She said: “This day’s over, Alan. You’ll not be rid of Dahut so easily.” I started to answer; she stopped me: “You don’t know how much I love you. Promise me—if you need me…come to me…at any time…in any shape!”
I caught her in my arms: “In any shape—what the devil do you mean by that?”
She drew my head down, pressed her lips to mine—savagely, tenderly, passionately all in one for long. She thrust me from her and I saw that she was crying. She threw open the door, then turned for a moment:
“You don’t know how much I love you!”
She closed the door. I went down to the waiting cab and rode to the Club, cursing the Demoiselle more comprehensively than I had since ancient Ys—if and when that had been. McCann hadn’t arrived, but a telegram had. It was from Dahut, and read:
The yacht will be waiting for you at the Larchmont Club at noon tomorrow. Her name is Brittis. I will meet you. Sincerely hope you will come prepared for indefinite stay.
Well—that was that. I did not miss the nuance of the name, nor the mockery in that “indefinite stay.” Helen was reality, and Dahut was shadow. But I knew that now shadow had become the true reality. With a sinking of the heart; with forebodings against which I raged, impotently; with sorrow for Helen as though I were bidding her farewell forever; with cold hatred against this woman who was contemptuously summoning me—I knew I could do nothing but obey her.
CHAPTER XIV
BEHIND DE KERADEL’S WALL
I had one of my valises packed when McCann was announced. He squinted at it with surprise: “You ain’t going away tonight, Doc?”
With sudden impulse toward frankness, I pushed over to him the Demoiselle’s telegram. He read it stolidly; looked up: “This just come? Thought you told Doc Bennett you’d already had an invitation.”
“This,” I explained patiently, “is merely a confirmation of an engagement previously made, setting a definite time for one left indefinite before as you will see if you read it over again carefully.” I began to pack the other valise. McCann reread the telegram, watched me silently for a while, then said mildly:
“Doc Bennett had one of them shadders trailing him, didn’t he?”
I turned to him sharply: “What makes you think that?”
He went on, as though he had not heard me: “An’ he lost it down here with you, didn’t he?”
“McCann,” I said, “you’re crazy. What gave you that idea?”
He sighed, and said: “When you an’ him was arguing tonight about you going down an’ setting in with this de Keradel, I got a mite puzzled. But when I see this telegram, I ain’t puzzled no more. I get the answer.”
“Fine,” I said, and resumed packing. “What is it?”
He said: “You traded something for Doc Bennett’s shadder.”
I looked at him and laughed: “You’ve grand ideas, McCann. What have I to trade, and with whom and for what?”
McCann sighed again, and put a finger on the Demoiselle’s name: “With her—” He pointed to the “indefinite stay” and said: “An’ you traded this for his shadder.”
“McCann,” I went over to him. “He did think a shadow was following him. But that may have been only because he has been thinking too much about this whole queer matter. And he has much the same idea as you about how be was relieved of the obsession. I want you to promise me that you will say nothing of your own suspicions to him—and especially nothing to Miss Helen. If one or the other should speak to you about it, do your best to discourage the notion. I have good reasons for asking this—believe me I have. Will you promise?”
He asked: “Miss Helen don’t know nothing about it yet?”
“Not unless Dr. Bennett has told her since we left,” I answered. Uneasily I wondered whether he had, and cursed my stupidity for not getting his promise that he wouldn’t.
He considered me for a time, then said: “Okay, Doc. But I’ve got to tell the boss when he comes.”
I laughed, and said: “Okay, McCann. By that time the game may be all over—except for the post-mortems.”
He asked, sharply: “What do you mean by that?”
I answered: “Nothing.” And went on with my packing. The truth was I didn’t know myself what I had meant.
He said: “You figure on getting there some time tomorrow evening. I’ll be up at the old goat’s with some of the lads long before dusk. Probably won’t get to this house I been telling you of until next day. But nothing’s likely to happen right off. You got any plans how we’re going to get together?”
