The Nyctalope vs Lucifer 1: Enter Lucifer!

by Jean de La Hire

  She stood upright, shivering and pale-faced, with sparks in her eyes. Her hair flooded over her shoulders, hanging down as far as the hollow of her back in admirable waves and curls. Her voluptuous figure was tightly molded in the silk of her robe. She waited, facing the door from which the man would emerge whom she wished she could strangle with her own hands: the man whom she would gladly and remorselessly throw to a herd of starving hogs; the man to whom she was about to give her splendid and chaste body, in its entirety, to save Leo Saint-Clair, the man she loved...

  She waited for Baron Glô von Warteck.

  And Baron Glô von Warteck appeared.

  The entire world admired Laurence Païli; she was an incomparable artiste, as prodigious an actress as she was a stirring singer.

  Whatever it pleased Lucifer to think himself–magus, sar,20 cabalist and occultist as he really was, theoretical genius and diabolical inventor as he had shown himself to be by virtue of his mysterious machine–Baron Glô von Warteck was also a man: an ardent, passionate man burning with all the fires of Hell; an admirer of physical beauty, like the true Satan, the fallen archangel. How could he resist the eyes and all the bodily attributes of Laurence Païli? How could he divine the comedy in this superb offering?

  Confronted by the prospect of possessing a woman, every man is vainglorious. Warteck attributed his own victory to the prestige of his exorbitant personality, because he knew that a woman like La Païli dreaded neither torture nor death–and because he did not know that Laurence had seen Leo Saint-Clair, and expected to be avenged and purified by him...

  Deceived, seduced and overcome by the gaze the smile and the entire attitude of this captive Venus, he fell to his knees, with a rictus that attempted to be a gallant smile, saying–in a voice raucous with desire–“Here is Hercules as the feet of Omphale!” 21

  But the singer thought: Here is Holofernes before Judith. When Leo arrives, perhaps I shall already have been able...

  And she leaned forward, offering her lips to those of the Lord of Schwarzrock.

  VII. The Nyctalope in Action

  It was at that same instant that Saint-Clair, Corsat and Pilou experienced an abrupt sensation, as if a strong current of cold air were passing over them, sweeping their foreheads and purifying their brains.

  They stood up as one, let go of one another and looked at each other drunkenly, conscious that they had been freed from a mental slavery that was even more terrible and degrading than physical slavery. They felt completely free.

  “Sing the song–free!” cried Pilou.

  “Free!” repeated Corsat, bursting into laughter.

  “Damnation! What happened?”

  “It’s not important,” Saint-Clair put in, curtly. “We’re free, so back to work! We mustn’t lose a minute. We don’t know how long our liberty will last, since we don’t know its cause. To work! Wolf! Wolf!”

  “Hey, Wolf!”

  “Get up, Wolf!”

  Corsat and Pilou shook the sleeping German. Thanks to their shoving, he came out of his leaden sleep quickly enough. He was hauled to his feet and pushed into position directly beneath the section of ceiling in which Saint-Clair had earlier begun to cut an opening large enough to pass through. Pilou climbed on to his shoulders, and Saint-Clair onto Pilou’s. With his Browning in his fist, Corsat kept watch on both doors.

  Five minutes went by before Saint-Clair threw the section of the vault that he had cut away on to one of the beds. “Corsat–electric torch to Pilou!”

  The Burgundian took a little fishing-torch from his satchel and threw it adroitly to Pilou, while their employer disappeared into the hole in the ceiling. Almost immediately, Saint-Clair’s voice commanded, “Corsat, blunt chisel to Pilou!” Then, “Pilou, come!” and, when Pilou had rejoined his boss, “Corsat–send Wolf up!”

  The Provençal’s lasso was uncoiled and suspended from the orifice in the ceiling to the foot of a bed. Prodded, supported and pushed by Corsat, Wolf climbed up and disappeared. Saint-Clair’s voiced sounded again: “Corsat, gather everything together! Grab the section of ceiling that I threw down just now, and climb up!”

