Collected Works of Gaston Leroux

by Gaston Leroux

  “There is still time, Helena.”

  She put the heel of her hand against my face:

  “Get out of here,” she ordered, “and leave me alone!”

  But I was not completely a coward, and her tone stung me to the quick. I leaped up the bank.

  “Then let’s finish the job!”

  Helena did not move.

  “And suppose the porter heard the dogs?”

  “Ah? Is there a porter?” I flattened myself out once more.

  To the left, through the trees, she pointed out a roof that was visible in the moonlight. It was the porter’s lodge, at the corner of the main gate, which opened on the boulevard. Finally, she stood up and tapped me on the shoulder.

  “He didn’t hear anything. We are all right.”

  The bunch of keys, a little tool, and the door was open. In the garden we circled to the right across a sloping lawn, beneath a rustic summerhouse. Our feet made no noise on the grass. I looked at the club in Helena’s hand and hoped for the porter’s sake, as well as ours, that he would not wake up.

  It seemed to me that I had ceased to feel any fear. For the first time, I began to be satisfied with myself. We glided through the trees and across the paths like shadows. There was a fragrance of flowers in the air. Could it be that old Jacob loved flowers? I hoped not, for the thought of robbing a man who loved flowers... We were passing along the rear wall of a row of greenhouses, and in a moment were behind the main house. Here we had nothing more to fear from the porter. A verandah door; Helena opened it with skill and assurance. We had entered the house....

  I was surprised at my own coolness. At “The Elms”, where there had been nothing at stake, I had been deeply moved. But I was getting on.... A sudden gesture of Helena’s took some of the wind out of my sails. She was listening. She closed the slide of her lantern. The last thing I saw was her club. I had heard that one could kill a man with that little black serpent.

  At that moment she slipped it into my hand.

  “What?”

  “Don’t worry, it’s not to use. It is in my way.”

  “There is no one in the house?”

  “Yes, on the third floor. A governess and a young girl.”

  “But, good God, we...”

  “That’s all right, I’ve brought chloroform for the governess.”

  “And for the little girl?”

  “A bar of chocolate.... Come ahead, the gallery is on the second floor.”

  Following the dark lantern, we climbed the great stairway, lined with antiques, and came to the gallery; furniture, vases, Renaissance jewelry, and, under glass, marvellous Flemish lace. The single shaft of light ran over this collection of genuine and fake treasures. But only the lace interested Helena, who cut the glass with a diamond-headed tool and dropped the lace into my hands.

  Then we crossed a large room whose walls were hung with the famous tapestries from Bayeux. Helena was obviously sorry that she could not carry them away too; but the risk would have been too great.

  She hesitated a moment, however, and I pictured myself bending under their weight like a stevedore. At last we stood before the door of the little room where the Rubens were kept. It was locked and double-bolted — ten minutes of work. The door yielded with a crack that stiffened my spine, and we turned into statues. Five minutes of silence. No one appeared. What terror a little noise like that can arouse in the night! Helena, I was sure, felt no fear. She remained motionless during the five minutes, because it was a matter of simple caution. I breathed more easily.... Besides, what could a governess and a young girl do? If they had heard anything, they would be trembling under their sheets.

  We lost no time in aesthetic appreciation of the Rubens. But we treated his canvases with respect. Helena removed them from their frames, rolled them up, and handed them to me, to add to the laces. She took back her club and led the way.

  I looked like a moving-man now. And, in keeping with my rôle, was beginning to want a drink. But Helena had already thought of that. We made our way to the kitchen where we uncovered a quart of red wine, a siphon, a bottle of brandy, and some Gruyère cheese. With a loaf of bread we were set. We ate our midnight supper on the edge of the table, which had been scrubbed white. This time it was not a picnic, like the one at The Elms. We were eating in the enemy’s territory.

  Helena cut off the heel of the bread and ate her cheese in her fingers, watching me with a silent smile which revealed the approval with which she was beginning to regard me. She filled our glasses and we clinked.... A charming scene!

