The Woman of Mystery

by Maurice Leblanc

  "Are you coming, Paul?" Bernard called from his room. "Coffee is served downstairs."

  The brothers-in-law had found two little bedrooms over a publican's shop. While they both did credit to a substantial breakfast, Paul told Bernard the particulars of the occupation of Corvigny and Ornequin which he had gathered on the evening before:

  "On Wednesday, the nineteenth of August, Corvigny, to the great satisfaction of the inhabitants, still thought that it would be spared the horrors of war. There was fighting in Alsace and outside Nancy, there was fighting in Belgium; but it looked as if the German thrust were neglecting the route of invasion offered by the valley of the Liseron. The fact is that this road is a narrow one and apparently of secondary importance. At Corvigny, a French brigade was busily pushing forward the defense-works. The Grand Jonas and the Petit Jonas were[Pg 95] ready under their concrete cupolas. Our fellows were waiting."

  "And at Ornequin?" asked Bernard.

  "At Ornequin, we had a company of light infantry. The officers put up at the house. This company, supported by a detachment of dragoons, patrolled the frontier day and night. In case of alarm, the orders were to inform the forts at once and to retreat fighting. The evening of Wednesday was absolutely quiet. A dozen dragoons had galloped over the frontier till they were in sight of the little German town of Ebrecourt. There was not a movement of troops to be seen on that side, nor on the railway-line that ends at Ebrecourt. The night also was peaceful. Not a shot was fired. It is fully proved that at two o'clock in the morning not a single German soldier had crossed the frontier. Well, at two o'clock exactly, a violent explosion was heard, followed by four others at close intervals. These explosions were due to the bursting of five four-twenty shells which demolished straightway the three cupolas of the Grand Jonas and the two cupolas of the Petit Jonas."

  "What do you mean? Corvigny is fifteen miles from the frontier; and the four-twenties don't carry as far as that!"

  "That didn't prevent six more shells falling at Corvigny, all on the church or in the square. And these six shells fell twenty minutes later, that is to say, at the time when it was to be presumed that[Pg 96] the alarm would have been given and that the Corvigny garrison would have assembled in the square. This was just what had happened; and you can imagine the carnage that resulted."

  "I agree; but, once more, the frontier was fifteen miles away. That distance must have given our troops time to form up again and to prepare for the attacks foretold by the bombardment. They had at least three or four hours before them."

  "They hadn't fifteen minutes. The bombardment was not over before the assault began. Assault isn't the word: our troops, those at Corvigny as well as those which hastened up from the two forts, were decimated and routed, surrounded by the enemy, shot down or obliged to surrender, before it was possible to organize any sort of resistance. It all happened suddenly under the blinding glare of flash-lights erected no one knew where or how. And the catastrophe was immediate. You may take it that Corvigny was invested, attacked, captured and occupied by the enemy, all in ten minutes."

  "But where did he come from? Where did he spring from?"

  "Nobody knows."

  "But the night-patrols on the frontier? The sentries? The company on duty at Ornequin?"

  "Never heard of again. No one knows anything, not a word, not a rumor, about those three hundred men whose business it was to keep watch and to warn the others. You can reckon up the Corvigny garri[Pg 97]son, with the soldiers who escaped and the dead whom the inhabitants identified and buried. But the three hundred light infantry of Ornequin disappeared without leaving the shadow of a trace behind them, not a fugitive, not a wounded man, not a corpse, nothing at all."

  "It seems incredible. Whom did you talk to?"

  "I saw ten people last night who, for a month, with no one to interfere with them except a few soldiers of the Landsturm placed in charge of Corvigny, have pursued a minute inquiry into all these problems, without establishing so much as a plausible theory. One thing alone is certain: the business was prepared long ago, down to the slightest detail. The exact range had been taken of the forts, the cupolas, the church and the square; and the siege-gun had been placed in position before and accurately laid so that the eleven shells should strike the eleven objects aimed at. That's all. The rest is mystery."

  "And what about the chateau? And Elisabeth?"

