Didier knew that Giselle had to be at the shop at nine o’clock and passed that way; and as he had no wish, in view of the incident of the evening before, for Mlle. Violette to know anything about the step he was taking, he waited for her in the street. To call at her own place at that hour would have been difficult to explain. At the same time he hoped that, impelled by some necessity of house-keeping, Giselle would make a very early appearance in the quarter.
As the minutes went by his impatience became painful to see. The porter at the establishment felt sorry for him; and he stopped some of the customers as they came in to point to the man on the pavement.
“Someone has made an appointment and failed to turn up!”
At a quarter to nine a lady who was in the habit of visiting the shop every day for her “high frequency” treatment, with the object, apparently, of renewing her youth in so far as it was possible, alighted from her car, and at the moment when she was about to enter the vestibule stopped with a face like stone.
Her eyes had fallen upon Captain d’Haumont running up to Giselle and entering into an animated talk with her.
“Well, Madame d’Erlande, the girl has turned up, and not a moment too soon,” said the porter. “Just fancy, the poor man has been cooling his heels on the pavement for more than an hour.”
“You don’t mean to say so!”
“I assure you that he was here at half-past seven. He must be gone on her.”
Madame d’Erlande was incensed.
“The wretch,” she exclaimed. “And I treated the whole thing as a joke. Poor Françoise!”
Meantime Captain d’Haumont had received certain details regarding the man who was pursuing Giselle which were to some extent reassuring. Giselle was greatly astonished to meet the Captain on her way to the shop, and as soon as she learned what had brought him, she straightway assumed that a somewhat violent scene had occurred between the two men the evening before and that the Captain intended to follow it up with a challenge to a duel.
Taking alarm at the prospect, she implored him to overlook the incident, but he expressed himself in such strong language in order to obtain from her the real truth, that in the end she told him the little that she knew about the stranger; that is to say, that he was a friend of one of Mlle. Violette’s customers; that the first time she saw him was in Paris where, it seemed, he was well known in artistic and society circles; that he offered to get her on the stage, explaining that he had considerable influence in the theater; and that his name was de Saynthine.
When he left Giselle, d’Haumont said to himself: “I lost my head. I’ve been dreaming.”
An hour later — after thinking things over — nothing remained of what he called his fancy of the evening before, but he made up his mind to escape from the scene and surroundings which prevented him from enjoying as he might, in the soft light of his honeymoon, the last precious hours of his sick leave; and he would take Françoise for a little trip in which he hoped he might encounter neither the form of Nina Noha nor the shade of the Parisian.
He attributed the confusion into which, for the time being, he was thrown to the reappearance of the dancer on his horizon. From that moment his dearest wish was to leave the place in which she was to be met. Obsessed by this thought he turned his steps towards the building at which, during the war, safe-conducts and passports were issued. Thus he passed through a part of the old town, taking a short cut. In that quarter the streets are narrow and winding. He found himself stopping outside a low-storied shop containing second-hand clothes and cheap carpets, the signboard of which bore the name “Monsieur Toulouse.”
How was it that his attention was attracted by this signboard? Why did he remember the name? Later on when he asked himself these questions, he was unable to offer any explanation, except that in the subconscious depths within him, some mysterious faculty knew that the signboard would be mixed up in his life.
A hand-cart laden with vegetables was being moved, thus clearing the street. When the cart was dragged away, a sort of human specter was revealed to view, which shot past the walls and entered a dark passage adjoining Monsieur Toulouse’s shop. Didier leaned for support against the wall. He had recognized the Burglar!
He summoned up sufficient strength of mind to slip away from the place. His entire being cried aloud: Fly... escape with Françoise to the uttermost corners of the earth!
His face was ghastly white when he entered the room in which passes were made out. He was almost sure that the Burglar had not caught sight of him. He waited a moment in order to recover his breath and the use of his voice.
