The Nickel Man

by Brian Stableford

  The aeronauts had nothing more to throw out. Then discouragement gripped them: what was the point of delaying the fatal outcome? No ship appeared that could pick up the unfortunates, and now they were waiting, instinctively clinging to the rigging...

  Abruptly, an impact!

  The wicker nacelle dipped into the sea, which submerged it momentarily, soaking the unfortunates to the skin.

  Joël, with his knowledge of the métier, had climbed into the circle of the net, but, pushed by the wind, the balloon lay down on the sea, leaving its rigging trailing in the waves, and the acrobat with it.

  Under the deballasting effect of the nacelle dipping into the water, however, the gas recovered a little force and lifted the entire rig, which, with a new surge rose up fifty meters—only to fall again immediately.

  And those lugubrious somersaults, the last bounds of an exhausted horse, were repeated until the balloon, having used up all its energy, flaccid and convulsed, stood up by the wind like a huge body without a soul, resumed skimming the waves, only slowed down by the heavy burden that it was still dragging, half-submerged, hollowing out a long wave behind it.

  That envelope of cotton fabric, bloated and undulating, in which gusts of wind hollowed out pockets with sinister flopping sounds, resembled, in the light of the setting sun, a monstrous octopus sustaining in its tentacles three condemned men, just sufficiently to prolong their agony.

  Every shock that plunged them under water gave them a vision of the anguish of death.

  Pilesèche and his companion had tried to escape the waves by climbing up to the net as well. With their feet on the edge of the nacelle, they hoisted themselves up as far as they could—but their position was even more atrocious there; they were rolled in all directions, only hanging on to the ropes by their stiffened hands, battered by the waves, blinded by the icy mist...

  And, letting go, they fell, devoid of strength and courage, into the bottom of the nacelle, losing consciousness and perception of their surroundings.

  Were they not already in the strange slumber that resembles the vestibule of death? How many minutes separated them now from eternity?

  XV. An Agents’ Square-Dance

  As he boarded the train that was to take him back to Paris Monsieur Boissonnald found himself torn between two contrary sentiments, and, according to whether he turned his ideas heads up or tails up, he found a face that was cheerful or sad, like the double image of Heraclitus and Democritus.

  In him, Democritus was weeping for the lamentable outcome of the particular affair that had brought him to Nantes—for, in truth, it was only a fortunate combination of circumstances that had allowed him to stumble by chance on to the tracks of the fugitives.

  Heraclitus was laughing in thinking about the nice trick he had just played on his colleague Rosamour, whose somewhat arrogant manner had the gift of making his hair curl.

  He counted, moreover, on not leaving it there, and working to discredit the “scientific detective” by all the means at his disposal.

  Who could tell? Perhaps there was a place to take there, and the private enterprise that he had undertaken had not been sufficiently successful that he would disdain an opportunity to return to the administrative bosom, if some striking coup could open the door to him.

  That is why Master Boissonnald, as soon as he arrived in Paris, thought that he ought to present himself in the office of Monsieur Fischer, the examining magistrate in charge of the Panthéon affair.

  Boissonnald had assumed his most hypocritical expression and his most enigmatic smile. He found the magistrate in a state of nervous overexcitement, easy o understand, for he had just received a telegram from Rosamour announcing the aerial flight of the two criminals. Did that fact not corroborate all his suspicions? A further telegram informed him, moreover, of the negative result of all the agent’s attempts to discover where the balloon had landed. Finally, Rosamour announced his imminent return, and more ample verbal explanations.

  Boissonnald therefore arrived in time to be the first to furnish details of the incident. In doing so, he took a malign pleasure in charging his colleague with all possible stupidities, so effectively that the magistrate, who drank in his words and was already quite prepared to depreciate the conduct of an unsuccessful agent, was convinced that he was dealing with a complete idiot.

  In the meantime, Rosamour was on his way to render an account of his lack of success. That is never a situation full of attractions, and we would be lying if he said that he was not crestfallen.

