At this point, Tiburce sat down on a sofa, crossed his legs, fixed his eyes on a corner of the ceiling, nibbled his fingernails and declaimed, in a rapid and negligent voice, sharp and blank—the voice, in fact, that the actor Gémier14 adopts for the character of Sherlock Holmes: “Monsieur, you possess a dog of the breed known as the wire-haired pointing griffon. And you have made that setter into a household pet, for you are not a hunter—not a hunter, but a pianist; a very good pianist, even, or at least you like to think so. I will add that you have served in the cavalry, that you usually wear a monocle, and that one of your favorite pastimes is target-shooting. Shh! Please be quiet and don’t interrupt.”
Without ceasing to stare into space, he continued: “The bottoms of your trouser-legs are covered in hairs. Now, these hairs can only belong to a dog of the specified breed or a goat, but it is not our custom to let a goat lie down beneath our feet. Thus…draw your own conclusion. On the other hand, I know that your occupations do not leave you the time to hunt, and I deduce that your dog, in spite of its nature, is a household pet by destination. You play the piano, yes; while shaking hands with you I recognized at the tips of your fingers the professional calluses of pianists. They revealed to me that you play very frequently. Now, a man of your age and intelligence cannot show such assiduity in the exercise of so delicate and art unless he excels therein, or believes that he excels therein. Because of Ingres and his violin, I dare to affirm your talent as a pianist in spite of your astronomical genius. You have served in the cavalry, for you walk with your legs apart and you descend staircases as if you were afraid of catching your spurs on the steps. Thus, you are accustomed to riding horses—and it’s a habit of long standing, for you are never seen riding out in Paris. Your humble and studious youth did not permit equitation, so it follows, in consequence, that you have ridden government chargers. Silence, I beg you. You wear a monocle. Exactly. I discovered its trace in the crease of your orbit, along with that of a carbine, for your left eye is accustomed to squint in order to aim; it is slightly smaller than the other, and the wrinkle known as a ‘goose-foot’ is more pronounced on the left than the right. As you don’t hunt, it follows that you practice target-shooting. That’s all. I have spoken.”
“If that doesn’t satisfy you…!” cried Garan, in a mocking tone.
Monsieur Le Tellier, however, was in no mood for joking. Without saying a word, he took a goatskin foot-muff from the shadows under the desk and threw it into the middle of the room. “There’s your wire-haired pointing griffon,” he said.
Then he opened a cupboard to display his typewriter. “Here’s the piano.”
From a drawer, he took out his watchmaker’s magnifying-glass, implanted it in his right eye-socket, and added in a cutting tone: “Here’s the monocle.”
Finally, he produced a photograph that depicted him in his professional pose, with his right eye to the ocular lens of a meridional telescope and his left eye closed, like that of all astronomers during their observations. “And here’s the carbine or the pistol,” he said, with a hiss of irritation. “As for the cavalry, I don’t know what you mean. I might have bandy legs, but I’ve never been on a horse. At present, my young friend, permit me to tell you that you’ve chosen a bad time and place to play the fool, and that, if it were traditional to make use of canaries for the purposes of divination, you’d be a bird of exceedingly ill omen. That’s all. I have spoken.”
Garan burst out laughing at the last insult—but scarcely had Monsieur Le Tellier vomited forth these imprecations under the influence of anger than he repented of having done so. Tiburce, now, was no longer trying to duplicate Sherlock Holmes. Green about the gills and crestfallen, he stammered vague tremulous excuses. He seemed desolate—even more desolate than his discomfiture warranted, to the extent that the astronomer, taking pity on him, hastened to add: “After all, everyone makes occasional mistakes. You’ll have better luck tomorrow won’t you? Excuse my fit of bad temper. Come on, gentlemen—I’ll have you shown to your rooms.”
