Delphi Collected Works of Maurice Leblanc (Illustrated) (Delphi Series Nine Book 17)

by Maurice Leblanc

  “Sunday evening.

  “They are defeated and retreating far from Paris. He confessed as much, grinding his teeth and uttering threats against me as he spoke. I am the hostage on whom they are revenging themselves. . . .

  “Tuesday.

  “Paul, if ever you meet him in battle, kill him like a dog. But do those people fight? Oh, I don’t know what I’m saying! My head is going round and round. Why did I stay here? You ought to have taken me away, Paul, by force. . . .

  “Paul, what do you think he has planned? Oh, the dastard! They have kept twelve of the Ornequin villagers as hostages; and it is I, it is I who am responsible for their lives! . . . Do you understand the horror of it? They will live, or they will be shot, one by one, according to my behavior. . . . The thing seems too infamous to believe. Is he only trying to frighten me? Oh, the shamefulness of such a threat! What a hell to find one’s self in! I would rather die. . . .

  “Nine o’clock in the evening.

  “Die? No! Why should I die? Rosalie has been. Her husband has come to an understanding with one of the sentries who will be on duty to-night at the little door in the wall, beyond the chapel. Rosalie is to wake me up at three in the morning and we shall run away to the big wood, where Jérôme knows of an inaccessible shelter. Heavens, if we can only succeed! . . .

  “Eleven o’clock.

  “What has happened? Why have I got up? It’s only a nightmare. I am sure of that; and yet I am shaking with fever and hardly able to write. . . . And why am I afraid to drink the glass of water by my bedside, as I am accustomed to do when I cannot sleep?

  “Oh, such an abominable nightmare! How shall I ever forget what I saw while I slept? For I was asleep, that is certain. I had lain down to get a little rest before running away; and I saw that woman’s ghost in a dream. . . . A ghost? It must have been one, for only ghosts can enter through a bolted door; and her steps made so little noise as she crept over the floor that I scarcely heard the faintest rustling of her skirt.

  “What had she come to do? By the glimmer of my night-light I saw her go round the table and walk up to my bed, cautiously, with her head lost in the darkness of the room. I was so frightened that I closed my eyes, in order that she might believe me to be asleep. But the feeling of her very presence and approach increased within me; and I was able clearly to follow all her doings. She stooped over me and looked at me for a long time, as though she did not know me and wanted to study my face. How was it that she did not hear the frantic beating of my heart? I could hear hers and also the regular movement of her breath. The agony I went through! Who was the woman? What was her object?

  “She ceased her scrutiny and went away, but not very far. Through my eyelids I could half see her bending beside me, occupied in some silent task; and at last I became so certain that she was no longer watching me that I gradually yielded to the temptation to open my eyes. I wanted, if only for a second, to see her face and what she was doing.

  “I looked; and Heaven only knows by what miracle I had the strength to keep back the cry that tried to force its way through my lips! The woman who stood there and whose features I was able to make out plainly by the light of the night-light was. . . .

  “Ah, I can’t write anything so blasphemous! If the woman had been beside me, kneeling down, praying, and I had seen a gentle face smiling through its tears, I should not have trembled before that unexpected vision of the dead. But this distorted, fierce, infernal expression, hideous with hatred and wickedness: no sight in the world could have filled me with greater terror. And it is perhaps for this reason, because the sight was so extravagant and unnatural, that I did not cry out and that I am now almost calm. At the moment when my eyes saw, I understood that I was the victim of a nightmare.

  “Mother, mother, you never wore and you never can wear that expression. You were kind and gentle, were you not? You used to smile; and, if you were still alive, you would now be wearing that same kind and gentle look? Mother, darling, since the terrible night when Paul recognized your portrait, I have often been back to that room, to learn to know my mother’s face, which I had forgotten: I was so young, mother, when you died! And, though I was sorry that the painter had given you a different expression from the one I should have liked to see, at least it was not the wicked and malignant expression of just now. Why should you hate me? I am your daughter. Father has often told me that we had the same smile, you and I, and also that your eyes would grow moist with tears when you looked at me. So you do not loathe me, do you? And I did dream, did I not?

