Collected Works of Gaston Leroux

by Gaston Leroux

  “Well, Helena, let me tell you that your old friend, Arthur J. Hooker, and Durin are the same man!”

  “How exciting!”

  I could not restrain a sudden gesture of impatience, which jolted her hand on the wheel.

  “Look out,” she warned me, “you’ll have us both in the ditch.”

  Was it impossible to make her be serious?

  “Helena,” I urged. “I didn’t know you when I undertook this errand. But I was Durin’s lawyer and I did know him. I put on this disguise to save you... to save you from Durin. You do not realize what a monster he is.”

  “I should never choose you for my lawyer, if this is the way you talk about your clients.”

  “For God’s sake, Lady Helena,” I broke out, “let us stop joking! I know part of the truth and am not far from guessing the rest of it. I don’t pretend to know what craving for adventure involved you in this affair. But I do know that you are in the greatest danger—”

  “My dear Ruddy, you are getting long-winded. What did Durin tell you — for I don’t suppose you broke the seal of those papers you brought?”

  “Durin told me enough to bring me here to your rescue.”

  “My charming rescuer! I am overwhelmed with gratitude.” And she gave me the fingers of one hand to kiss.

  “You are making me seem more and more ridiculous,” I said angrily.

  “Not at all, Ruddy.”

  I groaned at this new name, one more mask I would have to learn to wear. In the past two days I had changed so often that my head was beginning to swim.

  “Yes, ridiculous! But perhaps I shall be less so when you know.”

  “When I know what?”

  “Who Durin is.”

  “Durin, my friend, is Achille.”

  “Durin is a common criminal, who is sought by the police of the whole world. This is no longer a joke, Lady Helena. Durin is not only Arthur Hooker and Durin, but a hundred others, whose names and disguises he has used on four continents. Durin is the Man of a Hundred Faces. He is the notorious Mr. Flow.”

  “How amazing! Are you sure of that?”

  “If you doubt my word, here is the key to that traveling-bag that you are keeping until he is set free. Inside it you will find a complete kit of burglar’s tools, and papers giving details as to each of his disguises. Could you need more?”

  “But this takes my breath away! Do you really mean that that insignificant little Durin is the famous Mr. Flow? I can’t imagine it. Why, Durin begins to grow interesting.”

  My fists were clenched, and I was tempted to beat some sense into her exquisite head. What use was there in telling serious things to a woman who treated them as if they were tea-table banter?

  I ordered her angrily to stop the car. We were in the open fields between the villages, but I felt suddenly that I was through with her. I should not try to talk to her again. The brakes squealed and the car came to a stop with a jolt of surprise. I opened the door and thrust one leg out.

  But Helena laid her hand on my arm, and the magnetism of her touch once more quelled my inner rebellion.

  “Ruddy,” she said seriously, “you mustn’t desert me now.”

  I resumed my place, and the car sped on. I had played my ace and lost: thinking to turn her in horror from Durin, I had merely aroused her interest in him. What a fool I was!

  But if she was not shocked at the revelation I had just made as to the true character of her husband’s valet, it could only be because there was some secret understanding between them. And in that case, what use were they planning to make of me?

  Her next question, however, implied that she had known nothing of me before I appeared at her hotel.

  For she asked how I had happened to assume the rôle of Arthur J. Hooker.

  I told her how I had put myself, step by step, in Durin’s power. A fine comedy it was, and Durin was the author! I had recited his lines, but I did not yet know what the last act was to be.

  Helena laughed gayly:

  “What a man!” she said, when I had finished. “What a genius he is!” In my whole story she apparently saw nothing but a successful farce.

  We spent three hours in Rouen, and when we had finished the rounds of the shops, I was completely reoutfitted, from head to foot, and ready to play the part of Arthur J. Hooker under any circumstances that might come up.

  At a nod from her, I handed her a roll of banknotes. She paid the bills — after checking them carefully — and dropped the change in her bag.

