At that moment, M. d'Hergemont had once more retreated to the window and even a little beyond it, so that she almost saw him face to face. He stood without moving, haggard-eyed and with his arms hanging in an undecided posture, as though waiting for something terrible to happen. He stammered:
"Murderer! Murderer!… Is it really you? Oh, curse you! Francois! Francois!"
He was no doubt calling upon his grandson for help; and Francois no doubt was also exposed to some attack, was perhaps wounded, was possibly dead!
Veronique summoned up all her strength and succeeded in setting foot on the ledge.
"Here I am! Here I am!" she meant to cry.
But her voice died away in her throat. She had[Pg 63] seen! She saw! Facing her father, at a distance of five paces, against the opposite wall of the room, stood some one pointing a revolver at M. d'Hergemont and deliberately taking aim. And that some one was… oh, horror! Veronique recognized the red cap of which Honorine had spoken, the flannel shirt with the gilt buttons. And above all she beheld, in that young face convulsed with hideous emotions, the very expression which Vorski used to wear at times when his instincts, hatred and ferocity, gained the upper hand.
The boy did not see her. His eyes were fixed on the mark which he proposed to hit; and he seemed to take a sort of savage joy in postponing the fatal act.
Veronique herself was silent. Words or cries could not possibly avert the peril. What she had to do was to fling herself between her father and her son. She clutched hold of the railings, clambered up and climbed through the window.
It was too late. The shot was fired. M. d'Hergemont fell with a groan of pain.
And, at the same time, at that very moment, while the boy still had his arm outstretched and the old man was sinking into a huddled heap, a door opened at the back. Honorine appeared; and the abominable sight struck her, so to speak, full in the face.
"Francois!" she screamed. "You! You!"
The boy sprang at her. The woman tried to bar his way. There was not even a struggle. The boy took a step back, quickly raised his weapon and fired.
Honorine's knees gave way beneath her and she[Pg 64] fell across the threshold. And, as he jumped over her body and fled, she kept on repeating:
"Francois… Francois… No, it's not true!… Oh, can it be possible?… Francois…"
There was a burst of laughter outside. Yes, the boy had laughed. Veronique heard that horrible, infernal laugh, so like Vorski's laugh; and it all agonized her with the same anguish which used to sear her in Vorski's days!
She did not run after the murderer. She did not call out.
A faint voice beside her was murmuring her name:
"Veronique… Veronique…"
M. d'Hergemont lay on the ground, staring at her with glassy eyes which were already filled with death.
She knelt down by his side; but, when she tried to unbutton his waistcoat and his bloodstained shirt, in order to dress the wound of which he was dying, he gently pushed her hand aside. She understood that all aid was useless and that he wished to speak to her. She stooped still lower.
"Veronique… forgive… Veronique…"
It was the first utterance of his failing thoughts.
She kissed him on the forehead and wept:
"Hush, father… Don't tire yourself…"
But he had something else to say; and his mouth vainly emitted syllables which did not form words and to which she listened in despair. His life was ebbing away. His mind was fading into the darkness. Veronique glued her ear to the lips which[Pg 65] exhausted themselves in a supreme effort and she caught the words:
"Beware… beware… the God-Stone…"
Suddenly he half raised himself. His eyes flashed as though lit by the last flicker of an expiring flame. Veronique received the impression that her father, as he looked at her, now understood nothing but the full significance of her presence and foresaw all the dangers that threatened her; and, speaking in a hoarse and terrified but quite distinct voice, he said:
"You mustn't stay… It means death if you stay… Escape this island… Go… Go…"
His head fell back. He stammered a few more words which Veronique was just able to grasp:
"Oh, the cross!… The four crosses of Sarek!… My daughter… my daughter… crucified!…"
And that was all.
There was a great silence, a vast silence which Veronique felt weighing upon her like a burden that grows heavier second after second.
"You must escape from this island," a voice repeated. "Go, quickly. Your father bade you, Madame Veronique."