“I’ve been thinking about that.” I stopped the packing, and sat on the bed. “I’m not so sure how much I’m going to be under surveillance, or what liberty I’ll have. The situation is—well, unusual and complicated. Obviously, I can’t trust to letters or telegrams. Telegrams have to be telephoned and telephones can be tapped. Also, letters can be opened. I might ride to the village, but that doesn’t mean I could get in touch with you when I got there, because I don’t think I’d be riding alone. Even if you happened to be there, it would be highly impolitic to recognize and talk to you. The de Keradels are no fools, McCann, and they would realize the situation perfectly. Until I’ve been on the other side of de Keradel’s wall and studied the ground, I can suggest only one thing.”
“You talk like you been sentenced an’ bound for the Big House,” he grinned.
“I believe in looking for the worst,” I said. “Then you’re never disappointed. That being so—put this down, McCann—a telegram to Dr. Bennett which reads—‘Feeling fine. Don’t forget to forward all mail’ means that you’re to get over that wall despite hell or high water as quick as you can and up to the house as quick as you can and damn the torpedoes. Get that McCann?”
“Okay,” he said. “But I got an idea or two likewise. First—nobody’s going to keep you from writing after you get there. Okay again. You write an’ you find some excuse to get to the village. You get out to this Beverly House I been telling you about an’ go in. Don’t matter who’s with you, you’ll find some way to drop that letter on the floor or somewhere. You don’t have to give it to nobody. After you go they’ll comb the place through to find it. An’ I’ll get it. That’s one line. Next—they’ll be a couple of lads fishing around the north side of that wall all the time—that’s the left end of it coming from the house. There’s a breast of rock there, an’ I don’t see why you can’t climb up that to look at the surroundings, all by yourself. Hell, you’re inside the wall an’ why should they stop you? Then if you’ve writ another note an’ put it in a little bottle an’ casually throw some stones an’ among ’em the bottle, the lads being on the look-out for just such stuff will just as casually rope it in.”
“Fine,” I said, and poured him a drink. “Now all you have to do is to tell Dr. Bennett to look out for that message and bring up your myrmidons.”
“My what?” asked McCann.
“Your gifted lads with their Tommies and pineapples.”
“That’s a grand name,” said McCann. “The boys’ll like it. Say it again.”
I said it again, and added: “And for God’s sake, don’t forget to give that message straight to Dr. Bennett.”
He said: “Then you ain’t going to talk to him before you go?”
I said: “No. Nor to Miss Helen either.”
He thought over that for a bit, then asked: “How well you heeled, Doc?”
I showed him my 32-automatic. He shook his head: “This is better, Doc.” He reached under his left armpit and unstrapped a holster. In it was an extraordinarily compact little gun, short-barreled, squat.
“It shoots a .38,” he said. “Ain’t nothing under armor plate stands up against that, Doc. Tote your other but stick this under your arm. Keep it there, asleep or awake. Keep it hid. There’s a few extra clips in that pocket of the holster.”
I said: “Thanks, Mac.” And threw it on the bed.
He said: “No. Put it on an’ get used to the feel of it.”
/> “All right,” I said. And did so.
He took another drink, leisurely; he said, gently: “Of course, there’s one straight easy way out of all this, Doc. All you need do when you sit at the table with de Keradel an’ his gal is to slip that little cannon loose an’ let ’em have it. Me an’ the lads’d cover you.”
I said: “I’m not sure enough for that, Mac. Honestly—I’m not.”
He sighed again, and arose: “You got too much curiosity, Doc. Well, play your hand your own way.” At the door he turned: “Anyway, the boss’ll like you. You got guts.”
He went out. I felt as though I’d been given the accolade.
I dropped a brief note to Bill, simply saying that when one had made up one’s mind to do something, there was no time like the present and that therefore I was making myself one of the de Keradel menage on the morrow. I didn’t say anything about the Demoiselle’s telegram, leaving him to think I was on my way solely of my own volition. I told him McCann had a message that was damned important, and that if and when he received it from me to forward it quick, according to directions.