  As for the welcome that waited him, he was under no illusions in that regard. The method that he had thought it best to employ in the affair had never pleased the examining magistrate. One success could legitimate his initiative. He had failed; it only remained for him to pay for the breakages.

  Such were the reflections that were agitating him on the cushions of the express between Nantes and Paris, but as, all things considered, he was not lacking in a certain dose of philosophy, our policeman ended up going to sleep and dreaming that he had stolen Icarus’ wings and was improbably giving chase to the fugitives through the skies.

  On arrival in Paris, the time had not get come to go to the Prefecture of Police. He therefore occupied himself with lodging Miss Adda in a nearby hotel, in order to have his witness near to hand when needed. As for the nickel statue, as well as the other items that he had thought he ought to retain from the acrobat’s frippery, he had them transported to his own apartment. The rest had been left under seal in Nantes.

  When Rosamour decided to go to the Prefecture he was not surprised to be received coldly by the head of the Sûreté, who nevertheless held him in particular esteem.

  “My good friend,” the latter said, “the scientific method has not held up. What do you expect? You’ve made too much noise with your operations. Of someone else one would be content to say that he’d been unfortunate; of you, they’ll say that you’ve been maladroit. That’s what comes of wanting to reform humanity. Now, I advise you not to go to see Fischer for the moment. He’s furious with you. It’s necessary to say that you’ve demolished yourself throughout this affair—a child of fifteen wouldn’t have had your naivety.”

  “But nothing is lost,” Rosamour protested. “Our fugitives have escaped into death, for it’s obvious that they’ve fallen into the sea; otherwise I’d have picked up traces of them. The affair is therefore liquidated in that respect. There now remains the other aspect of the problem to resolve, the victim to recover. Let me disentangle that—I’ll take responsibility for penetrating the mystery. We’ll see then whether or not I’m maladroit...”

  “Ta ta ta…if I were alone, free in my movements, I wouldn’t say no, and you’d be able to get your revenge, but anything I can do would be futile. Someone else has been found for that task.”

  That declaration fell upon the agent like a cold shower. “Ah!” he said, finally. “And may one know to whom the affair has been entrusted?”

  “Yes, indeed…all the more so as Monsieur Fischer felt obliged to go over my head in order to go in search of that idiot Boissonnald.”

  “Well, well…so it’s Boissonnald!”

  Rosamour was perhaps about to say more, but he stopped, prudently, thinking that the moment for confidences had not yet come.

  “As for you, my dear,” the head of the Sûreté added, “my advice is that it’s time to disappear and wait in solitude for things to pick up again.” With the skepticism of a man accustomed to the perversity of things down here, he added; “Your time will come.”

  “To put it another way, I’ve got the boot.”

  “Sorry…you understand. Such a resounding failure—the court requires a scapegoat.”

  “Fair enough. I know how to occupy my leisure.”

  “Then all’s for the best. No hard feelings and, when the time comes, when all the noise has died down, count on me open the door.”

  “Much obliged.”

  As Rosamour as leaving, he turned round. “T
here’s no point, then, in going myself to report…”

  “Absolutely. Boissonnald has rendered you the service of sparing you that trouble by reporting your actions in detail—he happened to be there at the moment of the escape.”

  “Oh, I know, and I’m far from sure that he didn’t have anything to do with it.”

  “Aha! He’s a sly one...”

  Rosamour stuck his hat on and left the Prefecture of Police in a state of complete exasperation. With his hands in his pockets and his teeth clenched, he strode along the quais at a rapid pace, with no objective in mind, trying to reassemble his ideas and settle on a line of conduct.

  What could he do?

  Rancor is a poor adviser, and for the moment he was all rancor, only seeking the best means of putting one over on the examining magistrate and the successor who had got him so briskly sacked.

  Someone was about to poach on his preserves! And if that individual found the key to the mystery, he, Rosamour, would pass for a naïve fool!