  Two minutes later, there was no one in the prison. The hole in the ceiling had been blocked; given its height, the suspect spot would have had to be examined with particular attention to make out the thin oval line of the section, all the more so because the loopholes let in the daylight so parsimoniously that the vault was perpetually in shadow.

  Despite its arching frame, which advertised great solidity, the artificial vault would not have been strong enough to support the weight of four men had Saint-Clair not taken the precaution of arranging Corsat, Pilou and Wolf at the periphery, where the frail carpentry of the vault was braced against the circular wall. “Don’t move,” he said. “If I need you, I’ll call you by name. And no noise!”

  They were in a sort of round cupboard. Its center was occupied solely by the vault of the prison, whose culminating point touched the floorboards of the room above–boards sustained by enormous cross-beams with intervals approximately a meter wide. At the periphery, though, there was a good two meters of height between the base of the underlying vault and the floorboards above. It was dark within, Pilou only having switched on the electric torch in order to get himself and his two companions into position–but the darkness was no hindrance to the Nyctalope. He had wasted no time in choosing the most convenient interstice. By poking the blunt chisel between two badly-fitted planks, he assured himself that there was nothing above the boards but a thick carpet. He immediately brought the electric cutter into play.

  If there’s anyone in the room with the machine, he told himself, we’re lost–but there’s no way round that. I have to risk it.

  And he risked it. After two minutes’ work, he was reassured.

  At this point, if anyone is following the vibration of the blade from above, he won’t have the patience to– Saint-Clair cut the thought short in order to express a contrary notion. Sorry! If he’s not stupid, he’ll have the patience to wait, to see it through–and he’ll reap the benefit of waiting, for he’ll still be the stronger, even if he has a rudimentary weapon. When I poke my head through the hole I’ve made, that person, holding himself back slightly, has only to drop a noose over my head and strangle me, or hit me over the had with something hard, stunning me... Bah! I have to risk it.

  And he risked it, knowing full well that in any adventure, the best chance of success is to confront risks–even unknown risks–resolutely.

  As the blade cut through one, then the second, then the third and finally the fourth side of the cavity the four cross-beams, a slender ray of light marked its passage–a narrow crack through which passed the bright daylight that undoubtedly illuminated the room above: the room of the machine.

  Because thoughts identical to the Nyctalope’s were running through the sagacious minds of Corsat and Pilou, the Provençal and the Burgundian put out their hands in unison when the blade had only 20 centimeters to go, each touching one of Saint-Clair’s shoulders. He turned to face them, his face illuminated by the daylight coming through the rectangular crack excavated by the blade.

  “Now, what?” Saint-Clair whispered, stopping the cutter.

  “I want to go first, boss!” replied Pilou, in the scarcely perceptible voice that all three of them adopted in such circumstances.

  “No, me!” said Corsat.

  “Enough, my friends!” the Nyctalope commanded. “I was expecting that. But I don’t want to risk your lives. There’s one man here who’s expendable, and he will take the chance. Besides, if there’s someone waiting for us up there, Wolf’s appearance will be so astonishing to him that we might gain a few seconds while surprise suspends his action. Bring Wolf here and stand well to his right and left, so the three of you won’t weigh too heavily on the same part of the vault. Good–wait!”

  He set the cutter in motion again. A moment later, he drew the instrument back and passed it to Corsat one-handed, while the other han
d kept the square piece of floorboard in place. It was only sustained by two centimeters of wood and carpet, which remained intact.

  “Here, Wolf!” whispered Saint-Clair. “As soon as the opening is made, you’ll put both your arms out, put your weight on them, brace yourself on your elbows, stick your head and shoulders through, then the rest, very quickly. Do you understand?”

  “Ja!”

  “Will you do it?”

  “Ja!”

  “Good. Pilou, get ready to follow him immediately.”

  “Understood, boss!”

  “I’ll go next, then Corsat last. Hands on Brownings or daggers, in case there are men up there–we must get through!”

  “We will, boss.”

  “I’m counting on it. Are you ready, Wolf?”