  Paul had risen from his seat. The bugles were sounding the morning roll-call. The gun-fire was twice as intense as before. They both started for the square; and Paul continued:

  "Here, too, the mystery is bewildering and perhaps worse. One of the cross-roads that run through the fields between Corvigny and Ornequin has been made a boundary by the enemy which no one here had the right to overstep under pain of death."

  "Then Elisabeth…?"

  [Pg 98]"I don't know, I know nothing more. And it's terrible, this shadow of death lying over everything, over every incident. It appears-I have not been able to find out where the rumor originated-that the village of Ornequin, near the chateau, no longer exists. It has been entirely destroyed, more than that, annihilated; and its four hundred inhabitants have been sent away into captivity. And then…" Paul shuddered and, lowering his voice, went on, "And then… what did they do at the chateau? You can see the house, you can still see it at a distance, with its walls and turrets standing. But what happened behind those walls? What has become of Elisabeth? For nearly four weeks she has been living in the midst of those brutes, poor thing, exposed to every outrage!…"

  The sun had hardly risen when they reached the square. Paul was sent for by his colonel, who gave him the heartiest congratulations of the general commanding the division and told him that his name had been submitted for the military cross and for a commission as second lieutenant and that he was to take command of his section from now.

  "That's all," said the colonel, laughing. "Unless you have any further request to make."

  "I have two, sir."

  "Go ahead."

  "First, that my brother-in-law here, Bernard d'Andeville, may be at once transferred to my section as corporal. He's deserved it."

  [Pg 99]"Very well. And next?"

  "My second request is that presently, when we move towards the frontier, my section may be sent to the Chateau d'Ornequin, which is on the direct route."

  "You mean that it is to take part in the attack on the chateau?"

  "The attack?" echoed Paul, in alarm. "Why, the enemy is concentrated along the frontier, four miles from the chateau!"

  "So it was believed, yesterday. In reality, the concentration took place at the Chateau d'Ornequin, an excellent defensive position where the enemy is hanging desperately while waiting for his reinforcements to come up. The best proof is that he's answering our fire. Look at that shell bursting over there… and, farther off, that shrapnel… two… three of them. Those are the guns which located the batteries which we have set up on the surrounding hills and which are now peppering them like mad. They must have twenty guns there."

  "Then, in that case," stammered Paul, tortured by a horrible thought, "in that case, that fire of our batteries is directed at…"

  "At them, of course. Our seventy-fives have been bombarding the Chateau d'Ornequin for the last hour."

  Paul uttered an exclamation of horror:

  "Do you mean to say, sir, that we're bombarding Ornequin?…"

  [Pg 100]And Bernard d'Andeville, standing beside him, repeated, in an anguish-stricken voice:

  "Bombarding Ornequin? Oh, how awful!"

  The colonel asked, in surprise:

  "Do you know the place? Perhaps it belongs to you? Is that so? And are any of your people there?"

  "Yes, sir, my wife."

  Paul was very pale. Though he made an effort to stand stock-still, in order to master his emotion, his hands trembled a little and his chin quivered.

  On the Grand Jonas, three pieces of heavy artillery began thundering, three Rimailho guns, which had been hoisted
into position by traction engines. And this, added to the stubborn work of the seventy-fives, assumed a terrible significance after Paul Delroze's words. The colonel and the group of officers around him kept silence. The situation was one of those in which the fatalities of war run riot in all their tragic horror, stronger than the forces of nature themselves and, like them, blind, unjust and implacable. There was nothing to be done. Not one of those men would have dreamt of asking for the gun-fire to cease or to slacken its activity. And Paul did not dream of it, either. He merely said:

  "It looks as if the enemy's fire was slowing down. Perhaps they are retreating…"

  Three shells bursting at the far end of the town, behind the church, belied this hope. The colonel shook his head:

  [Pg 101]"Retreating? Not yet. The place is too important to them; they are waiting for reinforcements and they won't give way until our regiments take part in the game… which won't be long now."

  In fact, the order to advance was brought to the colonel a few moments later. The regiment was to follow the road and deploy in the meadows on the right.