  “Or, at least, if I was not dreaming when I saw a woman in my room, I was dreaming when that woman seemed to me to have your face. It was a delirious hallucination, it must have been. I had looked at your portrait so long and thought of you so much that I gave the stranger the features which I knew; and it was she, not you, who bore that hateful expression.

  “And so I sha’n’t drink the water. What she poured into it must have been poison . . . or perhaps a powerful sleeping-drug which would make me helpless against the prince. . . . And I cannot but think of the woman who sometimes walks with him. . . .

  “As for me, I know nothing, I understand nothing, my thoughts are whirling in my tired brain. . . .

  “It will soon be three o’clock. . . . I am waiting for Rosalie. It is a quiet night. There is not a sound in the house or outside. . . .

  “It is striking three. Ah, to be away from this! . . . To be free! . . .”

  CHAPTER X. 75 OR 155?

  PAUL DELROZE ANXIOUSLY turned the page, as though hoping that the plan of escape might have proved successful; and he received, as it were, a fresh shock of grief on reading the first lines, written the following morning, in an almost illegible hand:

  “We were denounced, betrayed. . . . Twenty men were spying on our movements. . . . They fell upon us like brutes. . . . I am now locked up in the park lodge. A little lean-to beside it is serving as a prison for Jérôme and Rosalie. They are bound and gagged. I am free, but there are soldiers at the door. I can hear them speaking to one another.

  “Twelve mid-day.

  “It is very difficult for me to write to you, Paul. The sentry on duty opens the door and watches my every movement. They did not search me, so I was able to keep the leaves of my diary; and I write to you hurriedly, by scraps at a time, in a dark corner. . . .

  “My diary! Shall you find it, Paul? Will you know all that has happened and what has become of me? If only they don’t take it from me! . . .

  “They have brought me bread and water! I am still separated from Rosalie and Jérôme. They have not given them anything to eat.

  “Two o’clock.

  “Rosalie has managed to get rid of her gag. She is now speaking to me in an undertone through the wall. She heard what the men who are guarding us said and she tells me that Prince Conrad left last night for Corvigny; that the French are approaching and that the soldiers here are very uneasy. Are they going to defend themselves, or will they fall back towards the frontier? . . . It was Major Hermann who prevented our escape. Rosalie says that we are done for. . . .

  “Half-past two.

  “Rosalie and I had to stop speaking. I have just asked her what she meant, why we should be done for. She maintains that Major Hermann is a devil:

  “‘Yes, devil,’ she repeated. ‘And, as he has special reasons for acting against you. . . .’

  “‘What reasons, Rosalie?’

  “‘I will explain later. But you may be sure that if Prince Conrad does not come back from Corvigny in time to save us, Major Hermann will seize the opportunity to have all three of us shot. . . .’”

  Paul positively roared with rage when he saw the dreadful word set down in his poor Élisabeth’s hand. It was on one of the last pages. After that there were only a few sentences written at random, across the paper, obviously in the dark, sentences that seemed breathless as the voice of one dying:

  “The tocsin! . . . The wind carries the sound from Corvigny. . . .
What can it mean? . . . The French troops? . . . Paul, Paul, perhaps you are with them! . . .

  “Two soldiers came in, laughing:

  “‘Lady’s kaput! . . . All three kaput! . . . Major Hermann said so: they’re kaput!’

  “I am alone again. . . . We are going to die. . . . But Rosalie wants to talk to me and daren’t. . . .

  “Five o’clock.

  “The French artillery. . . . Shells bursting round the château. . . . Oh, if one of them could hit me! . . . I hear Rosalie’s voice. . . . What has she to tell me? What secret has she discovered?

  “Oh, horror! Oh, the vile truth! Rosalie has spoken. Dear God, I beseech Thee, give me time to write. . . . Paul, you could never imagine. . . . You must be told before I die. . . . Paul. . . .”

