Monsieur Le Tellier no longer dares to raise his eyes from the letter. He recalls a certain affirmation by Madame Monbardeau regarding Marie-Thérèse and the Duc d’Agnès. He compares the two claimants: the sickly little scientist with nothing at all and the intrepid sportsman, boyish and magnificent, noble of heart and lineage, rich in gold and intelligence—adorable, to be sure. And there are Shakespearean voices in his head, whispering: “Hail to thee, Le Tellier! Thy daughter shall be a duchess!”
But someone knocks on the door, and he shudders. This time, it is a dull knock, as if some cadaver escaped from the tomb has come to thump the panel with its soft and leaden fists…
And behold: the two conversationalists shudder…for it really is a sort of cadaver that comes in, before anyone says: “Come in!” He is a man of sickly pallor. His torn clothes are covered in dirt; his shoes have walked on pebbles for a long time. His haggard eyes are open wide and he stands there, in the doorway, shivering like a wretch.
At first, Monsieur Le Tellier recoils—the unknown man is frightening. Then, all of a sudden, he launches himself toward the diurnal specter and takes him in his arms, warmly…for the most terrible quality of the livid, trembling, maddened, sepulchral intruder, is that of being Monsieur Monbardeau, unrecognizable.
The latter’s brother-in-law has but one thought in his head: Marie-Thérèse has been at her uncle’s house since yesterday; something has happened to her.
“My daughter…speak! Speak!”
“Your daughter?” the doctor articulates, painfully. “It’s nothing to do with your daughter. It’s my children—Henri and his wife, Henri and Fabienne. They’ve disappeared!”
Monsieur Le Tellier breathes in.
Monsieur Monbardeau, collapsing in a chair in tears, continues: “Disappeared! Yesterday. We didn’t want to tell you…but there’s no doubt, now. What a night! Yesterday morning, they both went out for a walk…to the Colombier…joyful! ‘Perhaps we’ll have lunch up there!’ they said. So we weren’t worried about their absence at lunch, were we? And then, then! The day went by. At dinner, still no one! And no news! No messenger to say accident, broken leg, etcetera…nothing! Nothing! It was already very late when I started searching. Darkness… Went through the villages, but the people were afraid, treated me as a sarvant! Refused to open their doors and didn’t reply… Went through the woods. Shouted like a madman, at hazard, stupidly… At dawn, came back home, hoping to find them at the house…but no! And Augustine in such a state! Then I decided to come here…I was afraid I might frighten the women, so I came through the farm in order not to run into them in the park. It seemed to me that I glimpsed Madame Arquedouve and Marie-Thérèse…”
“Marie-Thérèse? Come on, old chap, let’s pull ourselves together. You’re all at sea. You have to keep your head, damn it! You know full well that Marie-Thérèse has been at your house for twenty-four hours. Come on, think! She had breakfast with you yesterday morning, and…”
“Breakfast? Marie-Thérèse? Yesterday morning? Never! We haven’t seen her. But then…”
Monsieur Le Tellier feels himself go pale all over. He looks, without seeing him, at Robert Collin, whose expression is that of a man under torture—and he listens to the operetta tune that Maxime is still singing, and which he can no longer bear.
“All three of them have disappeared!” exclaimed the doctor.
“Let’s search! We must start searching right way. Quickly! Quickly!” Monsieur Le Tellier seems to have lost his mind.
“Yes,” says Monsieur Monbardeau. “Let’s search. But not like me—methodically. Me, I’ve wasted the most precious time of my life!”
“You’re right—let’s not get carried away. Logically! Logically!”
“Should we alert Monsieur Maxime?” hazarded Robert Collin. “There can’t be too many of us…”
“That’s right,” said Monsieur Le Tellier. “Anyway, this is no time for singing.”
They go from room to room until they reach the singer.
Maxime appears, in the midst of his collections and his aquaria, in a rotunda garnished with glass cases and basins. He is singing, but his hands are all red and his white apron is blood-stained. He has just extracted the swim-bladder from the fish that is there; he is now dissecting it, and singing—but he is so red with blood that Monsieur Le Tellier, in spite of his haste and anxiety, takes a step back.
