Ordinarily, the great Lonstalot was completely oblivious to everything that went on around him. But today the circumstances were so serious that the secretary did not hesitate to speak to him regarding them. Lonstalot had not been present at the meeting of the night before. It was more than probable that he was the one person at that hour in the entire civilized world still unaware that Maxime d’Aulnay had suffered the same cruel fate as Jean Mortimar, the author of Tragic Perfumes. Hence the Academy had sent for him at his home.
‘Ah, Monsieur Lonstalot, such a catastrophe!’ cried Patard, stretching his hands towards heaven.
‘Well, what’s the trouble?’ Lonstalot deigned to ask, almost affably.
‘What? You don’t know? The chancellor didn’t tell you? It then becomes my distressing duty to inform you that Maxime d’Aulnay is dead - dead, even as Jean Mortimar died, while delivering his address at the Academy.’
‘So much the better,’ declared the scholar, most seriously. ‘That’s a beautiful way to die,’ and he rubbed his hands innocently. ‘Is that why you’ve disturbed me?’ he added.
Bewildered, the secretary looked at the chancellor and the chancellor looked at the secretary. They let the matter drop. They led him back to his chair; helped him to seat himself comfortably; gave him some paper, a pen and ink.
Withdrawing into the recess of a window, the secretary and the chancellor threw a satisfied glance down into the empty courtyard of the Academy and congratulated themselves on the strategy they had used in getting rid of the newspaper men. They had had it announced officially the night before that, after having decided to be present as a body at the funeral services of Maxime d’Aulnay, the Academy would not meet for two weeks for the purpose of electing a successor to d’Abbeville - they continued to speak of it as his chair, just as though two successive elections had not given it two new names. Thus they had deceived the newspapers. In reality, the election was to take place on the day following the death of Maxime d’Aulnay, the day we have just been accompanying Monsieur Patard through the Dictionary Room. All the Academy members had been advised by the careful secretary; and that meeting, as extraordinary as it was confidential, was to begin within the next half-hour.
The chancellor whispered into Patard’s ear:
‘Martin Latouche, do you know anything about him?’
While he was asking this question he kept scanning the secretary’s expression with an intensity he made no effort to hide.
‘No, nothing at all,’ answered Patard.
‘What’s that — you haven’t heard anything from him?’
The secretary pointed to his mail, still unopened, and said, ‘I haven’t looked over my mail yet.’
‘Open it now, I beseech you.’
‘You seem to be in a great hurry, Chancellor,’ said Patard, hesitating a little.
‘Monsieur Patard, I don’t understand you at all.’
‘You’re in a hurry, I see, to learn that perhaps Martin Latouche, the only man who dared persist in his candidacy against Maxime d’Aulnay — knowing even then that he would not be elected — you’re anxious to find out whether Martin Latouche, the only one left, now renounces his succession to d’Abbeville’s chair.’
‘In that case,’ said the chancellor, ‘you’ll not open your letters... until after.’
‘Quite right, Chancellor; there will still be time for us to learn, after he has been elected, that Monsieur Latouche is not presenting himself as a candidate.... There are not very many candidates for the Haunted Chair.’
Hardly had Patard uttered these last two words when a shiver shot through him; they had come to his lips just as though it was a quite natural thing to say ‘the Haunted Chair!’
A silence fell between the two men. Outside in the Academy court little groups were beginning to form; but each man, lost in his own thoughts, neither secretary nor chancellor was aware of them.
The door opened with a bang. Barbentane entered, Barbentane, the rabid old royalist, author of The History of the House of Condé.
‘Do you know what his name is?’ he cried.
‘Whose name?’ asked the secretary.
‘Why, his of course, your Eliphas?’
‘What do you mean, our Eliphas?’
‘Well, anyway, their Eliphas; that is, the name of Monsieur Eliphas de Saint-Elmo de Taillebourg de la Nox is Borigo, just like anyone else, Monsieur Borigo.’