  “Ja, Monsieur.”

  “Go!”

  Saint-Clair lowered his left hand. The square of board sagged and was immediately seized and pulled by his right hand. There was a dry, muffled crack as it broke away–and through the square gap went Wolf’s hands, arms, head, shoulders and torso. Buttressed so as not to weigh upon the vault, Corsat pushed him upwards, while Pilou, getting a handhold on the edge of the opening in his turn–but with only one hand–went up with Wolf, his head level with the German’s shins.

  Wolf and Pilou passed through within 15 seconds; Saint-Clair followed immediately in seven, then Corsat in eight. Within half a minute–as measured by Pilou, who had checked at his watch twice–all four stood up on a thick carpet, in a large round room flooded with sunlight.

  There was no one in the room but themselves. At least, the four men could not see anyone from where they stood–but when a dry click sounded behind them, all four turned on the spot.

  They stood up as straight as pickets, their eyes widening and their mouths falling open to emit exclamations that only came out as hoarse rattling sounds.

  With empty orbits, a worm-eaten nose and teeth displayed in a rictus, the very image of Death was marching towards them, in the form of a huge walking skeleton. In the phalanges of its ten bony fingers, it gripped two glinting metal cylinders.

  A quarter of a hour before, in another part of the castle, two men had been chatting a little and smoking a lot.

  In addition to the large central tower, which stood at least ten meters higher than any of the castle’s other structures, Schwarzrock had four square corner towers, none of them raised up much higher than the central battlements. These four towers marked the cardinal points of the compass rose. The part of the castle in which the apartment reserved for Laurence Païli was accommodated was in the south-western façade.

  Each corner tower was not only linked to the central tower by corridors and internal staircases but by a kind of stone gangway which, passing over the roof of the intermediate building, formed a straight pathway open to the sky. Four gangways extended from terraces on the four square towers to four open bays set in the wall of the round tower, opening into the room where the machine was. As the wall of the central tower was two meters thick, each of the four arched bays was defended by two iron doors and an enormous intermediary grille.

  The two men who had been chatting a little and smoking a lot were in the southern tower. They were wallowing in large leather-upholstered armchairs on each side of a vast fireplace where logs were burning. They were surrounded by glass-fronted bookcases filled with books, a massive table charged with pieces of paper, a writing-desk and various office utensils, a few oak stools, a side-table–positioned between them–carrying smoking paraphernalia, two large earthenware tankards and an enormous jug of beer.

  One of these two men was the red-haired man whom Saint-Clair and his companions had tied up and sat down in the sentry-post beside the recumbent hauptmann. The other was the hauptmann himself. Before their desultory conversation had started, they had both been moving automatically, their faces bleak and their eyes expressionless, standing next to the empty fireplace on the two sides of he sided-table, each one stuffing his long porcelain pipe. Suddenly, they had shivered and looked at one another with joyous surprise. In a hoarse voice and a low tone, the red-haired man had said–in German, of course–“We’re free, Fritz.”

  And the colossal hauptmann had grunted, in his thick voice: “We are indeed free, Hunter!”

  There was a pause, then Fritz the hauptmann asked: “What’s happening, then?”

  “Ach!” said he red-haired Hunter, shrugging his shoulders. “I saw him going into her room.”

  Fritz made a strange gargling sound in his throat, which was laughter, and said: “I understand why he isn’t thinking about us, then. Between her and the prisoners, his mind must be somewhat preoccupied–there’s nothing left for us. Let’s take advantage of it, Hunter!”

  “Let’s, Fritz!”

  The called a manservant, ordered a fire and beer, cheerfully finished stuffing their pipes, sprawled in the large armchairs, which they placed at a comfortable distance from the fire, and they smoked, drank and chatted a little–very little, and only about the excellence of the freshly-brewed beer, the usual draw of their pipes, large armchairs whose upholstery molded itself to their occupants, and a blazing fire on a brisk May afternoon, when the snow had not yet cleared the mountains...

