In spite of everything, Patrice felt more comfortable. He went back to his room, lay down on his bed and slept for two hours. Then he sent for Ya-Bon.
“This time,” he said, “try to control your nerves and not to lose your head as you did just now. You were absurd. But don’t let’s talk about it. Have you had your breakfast? No? No more have I. Have you seen the doctor? No? No more have I. And the surgeon has just promised to take off this beastly bandage. You can imagine how pleased I am. A wooden leg is all very well; but a head wrapped up in lint, for a lover, never! Get on, look sharp. When we’re ready, we’ll start for the hospital. Little Mother Coralie can’t forbid me to see her there!”
Patrice was as happy as a schoolboy. As he said to Ya-Bon an hour later, on their way to the Porte-Maillot, the clouds were beginning to roll by:
“Yes, Ya-Bon, yes, they are. And this is where we stand. To begin with, Coralie is not in danger. As I hoped, the battle is being fought far away from her, among the accomplices no doubt, over their millions. As for the unfortunate man who rang me up and whose dying cries I overheard, he was obviously some unknown friend, for he addressed me familiarly and called me by my Christian name. It was certainly he who sent me the key of the garden. Unfortunately, the letter that came with the key went astray. In the end, he felt constrained to tell me everything. Just at that moment he was attacked. By whom, you ask. Probably by one of the accomplices, who was frightened of his revelations. There you are, Ya-Bon. It’s all as clear as noonday. For that matter, the truth may just as easily be the exact opposite of what I suggest. But I don’t care. The great thing is to take one’s stand upon a theory, true or false. Besides, if mine is false, I reserve the right to shift the responsibility on you. So you know what you’re in for. . . .”
At the Porte-Maillot they took a cab and it occurred to Patrice to drive round by the Rue Raynouard. At the junction of this street with the Rue de Passy, they saw Coralie leaving the Rue Raynouard, accompanied by old Siméon.
She had hailed a taxi and stepped inside. Siméon sat down by the driver. They went to the hospital in the Champs-Élysées, with Patrice following. It was eleven o’clock when they arrived.
“All’s well,” said Patrice. “While her husband is running away, she refuses to make any change in her daily life.”
He and Ya-Bon lunched in the neighborhood, strolled along the avenue, without losing sight of the hospital, and called there at half-past one.
Patrice at once saw old Siméon, sitting at the end of a covered yard where the soldiers used to meet. His head was half wrapped up in the usual comforter; and, with his big yellow spectacles on his nose, he sat smoking his pipe on the chair which he always occupied.
As for Coralie, she was in one of the rooms allotted to her on the first floor, seated by the bedside of a patient whose hand she held between her own. The man was asleep.
Coralie appeared to Patrice to be very tired. The dark rings round her eyes and the unusual pallor of her cheeks bore witness to her fatigue.
“Poor child!” he thought. “All those blackguards will be the death of you.”
He now understood, when he remembered the scenes of the night before, why Coralie kept her private life secret and endeavored, at least to the little world of the hospital, to be merely the kind sister whom people call by her Christian name. Suspecting the web of crime with which she was surrounded, she dropped her husband’s name and told nobody where she lived. And so well was she protected by the defenses set up by her modesty and determination that Patrice dared not go to her and stood rooted to the threshold.
“Yet surely,” he said to himself, as he looked at Coralie without being seen by her, “I’m not going to send her in my card!”
He was making up his mind to enter, when a woman who had come up the stairs, talking loudly as she went, called out:
“Where is madame? . . . M. Siméon, she must come at once!”
Old Siméon, who had climbed the stairs with her, pointed to where Coralie sat at the far end of the room; and the woman rushed in. She said a few words to Coralie, who seemed upset and at once, ran to the door, passing in front of Patrice, and down the stairs, followed by Siméon and the woman.
“I’ve got a taxi, ma’am,” stammered the woman, all out of breath. “I had the luck to find one when I left the house and I kept it. We must be quick, ma’am. . . . The commissary of police told me to . . .”
Patrice, who was downstairs by this time, heard nothing more; but the last words decided him. He seized hold of Ya-Bon as he passed; and the two of them leapt into a cab, telling the driver to follow Coralie’s taxi.
“There’s news, Ya-Bon, there’s news!” said Patrice. “The plot is thickening. The woman is obviously one of the Essarès’ servants and she has come for her mistress by the commissary’s orders. Therefore the colonel’s disclosures are having their effect. House searched; magistrate’s inquest; every sort of worry for Little Mother Coralie; and you have the cheek to advise me to be careful! You imagine that I would leave her to her own devices at such a moment! What a mean nature you must have, my poor Ya-Bon!”
An idea occurred to him; and he exclaimed:
“Heavens! I hope that ruffian of an Essarès hasn’t allowed himself to be caught! That would be a disaster! But he was far too sure of himself. I expect he’s been trifling away his time. . . .”
All through the drive this fear excited Captain Belval and removed his last scruples. In the end his certainty was absolute. Nothing short of Essarès’ arrest could have produced the servant’s attitude of panic or Coralie’s precipitate departure. Under these conditions, how could he hesitate to interfere in a matter in which his revelations would enlighten the police? All the more so as, by revealing less or more, according to circumstances, he could make his evidence subservient to Coralie’s interests.
