Suddenly he closed it, and the secretary saw that he was weeping. So he went up to the old man and said very gently:
‘My friend—’
Latouche was touched. ‘You are kind, very kind,’ he said, his voice trembling. ‘One is fortunate to be a member of a society which has a man like you in it. Now you know all my little troubles, you have seen my little den where such mysterious meetings occur, and you know why I am so worried when I find out that my old Babette listened behind the door. I love her very much, but I also love my little guitar... and I don’t want to be without either one... even if sometimes’ (and here he whispered into Patard’s ear) ‘there’s nothing in the house to eat.... Ah, Mr Secretary, you’re an old bachelor, but you’re not a collector. To have the soul of a collector in the body of an old bachelor is terrible. But despite Babette I shall get the hand-organ... perhaps the very organ they used at the Fualdes murder... who knows?’
With the back of his hand he wiped the perspiration from his brow.
‘It’s getting very late,’ he said, and taking every precaution, led the secretary from the little secret den to the large library adjoining. As he closed the precious door behind him, he said again:
‘Yes, very late! But why did you come at such a late hour, Mr Secretary?’
‘There’s a rumour that you refused to take the d’Abbeville seat. The evening papers came out with that story.’
‘Nonsense!’ he insisted in a solemn voice. ‘Stupid! I’m going to write a triple eulogy in praise of all three men - d’Abbeville, Mortimar and d’Aulnay.’
‘Then tomorrow I shall send a statement to the newspapers,’ said Patard. ‘But tell me, my dear colleague... perhaps it’s a little indiscreet on my part—’ As a matter of fact the secretary did seem rather embarrassed. He kept turning the handle of his umbrella round and round. Finally he ventured:
‘Well, since you’ve been so confidential with me, I shall risk it. First - and this is not indiscreet - did you know Jean Mortimar and Maxime d’Aulnay very well?’
Latouche did not answer at once. He went to the table, picked up the lamp and held it above Patard’s head.
‘I’m going to escort you,’ he said, ‘down as far as the street door, or if you are afraid of unpleasant experiences, I’ll go all the way home with you. In spite of its dismal appearance, the neighbourhood is very quiet.’
‘No, certainly not, my dear colleague. Don’t trouble to do that.’
‘As you like,’ answered Latouche without insisting. ‘I’ll light you down the stairs.’
By the time they were on the landing the new member of the Academy stopped to answer Patard’s question.
‘Yes, indeed, I knew them very well. We were old friends, companions, and when we learned that all three of us were candidates for Monsieur d’Abbeville’s chair, we decided not to confuse the situation. We used to get together sometimes to discuss the affair, sometimes at one house, sometimes at another. We were rather amused than otherwise by the threats Eliphas made after Mortimar’s election.’
‘That was the conversation that frightened Babette... of what crime were you talking when you said, “No, no, it’s not possible! That would be the worst crime in the world”?’
Latouche lighted Patard down a few steps, begging him to feel his way carefully along the stairway.
‘Well, now,’ he continued, ‘(you’ll want to laugh) I’ve already told you that although Maxime d’Aulnay made light of them, he was really worried by the threats of Eliphas, who had disappeared after he made them. That very day, Maxime d’Aulnay, while congratulating Mortimar on his election two days previously, had warned him — more or less jokingly of course — to be on his guard because the vengeful Lord Eliphas was lying in waiting. Hadn’t he said that Monsieur d’Abbeville’s chair would be fatal for the one who dared to sit in it?... For my part I thought nothing better - be careful of that step, Mr Secretary - I thought nothing was better than to go that kind of joke one better — watch out there - and I cried out — turn to the left there - Mr Secretary - and I cried out, “No, no, it’s not possible! That would be the worst crime in the world!” — well, here we are!’
The two men were standing at the outside door. Latouche drew the heavy iron bolt, noisily turned an enormous key, opened the door, and looked out on the square.
‘All quiet,’ he said, ‘every one’s asleep. Would you like me to go with you, Mr Secretary?’
