CHAPTER XVIII
HOW DEATH STALKED ABROAD AT NOONDAY
A little later, I found myself in the lower parlor of “la Louve,” tete-a-tete with Mme. Edith. I attempted to reassure her, seeing how restless and nervous she was; but she buried her pale face in her hands and her trembling lips allowed the confession of her fears to escape them.
“I am frightened!” she murmured. I asked her what frightened her and she looked at me wildly and said, “And aren’t you afraid, too?” I kept silence, for I was afraid, myself. She said again. “You know something of what is going on--here or there or all around us! Ah, I am all alone! all alone! And I am so frightened.” She turned toward the door.
“Where are you going?” I asked.
“I am going to look for someone. I won’t stay here alone.”
“For whom are you going to look?”
“For Prince Galitch.”
“Your ‘Feodor Feodorowitch!’” I cried. “What do you want with him? Am I not here?”
Her nervousness, unfortunately, seemed to increase in proportion to my efforts to drive it away and I began to realize that a fearful doubt as to the personality of her uncle, Old Bob, had entered her mind.
“Let us go out into the air!” she said, impatiently. “I can’t breathe in this place.” We left “la Louve” and entered the garden. It was approaching the hour of noontide and the court was a dream of perfumed beauty. As we had not donned our smoked spectacles, we were obliged to put our hands before our eyes in order to shield them from the glaring rays of the sun and the too glowing hues of the flowers. The giant geraniums struck on our eyeballs like bleeding wounds. When we had grown a little more used to the dazzling sight, we advanced over the shining sands, Edith clinging to my hand like a little child. Her hand burned hotter than the sun and seemed like a veritable flame. We looked down at our feet in order to prevent our eyes from falling on the blinding expanse of the waters and also, it may be, in order not to glance toward the buildings in which so many strange things had taken place--perhaps, were taking place even now.
“I am afraid!” murmured Edith once more. And I, too, was afraid--overwhelmed after the mysteries of the night by the vast, desolate silence of the noon.
The broad glare of daylight in which one knows that something strange and terrible is going on is more awful than the deepest and darkest night. Everything sleeps and yet everything wakes. Everything is dead and everything is living. Everything is wrapped in silence and still there are sounds everywhere. Listen to your own ear. It sounds as loud as a conch shell filled with the most mysterious sounds of the sea. Close your lids and look into your own eyes; you will find there a throng of crowding visions more mysterious than the phantoms of the night.
I looked at Mme. Edith. Beads of perspiration stood out on her forehead and her face was pale as death. I was trembling and chilled, for, alas! I could do nothing to help her and destiny was weaving its inexorable web all around us and that nothing which we could say or do would hinder in the slightest degree its slow, undeviating march. Edith led the way toward the postern gate which opens upon the Court of the Bold. The vault of this postern formed a black arch in the light and at the extremity of this tunnel, we perceived, facing us, Rouletabille and M. Darzac, who were standing at the edge of the inner court, like two white statues. Rouletabille was holding in his hand Arthur Rance’s ivory-headed cane. Why this latter fact should have disturbed me, I do not know, but so it was. Motioning with the cane, he showed Robert Darzac something on the summit of the vault which we could not see and then he pointed us out in the same way. We could not hear what he said. The two talked together for a few moments with their lips scarcely moving, like two accomplices in some dark secret. Mme. Edith paused, but Rouletabille beckoned to her, repeating the signal with his cane.
“Oh, what does he want with me now?” she cried like a frightened child. “Oh, M. Sainclair, I am so miserable. I am going to tell my uncle everything and we shall see what will happen then.”
We went on until we reached the vault and the others watched us without making a movement to meet us. They stood like two statues, and I said aloud in a voice which sounded strangely in my own ears:
“What are you two doing here?”
We had come up close to them by this time, upon the threshold of the Court of the Bold, and they bade us turn around with our backs toward the court so that we could see what they were looking at. There was on top of the arch, an escutcheon, the shield of the Mortola, barred with the mark of the cadet branch. This escutcheon had been carved in a stone now loose, which seemed in imminent danger of falling and crushing the heads of the passers by. Rouletabille had without doubt noticed this danger, and he asked Mme. Edith if she had any objections to its being pulled down until it could be replaced more solidly.
