The Box had vanished as swiftly as it had appeared.
Dazed, the poor man looked around, vaguely.
His eyes stared at the sharp roofs of the old, old houses of the square; and from them up to the canopy of heaven gilded with heavy clouds. He was feeling the gloom of his surroundings, when, of a sudden in the space in front of the Palace of Justice, lighted up by a brief ray of moonlight, he saw flit by again the Walking Box.
In truth it was running, as fast as its thin legs could carry it. There was something devilish about it.
Desperate, the poor, unhappy man touched his umbrella handle.
Suddenly he jumped; he felt as though something had burst behind him.
An angry voice said:
‘There he is again; there he is again; if only I could land one of these blows on his head!’
Incapable of uttering a scream, Hippolyte Patard clung to the wall, his legs sinking under him. A kind of broomstick was whirling above his head. In agony he closed his eyes, ready to give up his soul in death, a martyr to the Academy.
And then he opened them again, astonished to find himself still living. The broomstick, still waving above a whirl of skirts, withdrew, the noise of wooden shoes clanking along the sidewalk ceased. Those cries, those threats, those broomstick blows were not intended for him! He breathed easier.
But where did that latest apparition come from?
He turned around. The door behind him stood half open. He pushed it and went into a hallway leading to a court where met all the winds of winter.
He was in Martin Latouche’s apartment.
The secretary had armed himself with a few facts before he started out on this mission. He knew that Martin Latouche was a bachelor whose only love was music; and that he lived with an old housekeeper who could not endure it. She was a tyrant and had the reputation of making him do whatever she wished. But she was utterly devoted to him and often coddled him as though he were a child; and he submitted with the resignation of a martyr. In spite of Babette’s hatred of singing and wind instruments, he had not been kept from writing a history of music which had been highly rewarded by the French Academy.
Monsieur Hippolyte Patard stopped in the hallway, sure that he had just seen and heard the terrible Babette. Indeed he thought he heard her coming back. It was in this hope that he kept perfectly quiet, not daring to call out for fear of waking the angry tenants, nor daring to make a sound for fear of being beaten up.
His patience was about to be rewarded. He heard again the sound of the wooden shoes, and the hallway door closed noisily.
A black body struck against the timid visitor.
‘Who’s there?’
‘It’s I, Hippolyte Patard... Academy... Secretary,’ answered a trembling voice.
‘What do you want?’
‘Monsieur Martin Latouche.’
‘He’s not home.... But come in, anyway... I’ve something to say to you.’
And Hippolyte Patard went in. By the light of a lamp burning on a rough wooden table and lighting up an array of kitchen utensils along the wall, he realized that he had been obliged to enter by the kitchen pantry.
The door swung shut behind him.
In front of him he saw an enormous stomach covered with a checked apron and two fists resting on two formidable hips. One of these fists kept grasping the broomstick.
Above in the darkness a husky voice, a voice toward which Patard did not dare raise his eyes, spoke:
‘So you want to kill him?’
She spoke in the accent peculiar to Aveyron; for, like Martin Latouche, she was a native of Rodez.
Monsieur Patard did not answer: he only trembled and the voice repeated:
‘Tell me, Mr Secretary, do you want to kill him?’
‘Mr Secretary’ shook his head in sign of denial.
‘No,’ he finally said, ‘I don’t want to kill him, but I would like to see him.’
‘Well, you’re going to see him, Mr Secretary, because you seem to have the face of an honest man. You’re going to see him: he’s here. But first I must speak to you; that’s why you’ll have to excuse me for bringing you in by the back door through the kitchen.’
At last the terrible Babette put down her broom and motioned to Hippolyte Patard to follow her to a corner near the window where they each found a chair. But before sitting down, Babette placed her lamp so that the corner in which they were sitting was in darkness. Then she came back and slowly opened one of the inside window-blinds. Thus one side of the window now showed its iron bars. A bit of trembling light of a street lamp fell through the bars and lit up Babette’s face. The secretary looked at her and felt reassured, even though all the precautions she had taken could only puzzle and even disquiet him. That face must, in certain moments, have been fearsome: in this serious moment its sweetness gave him confidence.