Some other members had just come in, all talking at the same time, and very excitedly.
‘Yes, yes,’ they were saying, ‘Monsieur Borigo; the reporters are sure of it.’
‘Do you mean to tell me the reporters are down there?’ exclaimed the secretary.
‘Of course they are. The court below is full of them. They have found out we’re holding a meeting and they declare that Martin Latouche is no longer a candidate.’
Patard turned pale as he said:
‘I’ve not received a line from him about that.
Anxiously they all kept on questioning him; his attempt to reassure them wasn’t very convincing.
‘That’s one more story invented by the reporters... I know Martin Latouche... and he’s not a man to be intimidated. As a matter of fact we’re going right on with the election.’
He was interrupted by the brusque arrival of Count de Bray, one of Maxime d’Aulnay’s sponsors.
‘Do you know what he sells, this man Borigo of yours?’ he asked. ‘He sells olive oil; and since he was born near Provence in the Carei valley, he just called himself Jean Borigo du Carei.’
At that moment the door opened once more and let in Raymond de la Beyssière, the old Egyptologist, who had written pyramids of books on the subject of the earliest pyramids.
‘Jean Borigo du Carei,’ he said simply, ‘that’s the name I knew him by.’
Now since Raymond de la Beyssière was the one who had cast the single vote for Eliphas, an icy silence greeted his appearance. The members felt that they had that man to thank for the shame of giving even one vote to Eliphas. The secretary went up to the new arrival.
‘Our dear colleague, would you be so kind as to tell us if, at the time you mention, Monsieur Borigo was selling olive oil, or the skins of young children, or foxes’ teeth, or—’
He was stopped by roars of laughter. Raymond de la Beyssière paid no attention to them. He answered:
‘No. It was when he was in Egypt as secretary to Marietta Bey, the illustrious successor of Champollion. And he was trying to decipher the mysterious texts which ages ago at Sakkarah were carved on the walls of the pyramids of the fifth and sixth dynasties. Also he was trying to find out the secret of Toth.’
When he had finished, the Egyptologist went to sit down in his chair.
But he found his customary chair occupied by another member who wasn’t aware of what he had done. Patard, watching Monsieur Raymond de la Beyssière over the top of his glasses, said to him:
‘Well, aren’t you going to sit down at all? D’Abbeville’s chair is stretching out its arms to you?’
The tone of his voice as he answered made some of the members turn around.
‘No, I shall certainly not sit down in his chair!’
‘And why not?’ the secretary asked, with an unpleasant little laugh. ‘Why will you not sit in that chair? Can it be possible that you are crediting anything serious to all this humbug going around concerning the Haunted Chair?’
‘I never take any humbug seriously, Monsieur Secretary. But I shall not sit down at all, because I do not wish to. It’s very simple.’
The colleague who had taken Raymond de la Beyssière’s chair gave it back to him at once and asked him very politely and with no ill-feeling, if he believed he, Raymond, who had lived so long in the Orient and whose researches had led him further back into the past than any one else - even up to the remotest occultism - if he believed in Fate?
‘I should hesitate to deny it.’
That statement startled every one and they asked him to explai
n what he meant.
The Academician noticed that the smiling had died away and that Secretary Patard had dropped his facetious manner.
In a serious voice he began:
‘When we speak of these things we touch upon the mysterious. Everything that surrounds us and that we do not see is mysterious. Modern science has penetrated well what we see, but it lags far behind ancient science in that which concerns what we do not see. We can not see “Bad Luck,” but it exists. Who would deny Good Luck or Bad Luck? Either the one or the other attaches itself with remarkable tenacity to people, to things, to undertakings. Today we speak of a “run of good luck” or a “run of bad luck,” as though it were a fatality against which nothing can be done. Ancient science, after centuries of study, had gauged that secret force and it may be — I say it is possible — that he who would go ‘way back to the origin of that science would learn from it how to direct that force, that is to say, to distribute good or bad luck... It is possible.
