It is night time in the village of Saint-Martin-des-Bois. The streets are deserted and with good reason – there have been two murders of local men, Lombard, the barber and Camus, the tailor. Other locals have been attacked by highway thieves, or had their homes robbed; there have been cases of arson. Alongside these dreadful events, there comes a strange series of violent practical jokes and pranks, some of which suggest witchcraft. The local forest has become a no-go area, re-named the Black Woods, where strange and unmentionable things are seen. Little wonder that the villagers retreat into their locked homes at night and only go out when necessary; they are too frightened to help the police when questioned.
Eventually, a crime of even greater magnitude is perpetrated. A vicious prankster has taken up some of the railway track and caused a derailment of the local train. Thankfully, no-one is seriously hurt, but all the passengers are of course frightened and hurry to the closed up village for safety. At the Black Sun Inn, the stress of recent events reaches a head and tempers become frayed. Some travellers, such as Blondel and Patrice, are sleeping in the bar that night, having had their train journey interrupted. Their talk turns to the recent murders, both of which had been preceded by hearing mysterious moans in the street, attributed to a young girl, Zoe Vautrin – and now it is the turn of the two young men to hear these sounds. Roubion, the innkeeper, appears and the three men fearfully investigate, but they can see no one outside.
With relief, they settle down in the inn for the night, but sleep is not to be theirs. Patrice is terrified to see a strange creature attacking his friend Blondel, and, lifting him high in the air, it strangles him. The villagers are stunned and the finger of blame points again to three notorious local brothers, Hubert, Siméon and Élie Vautrin. They are triplets ‘brought into the world, at one birth, like a litter of wolves, the three who at first, as little chaps, had amused the country-side and who were now its terror,’ who are feared and avoided by the villagers. Eventually, the magistrate, M. de Meyrentin, arrives, so that the inquest can begin. But before the legal procedures start, all are shocked by the revelation of something that is so unusual as to be almost supernatural — footprints on the ceiling at the scene of the crime. In a bizarre twist, the feet are not barefoot, but clad in socks, old ones at that, with a distinctive repair. This at least might offer some clue as to the identity of the murderer. Some villagers think this is another practical joke, whilst others question whether the rough Vautrin brothers and their sly sister would have bothered to commit such a strange crime; therefore, if the villagers cannot with confidence accuse their favourite choice of local villain, who on earth is committing these brutal crimes? Patrice, once he has recovered from the shock of finding his friend hanging from the ceiling of the bar, goes in search of answers and the first clue he finds takes him into the path of some very dangerous people…
Many authors over the decades have attempted stories about a ‘man-monster’ and such creatures are part of folklore and mythology too. Frankenstein is probably the most famous and is undoubtedly well crafted, even iconic, but many such stories are not. Leroux’s foray into this sub-genre of the ‘man crafted man’ is a fair attempt, but is slowed down by long threads of dialogue and the author employs stereotypical features for his creation, such as super-athletic abilities such as walking on the ceiling. The strongest characters here are the Vautrin family, who are worthy of a novel of their own. Still, Balaoo is an interesting attempt at a difficult theme.
The first edition of this translation, 1913
CONTENTS
BOOK THE FIRST
Chapter I
Chapter II
Chapter III
Chapter IV
Chapter V
Chapter VI
Chapter VII
Chapter VIII
BOOK THE SECOND — BALAOO HAS THE TIME OF HIS LIFE
Chapter IX
Chapter X
Chapter XI
Chapter XII
Chapter XIII
Chapter XIV
Chapter XV
Chapter XVI
BOOK THE THIRD — BALAOO MAN-ABOUT-TOWN
Chapter XVII
Chapter XVIII
Chapter XIX
Chapter XX
Chapter XXI
Chapter XXII
Chapter XXIII
Epilogue
Poster of the film adaptation of ‘Balaoo’, 1913
BOOK THE FIRST
Chapter I
IT WAS TEN o’clock at night and it was hours since a living soul had appeared in the streets of Saint-Martin-des-Bois. Not a light showed in the windows, for the shutters were hermetically closed. The village lay as though deserted. The inhabitants had locked themselves in long before twilight; and nothing would induce them to unbolt their doors before dawn.
