“As well as I can French. My mother was of English birth and I—”
“Good! That will make things much easier. When Victor is through with you, you won’t know yourself. You had better start for Deauville at once. When you get there, you will do my errand. Then you can go off in the country somewhere for about three weeks and amuse yourself while your beard grows out again.... You will come back after the vacations, and appear in court for me. My case will last about five minutes, and you’ll never see me again!... You ought to be grateful for that, at any rate.”
“But your bag!” I pointed out. “What am I going to do with that damned bag? As long as it’s in my possession...”
“I see that I shall have to put your mind at rest about that. Take it along with you. I’ll give you the key so that you can lock it. Lady Helena, who will appreciate the service I am doing her, will have no objection to keeping it until I get out of prison.”
“Shall I tell her that it belongs to you?”
“I have no doubt you will, whether I tell you to or not. But I don’t mind.”
“And shall I bring the key back to you?”
“By all means... when your beard has grown again.”
“I can have this all finished by tonight,” I said with a sigh. “The address of the lady?”
“Lady Helena is the distinguished wife of Sir Archibald Skarlett, baronet...
“The wife of your employer?”
“Exactly. She is stopping at the Royal Hotel.”
“And what name shall I send in to her?”
“Mr. Hooker. Arthur J. Hooker, at Lady Helena’s service. A good, honorable name. In file 25, at the bottom of the bag, you will find cards that will open all doors to you. And now, let me have the papers you stole last night from that crook, Van Housen.”
I opened my brief-case obediently. For I realized now that I was in his power as firmly as if he had locked handcuffs about my wrists.
In a few minutes he had finished sorting out the papers, keeping a few, which he slipped into his pocket. The rest he made a bundle of, tied it firmly and, after a quick glance at the grating in the door, sealed it with a large seal which he drew from the lining of his vest. A bit of wax and two matches; and the thing was done.
As he was carrying out this final operation, I studied him at leisure. His movements were swift and decisive. His features were intent; and I felt abruptly that I was seeing him as few people had ever seen him before; without a mask. What consummate skill it had taken to give his face the flabby, putty look of Durin, the valet! His eyes burned now with intelligence, and a disillusioned smile flickered about his stern mouth. He was a man who, in any circumstances in life, would have given orders, not taken them.
I left his cell with a feeling of new respect for my prisoner and humiliation for myself.
Victor was waiting for me, when I reached his room. This proof of direct communication between a prisoner and his friends on the outside did not surprise me. I had been around the prisons long enough to know a little of what went on. Glancing at my burden, Victor remarked:
“That’s a fine bag you have.”
“Are you familiar with it?”
“Of course not. Your question is unnecessary and perhaps dangerous. This is the first time I have ever seen that bag. I admired it, and congratulated you on it. What could be more natural?... I am just a barber who cuts people’s hair.... In addition to that I play the races... for others. But I never get into trouble because I always mind my own business. Will you have a seat, sir? You want number 25, I believe?”
“So it seems, Victor.”
With relief I saw my Charlie Chaplin mustache disappear. Then Victor gave me a high smooth brow, trimmed my temples, and turned my hair slightly gray. This done, he designed a scar, stretching from the scalp to my left eyebrow, explaining to me meanwhile, how it was done, in case I should have to remove it.
“Did I fight a duel?” I asked.
“Now you want to know more than I can tell you, sir. You have the file, you can look that up yourself. If you will just turn your head this way, please, I’ll give you a pair of cheeks that Haig & Haig would take for their own work.... Perfect! Now the glasses and we are done. They are a part of the outfit.”
When Victor stepped back to let me admire his handiwork, I could not help laughing in the mirror, “With this face, I wouldn’t dare order anything but whiskey,” I said.
“You look like a jolly good fellow,” replied Victor with self-approval. “You don’t owe me anything,” he added, as I put my hand in my pocket. “I’ll charge it up to the Chief.”