Honorine was beside her, livid in the face, with her two hands clasping a napkin, rolled into a plug and red with blood, which she held to her chest.
"But I must look after you first!" cried Veronique. "Wait a moment… Let me see…"
"Later on… they'll attend to me presently," spluttered Honorine. "Oh, the monster!… If[Pg 66] I had only come in time! But the door below was barricaded…"
"Do let me see to your wound," Veronique implored. "Lie down."
"Presently… First Marie Le Goff, the cook, at the top of the staircase… She's wounded too… mortally perhaps… Go and see."
Veronique went out by the door at the back, the one through which her son had made his escape. There was a large landing here. On the top steps, curled into a heap, lay Marie Le Goff, with the death-rattle in her throat.
She died almost at once, without recovering consciousness, the third victim of the incomprehensible tragedy. As foretold by old Maguennoc, M. d'Hergemont had been the second victim.
[Pg 67]
CHAPTER IV
THE POOR PEOPLE OF SAREK
Honorine's wound was deep but did not seem likely to prove fatal. When Veronique had dressed it and moved Marie Le Goff's body to the room filled with books and furnished like a study in which her father was lying, she closed M. d'Hergemont's eyes, covered him with a sheet and knelt down to pray. But the words of prayer would not come to her lips and her mind was incapable of dwelling on a single thought. She felt stunned by the repeated blows of misfortune. She sat down in a chair, holding her head in her hands. Thus she remained for nearly an hour, while Honorine slept a feverish sleep.
With all her strength she rejected her son's image, even as she had always rejected Vorski's. But the two images became mingled together, whirling around her and dancing before her eyes like those lights which, when we close our eyelids tightly, pass and pass again and multiply and blend into one. And it was always one and the same face, cruel, sardonic, hideously grinning.
She did not suffer, as a mother suffers when mourning the loss of a son. Her son had been dead these fourteen years; and the one who had come to life again, the one for whom all the wells of her[Pg 68] maternal affection were ready to gush forth, had suddenly become a stranger and even worse: Vorski's son! How indeed could she have suffered?
But ah, what a wound inflicted in the depths of her being! What an upheaval, like those cataclysms which shake the whole of a peaceful country-side! What a hellish spectacle! What a vision of madness and horror! What an ironical jest, a jest of the most hideous destiny! Her son killing her father at the moment when, after all these years of separation and sorrow, she was on the point of embracing them both and living with them in sweet and homely intimacy! Her son a murderer! Her son dispensing death and terror broadcast! Her son levelling that ruthless weapon, slaying with all his heart and soul and taking a perverse delight in it!
The motives which might explain these actions interested her not at all. Why had her son done these things? Why had his tutor, Stephane Maroux, doubtless an accomplice, possibly an instigator, fled before the tragedy? These were questions which she did not seek to solve. She thought only of the frightful scene of carnage and death. And she asked herself if death was not for her the only refuge and the only ending.
"Madame Veronique," whispered Honorine.
"What is it?" asked Veronique, roused from her stupor.
"What?"
"A ring at the bell below. They must be bringing your luggage."
[Pg 69]She sprang to her feet.
"But what am I to say? How can I explain?… If I accuse that boy…"
"Not a word, please. Let me speak to them."
"You're very weak, my poor Honorine."
"No, no, I'm feeling better."
Veronique went downstairs, crossed a broad entrance-hall paved with black and white flags and drew the bolts of a great door.
It was, as they expected, one of the sailors:
"I knocked at the kitchen-door first," said the man. "Isn't Marie Le Goff there? And Madame Honorine?"
"Honorine is upstairs and would like to speak to you."
The sailor looked at her, seemed impressed by this young woman, who looked so pale and serious, and followed her without a word.
Honorine was waiting on the first floor, standing in front of the open door:
"Ah, it's you, Correjou?… Now listen to me… and no silly talk, please."
