House of Cards

by Stanley Ellin

  “What are the papers she’s attending to today?” I muttered, raptly addressing myself to the notebook, and in my mind was the French axiom which has it that he who signs his will may be signing his death warrant. “Is it her will?”

  “No, that was made out when we first came to Paris from Africa. These are the papers making my sister and brother-in-law Paul’s guardians, and with all rights to handle his inheritance as they see fit. Now listen. I can help you get away from here, but we must make a bargain.”

  “What kind of bargain?”

  “This. I’ll arrange to get back from Dijon at nine, and you must be waiting in the hallway by the door. When Edmond and I step out of the car I’ll leave the motor running so you can get away in it before anyone can stop you. There will be a valise in the car with clothing in it and a train ticket to Paris. The Paris express stops here at nine-thirty. The train is best because they’ll be watching for the car on every road.”

  “All right,” I whispered, “the train it is. But you’ll have to make it a ticket to Milan.”

  “You have no passport.”

  “Let me worry about that. Just book me for a compartment on a train to Milan.”

  “That train is half an hour earlier.”

  “Then get back here at eight-thirty. And I’ll need money.”

  “I’ll leave some in the valise.”

  “And one more thing. Where is Madame Cesira keeping Paul in Venice? What’s the address?”

  “Never mind that, you fool. Keep away from Paul and just consider your own neck.” Suddenly, Madame Matilde’s voice rose. “You must have a jacket, of course. I’ll make a note of that.”

  She plucked the notebook from my hand as the form of Edmond Vosiers loomed over us. He stood there, hands in pockets, looking down at us with suspicion.

  “You’re taking long enough at this,” he said to his wife at last.

  “Am I?” said Madame Matilde frigidly. “But if you’re bored by watching this activity, monsieur, you can surely find better entertainment elsewhere.”

  Vosiers teetered back and forth on his toes, studying his wife’s pale and angry face with satisfaction.

  “Yes,” he said, “I think I can. Much better entertainment,” and then swaggered off to rejoin de Laennac on the window-seat.

  Madame Matilde sat staring after him. The pencil she was holding snapped with a sudden sharp report and she flung it into the fireplace.

  “Ah, the dog,” she whispered. “He’s laughing at me. Do you see how he’s laughing at me?”

  “Never mind him,” I said. “What about the bargain? What’s my end of it?”

  “To kill him,” Madame Matilde said. “No, don’t look like that or he’ll know something is wrong. That’s better. Here, let me see inside your shirt collar for the size.”

  Her fingers inside the collar were icy cold and trembling uncontrollably. Her mouth was close to my ear.

  “There’s a gun under the seat of this couch. Get hold of it during the day. When you go to the car you must use it on him. Swear you will.”

  “Madame—”

  Her fingernails dug into my arm. “You’ll be close to him for one moment. It’s all the time you’ll need. It’ll be like killing a mad dog. If you don’t swear you will, there is no bargain. You’ll be dead yourself and Anne along with you. Swear it on your soul.”

  “All right, I swear it.” For the chance I was being given I would have falsely sworn to anything.

  “How do I know I can trust you?” Madame Matilde asked.

  “You don’t You’ll have to find out when the time comes.”

  “But remember you swore it on your soul!” Madame Matilde clapped the notebook shut. “That’s quite enough,” she said loudly. “After all, these things cost money. We don’t intend to buy out the stores for you.”

  When I rose from the couch I saw from Edmond Vosiers’ broad smile that this was the kind of talk he approved of.

  9

  I didn’t delude myself about the bargain. My well-being was the least of Matilde Vosiers’ concerns; what mattered to her was settling accounts with her husband. So I felt sure she had hidden a gun in the couch and that she would get the car back to the chateau at eight-thirty, since these items were essential to my part of the bargain. But there was a fair chance the car’s motor would not be left running for a quick getaway, that there would be no train ticket or money left for me, and that whether or not I disposed of Matilde’s erring husband for her, I would be disposed of myself as soon as I set foot outside the building.