“Papa…Uncle…what’s the matter?”
The doctor explains: Marie-Thérèse, Henri and Fabienne have disappeared; they must be found.
Maxime and Robert reach an agreement then. They sense they alone are capable of thinking clearly. The two fathers are incapable of anything but distress. They are not men of action, and grief is overwhelming their intelligence.
Robert and Maxime consider the situation. In sum, the task is twofold. Firstly, Henri and Fabienne left from Artemare; they must have left a trail that needs to be researched. Secondly, Marie-Thérèse left from Mirastel; that creates another trail. Given the simultaneity of the two departures, it is a fair bet that the two trails intersected, and that a common accident has caused the three disappearances. No matter! It is a matter of systematically revealing each itinerary. Robert Collin, the doctor and Monsieur Le Tellier will discover the trajectory of Henri and Fabienne; the astronomer’s automobile will transport them. As for Maxime, he takes it upon himself to inform his mother and grandmother of the ominous news, then to reconnoiter the route followed by Marie-Thérèse.
The former naval officer coolly arranges the operations.
Robert Collin organizes the embarkation; he positions himself next to the chauffeur. The automobile moves off.
Prostrate on the padded yellow leather seat, Monsieur Le Tellier is a fearful sight. He resembles Monsieur Monbardeau, a brother in suffering. The peasants of Ameyzieu, coming back from mass, do not recognize that ashen, hardened, strange face. In front of the post office in Artemare, however, Monsieur Le Tellier is galvanized into action. He calls a halt, gets out, and disappears inside. Five minutes later, he comes out again. He is helped back into the car.
“Go!”
Through her window, the postmistress admires the comfortable limousine, which speeds away, rapid and furtive, as fast as its wheels can carry it, and transmits the telegram that has just been handed to her:
(Item 105)
Duc d’Agnès,
40 Avenue Montaigne, Paris.
Marie-Thérèse disappeared. Come quickly, with professionals accustomed to searches.
Jean Le Tellier.
VI. Initial Inquiries
“She never arrived at Artemare? Oh!”
As Maxime tugged feverishly at his short beard, Madame Le Tellier repeated: “Marie-Thérèse never arrived at her aunt’s? She never arrived?” Disturbed and distraught, holding her head in her hands, she turned away.
Madame Arquedouve, very pale but still impassive, attempted to calm her down.
“Listen, Mother,” Maxime resumed. “Marie-Thérèse is obviously with Henri and Fabienne. That’s a safeguard, in itself.”
“Where do you think they are?” said the grandmother.
“On the Colombier! Something’s happened to them during their walk—an accident…”
“But what? There are no crevasses…”
“How do I know? There are pot-holes…”
“Look what’s happened!” moaned Madame Le Tellier. “I didn’t want her to go out on her own! I never stopped telling her that!”
“Oh, Mother—to go to my uncle’s! Two kilometers to walk in broad daylight, on one of the busiest roads or a constantly deserted path! But, I need to know, exactly—first of all, what time did Marie-Thérèse leave yesterday morning?”
“10 a.m.,” his mother replied. “She said goodbye to me in the hallway. Oh, if I’d known...”
“Are you quite certain that she was going to Artemare?”
“Absolutely. Marie-Thérèse never lies.”
“That’s true. Which route did she
take? Up the slope or down the slope?”
“Ah—that I don’t know.”
“Nor me,” added Madame Arquedouve.
“What was she wearing?”
“Her grey dress and her black tulle hat.”
“Her traveling costume, with the short skirt?”
“No—but she had no plans to undertake an excursion, you know…”
“Oh, with Marie-Thérèse one never knows. The clothes wouldn’t stop her. She’d cross the Alps in an evening dress. You know how she loves walking—and if, going up the hill, she met her cousins on their way to the Colombier, she would undoubtedly have gone with them, in spite of her long skirt and her light boots. She was sure that her absence wouldn’t worry anyone, since my aunt and uncle weren’t notified of hr visit in advance and since we were all to meet up at dinner today. For some time she’s talked about nothing but climbing the Colombier. We can’t delay any linger, though—I have to begin my search.”