When he went up to the main table at which were seated the clerks whose duty it was to answer inquiries from the public, he saw a man standing before him, holding a number of papers in his hand — a man wearing a long, flowing overcoat who stared him steadily in the face. Didier felt giddy. His mind was giving way.
He never knew how he managed to get outside, or how he found the strength to throw himself into a taxi and to give his address. He had recognized the Joker!
CHAPTER XX
A SIGHT OF THE ABYSS
WHEN DIDIER WAS in his own home again he saw that Françoise was in a state of great uneasiness.
“Why did you leave the house so early without letting me know?”
“You were asleep and I didn’t want to disturb you.”
“How pale you are! You are still suffering. You are concealing something from me, Didier. You have received bad news.”
“No, dearest, I assure you—”
The servant came into the room with a letter addressed to him. He took it from her, and went and shut himself in the study, stating that he must get rid of his correspondence which was in arrears. Obviously he wanted to be alone. Françoise realized it, and was greatly distressed.
As soon as he was in the study, he placed his head in his hands and endeavored to think. His mind was a blank. The shock had been too much for him. He was stunned by it.
He stared at the letter on the table before him without opening it. It bore the Nice postmark. Suddenly he caught hold of it and feverishly, with shaking hands, tore it open. It was not until he had made several attempts that he could read it: My Dear Captain, I am of opinion that it is absolutely necessary for us to have an interview. You need not be uneasy, for I do not bear you any ill-will on account of our recent meeting. As soon as you recognized me you did the proper thing. I might have entered into conversation with you there and then, but a discussion in the street, even at ten o’clock at night, is never very safe, and it is desirable that what we have to say to you should, as far as possible, be said among ourselves. My friends are here. I do not hide from you that they also will be delighted to see you again. It is at the shop of one of them, Monsieur Toulouse, second-hand clothes dealer, at the corner of the Rue Basse, in the old town, that I make an appointment with you for five o’clock to-day. We shall wait for you until six o’clock, and if you do not put in an appearance, we shall be entitled to presume that our letter has gone astray, and we shall write to Madame d’Haumont, taking the necessary precautions to insure, this time, that our letter reaches its destination.
The letter was signed “The Parisian.”
Strange to say the letter came as a relief to Didier. He would meet the danger face to face. He would know exactly what to fear and what to hope; whether he was to live and for how long.
He gave no thought of the danger to which he might be exposed by keeping the appointment. Either his enemies and himself would “come to an understanding,” or they would murder him, and in any event they would be rendering him a service.
When he had mapped out his plan of campaign, he felt sufficiently himself for the time being to; deceive Françoise by word and manner and look.
He went to her and told her that he felt much better: he had been suffering since the previous night from an attack of malarial fever which he thought he had long since shaken off. He first caught it during one of his visits, many y
ears before, to a marshy district in the tropics. His words in no way allayed his wife’s misgivings.
In the afternoon she stole through the passage to the room which Didier used as a study. It possessed a glazed door, the curtain of which was not properly drawn. And she saw Didier with his eyes fixed on an envelope which she recognized, by the seal on it, as one which she had seen in his hands on the night before his duel with Count de Gorbio. His head was slightly turned towards her, and there was a look of infinite sadness on his face such as she had never seen before.
It was not for his own fate that the unhappy man was moved to pity, but for her fate — the fate which he had brought on her in a moment of lover’s cowardice. He called himself a villain and held himself in horror. He would have to die. He would have to rescue her from the shame of her marriage with him. Yes, he would keep the appointment.
At that moment he raised his head, and he seemed to hear a mysterious voice which said in a low whisper: “Don’t go!”
The window which looked out on to the grounds was open. He thought he saw a dark form holding on to the window. He half rose to his feet, his heart beating like the clapper of a bell.
“Chéri-Bibi!”
Was it a dream? He found the strength to stand up; and he moved closer to the window with arms outstretched to the dark form. And he heard once more:
“Don’t go!” And the dark form leaped into the room.
Françoise, hidden behind the curtain, watched, affrighted, the incomprehensible spectacle of that hideous human monstrosity, the sight of which alone would have made little children fly in terror, clasped in her husband’s arms.