One and all seemed to be asleep, when suddenly a great noise of galoshes and hob-nailed shoes sounded along the echoing pavements of the Rue Neuve. It was like the clatter of a hurrying crowd; and soon voices were heard, cries and shouts and discussions between people coming none knew whence. Not a door, not a shutter opened at the loud passing of this unexpected band; but more than one ear must have been slyly listening to the tumult out of doors, for the news of a fresh calamity soon spread from neighbour to neighbour.
And yet not one went to his doorstep to know exactly what was happening. It would be time enough to learn next morning. Everybody was still suffering under the shock produced by the murders of Lombard, the barber in the Cours National, and Camus, the tailor in the Rue Verte, which had followed upon a whole series of events at one time tragic, at another grimly comic and often impossible to explain.
People no longer dared linger an the roads, where well-to-do peasants returning from the big markets of Châteldon and Thiers had been attacked by masked highwaymen and obliged to part with all their money in order to save their lives. A number of burglaries marked by extraordinary boldness and perpetrated under the very noses of the victims, who did not dare protest, had formed the basis of police enquiries which were slackly conducted and led to no serious result. The public prosecutor’s staff received very little information, was confronted on every side by affrighted silence and did not think it necessary to display more zeal in hunting down the malefactors than was shown by the sufferers themselves in assisting the authorities to perform a duty intended to restore the sense of public security.
Nevertheless, when nocturnal attacks, cases of arson and thefts of greater and lesser importance were followed by those two extraordinary murders of Camus and Lombard, the police were obliged to go to work more thoroughly. They threatened the more timid natures, with a view to forcing them to speak. But these would rather have had their tongues torn out by the roots! No doubt, the police knew by this time upon whom the suspicions of the whole district rested; but they had to give up all hope of receiving evidence tending to inculpate any one whomsoever. And this added strangely to the mystery of the later crimes. The worst of it was that, side by side with dreadful acts of violence, came jests, extravagant practical jokes, each as terrifying as an attempted murder. Respectable tradesmen, walking dawn the Rue Neuve at nightfall, had received a great slap in the face without being able to say where the blow came from. Mme. Toussaint, the old gossip who contracted for embroidery, was found lying in her back-yard, yelling at the top of her voice, with her clothes in over her head and her body showing the marks of a ruthless thrashing. No one knew who had entered the yard nor how. And there were minor incidents that smacked of witchcraft. Despite doors and locks, certain objects — some light and unimportant and possessing no apparent value, others of considerable weight — disappeared as though by magic. Good old Dr. Honorat opened his eyes, one morning, to find his chest of drawers and his pedestal cupboard gone from his bedroom. True, he slept with his window open. He did not inform the police, kept his fright to himself and merely mentioned the strange phenomenon to his friend M. Jules, the mayor, who advised him to shut his window in futur
e when he went to bed.
Lastly, no one dared go through the forest, where more things happened than were ever told. Those who came back, after seeing these things, did not boast of it, but they never ventured in that direction again. It was what was called the Mystery of the Black Woods.
Really, these hardships ought to have been sufficient. What new terror was now making the poor people of the Cerdogne country run down the usually deserted thoroughfare of the Rue Neuve? The cause of all the fuss was an apparently commonplace thing, a railway accident. More correctly speaking, however, it was an attempt upon the lives of the passengers on the little local railway that connects the Belletable and Moulins lines, on the borders of the Bourbonnais.
Criminal hands had torn up the rails at the mouth of the tunnel which opens on the Cerdogne; and, if the train, which had to cross the river by a bridge that was under repair, had not, for that reason, reached the spot at a greatly reduced speed, the catastrophe could not have been avoided. As it was, the train had a narrow escape. The luggage-van alone was destroyed. As for the passengers, some twenty in number, they suffered more from excitement than anything else. And they fled across the fields to Saint-Martin-des-Bois, spreading consternation through the village, which had already locked and bolted its doors for the night.