I wrote a little letter to Helen…
The next morning I left the Club early—before the letters could be delivered. I taxied leisurely to Larchmont; arrived at the Club shortly before noon and was told that a boat from the Brittis was awaiting me at the landing stage. I went down to the boat. There were three men on it—Bretons or Basques, I couldn’t tell which, oddly enough. Rather queer looking—stolid faces, the pupils of their eyes unusually dilated, skins sallow. One turned his eyes up to me and asked, tonelessly, in French:
“The Sieur de Carnac?”
I answered, impatiently: “Dr. Caranac.” And took my place in the stern.
He turned to the two: “The Sieur de Carnac. Go.”
We shot through a school of small fry and headed for a slim gray yacht. I asked: “The Brittis?” The helmsman nodded. She was a sweet craft, about a hundred and fifty feet over all, schooner rigged and built for speed. I doubted McCann’s estimate of her ocean-going capabilities.
The Demoiselle was standing at the head of the ladder. Considering the manner of my last parting with her, there were obvious elements of embarrassment in this meeting. I had given them considerable thought and had decided to ignore them, or pass them over lightly—if she would let me. It was no picture of a romantic hero I had made sliding down from her tower, and I was still somewhat sensitive as to its undignified aspects. I hoped her arts, infernal or otherwise, hadn’t enabled her to reconstruct that spectacle. So when I had climbed the ladder, I simply said with cheerful idiocy:
“Hello, Dahut. You’re looking beautiful.”
And so she was. Nothing at all like the Dahut of ancient Ys; nothing at all like a shadow queen; nothing at all like a witch. She had on a snappy white sport suit, and there was no aureole, evil or otherwise, about her pale gold hair. Instead there was a tricky little green knit hat. Her great violet eyes were clear and ingenuous with not a trace of the orchid hell sparks. In fact, to outward appearance only an extraordinarily beautiful woman with no more high explosive about her than any beautiful woman would naturally carry. But I knew different, and something whispered to me to be doubly on my guard.
She laughed, and held out her hand: “Welcome, Alain.”
She glanced at my two bags with a small enigmatic smile, and led me down to a luxurious little cabin. She said, matter-of-factly: “I’ll wait for you on deck. Don’t be long. Lunch is ready.” And she was gone.
The yacht was already under way. I looked out of the port and was surprised to see how far we were from the Club. The Brittis was speedier than I had surmised. In a few minutes I went up on deck and joined the Demoiselle. She was talking to the captain whom she introduced to me by the good old Breton name of Braz; and me to him as the “Sieur de Carnac.” The captain was of stockier build than the others I had seen, but with the same stolid expression and the same abnormally dilated eyes. I saw the pupils of his eyes suddenly contract, like a cat’s, and a curiously speculative gleam come into them…almost as though it were recognition.
I knew then that what I had taken for stolidity was not that at all. It was withdrawal. This man’s consciousness lived in a world of its own, his actions and responses to the outer world instinctive only. For some reason that consciousness had looked out from its inner world into this under the spur of the ancient name. From its own world…or from another’s into which it had been sent? And were the other men upon this boat under that same strange duress?
I said: “But Captain Braz, I prefer to be called Dr. Caranac—not the Sieur de Carnac.” I watched him closely. He did not respond, his face impassive, his eyes wide and blank. It was as though he had not heard me.
The Demoiselle said: “The Lord of Carnac will make many voyages with us.”
He bent and kissed my hand; he answered, tonelessly as had the boatman: “The Lord of Carnac does me great honor.”
He bent to the Demoiselle and walked away. I watched him, and felt a creep along my spine. It was exactly as though an automaton had spoken; an automaton of flesh and blood who had seen me not as I was but as someone else had bidden him.
The Demoiselle was regarding me with frank amusement. I said, indifferently: “You have perfect discipline, Dahut.”
Again she laughed: “Perfect, Alain. Let us go to lunch.”