  In that temporary liberty to which the redoubtable tyrant had abandoned them, Fritz the hauptmann and the red-haired Hunter indulged an animal enjoyment of the pleasure of being alive.

  They had enjoyed a quarter of an hour of the pleasure of animal existence when something, abruptly and unexpectedly, snapped them out of that pleasure and imposed upon them, more unexpectedly still, the unprecedented and immediate necessity of acting without orders. They had to act with initiative, by themselves, unaided by any but their own minds, because they were free; Lucifer no longer governed their will in the manner of a radiotelemetrist guiding the flight of an aircraft or a pilot-less ship at a distance by means of the spectrum of Hertzian waves.

  This thing, this unexpected thing, was the simple ringing of a bell: a bizarre, crystalline ringing whose pitch was continually raised and lowered, very rapidly. This ringing sounded from inside a plain wooden box fixed to the wall between two bookcases.

  At the first ring sounded. its pitch rising, the red-haired Hunter and Fritz the hauptmann both went pale, extracted the amber mouthpieces of their pipes from their teeth, looked at one another, and then turned to look at the noisy box.

  At the second ring, whose pitch descended this time, Hunter and Fritz got up, set their pipes on the side-table, and looked at one another again, livid and indecisive, as if terrified.

  At the third ring, they leapt towards the box as one. Hunter, arriving first, pushed a little lever fixed under the noisy box from right to left. It fell silent immediately.

  “It’s the skeleton, Fritz!” said Hunter, his voice blank.

  “Ach!” Fritz groaned. “The walking skeleton!”

  “Out there.”

  “Are our men in revolt?”

  “Or urged by curiosity?”

  “Impossible!”

  “Impossible, indeed!”

  “The prisoners then...?”

  “Also impossible. The doors are closed.”

  “And we alone know how to open them.”

  “Fritz!”

  “Hunter!”

  “What shall we do?”

  “Yes, what shall we do?”

  “Go there.”

  “See and kill.”

  “Or be killed, if the electricity hasn’t...”

  “No other way.”

  “None indeed! But the master will torture us for years if, for whatever reason, we infringe the defenses and invade the zone where she is...”

  “He didn’t anticipate the case of the skeleton...”

  “Perhaps he did and perhaps he didn’t.”

  “In that case, Hunter?”

  “In that case, Fritz, we’ve already stood here talking for too long. Let’s go! And may God or the Devil...”

  The
y each had a stout Browning, Hunter in the pistol-pocket in his trousers and Fritz in a leather holster suspended from his belt. They took them in hand and, without further hesitation, set off at a run. The red-haired Hunter went ahead, with Fritz the hauptmann behind him.

  The door to the gangway opened with a click, as if impelled by a sudden gust of wind. The red-haired man and the hauptmann ran along the narrow stone pathway following the crest of the roof that formed a “parting of the waters” between the south-western and south-eastern buildings of Schwarzrock. The former was light on his feet and lithe, the latter heavy and lumbering, but they were as fast as one another.

  When they arrived at the wall of the tall central tower, Hunter touched a stone, then another, and yet another. The tapered iron door opened. They passed through and the door closed again. Within the arch, an electric light immediately lit up and the two men found themselves confronted with an enormous grille barring the narrow gallery from left to right and top to bottom.

  Hunter knelt down and touched two floor-level stones in succession. The grille opened. They passed through and the grille closed again behind them. Only one door now separated the two men from the room where the machine was, the room where the skeleton had walked...

  Hunter touched three stones, this time above his head–but the final door did not open.

  Hunter and Fritz looked at one another, astonished.

  “You try it,” said the red-haired man.

  “The hauptmann raised his right arm and touched the three correct stones–but the door remained shut.

  In front of the door which they had tried to open, but which had not opened–the only door separating them from the room where the skeleton had walked, from which no sound emerged–Hunter and Fritz suddenly shivered and their teeth began to chatter.

  They were afraid!

  At that same instant, on the other side of the door, Saint-Clair suppressed the emotion that had petrified him momentarily–and which still petrified Corsat, Pilou and Wolf, who stood behind him.