Collected Works of Gaston Leroux

by Gaston Leroux

“Now do you understand?”

  A bugle sounded, and the door into the courtyard swung open. A man hurried towards us, his dress and manner suggesting the wildest disorder. Had I tried to imagine an inhabitant of some savage country, his cheeks whipped by storms and his hair blowing in the wind, I should have pictured some such figure as the man who suddenly greeted us.

  “My God!” groaned Helena. “He is dead!”

  And she fell back on the seat of the car. But the first words of the servant reassured her:

  “His lordship is saved, my lady! His lordship is saved!”

  “Heaven be praised!” murmured Helena. Then, turning towards me: “When I saw Donald come out to meet us, I thought that all was over.”

  I did not reply, for never had the inexplicable Helena seemed more incomprehensible to me. I could not believe in the sincerity of her grief; but in this I was wrong, as was proved to me that same day.

  We crossed the entrance hall, which had been turned into a vast and chilly foyer. All of the ground floor was almost as untouched as the exterior.

  It was only on the second floor that the luxury of wealth appeared; but it was the luxury of past centuries, with faded tapestries and furniture of carved wood that was more handsome than comfortable. On the tables stood silver urns, crystal goblets, and jewels in glass cases. Lances, claymores, shields, hung on the walls under the arms of the MacGregors. Suits of armor stood in corners. All of this had its history, but I was not interested in it. I had seen museums before, and I did not enter that great hall in the spirit of an antiquarian. I gathered my energy to resist the moth-eaten influence of this atmosphere, whose weight I had already felt too strongly in the car, when Lady Helena’s anguish had spread over me.

  Her unexpected behavior at the sight of Donald had once more separated her from me. If I had just witnessed an example of the most accomplished hypocrisy, then I might as well despair of ever knowing her true nature. If, on the other hand, her grief had been sincere, why had she not let me stay in Paris? I tried to weigh the two aspects of the situation calmly; and asked myself whether I had been wise to answer the summons with such enthusiasm.

  Such was my new state of mind when I was left alone in a room on the third floor. It was a small room with unfinished walls, where a gray light filtered in through the leaded panes of a narrow window. On the walls a few colored modern prints of hunting scenes. Over the bed a cross. I had hardly expected this cell, and was in an unpleasant mood when Durin appeared, carrying my suitcase.

  He himself did not appear to be in the best of spirits; but he inquired respectfully after my health and expressed his pleasure at seeing me again.

  “Lady Skarlett asks to be excused,” he said. “Monsieur will lunch alone. Her ladyship is with the doctors in Sir Archibald’s room.”

  “I heard he was better,” I said.

  “Oh,” exclaimed Durin with a bitter grimace, “he always gets better. He’ll bury us all!”

  And with that he left me, slamming the door behind him in a way that was out of keeping with the reputation as a valet that had once been given him, in Milan, by Mr. Arthur Hooker. But even Durin’s nerves seemed to have been affected by the atmosphere of the place.

  I barely touched the luncheon that was served me in a drafty dining-room, where the high beams of the vaulted ceiling were almost lost from sight. The great logs that crackled in a fireplace occupying half of one wall did not succeed in keeping me warm. The wind roared at intervals with sudden violence, like a pack of hounds, drawing nearer, howling on the heels of their prey, then dwindling into the distance and drawing nearer again. The smoke from the logs swirled in the fireplace and poured out into the room. I was forced to move my seat. Sir Archibald’s ancestors must have been smoked like herring at their banquets.

  But I learned that that did not bother them. The butler, who had been brought up from Edinburgh for the hunting season, told me that when the lairds of former days gathered here, everything came on the table in pairs: whole roast pigs, legs of mutton, and deep sea fish. For a relish, they served a dozen pheasants, or a brace of quail to each guest, washed down with port or brandy smuggled ashore by pirates. Wagers as to who could drink the most ran high, one man pledging his armor, another his castle, and a third his wife. There were no ladies at these feasts, and the men smoked their long pipes, their feet on the table, chanting ballads. The last one to roll to the floor was the victor of the banquet.... But times had grown soft since then, the new gentlemen farmers had traveled, and had acquired the manners of the Continent. Yet one could still find the old customs in a few out-of-the-way corners of the Highlands, and there were certain western squires who showed themselves worthy descendants of the early chieftains.