  All was not said and done yet, of course, and he was not about to let go. There were two players in the game, if you please; it remained to be seen who would reach the goal more rapidly, and in the meantime, he would use all cunning of a Mohican to put Boissonnald off the rack, mystify Fischer, and roll over the police and the court alike, to snatch their prey from them if the aeronauts ever reappeared on the horizon and especially—above all!—to prevent them from finding the old scientist, the pivot of the entire affair.

  To start with, he did not feel any urgency to hand over to the clerk the few pieces of evidence that he possessed and to make known the only interesting witness that had been involved in recent events. Miss Adda was in a safe place; he had taken great care not to mention her to a living soul; no one would know who had caused her to disappear, and Boissonnald might search for her for a long time. It was more probable, however, that the latter would be much more interested in the two fugitives, unless he had accepted once and for all that the unfortunates had perished in the waves.

  As if to corroborate ht hypothesis, the newspapers announced that the wreckage of a balloon, deprived of its nacelle, had been found in the sea, and that the balloon could not be any other than the one from the Nantes fair. And indeed, as soon as that news reached the court, the file on the affair was hastily closed, there being no point in further pursuit since the guilty parties—who could doubt now that they were guilty?—were indubitably dead. It was, in any case, an honorable fashion to finish with an annoying investigation on which no one had succeeded in casting any light. There would always be time to take it up again of new circumstances required it.

  Even Boissonnald was not overly keen to follow such an obscure trail, which did not augur anything good. He had got the job and was quite comfortable there, what point was there in risking committing some stupidity in a complicated affair that had sunk his predecessor?

  Everyone was, therefore, satisfied—even public opinion, which, not doubting the culpability of the two fugitives, finally had the denouement of the drama—a picturesque denouement in which the crime had been punished by ineluctable fatality, as was appropriate.

  Rosamour was the only one not to be content, doubtless because he was too difficult to satisfy: the only one not to bury the affair, because he judged that his self-respect demanded that he provide a different denouement, his goal having always been before all, to find the old scientist and explain his disappearance.

  While those in official regions were occupying themselves with other matters, Rosamour, in the shadows, was setting up new batteries.

  Only one thing worried him one cannot make war without funds, and funds were lacking now that he was no longer drawing a salary from the Prefecture. But it is not with a mind as inventive as the former detectives that one allows oneself to be stopped by such details. He had already glimpsed the means of procuring the necessary resources. Had he not brought back the nickel statue that everyone thought admirable? Would it not be possible to sell that uncontested masterpiece?

  He thought, in addition, that there was a certain Madame Bémolisant in a corner of Paris to whom he had promised news of her husband. The moment had come. He had a definite sympathy for the poor woman, and judged that it was time to put her in the picture regarding the artist’s fate.

  Privately, Rosamour thought that, if the latter had found death as a way out of his adventure, it was no great loss, estimating that, as a husband, Bémolisant had always been more of an encumbrance than an asset—which was perhaps a reckless judgment. The agent wanted to convince himself, at least, that the widow would only be according him the just tribute of regret that convention demands in our society, steeped in conventions of evident absurdity.

  He promised himself, at any rate, to console her as best he could, not wanting a pretty woman to weep for too long.

  At the house in the Avenue de Clichy he found the two poor women desolate, firstly because they had had no news of the vanished artist, and secondly because they were running short of money. For one of them, at least—I mean Madame Legris—the second reason even surpassed the first, the grief of losing a son-in-law being unable to compare with a financial wound.

  “Oh, I was right!” cried Madame Bémolisant’s mother, the respectable Madame Legris, the very model of mothers-in-law. “Could one found the least confidence on that artist’s brain? There he is, running around the world, leaving his wife and child behind without a care.”

  “But mother,” he young woman pleaded, mildly, “why accuse him when he’s doubtless the victim of an inexorable fatality?”

  “Ta ta ta. I know what I think: he’s a simple imbecile.”

  He two women hardly ever read the papers. They were therefore unaware of the latest events, and Rosamour, with a hypocritically saddened expression, was obliged to pick up his story at an early point.

