The Lynx

by Michel Corday

  “Yes, it’s really me,” he reassured him, immediately. “I’ve come to see you. I managed to get in here by means of a ruse. Doisteau helped me.”

  “Doisteau…indeed, I’ve seen him several times. He’s not kind, Doisteau. He pretended not to recognize me, although I’d met him several times in your laboratory.”

  “Forgive him.”

  “There are too many people it would be necessary to forgive!” said Lacaze, grimly.

  It was only a flash, a moment of drama. Already, the image of his fiancée had appeared in the mind of the invalid, with a beautiful intensity that expelled any other thought.

  “And Jeanne?” he asked.

  “Jeanne’s anxious about you, naturally.”

  Lacaze misunderstood, thinking that it was uniquely a matter of his health.

  “Poor dear…it’s true, I’m not brilliant. Reassure her, though. Tell her that you found me well...”

  “I can’t tell her that, Henri, because I’m acting without her knowledge. It’s even necessary that she doesn’t know…don’t tell her that I’ve come when you write.”

  “Why?”

  Caught unawares, he invented: “To spare her the regret of not having been able to come with me.”

  Furthermore, his embarrassment was increasing. He searched for the word, or the phrase, that would unleash the association of ideas necessary to his investigation, which would provoke a confession of the crime or a cry of innocence.

  A direct interrogation would have been brutal and wounding, especially at that moment, when Lacaze was allowing himself to be carried away by his memories. His thought evolved with an extraordinary precision, which Mirande had difficulty following. He relived enchanting moments in the little apartment in the Rue Monge, with his fiancée. Then, without any appreciable connection—perhaps the comparison of two intoxications, two purities—there was a flight into the blue sky, on the quivering wings of the helicoplane.

  Oh, if he had been able to invoke that nocturnal excursion, in which the aviator claimed to have injured his hand on a taut wire. But no: no return to the drama. One might have thought that Lacaze feared that terrain, that he had forbidden his memory to slip into it. Aloud, he went on:

  “I would have liked so much to see her, to thank her. Oh, her letters...her letters! They’re so tender, so touching! That resolution to join me out there, in Guyana…but I don’t want that. She’d suffer too much…”

  This time, undoubtedly, he was about to return to the drama and thus yield his secret thought…but no. One might have thought that he did not know, or that he had definitively accepted the verdict of the law.

  A doubt occurred to Mirande, however. If Lacaze, exhausted in any case by his illness, did not experience any need to protest his innocence, perhaps it was because he considered it to be evident in the eyes of his friends? For Gabriel, for his sister, it was an acquired fact. Their stubbornness in defending him during the trial was sufficient proof of that. What was the point?

  And, in fact, Lacaze continued to avoid the past. He dwelt on his physical suffering, on the recurrences of his fever, on the minor incidents of his life in prison, with an absolute frankness that Mirande checked syllable by syllable. He was not hiding anything. He was expressing his thoughts faithfully—to such an extent that, incessantly recoiling from the brutality of a direct interrogation, Mirande drew away from his objective. He asked about the cellular regime, his relationship with the warders. Then, keeping quiet about the existence and intervention of the serum, he told him briefly about Brion’s death, Simone’s resurrection, and his recent encounter with Castillan at Lambrine’s.

  And suddenly, an inspiration illuminated him. “And guess who I met that evening? Dutoit!”

  “Dutoit! Oh, the wretch! That ignoble individual…oh, if he fell into my hands...”

  With an unsuspected energy, Lacaze had sat up on his bed. All his rage shone in his eyes. All his hatred rose to his face, inscribed on his fleshless cheeks in two fiery patches.

  And within him, what a seething of revolt! What fulgurant indignation! What a dazzling oration! All that words could not express, his thought cried out, with an eloquence and an irresistible force.

