“Of course.”
“Let’s go there with our military march!”
At the bottom of the valley, the road took a curve, crossed the Nais over a little metal bridge and entered between the houses of the village. Turning several times, it climbed up to the church, then traveled left toward the square partly bordered by lindens. There stood the most beautiful and opulent houses of Saint-Christophe, with a large garage for cars at the entrance; there was also the habitation, nobly bourgeois, of the local physician.
“Here!” said Jacques d’Hermont, pointing to the house with a gesture. “As for me, I’ll take that road...”
He pointed to a road that wound upward, and continued:
“We should return together to Beech Grove. Where should we meet?”
“It’s a lovely day,” replied Saint-Clair, smiling. “The sun is still hitting the front of the hotel. This terrace is fine. It’s important that people see us together. I’m a friend who’s come to spend a few days with you. But let’s give me a false name: Dubois, Dupont or Durand, anything you like. I have the intuition that it’s better to leave everyone ignorant of the presence of the Nyctalope in your house. Without vanity, but with caution, I can say that I, too, am well known in the world not to attract attention and suspicions of which even I remain ignorant. In this respect, have you thought of giving an order at Beech Grove to say nothing about me to the outside world?”
“My goodness, no!”
“Ah! Please do so this evening. Let’s hope that my incognito has not already been betrayed.”
Jacques d’Hermont took the arm of his friend and said in an anxious, passionate tone:
“Do you have an idea? An intuition?”
“No. To tell the truth, none whatsoever!” said Saint-Clair, shaking his head a little. “But I sense that all precautions are necessary, and we must give no one outside Beech Grove the least suspicion that I’m here to investigate this mystery.”
“I understand. How about you being Charles Dumont, one of my brothers-in-arms from 1917?”
“Understood. I’ll be Charles Dumont, starting now.”
“Perfect!”
The two friends parted. From the threshold of the café-hotel, a man and a woman saw the Comte d’Hermont enter the Rue Haute, which five hundred meters farther turned into a dust road and filed along the plateau between the crops. They also saw the unknown gentleman go straight to the house of Doctor Luvier, push open the gate, climb the front steps, ring the doorbell and disappear behind the door, which had opened and then immediately closed.
In a very bourgeois drawing room, with a piano and a library, richly furnished and in good taste, Léo Saint- waited in the company of a young peasant woman nursing a child and a petty bourgeois in his Sunday best. To the rustic valet who had let him in him, he had said:
“Please announce Monsieur Charles Dumont, passing through for a consultation.”
Well settled in an armchair, arms crossed and eyes vague, he waited, meditating on everything he had learned so far. It was so extraordinary that, despite his will, he suffered a little from the atmosphere of anxiety that seemed to surround Jacques d’Hermont.
The wait did not seem long. In fact, it lasted only a quarter of an hour. The peasant woman went in first, then the petty bourgeois. Finally, the voice of the doctor said:
“Monsieur Dumont?”
“Ah! Yes!” said Saint-Clair, half distracted. “Pardon me.”
He entered the consulting room and introduced himself under his real name, all the while observing the doctor. He was: a young man, stocky and of small size, his face at once powerful and fine-featured, his brown eyes clear and lively, his look decisive and with a sympathetic aspect.
“The Nyctalope! Of course, I’ve heard of you!” exclaimed Doctor Luvier with spontaneous joy. “My friend d’Hermont has often spoken about you! And your exploits all around the world! How you defeated that madman Lucifer! If you had taken the time to look at my bookshelves, you would have seen your two volumes on the exploration of Occult Tibet.”
Smiling, the Nyctalope nodded. Then the doctor said:
“But why are you here, in Saint-Christophe, in the guise of Charles Dumont?”
“I will explain,” said Saint-Clair. “But have your consultations ended?”
“Yes. Your predecessor was the last of my patients today.”
“Is it possible for you to close your doors for at least an hour? I must talk to you about some very serious things…”
“Oh!” said Doctor Luvier, who stopped smiling. “I think I can guess after all. The mystery of Beech Grove.”
