The Nickel Man

by Brian Stableford

  The young man who had come in after them began by darting a circular glance around the room, and, perceiving the readers, who did not succeed in hiding their faces completely, he came to sit down not far away from them, looking at them with a satisfied expression.

  Well, thought the newcomer, chance has favored me, and I’ll telegraph my fortunate discovery to the paper.

  When he questioned the innkeeper, however, as she poured him a glass of hot punch, he learned with some disappointment that the Briseval telegraph office closed at seven o’clock in the evening, and would not open again until seven in the morning. It was necessary to resign himself, and, as reportage never loses its rights, he resolved at least to interview the people he seemed to be seeking or pursuing. He only needed some incident to give him the opportunity.

  He had not overlooked the gendarmes, and laughed covertly as he lit a cigarette. Those brave soldiers of the law, who are sipping quietly in their corner, have no suspicion that the two criminals who about whom all Paris is talking are four strides way from their kepis. It’s not me who’ll tell them—I’m a reporter, not a detective.

  As for the two individuals he was considering so lightly as criminals, they had seen the reporter come in, but he had been too well wrapped up in his furs for much of his face to be visible. Now that he was sitting down, by contrast, his overcoat was ajar. Bémolisant, who was watching him from the corner of his eye, could not suppress a gesture of bewilderment, and he leaned toward Pilesèche.

  “We’re no longer safe,” he said. “There’s someone who knows us.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “I’ve seen that face before somewhere. Hang on…the memory’s coming back. He’s a journalist who came to interview me once.”

  “And you think he’s recognized you?”

  “I’d bet on it. Who can tell whether he might be here tracking us, in order to be the first to report our arrest?”

  “You’re frightening me. That journalist, those gendarmes…we’re doomed, then!”

  “Keep quiet—but let’s try to slip away.”

  From that moment on, they maneuvered as adroitly as possible in order to leave the room without attracting attention, but to complete their misfortune, the showman, judging that no one else was likely to turn up at that late hour, had taken off his overcoat and was blocking the internal door by means of which the fugitives had planned to escape.

  The performer commenced his patter.

  “Mesdames et Messieurs,” he said, “I have the honor of submitting to your competent attention a few curious experiments that have earned me the suffrage of highly placed people, and even crowned heads. I shall begin by doing a few card tricks and feats of strength, in order to get my hand in and develop my magnetic fluid. After that, I shall have the honor of introducing you to a remarkable subject whom Doctors Bernheim and Charcot37 have tried to lure away from me with gold. I shall submit you thereafter to experiments in somnambulism, hypnotism, Mesmerism, suggestion and catalepsy; these experiments are absolutely unprecedented and new, astonishing and mysterious creations that have no relationship with those of certain charlatans who call themselves, alas, my colleagues, have been able to put before you. Everyone knows that Professor Joël is no charlatan. I could, like some people I could name, earn a great deal of money with trickery, but I have always preferred the art and the science.”

  After that brief introduction, the session commenced.

  The first part, in which only Professor Joël was in play, offered nothing of particular interest, except for the extraordinary dexterity of the experimenter, who juggled with his cards and made them do whatever he wanted.

  When he had finished, he announced that Miss Adda was going to prepare for her appearance, while he made a tour of the amiable society, which would want to recompense the skill of his performance and encourage him for the sequel.

  The two travelers who had been first to arrive, in whom the reader will have had no difficulty recognizing Bémolisant and Pilesèche, did not have to be begged to put their obol in the bowl; that generous gesture reassured the landlady, who was watching them from the corner of her eyes, that they were definitely not penniless vagabonds, as she had briefly feared.

  In the meantime, the young woman had risen to her feet and thrown her tartan over a chair. Her eyes, atonal a little while before, were now shining with a feverish light. She braced herself in her satin corsage, which creaked, and beneath the body of a sickly child, a kind of innate distinction was definable, which the abjection of her métier had not succeeded in obliterating entirely.