  “But you would not find such company as that at Sir Archibald’s,” I remarked.

  “Sir Archibald is a great lord of today,” said the butler. “But there are occasional hunting suppers here, when the ladies have left the room and the gentlemen still carry on the good old traditions....”

  I had been turned over to the butler, and reduced to this sort of conversation. I did not complain, however, for I preferred it to sharing my captivity with the silent, enigmatic Mina, whom I had never been able to look at without uneasiness.

  I returned to my cell, and it was there that Helena rejoined me. She was wrapped in a mountain cloak and wearing a hood that came down over her ears:

  “Come along, Ruddy, I told Sir Archibald that I was going to take you for a walk before tea. He sent his greeting to you, and will be glad to see you this evening. He is much better., much better than before! It was only a heart attack, but he will have to be very careful.”

  She had said all of this while leading me out of the room. She guided me through back halls and down circular stairways, saying, “It is shorter this way.” We crossed the courtyard almost on a run, and did not pause until we were out of the castle.

  Then she stopped for a long breath, and we set out against the wind, our faces stung by a fine, cold rain.

  “I am pretending that we are escaping from Black Rooks forever, Ruddy, and that I shall never see it again!... Never!... Ah, if you only knew!”

  Her sigh was so heavy with despair that I made a movement to take her in my arms, but she slipped from me and ran up the rocky hillside, calling back to me to follow.

  Through the wind and rain I followed as though obeying an invisible thread that bound me to her. And she climbed from rock to rock, with the sureness of a mountain deer, until we stood on a narrow platform, from which we overlooked the country for miles on every side.

  There she seized my hands, and fixing her haggard eyes on mine, said breathlessly:

  “Swear to me, Ruddy, that whatever happens, we will escape together.... Whatever happens. Do you swear it?”

  I gave her my vow.

  “Thank God you have not changed, Ruddy,” she said when I had finished, “for otherwise we should both have gone to join the gilymore.”

  “The gilymore...?”

  “He was the chief page, the sword-bearer, of James, the grandson of Rob Roy. The gilymore made love to James’ wife, and both were thrown together over Black Rooks leap. That is why I say the gilymore would be waiting for us down there.”

  She pointed over the edge of the cliff on which we stood. I glanced down the sheer wall at the tops of the giant oaks far beneath us, and drew back dizzily.

  “Quite a little jump,” I said, trying to efface the terrible suggestion of her words with a jesting tone.

  “Don’t be childish, Ruddy. You and I must escape from here, and as soon as possible, for I believe that Sir Archibald suspects something.”

  She led me down the hillside again and through a deep grove of beeches, which protected us from the rain, but plunged us into a gray light such as that that Dante traversed in the outer regions of hell. It was not until we had emerged from the chilling gloom that I was able to ask:

  “What makes you think that Sir — Has some thing happened?
”

  “My dear, when you wrote me at Deauville, Sir Archibald had already come back. You remember that little note in which you said ‘Come,’ signed ‘Ruddy,’ and giving your address, ‘Albert Rose, Inn of the Deliverance’....?”

  “Yes, well?”

  “Well, I am afraid the letter had been opened before it reached me.”

  “My God!”

  “And then, I think that Fathi may have guessed... that evening when you stole the bronze casket.”

  “Is Fathi here?”

  “No, Fathi is dead. He had an unfortunate accident. It may have been that Durin poisoned him; but that is not important now. What is important is this sudden and extraordinary friendship that Sir Archibald has shown you, and his determination to have you come to Black Rooks for the hunting season. There was nothing in what you had done for Durin that called for that, was there?”

  “Helena, what horrible things you suggest to my imagination!”