  What Madame Bémolisant wanted to know first of all was whether, if her husband had not fallen into a trap, he was still alive,

  “Alas, Madame,” said Rosamour, avoiding the question, “there is still some uncertainty as to his fate, but I saw him not long ago...”

  “You’ve seen him! He’s alive, Monsieur?” she interrupted, leaning toward him anxiously.

  “He was, at least, alive a few days ago—but let me tell you about my journey.”

  Briefly, he passed in review the various incidents in the flight of the two men whom no one, to begin with, was pursuing; their unfortunate arrest in Briseval; how they had escaped from prison, and how they had associated themselves for a few days with Professor Joël.

  Perhaps he insisted more than was necessary on the moral decadence of the two unfortunates who had not hesitated to deliver themselves, as grotesque marionettes, to the mockery of the public. Was he hoping to kill affection and regret in the heart of the wife by means of the ridicule of the situation?

  Finally, he recounted the final episode of the odyssey: the flight in the balloon.

  “But after all, why were they running away?” Madame Legris objected, yet again, not daring to add: if they aren’t guilty?

  “I don’t know,” Hélène replied, mildly, in her stubborn fashion, “but what I do know is that my husband is incapable of a bad action, much less a crime.”

  The policeman took pity on that superb confidence. “You’re right,” he said, “but one can kill without being a born criminal. One can also run away without being guilty, for fear of being accused. If one sees an entire body of evidence loom up against one, and cannot perceive, on the other hand, any way of proving one’s innocence, that’s enough to make a man lose his head, unless he has an exceptionally strong mind. One runs away then, like a hare, without thinking that the flight itself furnishes a further argument to the case for the prosecution.”

  Madame Bémolisant followed his argument avidly, which responded so well to her own thoughts. As Rosamour spoke, it seemed to her that the evidence was shining bright. She acquiesced with a gesture; her eyes lit up with hope; tears
were scintillating in the lashes.

  “Yes, Monsieur, yes,” she said, finally. “That’s definitely it; he was afraid, and he fled. It’s not necessary to seek elsewhere for the explanation of his conduct. And Monsieur Pilesèche went with him. Weren’t they both timid and fearful individuals, as naïve as children, and knowing so little of life!”

  “They might have made one another afraid,” Rosamour continued. “One coward is nothing, but two cowards are capable of going to the ends of the earth by pushing one another. They were faced with a fait accompli—an inexplicable death. They suddenly saw the accusation looming up before them, inevitable and irrefutable. In the impossibility of responding to it, they thought to escape by flight...”

  “That’s evident. I’ll go tell that magistrate. I’ll tell him...”

  “Don’t take the trouble. It’s too simple to appear plausible. In magistrates’ offices, they look for more subtle motives, and you’d be wasting your time. Then again, there’s no urgency now; the unfortunates might have found supreme deliverance in the waves to which their balloon transported them...”

  “Do you think so, Monsieur”

  “Who can say? In any case, if some ship has picked them up they’re doubtless safe now, out of reach of the law, which has abandoned the chase. Let’s allow all the noise to die down, then.”

  “But Monsieur, the rehabilitation—it’s for me that it’s necessary, and for my fighter, who bears his name...”

  “You shall have it…you shall have it in full. I want to prove the innocence of our two scatterbrains—but give me a free hand; it’s by finding the old uncle that I’ll succeed in that. Don’t worry; the honor of your name isn’t indifferent to me. The more I get to know you, the more I feel borne toward you by the respectful sympathy that first made me your ally.”

  And gradually, he consoled her, like a child that one soothes with kind words; that music rose from his heart to his lips, and even intoxicated him.

  He showed her the future open before her, full of radiant sunlight, succeeding the morose past. Could one despair, at her age? Her heart would awake on day, of its own accord, to the joy of living, in the midst of those who loved her, when time had done its work. She had had the strength to suffer, would she not have the patience to wait for the new spring in which everything within her would be reborn?