He rang; a domestic appeared—but the Duc d’Agnès let his two companions depart. “I want to talk to you,” he said to Monsieur Le Tellier. “First of all, forgive me for Tiburce. This is why I brought him here: Tiburce has been my friend since college; I’ve known him for years—years in which I’ve witnessed his generosity and his great heart, compared with the months in which I’ve observed his stupidity, which is recent. He’s the most faithful, the most devoted, the most…innocent…of poodles. Nevertheless, those qualities would not have been sufficient to make me decide to bring him to Mirastel, if it were not for the fact that Tiburce was present when I received your telegram. Upset by such astonishing news, learning at a single stroke of Mademoiselle Marie-Thérèse’s disappearance and the tacit approval of my request—since you were asking for my help—I was dazed for some little time by having simultaneously gained and lost a fiancée.”
“I beg your pardon, but…”
“Just a moment. In that interval, Monsieur, Tiburce swore to me that he would recover Mademoiselle Marie-Thérèse. I forgot, in my distress, the innumerable gaffes of which the pseudo-Sherlock had been guilty. ‘Oh,’ I said to him, ‘if you recover Marie-Thérèse, you may ask me for anything you wish!’ Immediately, I realized that I had been foolish. For two years, Monsieur, Tiburce has been in love with my sister, and Jeanne loves him too. Certainly, if it only depended on me, their marriage would have taken place long ago, for I know no finer individuals than Tiburce and Jeanne. On the other hand, you know that my little sister isn’t beautiful…Tiburce, who has a colossal fortune, doesn’t want to marry her for her dowry…. In sum, everything would all be fine…”
“But?” said Monsieur Le Tellier.
“But, Monsieur, I remember my late father, Duc Olivier, and my late mother, née d’Estragues de Saint-Averpont, and all my ancestors. What would it do to them, in Heaven, if an Agnès were to take the name of a plebeian?”
“What does Mademoiselle Agnès think?”
“My sister will bow to the opinion of the head of the family—mine. In our houses, these decisions are never debated. Except…hmm…when Tiburce said to me: ‘Will you give me Jeanne in exchange for Marie-Thérèse?’…what do you expect? It seemed to me that in the depths of their tomb my ancestors were no longer thinking about anything much…and I replied: ‘Yes—recover Marie-Thérèse and Jeanne shall be your wife.’ An hour later, as I completed my application to the Prefecture of Police, I was stupefied by my folly. I wanted to take back my promise and not bring the useless Tiburce—but I no longer had the right. Certain as I was of his incapacity, it was nevertheless necessary for me to facilitate him in a task whose success I had sworn an oath to reward.”
“I understand his discomfiture! Poor chap! It’s a pity that this Monsieur Tiburce isn’t more resourceful; he might have recovered Marie-Thérèse. With such an incentive, one might do anything. Love!”
“Ha! Love, Monsieur! If you measure the chances of success by the grandeur of the love, then would it not be me who would recover my fiancée?”
“Umm…your fiancée…which is to say that…ugh! Listen—I was a trifle distraught when I sent the telegram. There’s another young man who, concurrently with you, has asked for my daughter’s hand. I admit to you that for my part…er…. In the final analysis, she’ll make the choice. She’s free to choose between you and Monsieur Robert Collin. In all fairness, though, it’s fairly certain that the one who gets her back…”
“But Monsieur,” cried the Duc d’Agnès, utterly nonplussed, “don’t you know that Mademoiselle Marie-Thérèse has done me the honor of falling in love with me?”
“It’s you who’s informing me of that, Monsieur.”
“Oh! But…it seemed to me that everyone knew…”
I’ve definitely spent too much time among the stars, thought Monsieur Le Tellier.
IX. On the Summit of the Colombier
At critical moments, every newcomer appears to be a savior. Do
ctor Monbardeau and the wives greeted Messieurs d’Agnès, Tiburce and Garan like a trinity of messiahs—and there is no doubt that Maxime and Robert would have shared their sentiment if the former had not been a schoolfellow of Tiburce the simpleton, and if the presence of the Duc d’Agnès had been capable of exciting anything but jealousy in Robert’s mind.
On the advice of Monsieur Garan, they abstained, that evening, from any conjecture relating to the disappearances, and limited themselves to preparing the next day’s expedition to discover the secret of the Colombier. When everyone went to bed, the great hope awakened by the support of the professional searchers had already begun to fade. Tiburce had been exposed as the silliest of maniacs, and Garan had revealed, beneath the external experience of a bourgeois captain, the mentality of a town sergeant. Several people, however, took as a good omen the rather long and still-mysterious absence the latter had effected before dinner, on the subject of which no one, for reasons of discretion, wanted to interrogate him.