‘No, no indeed. I’m stupid. I’m a poor, stupid man. Ah, my dear colleague, allow me to shake your hand for the last time.’
‘What do you mean by the last time? Do you think I’m going to die, too? I don’t. I haven’t a weak heart!’
‘No. I’m just silly. We must hope that less serious times are ahead of us and that some day we’ll be able to laugh at all this. Good-bye, my dear new colleague.... Goodbye... and once more, all my best wishes!’ With a brave and reassured spirit, Patard, umbrella in hand, was striding off into the night when Latouche called him.
‘Listen,’ he whispered, touching his lips with his finger. ‘One more word. Don’t forget that all those are my little secrets.’
‘You don’t know me, my dear Latouche. It’s understood that I haven’t seen you tonight.’
Chapter 5. Death Strikes Again
THE GREAT DAY arrived. It had been set by the Academy for two weeks after the burial of Maxime d’Aulnay, for the Immortals wanted to put an end to the regrettable incidents as quickly as possible; to hush up all the absurd rumours that the disciples of Eliphas de la Nox, the friends of the beautiful Madame de Bithynia and all the members of the Pneumatic Club (from pneuma, meaning the soul) had never ceased circulating. As to Lord Eliphas himself, he seemed to have vanished from the face of the earth. All efforts to find him had come to naught. The cleverest reporters turned loose on his trail had come back baffled. His prolonged absence had become the principal reason for anxiety; evidently His Highness was hiding. And why was he hiding?
On the other hand, it must be admitted that the sane-minded, after the excitement of the first, or rather the second, moment had subsided, had regained their equilibrium.
Thus the most self-possessed of men, following his exciting and secret interview with Martin Latouche, was Hippolyte Patard. He had even regained his pink complexion.
But, when the great day of Latouche’s reception arrived, every one’s curiosity was aroused. Excitement ran high in all classes - the great and humble, the wise and foolish.
The crowd rushed to get into the little open space under the cupola of the Academy. After this was filled up, the onlookers packed into the adjacent streets, blocking all traffic.
Inside the building, in the great public hall, nobody was seated; men and women were crushing each other. As the minutes wore on - the minutes preceding the opening of the session - the silence became more and more oppressive.
It was noted that the beautiful Madame de Bithynia had not appeared. Her absence was construed as a dire omen; certainly if anything should happen, she had acted wisely not to show herself, for she would have been torn limb from limb by a crowd already pitched to the verge of a mad fury.
In the seat that lady had occupied at the preceding session sat a correct gentleman, whose bourgeois stomach was adorned with a handsome, heavy gold chain. He was standing up. His face was not that of a genius, but it was very far from being unintelligent. He was wearing gold-rimmed eyeglasses. Monsieur Gaspard Lalouette (it was he) was not nearsighted, but he was pleased to make the world believe that his eyesight had been impaired by much reading, like most great literary men.
He was just as excited as the crowd clamouring around him, and a little nervous twitch made him keep raising his eyebrows — a very amusing effect. He looked at the spot where Martin Latouche was going to deliver his speech of acceptance.
One minute! One minute more! The president was about to open the meeting... if... if Martin Latouche arrived. His sponsors, disconsolate, were awaiting him... standing at
the door, anxious, hopeless, looking this way and that.
Could he have backed out at the last moment? Could he have been afraid?
This is what Hippolyte Patard kept asking himself, and the thought brought the lemon colour to his face.
Suddenly he stood up straight, an ear turned in the direction of a faraway noise... a noise coming nearer... faster and faster — a burst of enthusiasm, no doubt, announcing the arrival of Martin Latouche.
The tumult of cries, shouts and rumblings of the crowd increased in menacing proportions. It was far from being reassuring, but it was impossible to make out what they were shrieking outside.
Then the entire hall, which up to that moment had been breathing the very same emotion as Patard, suddenly in the winking of an eyelash stopped breathing at all.