"What's the matter, M'ame Honorine? Why, you're wounded! What is it?"
She stepped aside from the doorway and, pointing to the two bodies under their winding-sheets, said simply:
"Monsieur Antoine and Marie Le Goff… both of them murdered."
The man's face became distorted. He stammered:
"Murdered… you don't say so… Why?"
"I don't know; we arrived after it happened."
[Pg 70]"But… young Francois?… Monsieur Stephane?…"
"Gone… They must have been killed too."
"But… but… Maguennoc?"
"Maguennoc? Why do you speak of Maguennoc?"
"I speak of Maguennoc, I speak of Maguennoc… because, if he's alive… this is a very different business. Maguennoc always said that he would be the first. Maguennoc only says things of which he's certain. Maguennoc understands these things thoroughly."
Honorine reflected and then said:
"Maguennoc has been killed."
This time Correjou lost all his composure: and his features expressed that sort of insane terror which Veronique had repeatedly observed in Honorine. He made the sign of the cross and said, in a low whisper:
"Then… then… it's happening, Ma'me Honorine?… Maguennoc said it would… Only the other day, in my boat, he was saying, 'It won't be long now… Everybody ought to get away.'"
And suddenly the sailor turned on his heel and made for the staircase.
"Stay where you are, Correjou," said Honorine, in a voice of command.
"We must get away. Maguennoc said so. Everybody has got to go."
"Stay where you are," Honorine repeated.
Correjou stopped, undecidedly. And Honorine continued:
"We are agreed. We must go. We shall[Pg 71] start to-morrow, towards the evening. But first we must attend to Monsieur Antoine and to Marie Le Goff. Look here, you go to the sisters Archignat and send them to keep watch by the dead. They are bad women, but they are used to doing that. Say that two of the three must come. Each of them shall have double the ordinary fee."
"And after that, Ma'me Honorine?"
"You and all the old men will see to the coffins; and at daybreak we will bury the bodies in consecrated ground, in the cemetery of the chapel."
"And after that, Ma'me Honorine?"
"After that, you will be free and the others too. You can pack up and be off."
"But you, Ma'me Honorine?"
"I have the boat. That's enough talking. Are we agreed?"
"Yes, we're agreed. It means one more night to spend here. But I suppose that nothing fresh will happen between this and to-morrow?…"
"Why no, why no… Go, Correjou. Hurry. And above all don't tell the others that Maguennoc is dead… or we shall never keep them here."
"That's a promise, Ma'me Honorine."
The man hastened away.
An hour later, two of the sisters Archignat appeared, two skinny, shrivelled old hags, looking like witches in their dirty, greasy caps with the black-velvet bows. Honorine was taken to her own room on the same floor, at the end of the left wing.
And the vigil of the dead began.
____________________
Veronique spent the first part of the night beside her father's body and then went and sat with[Pg 72] Honorine, whose condition seemed to grow worse. She ended by dozing off and was wakened by the Breton woman, who said to her, in one of those accesses of fever in which the brain still retains a certain lucidity:
"Francois must be hiding… and M. Stephane too… The island has safe hiding-places, which Maguennoc showed them. We shan't see them, therefore; and no one will know anything about them."
"Are you sure?"
"Quite. So listen to me. To-morrow, when everybody has left Sarek and when we two are alone, I shall blow the signal with my horn and he will come here."
Veronique was horrified:
"But I don't want to see him!" she exclaimed, indignantly. "I loathe him!… Like my father, I curse him!… Have you forgotten? He killed my father, before our eyes! He killed Marie Le Goff! He tried to kill you!… No, what I feel for him is hatred and disgust! The monster!"
The Breton woman took her hand, as she had formed a habit of doing, and murmured:
"Don't condemn him yet… He did not know what he was doing."
"What do you mean? He didn't know? Why, I saw his eyes, Vorski's eyes!"
"He did not know… he was mad."
"Mad? Nonsense!"
