The strange murders of Camus, Lombard and Blondel had formed the subject of more than one conversation and more than one silence among the Vautrins; and it was not at all surprising that the allusion to those astonishing and still quite recent crimes should stop the conversation for a moment, even when it promised to be as interesting as that which Hubert had started.
Old Barbe was the first to revert to it, for the three others seemed steeped in thought, filling and emptying their glasses silently. Hubert now appeared to be hesitating. He said, in answer to Barbe:
“It’s a big risk, but nothing venture, nothing have.”
“Tell us, anyway.”
“Well listen...I was at Mother Soupé’s, checking her fresh lot of tobacco with her.”
“She sent for you, of course!” grinned Barbe.
“I don’t think!...But she’s too polite to refuse the Vautrins’ services, that’s certain sure!”
“If you’d only hold your tongue, mother,” said Siméon, “we might get to learn something.”
“We were at the counter, in the corner of the shop, when Switch came in and asked for half a noggin and there was another came in with him, a skinny little bloke whom I didn’t know by sight. He took white wine, that one did. I soon grasped, from their bragging, that the little ‘un was a clerk in the works t’other side of the Montancel, where they’re driving a tunnel. D’ye twig? There’s no railway there. Well, they’re building one, you know. If you don’t know, you can take it from me; and there are five hundred workmen, that’s something, five hundred workmen who’ve got to be paid...in ready money, mind you! Here, Élie, you’re good at figures: just tell me how much that makes, at six or seven francs a day.”
“If they got ten francs, that’d be a hundred and fifty thousand francs a month.”
“Well, old chap, what the contractors want at the end of the month is two hundred thousand...”
“Then there are more than five hundred...”
“Well, it seems there’s important works over there: the little bloke who came in with Switch complained that they were miles from anywhere, that it was no catch, no getting there...”
“But,” Siméon broke in, “those works were to have been done ten years ago...”
“Can’t help that: they were started two months since. And, every month — do you follow me, you two? Are you listening, mother? — every month, the workmen have to be paid. To pay them, you want money; and where do you find money?...You find it in the banks...”
“Do you want to rob the bank at Clermont?” asked Barbe, whose face, fierce with greed, was now stretched towards the three men.
“What rot will you talk next, mother? There are times when you seem right off your chump,” said Hubert. “Can’t you let the bank be? The money’s got to leave the bank, that’s sure. The workmen aren’t going to the bank for their money, are they? That’d cost too much in fares.”
“Have you learnt the road the wages’ll travel by?”
“Now you’re asking questions.”
“And how did you find out?”
“Well, I followed Switch and his pal without their knowing. They went to Mathieu’s to take a glass. The little bloke had his back teeth well afloat. He did nothing but prate about the works and about everything. I listened to them, ay, in a corner where they couldn’t see me...and I now know which way the wages go,” Hubert concluded, lowering his voice in a sinister fashion.
The two others simply said:
“Ah!”
Barbe could stand the tension no longer: she beckoned to Hubert, to come nearer her bed; and the brothers went with him. And all four of them, mouth to ear and ear to mouth, said things which did not take long to tell, but which, unfortunately, Patrice could not hear.
When the secret palaver was over, Siméon drew himself up and asked:
“And what did Switch say to that?”
“Oh, Switch didn’t seem to like it!” replied Hubert. “I think he’d have liked to be rid of the job. The little ‘un stayed on and slept at Mathieu’s. Switch said to him, ‘and now, old man, you go to bed. You’re drunk. To-morrow morning, you’ll be glad to think that you’ve only been speaking to an honest man.’”
“Switch doesn’t half fancy himself!” Élie spat out.
The three men had gone back to the table. There was a long pause. The old woman’s head had withdrawn into the shadow, at the back of the recess, and was no longer visible. Everybody was thinking.
“Well, who speaks first?” Hubert said, at last. “I’m waiting to hear you.”
And his green eyes wandered round those in the room, from the recess to the table.