What was the meaning of that embrace? By what unfathomable mystery did Didier, her husband, her hero, hold to his heart this formidable brute who came to visit him by the path peculiar to robbers and murderers?
A last flicker of light caused the bandit’s face to loom into sight so dramatically that Françoise opened her mouth to cry aloud in horror, but her very horror stifled the cry, and she fell her length on the floor.
She did not lose consciousness. In the next room a muffled whisper bore witness that the conversation was continuing between the two friends. But she could not hear what was said. In her ears rang a buzzing sound, which seemed to be a messenger of madness.
She managed to drag herself to her room and to stretch herself on the bed.
Chéri-Bibi, in the study, cut short Didier’s desire for an explanation of how he came to be there. It was not a question of explaining his presence, but of knowing what the Nut was going to do in view of the danger which threatened him. Here the bandit found himself up against a rock.
Nothing that he could say to dissuade the Nut from keeping the appointment which the Parisian had made in so barefaced a manner altered his resolution. He would not swerve from his opinion that he must try a policy of conciliation, and the prospect which was guilelessly opened up to him by Chéri-Bibi, who proposed to get rid at the earliest moment — that very evening if necessary — of the miscreants who were threatening him, was not one likely to make him change his mind. Notwithstanding his ten years in a penal settlement, it was difficult for him to treat seriously an idea, put forward so definitely, for the suppression of these human obstacles. Thus he was not content to implore his old comrade from the inferno to refrain from any intervention in the formidable business, he put it to him as a peremptory command.
At the outset he had welcomed the almost natural appearance of Chéri-Bibi as an unexpected help which Providence had vouchsafed him in the hour of adversity, but after a few minutes’ talk the artlessness of his friend’s project struck him with dismay, and led him almost to regret that, in circumstances in which all might yet perhaps be saved by the display of tact and resource, he should meet again a protector of such savage zeal that human life seemed to mean little or nothing to him.
Seeing him in such a pitiful frame of mind, Chéri-Bibi expressed his shame of what he called his lack of pluck, and, somewhat vexed, no longer concealed from him that he had already taken it upon himself to remove the commonest of his enemies from his path.
“Whom do you mean?” asked Didier in a voice strained with anxiety.
“The Caid. The man whose dead body was found at Mont Boron. It made quite a stir. I did it,” returned Chéri-Bibi frankly.
Didier shuddered, refusing, however, to believe his own ears.
“But my wife and I were at Mont Boron that evening, and not far from the very spot.”
“Exactly. His presence prevented you from kissing each other.”
“And you killed him!”
“Don’t take on like that. You had nothing to do with it. It was his own fault. Pull yourself together. He had no right to creep over the parapet. He was already mangled and disfigured, I assure you, when I finished him off to prevent him from molesting you.”
“It’s awful!”
“Not a bit of it. There’s no need to exaggerate. And then, you know, he wasn’t there for any good purpose.”
“Oh, Chéri-Bibi!... Chéri-Bibi, your friendship is a fearful thing.”
“Is it really!... Yes, my friendship is a fearful thing, but not for you, I hope. You will never know all that I have done to make your life a success, and for your happiness.”
“Yes, I do know. I owe everything to you.”
“I won’t deny it. That’s why, since I am responsible for your happiness, I won’t allow anyone to lay hands upon it.”
Then, in language which bore witness to a certain acquaintance with the polite world, the convict spoke to him with an almost lyrical sensibility of the wedding ceremony, at which he had been present, at a distance so as not to be recognized, but sufficiently near to keep an eye on those miscreants and thwart their schemes.
