“Good-night, M. Patrice. If you want anything, you can call to me through here...This is rather like a confessional-box, isn’t it?”
These details were destined to be impressed on Patrice’ mind for all time, though he did not suspect their importance at the moment. He answered Blondel politely and hoisted himself on to the mattress which had been laid over the billiard-table. When they were both lying down, they began to talk:
“Why didn’t you go to your uncle’s for a bed?” asked Blondel.
“I knocked at the door and called out. They were all asleep, I suppose, and I didn’t like to wake them.”
“Is Mlle. Madeleine well?”
“Thank you, I hope so.”
“When is the wedding to be?”
“You had better ask my uncle.”
Blondel saw that he had been indiscreet. He changed the subject; and they now started discussing the outrage and the recent murders, which the commercial traveller flatly put down to the score of the brothers Vautrin.
“Oh,” said Patrice, “at Clermont-Ferrand, we think — just as they do here — that you can’t explain everything with the Three Brothers.”
“You can explain everything with the Three Brothers and the sister,” said the commercial traveller.
“The incredible part of it is,” Patrice insisted, “that no trace of the murderers was discovered in either Camus’ or Lombard’s case.”
“Possibly,” replied the other, “but one thing is certain, that, if Camus and Lombard had not opened the door on the night of their murder, when they heard the sound of moans in the street and the voice of that little savage of a Zoé...they would be alive now. It was the sister who lured them on...”
At that moment, the two men ceased talking, as though by a sudden accord. And each of them sat up in bed, pricking up his ears. Moans came from the street.
“Do you hear?” asked Blondel, in a husky voice.
Patrice had not even the strength to reply. He heard the commercial traveller get up, jump to the tiled floor of the pantry and enter the bar-room with every precaution.
“One would think they were murdering somebody outside the door!” said Blondel.
Patrice, whose occupation was that of first clerk to his father, a solicitor in the Rue de l’Écu at Clermont-Ferrand, had always been more or less timid by nature. He shuddered as he slipped down from his billiard-table. With a choking throat and a moist forehead, he admired the courage of Blondel, who walked up to the door of the bar-room that opened on the street whence the moans had come.
The traveller had pulled on his trousers, but kept his handkerchief knotted round his head by way of a night-cap. The great, fat fellow, with his bare feet, his night-shirt hanging loose round his waist and the two corners of his handkerchief sticking out above his forehead like horns, looked the picture of absurdity; yet Patrice did not think of laughing.
The moans had ceased abruptly. Blondel and Patrice looked at each other in silence, by the dismal light of a lamp over the billiard-table, the wick of which had been turned down. All the mysterious tragedy of which Camus and Lombard had been the victims passed before their eyes. The thing had, begun like that, with moans, in the case of both the unfortunate men.
And suddenly they turned their heads. The door of the staircase leading to the upper floor opened; and Roubion appeared, carrying a revolver in his hand:
“Did you hear?” he asked, in a whisper.
“Yes.”
Roubion was a fine, big chap, built, like his wife, on huge lines. He was trembling like a leaf. All three remained for moment behind the street-door, listening to the silence of the village night, which nothing more disturbed.
“Perhaps we were mistaken!” said Roubion, with a sigh, after a good deal of hesitation.
Blondel, who had recovered all his composure, shook his head, by way of denial:
“We shall see about that!” he said.
“What!” protested the innkeeper. “You’re not going to open the door, surely?”
Blondel did not answer and went and stirred the fire, which gave a little glow. It was a cold night, although summer was not far off. Soon, all three were sitting round the chimney, where Roubion warmed them some wine in a sauce-pan.
“All the same,” said the commercial traveller, “if we could manage to catch the scoundrels here and now, it’s a stroke of business that would be worth doing!”
“Hold your tongue, Blondel!” said Roubion, peremptorily. “Don’t meddle with that...it would bring you bad luck!”
“Certainly,” said Patrice, “it’s none of our business.”