“I am sure that it will fall before long and it might do serious damage,” he said, touching it with the end of his cane, and then passing the stick to Mme. Edith.
“You are taller than I,” he went on. “See if you can reach it.”
But both she and I tried in vain to touch the stone; it was too high for us and I was about to inquire what was the meaning of this singular exercise when all at once, behind my back, _I heard the cry of a dying man in his last agony_.
* * * * *
We turned with one impulse, uttering an exclamation of horror. Ah, that cry of mortal agony which rang out on the air of the noonday just as it had through the night! Would we never be free from murder? When would that fearful sound which I had heard for the first time that night at the Glandier, never be done with announcing to us that a new victim had been struck down among us? that one of our own number had fallen beneath some fatal blow, as suddenly as though by some frightful pestilence? Surely, the mark of the epidemic itself is less invisible and terrible than that of the hand which kills.
We all stood there, shivering, our eyes wide with horror, questioning the deeps of the sky still vibrating from that cry of death. Who was dead? Who was dying? What expiring breath had emitted that terrible sound? One might have thought that it was the clearness of the day itself which cried out in suffering.
Rouletabille was the most terrified of us all. I have seen him, under the most untoward circumstances, maintain a composure which seemed greater than any human creature could hold; I have seen him, at a like horrible cry of death, rush into the danger of the darkness and cast himself like a heroic rescuer into the sea of shadows. Why should he tremble so to-day in the full splendor of the noon? He remained fixed to the spot, as weak as a baby, he, who a little while ago, declared that he would prove himself the master of the hour. He had not foreseen this moment then? this moment in which a human life had been snatched away under the noonday sun!
Mattoni, who was passing through the garden, and who had also heard the cry, rushed up. At a gesture from Rouletabille he stood rooted to the spot an immovable sentinel; and now the young man had gained sufficient power to advance toward the cry--or, at least, toward the center of the cry, for it seemed still to echo everywhere around us and to circle about in the all embracing space. And we hurried behind him, our breath coming fast, our arms stretched out, as one holds them when one is groping in the dark and fears to stumble against something which one does not see.
We approached the place from which the shriek had come and when we had passed the shade of the eucalyptus we found the cause. The cry had come, indeed, from a soul passing into the unknown. It was Bernier--Bernier in whose throat sounded the death rattle, who was trying in vain to rise and who was at the last gasp of his life. It was Bernier from whose breast flowed a stream of blood--Bernier over whom we leaned, and who, with one last, fearful struggle, summoned strength enough to utter the two words: “Frederic Larsan!”
Then his head fell back and he was dead. Frederic Larsan! Frederic Larsan! He who was everywhere and nowhere! He always and forever. Here, yet again, was his mark. A dead body--and no one anywhere near who could have committed the murder, by any possibility of human reason. For the only means of egress from the spot on which the crime had occurred was by this postern where we four had been standing. And we had turned, with one impulse and one movement, at the very instant that the cry rang out--so quickly that we had almost seen the stroke of death given. And when we looked, there had not even been a shadow before our eyes--nothing but the light!
We rushed, moved by the same sentiment, it seemed to me, into the Square Tower, the door of which still stood open; we entered in a body the bedroom of Old Bob, passing through the empty sitting room. The injured man was lying quietly on his bed within, and near him a woman was watching--Mere Bernier. Both were as calm and still as the day itself. But when the wife of the dead concierge saw our faces she uttered a cry of affright, as though smitten by the knowledge of some calamity. She had heard nothing. She knew nothing. But she rushed into the air like a streak of lightning and went straight, as though impelled by some hidden force, directly to the place where the body was lying.
[Illustration: It was Bernier! It was Bernier who lay there, the death rattle in his throat and a stream of blood flowing from his breast.]
And now it was her groans that sounded on the air, under the terrible sun of the Midi, over the bleeding corpse. We tore the shirt from the dead man’s breast and found a gaping wound just above the heart. Rouletabille looked up with the same expression which I had seen at the Glandier when he came to examine the wound of the “inexplicable body.”
“One would say that it was the same stroke of the knife!” he said. “It is the same measurement. But where is the knife?”
We looked for the weapon everywhere without finding it. The man who had struck the blow had carried the knife away. Where was the man? Who was he? What we did not know, Bernier had known before he died and it was, perhaps, because of that knowledge that his life had been forfeited. “Frederic Larsan!” We repeated the last words of the dying man in fear and trembling.
