicker across that death’s head.
His figure in its entirety, moreover, was extraordinary. His huge fists, his square build, his shoulders which seemed to have been designed for lifting enormous weights, all combined to convey the impression of irresistible strength.
Collected Works of Gaston Leroux Page 185