  And Mirande collected that generous protestation with so much avidity, remorse and joy that he could not contain himself. He seized the dolorous victim in his arms and hugged him furiously, covered the pitiful jaundiced forehead with repentant kisses. And he stammered: “Oh, my poor old fellow, my poor good fellow. If you knew how I love you, how we love you, Jeanne and I. Come on, we’ll get your revenge on Dutoit. We’ll get you out of this...”

  Such an effusion, succeeding the constraint and oldness of the beginning, disconcerted Lacaze, who thought, like Francette an hour before: Ah! He’s gone crazy…!

  But of madness like that, Mirande only asked that he could taste the delicious sweetness more often. And it was with an indulgent and light heart that he welcomed the secret confession of the good Doisteau, who reappeared at the door.

  Let’s see, good, all’s well, He definitely hasn’t brought a revolver, a gag or a false beard.

  IV

  “Innocent! Lacaze is innocent!”

  His tread light and his heart joyful, Mirande was talking to himself in the solitude of the exterior boulevards. On leaving the prison he had immediately thrown himself into those vast spaces, to flee the buzz of strange thoughts while he remained under the influence of the serum.

  So, all the judges on earth had run into that indecipherable enigma; they had never been able to know whether the accused who protested his innocence was sincere or lying. They had never been able to discover the truth that was agitating behind his forehead. But he, Mirande, possessed that supreme proof...

  How glad Jeanne would have been to learn that her amorous instinct had not been deceived... Once again, he deplored his inability to reveal his secret to her. But he promised to reassure her without betraying it, and to penetrate her with his own certainty.

  And what never strength he would be able to draw from that certainty, in order to extract Lacaze from prison, to prove his innocence! An entire plan was designed in his mind, in vigorous strokes. He would go to see Favery, the direct of the Lumière. This time, he would reach him. He would persuade him to share his conviction, without revealing its source. Oh, how warmly he would plead his cause henceforth! He would be able to demonstrate the advantage, for a newspaper, of opening a campaign whose success was certain, of being the first to denounce a judiciary error whose discovery was fatal.

  Gradually, public consciousness would be awakened. People who had remained silent out of prudence might perhaps decide to speak. Generous minds, fond of equity, would become anxious, would want to study the affair. Even the law, if only to defend its work, would bring out its evidence, and thus betray its fragility.

  Quickly, Mirande would be able to ameliorate the fate of the prisoner, loosen his chains, until the day of the definitive revenge, the overturning of his conviction.

  Suddenly, however, he stopped. To obtain that revision, it would be necessary for him to produce a new fact, or identify the true guilt party. In his joy at knowing that Lacaze was innocent, he had forgotten the crime and its perpetrator. In spite of all his power, his divinatory faculty, how could he succeed in discovering and unmasking the true guilty party?

  On returning home, he found a telegram form on his desk. He opened it and read the signature: Simone Castillan! He read it avidly. She was not yet fully recovered. However, she had invited a few friends to tea on the following day, to celebrate her convalescence. She absolutely insisted on the presence of her savior. Already, it had been painful for her to think that she had not yet had the opportunity to express her gratitude to him. Her husband had told her to insist on his behalf.

  Mirande threw the note on to the table. His first impulse was to refuse, to keep his distance. But would not his avoidance of thanks end up by provoking suspicions? How would Simone explain it to her husband. Tha
t she had not seen her childhood friend since her marriage, Castillan would have had no reason to be surprised, but he would be astonished that Mirande refrained from reappearing after having snatched her from death. Alerted by that singular reserve, he might seek information, divine the disappointed amour...

  No, the passion that the unhappy man wanted to stifle in himself, he had no right to allow the husband to divine.

  Obscurely, he rejoiced in being pushed toward her by his very scruples. Certainly, it would cost him to see her at home, married. But at the moment when he was about to go fully into action, when the struggle in which he was engaged had entered a new phase, it seemed to him that the dear presence would have the bittersweetness of a cordial.

