“My God!” said Jacques d’Hermont, surprised. “I never thought of that. But it’s true... Never has Basilie... Oh! What a strange thing that is!”
“Not at all!” replied Saint-Clair energetically, worried about giving his friend a new subject of alarm and perplexity. “It’s not odd at all. On the contrary, it can be easily explained. It is even very intelligent and wise on the part of Basilie. As a natural optimist, she deliberately refuses to appear gloomy, and would rather spread as much joy as possible around her. Instead of aggravating things with vain lamentations, a constant display of the anxieties and doubts, that to you three might seem normal but would have no beneficial effect, she has continued to live with youth, joy and vivacity, and treats you exactly as if your health were as hearty as her own. Come, Jacques, does any of that prevent her from being helpful when a crisis presents itself, as she was for example when you returned from your unsuccessful attempt to leave for the Riviera?”
“It’s true! It’s true, my friend!” exclaimed d’Hermont, reassured. “I understand. But then, why did you ask me if...”
“To know if Basilie ever left her stoic attitude that I just commented upon.”
Changing his tone, the Nyctalope said:
“But it’s time to leave, at least if, during our trip to La Migeonne, we want to enjoy the last sunny hours of this beautiful day.”
“Right! Let’s go!” said d’Hermont.
The Nyctalope knew that Soca had already left for Tours in his fast roadster. He thus only had to call Vitto.
“Let’s take the rifles,” said the Comte in the hallway. “There are a lot of water birds at the edge of La Migeonne. We can bring back some of those birds for Amélie, who will make us excellent salamis. Do you have your own rifle, Saint-Clair? Or do you want one of mine?”
“One of yours will be fine. The lightest.”
At the far end of the entrance, to the left of the staircase, was a small room furnished with a rack of arms, various pieces of hunting equipment, and cupboards with numbered drawers. In the drawers, cartridges with lead bullets of distinct calibers, buckshot and pellets were methodically filed. Saint-Clair took a gun from the hands of his host. Vitto arrived, and took another one for himself. Each of the three men put one or two handfuls of bullets in their pockets. Then they covered themselves in overcoats, put on hats and caps in preparation for the fierce cold of the undergrowth, pierced by the whistling winds of the valley, and went out.
On their way out, the Comte let out two dogs specially trained to chase the water hen.
In adventures like the one in which he was engaged, the Nyctalope preferred, as a general rule, not to expect anything, or to put forward any hypothesis beforehand. Instead, he would study the country, the land, the human beings, the animals and the objects he saw. He would look, listen, watch and properly classify all things in his brain, reflecting on everything and forgetting nothing. This way, he would have many chances to make a first hypothesis, one automatically born in his mind from all the elements that were capable of being plausible, or at least worthy of a thorough examination. The process tended to reduce errors. With this approach, Saint-Clair was also least exposed to wastes of time, red herrings and false trails.
With this in mind, he went to the farm at La Migeonne, where he would view all the inhabitants as both victims and suspects, without viewing any subject with either preconceived notions or positive ideas.
While walking, he said to Vitto and Jacques d’Hermont:
“I would like you to know that I am not going to La Migeonne either to accuse or play doctor. I will do nothing but look, listen, observe and perhaps speak. D’Hermont, you will be my guide. Vitto, if you discover that a little isolation is useful, you can say you want to see a water hen, and then go where you want. That way, you can follow the trail of the cracked sole.”
“Understood, my dear friend,” replied the Comte.
“Very good, Monsieur,” said Vitto.
The buildings of La Migeonne were very picturesque.
“An old hunting lodge, with a stable, a kennel and a room for the guards,” said Jacques d’Hermont, when after leaving the north side of the park they had the farm in full view beside the water. “All of it has been transformed into a proper residence for a farming family, and internally expanded with the construction of a barn, a stable and a pigsty. But the enclosure of the walls remained untouched. Frankly, it’s a bit run down now. I only carry out repairs when strictly necessary to maintain the walls, porch and dovetower, such as you see them. I confine myself to this not from greed, believe me, but in order to not destroy the character of the whole edifice. The buildings look good against the landscape, with this magnificent spread of water in front, and that double curtain of poplars in the back.”