‘Mr Secretary,’ said Babette, sitting down opposite him, ‘don’t be surprised at what I am doing. I am seating you in the darkness so that I can watch the organ-grinder. But let’s not speak of that for the moment; for the moment I want to say just one thing.’ The husky voice was very tender. ‘Do you want to kill him?’
As she spoke, Babette took in her hands the hands of Hippolyte Patard, who did not withdraw them; for he had begun to be deeply stirred by that accent of unhappiness which came from the heart of this old woman.
‘Listen,’ she went on, ‘I must ask you this, Mr Secretary. Tell me, do you sincerely believe in your soul and conscience, as the lawyers say, that all these deaths are natural? Answer me, Mr Secretary.’
In this unexpected question, Patard discerned trouble. But after a minute that seemed very solemn to Babette, he answered in a steady voice. ‘In my soul and conscience, yes... I think these deaths are natural.’ Silence.
‘Mr Secretary,’ said Babette seriously, ‘perhaps you have never thought about them enough.’
‘The doctors, Madame, swear to it.’
‘The doctors are often mistaken, Monsieur.... I am going to say one thing, one doesn’t die like that... all of a sudden, in the same spot, two people saying the same words a few weeks apart, unless it has been prepared beforehand.’
Babette, in language more expressive than correct, had summed up the situation admirably. The secretary was impressed.
‘Then what do you think?’ he asked.
‘I think that Eliphas de la Nox is a wicked magician. He said he would have his revenge and so he poisoned them.... Perhaps the poison was in the letters. You don’t believe me? Perhaps it was not. But, Mr Secretary, listen to me; perhaps it’s something else.... I want to ask you one question: In your soul and conscience if, in making his speech full of compliments Monsieur Latouche fell dead, like the other two, would you still think that it was perfectly natural?’
‘No, I would not think so,’ Patard replied, without hesitation.
‘In your soul and conscience?’
‘In my soul and conscience.’
‘Well, then, Mr Secretary, I don’t want him to die.’
‘But he won’t die, Madame.’
‘That’s what they said about d’Aulnay and he died.’
‘That’s no reason that Monsieur Latouche—’
‘Perhaps. Anyway, I forbade him to present himself at your Academy.’
‘But he’s elected.’
‘No, he’s not, since he didn’t present himself. Ah, I was the one who answered all the reporters who came here.... There’s nothing to deny.’
‘What do you mean, he didn’t present himself? We have letters from him.’
‘They don’t mean anything now... since the last one he wrote you last night, in front of me, the moment we heard of d’Aulnay’s death.... He wrote it there, right in front of my face, nobody can say he didn’t... and you must have received it this morning. He read it to me. He said in it that he was not presenting himself to the Academy.’
‘I swear, Madame, that I did not receive it.’
Babette hesitated a
moment, then said:
‘I believe you, Mr Secretary.’
‘Sometimes letters are lost,’ Patard said.
‘No, Mr Secretary.... No, it’s not that,’ she said with a sigh; ‘no, you didn’t receive that letter because he did not put it in the box.’
And she sighed again.
‘He wanted so much to be a member of your Academy, Mr Secretary.’ And Babette wept.
‘Oh, it will certainly bring him bad luck,’ she kept repeating in her tears; ‘it will surely bring him bad luck.
‘I have some warnings... they don’t deceive me. It wouldn’t be natural, would it, Mr Secretary, if he were to die like the others?... So don’t do everything to make him die as the others did. Don’t have him make that speech all full of compliments and praise.’
‘Ah, but that,’ answered Patard with moist eyes, ‘that is impossible. He has to end his speech with a eulogy of d’Abbeville.’
‘It’s all the same to me,’ replied Babette, ‘but alas, he thinks of nothing else but that... to pay those compliments to Monsieur d’Abbeville.... Ah, those compliments, he will make them.... That’s not holding him back from being of your Academy... but I have warnings.’
