The plates that he was handling thus were those that had served the little top room as windows for such a long time. As for the illustrious plate from the Boulevard du Temple, it was already set up for observation. Standing on a solid support that held it vertical and framed it, it presented to the spectator the face that one is tempted to call the “front:” the one that showed César’s study in 1833. The other face—the “back,” if you like—which displayed the wall, was visible without the plate having to be turned round thanks to a mirror hung on the back wall of the studio, which reflected that “back.”
In front of the plate, an apparatus for making cinematographic images (let us say a “camera”) was set up, ready to function in response to a switch. Beneath that camera, another plate of luminite, suitably placed, was re-recording, for a further sequence of years, the successive images that the first delivered to the sight of men, after hatching them for 100 years. That silent and invisible transmission, that sort of incessant and surreptitious photography, could not help but be impressive, for it was as if one century were passing on that which it had seen to the following century.
In the plate, César, with his pipe clenched in his teeth and his parrot on his shoulder, seemed to be drawing nearer to it. He climbed on to a chair and reached out his arms; his face was magnified, like a close-up on a cinema screen. Then, everything within the perimeter of the image see-sawed. Evidently, César had taken the plate down in order to leaf through it. During the operation, the cloth and buttons of his waistcoat were visible, against which he pressed the object, while the other face, supported on the mobile desk-top, provided a downward-angled view of the top and bottom of the item of furniture—which was presently, in 1929, situated in Madame Christiani’s bedroom.
Finally, César hung the plate up again, and his expression left no doubt as to his contentment. His “optical glass”—his secret agent—hand certainly not vouchsafed him any troublesome revelation. And that was even more manifest when, having taken Lord Pitt on his index finger, he engaged in a dialogue with him, which was, alas, impossible to grasp, but which made the old corsair laugh so much that he shed tears—whereupon he went in search of the money Coburg in the next room, and amused himself with his antics and grimaces.
“Quite an eccentric!” exclaimed Colomba.
Luc, gripped by the delight in which luminite always plunged its observers, forgot to maintain an aristocratic phlegmaticism and became as ecstatic as a country bumpkin—albeit a country bumpkin tormented by anxiety. Did he not have proof, now, that no conjuring trick was involved? On this very spot, in a few days time, they would find out whether Fabius had murdered César. And what if, by chance, it was not Fabius? If the Ortofieris were innocent of the murder, what would then prevent Charles from marrying Rita, since they loved one another, since she loved him to the point of having spent an entire day with him on the Ile d’Aix and of having informed him telegraphically, via Geneviève Le Tourneur, that she had put off authorizing Luc to ask for her hand in marriage?
Charles thought he could read his comrade’s thoughts and he discerned very clearly the dread that was mingled with surprise in those colorless eyes.
“For what are you waiting to commence your incredible and marvelous counter-enquiry?” Luc asked.
“I’m simply waiting for the cinematographers to be ready.”
“What about this?” Luc said, pointing to the camera.
“Insufficient for the great solemn session of July 28, 1835. I intend, in fact, to conserve on film everything of which the luminite makes restitution for observers placed straight ahead, higher up, lower down and to either side. For that I need five cameras variously orientated: one in front, like this one, and the other four pointed at the four corners of the plate, two to the left and two to the right, the two upper ones pointing downwards, the two lower ones pointing upwards, all of them filming in color with the exception of the one in the center.”
“Why the exception?”
“Because a color film is always dimmer than the other and I want to possess at least one strip that’s as clear as possible.
“So when will you begin?”
“In a week’s time. Next week we shall ‘cleave’ the plate as far as July 15, and then we shall not cease to watch it until the date of the murder, reserving for the entire day of July 28 the employment—intermittent, in any case—of the five cameras and the access to this studio of the notable individuals I have invited and who have already promised me their collaboration. I’ve kept those invitations to a minimum. In spite of my precautions, the news has spread. I’m being assailed with solicitations; if I gave permission all those who have expressed a desire, the large amphitheater in the Sorbonne would be too small to contain the audience.”