  "Come along, gentlemen," he said to his officers. "Sergeant Delroze's section will march in front. His objective will be the Chateau d'Ornequin. There are two little short cuts. Take both of them."

  "Very well, sir."

  All Paul's sorrow and rage were intensified in a boundless need for action; when he marched off with his men, he felt an inexhaustible strength, felt capable of conquering the enemy's position all by himself. He moved from one to the other with the untiring hurry of a sheep-dog hustling his flock. He never ceased advising and encouraging his men:

  "You're one of the plucky ones, old chap, I know, you're no shirker… Nor you either… Only you think too much about your skin, you keep grumbling, when you ought to be cheerful… Who's downhearted, eh? There's a bit more collar-work to do and we're going to do it without looking behind us, what?"

  Overhead, the shells followed their march in the air, whistling and moaning and exploding till they formed a sort of canopy of steel and grape-shot.

  [Pg 102]"Duck your heads! Lie down flat!" cried Paul.

  He himself remained standing, indifferent to the flight of the enemy's shells. But with what terror he listened to our own, those coming from behind, from all the hills hard by, whizzing ahead of them to carry destruction and death. Where would this one fall? And that one, where would its murderous rain of bullets and splinters descend?

  He was obsessed with the vision of his wife, wounded, dying, and kept on murmuring her name. For many days now, ever since the day when he learnt that Elisabeth had refused to leave the Chateau d'Ornequin, he could not think of her without a loving emotion that was never spoilt by any impulse of revolt, any movement of anger. He no longer mingled the detestable memories of the past with the charming reality of his love. When he thought of the hated mother, the image of the daughter no longer appeared before his mind. They were two creatures of a different race, having no connection one with the other. Elisabeth, full of courage, risking her life to obey a duty to which she attached a value greater than her life, acquired in Paul's eyes a singular dignity. She was indeed the woman whom he had loved and cherished, the woman whom he loved still.

  Paul stopped. He had ventured with his men into an open piece of ground, probably marked down in advance, which the enemy was now peppering with shrapnel. A number of men were hit.

  [Pg 103]"Halt!" he cried. "Flat on your stomachs, all of you!"

  He caught hold of Bernard:

  "Lie down, kid, can't you? Why expose yourself unnecessarily?… Stay there. Don't move."

  He held him to the ground with a friendly pressure, keeping his arm round Bernard's neck and speaking to him with gentleness, as though he were trying to display to the brother all the affection that rose to his heart for his dear Elisabeth. He forgot the harsh words which he had addressed to Bernard and uttered quite different words, throbbing with a fondness which he had denied the evening before:

  "Don't move, youngster. You see, I had no business to bring you with me or to drag you into this hot place. I'm responsible for you and I'm not going to have you hurt."

  The fire diminished in intensity. By crawling over the ground, the men reached a double row of poplars which led them, by a gentle ascent, towards a ridge intersected by a hollow road. Paul, on climbing the slope which overlooked the Ornequin plateau, saw the ruins of the village in the distance, with its shattered church, and, farther to the left, a wilderness of trees and stones whence rose the walls of a building. This was the chateau. On every side around were blazing farmhouses, haystacks and barns.

  Behind the section, the French troops were scattering forward in all directions. A battery had taken up its position in the shelter of a wood close[Pg 104] by and was firing incessantly. Paul could see the shells bursting over the chateau and among the ruins.

  Unable to bear the sight any longer, he resumed his march at the head of his section. The enemy's guns had ceased thundering, had doubtless been reduced to silence. But, when they were well within two miles of Ornequin, the bullets whistled around them and Paul saw a detachment of Germans falling back upon the village, firing as they went. And the seventy-fives and Rimailhos kept on growling. The din was terrible.

  Paul gripped Bernard by the arm and, in a quivering voice, said:

  "If anything happens to me, tell Elisabeth that I beg her to forgive me. Do you understand? I beg her to forgive me."