  “We won’t need a scarf-pin,” she said. “I have a beauty at the hotel. I’ll tell Fathi to lend it to you, but you will have to give it back to him every night.”

  She noticed the surprise that this last bit of information caused in me; and later, when we were spinning along the road towards Deauville, she explained:

  “You mustn’t think it is because I don’t trust you that you have to give the pin back to Fathi every night,” she said. “You didn’t notice last night, when I came out on the terrace, that I was not wearing my necklace. I gave it to Fathi at the cloak-room. And the girl in the dressing-room clipped off my jewels with a pair of scissors. That was so that Fathi would leave me alone for a while. Those are Sir Archibald’s rules. Every night, when I go to bed, Fathi waits for me with a little casket that he keeps the jewels in, and he sleeps with the casket. Another rule of Sir Archibald’s, and a wise one these days, when there are so many thieves about. But I am sorry, because I should like to give you the pin.”

  Not a word, however, about the hundred thousand francs she had taken from my hands the evening before.

  At the hotel, she led me to her apartment, and with her own hands repaired the damages that my clumsiness had caused in my make-up.

  “For my own sake as well as yours,” she said seriously, “your disguise must be perfect. If you blunder and are found out, it would mean your disgrace and ruin, perhaps prison; but it would mean death for me.”

  When I attempted to question her further, however, she dismissed me briefly.

  “Off you go!” she said. “You can come back for me at nine-thirty. And whatever you do, don’t gamble in the meantime. I forbid it.”

  For the next half hour I strolled aimlessly in the gardens. The roll of bills weighed heavily in my pocket. Lady Helena had forbidden me to gamble, but surely a little play — especially if I was not reckless — would be allowed? Still debating the subject, I drifted into the hall.

  When I came out, my pockets were empty. Not a franc left of the seventy thousand I had rolled up the night before. It had not taken more than fifteen minutes, and I had played prudently, not risking a bank except on combinations of three. But I had stumbled on a day when combinations of three had no luck.

  It was still only nine o’clock; but my one thought was to see Helena again. If she would return the hundred thousand francs she had borrowed the night before, I could hurry back to the Casino and, in a few minutes, win back all that I had lost.

  At a quarter after nine, I was waiting in her salon. Mary ushered me almost at once into the boudoir. Helena was ready, and greeted me with a smile.

  “Have you behaved yourself?” she asked.

  “Helena, I have been playing,” I said, “and I have lost everything.”

  She gazed at me with an expression of fright in her eyes.

  “So,” she said, “we are down to that? And I told you not to. Ah, if we only had our hundred thousand francs of yesterday!”

  She had already wrapped her cloak around her shoulders, but she let it slip now to the divan and called Mary.

  “We are not going out this evening,” she said. “Mr.

  Hooker and I shall dine in the salon. Will you tell the maitre-d’hotel and Fathi?” And when we were alone, “I hope you realize,” she continued, “that we haven’t a franc in our pockets. I am at the end of my resources. I have borrowed from everybody I know, and I couldn’t get another hundred francs if I tried. I owe Mary ten thousand. Well...” She settled
herself on the divan. “Telegraph to Sir Archibald,” I suggested.

  “He wouldn’t send me a shilling.”

  “You mean to say he leaves you without money?”

  “Always. Oh, can’t you see that I have stood almost as much as I can stand?”

  “But I don’t understand at all, Helena.”

  “That is because you have no experience of the world, Ruddy. Princesses have no need of money; there is always a confidential secretary, or a butler, who takes care of that. In my case, it is Fathi who pays all the bills.”

  “Why not borrow from Fathi?”

  “How naïve you are! Fathi is incorruptible! Fathi knows nothing but his orders. He is to pay all my bills, but not to give me a cent. And he is forbidden to settle any little debts contracted among my friends.”

  “This is incredible! You must have done very foolish things.”

  “I should be bored to death if I didn’t do foolish things!”

  “Perhaps Sir Archibald wanted to protect you against the risks of gambling.”

  “Perhaps. But that does not help us any now. We shall have to trail Fathi behind us, every time we take a step, to pay the bill.”