“Yes.”
“Very well. Please take a seat. I will give the order that if someone asks for me, my valet will say I have gone out.”
He disappeared and was gone for two minutes. Then he returned and closed the door again, with care. After turning the lock, he said seriously but with the sort of spirit the Nyctalope appreciated:
“There we are. I am at your service for as many hours as you please.”
“I’m grateful.”
The conversation lasted for over an hour.
When, after enjoying an aperitif with Jacques d’Hermont and Doctor Luvier on the still sunny terrace of the café-hotel, Saint-Clair once again found himself alone in the company of his friend on the return path to Beech Grove, he said simply:
“Nothing, my dear Jacques. Doctor Luvier knows no more than you do, and he gave up after weeks without making even the slightest hypothesis about the mystery of the Beech Grove. He waited... He himself said to me: ‘I waited as if I were in an atmosphere of anxiety.’”
“I thought so,” said d’Hermont.
For several minutes, they continued to walk in silence. Suddenly, Saint-Clair stopped short, grabbed the arms of his friend and cried out:
“My goodness! We have forgotten to clarify something important. It totally slipped out of my mind.”
“What clarification?” asked d’Hermont, surprised.
“The reason why you asked me to bring my rifle! Hunting wild boars was only a pretext, I imagine.”
“Yes, of course. What you say is true: it slipped my mind, too. How odd...”
“Tell me quickly.”
“Well! Here it is... You know that often our senses of smell, hearing, sight and touch, register impressions and sensations in which our spirit does not participate. These later return at some point, as if from the depths of our being...”
“Yes,” said Saint-Clair.
Very animated, d’Hermont went on:
“Yesterday morning, after I received the confidences of Laure and Madeleine, and before I wrote to you, I went for a walk in the park to be alone and to reflect on my idea to as you for help. Instinctively, I walked toward and around the pedestal, all my senses giving rise again in my thoughts to the episodes of that incomprehensible scene I had witnessed two nights earlier. Then, suddenly I remembered, yes, for the first time I remembered, or rather I became aware, that, as I was running toward the pedestal, just before the nimbus was extinguished, I had seen against beech trees, beyond the lawn, a shadow—a shadow cast by the luminous halo against the light gray trunks of the trees. My eyes had perceived an all-black human form for only a second! That human form had then leaped, running away no doubt, into the total darkness of Beech Grove!”
“Well! Well!” said Saint-Clair.
“As soon as that image resurfaced from the depths of my mind into the light of day, I ran to the place where I had seen that shadow. I inspected it well in the sun. At the foot of a tree, in the bare and humid soil, I found the footprints of shoes... And here, my dear friend, is the essential thing! In this same place, I found an object, which I immediately picked up and examined. Here it is!”
D’Hermont buried his right hand deep in the pocket of his jacket and withdrew it. Between his thumb and forefinger was a small shiny object of nickel and copper, which he presented to the Nyctalope. It was the ball-cartridge of a pistol.
“Browning 9mm HP 35.”
“Yes!” exclaimed Jacques d’Hermont. “I, too, recognized it at once. Note: a cartridge intact, not shot. Now look here, Saint-Clair. My German Parabellum is not of this caliber. No one at Beech Grove, or in the immediate dependencies, possesses a Browning 9mm. So I thought to myself: During the phenomenon of the luminous nimbus, a man stood there who observed the two women. He must have been protecting himself against a possible risk of attack, for he was carrying a gun. No doubt he was absorbed entirely by the task that had brought him there, because while loading the Browning, he had to do it twice instead of once, mechanically passing the cartridge of the magazine over the barrel, in a dry movement of the cylinder head. The first cartridge was ejected, and fell to the ground. This is why in my letter to you, I wrote: Have your guns and ammunition ready! That’s all!”
“That, my dear friend, is tremendous news!” exclaimed Saint-Clair. “These footprints and this cartridge are not supernatural elements, but very tangible evidence! They constitute the first knot of the thread of Ariadne that will lead us to the solution to our problem, the explanation of the enigma at the bottom of this mystery.”