They were to leave at dawn.
By the time the Sun appeared, Garan had already been up and about for an hour. It was necessary to lend him an overcoat, a walking-stick and leggings, for he had brought none with him. Tiburce was late. He finally came running with a clatter of hob-nailed footwear and colliding objects. One could not help admiring his equipment: his boots, his alpenstock, his hooded cape, his Tyrolean hat and the profusion of bags, satchels, boxes, sheaths, cases and haversacks that were hanging around his body like fantastic fruits.
Monsieur Le Tellier shrugged his shoulders.
Madame Arquedouve and her daughters wisely decided not to leave Mirastel. All of them pale in the early morning light—having aged two years in two days—they watched the automobiles depart.
The investigators were seven in number.
After Don, Garan asked to be shown the crossroads where Marie-Thérèse had encountered Henri and Fabienne Monbardeau. At Virieu-le-Petit, the inspector reinterrogated the tenant of the inn, who stuck to her original story. Then the caravan started off again, and soon passed the spot where Henri Monbardeau had hidden the innkeeper’s game-bag—the place where the trail of the three missing persons was lost.
After an hour and a half of climbing through the verdant woods, the narrow path having made several turns forced by sumptuous ravines, and traversed numerous meadows more beautiful than the best-kept lawns, they came within sight of the triple hump of the Grand-Colombier. In the last two days the three snow-caps had diminished somewhat. The giant cross seemed tiny, high up and still very distant; eagles were describing slow spirals above it. Under Robert’s guidance, they began the difficult ascent to the calvary. The slope became steeper and steeper; it became more slippery as their soles polished it, and began to take on the appearance of an infinite wall in the eyes of its assailants.
Tiburce was breathing heavily. He had disposed of some of his cargo, to the advantage of various others, but his hob-nailed boots were skidding in competition. They had to haul him up. The harsh wind scouring the slope carried away his Tyrolean hat. When he paused, he dared not look behind for fear of vertigo, and thus was deprived of the contemplation of the magnificent display, far below, of the Valromey and the Lilliputian roofs of Virieu-le-tout-Petit.
Monsieur Monbardeau and Monsieur Le Tellier, prey to an ardent curiosity, pinched their lips to prevent them from questioning Maxime or Robert. The latter, who took the lead—and whom the gravity of the situation had singularly sharpened up—reached the edge of the white sheet and stopped. The wheeling eagles rose up higher. The snow could be heard fizzing under the soil. Fifty meters higher up, the wind made the cross whistle.
“Ah!” cried Monsieur Monbardeau. “There are footprints in the snow!”
“Don’t make any other imprints!” Maxime instructed. “Stay off it.”
Robert put on his spectacles and said: “It’s here that we pick up the trail of those we’re searching for. There’s no doubt that they followed the route that we’ve just traveled. The goal of their expedition was the Colombier cross. They were the first people this year to make that traditional excursion, and the snow has marked their passage, of which the dry ground, the grass and the rocks conserved no trace.”
“Are you certain that it was them?” asked Garan.
“Absolutely. Listen to me and look. We’re in the presence of three parallel tracks that dig into the carpet of snow about three meters apart, going up toward the summit. They’re recent, and were made at the same time, for the thaw has deformed them slightly and similarly. Moreover, that three-meter interval is definitely that adopted by three climbing companions. Look at those we have adopted ourselves. Thus, three people came up together, not long ago.
“Very well—I say that the left-hand track is that of Henri Monbardeau. It’s the only one, in fact, that was made by a man’s shoes—walking shoes, large and nailed for mountain use. The two others were made by women’s boots—but the middle one is that of sturdy knee-length boots with flat heels, equipped with studs, while the right-hand one clearly reveals the contours of light boots with Louis XV heels. One could not find vestiges corresponding more exactly with the pedestrian equipment of the three missing persons, and that is sufficient to convince us that these are the tracks of Monsieur Henri, his wife and Mademoiselle Marie-Thérèse—but that’s not all.