  She advanced at a languid pace, swaying on her hips with the customary gait of a ballerina. The showman tightened the hem of her skirt with a leather strap.

  “We’re going to begin,” he said, finally, “with a few experiments in catalepsy. Catalepsy, Mesdames et Messieurs, is one of the phases of hypnotic sleep. Similar to death, it gives the body a cadaverous rigidity. The muscles tense with a superhuman force. You’re going to see each of this frail creature’s limbs become as stiff as a steel bar.

  He had grasped her by the wrists, and, looking into her eyes twenty centimeters from her face, he concentrated all the force of his being in the fixed gaze.

  The most complete silence reigned in the inn, where all the audience members were waiting, leaning forward, hypnotized themselves, reluctantly intrigued, and holding their breath.

  Half a minute was sufficient. Suddenly, Miss Adda fell into the arms of the strong man. The latter made a sign to Pilesèche, who happened to be closest to him.

  “Come and help me, Monsieur, I beg you.”

  At that appeal, the laboratory assistant felt very ill-at-ease, not wanting to put himself so much in evidence, but his companion shoved him—would not a refusal have attracted more attention?

  “Come, come,” insisted Joël. “You’re not going to leave me alone with this charming burden in my arms?”

  Pilesèche stood up and advanced toward them.

  “Bring up a chair, please. Lift Miss Adda up by the feet and place them on the edge of the chair, while I place her head on a second support.

  And the young woman, completely rigid, was suspended like a bridge, only supported by her heels and the back of her neck.

  An “Ah!” of astonishment ran round the room.

  “Oh, don’t exclaim yet. This is nothing—and to give you a better idea of the strength of the tensed muscles, the Monsieur who is helping me will prove to you that a frail woman can carry him without buckling.” He had placed a napkin over the subject’s body. “Climb up, Monsieur,” he added. “Climb up without fear.”

  The other did not want to.

  “Climb up, since he says so,” clamored the impatient peasants.

  He made his decision, and stood up on the rigid body.

  “Weigh upon her as heavily as you like,” said the showman. “Are you scared of falling?”

  Miss Adda did not budge under the burden, and more than a wooden beam.

  “Well, Messieurs, you can see that the subject supports eighty kilos without flinching. What do say to that? But look, solely by the force of my gaze, I shall now return flexibility to her muscles. Don’t move, Monsieur...”

  He gazed fixedly at certain tensor muscles, which gradually gave way. The body sank down gradually, as of the bridge were breaking in the middle—but when the operator ceased gazing, the immobility became complete again.

  “Now we’ll return her to her original position—and all, Messieurs, by the power of my gaze alone.”

  And the body straightened, obedient to the imperious will that commanded it, lifting the laboratory assistant up again.

  “Take note that the insensibility is complete,” the operator continued. “Approach, Messieurs; you can prick or pinch the subject; she won’t feel a thing... Now, if you’re completely convinced, we’re going to wake Miss Adda up and pass on to recreative experiments in somnambulism and suggestion.

  Pilesèche had got down.r />
  Joël blew on the closed eyes of the young woman, and spread out his hands, as if to draw away the fluid. Miss Adda uttered a sigh, and Joël supported her at the moment when, waking up, she was about to collapse on the floor.

  The audience cried “Bravo!” and started clapping, but the professor stopped them with a gesture.

  “Some of my colleagues, to deceive their audience, make passes and grimaces, roll up their sleeves and assume diabolical attitudes, but Messieurs, nothing is simpler than hypnosis; I’ll show you how true savants operate. Pay attention!”

  At the same time, he clicked his fingers in front of Miss Adda’s eyes. She, suddenly gripped by the gaze, started following the fingers everywhere they went, in abrupt zigzags, twisting her body in order not to lose sight of the digits that had hypnotized her, leaning over backwards in atrocious equilibria, her eyes wide open.

  That went on for a few minutes.

