CHAPTER XIV

THE SACK OF POTATOES

While M. Darzac, with the assistance of Bernier, busied himself, as Rouletabille advised, with obliterating all signs of the tragedy, the Lady in Black, who had hastily changed her dress, hurried to her father’s rooms in order not to run the risk of encountering any of the other members of the party. Her last word was to counsel us to prudence and silence. Rouletabille also took leave of us.

It was now about seven o’clock in the morning and things began to stir in and about the château. We could hear the fishermen singing in their boats. I threw myself upon my bed, and in a few moments I was sleeping profoundly, vanquished by the physical weariness which was stronger than my powers of resistance. When I awakened, I lay for a few moments on my couch in a pleasant bewilderment, but as the events of the night dawned on my remembrance, I started up in terror.

“Ah!” I cried out, “A body too many! No, no! It can’t be! It’s impossible!”

It was this which surged across the dark gulf of my thoughts, above the abyss of my memory; this impossibility of “a body too many.” And the horror which I found in my heart at my awakening was not confined to myself--far from it! All those who had mingled, near or far, in this strange drama of the Square Tower, shared it; and even though the horror of the event itself were appeased--the horror of the body in its last throes of agony thrown into a sack which a man carried off at night to cast it into who knows what far off and profound and mysterious tomb where it might gasp out its last breath of life--even if, I say, this horror should be forgotten and blotted out of the mind, and effaced from the vision, yet still the impossibility of this “body too many” grew and increased and rose up before us higher and higher and more threatening and more dreadful. Certain persons there are--like Mme. Edith, for example--who deny almost from habit, anything which they cannot understand--who deny the presentation of the problem which destiny holds for us (such as we have established in the preceding chapter) even while every event and every circumstance among those which had the Fort of Hercules for their theatre rendered proof of the exactitude of the presentation.

First of all, the attack! How had the attack been made? At what moment? By what means of approach? What mines, trenches, covered paths, breaches--in the domains of the mental fortifications--have served the assailant and delivered the château over into his hands? Yes, under the existing conditions, where was the attack? The answer is--silence. And yet, the facts must be brought to light. Rouletabille has said so; he ought to know. In a siege as mysterious as this, the attack may be in everything or in nothing. The assailant is as still as the grave itself and the assault is made without clamor and the enemy approaches the walls walking in his stocking feet. The _attack_? It is, perhaps, in the very stillness itself, but again, it may, perhaps, be in the spoken word. It is in a tone, in a sigh, in a breath. It is in a gesture, but if perhaps it may be in all which is hidden, it may be, also, in all that is revealed--in _everything which one sees and which one does not see_.

Eleven o’clock! Where was Rouletabille? His bed had not been disturbed. I dressed myself hurriedly and went to look for my friend, whom I found in the outer court. He took me by the arm and led me into the vast drawing room of “la Louve.” There, I was surprised to find, although it was not yet time for luncheon, everybody assembled. M. and Mme. Darzac were there. It seemed to me that M. Rance’s manner was rather frigid. When he shook my hand in wishing me good morning, he barely touched my fingers. As soon as we entered the room Mme. Edith, from the dark corner where she was reclining carelessly on a sofa, saluted us with the words:

“Ah, here is M. Rouletabille with his friend, Sainclair. Now we shall know why we have all been summoned here!”

To this remark, Rouletabille responded by first excusing himself for having requested us all to gather at so early an hour; but he had, he went on to say, such a serious and important communication to make to us that he had not wished to delay it one moment longer than was absolutely necessary. His tone was so grave that Edith pretended to shiver and counterfeited an infantile terror. But Rouletabille, without noticing her, continued: “Before you shiver, Madame, wait until you know what you have to be afraid of. I have some news for you which is very far from pleasant.”

We all looked at him, and then at each other! What was he about to say? I endeavored to read in the faces of M. and Mme. Darzac what they thought of the matter. Both showed remarkably little evidence of last night’s horrors! But what was it that Rouletabille had to say to us? He entreated those who were standing to be seated and then he began to speak. He addressed himself to Mme. Rance.

“First of all, Madame, permit me to inform you that I have decided to suppress the ‘guard’ which surrounded the Château of Hercules, like an inner wall, and which I judged necessary for the protection of M. and Mme. Darzac and which you kindly allowed me to establish, although it vexed you, showing the most charming of good humor and accommodating spirit.”

This direct allusion to the mocking remarks and innuendos of Mme. Edith at the time when we mounted guard made Mr. Rance and his wife both smile. But no smile arose to the lips of M. or Mme. Darzac nor myself, for we had begun to ask ourselves anxiously what the boy was preparing to say.