  Bad enough trying to plan my moves with this in mind. What made it worse was that Anne was going to be my partner in the enterprise without even knowing it. There was no way around that. She was marked for death as soon as she awarded legal guardianship of Paul to the de Gondes, those gracious representatives of the OEI; and the OEI was highly adaptable. If it couldn’t arrange for Anne to share a fatal accident with me, it would very soon arrange for her to have an accident of her own.

  And from my own coldly realistic point of view, Anne had a passport which might help me get across the Italian frontier in her company. And she would know where to find Paul and could lead me to him.

  We desperately needed each other now, that was what it came down to. Whatever I felt about her when I thought of how Louis had paid for her double-dealing and how I was expected to pay for it—this had to be put aside for the time being like a vial of acid locked away in a dark closet.

  But I was wiser than I had been. Wise enough now, at least, not to trust Anne de Villemont. Faced with a crisis only two short days ago, she had promptly betrayed me to the enemy, and I didn’t intend to have her do it again. So she was going with me when I broke out of this jail, but was not going to know that until the last possible moment.

  Un vrai tour de passe-passe. A neat trick to get away with if I could. If I couldn’t, it was likely to be the last one I would ever have a chance to try.

  10

  As the day wore on, I came to see the terms of my imprisonment. I was being allowed the freedom of the house, but unless I shut myself up in my own room, I was allowed no privacy. I prowled from room to room downstairs, always with a hard bitten OEI man keeping an eye on me. Where members of the household were present my guard kept himself discreetly out of sight. Where no one else was present he leaned against a doorpost in full view of me, yawning with boredom, but quick to move when I did.

  This made it a touchy business getting hold of the concealed gun, a handy little automatic, fully loaded. I finally managed to do it by settling myself on the couch with an old copy of Le Figaro to mask my activity, and then by working the automatic up between the cushions, inch by inch, until I could bear it away in the folded newspaper. I stored it under the mattress of my bed and left the paper with it. Le Figaro was going to be even more useful than the gun when the time came.

  Meanwhile, I wondered about the location of Anne’s room, a vital piece of information I had no way of obtaining without arousing suspicion. The lawyers to draw up the documents concerning Paul’s guardianship arrived before noon—four of them, as cold-eyed and efficient-looking as a school of sharks—and from the way they were received by Bernard Bourdon and Claude de Gonde, I gathered they were very much part of the OEI themselves. They finally left in the late afternoon. When de Gonde re-entered the chateau after seeing them off at the door, I fervently put to him my hopes of paying a little visit to Madame de Villemont. If I could be conducted to her room—

  De Gonde was in high good humor now.

  “Well,” he said affably, “I suppose farewells are in order, aren’t they? But there’s no need to rush them. A long and tedious farewell is worse than none at all. And you’ll have plenty of time to say good-bye to Madame tomorrow evening.”

  “Tomorrow evening?” I echoed, trying not to overdo the note of innocence.

  “That’s right. You see, my friend, I’m not as heartless as you may think. In a couple of days, an agent will pi
ck you up at Valence to deliver you to your ship. Since Georges is driving Madame de Villemont and young Bernard down to Saint-Trop’ tomorrow evening, I’ve arranged for you to travel with them as far as Valence.”

  To the place of execution, I thought, but all I said was, “That’s kind of you, monsieur.” Then I couldn’t resist adding, “I suppose Georges and Bernard have instructions to make sure I don’t get sidetracked along the way.”

  “They have. But for your own good, really. You’re an atrocious bungler, you know. I shudder to think what might become of you if you go wandering around on your own. The way to avoid trouble on your journey south is to follow orders closely and not test Georges’ and Bernard’s ability to enforce them. Believe me, they’re a dangerous pair to cross.”

  “I believe you, monsieur.”

  “And one other thing.” De Gonde’s voice hardened. “No more baiting of Colonel Hardee. I prefer he doesn’t know why you’re really here, but don’t take advantage of that.”