With the exception of two or three who had their homes at Saint-Martin, all of them went to the Roubions, who keep the inn known as the Black Sun at the corner of the Place de la Mairie and the Rue Neuve. Here, confusion was at its height. While some called for rooms, or at least a bed or a mattress, others exchanged frenzied notes on the danger which they had run.
Fat Mme. Roubion tried to please everybody, but found the greatest difficulty in doing so. One paillasse was nearly torn to pieces. And, when everybody was at last more or less comfortably housed, yet another traveller appeared, with his head wrapped in a bandage. He was the only one injured.
“Why, M. Patrice! Are you hurt?” asked Mme. Roubion, solicitously, holding out her plump hand to the new-comer.
He was a young man of twenty-four or twenty-five, with a pleasant, gentle face, a pair of fine blue eyes and a little fair moustache carefully twisted at the tips.
“Oh, it’s only a scratch!” he said. “Nothing serious: it won’t show to-morrow...Have you a room for me?”
“A room, M. Patrice?...Yes, you can have the billiard-table!”
“I’ll take the billiard-table,” replied the young man, smiling.
Whereupon Mme. Roubion went to look after M. Gustave Blondel, a traveller for one of the big linen drapers of Clermont-Ferrand, who was making his bed on the table in the pantry and threatening to kill the landlady if she did not bring him a bolster then and there.
“I’m all right here, you see, my charmer, much better than on the billiard-table in the bar-room, where all those talkers would keep me from sleeping! What do they want to go on chattering like that for? What’s the trouble with them? They know who did the business: why don’t they say so?”
At the sound of these words, Mme. Roubion hastily vanished.
M. Sagnier, the chemist, had just entered the barroom. On hearing the news from the mayor, he had behaved like a hero, torn himself from the trembling arms of the beautiful Mme. Sagnier and come to offer his services. Finding no one in need of his aid, he immediately developed a very bad temper and mingled his aggressive remarks with those of the most irate of his hearers, declaring that, in the face of such outrages, it was no longer possible for a decent man to live at Saint-Martin-des-Bois or, for that matter, in any part of the Cerdogne country.
Meanwhile, M. Jules, the mayor, appeared, accompanied by good old Dr. Honorat. They came from the station, where they had received evidence from the lips of the railway-officials leaving no doubt whatever as to the nature of the outrage. They both looked as pale as if their own lives had been in danger.
“Another calamity, monsieur le maire!” said Roubion.
“Yes,” replied M. Jules, in a shaking voice. “Fortunately, there have been no injuries for us to regret!”
The words were received in icy silence. And, suddenly, a voice exclaimed:
“And what about the murderers? When are they to be arrested?”
Then came an outburst. Words of applause and encouragement were flung at the speaker; but he — a peasant — had said what he had to say and remained silent. His face was crimson and his eyes avoided the mayor’s.
“The police have been! If you know who the murderers are, Borel, why didn’t you give up their names?” asked the mayor.
Old Borel was as clever as most people and had his answer ready:
“I’ve nothing to say to the police,” he growled. “I’m no detective, nor no mayor neither. Everyone to his trade!”
That was what they all said: it was not their job. To the commissary of police, to the examining-magistrate, they invariably replied with the refrain:
“It’s your business, not mine!...The government pays you to find out: see to it and earn your money!” with more gibes of the same sort.
They were still digesting old Borel’s answer, when Gustave Blondel entered, pushing everybody aside. The commercial traveller sat down on the billiard-table, crossed his arms, looked the mayor straight in the face and said:
“What are you worrying about, monsieur le maire? What do you expect in a place where there are people whose name begins with the same syllable as vauriens?”