We went to lunch. That, too, was perfect. Somewhat too perfect. The two stewards who served us were like the others I had seen; and they served us on bent knees. The Demoiselle was a perfect hostess. We talked of this and that…and steadily I forgot what she probably was, and thought of her as what she seemed to be. Only toward the last did that which was buried deep in both our minds crop out. The blank-eyed stewards had knelt, and gone. I said, half to myself:
“Here feudal and the modern meet.”
She answered, quietly: “As they do in me. But you are too conservative in naming feudal times, Alain. My servants go further back than that. As do I.”
I said nothing. She held her wine glass against the light, turned it to catch the colors, and added, casually:
“As do you!”
I lifted my own glass, and touched hers with its rim: “To ancient Ys? If so, I drink to it.”
She answered gravely: “To ancient Ys…and we drink to It.”
We touched glasses again, and drank. She set down her glass and looked at me, faint mockery in her eyes and, when she spoke, within her voice:
“Is it not like a honeymoon, Alain?”
I said, coldly: “If so—it would be somewhat lacking in novelty—would it not?”
She flushed a little at that. She said: “You are rather brutal, Alain.”
I said: “I might feel more a bridegroom if I felt less like a prisoner.”
Her straight brows drew together, and for a moment the hell sparks danced in her eyes. She dropped her eyes and said, demurely, although the angry flush still stained her cheeks:
“But you are so elusive, my beloved. You have such a gift for disappearance. There was nothing for you to fear that night. You had seen what I had willed you to see, done as I had willed—why did you run away?”
That stung; the sleeping wrath and hate against her that I had known since I met her flared up; I caught her wrists:
“Not because I feared you, white witch. I could have strangled you while you slept.”
She asked, tranquilly, and tiny dimples showed beside her lips:
“Why didn’t you?”
I dropped her hands: “I may still. That was a wonderful picture you painted in my sleeping mind.”
She stared at me, incredulously: “You mean…you do not think it was real? That Ys was not real?”
“No more real, Dahut, than the world in which the minds of the men on this boat live. At your command—or your father’s.”
She said, somberly: “Then I must convince you of its reality.”
I said, rage still hot within me: “Nor more real t
han your shadows, Dahut.”
She said, yet more somberly: “Then of those, too, you must be convinced.”
The moment I had said that about the shadows I was sorry for it. Her reply did nothing to reassure me. I cursed myself. This was no way to play the game. There was no advantage to be gained by quarreling with the Demoiselle. It might, indeed, bring down upon those I was trying to protect precisely what I was trying to save them from. Was that the meaning behind her promise to convince me? She was pledged so far as Bill was concerned and here I was in payment—but she had made no pledges as to Helen.
If I was to play my game, it must be to the limit; convincingly; with no reservations. I looked at Dahut and thought, with a sharp pang of compunction, for Helen, that if the Demoiselle were a willing partner it would have its peculiar compensations. And then I thrust Helen out of my mind, as though she might read that thought.
And there was only one way to convince a woman…
I stood up. I took the glass from which I had drunk and I took Dahut’s glass and threw them to the cabin floor, splintering. I walked to the door and turned the key. I went to Dahut and lifted her from the chair and carried her to the divan beneath the port. Her arms clung round my neck, and she raised her lips to mine…her eyes closed…
I said: “To hell with Ys and to hell with its mysteries. I live in today.”
She whispered: “You love me?”
I answered: “I do love you.”
“No!” she pushed me away. “In the long ago you loved me. Loved me even though you killed me. And in this life it was not you but the Lord of Carnac who for a night was my lover. Yet this I know—again in this life you must love me. But must you again kill me? I wonder, Alain…I wonder…”
I took her hands, and they were cold; in her eyes there was neither mockery nor amusement; there was vague puzzlement and vague dread. Nor was there anything of the witch about her. I felt a stirring of pity—what if she, like the others upon this boat, were victim of another’s will? De Keradel’s who called himself her father…Dahut who lay there looking at me with the eyes of a frightened maiden and she was very beautiful…
The A. Merritt Megapack Page 191