“I understand,” said Saint-Clair. “It is very beautiful like this. And I imagine that farmer Gasse is not too concerned about the enclosing wall, porch or dovetower.”
“Him! So long as I do not raise the rent or skimp on repairs at the places he inhabits and uses, the walls, porch and dovetower could crumble! You see, my dear Saint-Clair, I know the men of this land, the peasants. It is possible that sometimes they feel the beauties of nature, but I do not think they are aware of them very often, and I know they never speak of them. The weather is always ‘fine’ or ‘poor’ not according to its beauty, but to whether the lands, sowing, grains, potatoes and beets, need snow, rain, moisture, sun, or dry air. And this is quite natural.”
“Indeed,” said Saint-Clair.
Vitto, who possessed four chestnut-trees and two hundred vine stocks in Corsica, approved of these remarks and others of a similarly rural nature, adding exclamations or monosyllables of agreement. In such a way, the three men occupied the time it took to walk around the vast body of water, following a broad dirt road along its northwest bank.
On the outskirts of La Migeonne, the barking of dogs welcomed them. The beasts, two handsome but slightly scrawny “red-paws,” quickly recognized the supreme master in Jacques d’Hermont, and there followed nothing but yelps of pleasure with groveling, jumps and running in circles. The hunting dogs kept their distance with dignity, rendering the leash held by the Comte unnecessary.
Thus they arrived at the small esplanade that stretched muddily between the edge of the pond and the carriage porch of the farmyard. It was there that Soca and Vitto had lost track of the footprint of the cracked sole.
“La Migeonne has two entrances,” said Jacques d’Hermont. “This is the lesser used, for the dirt road that leads to it comes only from the park and the castle. The other, more frequented, leads to various farmlands, and, via a detour, to the departmental road that runs through Saint-Christophe.”
The three men crossed the porch and entered the courtyard.
“At night, are the doors to this gate closed?” asked Saint-Clair.
“Yes, and with good reason. Not because of tramps and thieves, who are unknown here, but because of the four-legged marauders, the foxes, who come to sack the whole farmyard despite the dogs.”
“I see,” said Saint-Clair.
He stopped, and his two companions did likewise.
By all evidence the Gasses, husband and wife, were of the race of peasants that was clean and tended to its affairs. Nothing useful or useable was out of order in the farmyard. Nothing was there that could not be used wisely. The manure pit, deep and marked off well by a rectangle of cement blocks, did not allow any trace of its precious matter to spread around it. The ground, entirely paved, was kept neat except for a semi-circular radius a few yards from the porch, where the horses, cows, pigs, sheep, goats and other animals came to drink at the pond, bringing with them the mud of the outer path.
A very gentle slope in the bank of the water, and a slight convexity in the side of the farm, did not allow for the slope necessary that would create a flow of water to bathe the feet of the horses and cows. Saint-Clair saw and remarked on this, for in an investigation like the one he was condu
cting, he never neglected to explain all that offered itself to his eyes.
But that was it for the afternoon. Their inquiries did not lead to any revelations. A quarter of an hour of difficult conversation with Hector Gasse and his wife, Anna, in the common room of the farm; another quarter of an hour to visit everything, to meet a young valet and a big, red-faced woman busy in the pigsty, then a handyman with red hair and a ruptured right eye; finally, a few minutes at the gate, to survey the naked fields that, beyond a double row of poplars ,rose toward the sky and defined the line of the horizon; all of this produced nothing.
Even the certainty that Hector and Anna Gasse were not in good health; that the little “handyman” was “quite weak;” that the red-headed, one-eyed valet, after a few weeks there, was becoming weaker and feebler by the day; that even the big reddish girl complained of sometimes having legs like cotton; and that all the animals, from the bull to the smallest hen, were lacking in good health, prosperity, in a word, life...
Except that Jeanette the maid had already told them all this in substance. The Nyctalope had not learned anything new.