“Ah, really, are you going to withdraw the guard from the château, M. Rouletabille? Well, I am very glad to hear it, although I assure you that it did not vex me in the least!” exclaimed Mme. Edith with an affectation of gayety. “On the contrary, it has interested me very much, because, you know, I am of a very romantic nature, and if I rejoice at the change, it is because the fact proves to me that M. and Mme. Darzac are no longer in any danger.”

“This is true, Madame,” replied Rouletabille, “since last night.”

Mme. Darzac could not refrain from a hasty movement which no one save myself perceived.

“So much the better!” cried Mme. Edith. “May Heaven be praised! But how is it that my husband and I are the last to hear the news? Interesting things must have been happening last night! The nocturnal trip of M. Darzac to Castelar was one of them, without doubt!”

As she spoke, I could see the embarrassment of M. and Mme. Darzac. The former, after a glance at his wife, started to speak, but Rouletabille would not permit him to do so.

“Madame, I do not know where M. Darzac went last night, but it is necessary that you should know one thing; and that is the reason why M. and Mme. Darzac have ceased to run any danger. Your husband, Madame, has told you of the frightful tragedy of the Glandier two years ago and of the villainous part played in it by----”

“Frederic Larsan--yes, monsieur, I know all that.”

“You know also, of course, that the reason why we have placed such a strong guard here around M. Darzac and his wife was because we had seen this man again?”

“I do.”

“Well, M. and Mme. Darzac are no longer in danger because this man cannot appear again ever.”

“What has become of him?”

“He is dead.”

“When did he die?”

“Last night.”

“And how did he die last night?”

“He was killed, madame.”

“And where was he killed?”

“In the Square Tower.”

We all sprang to our feet at this declaration in the greatest agitation. M. and Mme. Rance seemed completely stupefied by the words which they had heard and M. and Mme. Darzac and myself were plunged into the most profound agitation by the fact that Rouletabille had not hesitated to reveal the secret.

“In the Square Tower?” cried Mme. Edith. “And who, then, has killed him?”

“M. Robert Darzac,” replied Rouletabille. “And he entreats everyone to sit down.”

It was astonishing how we seated ourselves with one accord, as though, at such a moment, we had nothing to do except to obey this youngster. But almost immediately Mme. Edith arose and seizing M. Darzac by the hand, she exclaimed with an emphasis which made me decide that I had judged her wrongly when I called her affected:

“Bravo, Monsieur Robert! All right! You are a gentleman!”

Then she paid some exaggerated compliments--for after all, it was her nature to exaggerate things--to Mme. Darzac. She swore eternal friendship for her; she declared that she and her husband were ready, under all circumstances, to stand by the Darzacs and that the latter might count upon their zeal and their devotion and that they would swear whatever one liked before all the judges in the tribunal.

“Gently, dear Madame,” interrupted Rouletabille. “There is no question of judges and we hope that there may not be. There’s no need of it. Larsan was a dead man in the eyes of the whole world long before he was killed last night--he will continue to be dead, that is all! We have decided that it would be useless to reopen a scandal of which M. and Mme. Darzac have already been made the innocent victims and we have counted upon your assistance. The affair has happened in so mysterious a fashion that even you, if we had not informed you in regard to it, would never have suspected. But M. and Mme. Darzac are endowed with sentiments too noble to permit them to forget what they owe to their hosts. The most simple rules of hospitality ordered them to tell you that they killed a man in your house last night. How foolish it would be to lay bare this unfortunate story to some Italian police officer and subject you to the inconvenience of having your names coupled with the miserable business, and, it might easily be, to have a search made of your house and hired servants of the law under your roof! M. and Mme. Darzac, for your sakes alone, are anxious that you should not run the risk of being the object of idle gossip, or, perhaps, of having the police descend upon your home.”

M. Arthur Rance, who up to this time had remained speechless, arose and said, his face as pallid as though he had seen a ghost:

“Frederic Larsan is dead. Well, so far so good, and no one is more rejoiced than myself to know it. And if he has received the punishment due to his crimes from the hand of M. Darzac, no one is more to be congratulated than M. Darzac. But I consider that it would be wrong for M. Darzac to make any attempt to conceal an act which is an honor to himself. It would be better to inform the authorities and without delay. If they should come to learn of this affair from others, rather than by our means, think of what the situation would be! If we give out the information ourselves, we shall show that an act of justice has been committed. If we conceal anything, we shall place ourselves in the category of malefactors. People might even suppose----”

To listen to M. Rance’s stammering speech and to observe his demeanor, one might almost have imagined that he was the slayer of Frederic Larsan--he who was in danger of being accused of murder and dragged to prison.