"Yes, Madame Veronique. I know the boy. He's the kindest creature on earth. If he did all this, it was because he went mad suddenly… he[Pg 73] and M. Stephane. They must both be weeping in despair now."
"It's impossible. I can't believe it."
"You can't believe it because you know nothing of what is happening… and of what is going to happen… But, if you did know… Oh, there are things… there are things!"
Her voice was no longer audible. She was silent, but her eyes remained wide open and her lips moved without uttering a sound.
Nothing occurred until the morning. At five o'clock Veronique heard them nailing down the coffins; and almost immediately afterwards the door of the room in which she sat was opened and the sisters Archignat entered like a whirlwind, both greatly excited.
They had heard the truth from Correjou, who, to give himself courage, had taken a drop too much to drink and was talking at random:
"Maguennoc is dead!" they screamed. "Maguennoc is dead and you never told us! Give us our money, quick! We're going!"
The moment they were paid, they ran away as fast as their legs would carry them; and, an hour later, some other women, informed by them, came hurrying to drag their men from their work. They all used the same words:
"We must go! We must get ready to start!… It'll be too late afterwards. The two boats can take us all."
Honorine had to intervene with all her authority and Veronique was obliged to distribute money. And the funeral was hurriedly conducted. Not far away was an old chapel, carefully restored by M.[Pg 74] d'Hergemont, where a priest came once a month from Pont-l'Abbe to say mass. Beside it was the ancient cemetery of the abbots of Sarek. The two bodies were buried here; and an old man, who in ordinary times acted as sacristan, mumbled the blessing.
All the people seemed smitten with madness. Their voices and movements were spasmodic. They were obsessed with the fixed idea of leaving the island and paid no attention to Veronique, who knelt a little way off, praying and weeping.
It was all over before eight o'clock. Men and women made their way down across the island. Veronique, who felt as though she were living in a nightmare world where events followed upon one another without logic and with no connected sequence, went back to Honorine, whose feeble condition had prevented her from attending her master's funeral.
"I'm feeling better," said the Breton woman. "We shall go to-day or to-morrow and we shall go with Francois."
V
eronique protested angrily; but Honorine repeated:
"With Francois, I tell you, and with M. Stephane. And as soon as possible. I also want to go… and to take you with me… and Francois too. There is death in the island. Death is the master here. We must leave Sarek. We shall all go."
Veronique did not wish to thwart her. But at nine o'clock hurried steps were heard outside. It was Correjou, coming from the village. On reaching the door he shouted:
[Pg 75]"They've stolen your motor-boat, Ma'me Honorine! She's disappeared!"
"Impossible!" said Honorine.
But the sailor, all out of breath, declared:
"She's disappeared. I suspected something this morning early. But I expect I had had a glass too much; I did not give it another thought. Others have since seen what I did. The painter has been cut… It happened during the night. And they've made off. No one saw or heard them."
The two women exchanged glances; and the same thought occurred to both of them: Francois and Stephane Maroux had taken to flight.
Honorine muttered between her teeth:
"Yes, yes, that's it: he understands how to work the boat."
Veronique perhaps felt a certain relief at knowing that the boy had gone and that she would not see him again. But Honorine, seized with a renewed fear, exclaimed:
"Then… then what are we to do?"
"You must leave at once, Ma'me Honorine. The boats are ready… everybody's packing up. There'll be no one in the village by eleven o'clock."
Veronique interposed:
"Honorine's not in a condition to travel."
"Yes, I am; I'm better," the Breton woman declared.
"No, it would be ridiculous. Let us wait a day or two… Come back in two days, Correjou."
She pushed the sailor towards the door. He, for that matter, was only too anxious to go:
"Very well," he said, "that'll do: I'll come back the day after to-morrow. Besides, we can't take[Pg 76] everything with us. We shall have to come back now and again to fetch our things… Good-bye, Ma'me Honorine; take care of yourself."
The Secret of Sarek (arsene lupin) Page 5