  And abruptly, the temptation invaded him to know Simone’s thought. A few days earlier, he would have rejected such a suggestion violently. He would have obeyed the concern for discretion and respect that, when Jeanne had passed by, had thrown him into the darkest and most remote corner of the stairway. But precisely because he had retained from that mental apparition of sorts such an impression of whiteness, of purity, of radiant splendor, he was confident, reassured, avid to plunge once again into those lustral waves.

  Even the humble confession of the maidservant, the cry, involuntarily provoked, that had escaped poor Francette’s heart, reassured him, inciting him to the tender proof. With a naïve egotism, he retained nothing of it but the certainty of being able to inspire love. His timidity, his suspicion of himself, had been attenuated by it.

  Oh, he was not meditating either troubling Simone or deviating from the right path. Lies and treason were too repugnant to his own nature. No, he would find out what she thought of him, discover whether she retained the tender amity that she had shown him in the time of their adolescence. His curiosity was even more elevated, purified, free from all personal concern. With no hidden agenda, he wanted to interrogate Simone about herself, without her being aware of it, to make sure that she was happy, that she had no reason to complain about her life with her equivocal and charming husband.

  So just and so strong were the reasons with which his desire to see Simone again was enveloped, that Mirande was intimidated to the point of anguish when he went into the Castillans’ drawing-room.

  He was not yet under the influence of the serum. He knew its effects with precision now. He had checked that they would only be manifest after an hour. He was, therefore, the master of the moment at which his power would commence. Thus, he only injected himself three-quarters of an hour before the visit, in order that its commencement would not be troubled by the buzz of nearby thoughts.

  On the threshold, he congratulated himself for his caution. He thought he was going into an aviary. Four or five ladies, gathered around Simone, were all twittering at once. Already stunned by their chirping, he would have lost his mind if he had been obliged to listen to their interior voices as well.

  Simone was curled up in an armchair near the fireplace. Her face lit up and she extended her hand to him. And she said, in a soft voice, when he bowed before her: “That’s good.”

  Then the conversation was unleashed again, and he was soon able to contemplate the young woman at his leisure. She retained nothing from the terrible ordeal but a slight languor, in harmony with her natural grace, which added to her charm. He prolonged his ecstasy, simultaneously dolorous and delighted. She was alive...

  The entire past of youth, poetry and amour, which he had thought buried forever, was resuscitated. She was alive, but for someone else. She no longer belonged to herself. The irony of destiny determined that she would always remain for him the inaccessible and distant idol.

  Meanwhile, the conversation fluttered between the narrow limits that it is conventional to maintain in those sorts of receptions. There was talk of theaters and costumes. Then, Madame Castillan having deplored the departure of a chambermaid who had revealed expert skills, all the visitors erupted in condolences. One could no longer keep a good domestic, and the worst of them were acquiring such pretentions that it would soon no longer be possible to obtain service.

  Mirande was hardly listening. In a few minutes, the serum would take effect, and he feared being unable to use its power usefully on Simone in the midst of all that frivolous chatter. Already, in his meeting with Lacaze, he had felt all the difficulty of orientating someone’s thought in a specific direction, and then leading them to formulate the thought in perceptible terms. How could he lead Simone to descend into herself, to reveal her sentiment regarding him, regarding her own happiness, in the midst of that cackling?

  He became worried about the time. For the first time, he inspected the vast drawing-room, where the soft light of electric bulbs clad in silk caressed the furniture, the hangings and the trinkets, revealing an ensemble with the sober sumptuousness of a museum.

  Finally, he discovered a Louis XV clock hanging on the wall near the chimney-breast. Past six o’clock; the truce was complete. And the twitter of the aviary did not stop. Resigned, he waited, his eyes on the floor. And gradually, the light babble was doubled for him by another concert, almost as frivolous and almost as tumultuous: thoughts if praise and envy for the furniture and the arrangement of the drawing-room; lacunae discovered in the menu of taste; shrill criticisms of the dress and mannerisms of the neighbor; concern to appear elegant and pretty oneself, more so than the others.