  The rest of the page was torn out; and the following pages, to the end of the month, were blank. Had Élisabeth had the time and the strength to write down what Rosalie had revealed to her?

  This was a question which Paul did not even ask himself. What cared he for those revelations and the darkness that once again and for good shrouded the truth which he could no longer hope to discover? What cared he for vengeance or Prince Conrad or Major Hermann or all those savages who tortured and slew women? Élisabeth was dead. She had, so to speak, died before his eyes. Nothing outside that fact was worth a thought or an effort. Faint and stupefied by a sudden fit of cowardice, his eyes still fixed on the diary in which his poor wife had jotted down the phases of the most cruel martyrdom imaginable, he felt an immense longing for death and oblivion steal slowly over him. Élisabeth was calling to him. Why go on fighting? Why not join her?

  Then some one tapped him on the shoulder. A hand seized the revolver which he was holding; and Bernard said:

  “Drop that, Paul. If you think that a soldier has the right to kill himself at the present time, I will leave you free to do so when you have heard what I have to say.”

  Paul made no protest. The temptation to die had come to him, but almost without his knowing it; and, though he would perhaps have yielded to it, in a moment of madness, he was still in the state of mind in which a man soon recovers his consciousness.

  “Speak,” he said.

  “It will not take long. Three minutes will give me time to explain. Listen to me. I see, from the writing, that you have found a diary kept by Élisabeth. Does it confirm what you knew?”

  “Yes.”

  “When Élisabeth wrote it, was she threatened with death as well as Jérôme and Rosalie?”

  “Yes.”

  “And all three were shot on the day when you and I arrived at Corvigny, that is to say, on Wednesday, the sixteenth?”

  “Yes.”

  “It was between five and six in the afternoon, on the day before the Thursday when we arrived here, at the Château d’Ornequin?”

  “Yes, but why these questions?”

  “Why? Look at this, Paul. I took from you and I hold in my hand the splinter of shell which you removed from the wall of the lodge at the exact spot where Élisabeth was shot. Here it is. There was a lock of hair still sticking to it.”

  “Well?”

  “Well, I had a talk just now with an adjutant of artillery, who was passing by the château; and the result of our conversation and of his inspection was that the splinter does not belong to a shell fired from a 75-centimeter gun, but to a shell fired from a 155-centimeter gun, a Rimailho.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “You don’t understand, because you don’t know or because you have forgotten what my adjutant reminded me of. On the Corvigny day, Wednesday the sixteenth, the batteries which opened fire and dropped a few shells on the château at the moment when the execution was taking place were all batteries of seventy-fives; and our one-five-five Rimailhos did not fire until the next day, Thursday, while we were marching against the château. Therefore, as Élisabeth was shot and buried at about 6 o’clock on the Wednesday evening, it is physically impossible for a splinter of a shell fired from a Rimailho to have taken off a lock of her hair, because the Rimailhos were not fired until the Thursday morning.”

  “Then you mean to say. . . .” murmured Paul, in a husky voice.

  “I mean to say, how can we doubt that the Rimailho splinter was picked up from the ground on the Thursday morning and deliberately driven into the wall among some locks of hair cut off on the evening before?”

  “But you’re crazy, Bernard! What object can there have been in that?”

  Bernard gave a smile:

  “Well, of course, the object of making people think that Élisabeth had been shot when she hadn’t.”

  Paul rushed at him and shook him:

  “You know something, Bernard, or you wouldn’t be laughing! Can’t you speak? How do you account for the bullets in the wall of the lodge? And the iron chain? And that third ring?”

  “Just so. There were too many stage properties. When an execution takes place, does one see marks of bullets like that? And did you ever find Élisabeth’s body? How do you know that they did not take pity on her after shooting Jérôme and his wife? Or who can tell? Some one may have interfered. . . .”

  Paul felt some little hope steal over him. Élisabeth, after being condemned to death by Major Hermann, had perhaps been saved by Prince Conrad, returning from Corvigny before the execution.