Opening the handbag, I looked for what were now my calling-cards. In file 25, I discovered everything that I could need — not only calling-cards, but a birth certificate, an outline of my family history, and notes on my past life, including details of a meeting, two years previously, at Milan, with Sir Archibald Skarlett, who happened to be looking for a valet at that time, and to whom I had recommended Durin. At the bottom of the pile lay a passport with my photograph. I gazed from the picture to the mirror in admiration: Albert Rose, the young lawyer of Paris, had vanished. In his place stood Arthur J. Hooker, English gentleman. I had sold myself for one of the hundred masks of Mr. Flow; and henceforth I was reduced to nothing more nor less than a portrait in his collection, a tool for him to use.
CHAPTER II
DEAUVILLE! THE TRAIN jolted and came to a stop. I stepped out, stiff as an English lord, and in a London accent drove off the porters who tried to seize my bag.
At the Royal Hotel, there were no rooms vacant; it was the week before the big races. I asked for Lady Skarlett and requested that my card be taken to her at once. Five minutes later I was following a bellboy down the lobby. Three porters in gold-trimmed uniforms crowded about me, to relieve me of the bag. But I growled and frowned; they faded away.
I was ushered into a luxurious apartment on the ground floor, where a dainty little maid, in a lace-trimmed apron, admitted me to a pink and blue boudoir. I sat down on a gilt-legged chair and glanced about me. In another ten minutes my errand would be finished, and my debt to Durin paid! I might even leave the bundle of papers and bag on a chair and slip out unnoticed.... But the door opened, and I rose to meet Lady Helena.
She was wearing a gown of cloth of silver that shimmered like pools of water in the light. The full curve of her throat had a gleaming dignity that left me dazed, and her wrists, under the loose folds of her gown, moved with the grace of slender stems in the water.
I realized, as she paused on the threshold, that Lady Helena was a beauty such as one sees only occasionally in paintings of Egyptian queens; not the pale beauty of the North, but the dazzling beauty of the Mediterranean. Her limpid brown eyes gazed at me expectantly. Her rich lips were parted as if about to speak, and the soft dark hair clustered about her temples with an easy grace. For a moment I could not speak.
She smiled at me from the threshold, and in her smile I read both a welcome and a question. It was evident that we had met before, no doubt in Milan, when I had helped her husband find a valet....
Suddenly she swept towards me, both hands outstretched. “What a surprise!” she began. “I thought you were—”
But, as I bowed over her hands, she broke off and stared at me penetratingly. When she began again, there was a slightly different tone in her voice — a tone of reserve tinged, it seemed to me, with mockery.
“I thought you were thousands of miles away from here, in Thibet, Mr. Hooker,” she said. “But I am delighted to see you! You haven’t changed at all in two years, not even that terrible scar. I shudder every time I remember those days when your recklessness might have cost you — But I shan’t remind you of unpleasant things, when we have just met after such a long absence!” She drew away from me and studied my features. “Yes,” she continued reflectively, and a teasing light flickered in her eyes, “you have changed a little. Your cheeks did not use to be quite so — But I am so glad you have come!”
During this rapid speech of welcome, I looked anxiously for some clue, some straw of meaning that I could seize on, to guide me in my attitude towards this miraculous creature.
Sinking on one corner of the divan, where she rested her chin on her laced fingers, she invited me to sit down, and her great eyes became suddenly grave as she continued:
“My husband will be disappointed to have missed your visit. He is in Scotland at present, and I am afraid I shall not see him again until fall. In the meantime, your friendship will help to relieve my loneliness.” She must have noticed my start of surprise, for she added: “Ah, you do not believe that I am lonely. You are like all the rest. You think that I am a frivolous woman, and that the amusements of Deauville are all that I want! My husband writes me every day, urging me to read the Bible. I have tried to, but the Bible is too exalted for a lonely woman. My husband lives with his God and his Bible; he is one of the saints. But I am only a human being.... And you have not even sent us a card, and my husband has often wondered....”
