Charles Raynaud was an intimate friend of the owner of Volubilis, and Raoul had no misgivings as to the value of the tip. He thought that he would be in a position to refund the money next day after the race. Nevertheless, to borrow money in that way, no matter what the amount might be, or the hope of returning it, was known and called by a definite name.
Raoul was about to unpin a bundle of ten thousand francs in order to borrow one of a thousand francs, one only, when Raynaud came into the office, and he scarcely had time to thrust the entire bundle into the inside pocket of his jacket. The banker hastily threw the various amounts which lay on the table into his safe, confident of Raoul’s accuracy and honesty. And he departed.
.. Behind him stood a young man of a deathly pallor who made a gesture as if to detain him, but Raynaud did not turn round. Raoul de Saint-Dalmas had five hundred louis to put on Volubilis and was a thief.
* * * * *
The moment through which he lived next day when the bell in the reserved enclosure announced that the horses were off, remained impressed forever on his memory. What mingled feelings of torment and hope dwelled in his heart! In a few moments, by his watch, he would either be ruined forever or rich once more, and no one would suspect his shameful act of weakness and Nina Noha would smile on him again.
It was for her sake that he had lived through that frightful moment. He had spent the night wandering up and down, like a madman, under her window. But some compensation was perhaps in store for him. A minute would put an end to his doubts. Either it would be Nina or the Assize Court.
He had no wish to see the race. He paced up and down behind the grand stand. A cold sweat broke over his forehead. Had anyone met him, that person would have had some difficulty in recognizing him, so greatly had the madness of the moment distorted his features. His gloves were torn to shreds.
An immense silence hung over the race-course as often happens in critical moments when the fate of a great struggle hangs in suspense.... And then suddenly the air was rent with a thousand shouts: “Volubilis... Volubilis... Volubilis wins in a canter.
Raoul rushed to the grand stand, thrust aside the betters who loudly protested, and arrived in time to see Volubilis, who at one time looked like a winner, come in fourth. He descended the steps tottering like an old man. He wanted straightway to leave the race-course. The thought of committing suicide entered his mind. He met Nina surrounded by her friends: “Well, my little man, your tip has cost me fifty louis.” He made no answer. He threw her a look of despair. He no longer loved her. The moral disaster which had overtaken him was so complete that nothing remained to him but a terrible contempt for her and himself.
“Forgive me, mother,” he groaned. And it was for his mother’s sake that he abandoned the idea of suicide.
He asked himself, on her account, if there was not something better and braver for him to do than to put a bullet in his brain. The instinct for good which still existed deep down within him, and which the disorders of his reckless youth could not wholly stifle, inspired him with a sense of duty. Next morning he went to the office as usual. He had made up his mind to confess everything to Raynaud.
The banker did not come in during the morning. Considerable sums of money were still passing through Raoul’s hands. Not for a moment was he tempted to win back the stolen ten thousand francs by borrowing a further sum. The thought did not even occur to him. His first offense in this respect filled him with an unspeakable horror. He felt himself capable of starvation with millions in front of him.
He was the first to return to the office after lunch. Raynaud had not yet put in an appearance. Raoul’s sufferings reached their culminating point. A senior clerk in the firm who had occasion to speak to him was struck by his pallor and air of abstraction. He did not seem to listen to what was said to him.
“Are you not feeling well?” he inquired.
Raoul made no answer to the question but asked:
“Is Monsieur Raynaud coming to-day?”
“Yes, but he will be late. He is attending the sale of the Queen of Carynthia’s jewels.”
Raynaud arrived at the office about six o’clock. He was not alone. Several friends accompanied him and were congratulating him on the purchase of a magnificent pearl necklace. Without noticing Raoul’s agitation he showed him the necklace in its case. Raoul had already seen it, for Raynaud had been anxious to buy it and had taken him with him to examine it the valuer’s office. He bent over the pearls, unable to utter a word. Raynaud imagined that he was purposely taking his time to inspect it because one of the pearls had a flaw in it.
“I don’t understand why they left that pearl in a necklace like this,” said Raynard. “I shall have it taken out. As it is, the necklace is dirt cheap at the price — a hundred and fifty thousand francs.”
Raoul continued to gaze at the necklace so that Raynaud should not observe his agitation. He would remember that scene for the rest of his life.
“It’s a clouded pearl but it may be possible to get it back to its former luster.”
An argument ensued on the subject and lasted some time among the gentlemen who had come in with Raynaud. Then they took their departure and Raoul and Raynaud were left to themselves. Raoul confessed everything. While he was speaking the banker looked at him at first with an air of amazement and afterwards with threatening severity. In a trembling voice Raoul finished his story.
“It’s not for myself, Monsieur, that I am pleading. It is that my mother should not be told anything. I hold myself at your disposal and you can do with me as you please. I am your property. I am willing to accept the lowest kind of work, and if I have to earn the money a penny at a time, I will pay back the ten thousand francs.”
He ceased speaking. The banker maintained a silence, à dreadful and prolonged silence. Raoul thought that all was over with him. He took his revolver from his pocket.