“Obviously!” remarked Bertrand Valois. “So many attractions rolled up into one! The demonstration of a hitherto-unknown marvel of nature, the retrovision of Fieschi’s attempt to assassinate Louis-Philippe, and that of a murder whose mystery has been suddenly renewed!” And he it was who took the initiative of making a proposition that was to have certain curious and rather important consequences. “Why not start attacking the luminite today,” he said to Charles, “in order to reach the days running up to July 15? Might not the glances that we dart at the period anterior to the 15 be useful to us, and perhaps tell us something? All your precautions have now been taken: Monsieur Ortofieri has been informed; Monsieur de Certeuil, who is representing him, knows what is going on; the camera is in position, along with the retransmission plate; you possess portraits of old Fabius. There’s every reason to employ the week that separates us from the operation proper in taking a few soundings.”
“I don’t see any reason why not,” said Charles, after due reflection. He took the plate out of its frame, asked Bertrand to hold it upright on a large table covered with a thick cloth, and, arming himself with an exceedingly fine blade, drive it into the thickness of the luminite with a few light taps of a mallet, almost at the edge of the month of October 1833—which was, at that moment, illuminating César Christiani’s room at 53 Boulevard du Temple.
A tiny dry click was heard, and a first leaf of luminite was detached, so thin, in its sharp rigidity, that it had the semblance of a purely geometrical plane.
The light of distant days shone forth on all sides. The frightful thinness was set, with a thousand precautions, in a felt-lined rack prepared for that purpose.
“1834,” Charles announced, having looked at the mantelpiece of the study through his binoculars. “There’s the new calendar. And consider the trees on the boulevard—it’s winter.”
“Which winter?” Bertrand asked. “That of January or December?”
“January,” Charles affirmed.
“Why?” asked Luc, at the same time as Colomba.
“Come on—I’ve guessed,” Bertrand put in. “Because the new calendar, like the old one, only has half a year on each of its faces, and it’s the first semester that is presently visible. César wouldn’t have turned the current semester to the wall—that stands to reason.”
“And there you are!” said Charles, merrily.
“In sum,” Luc de Certeuil remarked, “At this moment, having left 1833, we’re going into the future, towards 1835…”
“That’s it exactly,” said Charles. He was passionately absorbed by his resumed task, fearful of breaking or cracking the substance impressed with the invaluable images.
Chance and his skill favored him. He was able to continue his subtle work with as much precision as César had once brought to release these strange ephemerides from another part of the plate.
Having read with the aid of the binoculars the date of the copy of the satirical magazine—Le Charivari—that César, who was noticeably older, had left on the white marble top of the occasional table, Charles put down his knife rather excitedly.
“June 30, 1835. Let’s stop there.” Then he replaced the sunlit plate in its frame, on the easel.
César’
s study was relatively gloomy by comparison with the window, where magnificent daylight shone. The houses opposite were dazzling, above the tufted verdure of the elms. The bull’s-eye clock fixed to the wall beneath the corsair’s guidon, marked 3 p.m.
Henriette Delille came in, finishing knotting the strings of her bonnet under her chin. César covered his head with a bizarre straw top-hat. They exchanged a few words. The former corsair was somber, seemingly peevish and complaining. The young woman, slimmer than in 1833 and still extremely pretty—perhaps more so—seemed sad, if not unhappy. With a touching grace, she put her hand on César’s arm and, with an imploring gaze, seemed to be encouraging him or—as Bertrand put it—“rebuilding his morale.” But they saw no more, for the two went out in that fashion: the one taciturn; the other gentle and filial.
The room remained empty, its casement open to the fine weather.
Charles raised the binoculars to his eyes, not without vivacity. He rotated the focusing-knob nervously.
“Fieschi!” he said. “With his mistress, Nina Lassave.”
There were several similar instruments there, for all eventualities had been anticipated. Each of his companions picked one up.