The tempest seemed to shake the building. The throng battered the walls, pounded on the doors... soldiers, guards, withdrew into the hall. A kind of peculiar groaning began to make itself heard even amid such a tumult. It was like a melancholy bellowing.
Patard felt his hair stand up on his head, as a kind of human animal, a hideous bundle rolled in, its skirt in shreds, its bodice torn away, the whole topped by gorgon’s hair which angry fists were tearing, while an indistinguishable mouth shrieked:
‘Mr Secretary! Mr Secretary!... He’s dead! My master’s dead!... You’ve gone and killed him!’
Yes, Martin Latouche was dead! Dead just like the others!
No words can describe the confusion that ensued.
So Martin Latouche was dead! Dead like the others! Not, though, while he was making his speech of acceptance under the dome, but just at the very moment when he was to leave for the Academy to read it - when, like the other two he was about to sit in Monsieur d’Abbeville’s chair.
The tragic news shrieked through every corner of Paris.
The next day’s papers carried little else. After recalling to their readers the circumstances of the first two deaths, they hinted that this latest one was nothing short of criminal; they called upon the prosecutor to apprehend the murderer.
Quite naturally the first person to be questioned was the old servant Babette. On that fatal day they had carried her home in an unconscious state. In a very perturbed state, Hippolyte Patard had been escorted to his dwelling by several of his devoted friends. Here follows, in Babette’s own words, the story of the extraordinary death of her master:
‘For some time, my master went around thinking only of that speech he had to make and I kept hearing him talk of their d’Abbevilles, and their Mortimars, and their d’Aulnay’s as though they were little tin gods.
I even saw him posing, making gestures before the long mirror, just the way actors do. To see a man of his age behaving like this made me feel sorry for him, and I would have laughed him out of it, only I was scared off by the threats of that wizard they wouldn’t have in their accursed Academy. He’d already made way with two men and I was afraid he’d kill my master. When I whispered this into the ear of Mr Secretary he wouldn’t listen, for it seems that by hook or by crook, he had to have one more man for his Academy. So whenever I’d hear my master start that speech of his, I’d implore him on bended knees to send his resignation to the secretary. I had warnings. Every day I’d meet an old organ-grinder; that’s a sure sign of bad luck in my part of the world, in Rodez, ever since the Fualdes scandal; and I told this to Monsieur Latouche, but I might as well have spared my breath.
‘Even so, I was going to stand by him to the bitter end. So, the day of the speech, I got all dressed up, I left the kitchen door open, and I decided that I’d follow after him wherever he went — to that miserable Academy, to the end of the world - anywhere. There I stood waiting, but he didn’t come. Still I waited - where was he? Just when I was most alarmed, what did I hear but that terrible tune again, the tune that had killed Monsieur Fualdes! Cold shivers ran up and down my spine! That old organ-grinder was certainly somewhere near. The hour of death was striking! I opened the windows, looked up and down the street.... Nobody.... I ran out of the kitchen, searched the court; not a sign anywhere. And still always the tune ringing in my ears.... Nobody on the stairs; on the first floor; and the more I searched the more I heard it.... I opened the library door; you could have sworn the tune was being played right there behind the books.... My master wasn’t there... Perhaps he was in his little private den?... I listened.... The murder tune came from the master’s little den!... My heart was thumping, as I put my ear to the door to listen.... I called, “Master, Master.”
‘No answer. The tune kept on playing... playing behind the door.... What sad notes, those — enough to make your heart stop beating and bring tears to the eyes of all the murderers since the world began....
‘To steady myself, I leaned against the door.... Suddenly it opened.... At that very second, the terrible tune seemed to scrape out of the hand-organ... to scratch across your very ears and heart.... I almost fell in a faint flat on the floor, but I straightened up as stiff as a poker when I saw my master there bent over the hand-organ.... I recognized it... that was the music-box that had been playing the murder tune!... but no grinder to be seen... it was my master’s hand that was clutching the handle.... I ran to him... the hand dropped... he fell full-length on the floor... my poor master was dead, killed by the murder tune!’
