“That Talbot is a blackguard, and I shall take a real pleasure in sending him out of the world.”
Then the mouth closed and the eyes also, and the head remained there, forming part of the architecture of the chimney, like some hideous gargoyle. Suddenly the Governor came in.
He rang for a light and a lamp was brought in. He sat down at his desk. His face was beaming.
“It’s all right,” he said. “Do you know where I’ve come from?”
“No.”
“The Town Hall. Oh, I couldn’t restrain myself any longer. Such a responsibility! On the plea that I had something urgent to say I saw Coudry, and without beating about the bush told him everything.”
“He must have pulled a pretty long face.”
“Not at all. He simply said: ‘Try to avoid any suspicion falling on you, my dear Talbot. That’s all I can say to you.’”
“Didn’t that put the wind up?”
“Yes, for the moment, but after I left him I thought it over and conceived a plan for averting any suspicion.”
“What is your plan?”
“Well, here it is.... They must not spare me.”
“They’ll try not to,” returned M. Hilaire, smiling all over his face in the semi-darkness.
“Understand what I mean. They must not handle me as though the thing were a joke. Manol and Garot certainly have some sharp instrument at their disposal.”
“We’ll find them one if necessary — but I believe as a fact they have something of the sort.”
“They must make use of it.”
“You frighten me.”
“Blood must be shed. It will do if they stab me in my left hand. A great deal of blood will flow, and no one will dare suspect me. What do you think of my suggestion?”
“Well,” returned Hilaire, “I think you are very plucky. But be easy in your mind. I will order these fellows to do the thing in such a way that it will never enter the head of anyone to suspect you of complicity in their escape!”
“Well then, that’s agreed.... I will prepare the necessary papers and send for Manol and Garot. See on your part that there’s no hitch of any kind, and send me, please, the officer on duty, to whom I have to give some orders regarding Subdamoun’s trial to-morrow.”
“Ah, we shall be able to breathe freely again when we are rid of all those fellows.”
“You needn’t tell me that! Good-bye then, my dear fellow, and let’s hope we may both have good luck.”
The Governor watched the Inspector-General leave the room. The door was no sooner closed than he left his armchair and began rubbing his hands with such unbounded glee that the gargoyle in the darkness of the chimney, still looking down on the scene in the Governor’s office, felt a sort of shudder pass through him.
The Lieutenant on duty came in. He was blindly devoted to the Committee and generally on the best of terms with that ruffian of a Talbot.
“How many men have you in the guard-room at present?” he asked.
“About twenty,” returned the Lieutenant.
“Well, you must send up ten of them at once fully armed. Send them quietly, without letting the Inspector-General know anything about it.”
The Lieutenant left the room.
M. Talbot went on rubbing his hands. The gargoyle in the chimney was no longer the presentiment of a hideous smile; it had become a mask of agony and dismay.
It saw the ten civic guards enter. At Talbot’s suggestion the Lieutenant lined them up against the wall so that persons entering the room covered by the door would not notice them.
“Very shortly two prisoners in charge of Hilaire and two warders will be brought here,” said Talbot. “On a sign from me you will throw yourselves on them. If Hilaire and d’Askof come in you must make it impossible for them to do any harm. You mustn’t hurt d’Askof. You will shoot down the other man — the man I will point out to you.”
And Talbot, drawing the Lieutenant to the fireplace in front of the gargoyle, said in a low voice: “Can you rely on your men?”
“Absolutely.”
“Because the other man will be Subdamoun,” said Talbot in a still lower voice.
“Good heavens! And must he be shot dead?”
“Coudry’s orders. In these days we can never be sure of anything. It will be better to profit by this attempt at escape to make an end of him.”
“How did you learn of this attempt to escape?”
“D’Askof found a way of letting Coudry know. They were to have attacked me and forced me to sign an order for their release. I have had a narrow escape. But whatever you do don’t miss Subdamoun — what?”