  “It is quite possible that he may have wanted to have you within reach.... But we shall escape together.”

  We had reached the gate of the castle.... Escape? I was ready to flee at once from this rain-sodden, memory-drugged land of old hatreds and modern revenges. Why had I been so stupid as to write that letter? Night had fallen suddenly, and we picked our way across the cobbled courtyard in darkness. In the great hall, the servants relieved us of our dripping cloaks.

  “I shall expect you in fifteen minutes for tea.”

  At the same time Durin appeared and led me to my room. He no longer seemed nervous; but some secret determination had given his features the rigidity of a mummy. The stupid Durin I had just seen in his cell in Paris had vanished now forever. During my short stay in the castle, he never mentioned the trial and treated me with all the correctness of a trained valet.

  The tea passed without incident. Mina was there too, and I was astonished to hear her voice. She was explaining to Helena that, during our absence, there had been a commotion among the servants. Donald had come upstairs, as gray as a corpse, announcing that he had heard the wailing of the banshee. The other servants had joined in the chorus, claiming that they had heard it too, under the window of the Green Lady. They had made such a disturbance that Mina had finally had to send them back to their work. I was so preoccupied by what Helena had told me that I paid little attention to these tales of spirits and ghosts, which exercise a great fascination over the ignorant in every part of the world. But I was struck by the lifeless voice in which Helena replied:

  “You must excuse them, Mina. The last time the banshee was heard under the Green Lady’s window was just before the death of Sir Edward. Sir Archibald’s illness is telling on their nerves, and poor Donald, with the life he leads here, is not likely to be the most balanced.”

  During the rest of the tea, I wondered what meaning could be attached to that strange expression, “the Green Lady’s window.”

  When we had finished, Durin brought me word that Sir Archibald would like to see me. I could not repress a shudder that ran through me, and the look of anguish that Helena gave me accompanied me to the door of the sick room.

  The baronet had his apartment on the west court. A vestibule separated him from Lady Helena’s room, which occupied all the circular surface of the great tower. During the few moments it took to reach this somber region of the castle, I struggled to regain my poise. “Be natural,” I told myself. “He may not suspect anything at all. Greet him as if Lady Helena had said nothing, as you would have greeted him this morning — simply as his guest.” And I repeated to myself, “A guest.” But the word made me wince: I knew that I was not entitled to the treatment of a guest.

  Durin gave no sign of knowing that there was anything beneath the surface. He knocked lightly twice on the door, and a youth about twelve years old, with an alert, intelligent face but sad eyes, opened. Durin disappeared at once. The boy bolted the door behind me and nodded to me to follow him. His behavior was far from reassuring; but we crossed an outer room, and he opened another door. Then I saw Sir Archibald stretched out on his bed, and extending one hand towards me. His great eyes were paler than ever, though he fastened them on me with the concentration of an unshakeable will. He seemed to be examining me from behind a cold, clear glass. His carved cheeks and high, bony nose, like the beak of an eagle, showed that he had been through great suffering; but the grip of his hand, and the electric power of his glance, revealed a man who was still intensely alive and had no intention of dying.

  He thanked me warmly for having come, and regretted that the circumstances made it impossible for him to give me a better welcome. Then he turned towards the boy and made him a sign to leave. The boy slipped out through a door in the rear of the room and left us alone.

  “That’s my little page,” said Sir Archibald, and he repeated, with a note of tenderness in his voice, “my little page. The only person in the world who loves me, and the only one in whom I have any confidence. A child, and my only support here! He is Donald’s son. I have always spoiled him, but I trust him, because he loves me.”

  He lifted himself up abruptly and drawing me towards him, whispered:

  “They have tried to poison me.”

  I shrank away, but he pulled me closer, staring at me with a cold, implacable gaze:

  “Yes, poison me.... What do you say to that?”

  I felt my hands grow cold. But the baronet continued:

  “Ah, this fellow Durin! But I am not going to die! I will know the truth first. That’s my right, isn’t it? You are a lawyer.... Well, why don’t you answer me?”