“There’s sure to be claret,” said Barbe’s voice, from the depths of her cave.
“And what about it?” asked Hubert, peevishly.
“What about it! What about it! It’s much better not to lose our position in the country for a job that mayn’t come...Our deputy would never forgive us...And we have Zoé’s future to think of...We’ve all we want here,” said Barbe. “And, if you lads got pinched, I should kick the bucket before the week was out!”
“You never think of anyone but yourself, mother,” growled Hubert. “All right, we’ll say no more about it!”
“I didn’t say so!” Siméon declared, sententiously.
“Nor I,” said Élie.
“And suppose there’s claret?” the mother insisted.
“Well, there’ll be claret, that’s all!” concluded Hubert, lighting his pipe.
Zoé’s voice was now heard at the door, asking leave to come in.
“Come in!” cried the mother.
“Where were you?” asked Hubert.
“Behind the door,” said the girl, “listening to you. Better me than the gendarmes!”
And, when they all raised their hands to clout her, she rapped out, hurriedly:
“P’raps there wouldn’t be any claret with Balaoo! Remember Barrois’ trunk!”
“The kid’s right!” said Hubert. “We ought to see Balaoo at once.”
“That’s easy enough,” said Zoé. “He’s at his own place.”
“Let’s go there now.”
“Yes, let’s go.”
“You’re never going to leave me all alone!” whined Barbe.
“Business is business!” said Hubert. “No one’ll eat you! Come along, Zoé.”
“Oh, it’s no use taking me!” said Zoé. “The porter has orders not to let me in. I’m not on the best of terms with General Captain!”
“Come on, all the same!”
They took down their guns, went out and crossed the road, with the girl. Zoé led the way over the fields. Patrice saw their dark outlines entering the forest.
He climbed down from his roof and returned to Coriolis’. That night, he was not disturbed by any sounds outside. He was so tired that he even dozed off from time to time.
Chapter VII
PATRICE WAS OUT of bed at four o’clock in the morning. He dressed in the dark, so as not to arouse the suspicions of anyone in the neighbourhood.
To see the magistrate and then be off: that was the great thing. The rest was mere politeness. And he continued to think that his safety depended on the swiftness of his departure.
The threat of the albinos, after his imprudent pursuit of Zoé, still rang in his ears:
“We’ll find him to-morrow!”
Now to-morrow was to-day!
And he tied his neck-tie inside out.
Then he wrote a line to Coriolis and Madeleine and left it on his table, where it would be seen.
An ostler was opening the yard-gate when he reached the inn. At the same moment, Michel, the driver of the Chevalet diligence, came up, went straight to his little office in the yard and turned over the pages of the register containing the names of the passengers who had booked their seats. Patrice booked one for himself, inside. It would be time enough later to show himself on the top, when they were far away...
Having done this, he felt easie
r in his mind and asked for the magistrate.
A sleepy little scrub of a chambermaid, who was still rubbing her eyes, told him that M. de Meyrentin was already in the bar-room, which had been closed to all comers since the tragedy. Patrice went there, expecting to find the examining-magistrate at breakfast, instead of which he discovered him perched on all-fours on the top of a cupboard near the door that opened on the street.
Patrice did not waste time in astonishment at this very extraordinary position for a. magistrate:
“Monsieur!” he cried. “You were right! There’s an accomplice!”
“I should think so, young man!” chuckled M. de Meyrentin, from the top of his cupboard. “Of course there’s an accomplice! I’m following up his traces now. I told you that the murderer could only have come in through the door and that, as he could not have entered by the bottom of the door, he must have got in by the top...The murderer — we’ll call him the accomplice, if you like; any way, the man whom I believe to be the instrument of the Three Brothers — climbed over your heads to this cupboard, where he crouched down...No wonder you couldn’t make it out...You see, I am continuing my enquiry upside down and what I don’t find down below I discover up above. There are traces of the murderer everywhere, on the top of the furniture. There are three big pieces of furniture, two cupboards and a sideboard, on which some strange individual has literally moved about, leaping from one to the other with amazing ease and agility...And now listen to me carefully...”