Babette’s testimony made a strange impression, and public opinion was by no means satisfied by the more natural explanation developed at the inquest. It was officially declared that old Martin Latouche had gone crazy over his hobby of collecting musical instruments; that he would even go without food to save a few pennies to spend adding to his collection. This evidence, it was maintained, explained how the hand-organ had come into his possession, in spite of the watchful Babette; and, just as he was trying to turn the handle, he fell to the floor, weak from lack of food.
But everybody declared that this explanation was much too simple to be believed. The newspapers demanded that the police get busy and find the organ-grinder.
However, he was as elusive as Eliphas himself. The result was just what was to be expected - the reporters swore that Eliphas and the organ-grinder were one and the same person - the real murderer under two different names.
As a last resort the public demanded autopsies and in spite of official influence brought to bear against such action, the bodies of Jean Mortimar and Maxime d’Aulnay were exhumed.
The physicians found not the slightest evidence of poisoning. Mortimar’s body was perfectly normal but they did find on d’Aulnay’s face a few spots, which at any other time would have been attributed to normal decomposition.
They looked like very faint star-shaped burns. On examining d’Aulnay’s face closely, two of the doctors stated (the third doctor couldn’t see anything at all!) that they noted a burnished tint on it.
These doctors also examined Latouche’s body, and all they found was evidence of a slight nose-bleed. As a matter of fact that haemorrhage must have been caused when the body fell to the floor; but the public was so aroused that it attached a mysterious importance to meaningless little blood spots, and a detailed and perfectly plausible murder theory resulted.
Hand-writing experts examined the two threatening letters sent to the first two candidates just as they were being received into the Academy. These experts swore that the letters were not in the hand-writing of Eliphas de la Nox, with examples of which they had been provided. But there are always those who declare that hand-writing experts are far from infallible.
Finally there was the question of the hand-organ. An antiquarian, dealing from time to time in rare instruments and claiming to be an authority, asked to be allowed to examine the instrument.
The court granted him permission, hoping to quiet those who imagined that that old box, wheezing out its tune while Martin Latouche was drawing his last breath, couldn’t be any ordinary hand-organ; and that a man like Eliphas had perhaps concealed himself in the instrument, or better still, had hidden the
means of committing his crime. The antiquarian thoroughly examined the organ and even played what Babette always spoke of as the murder tune.
‘Is that an organ like any ordinary one?’ the official asked the antiquarian.
‘No,’ he answered, ‘it’s not like any other. It’s one of the rarest and oldest that has been brought to us from Italy.’
‘Have you found anything mysterious about it?’
‘Nothing whatsoever.’
‘Do you think that hand-organ is in any way connected with the crime?’
‘I couldn’t say about that,’ answered the antiquarian, ambiguously. ‘I wasn’t there when it began to grind out the murder music.’
‘So, then, you think a crime was committed, do you?’
‘Oiy, oiy.’
In vain they tried to draw from him what he meant by his ‘Oiy, oiy.’ All he would say was ‘Oiy, oiy.’
Thus that expert antiquarian ended by unsettling their minds all the more.
This man was also an art merchant; he lived in the Rue Laffitte; his name, Gaspard Lalouette.
A few days later, at a quarter past three in the afternoon, a man of about 45, wearing a heavy gold chain across his pleasantly curved stomach, got out of a second-class compartment at the Varenne-St Hilaire station.
He turned up his overcoat collar as protection against the chill wind. He walked along the main street until he came to the river Marne, crossed the bridge leading to Chennevières and went along the right-hand bank.
He followed it for a quarter of an hour; then he looked about him. He was leaving behind him the last cottages, vacant since summertime, and he was in a section quite flat and deserted. A wide blanket of fresh snow spread out at his feet. With his broad overcoat flapping in the wind as he walked, he looked like a huge black bird.
Collected Works of Gaston Leroux Page 497