A murmur of assent and a few nasty chuckles followed, but the effect of Gustave Blondel’s sally was interrupted by an unexpected incident. The chuckles suddenly ceased; and all now, nudging one another, stared at a new-comer who came forward while the others made way for him with astonishing unanimity.
The man was dressed in a drab corduroy suit. Long leggings came up to his knees. His shirt-collar was loose and revealed a neck like a bull’s. A soft hat, which had lost all semblance of colour, was thrust back on his head, showing a tangled mass of thick red hair. The face was extraordinarily powerful and calm. The green eyes contemplated those present with a cool, bored look. The man’s limbs were short and thickset, the shoulders square, the back a little bent. He carried his hands in his pockets; and his whole person gave a striking impression of brute force, quiescent, but wide awake.
He walked across the room with his even step, amid death-like silence, until he was face to face with the commercial traveller, who watched him coming; and the man had certainly heard what Blondel had said to the mayor, for he barked at him, in his rough, dull voice, full of suppressed anger:
“Vautrins, vauriens! Is that what you mean, my beauty? You needn’t mind me, you know: I’m not one to take offence!”
And he moved to the chimney-place, where the mayor was standing:
“Good-evening, monsieur le maire.”
“Good-evening, Hubert...”
And M. Jules had to press the hand held out to him.
The man sat down without ceremony beside the hearth, in which a fire of sticks had been lit, and called for “a glass of white,” which Roubion hastened to bring him. He emptied the glass, wiped his mouth on his sleeve and, turning to Blondel, said:
“Monsieur le maire hasn’t got over the last election yet!...Only, look you here, my beauty: it’s all right to treat us like dirt at the meetings...but we ought to be left quiet now...What say you, monsieur le maire?”
M. Jules, feeling greatly embarrassed, gave an inarticulate grunt.
The commercial traveller had not stirred. He continued to fix an obstinate stare of dislike upon the red-haired, green-eyed man. Hubert rose and, offering Blondel his hand:
“Come,” he said, “let’s have no ill-feeling! Each does his best for his master: you for the King, I for the President of the Republic! If ever you want a billet...”
Blondel got down from the billiard-table leisurely, shrugged his shoulders, turned his back and went to the pantry.
“Monsieur le maire,” said Hubert, in a hollow voice, “I call you to witness: that�
��s how they treat good republicans in this place. But I’ll pay him out for it at the next election, never fear!...I mark it all down on my little slips of paper, though I don’t know how to write...Hear that, you others, who seemed to be enjoying yourselves, just now.”
As he spoke, he cast his cold, metallic glance over all his hearers. In the depth of their being, they felt as uncomfortable as if they were before a magistrate.
His coolness in enlisting the mayor on his side with a word, as though, after the forced intimacy of the election, the mayor had necessarily become his accomplice and his friend, brought the beads of perspiration to M. Jules’ bald forehead.
The man flung four sous on the table and walked back to the door with his calm gait. On the threshold, he stopped and turned:
“I’m going back to my brothers,” he said. “By the way, I’ve been to the tunnel and seen the damage. The man’s a damned blackguard who did that job. I shall tell Élie and Siméon as much, presently. What I say is, we shall have to find the beggar who plays us these tricks, or life won’t be worth living for decent men.”
And he disappeared under the black cavity of the archway.
The room at once emptied, as though the man’s departure had restored everybody’s liberty of movement; and they all took advantage of it to escape from a place where the visit might be repeated at any time.
Roubion and his wife, assisted by the servants, carefully locked the doors of the bar-room: the door into the archway and the door opening straight on the street.
No one remained in the room except young Patrice, to whom the landlord and his wife had said good-night. Nevertheless, though he was alone with his billiard-table, he heard a noise close beside him. He perceived that some one was undressing in the pantry. The door between the two rooms was closed, but a communication remained in the form of the little open window of the serving-hatch. And he at once recognized the voice of the commercial traveller, who, stooping to the opening, said:
Collected Works of Gaston Leroux Page 284