“Have the pony hitched up,” said Madame Arquedouve. “Your mother and I will go keep your aunt company. I don’t want to leave her on her own while you’re exploring.”
Maxime made enquiries among the domestics as to which direction Marie-Thérèse had taken when she left the grounds. They could not tell him. Then he went out and immediately went to the crossroads where four paths met. To his left the ascendant path cut into the hillside. To his right, descending and diverging, were the three paths leading to the highway; the first joined it at Talissieu, the second went straight down—it was, you will remember, steep and brutally direct—and the third at the village of Ameyzieu. Marie-Thérèse had taken one of these four paths. If the young woman had preferred going downhill, it was improbable that she would have taken the path to Talissieu, which led away from Artemare, but she might have had some reason for making the detour.
Common sense suggested to Maxime that his sister would have gone uphill; to salve his conscience, however, he wanted to examine the contrary hypothesis, and set off downhill. He investigated the surroundings. No trace of footprints could be seen on the stony pathway, nor was there any trace on the declivities of the central path. At the damp spot where it opened out on to the road, however, multiple imprints were noticeable in the marshy clay—but there were so many of them that they were confused.
Maxime questioned some passers-by. No one had seen Marie-Thérèse the previous day. Having acquired the anticipated certainty that no vestige of any accident and no trace of his sister were to be found in the appearances of things or the memories of people, Maxime, a scrupulous detective, attempted a further experiment. He would doubtless have better luck following the uphill path; Marie-Thérèse had surely climbed up to Chavornay by that route. She would have planned on following it as far as that commune and taking a by-road from there to Don, where she would join the road to Artemare—which is to say, the road that Henri and Fabienne would have taken, in the opposite direction, to reach the upper slopes. Maxime mentally reconstructed his sister’s meeting with his cousins, at the junction of the paths, just above Don, or somewhere between that point and Artemare. The rest was explicable naturally…until the accident.
So there was Maxime, in the process of climbing the path through the bushes. Now, convinced of the excellence of the trail, he was making progress, without intending to, more carefully. At Chavornay, one of those deformed and cretinous dwarfs that one sees every day crouching on doorsteps only understood half his questions and could not confirm that a young woman dressed in grey with a black hat had gone through the hamlet. Near Don, however, having reached the crossroads, Maxime perceived his father’s large white motor car coming up the hillside toward him, followed by Doctor Monbardeau’s car—and this coincidence confirmed his supposition that Marie-Thérèse had come across Henri and Fabienne a little lower down.
Monsieur Monbardeau was driving his own car, with Monsieur Le Tellier beside him. Madame Arquedouve had taken her place in the other vehicle, with her two daughters and Robert, who leapt down as soon as the vehicle came to a stop. The presence of the women astonished Maxime. Robert explained it: Madame Monbardeau had insisted on taking part in the search. While she was gathering information in Artemare, her mother and sister had arrived; it had been impossible to prevent them from coming too, so they had taken over the new car.
“Great—that’s crazy!” Maxime complained.
“Have you any news, Maxime?” his grandmother asked him, excitedly. “We have—Henri and Fabienne came up this way.”
“That’s right,” said Robert. “They were seen leaving Artemare shortly before ten o’clock, dressed for an excursion; she was wearing a walking skirt and they both had their steel-tipped walking-sticks. A road-mender saw them on the road to Don and specified the time as 10 a.m., on the basis that the little local train leaves Artemare at 10 a.m. exactly to go up to Don, and that the locomotive whistled to signal its departure while the Monbardeaus were greeting him as they passed by. At Don, several other people saw them. The local doctor told us that they arrived at the same time as the little train. He’d gone to meet one of his colleagues, coming from Belley, at the station. At that time though, Monsieur and Madame Henri Monbardeau were alone.”
“Therefore,” Maxime put in, “Marie-Thérèse met them between Don and the crossroads where we’re standing; that stands to reason. It’s there that they made common cause. Together, they would have gone as far as Virieu-le-Petit, as they always do; they would have bought food at the inn to eat in the woods, as usual. I can see them from here, climbing through the forest. Let’s go, quickly—to Virieu-le-Petit!”