“Leave that to me,” returned the Lieutenant. Talbot’s head and throat and back were within reach of Chéri-Bibi’s terrible hand. He had but to thrust out his arm and the man seized, throttled, dragged into the dark passage would have breathed his last in the arms of the demon. Never throughout his amazing criminal career had Chéri-Bibi been driven by such an intense longing for the throat of a man.
Alas! Chéri-Bibi only took life when he had no wish to do so!
His brain was in a hideous whirl, but the thought of the danger from which he must at all cost save Subdamoun reprieved Talbot. The gargoyle moved away. Chéri-Bibi climbed the chimney with the agility of a monkey and a convict.
“Hilaire, Manol and Garot will take ten minutes to dispose of d’Askof in the Visitors’ Room,” he reckoned. “They’ve done that by now. Subdamoun must be fixing his make-up and putting on his false beard. Within five minutes they will be with the Governor and Jacques will be a goner.”
But he had not wasted time. He emerged from the chimney like a jack-in-the-box. Fortunately, darkness had fallen.
From the street below rose the hum of soldiers talking together while waiting for the events of the next day and the hour when, after the trial, they would escort Subdamoun and his company to the scaffold. Chéri-Bibi could perceive the bivouac lights as he let himself down the side of the high chimney after twisting his rope round one arm.
All those soldiers in the streets — all those civic guards in the prison were concentrated against Subdamoun! All those armed men were brought together against his son — his son whom they would assassinate unless at this moment he could perform a miracle!
Like a cat he crept along the gutters overhanging the quay.
He mounted a gable, clambered to the top of his chimney as swiftly as he had descended the chimney in the Tour de l’Ouest. He fixed his rope, threw it down into the black pit, and himself slid down like an arrow.
He reached the fireplace and shot into the room. It was the room set apart for the President of the Assize Court for the examination, before their trial, of prisoners incarcerated for the time being in the Conciergerie Prison.
This room was identical with the Governor’s office. Below it was the Barristers’ Room, just as below the Governor’s office was the Clerks’ Room.
A flight of steps likewise led from the President’s office to the guard-room. If Subdamoun and Hilaire took this staircase instead of the staircase leading to the Tour de l’Ouest they might yet be saved. In any case they could make an attempt to escape by way of the chimney and the roofs.
It no longer meant the peace and quietness of a legal departure! It meant a hue and cry, with all its hazards, dangers, sensations; but Chéri-Bibi, his brain on fire, believed that after all it was a chance worth the risk.
But he would have to get there in time to warn Hilaire. That was the crux of the problem.
Chéri-Bibi made a rush on the great door of the room at the head of the staircase.
Lord! the door was open. It was a minute gained. He quietly pushed it ajar. He was able to creep in the semi-darkness to the landing of the iron staircase. He lay prone, his bulk scarcely increasing the obscurity, watching the scene in the guard-room. Just then there was a considerable uproar which could not fail to assist his purpose.
He stretched his head over the stairs, seeking for Hilaire.
He caught sight of him below, outside the door of the Visitors’ Room.
He dropped a peanut at his feet, at the sound of which M. Hilaire at once looked up.
“Hist!” whispered Chéri-Bibi. “The thing has failed in the Tour de l’Ouest, but come up to me in the Tour de l’Est.”
Hilaire stooped, picked up the nut, cracked and ate it, signifying that he understood.
Never had Chéri-Bibi been so well served by circumstances. It really seemed as if, in his hour of need, chance had combined to rescue him from the abyss into which d’Askof had attempted to hurl him.
Knowing with certainty that he had been understood, Chéri-Bibi, who had projected himself over the well of the staircase, hanging almost entirely from a bar, the better to be heard by Hilaire, now regained his level on the landing and quietly slipped into the President’s room, gliding along the ground like a snake. When he was inside he heard a voice in the darkness say:
“Bring a light.”
Chéri-Bibi uttered a curse under his breath and closed the door.