  “What you are telling me is too horrible...”

  He gave a diabolical chuckle, which sounded to me like an echo from beyond life.

  “So you think it is horrible, do you?”

  During this conversation Sir Archibald had kept his grip on my hand, and he now seized my arm with his free hand. In spite of my longing to move away from him, I was incapable of the slightest physical effort.

  “Sir Archibald!” I pleaded. “This is a nightmare, and you must shake it off. You have been ill and your imagination—”

  “That is not what I asked you! You know Durin well. You handled his case....”

  “I saw him twice, your Lordship. He was an unfortunate man, whom you took pity on. So far as I know, he has been devoted to you ever since he entered your service. How could such a thought have entered your mind?”

  I checked myself, frozen suddenly by the thought that, in my trepidation, I was defending him too ardently. At heart I knew that Durin was quite capable of this crime. But I was ridiculing the suggestion to the very man whom I should have warned, in order not to be personally involved in such an abomination. And in trying to protect myself, I would perhaps ruin myself, by protecting Durin too well. It was certainly a mistake, perhaps a crime....

  In the midst of my protests, Sir Archibald began to whistle. A thin, derisive whistle, which was more menacing than any words he might have spoken. Suddenly he stopped and asked:

  “What makes you think I took pity on him?”

  At this I was speechless. What answer was there to give? But he continued as if I had replied:

  “Because of what I said at the trial? I only did what was necessary to get Durin back here. You thought I wanted to save his soul, did you? His soul be damned, for all I care — but not without my permission! That is why he is here.”

  And what about myself? I thought. Why am I here? Helena was right....

  The old man went on mercilessly:

  “Durin suspects. And I know that he suspects, because he has tried to poison me. I am telling you this in confidence, you understand? You are a man of honor and a lawyer. I have brought you here to get your opinion on this business — and also to complete your education. You imagined you were defending a poor, helpless thief; but what would you say if you had been defending a murderer? At any rate, a man who had determined to become one! Something after the style of that Mr. Flow that my brother
talked about at the trial.... Remember, I am speaking confidentially, and what I say is not to go beyond you. And, especially, it mustn’t reach Sir Philip’s ears. My brother had no right to stick his fingers in this matter, and his public interference is my shame. He has been insubordinate to the head of his family. He has tried to destroy the family. Do you understand me?”

  I understood only too well; but did he understand the whole truth? And what could I say, since I could neither defend Durin nor attack him?

  Then I made the further mistake of trying to dodge the situation with a few conventional remarks. But there are no conventional remarks at such moments. In such a situation, it is useless to say: “I hope, Sir Archibald, that you are mistaken. If you had any suspicion, it seems to me... it seems to me that the trial would have dissipated them....”

  The chuckling began again.

  “I expected you to say that, young man! But just consider for a moment, if you will, that the whole affair would be clear if Durin had arranged, while he was in prison, for a substitute Mr. Hooker. Ah, you get me, do you? I see that you do.... But won’t you sit down? I am afraid I am tiring you by keeping you standing.... You must excuse me, but in the painful situation I find myself in, I needed a young lawyer whom I could talk to. An older man would have shut me up long before now, but I can see that you are listening with the greatest interest. You are not losing one of my words.

  “I will repeat myself,” he continued, shaking his finger at me, “a substitute Mr. Hooker. A pupil, an accomplice. Well, my young friend, I think I have found him. And I am going to tell you his name, strictly between ourselves... for if I should happen to disappear without finishing this business as it should be finished, I should be happy to know that a man like yourself would make it a point of honor to lift the final mask that hides the truth.

  “I say a point of honor, because in deceiving yourself, Mr. Rose, you have deceived the whole world. Durin has made a tool of you, with the device of that supposed Mr. Hooker, in a way that should never be forgiven. I am therefore going to tell you the name of the man, or at least the one whom I suspect of being the man, who carried out the imposture.”