Silence followed these thoughts. Every one looked at the Chair.
‘And Eliphas de la Nox, did he really penetrate what we can not see?’ the chancellor asked.
‘I think so,’ answered Monsieur Raymond, ‘without any doubt. If I had not believed it, I should not have voted for him. It is his real knowledge of occultism that made him worthy to have a chair in our company. This study of the occult, which seems to be crying to be reborn in these days under the name of Pneumatology, is the oldest of the sciences and by that token the more to be respected. Only fools laugh at it.’
And here Raymond de la Beyssière once more looked around at the company. No one was laughing now.
The room had gradually been filling.
‘What do you mean by that thing you spoke of — the secret of Toth?’ some one asked.
‘Toth,’ the scientist answered, ’is the inventor of Egyptian magic and his secret is the secret of Life and Death.’
At this point Secretary Patard piped up.
‘With a secret like that it must be very annoying not to be elected to the French Academy.’
‘Monsieur Secretary,’ began Monsieur Raymond de la Beyssière, very gravely, ‘if Monsieur Borigo or Monsieur Eliphas - call him what you will, it’s of no importance - if that man has found out, as he says he has, the secret of Toth, he is stronger than you or I. And if I have been so unfortunate as to make an enemy of him, I would rather meet a troop of armed brigands on a dark night than to meet that man empty-handed in broad daylight.’
The Orientalist had uttered these words with so much force and conviction that he made a profound impression.
But the secretary answered with his dry little laugh.
‘Maybe it’s Toth who taught him to walk into Paris drawing-rooms dressed in a strange, phosphorescent robe! It seems he presides over the meetings of the Pneumatic Society at the house of the beautiful Madame de Bithynia wearing a robe that glistens fantastically in the light.’
‘We all have our harmless little follies.’
‘What do you mean by that remark?’ the secretary was imprudent enough to ask.
‘Nothing,’ Monsieur de la Beyssière replied enigmatically, ‘only, my dear Secretary, allow me to be astonished that a man as wise and serious as Borigo du Carei should find that the most superstitious one among us is the very one who jeers at him.’
‘I, superstitious?’ cried Patard, walking toward his colleague, his mouth open, his jaw set, as though bent on swallowing up in one gulp the entire science of Egyptology. ‘What can possibly make you think that I am superstitious?’
‘By seeing you knock on wood, when you thought no one was around.’
‘I knock on wood? You saw me touch wood - me, me, touch wood?’
‘More than twenty times a day.’
‘That’s a lie, sir!’
Quickly those standing near interposed: ‘Come now, gentlemen! Gentlemen,’ and ‘Mr Secretary, calm yourself,’ and ‘Monsieur de la Beyssière, this quarrel is unworthy of both you and the Academy.’
The whole illustrious assembly was in a state of unbelievable excitement. Monsieur de la Beyssière remained perfectly composed.
‘Monsieur Secretary,’ he said, ‘I have never lied in my life and I’ve no idea of starting in now at my age. Even as recently as yesterday, just before the meeting, I saw you kiss the handle of your umbrella.’
Hippolyte Patard started forward and they had all the trouble in the world restraining him from assaulting the old Egyptologist.
‘My umbrella! my umbrella! To begin with, I forbid you to speak of my umbrella.’
Monseir de la Beyssière silenced him by pointing out to him with a tragic gesture the Haunted Chair.
‘If you’re not superstitious, sit down in it.’
The company, a moment ago in such a tumult, was suddenly struck speechless. They looked from the chair to Patard and back from Patard to the chair.
‘I would sit down in it if I wanted to,’ he cried, ‘but I take orders from no one.... And now, gentlemen, allow me to remind you that the hour for taking the vote struck some five minutes ago.’
Having recovered himself, he went back to his chair with great dignity.
As the members took their seats, he noticed that some were still smiling. Seeing the Haunted Chair unoccupied, he said in his dry manner:
‘There is no rule forbidding any of my colleagues from sitting in d’Abbeville’s chair.’