All of a sudden she stopped crying.
‘Hush,’ she said.
Fiercely, she glared at the sidewalk in front of the house. The secretary followed her eyes and there, under the street light, he saw the Walking Box; only now not only with legs, but it had a head on it and a face, both covered with long, thick hair.
‘A hand-organ player,’ whispered Patard.
‘An organ-grinder!’ Babette corrected him, for to her all musicians, in the courtyards, were ‘grinders.’
‘There he is again. He thinks we’ve gone to bed.... Don’t budge!’
She was so excited that you could hear her heart beat.
‘We’ll see what he’s going to do,’ she said between her teeth.
The Walking Box was not walking now. And the hairy, bearded head, on top of the box, kept staring, motionless, first at Monsieur Patard, then back to Babette, but evidently without seeing them.
Its hair was so thick and bushy that it was impossible to see any features of the face, except the eyes. They were bright and piercing.
‘I’ve seen those eyes somewhere before,’ Patard thought.
And he was more disturbed than ever by that thought. Not that there was need for anything new to happen. He was getting more and more troubled every minute. The hour was so fantastic, so dubious, so mysterious in that old kitchen, behind the bars of that dim window, face to face with that kind old servant whose questions had made him heartsick. (In truth, he had said that these two deaths were natural... and supposing they were not natural!... and supposing the other also, the third one were to die!... what a responsibility for Monsieur Hippolyte Patard!... and what remorse!)
His heart beat now as loud as old Babette’s.
That hairy head and that bushy face topping the hand-organ - what could it be doing at this hour on the lonely sidewalk? Why had the Box walked so strangely a little while ago, appearing, disappearing, coming back after it had been chased off? Surely this was the thing that old Babette had chased as hotly as her heavy wooden shoes would let her, off the sidewalk in the middle of the night. Why had it come back again under the street lamp?... that thick bushy hair and beard... those little shiny eyes? ‘Now we’ll see what it’s going to do,’ Babette had said.
But the only thing it did was to stare... stare....
‘Wait,’ whispered Babette, ‘wait.’
Very cautiously she went toward the kitchen door. Evidently she was going to chase him again! Ah, she was brave, in spite of her fear!
For one moment the secretary had taken his eyes off the motionless Box to watch Babette’s movements. When he looked out into the street again, the Box had vanished!
‘It’s gone,’ he said.
Babette came back to the window. She too looked into the street.
‘Nothing there now,’ she moaned. ‘It frightened me to death.... If only I could get my fingers into that bushy beard!’
‘What does he want?’ the secretary ventured to ask.
‘You’ll have to ask him, Mr Secretary, you’ll have to ask him.... But he won’t let you get near him. He flits quicker than a shadow.... And then, you know, I think... organ-grinders bring bad luck.’
‘Ah,’ said Mr Secretary, touching his umbrella handle. ‘And why?’
Babette crossed herself and pronounced in a very low voice.
‘La Baucal—’
‘What? La Baucal?’
‘La Baucal had asked the grinders to play music on the street corners so that no one would hear her murder that poor Monsieur Fualdes.... But everybody knew about that, Mr Secretary.’
‘Yes, yes, I know... that’s that Fualdes story. But I don’t see—’
‘You don’t see?... But don’t you hear? Don’t you hear?’
And Babette bent down in a sinister position. Her ear, close to the brick tile, seemed to hear things which did not reach the secretary’s ears. But all the same he was terribly excited.
‘You’re going to take me at once to Monsieur Latouche,’ he said, forcing himself to show some authority.
But Babette sank down again in her chair.
‘I’m crazy,’ she said. ‘I had thought... but such things are not possible!... Didn’t you hear anything Mr Secretary?’
‘No, nothing at all.’
‘Yes, I’m going crazy with this grinder who never leaves us alone.’
‘What’s that you say? He never leaves you now?’
‘Yes, in broad daylight, at the very moment you would the least expect him, there he is in the courtyard. I chase him... I find him in the stairs... behind the door... anywhere... and at night he prowls under the windows.’
