In all this speech, a speech which showed the Comtesse Hermine with what implacable energy she had been hunted down, there was one word which overwhelmed her as though it related the most terrible of catastrophes. She stammered:
“Dead? You say that Karl is dead?”
“Shot down by his mistress at the moment when he was trying to kill me,” cried Paul, once again mastered by his hatred. “Shot down like a mad dog! Yes, Karl the spy is dead; and even after his death he remained the traitor that he had been all his life. You were asking for my proofs: I discovered them on Karl’s person! It was in his pocket-book that I read the story of your crimes and found copies of your letters and some of the originals as well. He foresaw that sooner or later, when your work was accomplished, you would sacrifice him to secure your own safety; and he revenged himself in advance. He avenged himself just as Jérôme the keeper and his wife Rosalie revenged themselves, when about to be shot by your orders, by revealing to Élisabeth the mysterious part which you played at the Château d’Ornequin. So much for your accomplices! You kill them, but they destroy you. It is no longer I who accuse you, it is they. Your letters and their evidence are in the hands of your judges. What answer have you to make?”
Paul was standing almost against her. They were separated at the most by a corner of the table; and he was threatening her with all his anger and all his loathing. She retreated towards the wall, under a row of pegs from which hung skirts and blouses, a whole wardrobe of various disguises. Though surrounded, caught in a trap, confounded by an accumulation of proofs, unmasked and helpless, she maintained an attitude of challenge and defiance. The game did not yet seem lost. She had some trump cards left in her hand; and she said:
“I have no answer to make. You speak of a woman who has committed murders; and I am not that woman. It is not a question of proving that the Comtesse Hermine is a spy and a murderess: it is a question of proving that I am the Comtesse Hermine. Who can prove that?”
“I can!”
Sitting apart from the three officers whom Paul had mentioned as constituting the court was a fourth, who had listened as silently and impassively as they. He stepped forward. The light of the lamp shone on his face. The countess murmured:
“Stéphane d’Andeville. . . . Stéphane. . . .”
It was the father of Élisabeth and Bernard. He was very pale, weakened by the wounds which he had received and from which he was only beginning to recover.
He embraced his children. Bernard expressed his surprise and delight at seeing him there.
“Yes,” he said, “I had a message from the commander-in-chief and I came the moment Paul sent for me. Your husband is a fine fellow, Élisabeth. He told me what had happened when we met a little while ago. And I now see all that he has done . . . to crush that viper!”
He had taken up his stand opposite the countess; and his hearers felt beforehand the full importance of the words which he was about to speak. For a moment, she lowered her head before him. But soon her eyes once more flashed defiance; and she said:
“So you, too, have come to accuse me? What have you to say against me? Lies, I suppose? Infamies? . . .”
There was a long pause after those words. Then, speaking slowly, he said:
“I come, in the first place, as a witness to give the evidence as to your identity for which you were asking just now. You introduced yourself to me long ago by a name which was not your own, a name under which you succeeded in gaining my confidence. Later, when you tried to bring about a closer relationship between us, you revealed to me who you really were, hoping in this way to dazzle me with your titles and your connections. It is therefore my right and my duty to declare before God and man that you are really and truly the Countess Hermine von Hohenzollern. The documents which you showed me were genuine. And it was just because you were the Countess von Hohenzollern that I broke off relations which in any case were painful and disagreeable to me, for reasons which I should have been puzzled to state. That is my evidence.”
“It is infamous evidence!” she cried, in a fury. “Lying evidence, as I said it would be! Not a proof!”
“Not a proof?” echoed the Comte d’Andeville, moving closer to her and shaking with rage. “What about this photograph, signed by yourself, which you sent me from Berlin? This photograph in which you had the impudence to dress up like my wife? Yes, you, you! You did this thing! You thought that, by trying to make your picture resemble that of my poor loved one, you would rouse in my breast feelings favorable to yourself! And you did not feel that what you were doing was the worst insult, the worst outrage that you could offer to the dead! And you dared, you, you, after what had happened . . .”