  He was suddenly afraid that fate would not allow him to see his wife again; and he realized that he had behaved to her with unpardonable cruelty, deserting her as though she were guilty of a fault which she had not committed and abandoning her to every form of distress and torment. And he walked on briskly, followed at a distance by his men.

  But, at the spot where the short cut joins the high road, in sight of the Liseron, a cyclist rode up to him. The colonel had ordered that the section should wait for the main body of the regiment in order to make an attack in full force.

  This was the cruelest test of all. Paul, a victim[Pg 105] to ever-increasing excitement, trembled with fever and rage.

  "Come, Paul," said Bernard, "don't work yourself into such a state! We shall get there in time."

  "In time for what?" he retorted. "To find her dead or wounded? Or not to find her at all? Oh, hang it, why can't our guns stop their damned row? What are they shelling, now that the enemy's no longer replying? Dead bodies and demolished houses!…"

  "What about the rearguard covering the German retreat?"

  "Well, aren't we here, the infantry? This is our job. All we have to do is to send out our sharpshooters and follow up with a good bayonet-charge…"

  At last the section set out again, reinforced by the remainder of the ninth company and under the command of the captain. A detachment of hussars galloped by, pricking towards the village to cut off the fugitives. The company swerved towards the chateau.

  Opposite them, all was silent as the grave. Was it a trap? Was there not every reason to believe that enemy forces, strongly entrenched and barricaded as these were, would prepare to offer a last resistance? And yet there was nothing suspicious in the avenue of old oaks that led to the front court, not a sign of life to be seen or heard.

  Paul and Bernard, still keeping ahead, with their[Pg 106] fingers on the trigger of their rifles, searched the dim light of the underwood with a keen glance. Columns of smoke rose above the wall, which was now quite near, yawning with breach upon breach. As they approached, they heard moans, followed by the heart-rending sound of a death-rattle. It was the German wounded.

  And suddenly the earth shook as though an inner upheaval had shattered its crust and from the other side of the wall came a tremendous explosion, or rather a series of explosions, like so many peals of thunder. The air was darkened with a cloud of sand and dust which sent forth all sorts of stones and rubbish. The enemy had blown up the chateau.

  "That was meant for us, I expect," said Bernard. "W
e were to have been blown up at the same time. They were out in their calculations."

  When they had passed the gate, the sight of the mined court-yard, of the shattered turrets, of the demolished chateau, of the out-houses in flames, of the dying in their last throes and the thickly stacked corpses of the dead startled them into recoiling.

  "Forward! Forward!" shouted the colonel, galloping up. "There are troops that must have made off across the park."

  Paul knew the road, which he had covered a few weeks earlier in such tragic circumstances. He rushed across the lawns, among blocks of stone and uprooted trees. But, as he passed in sight of a little lodge that stood at the entrance to the wood, he[Pg 107] stopped, nailed to the ground. And Bernard and all the men stood stupefied, opening their mouths wide with horror.

  Against the lodge, two corpses rested on their feet, fastened to rings in the wall by a single chain wound round their waists. Their bodies were bent over the chains and their arms hung to the ground.

  They were the corpses of a man and a woman. Paul recognized Jerome and Rosalie. They had been shot.

  The chain continued beyond them. There was a third ring in the wall. The plaster was stained with blood and there were visible traces of bullets. There had been a third victim, without a doubt, and the body had been removed.

  As he approached, Paul noticed a splinter of bomb-shell embedded in the plaster. Around the hole thus formed, between the plaster and the splinter, was a handful of fair hair with golden lights in it, hair torn from the head of Elisabeth.

  [Pg 108]

  CHAPTER VII

  H. E. R. M.

  Paul's first feeling was an immense need of revenge, then and there, at all costs, a need outweighing any sense of horror or despair. He gazed around him, as though all the wounded men who lay dying in the park were guilty of the monstrous crime:

  "The cowards!" he snarled. "The murderers!"

  "Are you sure," stammered Bernard, "are you sure it's Elisabeth's hair?"

  "Why, of course I am. They've shot her as they shot the two others. I know them both: it's the keeper and his wife. Oh, the blackguards!…"