THE CRIME ON CHRISTMAS NIGHT
Translated by Mildred Gleason Prochet and Morris Bentinck, 1930
FIVE OLD SKIPPERS smelling of the sea used to foregather every evening at one of the round tables in front of the old Ship and Anchor Café in Toulon to enjoy their aperitifs and at the same time to tell each other stories of blood and horror. From time to time they were joined by a sixth who seemed to be more of an old sea-dog even than Zinzin, he who had spent twenty years coasting up and down the China Seas; than Dorat, the ex-commander of the Dorat expeditions; than Bagatelle, who, in memory of a blissful sojourn on the Island of Siam, had taken a Siamese woman unto wife; then that blackguard Chaulieu, who had carried the benefits of civilisation to the aborigines of Western Africa, settled between the Congo and the Niger; than Captain Michel, who knew about cannibalism and some mariners who had passed several weeks on a raft of the Medusa, from which the shipwrecked had escaped with their lives, even though some were minus an arm, others a leg, and all more or less crippled.
This sixth ‘mariner’, Mr Damour (John-Joseph-Philibert), had gained his entire nautical experience seated at his desk in the offices of the Oriental Transportation Company, and he used to refer in an offhand way to the far-flung Pacific ports of call as we lesser men might speak, say, of some pleasant little fishing cove along the Seine.
To tell the truth, he had never set foot on the deck of a ship, nor had he even been outside Paris except on the day when he retired. But his face was so weather-beaten, his skin so tough, his beard so rebellious, his clay pipe so stubby and so ‘seasoned’, his walk so typically the sailor’s sway, that you had only to glance at him and you would exclaim, ‘There’s one who’s weathered many a gale.’
He whetted the curiosity of the old salts and they made him welcome when on one unusually crowded day at the café he lifted his Basque beret and asked if he might have a seat at their table. He came again from time to time and it took them some months to grasp the idea that John-Joseph (this was what they called Mr Damour), who from the beginning made himself known to them as captain, had really never been on any voyage anywhere.
The old fellow used to give such precise details concerning the most distant parts of the globe, setting every one straight who erred on any point; he was so glib with facts about the history of liners from their christening day to the day of their sometimes very dramatic end, that for a long time the skippers kept their doubts to themselves. But on the day when the truth did come out there was the devil to pay! It was their turn now, and it goes without saying that they gave it to him hammer and tongs for the deception. And yet there was one thing they could not figure out at all, and that was how, after thirty years spent behind a desk in a sunless steamship office, scribbling figures in piles of paper, a man could still have a face like ‘Captain’ John-Joseph. ‘It must be he makes himself up for the part,’ declared Captain Michel. And Zinzin re-echoed, ‘Yeah, he trims up like that over at the “Black Lion”.’
Quite a time passed and he didn’t come around. Finally he showed up with a young man of about twenty who really did sail the seas and no mistaking it. But he didn’t think it was anything to boast about; he was as pale as a girl, and he admitted quite frankly that he’d never yet made a trip without being seasick. ‘He’s my adopted son, young Vincent Vincent, a real sailor,’ John-Joseph told his friends, proudly.
Every time Vincent Vincent’s ship docked at Toulon, John-Joseph was so happy about it that it wasn’t unusual to see him come into the cafe rolling and pitching more than ever; three sheets in the wind, no less! He had probably drunk as much liquor as any three dozen hearty sailors could hold.
‘For the love o’ God,’ said that devil of a Chaulieu, ‘where’ve you been, John-Joseph, to get such a load on?’
‘Just come from seeing the boy off from Marseilles,’ answered John-Joseph in a very sentimental tone, as he began to blubber.
‘Well, if you feel so bad about it and it’s no fun for the boy,’ suggested Captain Michel, ‘there are plenty of other jobs he could take.’
‘No, he couldn’t,’ replied John-Joseph emphatically, as he gulped down another glassful.
Not one of the company contradicted him; they all agreed with him on that point at least.