“Remember Camus and Lombard!...If they had not opened their doors!...”
Blondel, who was on the road at the time of the two murders, asked for details.
Roubion went back to the door, listened and, hearing nothing, returned more or less tranquillized:
“This is exactly what happened,” he explained. “Lombard and his old aunt had gone to bed after bolting all their doors and windows, as we now do every evening at Saint-Martin. Lombard’s bedroom and his aunt’s were both on the ground-floor. The barber was sound asleep, when he was awakened by the old lady standing at the foot of his bed and whispering to him to listen to what was going on. Lombard listened. Some one was wailing and lamenting in the street. It sounded like dying moans mixed with little plaintive cries. Lombard got up, lit his candle and took his revolver from the drawer of the table by his bedside. You know how careful we are at Saint-Martin; and we are right to be, unfortunately. The aunt whispered to Lombard, ‘Whatever you do, for God’s sake, don’t open the door!’ Lombard, without opening the door as yet, decided to speak: ‘Who’s there?’ he asked. ‘Who’s that crying?’ A voice answered, ‘It’s me, Zoé. Pity in the man’s house!’”
“What does that mean: ‘Pity in the man’s house’?” asked Blondel, interrupting him.
“Oh, it’s one of Zoé’s expressions. The chit lives like an animal, either in her brothers’ den or in the forest; and, as her brothers always talk slang among themselves, the result is that she speaks a language different from that of other people.”
“So, you see, it was she,” said Blondel. “There’s no mistake about it.”
“Wait!...It was only half-past ten. In spite of all that his aunt could say, Lombard opened the door. He looked out into the street. It was a bright night. He saw nothing and was very much astonished. The moans had stopped. Fearing a trap, he was careful to keep on the threshold, called Zoé, received no reply, closed his door again very cautiously and went back to bed, saying, ‘It’s another hoax. There’s no sleeping in peace, these days, at Saint-Martin-des-Bois!’ The aunt also went back to bed, but, after this disturbance, did not sleep. She lay awake all night.”
“Oh,” said Patrice, “she must have gone to sleep, or she would have heard!”
“She swears she never closed her eyes. And the door between their two rooms was left wide open. In the morning, she got up as usual and went to open Lombard’s shutters. When she turned round, she was greatly surprised not to see him in the recess where the bed stands. The bed-clothes were flung back as if Lombard had just got up. Not knowing what to think, she opened the door leading to the hairdresser’s shop and gave a terrible yell: the poor barber’s body was swinging in the middle of the shop, hanging from the brass lyre that serves as a chandelier. They thought at first that it was suicide; but Dr. Honorat and the divisional surgeon agreed that the hanging had been preceded by a terrible strangling and all so suddenly that the unfortunate man had no time to say, ‘Oh!’ or the old woman would have heard. What seemed the great mystery from the very first was how the body could have been carried into the shop and hanged...It was found that there was not a trace of footsteps in the shop, which had been freshly sanded on the evening before. Lastly, a fact which proved from the start that Lombard had not hanged himself was that there was no chair or stool lying on the floor beside him.”
“Ah, well!” said Blo
ndel, jerking his head. “Men are tired of life have more than one trick in their bag!...What about Camus?”
“The same story. He too heard moans in the middle of the night and recognized Zoé’s voice. Camus was a friend of Lombard’s: they were the only two lame men in the parish; and this had brought them together. He thought it a good opportunity to discover the barber’s murderer and avenge his death. He took a weapon, opened the door and, like the other, saw nothing and heard nothing more. But, when he had shut his door, he did not go to bed. He wisely lit all the lamps in his shop and, with his revolver by his side, sat down by his till and started doing his accounts. He then told his little assistant, the young lad whom you know, to go upstairs to bed. Well, the next morning, the assistant, on returning to the shop, uttered a piercing cry. His master was hanging from the iron bar from the ceiling that holds the yard-measure with which he used to measure the cloth for his customers. The revolver was lying on the till. The till had not been touched. Camus’ throat showed the same marks of strangling which were found on Lombard. And, in the tailor’s shop, as in the barber’s, it was impossible to discover any marks of steps, any footprint allowing a plausible explanation of the method of the crime. People said and people are still saying, ‘The Vautrins! The Vautrins!’ Well, the Vautrins themselves took little Zoé to the examining-magistrate; and she had no difficulty in proving that she was far from the spot of the murder at the time when it was committed and that somebody must have imitated her voice.”
