Far off he saw some trees and through them the sharp roof of a house. He muttered something ill-natured about any one being so pig-headed as to want to stay in such a place in the middle of winter. He plodded on. A deep, white silence enveloped him.
It was about four o’clock when he reached the grove of trees protecting an estate surrounded by high walls. A heavy wrought-iron gateway barred strangers.
Not another habitation was to be seen, as far as the eye could reach.
At the iron gateway the man pulled the bell. Immediately two huge Great Dane dogs rushed upon him, foaming at the mouth and growling.
A horrible, guttural voice thundered:
‘Ajax, Achilles, you brutes, back to your kennel.’
And a giant appeared.
Such a giant as he was, too! A thing of monstrous proportions, between six and seven feet tall when he stood erect. Just now he stooped somewhat, his heavy shoulders bent forward. His head was round, with short bushy hair. A long beard covered his face and gave him the fierce look of Attila, the Hun. His jowl was as terrifying as that of the two watch-dogs growling at the iron bars. With powerful hands he clutched the beasts by their necks, and with an effortless movement tossed them behind him.
The visitor trembled ever so slightly - a mere shiver across his shoulders - and murmured between his teeth, ‘I had been warned to beware of the dogs, but no one told me anything about the giant.’
The monster pressed his brute face against the wrought iron.
‘Whoizzit?’
The visitor took up his position at a respectful distance, and then answered, ‘I would like to speak to Monsieur Lonstalot.’
‘Whattabout?’
‘Tell him that it has to do with the affairs of the French Academy and that I’m in somewhat of a hurry.’
He took a card from his pocket and offered it to the giant. Grumbling and muttering the man went off in the direction of a flight of steps leading to the main part of the house. At once Ajax and Achilles came back and growled menacingly through the iron grating; they did not bark this time; they glared at him ravenously, wild to break through the barrier that separated them from a good meal.
The visitor looked at his watch.
‘It isn’t late,’ he said. ‘So much the better, if I must wait two or three hours before he will receive me.... He’ll not allow any one to disturb him if he’s in the middle of his experiments... and he’s apt to forget there’s a visitor.... All is pardoned the great Lonstalot.’
Having made up his mind to yield to the inevitable, imagine his surprise when he looked up and saw coming toward him, not the giant, but the great Lonstalot himself!
We know already that outside his work he was indifferent and preoccupied; mingling with men, he was as intangible and aloof as a shadow, utterly unaware of passing events. Every one knew him for this kind of man. Imagine then the visitor’s surprise when he saw the famous little scientist hurrying as fast as his little legs would allow toward the iron gateway and asking, ‘Is it you, Gaspard Lalouette?’
‘It is, my master, at your service, answered Lalouette, making a low sweeping bow with his soft felt hat (the expert in antiques and works of art used to mark such great occasions by wearing a full, velvet-collared cape and a broad-brimmed felt hat. He aimed to look as much as he possibly could like the well-known romantic poets — Byron, for example, or Alfred de Vigny or the young Chatterton. For above everything else he worshipped letters — and we must not forget that he was also an officer of the French Academy).
Chapter 6. A Scream in the Night
THERE APPEARED AT the gate the pink smiling face of the famous Lonstalot. He was about the same height as the Great Danes, and he presented a strange picture as he walked forward between their terrifying jaws.
‘So you were the one who examined the hand-organ?’ As he asked the question, those two little eyes whose expression was usually so dreamy, so far away, suddenly became lively, piercing, bright.
‘Yes, my master, I did,’ Lalouette answered, with another wide sweep of his felt hat in the icy air.
‘Good, come in. It’s too cold outside,’ and Lonstalot drew the bolt which locked the gate.
‘Come in,’ was easy to say, if you happened to be friend of Ajax and Achilles. The moment the gate was opened the two dogs leaped and Lalouette thought his last hour had come. At a signal from Lonstalot they stopped abruptly.
‘Don’t be afraid of my dogs,’ he said; ‘they’re as gentle as lambs.’