Saying this, the Nyctalope took up his march again. D’Hermont followed his example. And without saying a word, the two friends returned to Beech Grove.
CHAPTER II
“She Gave Her Soul To The Devil”
The sun was setting. The cold became intense. At the top of the steps, before entering, Saint-Clair said to d’Hermont in a low voice:
“My dear friend, the sky is clear and the breeze is beginning to blow from the north: the night will be frozen and it will not rain. That means that tomorrow morning, the footprints at the edge of the park will be visible. Let’s go in. I will stay in my room until dinner. I want to speak with Vitto and Soca. No staying awake after the meal: I will say that I got up very early this morning and that I simply need to sleep. Tomorrow, I will find a way to talk, out of your presence, with your sister and elder daughter.”
The two men crossed the threshold.
On the order of his master, Firmin went to inform Soca and Vitto that Monsieur Saint-Clair had summoned them to his room.
Five minutes later, in the Red Room, the Nyctalope had his two Corsicans helpers sitting before him.
Born in Sartène and friends from childhood, Soca and Vitto had served together in Champagne and Verdun under Saint-Clair’s orders. After the war, they had returned to Corsica, but when their former commander had needed them, they had answered his call. They were his companions and, in whatever way he might need then, his soldiers. Vigorous and agile, intelligent and devoted, without restrictions or limits, they both loved and admired the Nyctalope, just as much as they were appreciated and loved by him. They were fit for all kinds of trades and for the most varied kinds of work. And they were so used to the Nyctalope that they understood him at the slightest word.
This time, they were not given a brief order to carry out. Saint-Clair applied himself to bringing them up to date on all he had learned during the day, down to the slightest detail. He showed them the Browning 9mm bullet, which he had kept, before putting it back into one of the pockets of his jacket.
At the end of the conversation, he confided in them:
“Sometimes it is necessary to lie. I lied to Jacques d’Hermont when I told him that Doctor Luvier had not kept secret any of his hypotheses. In truth, there is one hypothesis that he definitely kept quiet, and will keep to himself until some new fact convinces him to say it publicly. Here it is. The doctor told me in his own words:
“ ‘There is a possibility that some criminal poisoning has taken effect, through methods of which I have not the slightest suspicion. We still have witch doctors in our countryside, magicians who openly identify as bonesetters and secretly serve as spell-casters, that is to say: poisoners. Our modern science still does not know all the virtues, if I may call them that, of certain plants and their amalgams of vegetable juices. Through word of mouth, from the Middle Ages, secret formulas have been transmitted to our days. The d’Hermonts might be victims of a subtle, slowly staged poisoning that attacks the very centers of their vitality in a way that I cannot discover. This has been done in the distant past. Why shouldn’t it happen again?’
“Then I said:
“ ‘It’s possible, indeed. But why has only Mademoiselle Basilie, out of the whole d’Hermont family, been spared?’
“ ‘Ah!’ exclaimed the doctor. ‘That’s just what I ask myself.’
“So I continued:
“ ‘Whom would gain from such a crime?’
“ ‘I asked myself that question too,’ the doctor replied.
“After a moment of meditative silence, which I did not disturb, Doctor Luvier took my hand and pressed it, very moved. Then he said:
“ ‘Monsieur Saint-Clair, I want to be frank with you. I have had, I have always had, strange thoughts, and maybe they are awful in their injustice. But I cannot defend myself. Listen! You asked me: Who would gain from such a crime? The answer is: Every single member of the d’Hermont family!’
“ ‘Ah?’ I said, very intrigued.