  “I understand, monsieur.”

  My weary resignation to my fate seemed to impress him.

  “I know all this is difficult for you,” he commiserated, “but then it’s difficult for the lot of us. My God, when I think of Madame de Villemont’s stupidity, her heedlessness—”

  “Her madness?”

  He deigned to smile at this thrust.

  “Frankly, it would have been better for you to believe she really was mad. It would have kept you from involvement in her wild schemes. But that’s all water under the bridge now. The damage has been done; we must simply make the best of it. By the way, dinner is at nine. Would it help dispel your dark mood if you joined us at the table?”

  “I’m afraid I can’t dress suitably, monsieur.”

  De Gonde waved that aside.

  “Oh, Me is informal here. Our host and hostess detest the country; they regard it as a sort of jungle, and they’re not Britons, you know, to dress for dinner in the jungle. Madame Vosiers will be back in time to supply you with whatever you need to wear.”

  “Then I’ll be glad to join you at dinner.”

  When we parted I hadn’t gotten the information I wanted about Anne’s room, but that warning against taking advantage of Colonel Hardee reminded me of the OEI membership list in his pocket. The organization was like a virulently poisonous snake. Chop off a piece of its tail, and you’re dead before you can get in a second blow of the axe. But that membership list might be the way to destroy the whole snake on the first try, if—and there was the catch—if I had Paul safely in charge when the try was made.

  I found the colonel in a billiard room practicing shots on a table so thick with dust that the balls left tracks on it as they rolled. He was in shirtsleeves, and his jacket was neatly draped over a chair near the door I entered. I stationed myself beside the chair, wondering if the list were still in the jacket pocket, and when I cautiously reached a hand behind me I felt with jubilance the stiffness of folded papers. Then the colonel turned and saw me, and I had to quickly withdraw the hand.

  “So there you are,” he said. “Still going around like a tiger in a cage?”

  “Well, it does get a little dull here after a while, sir.”

  “It does, but you’ll have to get used to the quiet life. Yes, Claude told me all about how you knocked off that meddlesome bastard back in Paris. Too bad it had to happen with the cops practically looking over your shoulder, but that’s the way it goes, son. Anyhow, you’ll find there are worse places to be holed up in than Buenos Aires.” He motioned at the table. “Care to have a game?”

  “I’m not too good at it.”

  “It wouldn’t matter if you were. The table’s dead and the cues are crooked, but as they say back home, mister, it’s the only game in town.”

  That was at five o’clock, and during the next two hours I was never allowed enough time unobserved to spirit those papers out of the jacket. The colonel played in military style, quickstepping to a position behind the cue ball, lining up his shot at a glance, and promptly firing away. It should have been a pleasure meeting an opponent who kept the game moving at top speed. Under these circumstances, it was anything but that.

  I finally solved the problem by deliberately making a shot which lifted the ball right off the table and sent it bouncing into a far corner of the room. The colonel looked at me with surprise, then went to retrieve it. By the time he returned, his papers were safely tucked away beneath my shirt.

  “Nerves,” he remarked, as he tossed the ball back on the table. “You’ve got a sweet case of them, son.” He took his jacket from the chair and put it on while I stood rigid, waiting for him to discover his loss. “And don’t tell me it isn’t the heebie-jeebies. You’ve been looking at your watch every two minutes since you walked in here, and that’s a sure sign. What the hell, let’s get up to my room and crack a bottle I stashed away there. That’ll make you forget the time.”

  I followed him obediently, still braced for the fatal moment when he would clap an inquiring hand to his breast pocket, but we made it to his bedroom without incident, my guard trailing us at a distance.

  In the bedroom, the colonel took a bottle of bourbon from a valise, found a glass for me, then disappeared into the next room to look for another for himself. When he returned with it, he said, “Clara’s still sleeping off that channel crossing, poor kid. What the hell, she’ll be as good as new tomorrow, but let’s keep the party quiet anyhow.”