No one stirred. A quick-witted member saved the awkward situation.
‘We’d better not sit in his chair out of respect for the great man!’
The only candidate, Martin Latouche, was unanimously elected on the first ballot.
Then Monsieur Hippolyte Patard opened his mail. He found no word from Martin Latouche.
Humbly he received the Academy’s extraordinary commission to go, in person, and announce the happy news to Martin Latouche.
It had never been done that way before.
‘What are you going to say to him?’ the chancellor wanted to know.
After all the ridiculous happenings of the last few minutes the secretary’s head wasn’t very clear; he answered vaguely.
‘What would you have me say?... I shall say to him, “Courage, my friend.’”
And that is how it came about that that very night on the stroke of ten, a shadow, taking great care not to be followed, stole along the deserted sidewalk of the old Place Dauphine and stopped in front of a little house. Each stroke of the knocker resounded lugubriously in that still spot.
Hippolyte Patard never went out after dinner. He didn’t know what it was to walk the streets of Paris at night, many of his friends said, and he had read in the papers that it was dangerous. When he thought of a nocturnal Paris he imagined dark, winding streets lighted here and there by a lantern, and suspicious characters lurking about lying in wait to attack the rich, just as they had done back in the days of Louis XIV.
Being in this state of mind, the secretary of the Academy continued to occupy the shabby flat which no possible literary triumph, no Academical honour could possibly make him leave. So on this night when he stood in the silent Place Dauphine with its ancient narrow streets, its abandoned quays and its disquieting Pont Neuf, he could not see the slightest difference between the Paris of his imagination and the sombre reality.
Added to everything else, he was afraid.
Afraid of robbers....
And reporters... especially reporters.
The thought came that some newspaper man might catch him - him, the secretary of the French Academy, making a nocturnal overture to the newly elected member! He trembled.
For such an unprecedented duty he would have preferred the bright light of day.
And then he confessed the reason to himself. He had not troubled to make this inconvenient visit to Place Dauphine merely to announce officially to Martin Latouche his election to the Academy (an event Latouche himself could no longer be unaware of). That was less his reason than to find out fr
om Latouche himself if it was true that he had said he was not represented and that he was refusing d’Abbeville’s chair.
For that was the report that all the evening papers were carrying that very night.
If it was true, the plight in which the French Academy found itself was terrible — and ridiculous.
And now there he stood at Martin Latouche’s door, shaking. He lifted the knocker, tapped twice; but the door was not opened.
He jumped. He thought he noticed over his shoulder in the flickering street light, a shadow — fantastic, surprizing, unexplainable.
Yes, he was sure of it! He had seen something like a box walking.
It was a square box mounted on thin legs; and it had fled, soundless, into the dark shadows of the square.
Patard had not been able to make out anything of the upper section of this strange object, merely two thin legs attached to a box... a box that could walk!... the dark night... Place Dauphine!
In a frenzy of fear, he knocked on the door.
Chapter 3. The Walking Box
STANDING THERE, SHAKING from head to foot, Patard hardly dared turn to look over his shoulder in the direction of the strange apparition.
A little peephole slid open and lighted up the shabby door of Latouche’s flat. A streak of light struck full across the secretary’s scared features.
‘Who is it? What do you want?’ a stern voice asked.
‘It’s I, Hippolyte Patard.’
‘Patard?’
‘The secretary... Academy....’
At the word ‘Academy’ the peephole shut with a bang and once more the secretary found himself standing trembling and alone in the dismal square.
All of a sudden he saw pass, this time on his right, the shadow of the Walking Box.
Perspiration now poured down the cheeks of the honored representative of the famous Group, and in justice to Hippolyte Patard it must be said that the emotion to which he was on the point of yielding came less from the unheard-of vision of that Walking Box or from the fear of robbers than from the affront which the entire body of the French Academy had just suffered.
Collected Works of Gaston Leroux Page 494