“And where was she?” asked Blondel.
“She was helping monsieur le maire’s servant to wash up her plates and dishes. There was a big dinner at M. Jules’ that night.”
“There’s a fine alibi for you!” sneered the commercial traveller.
“M. Blondel, you are blinded by politics!”
And Roubion poured them out some more hot wine.
“And the Vautrins? Were they examined?”
The magistrate wanted to question them. Their answer was that little Zoé had spoken for all the family and that they were not going to have any dealings with the police at their time of life. Then they sent M. de Meyrentin, the examining-magistrate, an extract from their judicial record, which in fact is absolutely blank, and with it they enclosed a request that he would just kindly leave them alone!
“What cheek!” exclaimed Blondel.
“Listen!” said Patrice.
The moans had begun again.
The three men all stood up. Patrice tottered on his legs and nearly dropped when he distinctly, most distinctly, heard the fatal phrase:
“It’s me, it’s Zoé. Pity in the man’s house!”
Roubion, with his hand clutching his revolver; turned as white as a sheet. Blondel said, in a whisper:
“That’s Zoé’s voice, there’s no mistake about it. I know it.”
And he slipped behind the door.
The moans had come nearer still. It was as though the three men heard them in their ears, as though somebody quite close, quite close, had whispered the moans to them. They heard the sound of oppressed breathing and the strange phrase of despair:
“Pity! Pity in the man’s house!”
Blondel sprang round and ran to the wall-rack. He seized a cue by the narrow end.
“Oh no!...Don’t open the door! Don’t open the door!” stammered the innkeeper. “It’s the Lombard and Camus trick!...That’s how they were murdered!...Don’t open the door, or we’re done for!...”
He rattled out his words and trembled so violently in his fright that he disgusted Blondel, who growled:
“Oh, are you all cowards in these parts? It’s one of two things: either they’re murdering the child, or else they’re getting at us!...Or it may be,” he added, feverishly wiping the streaming perspiration from his forehead with his shirt-sleeves, “it may be Hubert coming to take his revenge...But there are three of us, what!&...And you have your revolver, Roubion!”
“Don’t open! Don’t open!” said Roubion again.
It was now as though Zoé were sobbing outside the door, or as though she were on the point of death.
“But we must find out what it is!” protested Blondel, still wielding his billiard-cue.
Then he asked, in a powerful voice:
“Who’s there? Who’s crying’?.. Is it you Zoé?...”
There was no reply but a hoarse groan.
Suddenly he drew back the bolt and turned the key of the door.
“Where are the ruffians?” he growled, putting his head outside.
At last, he took up his stand on the threshold, with his billiard-cue in his hand.
This corner of the Rue Neuve was well lit by the light of the street-lamp at the corner of the Place de la Mairie. Nevertheless, Blondel distinguished nothing; and the moans had ceased. He beckoned Patrice and Roubion, who joined him, mastering the unendurable anguish of which they were now ashamed.
As a matter of fact, they felt angry with themselves for being such cowards. As Blondel had said, there were three of them, not to mention that the inn was full of visitors who would hasten at the first call; at least, it was to be hoped they would!
“Do you see anything?” asked the commercial traveller. “I can see nothing.”
“No, nothing!...There is nothing!...There’s nothing to see!”
“Here, wait a second till I go to the corner of the lane...over there...”