  In passing, Mirande collected a few impressions regarding him. One mocked his mutism; one disapproved of his cravat; one admired his abundant hair, his svelte shoes. But one note dominated, by its force and its abundance: the desire to get it over with, the urge to leave. Some were harassed by the need to stack visits upon visits, other by the hour of an appointment with a milliner, a couturier, or someone else, and others by the simple desire to finish the chore, to be outside: a unique refrain of all those songs, which gave the disparate chorus a kind of harmony. And Mirande, irritated by that interior verbiage, thought in his turn: Since they’re in such a hurry to leave, why don’t they go?

  He knew that by looking directly at Simone he could grasp her thought more especially. What was the point? At that moment, constrained by rigid social law, she must be agitated, like her companions, by futile concerns. And then, he would have had to look at her insistently. He did not dare. And, hanging his head, he waited, dumbfounded.

  Fortunately, the doorbell was heard through the drapes. At that signal, one lady got up swiftly. Two others, incapable of resisting her example, imitated her almost immediately. They took their leave, with effusions, regrets and anguish in their voices, while singing internally the joy of taking flight.

  They crossed the path of a visitor that Mirande recognized immediately: Quatrefin, a wealthy man who was involved in major industrial deals and was interested in aviation. Svelte and solid, his beard fine and his gaze frank, he was reputed to be honest in financial milieux, where his boldness and skill were admired.

  Convinced of Lacaze’s innocence, he had testified in favor of the accused. He had affirmed that at the moment of the aviator’s arrest, he was about to make him a large loan. Mirande retained a gratitude for that attitude, which he had expressed several times in the course of the trial.

  Completely at ease, Quatrefin brushed Simone’s hand with a kiss and congratulated her on how well she looked.

  “I permitted myself,” he added, “to order a few flowers in passing, for your convalescence.”

  And suddenly, Mirande perceived that the man’s thoughts surpassed his words. He experienced more pleasure than he had marked in finding Simone reestablished, in celebrating her return to health. He was more attached to her that he allowed to appear. She pleased him.

  Mirande felt his heart pinched by jealousy. Immediately, he tried to reassure himself. A woman like her, of a grace so touching, of such gentle beauty, could not go through life without inspiring fervor and admiration. But what about her? Could she be insensible to such homages?

  Forgetting his prudence and restraint, he fi
xed his gaze upon her ardently. He breathed out. She remained placid, indifferent, simply recalling that Quatrefin was a friend of Castellan’s, she asked him: “Have you seen my husband?”

  He replied, secretly annoyed by her calmness: “We arrived together. He’ll catch up with me.”

  Already, he was shaking Mirande’s hand with an energetic grip.

  “Glad to see you again,” he said.

  He was thinking that—but at the same time, he was wondering why he had never encountered Mirande at the Castillans’ before, and was astonished to find him so different from his appearance at the trial, so confident and well-dressed.

  Castillan appeared. The last female visitor took advantage of that to get up. He said to her in a heart-broken tone, although she was utterly indifferent to him: “What? You’re running away as soon as I arrive?”

  “No, no,” she replied, “but I’m dining in town.” She did not add that she had to call in at her hairdresser’ first, because her temples were beginning to lost their gilt since the last lotion.

  At that moment, Quatrefin asked Mirande, in his warm, brusque voice: “Well, what about poor Lacaze? He’s definitely going to the prison colony? You haven’t discovered any new indication?”

  Mirande was obliged to keep silent about his research. “Nothing,” he said. But once again, he protested his friend’s innocence. The necessity of masking the origin of his certainty excited his zeal further. He wanted to compensate for the absence of proof by persuasion. Eager to convince, he proclaimed his faith in the ultimate success, the discovery of the real guilty party.

  In the gazes and behind the foreheads, he watched for sentiment. And suddenly a thought as strident and clear as a burst of laughter mocked: “Go on, my lad. You’ll do well to find him, your guilty party...”

  Castillan? Only Castillan could jeer like that. Did he know something?

  His gaze taut, Mirande concentrated, pouncing upon him mentally. He wanted to concentrate his thought on the crime.