He recognized the voice of M. Dimier, the President of the Assize Court. The fact that he had found the door of the President’s office open meant that the President was paying a visit to the Conciergerie Prison and had just opened it, and while Chéri-Bibi was speaking to M. Hilaire had entered the Tour de l’Est.
Chéri-Bibi at once thought that the incident might possibly be turned to good account.
He could not doubt that M. Dimier had come to the office for the purpose of examining Manol and Garot on the eve of their trial. Therefore no one in the guard-room would be surprised to observe Hilaire taking the man whom they would assume to be one of the bandits to the Tour de l’Est, since the President of the Assize Court was waiting there to see him.
But what would happen when Subdamoun came face to face with M. Dimier?
At all costs M. Dimier would have to be made a party to the scheme.
We know in what esteem Chéri-Bibi held M. Dimier. He respected him as much as he despised the judicial bench in general for reasons known to himself.
Without any personal acquaintance with him M. Dimier had had the courage in a work on “Judicial Errors” to speak of his innocence of the first crime of which he was found guilty. Moreover, not only was M. Dimier an upright judge, but he was an honest man who could not fail to be sick at heart at the manner in which public affairs were being conducted, so much so that Chéri-Bibi ventured to think that when he was acquainted with the circumstances he would make no attempt to interfere with the escape of a man who was essential to the country if law and order were to be re-established.
Chéri-Bibi therefore went up to M. Dimier and in a voice that he strove to make friendly if not agreeable said:
“Don’t be alarmed, monsieur le President, and whatever you do don’t call out. I will explain what’s going on.”
M. Dimier, taken aback, perturbed, retreated a step, but recovering at once his habitual calm towards the mysterious figure who had closed the door, said:
“Who are you?”
“I am innocent, I am working for one who is innocent,” returned enigmatically the voice of the figure.
The answer failed to satisfy M. Dimier, who took a step towards the door.
“It’s no use. You cannot leave until you have heard me.”
“What do you want?”
“Your silence. You don’t know me, but I know you. You are M. Dimier, President of the Assize Court, and you have come here to examine Manol and Garot. A man will be here presently who is neither the one nor the other, a man who is coming here to break out of prison. He will escape with me by way of the chimney which I have just come down. I ask of you one thing, one thing only — not to call out or shout or to take notice of his escape until it is too late to prevent it. This is quite simple.”
M. Dimier allowed the man to speak in the darkness without interrupting him. When he finished he said:
“You say you know me. If you know me you must know that you are making a suggestion which conflicts with my duty....”
“I am suggesting to you to save the life of a man.”
“A criminal.”
“No monsieur le President, this man is not a criminal. It is Subdamoun.”
At the mention of this name M. Dimier gave a start which did not pass unnoticed. Chéri-Bibi said to himself: “He is saved!” and he offered no resistance when the door was opened and a man brought in a lamp. He felt, he knew, that M. Dimier would not denounce him. He was content to flatten himself against a corner of the wall, covered by the door, and he straightened his back when the door was closed again.
Chéri-Bibi no longer revealed the bowed figure of the peanut dealer when M. Dimier, lifting the lamp, scrutinized him in silence, but stood erect as Chéri-Bibi, in other words, with the stature of a giant.
“I am not a beauty,” he said.
“You are frightful,” returned M. Dimier. “Be off!”
“What?”
“I say — Be off! Go by the way you came. I have not seen you, I will not denounce you, I don’t know you, and be careful that I never see you again — Go!”
M. Dimier quietly placed the lamp on the desk, sat down, and began to turn over his papers.
Chéri-Bibi remained standing. He was at a loss.
“I told you to go!” repeated M. Dimier with irritation.
“Go? But have you not understood me? I am here to save the life of Subdamoun.”
“I understand that quite well, but it is not for me to allow any man’s life to be saved. I am a judge, and my duty is to prevent the escape of prisoners, whoever they may be.... Do you hear — whoever they may be. You are not a prisoner — Go!”
A deadly silence ensued.