“Lady Helena—” I began.
“You even dress differently than you used to. Is that your bag?”
At her mention of the traveling-bag, I saw my opportunity to find a footing in this one-sided conversation.
“No,” I replied. “That is Durin’s.”
“Durin? Who is he?”
“Sir Archibald’s valet.”
“Oh! You mean Achille?”
“Was Achille his name?”
“My husband calls all of his valets Achille. It’s simpler that way. But how do you happen to have Achille’s bag?”
I gave her a significant glance, expecting to read confusion in her eyes; but, instead, it was I who quailed before her scrutiny.
“You look so intimidating behind those glasses,” she said with an ironic smile. “I can hardly believe you are the same man my husband and I spent so many happy hours with in Milan.” She was silent for a moment, lost in reminiscence. Then: “May I call you Arthur again, as I did in those days?... That valet you recommended to Sir Archibald was a rascal, Arthur.”
“I know...”
“My husband did everything he could for him. And, in return, he proved to be a thief. My husband forgives him, but I shall never forgive him!”
My embarrassment increased. “I don’t know how Durin—”
“Achille?”
“... how Achille knew that I was in Paris. But he sent me some papers by his lawyer, which he begged me to bring you. The lawyer said that they must be delivered to you in person.” I drew the sealed package from my pocket and laid it on the divan beside her. “And, at the same time, he asked me to leave this bag in your care....”
“But I don’t understand what this is all about! What a strange tale!”
This time Lady Helena’s laugh had a false ring.
“Will you excuse me, Mr. Hooker?”
She broke the seal of the package and glanced hastily at the papers. Then: “Oh yes, I see what it is.... Poor Achille!... Well, it’s nothing of any importance, but I thank you for the trouble you have taken.... And now, shall we talk of other things? You are going to dine with me, of course?”
“But the bag?” I insisted.
“Oh, the bag.... Why, I shall keep it, since Sir Archibald is determined to take that man back into his service. Achille writes him despairing letters, which anybody who was less noble than my poor husband is would realize at once are nothing but hypocrisy. And I have no doubt that, as soon as he is free, he will be back at his old tricks again.”
“Lady Helena,” I said eagerly, “if I have any influence, he shall never go back to Sir Archibald. I was deceived in him too, and I shall always be sorry that I recommended a—”
“My dear Arthur,” she interrupted, “we shall have dinner together. You will be the baronet’s guest. He is in Scotland, but he has left us his table at the Ambassadeurs. Where are you stopping? Here, or at the Normandy?”
“I am sorry,” I began, “but I must start back this evening.”
“Nonsense! You mustn’t run away as soon as you get here, after having deserted us for two years! Is your friendship for me nothing but a convenience for Achille?” A tone of genuine disappointment echoed in her voice, mingled with what sounded like a note of fear. Was she piqued that her old friend, Mr. Hooker, could not spare her one evening after two years; or did she suspect that I knew what was in the fawn-colored bag, resting innocently on the soft blue rug at our feet? Was she afraid to let me leave, with the secret in my hands?
Suddenly she leaned towards me and, placing her hand impulsively on mine, said gently but with an undertone of warning:
“You have changed a great deal, Mr. Hooker, I hardly recognize you at all.”
The touch of her hand filled me with a sudden longing to remain at her side; while her words sent a chill down my back. If she saw through my disguise...
“I tried to get a room,” I faltered, “but the hotel was full.”
She crossed the floor and lifted the receiver of her phone from its hook. I heard her ask for the manager, and a moment later demand that a room be put at my disposal. It was evident that the management did not dare refuse her requests, for after a few words she hung up with a sigh of satisfaction. Almost immediately a clerk knocked at the door. A room on the ground floor would be ready for me in fifteen minutes. I did not ask who was being put out to make room for me; it was enough that I would sleep that night in the Royal Hotel. I glanced out of the corner of my eye at the slip in the clerk’s hand: a room at six hundred francs! I hoped that that would be charged to the baronet too....