‘And then,’ he added, ‘I don’t want to have the day come when they’ll take it out on him, poor lad, as they tried to do out of his adopted father.’ At this point he began to cry, and he sobbed as can only very drunken men when great sorrows overwhelm them.
‘Come on, now, tell us the truth,’ asked Bagatelle, his sexual imagination always alert; ‘are you really that boy’s father?’
‘No,’ John-Joseph answered bluntly, tears streaming down his cheeks. ‘No, I’m not his father... His father was murdered!’
‘The poor boy,’ said Zinzin, just to say something.
‘Yes, the poor boy... because I was just going to tell you, his mother...’
‘What’s that? His mother?’ Bagatelle pricked up his ears.
‘Well, his mother, she was murdered too!’
‘Oh, for the love o’ God!’ exclaimed Bagatelle.
‘That,’ said Zinzin, ‘that’s a horrible story.’
‘More horrible than any I’ve heard you fellows tell,’ stuttered John-Joseph between his hiccups.
‘Well, you’ve got to show us,’ said Captain Dorat; ‘for, after all, one of the reasons we come here every day is to listen to tales of horror.’
‘It isn’t more terrible than what happened to Captain Michel,’ declared Zinzin.
‘I say it is - only you mustn’t tell it to anyone. It’s a secret,’ puffed out John-Joseph, trying to swallow a second hiccup.
‘Stop your sniffling,’ commanded Michel, ‘and tell us all about it. You’ll feel better when it’s out of your system.’
‘Not to mention that that happens every day,’ said Chaulieu rather scornfully, ‘to have your father and mother murdered - I don’t see anything very terrible about that. Who murdered them?’
John-Joseph wiped his eyes with his big red bandanna handkerchief and hiccupped: ‘Wasn’t any murderers.’
‘How can that be? They were murdered but nobody murdered them?’
‘That’s just what’s so terrible,’ sighed John-Joseph. ‘The poor wretches were found stabbed with a kitchen knife — a real butchery. The old man’s blood was dripping all over the carpet and the knife was still sticking in the old woman’s heart.’
‘So they’d been fighting?’
‘Fighting!’ flared up John-Joseph, looking round at the company. ‘Those two good people? Easy to see you never knew them. They were the kind of married folks who never spoke a cross word to each other in their lives, and they weren’t going to begin on that day, I’ll have you know. I’m the only one that can give my word of honour to that too. No, they were murdered after there’d been a robbery.’
‘Now then, why did you first say there weren’t any murderers when it was the thieves that murdered them?’
‘Wasn’t any thieves,’ John-Joseph cut off short.
‘Good God,’ said Chaulieu.
‘Oh, let him go to hell,’ grunted Dorat.
‘Give him a chance to tell his own story,’ ordered Captain Michel.
‘I’ve got no more to say,’ declared John-Joseph.
This time all five burst into shouts of laughter. Seeing which, John-Joseph became raging angry. Now he really wanted to tell his story and as the others kept making fun of him he thumped so hard on the table that he scattered the stacked-up saucers right and left and bellowed, ‘I swear that in a few minutes you won’t be making fun.’
‘All right, then, come on now, we’re all listening.’
John-Joseph began: ‘At that time, my home port was Germain-Pilon Street—’
‘Paris-on-the-sea,’ teased Chaulieu.
‘Damn it all, I’ll not say another word until that big pig gets to hell out of here.’
‘Don’t worry, John-J
oseph, you couldn’t hire me to stay,’ answered Chaulieu. ‘I’m going to take a turn about,’ and he rose. ‘“The horrible murder in Germain-Pilon Street’”... very little of that goes a long way with me. I’d rather spend my time looking at the pretty women on the screen over at the Palace.’
When he had gone, John-Joseph went on:
‘I don’t know if any of you fellows know Germain-Pilon Street. It climbs from the avenue up to the top of Montmartre. It’s a lonely neighbourhood - not always many people about. But the street is respectable enough. There’s where I came to know the Vincent family. They were what you call “comfortably off” and their friends were even rather surprised to see them keep on living in a section thought rather dangerous; but they said that in the fifteen years they had lived there nothing had ever happened to them and they’d rather live in a little house with a back yard and a garden all to themselves than in a big apartment house where you had to knock against all the other tenants every time you turned around.