  After that fatiguing activity, Miss Adda was woken up again, and set forth on a little quest of her own. Professor Joël announced that he was about to go from strength to strength—“as chez Nicolet”—and, in accordance with suggestions with which the audience would collaborate, he would show his gratitude for the flattering attention that was being lent to him by making some experiments in second sight,

  That alluring program proceeded with increasing interest, and Pilesèche, gradually forgetting his present situation, recovered his old enthusiasm for science. He had an increasing desire to substitute himself for the charlatan, crying to him: “Friend, what you’re doing is merely the infancy of the art. I’ve known many other things for a long time, Let me take your place, and you’ll see!”

  Without having to be begged now, as soon as the magnetizer asked for assistance, he presented himself, and as he guessed in advance what the other desired, his actions came to a nominated point neatly and precisely, so that Joël could no longer reckon him a simple curiosity-seeker.

  Thus, during a brief pause, the impressed operator whispered in his ear; “You’re in the game, eh, my dear chap?”

  “Not exactly, but I have a few tricks up my sleeve.”

  “Messieurs!” cried the professor, no longer worrying about his assent, and turning to his audience, “I’d like to introduce a little diversity into the session, and this Monsieur will show you a few experiments of his own. You’ll be able to see that there’s no trickery involved, and that Miss Adda is a truly remarkable subject.”

  “He’s an accomplice!” someone shouted.

  “Get away!” shouted the others.

  And Pilesèche, enfevered, no longer thinking about anything but science, set about realizing the most difficult and marvelous experiments. In his hands, the young woman was an instrument of extreme sensitivity. She shivered as soon as he looked at her, and it only required a simple imposition of his hands to make her pass through all the phases of the strange state, still so little known, in which the human organism seems, step by step, to live distinct lives successively, progressing further and further toward an acuity of perception so keen that it extends across time and space. Miss Adda seemed to be under his complete dependency, drawn to him by an irresistible force, never taking her eyes off him, even during hr periods of lucidity.

  “The two of us could do great things,” said Professor Joël, his eyes widening in their turn.

  “More, more!” cried the members of the audience, stamping their feet in enthusiasm.

  The gendarmes had risen to their feet, open-mouthed in surprise at all that sorcery. The reporter brought his hands together in his pockets, with the curious instinct of his métier. Only Bémolisant did not abandon himself to the general fever, thinking that it would have been more prudent to slip away.

  The young woman, sitting on a chair with her eyes closed, with Pilesèche behind her, drawn up to his full height, his hair thrown back, his eyes bright and his left hand on the subject’s had

  “Can you see?” he asked.

  “Yes, said the other, softly, with some effort. “I can see a little, but take me further.”

  Pilesèche pressed down harder on her hair.

  “Ah!” Miss Adda continued, as if a veil had been torn away. “I can see! I can see!”

  The laboratory assistant extended his right hand. The audience was mute, held in suspense. But suddenly, in a lower voice, in the midst of the silence, and with a gesture of fear, she said: “Oh! Poor man, poor man, save yourself! You’re being pursued. Be careful—they know who you are and where you are.”

  The laboratory assistant shivered. His face went pale, and his entire body was shaken by a nervous tremor.

  Everyone’s eyes were fixed on him now.

  Some were laughing, not knowing what was happening. But the gendarmes were also looking at the singular operator. They looked at one another and started talking in whispers—and one of them, taking a piece of paper from his pocket, seemed to be comparing the individual with a description.

  “It’s him,” he said, in a low voice, to his companion. “There’s no arrest warrant, but we can’t let the opportunity pass.”

  And, heading toward the traveler slowly, like a man going about his business who is not about to let his target escape, he said in a loud voice: “Monsieur Pilesèche, I arrest you.”

  Bémolisant stood up abruptly, He looked for a way out, but the second gendarme, turning toward him, spread out his arms.

  “Don’t try to leave, I beg you,” he said, in his turn.

  “What is all this?” cried the audience members, absolutely astounded.