“It is necessary to think of everything, gentlemen,” he concluded. And Edith added:

“I believe that my husband is right. But before we come to a decision, we ought to know just what has happened.”

And she addressed herself directly to M. and Mme. Darzac. But both of the latter were still under the spell of surprise which Rouletabille had caused them by his remarks--Rouletabille who that very morning, in my presence, had promised to be silent and had sworn us all to silence. Neither the one nor the other had a word to say. M. Rance repeated, nervously: “Why should we conceal anything? Why should we? We must tell everything.”

All at once, the reporter seemed to take a sudden resolution. I understood by the expressions which chased themselves over his face in rapid succession that something of considerable moment was passing through his mind. He leaned toward Arthur Rance, whose right hand was resting on a cane, the head of which was carved in ivory, beautifully cut by a famous carver at Dieppe. Rouletabille took the cane in his hand.

“May I look at it?” he asked. “I am an amateur ivory carver myself and my friend, Sainclair, here, has told me about this beautiful cane. I had not noticed it before. It is really very beautiful. It is a figure by Lambesse and there is no better workman on the Norman shore.”

The young man seemed to be entirely engrossed in studying the cane. As he touched the carving, the stick fell from his hand and rolled toward M. Darzac. I picked it up and returned it immediately to M. Rance. Rouletabille cast a withering look at me, and I read in that glance that, somehow or other, I had shown myself an idiot.

Mme. Edith rose to her feet, tapping her little foot impatiently and seemingly very nervous at the tension of the situation--by the carelessness of Rouletabille and the silence of M. and Mme. Darzac.

“Dearest,” she said to Mme. Darzac, in the sweetest tones. “You are completely tired out. The experiences of this horrible night have overpowered you. Let me take you into my own room so that you may rest a little.”

“Pardon me for asking you to wait a few moments, Madame,” interrupted Rouletabille. “What I have yet to say may be of special interest to you.”

“Very well, monsieur, but speak out, please. Don’t drag the recital along so.”

She was perfectly justified in her remarks. Did Rouletabille realize it? At all events, he certainly made up for his previous deliberation by the rapidity and clearness with which he retraced the events of the night. In no other words could the problem of the “body too many” have been presented before us with such mysterious horror. Mme. Edith shivered--and if her shudder was counterfeit, I never saw a real one! As for Arthur Rance, he sat with his chin resting on the head of his cane, murmuring with a truly American coolness, but in accents of the strongest conviction: “What a devilish history! The story of the body which could not have gotten into the room is a page from the notebook of Satan himself!”

While he was speaking, he was gazing at the tip of Mme. Darzac’s shoe which peeped out from the hem of her gown. In the moment which followed the closing of Rouletabille’s narration, conversation became a little more general; but it was less a conversation than such a confused mixture of exclamations and interruptions, of interjections and indignation and demands for explanations on one point or another that the confusion seemed more increased than ever before. They spoke also of the horrible departure of “the body too many” in the potato sack, and at this point, Mme. Edith took occasion to once more express her admiration for M. Robert Darzac as a hero and a gentleman. Rouletabille never opened his lips during this torrent of words. It was plain to be seen that he despised this verbal manifestation of perturbation of spirits, but he endured it with the air of a professor who permits a few moments relaxation to pupils who have been well behaved in school. This was a mannerism of his which often vexed me and with which I sometimes reproached him, but without having any effect on him, for Rouletabille was likely to give himself whatever airs he chose.

At length--probably when it appeared to him that the recreation had lasted long enough, he asked abruptly of Mrs. Rance:

“Well, Madame, do you think we ought to inform the authorities?”

“I think so more than ever,” she replied. “That which we are powerless to discover, they would certainly find out.” (This allusion to the intellectual incapacity of my friend left him profoundly indifferent). “And I warn you of one thing, M. Rouletabille, and that is that we may already be too late in seeking out the officers of justice. If we had told them of our fears at the very beginning, you would have been spared some long hours of watching and sleepless nights which have profited you nothing, since, as now appears, they did not prevent what you dreaded from coming to pass.”

Rouletabille seated himself, evidently conquering some strong emotion which made him tremble as though he were chilled to the bone. Then with a wave of the hand which he strove to render careless, he motioned Mme. Edith to a chair and again picked up the cane which M. Rance had laid down upon a sofa. I said to myself: “What is he trying to do with that stick? This time, I won’t touch it, I’m certain. I must keep a lookout.”