‘I was their neighbour, and although they weren’t very sociable, we got acquainted through the little baby. He was a sweetheart of a child and I spoiled him every time I could... I’ve always adored children... One Christmas night—’
‘Hell, one of those Christmas stories!’ groaned Zinzin. ‘Well, see you later, boys.’
And he went out to join Chaulieu.
‘Got anything about a woman in your Christmas story?’ Bagatelle asked.
‘Yes.’
‘Good - go on then.’
‘One Christmas night, Madame Vincent, in her felt slippers, came downstairs to the dining-room where her husband sat toasting his feet at the fireplace waiting for her.
“‘Is the baby sleeping?” Monsieur Vincent asked.
“‘Like an angel,” answered the good woman.
‘They adored that child born after they had been married many years. His arrival so late in their lives filled them with an almost supernatural joy. Madame Vincent was forty-five when this happiness came to her, and her husband fifty-five. One sees miracles like that every once in a while.
‘Theirs was a perfect marriage; up to this time they had lived just for each other. From now on they lived only for that little child. They baptized him Vincent, and as their family name was also Vincent, the neighbours used to say when they saw the baby go by in his mother’s arms:
‘“There he is, the darling; there’s little Vincent Vincent and his mama going for a turn on the avenue.’”
‘And I too,’ declared Captain Dorat, as he rose to leave.
Bagatelle tried to dissuade him.
‘Wait a minute until he gets to the part about the woman,’ he said to Dorat.
‘Ah, to hell with his story - John-Joseph’s a bore. He’s not even drunk any more now.’
‘John-Joseph, give me your word of honour that the part about the woman is worth waiting for,’ demanded Bagatelle.
‘I swear,’ John-Joseph declared, ‘that it’s impossible to find anything more horrible.’
‘And is there any love in your story?’
‘Is there? — love even unto death. But if you’re sensitive you’d better go now; for such a death - well, you don’t see them often in love stories.
‘I stay,’ Bagatelle decided. But Dorat had already left to join the other two.
The memory of little Vincent Vincent’s happy babyhood completely sobered John-Joseph. He even forgot to keep his old clay pipe alight. From now on he told his story in the style of the former model employee.
T don’t need to tell you how Papa and Mama Vincent allowed themselves to spoil their baby in a thousand loving ways — cakes, candies, toys, ice-creams, little suits of velvet and lace. They were his adoring slaves — nothing was too beautiful, nothing cost too much for little Vincent.
‘The couple had been employed in the well-known shop, “Smart Styles”, ever since that house had been established, and at the time of their baby’s coming they were earning, with their bonuses and all, on an average of 20,000 francs a year, which permitted them to lay by a nice little nest egg.
‘After Vincent’s birth, although they never thought twice about spending right and left for him, they began to deprive themselves of all the little indulgences that had up to now made their married life so sweet. They counted every penny; little by little they became even miserly. No more anniversary dinners; no more visits to the theatre; no more Sunday excursions into the country; no more pleasant evening parties, playing games with their friends. All that would be so much put away for the little angel who would find it when he needed it.
‘After he had prayed the Infant Jesus to put a beautiful present in the little shoes he had set purposely in front of the dining-room fireplace, little Vincent had fallen off to sleep on this Christmas night, knowing his parents were to wake him up later to see the lighted Christmas tree.
‘The sight of those little shoes on the hearth must have been very touching, for Mama Vincent noticed that when Papa Vincent saw them there his eyes filled with tears. She went up to him and patted him on the shoulder.
“‘Come now, Papa Vincent, you’re not going to cry on Christmas night, I hope.”
‘He got up from his chair. “I can’t help it,” he stammered. “I’ve never been able to look at those little baby shoes showing where his little toes have been, without a lump in my throat. I know it’s silly. Forgive me, my dear wife.”