“M. Blondel, you mustn’t!...You mustn’t!...”
But, by this time, the other was in the street. He made no noise, walking barefoot on the cobbles, and thus slipped to the corner of the lane on the left, where he looked and listened, without venturing down it...The he came back and went off to the right, as far as the Place de la Mairie.
The light of the gas-jet flung the huge shadow of Blondel, still armed with his billiard-cue, upon the opposite wall. A silence that was incomprehensible, after those recent moans, hung over the village; and this seemed to Patrice more terrifying than the moans themselves. The moans must have been heard in the neighbouring houses: opposite at the Bouteillers’; next door, at Mme. Godefroy the postmistress’; but nothing had stirred on either side. The fear that reigned supreme at Saint-Martin-des-Bois allowed no doors to be opened to the voices of the night...And the moon might cast the dancing shadows of the three Brothers in the streets, or send sprawling the less formidable, but equally mysterious, shapes of lifeless things — such as the shapes of the chimney-pots, for instance, which are more terrifying than any, with their caps upon their heads — but people were not inquisitive enough to look at them at night!...No, no, there was nothing inquisitive about the people of Saint-Martin-des-Bois!...
The three men closed the inn-door just as Mme. Roubion, “feeling more dead than alive,” joined them. She too had heard noises, but would never have thought that Roubion could have the imprudence to allow the door to be opened. And she dragged him away, pushed him up the staircase, beating him as she went and carrying with her the key of the street-door, to make sure that they did not open it again.
When Blondel no longer heard them, he turned to Patrice, who did not know what to say or do:
“You’re too impressionable, my lad,” he said, “you’ll never get to sleep in here. I only laugh at this kind thing you see. One discovers all sorts of coincidences, once things are over; and the Vautrins are capable of anything: I saw the way they went to work at the last elections! The point is to know them. If they want to deal with me, let them come! I’ll sleep behind the door, in your place, on the billiard-table. I’ll wait for them.”
Patrice, looking a little shamefaced, replied:
“Perhaps we had better not go to sleep at all!”
But the other had already caught up Patrice’ blankets and was carrying them to the pantry. And he returned with his own things and threw them on the billiard table.
Patrice let him have his way and was not at all sorry to move farther from the street and from that door against which he still, at moments, seemed to hear
a rustling.
They drank one last bowl of steaming wine, shook hands and wished each other good-night. Patrice tried to make some excuse for himself, could not find his words, was afraid of appearing a coward. The other pushed him along:
“Go on, my lad, go on!”
Then Blondel climbed on to the billiard-table, muttering:
“That’s how boys are brought up nowadays; their parents make school-misses of them!”
When his head was on the pillow, he lit a cigarette and sent the smoke up to the ceiling.
Patrice could see him clearly through the little open door of the serving-hatch. The solicitor’s clerk, on his mattress on the pantry-table, was lying with his head on the same level as the head of Blondel, on the billiard-table. And, suddenly, what Patrice saw through the little square of the hatch filled him with a horror so great that every hair on his head stood on end.
He continued merely to see Blondel’s face; but what a face! Never was hideous terror printed on human countenance in features more atrociously distorted. With his eyes starting from their sockets, with his mouth open, but incapable of emitting a sound, with his whole face dreadfully convulsed, Blondel was staring fixedly at the ceiling.
Patrice could not see what Blondel saw; and, awed as he was, his terror was but the reflection of the other’s terror.
Patrice tried to make a movement to rise...Yes, he had the strength and also the pluck, for he needed pluck to move; and something abominable must be happening on the ceiling of the other room; and the sense of his own safety was ordering him not to stir a limb...
Was the movement which he made perceived?...Were they trying to with fright too?...For, from the ceiling of the other room, he heard a hoarse and formidable voice utter his name...yes...yes...his name...Patrice!...And that certainly was a frightful command, a threat that nailed him to his place!
Collected Works of Gaston Leroux Page 285