“ ‘Yes!’ the doctor went on. ‘You mentioned that all are affected except Basilie, and so Basilie becomes our prime suspect. I myself made this observation. At the examination, she showed no symptoms. But to begin with, Basilie is a child, an innocent and happy teenager, deliciously full of joy of life, clear as water from a pure spring, and clean of spirit. She would be unable to conceive of such a crime—the slightest ugly action from her seems to me absolutely impossible. What’s more, the fact that only she is well does not seem to constitute an absolute proof against her. The poisoner could very well have absorbed the substance voluntarily, precisely to divert suspicion and appear to be a victim... The guilty party would only have to dose the poison carefully in order to be ill, but not to die. After the murder, he or she would heal and...’ ”
Saint-Clair broke off. Silent as always when their master spoke to them in this way, Soca and Vitto listened with extreme attention, without interrupting. Both of them kept the remarks or questions that occasionally came to their minds for the end. After a moment of silence, the Nyctalope continued:
“I confess that I was astounded. I could not, and still do not, see why my friend Jacques d’Hermont, his sister or his daughter would strike with such diabolical perversity, with such demoniacal obstinacy, trying to spread death in their own family. I know very well that the immense estate of Beech Grove belongs to the Comte, as the head of the family, but I also know that his sister and daughters freely enjoy his wealth. Why would one of the members of the family desire to become the sole owner of the estate? Besides, I know the character of Jacques d’Hermont well... As for his sister, his elder daughter, his younger daughter, such a monstrosity would be beyond belief... No! I said all this to Doctor Luvier. But he replied:
“ ‘I think and reason exactly as you do; nonetheless the hypothesis of criminal poisoning seems to me the only one, in the end, that fits with the facts. Who is doing the poisoning? By what means? Why? Alas! Faced with this frightful mystery at Beech Grove, I am not Sherlock Holmes. I am happy to watch and wait. But I must admit that all my observations so far have come to nothing, nothing.’
“So, I asked:
“ ‘How do you explain the scene of the illuminated nimbus in the night? The painful and voluptuous ecstasy of the two women on the pedestal? The clear view that d’Hermont had of all this, with his conscious senses?’
“ ‘I did not know about that,’ replied Luvier, ‘for you were the first to tell me about the phenomenon. I am astounded, and I don’t understand it. Maybe it was a hallucination, transferred from Laure and Madeleine to Jacques? Note that this is supposed to have have happened in the middle of the night, when the paroxysm of that strange fever possesses these unfortunates.’ ”
Saint-Clair paused again, then resumed
, nodding his head:
“At the time, I did not know the triple fact of the human shadow, the footprints and the Browning cartridge. I could only repeat, with the doctor: ‘Collective and communicative hallucination, due to a state of intense fever.’ But now, I do not believe it was a hallucination. I am convinced that the mysterious luminous nimbus, the ecstasy of Laure and Madeleine, and Jacques’ state of conscious lucidity were real, just as real as the human shadow he saw, the footprints, and the cartridge.”
With a gesture of both hands, he concluded:
“There, my friends, now you know everything.”
Although neither of the two Corsicans was very talkative, Vitto was the more taciturn. Unless he was induced to speak from an irresistible impulse, he usually left it to Soca to respond. As usual, the latter took his time before saying:
“Monsieur, we think that, in addition to obeying your orders, we should listen and watch, speak only with extreme prudence, and ask questions with a subtle appearance of naïveté or indifference. That is, we should work to give you the most information possible.”
“Yes,” said Saint-Clair. “Just that, to start. You will live with the staff of the castle, and will be able to see the persons who come from the outside for one of the thousand tasks of life in the countryside. You will keep your eyes and ears on constant alert. As for specific orders, I do not have any to give you at the moment. I know nothing more about this mystery than what I have told you, and you now know as much as I do. As for Doctor Luvier’s hypothesis, let us not dismiss it altogether—let’s keep it in mind. After all, everything is possible in this world, where the forces of evil have unfathomable powers. But let’s not also pay too much attention to it, for hypotheses of this kind are tyrannical and can cast a veil over knowledge. Understood, both of you?”
Vitto joined his voice with that of Soca in replying:
“Yes, Monsieur.”
Saint-Clair having risen, the two Corsicans followed him and went out.
The Nyctalope put on his pajamas, prepared a bath, enjoyed it for ten minutes, then strolled about his room until dinner time. He took a long time dressing, and glanced through the Sunday papers he’d brought with him from Paris.
The Nyctalope and The Tower of Babel Page 4