  A few minutes later, we were spinning along the highway with our loot. At Evreux we stopped beside a car which was waiting at a corner. Helena pushed me out of sight, gathered up the lace and the rolls of canvas, and tossed both into the other car, whose door had opened at our arrival. Then she disappeared after them, and I was left alone. But soon the door opened once more and Helena rejoined me. For a second I had wondered if she was going to leave me there. But the idea was ridiculous; Helena had thrown in her lot with mine.

  She returned with two hundred banknotes, and a check for a hundred thousand. Demetrius was perhaps not making such a good bargain at that. Flemish lace was not exceptionally rare, and the Rubens would be a white elephant on his hands unless he could get them to America. There was some question, moreover, as to whether they were genuine.

  “Are the bills counterfeit?” I asked.

  Helena kissed me:

  “My dear, you are learning! Well, what do you think of our little expedition?”

  “You were right, Helena. It is lots of fun.”

  “And no remorse?”

  I thought of Jacob’s expression the next day when he would learn the news.

  “Not the slightest!”

  CHAPTER IX

  THE NEXT DAY Spada came in first by a head. I was leaning over the fence, barking like a dog at his heels. And Helena was hoarse with emotion. We cleaned up a hundred and fifty thousand francs apiece.

  We would have had nearly double that amount, but Helena had forgotten that she owed two hundred thousand to Jack, who deducted what was owing to himself before paying us.

  I had some thought for a moment of setting aside my share, but Helena glanced at me so severely that I dropped it all into her bag.

  “I want to teach you to despise money,” she said.

  Picking our way through the hot and excited crowd, we arrived at the buffet. At the entrance, we were caught in the swirl of a crowd around someone who had fainted. We recognized old Jacob, who was being carried out. Abraham Moritz was explaining that Jacob had received a telegram from Rouen: his house had been broken into and his Rubens stolen.

  “It knocked him for a goal, the poor old guy, what with the heat and everything,” said Abraham, fanning himself with his hat.

  We invited him to quench his thirst with us, which he was quite willing to do, and we discussed Jacob’s bad luck together.

  “I’d never have a moment’s rest, if I had pictures,” said Abraham earnestly. “You can’t put pictures in a safe.”

  He left us to find out how Jacob was getting along. When he came back, he was pale.

  “He’s dead,” he said. “It was his heart. It never was strong. It’s a pity, a man as rich as that! The burglars murdered him.”

  The bell was ringing for the Grand Prize. We made our way out of the buffet, and Abraham left us to play a tip that his good friend Jacob had given him just before dying. It turned out to be a bad tip, and the next time we saw Abraham, he was cursing his late friend. For my own part, Jacob’s death did not touch me deeply. Had I known that he would die, I would have refused to take part in the theft. On that point my conscience did not trouble me.

  “You take it well, Ruddy,” said Helena. “But there is nothing else to do. He was a wicked man, and God has punished him.”

  When I reflect, even now, on the ease with which I accepted Jacob’s death, I am astounded at the rapidity with which I descended the slope to the
depths where good and evil are indistinguishable. But it is often the most virtuous who, after their first fall, amaze the old timers by the speed with which they make up for lost time. No, I could not weep for Jacob. It seemed to me that we had done the world a service.

  This, at any rate, was a perfect state of mind in which to enjoy the benefits of the fortune. Helena and I were padded with banknotes. The dinner at the Ambassadeurs that night was more lavish, Helena’s costume more dazzling, and the company gayer than ever before. After the champagne, she pressed the bills into my hands:

  “All or nothing tonight,” she said. “Take it and go into the Inner Hall. I still have Demetrius’ check for our little picnics.”

  I entered the Inner Hall with the profits of our burglary and the horse-racing. She had kept only a hundred bills for herself, and had given me nearly a half-million!... I remembered my desire to put aside my share, and was ashamed of myself. I understood Helena’s glance now. When one associates with goddesses, one cannot behave like a piker.