‘That’s certainly not natural,’ declared the secretary.
‘You see it yourself. I don’t have to make you say that.’
‘Has he been prowling about like this for a long time?’
‘For about three months now.’
‘As long as that?’
‘Oh, sometimes weeks pass and he doesn’t come.... Listen, the first time he came it was the day—’
She stopped.
‘Well?’ Patard asked, wondering at that sudden silence.
The old servant whispered.
‘There are some things I don’t dare say... but all the same, the old grinder came at the time Monsieur Latouche presented himself at your Academy... even then I said: “That’s not a good sign.” And it was just at the time that the others died. And whenever he spoke of your Academy it would be just at that time that it would come again. No, no, all that’s not natural.... But I mustn’t tell you anything.’
And she shook her head decisively. Now Patard was very much puzzled. He sat down again. Babette began once more as if she were talking to herself.
‘There are times when I try to reason with myself. I say to myself that it’s nothing but a notion. At Rodez, back in my day, whenever you saw a grinder, you crossed yourself, and the children used to pelt him with stones... and the grinders would run off.
‘But this one here,’ she added, thoughtfully, ‘he always comes back.’
‘You just said that you could not tell me something?’ asked Patard. ‘Is it something about the grinder?’
‘Oh, it isn’t only the grinders.’
But still she shook her head, as though to hold herself back from speaking. The more she shook her head, the more Patard wanted her to go on.
He resolved to make a bold attempt to encourage her, so he said: ‘Perhaps, after all, these deaths... are not as natural as we might think... and if you know anything, Madame, you will be more to blame than all of us... if anything happens.’
Babette joined her hands, as if in prayer.
‘I have sworn in the name of God—’ she said.
Patard stood up very straight.
‘Take
me, Madame, to your master.’
Babette jumped.
‘So, is everything decided?’ she asked.
‘What, decided?’ the secretary asked in a slightly severe tone.
‘I ask you, is every thing decided? You have elected him to your Academy? He’s one of it? And he’s going to say compliments to d’Abbeville?’
‘Of course, Madame.’
‘And he will say those compliments... before everybody?’
‘Certainly.’
‘Just like the other two?’
‘Just like the two others... he is obliged to.’
But here the secretary’s voice was no longer the least bit severe. It was even trembling a little.
‘Well, then, you are murderers,’ said Babette quietly, as she crossed herself. ‘But I will not let my master be murdered; I shall save him in spite of himself... in spite of what I have sworn.... Mr Secretary, sit down, I am going to tell you everything.’
And she fell on her knees on the tile floor.
‘I have sworn by my soul and I am breaking my vow. But the good God who reads my heart will grant me his pardon. Here, exactly, is what happened.’
While he was listening hungrily to Babette, Patard was looking vaguely through the half-open blind into the street. He saw that the grinder had come back, and that he was raising his glistening eyes up into space, glaring at something up above Patard’s head, toward the first floor of the house. The secretary began to tremble. All the same he controlled himself, so as not to reveal to Babette by any sudden movement what was going on in the street.... And she was not interrupted in her story.
On her knees as she was, she could see nothing. And she didn’t try to. She spoke sadly, right straight ahead, sighing from time to time as though at confessional... as though she wanted, as quickly as possible, to shake off the burden weighing on her conscience.
‘It happened that two days after you didn’t want my master in your Academy (for at that time you didn’t want him, and you took instead a Monsieur Mortimar, just as after you took Monsieur d’Aulnay) and on an afternoon when I should have gone out and when instead I stayed at home in my kitchen without Monsieur Latouche knowing it, I saw come in a man who, all by himself, found out where the stairs were that led to my master’s room. He went in and closed the door. I had never seen him before. Five minutes later another man, that I didn’t know either, came too... and he went upstairs too, quickly, just like the other one, as though he was afraid of being discovered... and I heard him knock at the library door, which was opened at once. Now there they were, the three of them in the library: Monsieur Latouche and the two strangers.
Collected Works of Gaston Leroux Page 495