Neither had Vitto. As it was pleasant out, under the pretense of looking at the water hens and rabbits, he had wandered for half an hour or so around the farm, but had found no traces on any path, trail or area of bare earth, of the characteristic imprint of the cracked sole.
While they were returning toward the castle, skirting the area of water on the northeast side to gain access to the hunting ground and fire at water hens and pheasants, the Comte unhooked the two spaniels still on their leash. Saint-Clair said to d’Hermont, and Vitto understood:
“Unless we find some new information, I’m inclined to agree with the doctor and the veterinarian; the general state of health at La Migeonne is deficient because of malaria and malnutrition.”
“I’ve always thought so,” said d’Hermont. “Against malaria, I did what was necessary to make sure that, in summer, the body of water kept a part of the overflow from the rains of February and March, and I opened a special credit to Luvier so that he could freely administer quinine to Gasse and his wife, the valets, the girl and the handyman. A similar credit went to the veterinarian for care of the animals, which the Gasses by stupid avarice would leave to die rather than spend ten sous more to the veterinarian. As for undernourishment, I can do no more than scold them. But Hector only replies by laughing silently: ‘Go on then! We eat too much! That’s why the cows have swollen up, the women have indigestion, and even the men look tubby like I do!’ There’s nothing to do, my dear Saint-Clair. These peasants are stubborn. Hector and Anna Gasse are—as they often say throughout the country—‘stubborn as an ass, which is worth a hundred peasants’.”
“Well then!” said Saint-Clair, laughing. “I have recorded everything we saw and heard at La Migeonne in my mental file. But nothing explains why the cracked print of one of the shoes the ‘human shadow’ was wearing the night of the luminous nimbus followed a path discovered by Vitto and Soca, which ended just in front of its the yard, and became lost in the mud...”
“Monsieur…” said Vitto.
“Yes?”
“Next Sunday, it seems, there is a gathering at the hamlet of the Priory. If it does not rain, between one and four p.m., all the people from La Migeonne will be there. If Monsieur le Comte permits it, I can visit the farm discreetly, to take a better look at all the shoes there. As for those worn by the Gasses and their servants, I will prepare a small stretch of land on the path from the other exit, where they will clearly leave their footprints.”
Saint-Clair gave a satisfied smile. But Jacques d’Hermont added gravely:
“My dear Vitto, all things are permitted to Monsieur Saint-Clair and his assistants.”
Then, in another tone, he objected:
“But Hector and Anna are bound to lock and double-lock everything.”
“Oh! Double or single turn of the key, it’s all the same!” said Vitto smiling.
Saint-Clair explained:
“My dear Jacques, did I forget to tell you that Vitto and Soca are expert technicians in the art of pre-burglary?”
The Comte replied, amused:
“What you call ‘pre-burglary’ is no doubt the mechanical and artistic work of opening closed doors, closed cabinets and secret drawers?”
“Exactly, my dear friend.”
“Ah! Very good.”
And for the first time in months, Jacques d’Hermont burst into real laughter.
CHAPTER IV
The Nyctalope’s Second and Third Nights
If during that day, the atmosphere of anxiety at Beech Grove had dissipated considerably, it was evident that it had reappeared and, once again, had begun to condense around Jacques, Laure and Madeleine.
From the start of dinner, Saint-Clair noticed that his friend, the young woman and the young girl, were rapidly losing their appearance of good health. At the fall of night, the usual fever had returned and seized them.
Despite the efforts of the Nyctalope, helped by Basilie—consciously or not? he couldn’t decide—the conversation could not be sustained, and the meal took on a gloomy silence. What’s more, Saint-Clair himself felt that his whole body was entering an abnormal state of mortal anxiety and physical unease.
Irritated for a moment by this impression, this ill-defined sensation, he reacted with his entire will to observe himself effectively. Without taking the trouble, which seemed to him useless, of giving any pretext whatsoever, just after the dessert, he declared that he was retiring to his room, and, after a few dull words of courtesy, he left the dining-room.