  At that moment Fathi entered, bowed to the floor, and held out a small, bronze casket in which Helena laid her necklace, the diadem, and other jewels, including those on her gown, which Mary cut off in Fathi’s presence. At last the casket was closed, and Fathi withdrew, bowing once more with deepest respect.

  I had noticed that Helena wore no rings, and had thought it merely a sign of vanity, for her hands were beautiful. But she explained that Sir Archibald had left her a few rings and bracelets to do with as she wished. They had long since disappeared, to pay her gambling debts. I listened, in a daze, thinking of my hundred thousand francs.

  “I am at the end of my rope,” she said. “It must be everything or nothing.”

  CHAPTER IV

  YET SHE SHOWED no sign of distress when she joined me for our intimate dinner in her salon, where Fathi himself served us. She said little, however, and seemed to be turning over some scheme in her mind.

  When Fathi had left us alone, it was I who broke the silence:

  “Helena,” I said, “this must end. I have carried out the errand for which I came here; and I have given you a warning. If you choose to disregard it, that is your affair. But I can no longer be of any use to you, and I shall leave this evening.”

  She turned toward me abruptly and gazed into my face:

  “So you want to leave me because I am poor?”

  “I want to leave you so that I shan’t go mad. You don’t seem to realize the situation Durin has placed me in. And I know that staying here can only complicate it.”

  “Apparently you think only of yourself. Are you so eager to leave me?”

  “Helena, I love you!... I love you so much that I cannot go on being tormented by being at your side! I know that I have no right to say this to the wife of Sir Archibald Skarlett, but I can no longer imagine my life without your sharing in it. There is only one thing for me to do, and that is go away.”

  “Before you go,” she answered, “there is something I want to propose to you. You say that you love me, and I believe you. Durin has tricked you and used you to protect himself. Well, he has tricked me too. But if you are willing, you and I together will outwit Durin.”

  “You and I against Mr. Flow, Helena!” I exclaimed.

  “How would you like that? I warn you, it will be a dangerous game. And if we lose, it may prove fatal. Do you feel yourself capable of it?”

  “I don’t know,” I admitted.

  She smiled and then grew serious again at once: “After all, you may be right to hesitate. Perhaps it would be better for you to go away and think no more of me. I shall wait for another opportunity.”

  “For what?”

  “To escape, myself.”

  “You want to leave Sir Archibald? Sacrifice your reputation and your position in the world? Have you thought of that, Helena?”

  “I have thought of nothing else for two years. I see that you are still wondering what this all means. Do you know how old the baronet is?”

  “No.”

  “Sixty-seven! Can you imagine that he enjoys the things in life that I enjoy? Besides, it is not escaping from the baronet that I am thinking of...

  “Then what?”

  “From Durin! Durin would never let me go as easily as that. There will be a struggle, and we may lose!”

  “But he is in prison.”

  “Oh, if he wanted to get out, he would do so tomorrow. You thought you were exposing the famous Mr. Flow to me. I knew him long before you did, my precious one.”

  “You knew who he was?”

  “As well as I know myself. Mr. Flow in prison? Why, he has been in prison ten times, and ten times he has walked out. His guards become his accomplices without knowing it... or, perhaps, knowing it. Didn’t he make his lawyer his accomplice? All of that is child’s play for him. But Durin will not be foolish enough to escape. Durin is just a poor, stupid valet, devoted to his master, who forgot himself and stole a stickpin to give to a pretty girl.”

  “Is there something you are afraid he will tell the baronet?”

  “Nonsense! You must show more brains than that. You don’t suppose he was Sir Archibald’s valet for two years just to have the pleasure of denouncing me, do you?”

  “Denouncing?”

  She paused to brush back a lock of rebellious brown hair.

  “I am going to tell you the whole truth, Ruddy, and then you will understand. The whole truth... but if you betray me, you will pay the penalty. I am sick of the life I have been leading. I want a new life in a different part of the world. Something completely new or else... I shall end my life entirely.”