“‘Do I forgive you?” and as she said it, she drew him to her bosom and kissed him with all the tenderness of a first kiss. Then when she felt herself also yielding to emotion she straightened up, wiped away a tear with the back of her hand and said:
“‘Come now, Papa Vincent, lend a hand. We’re going to trim the Christmas tree.”
‘“So we are. Let’s make it gay and beautiful for him, all pink and shining when he opens his eyes on it, the little dear.”
Bagatelle burst forth with, ‘For the love o’ God, you don’t forget anything do you? But how do you know they did all that? You weren’t there, were you?’
‘Papa Vincent told me all these little things, understand?’
‘No,’ insisted Bagatelle. T don’t understand, if it’s the night he was murdered.’
‘It’s the very night,’ and John-Joseph’s voice was getting more and more dismal.
‘Well then?’
‘Well, he told me after he’d been murdered.’
‘You’re pretty slick, you always put us in the wrong. But for God’s sake, get on to the part about the woman. Afterwards, we will see.’
‘All right; listen then,’ began John-Joseph.
‘Every year since the coming of the baby, they had set up a Christmas tree after supper in the dining-room and trimmed it with all the toys and all the little gifts they had bought. When they finished trimming, they used to go out for a walk, and drop into church for the midnight mass.
Then they would come back home, light the pink candles, go upstairs to the baby whom the maid had been watching, lift him up gently and wake him up only when they stood right in front of the tree all dressed with glittering tinsel and stars to make the child happy. They did the very same thing this year as ever.
‘That night, there was a travelling fair set up on the avenue; tents had been put up along the pavement and in empty spaces. It was a fine mild evening; winter had hardly set in, and the men and women drinking their beer in the open air in front of the cafes lingered to look at the dancers and listen to the catchy tunes of the merry-go-rounds and hurdy-gurdies.’
‘Did Papa Vincent tell you all this after he’d been murdered?’
‘Yes, everything.’
‘He must have had an awful thirst!’
‘I gave him something to drink,’ said John-Joseph, ‘and then he drew his last breath—’
‘Before he had proposed another round of drinks?’
‘No, but after he had entrusted his little son to me.’
‘But what about that woman, for God’s sake?’<
br />
‘I’m coming to her.’
Calm now, John-Joseph took up the thread of his story.
‘Madame and Monsieur Vincent went up to Place Blanche, where they met some very old friends, the Duponts, who wanted to stop for a little chat. But after the barest how-do-you-do, the Vincents left the Duponts and walked rapidly down to the Church of the Holy Trinity, where they intended to listen to the midnight mass.’
It was now Captain Michel’s turn to get up.
‘Where are you going?’ Bagatelle asked him.
‘My religious scruples,’ the captain explained good-naturedly, ‘Keep me from going to Holy Trinity for the midnight mass. You must excuse me, John-Joseph. I belong to the reformed church.’
‘Oh, you damned old infidel!’ exclaimed Bagatelle. ‘Wait at least till he gets to the part where the woman comes in.’
‘A damned old infidel,’ said the captain, mock-seriously, ‘takes no pleasure whatever in stories about women... not even good women,’ he added, and wished the company goodnight.
Bagatelle was now the only one left to listen. John-Joseph went right on. Even if his stack of saucers had been his only audience, he would have gone right along. He couldn’t stop now; his own story fascinated him. It was the first time he had ever told it and it would probably be the last. He wanted to prove to himself that he too could tell a story of horror.
‘After the Vincents left them, the Duponts swore they were ill-bred, declaring they had never been friendly and sociable since the birth of their baby.
‘Reaching the church, the Vincents went in, even though they had a whole hour to wait before the services began. They walked right straight up to the cradle and knelt upon the steps before the Infant Jesus lying there in the manger between the ox and the ass.
‘“He looks just like our baby,” whispered Papa Vincent. But his wife paid no attention to him. She was buried so deeply and so passionately in prayer that the lights and the organ and the crowd elbowing past her couldn’t make her turn her head. When the mass was over, her husband had to lay his hand gently on her shoulder to bring her back out of that pious stupor. When she turned to look at him, her face was like wax.
Collected Works of Gaston Leroux Page 514