When Didier learned from Chéri-Bibi that he had again escaped from prison on the heels of the Parisian and his gang, and hastened after them to Europe solely to keep them under observation and prevent them from meeting him; when he learned that Chéri-Bibi had brought with him Yoyo transformed into a dental-surgeon; when he was told of the part played by M. Hilaire, to whom he already owed a great deal, in mounting guard during many days over him and his honeymoon; and when he learned that the fisherman who one evening took him and his wife for a row in his boat was no other than Chéri-Bibi — Chéri-Bibi, his guardian angel, his tutelary saint, who was always on the alert, now acting secretly and now crushing everything before him — Didier was at a loss to express his surprise and gratitude as well as his consternation at the evidence of so many dangers from which he had escaped at a time when he believed that they had been dispelled for ever.
He clasped the bandit’s hand in his own trembling hand, and his emotion arose as much from a feeling of gratitude as from the discovery that when he believed that his bark had put off for Cythera he had been sailing over the abyss.
“You would never have known anything about all this if those swine had given me another couple of days,” ended Chéri-Bibi with a profound sigh.
Captain d’Haumont grasped the significance of those words. He quivered all over. A nice conversation! And such a meeting!
To have on the one hand Françoise, who lived but for his love, and on the other Chéri-Bibi, who had escaped from the devil!
But the latter had not come to receive the Nut’s thanks and speeches. The moment that he was certain that he would never manage to convince him, he quickly disappeared. He departed as he came, by the window, over the roofs, and through the great, heavy, sweeping clouds in which his huge form seemed to swell.
CHAPTER XXI
THE SEQUEL TO M. HILAIRE’S HOLIDAY
THAT AFTERNOON M. Hilaire was driving a large motor-car with the hood up, and few persons would have thought that he was not the owner of the splendid equipage. Obviously there was nothing about him to suggest the servant.
For that matter, M. Hilaire never looked like a servant, even in the days when he was employed as one by a certain Marquis, who treat
ed him more as a confidential friend than as a secretary or valet.
M. Hilaire, on this particular day, had dressed himself with special care as a man of fashion. A check suit, with gaiters, a gray felt hat, and a blue butterfly bow with white spots, gave him an air of renewed youth as well as a very gentlemanly appearance. He was even wearing a flower in his buttonhole.
When he reached the railway station he pulled up and leaped from the car with a delightfully easy bearing. He gave a tip which enabled him to wait for the train from Paris on the platform from which the common herd was excluded.
The train from Paris was late as usual. M. Hilaire lit a cigar, and walked up and down with his hands behind his back. Whom was he waiting for? We may be certain that if he had been expecting Virginie he would not have put himself to so much expense in the matter of dress.
Notwithstanding that his visit, which he hoped would have been a peaceful one, had been attended by unforeseen complications, Hilaire had made up his mind to spend a few pleasant hours while he was on the Riviera. The time has come, perhaps, to show him in a light which is not an entirely favorable one. It is certain that Hilaire, who had been brought up in an austere school in so far as morals were concerned, and nurtured from his earliest childhood on the maxims of Chéri-Bibi, who not only hated a dissolute life but also any failure in respect to women — it is certain that M. Hilaire would have been incapable of committing, in this particular, an equivocal action; and Mademoiselle Zoé’s ingenuousness was in little danger from him. For long he had treated her as a mischievous chit, which indeed she was. He did not stand on ceremony when he wanted to pass through her attic on his way over the roofs to some nocturnal frolic of his own, which was detrimental to no one, except perhaps Virginie; but for some time the saucy young gypsy had greatly amused him. She amused him all the more as Virginie wearied him all the more. Madame Hilaire abused the right which a wife possesses to make herself disagreeable, and if M. Hilaire found some amount of pleasure in the fantastic ideas and the humorous sallies of Mademoiselle Zoé, the fault lay to a great extent in Virginie and her bad temper. So much so, that M. Hilaire’s heart, which was breaking away more and more every day from Virginie, was drawing nearer and nearer every day to Zoé, and he made no attempt to prevent it. So much so, that it was not Virginie whom he was expecting from Paris, but Mademoiselle Zoé herself. Unfortunately, as luck would have it, they both arrived by the same train!
Collected Works of Gaston Leroux Page 202