Their faces were hopeful.
They soon reached Virieu-le-Petit, at an altitude of 800 meters; it was the highest point to which vehicles could take people intending to walk on the Colombier. Maxime went into see the innkeeper, an old woman. Yes, she had seen Monsieur Henri! He had bought bread, sausage and wine from her at about midday, and had even borrowed a game-bag in which to carry it all, with the knives and three glasses…
“Three? Three glasses? Ah!” Maxime felt joy take him by the throat. “And who was with him?”
“Two ladies, who stayed outside, on the road. While he bought provisions, they continued walking slowly in that direction. He caught the up.”
“Were they Madame Henri Monbardeau and my sister, Mademoiselle Le Tellier?”
“Oh, certainly! Now that you mention it, there’s no mistake! At the time, though, I only saw them from behind…one of them was dressed like a little girl…”
“In a short skirt, you mean?”
“Yes indeed—and the other like anyone.”
“In grey?”
The entire family surrounded the innkeeper, uttering exclamations of victory.
“It’s certain—it leaps to the eyes!” said Maxime, laughing.
Then the awareness of the situation came back to mind. It was Sunday; the inn was full. It was easy to find willing young men therein to search the mountain. Bornud, a special constable, a short vulpine old man, wiry and tanned, winked a sly black eye and set off with his dog Finaud.
Madame Arquedouve, demanding that no one should worry about her, established herself in a primitive room while the troop of rescuers attacked the slope of the Colombier.
As soon as the battalion had reached the forest, numerous branching pathways obliged it to divide up into companies, then into sections, and finally into squads, for of all the possible excursions, they did not know which had seduced the three missing persons. As they contrived the first split, Bornud discovered some bread crusts and sausage-skins in the ground. He rummaged around in the vicinity and found the innkeeper’s game-bag under a branch that hid it from view. After a frugal lunch, Henri had hidden the henceforth-useless and inconvenient bag, doubtless saying to himself: “I’ll pick it up on the way back.”
That find caused a chill.
One by one, the patrols peeled off at the bifurcations. The fresh air became lighter and cooler as they went up the mountain
. Bornud told them that snow still covered the summit of the Grand-Colombier, about 1500 meters above sea level, but the fact was only verifiable from the very foot of the peak or a long way away from the mountain, because of the screen formed by the surrounding masses.
The ascent tired the women, who were ill equipped. Madame Le Tellier, usually so lazy, climbed the awkward paths doggedly. Winter had created them from the beds of streams, strewn with sharp stones that injured feet or twisted ankles.
It was, to begin with, a reasonably methodical hunt, encircling the Colombier. They kept a lookout. From time to time, one of them shouted out at the top of his voice. As the sun went down, though, a fever took hold of the unfortunate relatives. They descended to the bottom of sheer ravines that they only needed to skirt to be able to see in their entirety. Madame Le Tellier moved foliage aside to look underneath, unconsciously. They went to the right and the left without rhyme or reason. Soon they no longer ceased crying out. Monsieur Monbardeau howled a local song incessantly: a joyful rallying cry; a sprightly piece of music to which the valleys of the Colombier had resounded many times, which resonated bleakly and thinly today without anyone noticing its strange modulation.
A similar disorder inevitably imposed itself on the other platoons, spread far and wide. The silence filled up with clamors. The echoes multiplied them, and were mistaken for replies. Thinking that they were going toward the people they were searching for, some of them found themselves face to face; they had to retrace their steps and resume the paths they had quit. Time went by; night was falling; shadows accumulated indecisive forms and transformed everything. Patches of red leaves on the moss caused alarm at a distance. They trembled as they looked up at the spurs of rock at the tops of vertiginous slopes. The wind animated the funereal fir-trees and compact thickets with quivering life. One might have thought, momentarily, that they sheltered some convulsive wounded man or some uncanny presence. Madame Monbardeau lacerated her hands searching thorny bushes. Bornud kept a keen eye on the life of the forest, and his dog quested before him, its nose to the wind…
The Blue Peril Page 5