And M. de Meyrentin, to tell his story to Patrice more comfortably, invited him to stand on a chair, while he himself sat down on the top of the cupboard, with his legs swinging to and fro.
“But it’s you I’m asking to listen to me!” the young man ventured to sigh.
“Will you listen to me, or will you not?” roared M. de Meyrentin, giving two loud kicks with his impatient heels to the panels of the cupboard. “Listen, M. Saint-Aubin: you can’t understand yet...and I dare say I look very queer to you on the top of my cupboard...but there’s nothing queer in life: everything is natural, everything is linked up...Be quiet! Don’t interrupt! Listen to me!...I’m going to put a momentous question to you...do you understand? Mo — men — tous!...Listen to me carefully, M. Saint-Aubin, and then answer me: are you sure, are you quite sure...that the murderer, yes, the murderer...Now, think!...Take your time! There’s no hurry!...Are you quite sure that you heard him speak?...”
“Why, of course I heard him!...”
“Think!...Think!...Try and remember!...It may have been an illusion of your ears...And tell me, tell me carefully: you are sure that he spoke?”
“Why, yes, yes, yes!...”
“Oh, what a pity!...What a pity!...What a pity!...”
“But what do you think?...”
“Nothing, since you say that he spoke!”
“You are talking in riddles, monsieur le juge,” said Patrice. “And I don’t understand you. But I will tell you something that’s quite clear: last night, I ran after the Vautrins’ sister, who was mending a sock with a whip seam that bore a striking resemblance to the pattern which you were examining on the ceiling when I came in!”
“Oh, really? Very interesting, very interesting!” said M. de Meyrentin, fixing his eye-glasses on his nose and looking down at the young man at his feet. “And why was she running away?”
“Because I tried to take the sock from her.”
“Then she knew the value of it?”
“I doubt that, because she was mending it before people...But the fact is that she ran away to where she lives and showed the sock to her mother, who uttered a strange sentence which I have remembered because it was repeated by the Three Brothers: ‘‘Tain’t yellow, it’s red!’”
“‘‘Tain’t yellow, it’s red!’” exclaimed the magistrate, jumping down to the floor like an india-rubber ball and bounding up again under Patrice’ nose. ‘“‘Tain’t yellow, it’s red!’ You heard that? And at the Vautrins’?...You’ve been to the Vautrins’?...And they let you get away alive?...”
“Monsieur, I was on the roof!”
“Aha! So you approve of my system!...Monsieur, there’s nothing like conducting one’s enquiries upside down!...But tell me everything, tell me all you saw, heard, thought, guessed, felt, everything...”
The other told him everything, in full detail. The magistrate took hurried notes. He did not interrupt Patrice once, until the young man began to talk of the job which the Three Brothers were preparing, the two hundred-thousand-franc job. Here, M. de Meyrentin could not refrain from displaying his delight and satisfaction...Ah, at last!...They would have them!...They would catch the Vautrins in the act!...And high time too!...And quite easy and simple!...They had only to make discreet enquiries from the Montancel railway-contractors about the road by which the wages would be conveyed...and to lay the trap...Not one of the villains would escape!...They’d bag them all: the Three Brothers and the accomplice...and the rest, if more there were...the whole gang of them!...They would purge the district, in short! M. de Meyrentin would have embraced Patrice, had his magisterial dignity not prevented him...
“And what do you say the accomplice’ name is?”
“Something like...something like Bilbao.”
“Bilbao? That’s a Spanish name...However, we’ll see...But, above all, not a word, young man, not, a word to anybody!...Why, you’re a hero! A hero on the housetop, on the Vautrins’ housetop!...But there! Let’s hope that that job is not meant to come off at once!...They must have time to prepare it...and I too!...You don’t remember anything that could put me on the right track, I suppose?..”