“If it were my father,” continued M. Dimier, “I should either prevent his escape or send in my resignation as a judge.”
It flashed through Chéri-Bibi’s mind for a moment to cry: “Hush, he is my son!” but he thought doubtless that such a confession would be no sufficient recommendation, and he kept his secret to himself.
He sat down, for the President’s words caused his knees to give way beneath him. This last blow of fate was too incredible. He had never expected things to come to such a pass, for now he would have to kill M. Dimier.
The necessity for this deed, which seemed inevitable, he could read in the proud and tenacious expression stamped on the judge’s noble brow as clearly as if it had been written in letters of fire.
Chéri-Bibi began to shake in every limb. M. Dimier asked him why he was trembling like that.
“I will tell you,” he returned. “Subdamoun was to break out by the Tour de l’Ouest. The Tour de l’Ouest is occupied by Talbot. I should have been pleased to get rid of Talbot, who is a scoundrel, but the thought that you...”
He came to an abrupt stop. M. Dimier, a little pale, raised his head. He understood. He stared at the monster seated before him, still shaking. Chéri-Bibi’s elbows and arms were twitching with nervous tremors and his teeth chattered. That appalling mouth wore an expression of fear.... And yet that fear was hideously menacing.
“I could have handed you over a few minutes ago,” said the judge, thrusting his hand resolutely towards the bell. Chéri-Bibi checked his hand.
“You will never know,” he said in as kindly a tone as was possible for him, “how much it costs me to be disagreeable to you, M. Dimier. You wrote a book which I shall never forget. You are perhaps the one man in this world who ever had any pity for me. One night when I fainted in the street from weakness you stopped and gave me alms. I admire and like you. Let me bind you hand and foot neatly, gag you nicely.”
“That will do,” said M. Dimier. “I have nothing more to say to you. And as you will not go I will hand you over to the police.”
He rose to his feet and strode over to the door. Chéri-Bibi with one leap was on him and threw him to the ground. He gave a cry. But two hands clutched him by the throat. And as the sound of approaching
footsteps could be heard on the stairs and not a moment was to be lost Chéri-Bibi pressed with all his might.
Chéri-Bibi rose from his stooping posture. He had taken the life of M. Dimier.
“Fatalitas,” he growled.
And he wept.... And then with a hideous gesture, sniffing, he wiped his eyes with the sleeve of his coat, shook his shoulders in readiness for the new work, drew a long breath, uttered intense “Ah!” of relief, and opened the door to Hilaire and Subdamoun, who hurried into the room.
They were just in time. A minute earlier and M. Dimier would have been saved and Subdamoun lost. Chéri-Bibi was sorry for his garrulity. The body had rolled under the desk. Chéri-Bibi blew out the lamp. Subdamoun observed nothing, and Hilaire learned of the necessity of the murder much later.
The door was now closed and bolted, and they were cut off from the horde of civic guards led by Talbot and the Lieutenant who, furious with rage at being tricked, attempted to break in, rained heavy blows on it, transformed themselves into catapults, and shouted for axes.
Subdamoun could scarcely follow what was happening in the darkness, and he allowed himself to be lashed to a rope by a sort of fantastic giant who, bending over him, handled him with the greatest gentleness. M. Hilaire told him to submit himself to the operation.
The disturbing figure of the giant seen in a ray of moonlight climbed like a chimpanzee up the rope, and was lost in the huge chimney.
The Major grasped the fact that once on the roof his strange rescuer would hoist him up the chimney as though he were a package.
Meantime the blows at the door continued with renewed violence. It seemed as though it must be burst open. A savage clamor aimed at Subdamoun mingled with threats of death to M. Hilaire arose in terrible discordance.
Subdamoun, who was honor and courage personified, contrived to complicate still further that crucial moment.
He drew a knife from his pocket, cut the rope which bound him, and declared that he would not consent to mount the chimney unless the heroic Hilaire, to whom he owed his life, led the way and saved himself first.
Collected Works of Gaston Leroux Page 232