  Her hand closed over mine, and in the clutch with which she held me I read the intensity of her desperation. And I had seen enough of her to realize that she was capable of the most reckless deeds.

  Releasing my hand, she began to speak swiftly, laying her whole plan before me in a few words:

  “I am fed up on being polite to Fathi about my jewels, when they are worth millions. And they are mine! My husband gave them to me, I have the right to do what I please with them. I shall sell them and you and I shall go together, under new names, to South America. We will buy a ranch in the Argentine. A ranch? A whole province with the value of those jewels. The baronet will divorce me, and I shall marry you, Ruddy. Are you willing?”

  “Am I willing!” The plan was simple and suited me to perfection. It was even too perfect, for there was a large “but” in it. And Lady Helena voiced it at once: “You must not forget Durin,” she added. “We shall have to hide from him, you know.”

  “In a pinch, there will always be the penal colony in Guiana,” I suggested. “You would only have to report him to the police, and—”

  “Either you are crazy,” said Helena, “or you refuse to understand what I have been telling you. I am Durin’s accomplice!”

  I sat up with a start, and gazed into her face:

  “I have always been his accomplice,” she continued, “ever since there has been any Mr. Flow!”

  “You, Lady Helena?”

  “You speak as if I had been born Lady Helena. But it was he who arranged my marriage with Sir Archibald, three years ago, in India. Sir Archibald thought that I was his sister; but I was his companion, in his most daring exploits.”

  She paused for a moment, then:

  “You see, I am putting myself in your hands. But I know I can trust you. When I married the baronet, I was twenty-two. For five years before that I had been learning the trade of burglar, under Mr. Flow’s instruction, and had shared in all his adventures. In those days I was never bored. And Flow taught me to love the game. You can’t imagine the thrill there is in it. Even now, when I haven’t any money, I can hardly resist the temptation to slip down the corridors at night.... But I would be risking too much now and he would never forg
ive me. He went to too much trouble to make me Lady Helena.”

  I learned that she was Roumanian by birth, the daughter of a wealthy family, who had given her a thorough education; literature, art, music and dancing. To this she had contributed an unusual gift for picking up languages. Her parents had planned to marry her to a diplomat, who had since become distinguished in the League of Nations, a rich and brilliant man, but hardly attractive to a seventeen-year-old girl whose head was full of dreams of great adventure. During a ball at the Casino de Constantza, she made the acquaintance of a young Englishman who had recently left Cambridge. It was Durin. He was then twenty-two, a charming companion, and a good sportsman. He spent money recklessly, knew no law but his own will, and hinted to her that it was still possible to have adventure in the modern world. Little by little, he told her of his own life. He had left Cambridge suddenly, under circumstances that were never made clear, and since arriving on the Continent, his only means of support had been a series of dazzling thefts. The glamor of this life and the hope of seeing the world appealed to Helena, at her age, more vividly than her parents’ talk about marriage. Eventually she begged Douglas (she would not tell me his last name) to take her on as an apprentice. She would learn burglary as one learned any other trade in life — and she had a master to study under.

  At first, she merely went with him on his less dangerous missions, and he schooled her severely in her new profession. From him she learned the tricks of make-up, the art of legerdemain, and the strategy of planning a theft. Together they rifled mansions and ocean liners with equal ease and sureness, traveling everywhere in the most luxurious conditions and living off the labor of others. A dozen times they had changed their names and appearance, and each change promised ill to a new victim.

  They had been arrested occasionally, to be sure, but they had always found ways of slipping out of the tightest hole. Helena’s beauty, aided by Douglas’ ingenuity, had loosed all chains and opened all doors. From London to Pekin they had operated as if protected by a charm.

  On one occasion, Douglas had been so proud of his pupil that he had ordered a special set of burglar’s tools to be made for her by an Arabian swordsmith, and a bag to hold them from London. It was the same bag that had given me so much anxiety. Thus I learned that, in bringing it to Helena, I was merely restoring her own property to her!