Summoning all his courage, Lalouette went in. Lonstalot closed the iron gate after them, and led the way. The two dogs followed and Lalouette didn’t risk looking back. They all went up the steps and into the house.
The house was impressive - a handsome, wide-spreading country estate, solidly built of brick and granite. In the garden and court there were many small buildings - laboratories where Lonstalot worked out those experiments in chemistry, physics and medicine which were to be so beneficial to mankind. Because of his suspicious nature he never would allow any one to work with him - he had to work quite alone. So the year round, here he lived in the big house with only one servant — the giant Tobie.
‘I’ll show you to the drawing-room,’ said Lonstalot. ‘We can talk better up there.’
Lalouette followed him upstairs, and back of Lalouette, the two dogs. They continued on up to the second floor, where under the roof was Lonstalot’s big drawing-room. He pushed open the door. It was unfurnished, except for a table and one or two wicker chairs, and there were no pictures on the walls. The two men went in, followed by the two dogs.
‘It’s pretty high up,’ said Lonstalot, ‘but when I make my visitors wait in the attic they can’t disturb me while I’m working down in the cellar. Sit down, my dear Lalouette. I’ve not the least idea why you’ve come here, but I’ll do anything I can for you. I learned by the papers, which I read from time to time—’
‘I don’t, my dear master. I never read them, but my wife reads them for me. In that way, I don’t lose any time.’
He said no more. For while he was speaking, suddenly Lonstalot’s entire expression changed. His small body stiffened up on his chair as though he had become a wax figure, and his eyes, up to this moment so sparkling and lively, fixed themselves on space, as though he were trying desperately hard to catch some distant sound.
The two dogs opened their enormous jaws and let forth a long, slow, melancholy yowl, as though announcing a death.
Surprised, then frightened, Lalouette, usually well self-controlled, rose. Motionless on his chair, Lonstalot kept listening as though for some sound coming from a great distance. Finally he seemed to come back from another world, and with the staccato movements of a jumping-jack he pounced upon the dogs and pounded them so hard with his fists that they quieted down.
Turning to Lalouette, he ordered him to sit down, too.
‘Now then,’ he said in a rough, most unpleasant voice, ‘hurry up. I’ve no time to waste. Speak - that business at the Academy is most unfortunate... those three deaths... but there’s nothing I can do about it.... It’s to be hoped that it’ll not go any further. Otherwise, as my good friend Patard says, where would we be, where would we be?... What have you to say, Monsieur Lalouette?... You examined the hand-organ?... And you said - I read it in the papers — you said “Oiy, oiy.”... Tell me, what do you really think?’
In a voice all at once gentle, almost child-like, he added, ‘Funny thing, the story of that murder tune!’
‘Isn’t it?’ Lalouette answered, forgetting for the moment the two dogs that sat staring at him. ‘It’s concerning that matter that I’ve come to see you... that, and the secret of Toth... since you say you read the papers.’
‘Oh, I skim through them, since I’ve no Madame Lalouette to read them to me. I’ve no more time to read them, believe me, than you have, and I’ve no idea what you mean by your secret of Toth.’
‘Oh, its not my secret. If it were I would be omniscient. But I can tell
you something about it.’
‘Let’s not get away from the point. Is there any connection between the murder tune and the secret of Toth? What’s your idea in coming here to see me?’
‘To ask you, as a great scientist, if a human being who knew the secret of Toth, could kill another by means unknown to other men. Could Martin Latouche have been murdered? Could Maxime d’Aulnay have been murdered? Or Jean Mortimar, could he have been murdered?’
Lalouette had scarcely finished these impressive questions when Ajax and Achilles again opened wide their massive jaws and let forth a roar more ghastly even than the one before. Lonstalot went pale; again his eyes stared into space as though trying to catch some distant sound.
This time he didn’t try to quiet the watch-dogs, and as they howled Lalouette thought he heard another shriek, more terrifying, more horrible - a shriek that sounded as if it came from a human being.
Lonstalot’s eyes again glittered; he coughed a dry little cough and said, ‘Certainly not, they were not murdered... that’s not possible.’