  Whether it was the heat, the excitement of the races, the champagne, Jacob’s death, or the sensation that for the past twenty-eight hours I had been an actual burglar — more than that, Mr. Flow himself (for while my client was in prison, I was carrying out the jobs he had planned) — in any case, I felt that now nothing was impossible. And as naturally as one orders a drink, I sank my four hundred notes in the bank.

  You would have thought it was something I did every day. If only Helena could have seen me! She would have been proud of her old friend Arthur, with his beefsteak cheeks.

  I lit a cigar and dealt, turning up a five. Everything depended on this first throw. The hand passed around the table, cards turning rapidly. A six... a seven.... My half-million gone!... Huh? What was that? Baccarat, all of them? My hand trembled until the ash from my cigar dropped, showering my cards.

  I raked in a million!

  But I was not going to risk losing my million on another throw. I raised the bank, which brought supercilious smiles from some of the spectators. They had not expected it to last. The player they were waiting to see was the inexhaustible Zeneyos, the Greek multimillionaire.

  I must say that, at that moment, the million I held in my hands were a powerful stimulant to my imagination. With a million, especially when one is young, there are other places besides a baccarat table to spend it. One can begin life over again, cut the bonds that hold one to the past, forget Durin, and with a companion like Helena...

  But to do that I must clear out at once — not linger out of curiosity to see what was in the cards I was leaving behind me, not wait — as I did — until Zeneyos, who took my place, had won three times in succession.... Alas, my million was insignificant now, compared with what I might have carried away if I had not stopped like a coward after the first trick. Helena was right! I did not deserve my luck.

  Hadn’t she said, “All or nothing”? Zeneyos was stealing my profits from me! The pile of ten thousand franc counters he was accumulating in front of him were mine, not his!

  I had been changed into a hungry animal, who had nibbled at the meat just before it had been snatched away from him. My blood burned with the desire to get it back; I tossed the counters on the table. The bank had won four times now. On the fifth it should lose. Zeneyos won again, and my hundred thousand francs went to swell his pile.

  Desperately I plunged my hand into the wooden bowl where my winnings had been thrown when I rose from the table, and placed twenty counters on the left-hand board. I happened to be standing in front of the right-hand one, but I had noticed that Soulak (of the Transylvania Mines) was generally lucky. The right won, the left lost.

  From then on, it was a whirlwind. My counters passed from right to left, and I seemed to have nothing to do with it. Time after time I bet on the losing board with a dazing regularity. Twenty minutes later my million had disappeared and the wooden bowl in front of me was empty.

  I made a superhuman effort not to collapse on a chair, but my legs were trembling as I emerged from that hall. I made my way slowly to the bar. The bartender hurried towards me at once with a cordial greeting.

  “What can I do for you, sir?”

  “Champagne!”

  My bad luck was written on my face, or at least on Arthur Hooker’s face. The bartender evidently knew the signs, for he promptly handed me my bill, which was all ready. I glanced at it indifferently. It had not changed since the other day; still sixteen hundred francs. I felt in my pocket.

  “That’s all right, Teddy. I had forgotten all about it.”

  I pretended to be thinking of something else, but my mind was a blank. Certainly Teddy’s sixteen hundred francs did not bother me. I emptied my bottle without being disturbed by Harry or any of the other Bar Flies. It was a relief, for I was in a mood to fight the first man who spoke to me.

  Helena found me at the bar. She was radiant; she had won three hundred thousand francs, and laughed at my losses.

  “I owe sixteen hundred francs to Teddy, Helena,” I said. “I tell you that because I am bored with his looks.”

  She paid Teddy, in spite of his protests, and added a thousand franc tip. Then, laughing gaily, she led me back to the outer room. But the rest of that evening brought me no joy. It was not that Helena was any the less enchanting than ever, nor that the thought of Jacob was heavy on my mind; but the memory of my vanished million clung to me and darkened my delight.