In the distance, at the window on the third story of the red house, beneath the raised Venetian blind, a small, thin, bony and feverish individual was chatting with a much younger woman, modestly dressed in a drab dress. As he spoke, Fieschi gesticulated in an Italian manner; his black eyes gleamed within his dull complexion. He wore short side-whiskers. The windows framing the two of them had no supportive frame. They were gazing at the boulevard animatedly, leaning their hands directly on the stony rim.
Charles appointed himself the guide to this living Musée Grévin.22
“Fieschi has been renting that little apartment since March, under the name of Gérard, a mechanic. The house seemed to him favorable for the crime he intends to commit. Morey, his accomplice, selected it with him, but only came back to it on the eve of the assassination attempt, to load the 24 rifle-barrels of the infernal machine. Nina Lassave doesn’t live with her lover; she’s employed at the Saltpêtrière. Look—she’s one-eyed; her left eye is closed and she lacks three fingers. She’s a poor creature, whose childhood was abominably unhealthy.”
“But charming, all the same,” said Colomba. “The fresh face, the lovely hair, the rounded and flexible figure….”
“A grisette—a poor honest young woman who tried to commit suicide after Fieschi’s crime.”
“How marvelous and how horrible!” Colomba went on. “Look at the head on that terrible individual’s shoulders, which will fall under the blade of the guillotine!”
“The camera!” said Bertrand! “We’re forgetting it. This is what it’s for, though. Filming that couple, so sadly celebrated!” He lowered his binoculars. “Look!” he exclaimed. “While we were watching Fieschi, someone has come into César’s study. There’s a man there!”
They all abandoned Fieschi and Nina in favor of the newcomer.
Charles had started the camera.
The man who had just come into sight, leaving the antechamber door ajar behind him, approached the mantelpiece like a thief. He held a key in his left hand, with which he had presumably released the lock on the door to the landing. Dressed without any luxury in a kind of black frock-coat, with his high white collar secured by a black cravat, coiffed in a heavy beaver hat in the form of a tube with a rounded top, he was hurrying furtively, giving an impression of mystery.
Who was he? A clandestine visitor, for sure, who had introduced himself into César’s home in order to carry out some illicit task. That was obvious. His circumspect manner, the uncertain fashion in which he placed his muffled shoes on the Savonnerie carpet, the jerky gait enforced by those careful steps—which he surely wanted to stifle in order not to be heard by the neighbors below—and the way in which he raised his shoulders by tightening his elbows, were all suggestive of intrusion, conspiracy, felonious enterprise, a preliminary lying-in-wait behind one of the trees on the boulevard or in a corner of the staircase, on the lookout for César and Henriette going out.
Was it Fabius? No. This man—whose face was now hidden by his shoulders, since they had missed his entrance—was surely much younger than Fabius Ortofieri. He put out his hand to the bust of Napoléon, and tilted it. It was difficult to see what he was doing. It was done rapidly. He turned round and proceeded to go back the way he had come.
They could see his face easily now.
“What!” said Luc de Certeuil. “Here’s a fellow from another age who resembles you in a surprising manner. Have you, by chance, already lived in 1835?” He was talking to Bertrand Valois.
The latter did not know what to say. He had gone pale, struck by an inexpressible amazement. Colomba and Charles, holding their breath, strove to understand…
The furtive man was Bertrand’s double. He was the same age; he had the same spirited face, the same rare and inestimable news, the same coppery blond hair. If he had been cheerful and light-hearted, instead of being beset by so much mysterious preoccupation, one would indeed have thought that Bertrand Valois, in costume, was playing a part in the luminite plate. The unknown man resembled him like a brother—or a grandfather.
Colomba had grabbed her fiancé’s wrist and squeezed it convulsively.
The camera, still turning, hummed softly.