Raynaud saw the movement and realized that Raoul was about to shoot himself. He clutched him by the arm, snatched the weapon away, and threw it on the desk.
“Wretched boy, what are you doing?”
Raoul sank to his knees and broke into a fit of sobbing. Raynaud helped him to rise.
“Calm yourself, your mother shall not be told anything.”
The banker turned the key in the door which separated his office from the general offices of his company and came back to Raoul.
“You understand that the worst part of this terrible business is that you, who received an exceptionally good education, and whom I wish to regard in spite of all as an honest man at heart — your confession and your repentance show me that — were unable to resist so sordid a temptation. You are more to blame than anyone else would be in your place.... I will tell you what I have decided upon. You must leave Paris and France and all these Nina Nohas who have brought you to such a pass. You must go and build up a new career in America. You must sail by the mail boat which leaves Havre for New York to-morrow morning. I will tell your mother that I have sent you to America on urgent business of importance. You must catch the express train at eight o’clock tonight. You have no time to lose.”
So saying, he opened his safe and took out two bundles of bank-notes, each of which contained ten thousand francs.
“Do the best you can for yourself with this money and become an honest man again. I don’t want your thanks. I am doing this in remembrance of your father who rendered me many great services.”
Distraught and overcome with gratitude, Raoul left the room with the twenty thousand francs. The banker himself opened the door; of his private entrance which led direct through the courtyard into the street.
The safe remained open.
Scarcely a minute had elapsed after Raynaud’s return to his office when the staff in the other part of the building heard the sounds of a great commotion — shouting, struggles and a revolver shot. They rushed to the private office. They had to break in the door. When they entered the room they found Raynaud lying dead on the floor in front
of the safe with a bullet in his head.
The necklace, as well as the securities and banknotes — everything of negotiable value was gone.
They looked about for Raoul. He was nowhere to be found. They called to mind his singular demeanor during the day. The police investigation, which was held that evening, showed that the revolver, which was still hot when it was discovered in the office, was bought by Raoul that very morning. They felt convinced that it was he who did the deed, nor did they doubt that he had escaped through the window, which was left open and looked out on to the roof of a small room, arranged corbel-wise, whence it was easy to reach, through another window, the staircase of the adjoining building.
Next morning Raoul was arrested at Havre at the moment when he was about to embark on the mail boat for New York.
It was in vain that he protested his innocence. His own counsel did not believe him. The evidence was too overwhelming. The sequel is known.
CHAPTER IV
IN THE NIGHT
CHÉRI-BIBI, AS WE have seen, left the dormitory and slipped into his opening under the floor.
The underground passage, which he had dug out with a patience and cunning which is only to be found in a convict settlement, was a tremendous piece of work, given the extreme simplicity of the tools at his command, which consisted of a knife, a piece of sharp-pointed iron, and a few sardine tins. Nevertheless he achieved his purpose with them single-handed, for he refused to allow anyone else to have a finger in the pie. The passage was over three hundred feet long, running forward as far as possible through the loamy earth, but keeping clear of the sand and emerging between two precipitous rocks, at a spot which was almost entirely deserted, especially at night. Moreover, this outlet was on the beach along which Chéri-Bibi had to make his way in order to reach the jetty where the motor launch lay moored.
When he appeared at the opening of the cavity it was about nine o’clock in the evening. The night was cloudless with the brightness peculiar to tropical countries. Thus he had to take the greatest precaution to avoid being observed by the guards on duty or those going their rounds.
But apart from these patrols which covered the same ground, at fixed hours, the guards’ duty was reduced to the simplest proportions. It was the dinner hour for the officials, and of rest for the convicts locked up in their dormitories.
A warder, with his rifle slung over his shoulder, was usually seated on a bench placed against a hut at the far end of the jetty, acting in a vague sort of way as sentry, and smoking and yawning and waiting for the moment when his relief would come. That evening, as Chéri-Bibi crept along the jetty on all fours, he perceived that the warder was not in his place. Where was he? Had he fallen asleep in the hut? Was he dodging his sentry duty and having a tot of rum with some of his mates?
“A good thing for him,” muttered Chéri-Bibi, as he dropped into the launch. And he added, still to himself, “And all the better for me!” He shrank, as a rule, from acts of violence. He could only make up his mind to them when circumstances were too strong for him, and he had had sufficient occasion in the past in this respect to upbraid fate; and thus he could be grateful to Providence, which for once in a way had spared him from taking the life of a man!
* * * * *
Half an hour after Chéri-Bibi’s departure a curious silence fell in the dormitory. Every game was stopped and every eye turned in one direction. The cavity made by Chéri-Bibi was almost directly under the Nut’s hammock, and his legs had just reached the floor when he stopped short, taken aback by the sudden hush.
The convicts rushed up to him.
“Where are you going?”
The Nut saw by their threatening attitude that they would stick at nothing to prevent him from leaving the dormitory.
He sought to argue with them.
“I’m going to meet Chéri-Bibi. He has asked me to lend him a hand. What is there in that to annoy you?”
The Nut never used prison slang. That also had helped to excite their animosity against him, and they could not forgive him for holding aloof from them now as he did in the first days.