Suddenly on the threshold of the postern, we saw the Prince Galitch, a newspaper in his hand. He was reading as he came toward us. His air was jovial and his face wore a smile. But Mme. Edith rushed up to him, snatched the paper from his hands, pointed to the corpse and cried out:
“A man has been murdered! Send for the police!”
The Prince stared at the body and then at us without uttering a word and then turned hastily away, saying that he would send for the authorities immediately. Mere Bernier kept up her wild lamentations. Rouletabille seated himself on the edge of the shaft. He seemed to have lost all his strength. He spoke to Mme. Edith in a low tone:
“Let the police come then, Madame, but remember, it is you who have insisted upon it!”
Mrs. Rance gave him a withering glance from her black eyes. And I knew what her thoughts were as well as though she had spoken them out. She felt that she hated Rouletabille, who had for a single moment been able to make her suspect Old Bob. While Bernier had been assassinated, had not Old Bob been quietly in his chamber, watched over by Mere Bernier herself?
Rouletabille was examining the iron bars and heavy lid which closed the shaft, but his manner was distrait and discouraged. After he had finished what seemed to be a very careless inspection he stretched himself out on the ground as if it were a couch in which he was trying to get some rest. Turning once more to his hostess, he said in the same low voice:
“And what will you tell the police when they get here?”
“Everything!”
Mrs. Rance fairly snapped out the word between her teeth, her eyes flashing fire. Rouletabille shook his head sorrowfully and closed his eyes. He seemed utterly exhausted and vanquished. Robert Darzac touched him on his shoulder. M. Darzac wanted to search through the Square Tower, the Tower of the Bold, the New Castle--all the dependencies of the fort from which no one could have made his escape, and where, therefore, the assassin must still be concealed. The reporter shook his head drearily, and said that it would be of no use. Rouletabille and I knew only too well that any search would be in vain. Had we not made a search at the Glandier after the phenomenon of the dissolution of matter, for the man who had disappeared in the inexplicable gallery? No, no! I had learned that there was no use in looking for Larsan with one’s eyes.
A man had been murdered just behind our backs. We had heard him cry out when the blow struck him down. We had turned around and had seen nothing except the daylight. To see clearly, it was better to close the eyes as Rouletabille was doing at this moment.
And when he opened them, he was another man! A new energy animated his features. He stood erect as though he had thrown off a weight. He clenched his fist and raised it toward the heavens.
“That is not possible!” he cried. “Or there is no more good in reasoning.”
And he threw himself on the ground, creeping on his hands and knees, his nose to the earth, like a hound following the scent, going round the body of poor Bernier and around Mere Bernier, who had blankly refused to leave her husband--around the shaft--around each of us. He moved about like a pig, nosing its nourishment out of the mire, and we all stood still, looking at him curiously and half in alarm. Suddenly he started to his feet, almost white with dust and uttered a shout of triumph as though he had found Larsan himself in the gravel. What new victory did the boy feel that he had achieved over the mystery? What had given this new firmness to his step and steadiness to his glance? What had given back to him the strength of his voice? For when he addressed M. Robert Darzac his tones were full of vigor and resolution.
“It’s all right, Monsieur! _Nothing is changed!_”
And, turning to Mme. Edith--
“There is nothing more to do, Madame, except to wait for the police. I hope that they will not be long.”
The unhappy woman shuddered. I knew that she was again struck with mortal fear.
“Yes, let them come!” she cried, taking my arm. “And let them attend to everything! Let them think for us! Whatever may happen, let it come as soon as it will.”
Attracted by the sound of voices we looked around and saw Pere Jacques approaching, followed by two gendarmes. It was the brigadier of la Mortola, who, summoned by Prince Galitch, had hurried to the scene of the crime.
“The gendarmes! the gendarmes! They say that murder has been done!” exclaimed Pere Jacques, who as yet knew nothing of what had happened.
“Be calm, Pere Jacques!” exhorted Rouletabille, and when the old man, panting and breathless, drew near to the reporter, the latter said to him in low tones:
“_Nothing is changed_, Pere Jacques!”
But Pere Jacques was gazing at Bernier’s body.
“Only one more dead man!” he sighed. “This is Larsan’s work again!”
“It is the work of destiny!” answered Rouletabille.