‘No, it isn’t, is it? It’s not possible!’ Lalouette exclaimed, ‘and there isn’t anything in that secret of Toth.’
Lonstalot scratched the tip of his nose and said, ‘A-hem... a-hem.’
Again that vague, far-away look reappeared in his eyes. Lalouette kept on talking but it was evident that Lonstalot heard nothing... even seemed to have forgotten that Lalouette was there. Indeed, so completely had he forgotten that he got up and quietly withdrew, without excusing himself or saying the least word of good-bye to his guest. He shut the door after him, and Lalouette found himself alone with the two huge dogs.
He started toward the door, but the dogs quietly took up their position in front of him. Nervously, he began to call Lonstalot by name. But not for long, for his shouts angered the dogs and they showed their teeth. He stepped back; he opened the window in the hope of hailing the giant. But he saw no one... nothing but an expanse of snow, a great white silence... and darkness rapidly closing in around him.
Consumed with a thousand fears and dripping with perspiration, he turned away from the window. The dogs being quiet again, he thought to make friends with them by patting them. They only snarled ferociously.
Suddenly a terrible human wail resounded through space, and again Lalouette shivered to the marrow of his bones. He ran to the window; he looked across the white desert which had vibrated with that frantic cry, but all he could hear was the horrible, redoubled howls of the dogs. Limp, he sank onto a chair, and covered his ears with his hands. He heard nothing more; and so that he would not see the gaping jaws of the mastiffs, he shut his eyes tight.
The door-knob rattled; some one was coming in. He opened his eyes; it was Lonstalot. The dogs quieted down. Everything was quiet - nothing was ever stiller than that house.
‘Excuse me for leaving you alone for a moment,’ said Lonstalot pleasantly. ‘When I’m in the midst of an experiment... but you weren’t alone... you had Ajax and Achilles to keep you company. They’re real home dogs.’
‘My dear master,’ Lalouette answered in a changed voice, a voice calmed by Lonstalot’s more agreeable manner, ‘I’ve just heard a terrible shriek.’
‘Not possible! Here?’ answered Lonstalot, surprised.
‘Here.’
‘But there’s not a soul here but my old Tobie and me, and I’ve just left him.’
‘Then it must have come from somewhere around here!’
‘Probably... some poacher down by the river... some quarrel with the watchman.... But you, you are all a-tremble... pull yourself together... it’s nothing serious... I’ll close the window.... There now, we’re by ourselves and we can talk sensibly.... Wasn’t it a little foolish on your part to come here to ask me what I thought of the secret of Toth, and the murder tune? That Academy affair is bad enough of itself without all this silly talk about their Eliphas and their Taillebourg, and I don’t know what all, according to good old Patard. It seems he’s sick, poor Patard.’
‘Sir, it was Raymond de la Beyssière who advised me to come to see you.’
‘Raymond de la Beyssière — the idiot! A friend of the Princess Bithynia... a member of that Pneumatic Club... he makes tables turn... and they call him a scientist! He should know all about this secret of Toth... what did he send you here for?’
‘Well, it was like this: I went to see him because for several days now every one had been talking about the secret of Toth. I must explain to you that Eliphas, whom every one began by making fun of, now seems to have frightened every one. His laboratories in the Rue Hachette have been searched and there, in mysterious terms, they found formulae which are not as innocent as one might think. It appears that he combines something of physics and something of chemistry, and makes living people pass to a land of death.’
‘In that case,’ laughed Lonstalot, ‘he’s got a formula for making cannon powder!’
‘Yes, but that’s a well-known formula, whereas there is a formula, it seems, which every one doesn’t know, and which is the most dangerous of all... that’s the one called the secret of Toth. They say that the mysterious formula is written on all the walls of the laboratory in the Rue Hachette. Lawyers, forced by public opinion, newspaper men and I myself asked Raymond de la Beyssière, our most brilliant Egyptologist, what it was, this secret of Toth. He answered, “This is the secret of Toth: If I will it, you shall die by the nose, the eyes, the mouth and the ears, for I am master of the air, of light and of sound.’”
‘Wonderful type, that old Toth,’ said Lonstalot, shaking his head half seriously, half jokingly.