  He stammered:

  “Perhaps . . . yes . . . perhaps. . . . And then there’s this: Major Hermann knew of our presence at Corvigny — remember your meeting with that peasant woman — and wanted Élisabeth at any rate to be dead for us, so that we might give up looking for her. I expect Major Hermann arranged those properties, as you call them. How can I tell? Have I any right to hope?”

  Bernard came closer to him and said, solemnly:

  “It’s not hope, Paul, that I’m bringing you, but a certainty. I wanted to prepare you for it. And now listen. My reason for asking those questions of the artillery adjutant was that I might check facts which I already knew. Yes, when I was at Ornequin village just now, a convoy of German prisoners arrived from the frontier. I was able to exchange a few words with one of them who had formed part of the garrison of the château. He had seen things, therefore. He knew. Well, Élisabeth was not shot. Prince Conrad prevented the execution.”

  “What’s that? What’s that?” cried Paul, overcome with joy. “You’re quite sure? She’s alive?”

  “Yes, alive. . . . They’ve taken her to Germany.”

  “But since then? For, after all, Major Hermann may have caught up with her and succeeded in his designs.”

  “No.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Through that prisoner. The French lady whom he had seen here he saw this morning.”

  “Where?”

  “Not far from the frontier, in a village just outside Èbrecourt, under the protection of the man who saved her and who is certainly capable of defending her against Major Hermann.”

  “What’s that?” repeated Paul, but in a dull voice this time and with a face distorted with anger.

  “Prince Conrad, who seems to take his soldiering in a very amateurish spirit — he is looked upon as an idiot, you know, even in his own family — has made Èbrecourt his headquarters and calls on Élisabeth every day. There is no fear, therefore. . . .” But Bernard interrupted himself, and asked in amazement, “Why, what’s the matter? You’re gray in the face.”

  Paul took his brother-in-law by the shoulders and shouted:

  “Élisabeth is lost. Prince Conrad has fallen in love with her — we heard that before, you know; and her diary is one long cry of distress — he has fallen in love with her and he never lets go his prey. Do you understand? He will stop at nothing!”

  “Oh, Paul, I can’t believe. . . .”

  “At nothing, I tell you. He is not only an idiot, but a scoundrel and a blackguard. When you read the diary you will understand. . . . But enough of words, Bernard. What we have to do is to act and to act at once, without even taking
time to reflect.”

  “What do you propose?”

  “To snatch Élisabeth from that man’s clutches, to deliver her.”

  “Impossible.”

  “Impossible? We are not eight miles from the place where my wife is a prisoner, exposed to that rascal’s insults, and you think that I am going to stay here with my arms folded? Nonsense! We must show that we have blood in our veins! To work, Bernard! And if you hesitate I shall go alone.”

  “You will go alone? Where?”

  “To Èbrecourt. I don’t want any one with me. I need no assistance. A German uniform will be enough. I shall cross the frontier in the dark. I shall kill the enemies who have to be killed and to-morrow morning Élisabeth shall be here, free.”

  Bernard shook his head and said, gently:

  “My poor Paul!”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean that I should have been the first to agree and that we should have rushed to Élisabeth’s rescue together, without counting the risk. Unfortunately. . . .”

  “What?”

  “Well, it’s this, Paul: there is no intention on our side of taking a more vigorous offensive. They’ve sent for reserve and territorial regiments; and we are leaving.”

  “Leaving?” stammered Paul, in dismay.

  “Yes, this evening. Our division is to start from Corvigny this evening and go I don’t know where . . . to Rheims, perhaps, or Arras. North and west, in short. So you see, my poor chap, your plan can’t be realized. Come, buck up. And don’t look so distressed. It breaks my heart to see you. After all, Élisabeth isn’t in danger. She will know how to defend herself. . . .”

  Paul did not answer. He remembered Prince Conrad’s abominable words, quoted by Élisabeth in her diary:

  “It is war. It is the law, the law of war.”

  He felt the tremendous weight of that law bearing upon him, but he felt at the same time that he was obeying it in its noblest and loftiest phase, the sacrifice of the individual to everything demanded by the safety of the nation.