He had seen Soca return from Tours and had received from him the names of those living in the area, who had registered at the town hall their ownership of an automatic pistol of 9mm caliber. Before dinner, he had not had time to examine the document, or to speak of it alone with Jacques d’Hermont. This was therefore put off until the next day.
Before he crossed the threshold of the dining-room to enter the hall and go upstairs, the Nyctalope suddenly remembered that he had wanted to speak with Firmin Gasse, the valet for the castle and the brother of Hector, the farmer of La Migeonne.
Before Saint-Clair lay down to rest, in order to chat a bit more, he called Firmin, pretending he needed his services to change the “uncomfortable” arrangement of the furniture in the Red Room.
But he got nothing from him. Not because Firmin wished to conceal the slightest of his thoughts, but because this man, so intelligent and naturally observant, knew nothing, thought nothing, imagined nothing, that the Comte himself had not already observed. Nothing in what he said was of any use to the Nyctalope.
The room was now pleasantly warm: two radiators gave out central heating, along with a wood fire burning inside a large chimney, according to the Nyctalope’s preference.
In the bathroom, Saint-Clair undressed, stretched for ten minutes doing Swedish gymnastics, dressed again in light pajamas and went to sit in a comfortable Voltaire armchair in front of the crackling fire.
On a little table he drew toward him, he had arranged his pipes, big tobacco pouch and metal box lined with matches that formed part of his travel necessities. He carefully stuffed the largest pipe and lit it. Then he began to smoke, meditating.
These meditations were at first fed entirely by the facts of the afternoon and the previous day, but soon they evolved in such a way that Saint-Clair began to meditate on himself—observing his behavior, analyzing his own moral and physical condition, forbidding himself any surprise, for he did not feel at peace with himself as he usually did.
According to his custom, when battling something in his spirit, he started by formulating his thought verbally. This produced a sort of inner monologue, his lips moving but not making a sound that could have been overheard by attentive ears, even two steps away.
“Let’s see! What do I have here?”
The forefinger and thumb of his right hand grasped his left wrist. He looked at the dial of the beaut
iful Empire clock gently ticking on the mantelpiece, and waited a minute.
“My pulse is quicker than usual. Around my eyes, I feel the first touch of a fever. I also feel something like light strokes on my back. Now, I am sure that this is not a cold. For twenty years, thanks to the a healthy lifestyle and some of the practices I learned in Tibet, I have immunized myself against the common cold. This extraordinary state must therefore be caused by an extraordinary factor. And this state is distinctly progressive. I felt the first attack in the library. Later, as Jacques, his sister and his daughters talked about their afternoon, I waited for it to pass in the dining-room. The start of my abnormal state almost coincided with the astronomical hour of sunset. At the same moment, I noticed that Jacques, Laure and Madeleine shuddered almost simultaneously, suddenly losing their serenity of mind and the visible physical wellbeing, which for some extraordinary reason, they had enjoyed throughout the day. What does this mean? Is the same mysterious affliction striking me as well?”
Saint-Clair let go of his left wrist and, with his right hand, took up his pipe again, which rested on the table and had not been extinguished. As he moved his lips with the words that expressed his thought, he brought the pipe to his mouth, took one or two puffs, and pushed it away, eyes staring without seeing into the dancing flames of the hearth.
Except for the slight crackling of flames and an occasional scattering of sparks and embers, the silence in the room was absolute. No sound came from outside. If some nocturnal animal or dead branch falling from a tree had resounded in the park near the castle, it did not reach the enclosed room with its windows shuttered and heavy curtains drawn.
In this silence and solitude, Léo Saint-Clair was alone with himself, his body under fine silk and his lucid mind functioning perfectly, despite the rising fever.
A rising fever—this was undeniable. He had the idea of making a graded elevation. His suitcase always contained a small, carefully composed, travel pharmacy. A thermometer was tucked away in a metal case. Saint-Clair rose, went to grab the thermometer and, without interrupting his smoking, placed the glass tube under his left arm. With his arm pressed to his side, he waited calmly and even with a sort of ironic amusement, for this analysis of his own state.
The Nyctalope and The Tower of Babel Page 8