“Rot, humbug, swanker... liar! It’s not true. Chéri-Bibi won’t let anyone help him in the job. There’s no need for you to work for him.”
“He asked me to join him.”
“You lie. You’ve got to stay here. Take my advice. It’ll be all the better for you if you put your feet up and do a snore.”
It was the Parisian who did the talking. For that matter he kept a safe distance from the Nut. The Burglar, for his part, was leading his confederates somewhat craftily, pushing as near the Nut as possible, thinking to himself that there could not be too many of them, and there would be a row.
The fight was begun by a violent movement from the Caid, who seized the Nut by the legs and threw him into the hammock. The Nut sprang out after the Caid, who managed to slip away. A score of men made for the Nut and the thud of heads striking the flagstones was heard.
The dormitory in which these wild beasts were tearing each other to pieces was rent with hollow groans and hoarse cries. Feeling that his fellow-prisoners’ hatred of him was such that they would never allow him to get away, the Nut, whose last hope was in death, determined to sell his life dearly. But before he died he would recompense himself for all his sufferings, all that he had undergone from those hideous jailers who were more odious than the warders, and fiercer than the sharks themselves who lay in wait for their prey behind the rocks in the Île Royale.
He fought like a lion. Many of the men who came up against him were to bear for some time the marks of the desperate encounter. Nevertheless he was soon felled to the ground, in the narrow space, by weight of numbers.
Almost smothered, reduced to helplessness, twenty convicts lay heavily on his limbs and he was tightly and strongly bound with a rope which appeared as if by magic. Then he was flung into his corner, gasping for breath, worsted. He closed his eyes so that they should not behold his distress.
Thus at the moment when he was thinking of making good his escape, the purgatory was to begin all over again. Continue to live this life! He would rather die! Why had they not killed him a few minutes before? Why had not the iron grip of those murderous fingers round his throat set him free from his terrible existence? He had suffered torment for ten years; ten long years during which he had never ceased to hope for his deliverance by flight and for the miracle which would establish his innocence. Now he no longer hoped for anything. He thought only of how to end his life....
And in the meantime Chéri-Bibi was waiting for him... Chéri-Bibi who had prepared everything, who had done wonders.... To what end?
Among the hideous faces bending over the Nut, he would have looked in vain now for the Parisian, the Burglar, the Caid and the Joker. The four men, during the fight, had slipped into the underground passage dug out by the most terrible man among the “lifers.”
Suddenly a shot rang out in the stillness. They all gave a start. And “Monsieur Désiré” who for a tin of sardines and a packet of cigarettes usually acted as assistant to Pernambouc, the prison executioner, whispered to the Nut:
“Did you hear that? They’re playing with the shooters not far from the coast. Chéri-Bibi may have been hit. He won’t get you away to-night. Mind the Inspector doesn’t find out that you are chums with him. It’ll be a bad look out for the convicts. Take it from me, the finish of it will be that I shall have your noddle.” And he added with a hideous laugh, “You know I shan’t say no to that, because I’m out of tobacco. I’ve given it all away to pals. ‘Monsieur Désiré’ has a good heart.” They heard the gallop of the patrols, and a voice in the distance shouted:
“Chéri-Bibi’s done for.”
The Parisian, the Burglar, the Caid and the Joker, after getting away through the underground passage, reached the outlet without hindrance.
“Congratulations to Chéri-Bibi,” said the Joker as he inhaled the cool night air. “He ought to have been born a mole!”
“Shut up and let’s get on with it,” interjected the Burglar. “It won’t be long before Chéri-Bibi comes back for news of the Nut.... Look out how we go.”
They followed the high rocks which skirted the sea, and at times the waves buried them up to the knees.
“Halt!” cried the Parisian.
“Thanks for the foot-bath,” grunted the Joker.
“Me always satisfied, never ill, never die,” babbled the Caid.
“If we go a step farther Chéri-Bibi will see us,” exclaimed the Parisian.
The four men stood stock still. They had caught sight of Chéri-Bibi’s head rising cautiously above the gunwale with the purpose, obviously, of scrutinizing the immediate precincts. What the four bandits anticipated did in fact happen. Failing to understand why the Nut kept him waiting so long, Chéri-Bibi, in a state of some uneasiness, made up his mind to go back the way he had come and see for himself the reason of the delay.
The Parisian and his confederates saw him get out of the launch and crawl along the jetty, moving with the greatest precaution, and stopping to listen for any suspicious sounds that might disturb the silence of the night. Thus he reached the beach. As had been already stated, it was easy to keep out of sight because of the great mass of high rocks which overhung the sea shore. It was entirely different from the beach at Kourou and the mainland. That part of the island is flat and devoid of vegetation.
Thus Chéri-Bibi, who was well screened by the rocks, continued his way without obstacle; but, on the other hand, he could not see the four runaways, who were less than thirty feet away from him, because of those very rocks.
After he had disappeared in the semi-darkness, the four men, in their turn, crawled on to the jetty and thence dropped into the launch. It did not take them long, but they were no sooner settled in her than the Burglar gave the alarm. Chéri-Bibi was coming back.
Collected Works of Gaston Leroux Page 187