  “Deauville is having a bad effect on you,” said Helena the next morning. “I have written to Sir Archibald that Mr. Hooker is going to take me on an excursion along the coast. We shall be gone for several days. It would be a shame to waste this glorious weather.”

  The weather and our trip were both glorious. As the jewels were left behind with the incorruptible Fathi, we were free to do as we wished. We traveled at our leisure through small towns and fields fragrant with the smell of apples and buckwheat. We ate in Norman taverns on tables of wide oak planks, drinking fresh sweet cider served in earthenware crocks. We filled the car with flowers and spent the night in the village we happened to be at when dusk overtook us.

  During those days Helena taught me to drive; and I encouraged myself with the fancy that if things came to the worst, I could now earn my living as a chauffeur. I pictured myself leading a simple hard-working, honest life.

  At Dieppe we emerged once more into the world of fashion, horse-racing, and gambling. Helena accumulated money at will, and in the end I left the playing to her; it was much safer. I was treated as a lord, with lackeys at my feet and the admiration of the crowds when I passed with Lady Helena at my side.

  At the table next to us, in the Royal Hotel at Dieppe, I recognized a lawyer I had known in Paris, a man I had always looked at with awe because he made a hundred thousand a year. He was disconcerted by the smile with which I observed him now. But he will never know the reason for it. The important thing was that he did not recognize me, which increased my confidence. I was happy now, splendidly and carelessly happy. This was the only life that was worth living!

  Our excursion ended at Dieppe. One should never play against a hand. It is better to take it when it is good. Helena persisted in playing against the hand, and we returned to our hotel one evening with our fortune wiped out.

  “It doesn’t matter,” she said, as we settled down in her apartment for a conference on Ways and Means. “I brought along the bag of tools in case we should need it, and Abraham Moritz will help us out.”

  She had assumed, perhaps, that I was further advanced along the path of unscrupulousness than I really was.

  “Abraham Moritz? What has he got to do with this?”

  “He is going to get us out of trouble, my little one.”

  “Did he send you word he was coming?”

  “I don’t think his devotion goes that far. But we owe him a little visit. Do you understand?”

  I was unwilling to understand.

  “Are we going back to Deauville?”

  “Ye
s, by way of Robin Hood’s barn. We will stop in Paris. Abraham lives at the corner of Rougemont Place, across from the Comptoir d’Escompte.”

  “Ah!”

  “I don’t like the sound of that ‘ah’! Are you willing to help me take my revenge on Abraham as we did on Jacob?”

  “This is too much revenge, Helena! Consider what you are doing.”

  My blood ran cold at this fresh example of her ruthlessness. But I listened, and she explained that this was also a job for which Durin had laid all the plans.

  “Perhaps you would rather go back to Deauville alone?”

  I made a gesture of protest. I could not desert her now, when we were at ebbtide. Besides, the influence of Helena and the life I had been leading since I had left Paris had created a new state of mind in me. I craved money now at any cost. And Abraham would surely not take his losses as fatally as old Jacob.

  “Helena,” I said, “your eyes are like a cat’s. Sometimes they are soft and caressing, sometimes they burn with the most cynical fires, and at other times they have a royal dignity. How could you expect me to leave them? I will follow them anywhere.”

  “You are naive as a child and you talk like a book, but you have more brains than one would think,” said Helena. “Now let’s not waste time in compliments. We understand each other. I’ll give you one bit of advice: don’t go through your little performance of virtuous hesitation again, and we’ll get along perfectly. You have balked enough. This last time, I admit, was just for form.”

  Was she making fun of me, or was she serious? And had I become nothing but her agent, her slave? There were moments when I would gladly have strangled her; I could even have found delight in doing so. This mood came on me in the hours when I rebelled against my own helplessness. But her indifference, or, rather, the slight importance she attached to what was going on in me, reduced me to dust. She knew that I could not resist her.... We needed money: then let us go where it was.