“Take note of these little round cavities that follow each course and are much more pronounced for the two tracks on the left than that on the right. They are, on the one hand, the holes made by steel-tipped walking-sticks, and on the other, the puncture-marks made by an umbrella or a parasol. In addition, the right-hand track is accompanied by particular indications, as if the snow had been swept…”
“Of course!” exclaimed Monsieur Le Tellier. “It’s the skirt—my daughter’s long skirt!”
“As you say, Master…”
“Very good,” Garan approved.
“Very good!” Tiburce opined, open-mouthed.
“That’s an excellent discovery,” the inspector added. “The direction of the tracks, as they exit from this revelatory zone, will serve to orientate us. Going around the hump, following the edge of the snow, we’re bound to encounter them—there’s no need to freeze our feet by following the prints.”
“Perfect,” said Robert. “That’s the reasoning I formulated, word for word.”
They set off along the border of the dazzling layer in Indian file. Clinging to the flank of the steep slope, they went around the hummock and arrived on the other side of the mountain, facing the Alps. Mont Blanc dominated the formidable horizon, silvery amid the clouds. On that face, the gulf was hollowed out more vertiginously. At the very bottom of its profound valley, the Rhône seemed motionless and derisory; human beings, reduced to microscopic proportions, were invisible.
“Look—more footprints. But are they going up or going down?”
“Take no notice of them,” Robert replied to Monsieur Monbardeau. “They’re mine and Maxime’s. You’ll understand, soon. Yesterday we walked in our own footprints for fear of multiplying the tracks.”
They continued along the border of the snow, thus turning around the cross, which was always above them, and of which they could only see the upper part.
By virtue of making a complete circuit, they found themselves back at their point of departure ten minutes after having left it, having gone around the entire perimeter of the white snow-cap without having seen the slightest descending trace.
Monsieur Monbardeau and Monsieur Le Tellier exclaimed at the same time: “They’re still up there!” The reflection of the snow increased their pallor.
“Naturally,” said Tiburce, supportively. “Since they didn’t come down, they must still be up there.”
Monsieur Le Tellier shivered. “Robert, my friend, why didn’t you tell us…?”
“Let’s go up,” said the secretary. “I ask you to make a detour, though, in order that these three tracks remain well-isolated and quite clear.”
>
The crest of the Grand-Colombier is by no means spacious. Its flattened strip is no more than two meters wide by thirty long. Monsieur Monbardeau, climbing with a sort of fury, arrived there first, and remained mute with shock, pressed against the shaft of the cross. There was no one there, where his imagination had already laid the corpses of his son, his daughter-in-law and his niece. There was nothing at all.
Nothing? Oh, if only…
“Henri’s walking-stick! His broken walking-stick! It’s broken!”
“Don’t touch it!” shouted Maxime, from a distance. “It’s essential that you don’t touch it!”
“But the tracks—what about the tracks?” demanded Monsieur Le Tellier. “There must be tracks. Oh, it’s too much!”
It was, indeed, too much.
The three tracks went up as far as the crest, but they suddenly stopped. The missing persons had undoubtedly arrived at the summit of the Colombier, but they had not come back down and they were no longer there.
Maxime, seeing that his father and his uncle were incapable of observing and reasoning, took charge of explaining the situation to them, to study it on their behalf and to point out what it implied.
“Come on,” he said. “Let’s have a little attention and calmness. Let’s examine things, starting from the tracks at the edge of the snow. They continued their climb, initially in parallel. Then the two outer tracks drew apart slightly from the middle one, with the effect that, when they arrived on the ridge, Fabienne was a meter to the left of the cross, Henri five meters away from Fabienne to her left, and Marie-Thérèse six meters away to her right. There, our walkers paused to admire the panorama; each track, in fact, presents the same slight trampling, the same superimposition of imprints, and one can see quite clearly that the walking-sticks and the umbrella—or parasol—were digging into the ground. Everything points to a short pause—but the resemblance between the three tracks doesn’t extend any further.
The Blue Peril Page 7