Like Paul Delroze a few minutes before, the count was standing close against her, threatening her with his hatred. She muttered, in a sort of embarrassment:
“Well, why not?”
He clenched his fists and said:
“As you say, why not? I did not know at the time what you were . . . and I knew nothing of the tragedy . . . of the tragedy of the past. . . . It is only to-day that I have been able to compare the facts. And, whereas I repulsed you at that time with a purely instinctive repulsion, I accuse you now with unparalleled execration . . . now when I know, yes, know, with absolute certainty. Long ago, when my poor wife was dying, time after time the doctor said to me, ‘It’s a strange illness. She has bronchitis and pneumonia, I know; and yet there are things which I don’t understand, symptoms — why conceal it? — symptoms of poisoning.’ I used to protest. The theory seemed impossible! My wife poisoned? And by whom? By you, Comtesse Hermine, by you! I declare it to-day. By you! I swear it, as I hope to be saved. Proofs? Why, your whole life bears witness against you. Listen, there is one point on which Paul Delroze failed to shed light. He did not understand why, when you murdered his father, you wore clothes like those of my wife. Why did you? For this hateful reason that, even at that time, my wife’s death was resolved upon and that you already wished to create in the minds of those who might see you a confusion between the Comtesse d’Andeville and yourself. The proof is undeniable. My wife stood in your way: you killed her. You guessed that, once my wife was dead, I should never come back to Ornequin; and you killed my wife. Paul Delroze, you have spoken of six murders. This is the seventh: the murder of the Comtesse d’Andeville.”
The count had raised his two clenched fists and was shaking them in the Comtesse Hermine’s face. He was trembling with rage and seemed on the point of striking her. She, however, remained impassive. She made no attempt to deny this latest accusation. It was as though everything had become indifferent to her, this unexpected charge as well as all those already leveled at her. She appeared to have no thought of impending danger or of the need of replying. Her mind was elsewhere. She was listening to something other than those words, seeing something other than what was before her eyes; and, as Bernard had remarked, it was as though she were preoccupied with outside happenings rather than with the terrible position in which she found herself.
But why? What was she hoping for?
A minute elapsed; and another minute.
Then, somewhere in the cellar, in the upper part of it, there was a sound, a sort of click.
The countess drew herself up. And she listened with all her concentrated attention and with an expression of such eagerness that nobody disturbed the tremendous silence. Paul Delroze and M. d’Andeville had instinctively stepped back to the table. And the Comtesse Hermine went on listening. . . .
Suddenly, above her head, in the very thickness of the vaulted ceiling, an electric bell rang . . . only for a few seconds. . . . Four peals of equal length. . . . And that was all.
CHAPTER XX. THE DEATH PENALTY — AND A CAPITAL PUNISHMENT
THE COMTESSE HERMINE started up triumphantly; and this movement of hers was even more dramatic than the inexplicable vibration of that electric bell. She gave a cry of fierce delight, followed by an outburst of laughter. The whole expression of her face changed. It
denoted no more anxiety, no more of that tension indicating a groping and bewildered mind, nothing but insolence, assurance, scorn and intense pride.
“Fools!” she snarled. “Fools! So you really believed — oh, what simpletons you Frenchmen are! — that you had me caught like a rat in a trap? Me! Me! . . .”