  The gendarmes were glad to display their sagacity. “They’re the murderers of the Panthéon quarter,” they said, simply.

  “Oh!”

  At that reproving cry, everyone stood back, leaving the two accomplices in the hands of the authority.

  “My word!” murmured the reporter. “I had nothing to do with it—but what a fine telegram in the morning!”

  “Damn it, gendarmes” cried the professor, gripped by a fit of philanthropy and gratitude toward the man who had lent him his assistance. “Let me at least post bail for the criminals!”

  “Thank you very much,” replied Bémolisant, in a dignified tone, “but we’re not criminals, and we don’t accept charity.” The artist, who had been so afraid of being caught a little while before, had recovered his courage now that he was a prisoner.

  “Brigadier,” said the reporter, presenting his card to the gendarme. “I’m Jean Saure, a journalist well known even in this remote region. Will you allow me to ask these Messieurs a few questions?”

  “Are you mocking the public force? A journalist? What does that matter to me? Address yourself to the public prosecutor.”

  “Very well, grim soldier; I shall fall back in good order.”

  The gendarmes had carefully bound the prisoners’ wrists.

  “And now, right turn, and march!” said the brigadier. “To prison!”

  XI. In which the birds are flushed out

  Briseval’s prison was the vulgar lock-up that ornaments the Mairie of any self-respecting village: a small, dark, narrow cell wedged under the staircase, designed to hold incorrigible drunkards rather than hardened criminals. It was not used often, not because people were any more virtuous in Briseval than elsewhere, but because there was an indulgent sympathy there for the joyful lovers of the local drinking den.

  The principal usage of the cell was to serve as a store-room for the instruments of the town’s brass band.

  The corners of the cell were furnished with spiders’ webs, with their tenants, and water was dripping down the walls of the low and poorly-ventilated room. It was scarcely possible open the door, let alone close it again.

  When the two prisoners found themselves anyone in that obscurity, they let themselves fall on to the dusty planks that served as a camp bed and remained silent for a moment, overwhelmed by the horror of their situation.

  The wind was blowing through the ill-fitted planks of the door, and the poo
r fellows were numb with cold.

  “A bad night is soon passed,” said Pilesèche, finally, “and we’ll be taken before an examining magistrate tomorrow. I’d as soon get it over with as drag out my sad existence along the highways. What do you expect? I’m not made for adventures.”

  “And as you can’t demonstrate your innocence, you’ll rot in a cell until they drag you to the assizes, where an idiot jury will convict you, and you’ll take your head to the scaffold, for a crime you haven’t committed!”

  “Brrr! You’re sending cold chills down my spine. But what the hell! Since we’re caught, let’s be fatalistic, and let our destiny work itself out...”

  “You can say that if you like—me, I’d prefer to save myself if there’s a means.”

  “It’s only in novels that one digs tunnels under the walls to escape from prison.”

  “But this badly-closed room isn’t a prison; there must be a way of getting out of it.”

  Pilesèche shook the door. “It’s solid, at any rate,” he said, “And the lock’s enormous.”

  “Come on, my friend, my good Pilesèche, we don’t have time to waste, and those damned gendarmes are bound to be back first thing in the morning. Think hard. Do you need tools? Here’s my knife, for they forgot to search us.”

  “Listen—I’ll give it a try. I noticed that this cell is under the staircase. If the steps aren’t made of stone, it might be possible to attack them.”

  Groping with his fingertips, he approached the declivity formed by the ceiling of the cell. The point of the knife succeeded in chipping away a few flakes of plaster and laid bare a simple lattice, easy to destroy. Behind it there was nothing but a wooden step—but the oak boards were solid and well-fitted; the knife was chipped and there was a risk that it might break.

  Picking up a bench, Pilesèche made use of it as a lever, leaning it on a second bench placed at right angles. The step, retained by notch-boards, bent in the middle, and Bémolisant took advantage of that opportunity give a vigorous blow to the vertical plank that served as a counter-step, and which, being less thick, gave way easily enough.