Larsan and destiny--both were as one. But what did Rouletabille mean by his “Nothing is changed,” if not that, despite the incidental murder of Bernier, everything which we dreaded, which made us shudder and which we had no understanding of, continued just as before?
The gendarmes were busy examining the body and chattering over it in their uncomprehensible jargon. The brigadier informed us that they had telephoned to the Garibaldi Tavern, a few steps away, where at this moment the delegato, or special commissioner, stationed at Vintimille, was even now breakfasting. The delegato would have power to begin the investigation, which would be continued when the examining magistrate had been notified.
The delegato arrived. It was easily to be seen that he was enchanted, even though he had not had the time to finish his repast. A crime! actually a crime! And in the Château of Hercules. He was fairly radiant; his eyes shone. He was full of business, full of importance. He ordered the brigadier to station one of his men at the gate of the château with directions to permit no person to pass in or out. Then he knelt down beside the body while a gendarme, despite her protestations and tears, led Mere Bernier away to the Square Tower, where her groans sounded louder than ever. The delegato examined the wound and said in very good French:
“That was a magnificent stroke!”
The man was enchanted. If he had had the assassin under arrest, he would assuredly have paid him his compliments. He looked at us. Then he looked at us again. Perhaps he was seeking among us for the criminal to tell him of his admiration. At last he rose from his knees.
“And now how did all this happen?” he asked encouragingly, smacking his lips as though in the anticipation of hearing a story of thrilling interest. “It is terrible!” he added--“terrible! In the five years that I have been delegato, we have never had a murder. Monsieur the examining magistrate----.” Here he checked himself but we knew well what he had been on the point of saying: “Monsieur the examining magistrate will be very much pleased.” He brushed away the white dust which covered his knees, wiped the perspiration from his forehead and repeated “It is terrible!” his Southern accent seeming to grow stronger. And at that moment, he noticed in a new arrival who entered the court, a doctor from Mentone who had come to continue his treatment of Old Bob.
“Ah, doctor, I am glad that you are here! Just look at this wound and tell me what you think of such a knife stroke. But be as careful as possible about changing the position of the corpse before the arrival of the examining magistrate.”
The doctor sounded the depth of the wound and gave us all the technical details which we could desire. There was no doubt about it at all. It was a truly magnificent stroke of the knife which had penetrated from high to low in the cardiac region and the point of the knife had certainly opened a ventricle. During the colloquy between the delegato and the doctor, Rouletabille never took his eyes off Mme. Edith, who was still clinging to my arm as though she knew that I was her only refuge. Her eyes fell before the eyes of Rouletabille which seemed to hypnotize her and to command her to be silent. But I knew that she was trembling with the desire to speak.
* * * * *
At the request of the delegato, we all entered the Square Tower. We took our places in Old Bob’s sitting room, where the inquest was to be held and where each of us in turn recounted what we had seen and heard. Mere Bernier was first questioned, but little or nothing could be gained from her testimony. She declared that she knew nothing about anything. She had been in Old Bob’s bedroom, attending to the needs of the injured man, when we had rushed madly into the room. She had been with Old Bob for an hour, having left her husband in the lodge of the Square Tower, ready to work at making a rope.
It was a curious fact, but I was less interested at that moment in what was going on under my eyes than in what I could not see and yet knew _that I expected_.
Would Edith speak? She was looking out of the open window, her lips compressed, her brows drawn. A gendarme was standing near the corpse over the face of which a handkerchief had been laid. Edith, like myself, was paying very little heed to what was going on inside the room. Her eyes were fixed upon Bernier’s body.
An exclamation from the delegato struck upon our ears. The further the evidence of the witnesses progressed, the greater became the amazement of the Commissioner, and the more and more inexplicable he found the crime. He was on the point of finding it impossible that it should have been committed at all, when it came Mme. Edith’s turn to be interrogated.
They questioned her. Her lips were already opened to answer the first question when Rouletabille’s quiet voice was heard:
“Look at the end of the shadow of the eucalyptus.”
“What is there at the end of the shadow of the eucalyptus?” demanded the delegato.
“The weapon with which the crime was committed,” replied the reporter.
He jumped out of the window to the court and picked up from the bloody stones a sharp, shining piece of flint. He brandished it in our eyes. We all recognized it. It was “the oldest dagger of the human race.”