Playing with the cane, Rouletabille replied to Mme. Edith with an attack almost as sharp as her own.

“Madame, you are wrong in asserting that all the precautions which I had taken for the safety of M. and Mme. Darzac have been useless. If I am obliged to acknowledge the unexplainable presence of one body too many, I am also compelled to refer to the absence--perhaps less inexplicable--of one member of our own party.”

We stared at each other, some of us seeking to understand, the others dreading to do so.

“What is that?” inquired Mme. Edith, with a mocking little smile. “In such a case, I fail to see how you find any mystery at all.” And she added with a flippant imitation of the reporter’s words and manner: “A body too many on the one side; an unexplained absence on the other! Everything is for the best.”

“Perhaps,” rejoined Rouletabille. “But the most frightful thing of all is that the unexplained disappearance comes just at the right time to make known to us, apparently, the identity of the ‘body too many.’ Madame, I deeply regret to tell you that the person for whose whereabouts we are unable to account, is none other than your uncle, Monsieur Bob.”

“Old Bob!” screamed the young woman. “Old Bob has disappeared!”

And we all cried out with her:

“Old Bob has disappeared?”

“Unfortunately, it is true!” said Rouletabille.

And he let the cane drop to the ground.

But the news of the sudden disappearance of Old Bob had so seized the Rances and the Darzacs that no one paid any attention to the cane as it fell.

“My dear Sainclair, will you be kind enough to pick up that cane?” asked Rouletabille.

I did as I was ordered and quickly, too, but Rouletabille did not even deign to thank me. Mme. Edith turned like a lioness upon Robert Darzac, who recoiled from her almost in fear as she shrieked:

“You have killed my uncle!”

Her husband and myself, with difficulty, prevented her from flying at him. We entreated her to be calm and to remember that because her uncle had absented himself from the peninsula did not necessarily mean that he had disappeared in the potato sack and we reproached Rouletabille with his brutality in blurting out an idea which could only be, at the present time, at all events, an hypothesis of his uneasy mind. And we added, imploring Mme. Edith to listen to us, that this hypothesis could under no circumstances be looked upon by her either as an injury or an insult, even admitting that it might be the true one, as it would only show the superhuman cunning of Larsan, who must, in that case, have taken the place of her respected uncle. But the young woman ordered her husband to be quiet, and said, turning scornfully to me:

“M. Sainclair, I sincerely hope that my uncle’s absence from here will only be of short duration; for if it should turn out otherwise, I should accuse you of being an accomplice in the most cowardly of murders. As to you, monsieur,” and she turned to Rouletabille, “the mere idea that you have ever dared to compare a man like Larsan with my uncle, the gentlest, kindliest soul and the greatest scholar of his time, forbids me to ever again consider you in the light of a friend, and I hope that you will have the courtesy to relieve me of your presence as soon as possible.”

“Madame,” replied Rouletabille, bowing very low, “I was just about to ask your permission to take leave of you. I have a short journey of twenty-four hours to take. At the expiration of that time, I shall return, ready to be of any possible assistance to you in whatever difficulties may arise in accounting for the disappearance of your uncle.”

“If my uncle has not returned within twenty-four hours, I shall lodge a complaint in the hands of the police, monsieur.”

“It is a good plan, Madame; but before having recourse to it, I advise you to question all the servants in whom you have confidence--particularly Mattoni. You trust Mattoni, do you not?”

“Yes, monsieur, I trust Mattoni.”

“Well, then, Madame, question him--question him. Ah--before I take my departure, allow me to leave with you this excellent and historical book.” And Rouletabille drew a small volume from his pocket.

“What foolery is this?” demanded Mme. Edith, superbly disdainful.

“This, Madame, is a work of M. Albert Bataille, a copy of his ‘Civil and Criminal Cases,’ in which I advise you to read the adventures, disguises, travesties and deceptions wrought by an illustrious swindler whose true name was Ballmeyer.”

Rouletabille entirely ignored the fact that he had only the day before spent two hours in recounting to Mme. Edith the exploits of Ballmeyer.

“After having read this,” he went on, “ask yourself carefully whether the cleverness of such an individual would have found very great difficulty in presenting himself before your eyes under the guise of an uncle whom you had not seen in four years--for it was four years, Madame, since you had seen Old Bob, until that time that you started out to the heart of the Pampas to look for him. As to the memory of M. Arthur Rance, who started out with you on that journey, it would be even less distinct than your own and he would be more capable of being deceived than yourself with your intuition of kinship added to your recollections of your relative. I implore you on my knees, Madame, do not lose patience with us. The situation, Heaven knows, is grave enough for each and every one of us. Let us remain united. You tell me to rid you of my presence. I am going but I shall return; for if it is necessary, taking everything into consideration, to arrive at the intolerable conclusion that Larsan has assumed the name and likeness of Monsieur Bob, it will remain for us only to seek Monsieur Bob himself, in which case, Madame, I shall be at your disposal and your most humble and obedient servant.”