The words rushed forth so volubly, so hurriedly, that her utterance was impeded. She became rigid, closing her eyes for a moment. Then, summoning up a great effort of will, she put out her right arm, pushed aside a chair and uncovered a little mahogany slab with a brass switch, for which she felt with her hand while her eyes remained turned on Paul, on the Comte d’Andeville, on his son and on the three officers. And, in a dry, cutting voice, she rapped out:
“What have I to fear from you now? You wish to know if I am the Countess von Hohenzollern? Yes, I am. I don’t deny it, I even proclaim the fact. The actions which you, in your stupid way, call murders, yes, I committed them all. It was my duty to the Emperor, to the greater Germany. . . . A spy? Not at all. Simply a German woman. And what a German woman does for her country is rightly done. So let us have no more silly phrases, no more babbling about the past. Nothing matters but the present and the future. And I am once more mistress of the present and the future both. Thanks to you, I am resuming the direction of events; and we shall have some amusement. . . . Shall I tell you something? All that has happened here during the past few days was prepared by myself. The bridges carried away by the river were sapped at their foundations by my orders. Why? For the trivial purpose of making you fall back? No doubt, that was necessary first: we had to announce a victory. Victory or not, it shall be announced; and it will have its effect, that I promise you. But I wanted something better; and I have succeeded.”
She stopped and then, leaning her body towards her hearers, continued, in a lower voice:
“The retreat, the disorder among your troops, the need of opposing our advance and bringing up reinforcements must needs compel your commander-in-chief to come here and take counsel with his generals. For months past, I have been lying in wait for him. It was impossible for me to get within reach of him. So what was I to do? Why, of course, as I couldn’t go to him, I must make him come to me and lure him to a place, chosen by myself, where I had made all my arrangements. Well, he has come. My arrangements are made. And I have only to act. . . . I have only to act! He is here, in a room at the little villa which he occupies whenever he comes to Soissons. He is there, I know it. I was waiting for the signal which one of my men was to give me. You have heard the signal yourselves. So there is no doubt about it. The man whom I want is at this moment deliberating with his generals in a house which I know and which I have had mined. He has with him a general commanding an army and another general, the commander of an army corps. Both are of the ablest. There are three of them, not to speak of their subordinates. And I have only to make a movement, understand what I say, a single movement, I have only to touch this lever to blow them all up, together with the house in which they are. Am I to make that movement?”
There was a sharp click. Bernard d’Andeville had cocked his revolver:
“We must kill the beast!” he cried.
Paul rushed at him, shouting:
“Hold your tongue! And don’t move a finger!”
The countess began laughing again; and her laugh was full of wicked glee:
“You’re right, Paul Delroze, my man. You take in the situation, you do. However quickly that young booby may fire his bullet at me, I shall always have time to pull the lever. And that’s what you don’t want, isn’t it? That’s what these other gentlemen and you want to avoid at all costs . . . even at the cost of my liberty, eh? For that is how the matter stands, alas! All my fine plan is falling to pieces because I am in your hands. But I alone am worth as much as your three great generals, am I not? And I have every right to spare them in order to save myself. So are we agreed? Their lives against mine! And at once! . . . Paul Delroze, I give you one minute in which to consult your friends. If in one minute, speaking in their name and your own, you do not give me your word of honor that you consider me free and that I shall receive every facility for crossing the Swiss frontier, then . . . then heigh-ho, up we go, as the children say! . . . Oh, how I’ve got you, all of you! And the humor of it! Hurry up, friend Delroze, your word! Yes, that’s all I ask. Hang it, the word of a French officer! Ha, ha, ha, ha!”
Her nervous, scornful laugh went on ringing through the dead silence. And it happened gradually that its tone rang less surely, like words that fail to produce the intended effect. It rang false, broke and suddenly ceased.
And she stood in dumb amazement: Paul Delroze had not budged, nor had any of the officers nor any of the soldiers in the room.
She shook her fist at them:
“You’re to hurry, do you hear? . . . You have one minute, my French friends, one minute and no more! . . .”
Not a man moved.
She counted the seconds in a low voice and announced them aloud by tens.
At the fortieth second, she stopped, with an anxious look on her face. Those present were as motionless as before. Then she yielded to a fit of fury:
“Why, you must be mad!” she cried. “Don’t you understand? Oh, perhaps you don’t believe me? Yes, that’s it, they don’t believe me! They can’t imagine that it’s possible! Possible? Why, it’s your own soldiers who worked for me! Yes, by laying telephone-lines between the post-office and the villa used for head-quarters! My assistants had only to tap the wires and the thing was done: the mine-chamber Under the villa was connected with this cellar. Do you believe me now?”