“I’ll have the gentleman’s baggage taken at once to the room,” the clerk was saying.
“I haven’t any baggage,” I explained. “I just had time to catch the train, and I didn’t expect to be here more than an hour.”
Lady Helena watched me with amused surprise.
“Then you have no dinner clothes? We can take care of that.... Mary, will you take one of Sir Archibald’s suits to Mr. Hooker’s room? Take him linen, too, and whatever else he will need.... I will appoint Mary to look after you. My husband says that she is the only woman alive who understands men’s clothes. You and Sir Archibald are about the same build, so I think you will have no difficulty getting into his things.”
The clerk crossed over to the divan and picked up the traveling-bag. “The gentleman’s toilet things—” he began.
“No, no!” said Lady Helena. “That’s for me. Mary, put the bag in my bedroom.” Then she laughed gaily. “Think of it! The poor man travels without even a tooth-brush! Did you acquire those gypsy habits in Thibet? When I knew you before, you never crossed the street without a retinue of trunks....”
We were once more alone together. Her face grew suddenly serious, and she placed both hands on my shoulders, like a lonely and deserted leader who is appealing to a trusted lieutenant.
“My dear Arthur,” she said, “you weren’t going to abandon me like that, were you?”
The luster of her great eyes, the tenderness of her voice, the fragrance of spring flowers that hung about her, held me in enchantment. I was tempted to throw aside my disguise, and beg her to tell me what danger threatened her. But, in spite of the trust in her voice, something in her manner held her aloof and warned me not to pry into her confidence.
“Now, run along,” she said abruptly, “and let me dress. You will come to my table at nine-thirty, at the Ambassadeurs.”
And I found myself in the corridor, outside her apartment.
My brain was in a whirl. Durin had, no doubt, known what he was doing when he had transformed me into “number 25,” but I felt that I was walking blindly into a situation where many things of which I was still ignorant were at stake. What was the secret fear that troubled Lady Helena’s voice at moments? Why was she so anxious to keep me at her side? And why had she not even glanced into the traveling-bag? Was it that she already knew what was inside?... Was it possible that nothing, not e
ven the sound of my voice, had betrayed me? My apparent success reassured me and yet disturbed me. Would it not be best to escape, before I became too deeply involved?... Needless to say, I stayed.
Sir Archibald’s dinner clothes fitted to perfection; the trousers a little short, perhaps, but not enough to show. Linen of the finest quality, and the studs — pearls that would make a trader’s fingers itch! If the famous Mr. Flow should see those! Yet no doubt he had seen them often; why then, had he passed them over to choose a single stickpin?... But my thoughts could not stay long with the absent Mr. Flow. I had other work to do. From my vest pocket I extracted the little case of ingredients Victor had given me to renew my scar and the purplish bloom of my cheeks. My fingers were clumsy at the unfamiliar task, but I would soon get the hang of it. When I stepped back from the mirror, the illusion was perfect.
My toilet finished, I threw open the long French windows and looked out on the terrace, growing violet in the dusk. I had only to lean out of my window to see the apartment of Lady Helena. It seemed to me that I had just begun to live from the time I had assumed one man’s name and another’s clothes. In the side pocket of the dinner coat my fingers closed over a crisp new thousand franc note.
Taking a final glance in the mirror, I lit a cigarette and started out.
The gardens of the Casino were deserted, and in the vast foyer not more than half a dozen people were visible. At the entrance to the dining room of the Ambassadeurs, I was stopped by the headwaiter.
“Sorry, sir, all the tables are engaged.”
Yet there was not a person in the room. Evidently they dined late at Deauville. It was already nearly nine o’clock.
“Lady Skarlett’s table?”
Collected Works of Gaston Leroux Page 457