  I stood poised for trouble as he removed his jacket and carefully hung it away in an armoire. When he closed the door of the armoire and stretched out on the bed, glass in hand, I drew a deep breath of relief and downed my drink at a gulp.

  “To the Day,” said the colonel, following suit.

  Since he had put me on guard about looking regularly at my watch, I now sneaked a surreptitious look at it. It said twenty after seven. That meant exactly one hour to go before I moved into action, and at any time during it the colonel might remember his list. Like it or not, I had to spend that final hour in his company.

  It turned out to be a highly instructive hour. The colonel had evidently taken to heart the fact that I’d been away from our homeland for eight years; he now made it his business to bring me up to date about it. As he talked, refreshing himself from the bottle at regular intervals, he forgot about keeping the party quiet. His voice rose with passion. He got off the bed and stalked the room, now and then jabbing a lean forefinger at me like a prophet pronouncing doom, the sweat of emotion trickling down his face.

  I listened with fascination to the bill of particulars. The seizure of high office, even the presidency itself, by subversives. The mongrelization of the race. The atheism fostered by traitorous churchmen. The filthy literature deliberately used by the forces of evil to corrupt the young and destroy the American spirit. The colonel’s voice thickened; blotches of sweat showed through his shirt as he turned to the question of how he and his North American Action proposed to remedy these ills.

  That was the terrifying part of it, his lip-licking anticipation of the day when the remedy would be applied. Those caches of weapons he had described at the breakfast table were not going to rust away uselessly. Where persuasion failed, a well-aimed bullet would succeed. And afterward there was the whip and club to insure order. It cast a new light on someone like Edmond Vosiers, who wanted to torture and murder for the sake of his lost vineyards, because that at least had a brutal logic to it. But the colonel’s belief in his hallucinations, his eagerness to torture and murder for the sake of those hallucinations, was the madness of a paranoid maniac seeing devils menacing him from every corner.

  Then it was eight-twenty.

  “Colonel, if we’re going to get ready for dinner—”

  “What? Hell, plenty of time for that. And I’m five drinks up on you.” He looked dazedly around until he located the almost empty bottle on his bedside table. He lurched toward me with it. “Here, you kill it.”

  The residue of the bottle half
filled my glass. “Time to go when the booze is gone,” the colonel said thickly. Then the bottle fell from his limp hand, he sat down abruptly on the bed and slowly went over sideways until he lay there, face buried in the pillow.

  The guard patrolling the hall grinned when I left the room and lurched toward him in an imitation of the colonel’s drunken gait. I raised the glass in a toast. “A votre santé, copain.”

  “Merci, monsieur. Vous avez sa pointe, hein?” he jeered, a tribute to my acting since I was as sober as he was.

  My room was nearby. I turned to the job at hand quickly and methodically.

  I went to the window. The last rays of setting sun were fiery on the horizon. A different team of riflemen were seated on the rim of the fountain now; they looked up incuriously as 1 pulled the shutters together. Through the vents of the shutters I could feel a stirring of evening breeze, and that was all to the good.

  From beneath the mattress of the four-poster I extracted the gun and the copy of Le Figaro. The gun I stowed in my hip pocket. Le Figaro I loosely crumpled into two wads of kindling. One I placed on the floor at the edge of the bed where the bedspread hung down over it; the other I piled on the bed itself. When I stood on the bed and dragged down an end of the canopy over it, a cloud of dust descended on me.

  I stepped down from the bed, put a match to the crumpled newspaper on it and to the pile on the floor. The paper smoldered and burst into flame. The next instant, as if the canopy had been soaked in gasoline, a tongue of flame raced along it to the top of the four-poster. The bedspread took a few seconds longer to catch fire, then started blazing away merrily.

  I went to the door as smoke thickened around me. I picked up the glass of bourbon I had left on the dresser, threw open the door, and staggered backward into the hallway. The open door provided a draft like a chimney. There was a roar of flame, smoke billowed out into the hall, and the guard raced up and looked at the holocaust with a stunned expression.