‘If one can believe in de la Beyssière, one must admit that this Eliphas was the inventor of magic. He was the Greek Hermes and a great person. His formula has been found written in Sakkarah on the walls of the crypts of the pyramids of the Kings of the 5th and the 6th Dynasties — and that impressive formula was surrounded by other formulae which warded off snake-bites, the stings of scorpions and all animals with hypnotic power.’
‘My dear Lalouette,’ said Lonstalot, ‘you talk like a book. It’s a joy to listen to you.’
‘I’m blessed, my dear master, with an excellent memory, but I’m not vain of it. I am appealing to you humbly to find out what you think of the secret of Toth. Raymond de la Beyssière does not hide the fact that the letter of the famous secret, inscribed on the tomb, was followed by mystic signs like our algebraic and chemistry signs over which generations of Egyptologists have pored. And he said that these signs, which give the power of which Toth speaks, have been deciphered by Eliphas de la Nox. The latter swears to it and when his private papers were being searched in the Rue Hachette there was found a manuscript entitled, “From the forces of the Past to those of the Future,” which would tend to make one think that Eliphas had really penetrated the thought of that time. You know, of course, that the earliest Egyptian priests had already discovered electricity?’
‘You’re a ninny, Lalouette,’ said Lonstalot. ‘But go on; you amuse me.’
Lalouette was speechless but after a moment went on.
‘This Monsieur Raymond de la Beyssière is very sure of his ground.’ And then he added, ‘They may also have known of the immeasurable forces of dematerialized matter, which we have only just discovered and perhaps, even, they had measured these very powers - which would have opened great possibilities to them.’
Lonstalot scratched the tip of his nose, and let out this undignified observation:
‘You said it!’
Lalouette didn’t even change expression; he merely said, ‘Of course, this must seem absurd to you.’
‘Right you are, my boy.’
Lalouette smiled pleasantly.
‘Your cynical tone doesn’t annoy me. I have come round to being just as impressed as everybody else. Do you know what happened? The moment people heard the text of the secret of Toth, “You shall die, if I wish it, by the nose, the eyes, the ears, and the mouth, for I am the ruler of air, light and
sound” — at that very moment there were some people who said they could explain the whole thing.’
‘Indeed?’
‘When Eliphas, for instance, said he was the ruler of sound, immediately they recalled Babette’s story of the murder tune. And they said that Eliphas or the organ-grinder had put something into the mechanism of the organ, a powder which kills as it sings, one which was possibly enclosed in the box which was later taken from the organ. That’s why I asked to examine the organ.’
‘So then, Monsieur Lalouette, you find this incident interesting?’ the scientist asked in a savage voice which completely disconcerted poor Lalouette.
‘Not any more than any one else,’ he answered, embarrassed. ‘But... you see, I too sell hand-organs... antiques... so I wanted to see—’
‘And what did you find out?’
‘Listen, master.... I didn’t see anything in this organ... but I found in one side of it... a thing like this.’
He drew from his vest pocket a long, narrow tube, shaped like a cone, looking a little like the mouthpiece of a wind instrument.
Lonstalot took it, looked it over and gave it back.
‘It’s some sort of mouthpiece for a trombone.’
‘I think so, too. But that mouthpiece fitted marvellously over a hole in the hand-organ and I never knew an organ to have a mouthpiece like that... you will excuse me, won’t you? But, haunted by the silly stories I had heard, I said to myself, “That mouthpiece was perhaps put there with the intention of directing, in a certain way, the sound that kills.’”
‘Yes? Well, you’re just as silly as all the others... and what are you going to do with the mouthpiece?’
‘Nothing at all,’ answered Lalouette as he mopped his brow, ‘nothing at all, and I’ll have nothing more to do with that organ if a man like you, for instance, tells me that the secret of Toth—’
‘Is the secret of fools... goodbye, Monsieur Lalouette... goodbye.... Ajax, Achilles, let the gentleman pass.’
But now that Lalouette was free to leave, he didn’t want to.
Collected Works of Gaston Leroux Page 498