Mme. Edith assumed the attitude of an outraged tragedy queen and Rouletabille, turning to Arthur Rance, continued:

“For all that has happened, M. Rance, I make you my humblest excuses and also to your wife. And I count upon you as the loyal gentleman that you are and always have been to persuade her to have patience a little longer. I realize that you feel that you have reason to reproach me with having stated my hypothesis too quickly and too abruptly, but, please remember, it is only a few moments since Madame reproached me with being too slow.”

But Arthur Rance seemed to have ceased to listen. He took his wife’s arm and both moved toward the door and were about to leave the room when the portals flew open and the stable boy, Walter, Old Bob’s faithful servant, rushed into our midst. His clothing was torn, muddy and covered with burs and thistles. Perspiration was streaming down his forehead and cheeks, his hair was in disorder and his face wore an expression of rage mingled with terror which made us fear some new misfortune. He carried in his hand a dirty rag which he threw upon the table. This repulsive object, stained with great blotches of reddish brown was (as we divined immediately, recoiling from it in horror) nothing other than the sack which had served to carry off the mysterious body.

With a harsh voice and savage gestures, Walter howled forth a thousand incomprehensible things in his broken jumble of French and English and all of us with the exception of Arthur Rance and Mme. Edith, asked each other, “What is he saying? What is he saying?”

Arthur Rance interrupted him from time to time, while Walter shook his fists menacingly at the rest of us and cast fiery glances at Robert Darzac. Once, for a moment, it seemed as though he intended to seize Darzac by the throat, but a gesture from Mme. Edith restrained him. When he finished speaking, Arthur Rance translated his words for us.

“He says that this morning he noticed blood stains on the English cart and saw that Toby seemed very greatly fatigued. This puzzled him so much that he decided to speak of it at once to Old Bob, but he sought his master in vain. Then, seized by a dark foreboding, he followed the prints of the horse’s feet and the wheels of the vehicle which he could easily do because the road was muddy and the wheels had sunk deep. Finally he reached the old Castillon and noticed that the wheels led up to a deep chasm into which he descended, believing that he should find the body of his master; but he saw merely this empty sack which may have contained the corpse of Old Bob, and now, having caught a ride in a peasant’s wagon, he has returned to ask for his master, to learn whether anyone has seen him, and, if he is not found, to accuse Robert Darzac of having caused his death.”

We stood confounded. But, to our great astonishment, Mme. Edith was the first to recover her self-possession. She spoke a few words to Walter which appeared to quiet him, promising him that she would soon bring him face to face with Old Bob, who was perfectly safe and well. And she said to Rouletabille:

“You have twenty-four hours, Monsieur; make the best use of it.”

“Thanks, Madame,” said Rouletabille. “But if your uncle should not return in that time, it will be because my idea was correct.”

“But where can he be!” she cried.

“I cannot tell you, Madame. He is not in the sack now, at all events.”

Mme. Edith cast a withering glance at him and left the room, followed by her husband. The sight of the sack seemed to have stricken Robert Darzac speechless. He had thrown the bag into an abyss and it was brought back empty. After a moment’s pause, Rouletabille spoke:

“Larsan is not dead, be sure of that! Never has the situation been so frightful as it is to-day and I must hurry away at once. I have not a minute to lose. Twenty-four hours--in twenty-four hours, I shall be back. But promise me--swear to me, both of you, that you will not quit the château. Swear to me, M. Darzac, that you will watch over your wife--that you will prevent her from leaving these walls, even by force, if it is necessary. Ah--and again--it is no longer necessary that you should sleep in the Square Tower. No, you ought not to do so. In the same wing where M. Stangerson is lodged, there are two empty rooms. You must occupy them. It is absolutely necessary that you should. Sainclair, you will see that this change is made. After my departure, see that neither the one nor the other of them shall set foot in the Square Tower. Adieu! Ah, wait!--let me embrace you--all three.”

He pressed us to his heart: M. Darzac first, then myself, and then, falling into the arms of the Lady in Black, he burst into a passion of sobs. This show of weakness and of grief on the part of Rouletabille, in spite of the gravity of the circumstances of his departure, appeared to me very strange. Alas! how easy it was for me to understand it afterward!