“The fact of their going to see their accomplice in the forest last night proves...”
“Why, of course! Of course! It must be coming off to-day...It’s a great pity you couldn’t hear, all the conversation...What we must do is to find the little man...you know, ‘the little bloke’ at Mathieu’s — without a word to Mathieu himself — the little bloke who was drunk and who told everything to the other one...It’s unfortunate that you can’t remember the name of the other one, the man to whom the little one told everything...”
“Oh, but I remember now!” said Patrice, suddenly. “Hubert called him Switch...”
“Switch?” said M. de Meyrentin, giving an emphatic start, while his expression grew more and, more quizzical. “That’s capital...Switch!...I congratulate you...Switch!...”
“Do you know him?” asked Patrice.
“Ye-es, slightly,” replied the magistrate, evasively.
“And now, young man, I must go; I have not a moment to lose.”
“I am going too, monsieur le juge, and I have not a moment to lose either. I confess to you that, after my pursuit of Zoé, I don’t care to stay in the Vautrins’ neighbourhood. And, as the trains don’t suit, I am taking the diligence...”
“Oh, is that settled?” asked M. de Meyrentin, with a certain surprise.
“I have just booked my seat.”
The magistrate seemed to be turning something over in his mind. Then:
“Very well,” he said. “Good-bye, monsieur.”
And he gave him his hand. But Patrice held it for a moment:
“You appeared to understand that sentence, ‘‘Tain’t yellow, it’s red,’ and you have not told me what it means...”
“Oh, it’s a private matter! Good-bye.”
And he walked away, leaving Patrice to wonder whether the magistrate was not making fun ‘of him.
Patrice called for a bowl of milk; and presently the time came when the diligence was due to start. But he perceived that it was not yet ready. It had been brought out into the yard, but the horses were not harnessed to it and it stood on three legs, or, properly speaking, three wheels: the place of the fourth was taken by a jack. And the young man learnt from the angry passengers that Michel, the driver, had discovered, at the last moment, that the fourth wheel had broken down. He had sent it to the wheelwright, who promised that it would be ready in an hou
r but no sooner, for it wanted three new spokes.
The driver walked across the yard. He was in a vile temper and only grunted in reply to the questions put to him by the passengers. Patrice asked him very politely if he really intended to start in an hour and received so surly and unintelligible an answer that he felt utterly cast down. His stay at Saint-Martin-des-Bois had proved unpleasant up to the very last moment. He would not forget his holiday in a hurry!
To while away the time, he tried to see M. de Meyrentin again; but Roubion told him that the magistrate had gone to wake up Mme. Godefroy, the postmistress.
The hour passed and the five disconsolate passengers grouped around the great motionless diligence were informed that the wheelwright wanted another hour to fix a piece of wood to the felloe. They thereupon decided to abandon their journey for that day.
Patrice, in spite of his reluctance to change his plans, seeing that the diligence was playing him false and more firmly decided than ever to get away, resolved to run to the station, where there was still time for him to take the train. On reaching the station, the first person he saw was Zoé, who seemed to be looking out for his arrival.
After what had happened the night before, he felt certain that she was there on his account and that, failing to see him at the manor-house, she had told her brothers, who had sent her to keep a watch on him. For aught he knew, they might at that moment be busy wrecking the line somewhere, with a view to causing his death. After all, the mystery of the former attempt had not yet been cleared up; and the most that the examining-magistrate allowed to leak out was that he had found a few footprints near the Cerdogne tunnel which were exactly like those on the ceiling in the Black Sun.
Clear-sighted as were Zoé’s eyes, Patrice succeeded in eluding them and returned to the inn in an unspeakable state of collapse. Heavens, how he wished himself back in his dark and quiet little office, with its blotting-pad and its inkstand, in the Rue de l’Écu! He swore that he would never leave it again, except to get married; and even then...!
Collected Works of Gaston Leroux Page 291