Luc studied the young playwright ironically. And the other three remained silent, nervously, secretly anguished—for the man of 1835, who had introduced himself into César’s home in his absence, like a criminal, a month before his murder, was now displaying the right-hand side of his body. And on that side, clenched under his arm against his body, was a long rattan cane terminated by a silver pommel, exactly like the one that Bertrand Valois had inherited from his unknown ancestors: too exactly similar to be any other cane but that one.
XIII. The Man with the Cane
“That’s an amusing coincidence!” said Bertrand, for Luc de Certeuil’s benefit.
The latter had not failed to notice the shock that had just affected the young dramatist, his fiancée and his future brother-in-law so violently, but, completely ignorant of Bertrand Valois’ origins, as well as the cane and the ring, he attributed their emotion to an unpleasant surprise, solely caused by the resemblance between Bertrand and the unknown man.
Now they were laughing, and Luc thought that they were right. Isn’t it natural that, in the course of the ages, many people should resemble one another? Resemble one another even more than Bertrand resembles the man of 1835? And aren’t we all certain to have had numerous doubles, since the advent of humankind? Thus thought Luc de Certeuil. He would not have reasoned in that fashion had he known that the cane—the cane he had just seen under the arm of the enigmatic man—gave a certain dramatic significance to Bernard’s resemblance to that man.
In any case, Luc de Certeuil had more personal cares, and he cheered up along with the other three, feeling the need to do so even more than them. Like them, but for another reason that was not unknown to them, Luc feigned an amiable indifference.
How could he not have been slightly anxious? The appearance of the man with the cane threw an unexpected element into the matter of César’s murder, and there had been no indication thus far of any connection between that element and Fabius Ortofieri—and that was not at all to Luc de Certeuil’s liking. For him, for his success, it was necessary that Rita’s ancestor had murdered Charles’s ancestor. To see something, however trivial, that diminished his chances was an inconvenience that left him thoughtful behind his smile.
The study door had closed again softly. The stranger had disappeared. In César’s home there was, once again, an emptiness and a relative silence that was easily imaginable, to which the rolling of carriages on the pavement below made a continual background, pierced by the shrill calls of the birds in the aviary.
Fieschi and Nina had left their window, over which the soon-to-be-historic blind had been lowe
red against the Sun.
Charles Christiani stopped the electrical movement of the camera. It ceased humming. Silence was also established in the present, more completely than in the past.
Half an hour went by, long for everyone. Everyone was ruminating painful thoughts. Luc’s presence was no more agreeable now than at the outset; to Charles, it continued to be perfectly odious. We know what Luc, for his part, was thinking about; we can guess what Bertrand and Colomba were thinking about.
Madame Christiani’s ideas were, in fact, familiar to them. Never, while she was alive, would a descendant of César’s murderer enter the Christiani family. And now, by an unexpected caprice of fate, Bertrand Valois was threatened with the possibility of being that murderer’s descendant! For one could not doubt for a moment that he was descended from the man with the cane; the luminite had recovered that ancestor.
What name the ancestor in question bore, they might perhaps have great difficulty finding out—it was possible that the luminite would remain mute on that question—but what was certain was that the damned substance would soon reveal whether the man with the cane had killed César. It would reveal it in the presence of Madame Christiani, who could not fail, with her piercing gaze and penetrating intelligence, to identify the ancestor of her future son-in-law.
If such a catastrophe were to occur, Bertrand’s marriage would become impossible.
So, as soon as Luc de Certeuil had withdrawn, weary of seeing nothing more and finally embarrassed by the very embarrassment that had provoked his presence, the engaged couple, sensing that they might no longer be engaged in a month’s time, collapsed.
“What a tile!” said Bertrand. “An entire roof!”23
“It’s frightful! Frightful!” Colomba repeated.
“Oh, these ancestors!” said Charles. “What did I tell you, my dear Bertrand?”
Colomba started weeping.
“Come on!” her brother resumed. “Don’t get depressed yet. All is not lost—far from it! Nothing’s proven. The mysterious operation carried out by that man….”
The Master of Light Page 19