Her hoarse, panting voice ceased. Her misgivings, which had become more and more marked, distorted her features. Why did none of those men move? Why did they pay no attention to her orders? Had they taken the incredible resolution to accept whatever happened rather than show her mercy?
“Look here,” she said, “you understand me, surely? Or else you have all gone mad! Come, think of it: your generals, the effect which their death would cause, the tremendous impression of our power which it would give! . . . And the confusion that would follow! The retreat of your troops! The disorganization of the staff! . . . Come, come! . . .”
It seemed as if she was trying to convince them; nay, more, as if she was beseeching them to look at things from her point of view and to admit the consequence which she had attributed to her action. For her plan to succeed, it was essential that they should consent to act logically. Otherwise . . . otherwise . . .
Suddenly she seemed to recoil against the humiliating sort of supplication to which she had been stooping. Resuming her threatening attitude, she cried:
“So much the worse for them! So much the worse for them! It will be you who have condemned them! So you insist upon it? We are quite agreed? . . . And then I suppose you think you’ve got me! Come, come now! Even if you show yourselves pig-headed, the Comtesse Hermine has not said her last word! You don’t know the Comtesse Hermine! The Comtesse Hermine never surrenders! . . .”
She was possessed by a sort of frenzy and was horrible to look at. Twisting and writhing with rage, hideous of face, aged by fully twenty years, she suggested the picture of a devil burning in the flames of hell. She cursed. She blasphemed. She gave vent to a string of oaths. She even laughed, at the thought of the catastrophe which her next movement would produce. And she spluttered:
“All right! It’s you, it’s you who are the executioners! . . . Oh, what folly! . . . So you will have it so? But they must be mad! Look at them, calmly sacrificing their generals, their commander-in-chief, in their stupid obstinacy. Well, so much the worse for them! You have insisted on it. I hold you responsible. A word from you, a single word. . . .”
She had a last moment of hesitation. With a fierce and unyielding face she stared at those stubborn men who seemed to be obeying an implacable command. Not one of them budged.
Then it seemed as if, at the moment of taking the fatal decision, she w
as overcome with such an outburst of voluptuous wickedness that it made her forget the horror of her own position. She simply said:
“May God’s will be done and my Emperor gain the victory!”
Stiffening her body, her eyes staring before her, she touched the switch with her finger.
The effect was almost immediate. Through the outer air, through the vaulted roof, the sound of the explosion reached the cellar. The ground seemed to shake, as though the vibration had spread through the bowels of the earth.
Then came silence. The Comtesse Hermine listened for a few seconds longer. Her face was radiant with joy. She repeated:
“So that my Emperor may gain the victory!”
And suddenly, bringing her arm down to her side, she thrust herself backwards, among the skirts and blouses against which she was leaning, and seemed actually to sink into the wall and disappear from sight.
A heavy door closed with a bang and, almost at the same moment, a shot rang through the cellar. Bernard had fired at the row of clothes. And he was rushing towards the hidden door when Paul collared him and held him where he stood.
Bernard struggled in Paul’s grasp:
“But she’s escaping us! . . . Why can’t you let me go after her? . . . Look here, surely you remember the Èbrecourt tunnel and the system of electric wires? This is the same thing exactly! And here she is getting away! . . .”
He could not understand Paul’s conduct. And his sister was as indignant as himself. Here was the foul creature who had killed their mother, who had stolen their mother’s name and place; and they were allowing her to escape.
“Paul,” she cried, “Paul, you must go after her, you must make an end of her! . . . Paul, you can’t forget all that she has done!”
Élisabeth did not forget. She remembered the Château d’Ornequin and Prince Conrad’s villa and the evening when she had been compelled to toss down a bumper of champagne and the bargain enforced upon her and all the shame and torture to which she had been put.
Delphi Collected Works of Maurice Leblanc (Illustrated) (Delphi Series Nine Book 17) Page 186