The two cabs pulled up almost simultaneously outside the Essarès’ house, where a car was already standing. Coralie alighted and disappeared through the carriage-gate. The maid and Siméon also crossed the pavement.
“Come along,” said Patrice to the Senegalese.
The front-door was ajar and Patrice entered. In the big hall were two policemen on duty. Patrice acknowledged their presence with a hurried movement of his hand and passed them with the air of a man who belonged to the house and whose importance was so great that nothing done without him could be of any use.
The sound of his footsteps echoing on the flags reminded him of the flight of Bournef and his accomplices. He was on the right road. Moreover, there was a drawing-room on the left, the room, communicating with the library, to which the accomplices had carried the colonel’s body. Voices came from the library. He walked across the drawing-room.
At that moment he heard Coralie exclaim in accents of terror:
“Oh, my God, it can’t be! . . .”
Two other policemen barred the doorway.
“I am a relation of Mme. Essarès’,” he said, “her only relation. . . .”
“We have our orders, captain . . .”
“I know, of course. Be sure and let no one in! Ya-Bon, stay here.”
And he went in.
But, in the immense room, a group of six or seven gentlemen, no doubt commissaries of police and magistrates, stood in his way, bending over something which he was unable to distinguish. From amidst this group Coralie suddenly appeared and came towards him, tottering and wringing her hands. The housemaid took her round the waist and pressed her into a chair.
“What’s the matter?” asked Patrice.
“Madame is feeling faint,” replied the woman, still quite distraught. “Oh, I’m nearly off my head!”
“But why? What’s the reason?”
“It’s the master . . . just think! . . . Such a sight! . . . It gave me a turn, too . . .”
“What sight?”
One of the gentlemen left the group and approached:
“Is Mme. Essarès ill?”
“It’s nothing,” said
the maid. “A fainting-fit. . . . She is liable to these attacks.”
“Take her away as soon as she can walk. We shall not need her any longer.”
And, addressing Patrice Belval with a questioning air:
“Captain? . . .”
Patrice pretended not to understand:
“Yes, sir,” he said, “we will take Mme. Essarès away. Her presence, as you say, is unnecessary. Only I must first . . .”
He moved aside to avoid his interlocutor, and, perceiving that the group of magistrates had opened out a little, stepped forward. What he now saw explained Coralie’s fainting-fit and the servant’s agitation. He himself felt his flesh creep at a spectacle which was infinitely more horrible than that of the evening before.
On the floor, near the fireplace, almost at the place where he had undergone his torture, Essarès Bey lay upon his back. He was wearing the same clothes as on the previous day: a brown-velvet smoking-suit with a braided jacket. His head and shoulders had been covered with a napkin. But one of the men standing around, a divisional surgeon no doubt, was holding up the napkin with one hand and pointing to the dead man’s face with the other, while he offered an explanation in a low voice.
And that face . . . but it was hardly the word for the unspeakable mass of flesh, part of which seemed to be charred while the other part formed no more than a bloodstained pulp, mixed with bits of bone and skin, hairs and a broken eye-ball.
“Oh,” Patrice blurted out, “how horrible! He was killed and fell with his head right in the fire. That’s how they found him, I suppose?”
The man who had already spoken to him and who appeared to be the most important figure present came up to him once more:
“May I ask who you are?” he demanded.
“Captain Belval, sir, a friend of Mme. Essarès, one of the wounded officers whose lives she has helped to save . . .”
“That may be, sir,” replied the important figure, “but you can’t stay here. Nobody must stay here, for that matter. Monsieur le commissaire, please order every one to leave the room, except the doctor, and have the door guarded. Let no one enter on any pretext whatever. . . .”
“Sir,” Patrice insisted, “I have some very serious information to communicate.”
“I shall be pleased to receive it, captain, but later on. You must excuse me now.”
VII
TWENTY-THREE MINUTES PAST TWELVE
THE GREAT HALL that ran from Rue Raynouard to the upper terrace of the garden was filled to half its extent by a wide staircase and divided the Essarès house into two parts communicating only by way of the hall.
On the left were the drawing-room and the library, which was followed by an independent block containing a private staircase. On the right were a billiard-room and the dining-room, both with lower ceilings. Above these were Essarès Bey’s bedroom, on the street side, and Coralie’s, overlooking the garden. Beyond was the servants’ wing, where old Siméon also used to sleep.
Patrice was asked to wait in the billiard-room, with the Senegalese. He had been there about a quarter of an hour when Siméon and the maid were shown in.
The old secretary seemed quite paralyzed by the death of his employer and was holding forth under his breath, making queer gestures as he spoke. Patrice asked him how things were going; and the old fellow whispered in his ear:
“It’s not over yet . . . There’s something to fear . . . to fear! . . . To-day . . . presently.”
“Presently?” asked Patrice.
“Yes . . . yes,” said the old man, trembling.
He said nothing more. As for the housemaid, she readily told her story in reply to Patrice’ questions:
“The first surprise, sir, this morning was that there was no butler, no footman, no porter. All the three were gone. Then, at half-past six, M. Siméon came and told us from the master that the master had locked himself in his library and that he wasn’t to be disturbed even for breakfast. The mistress was not very well. She had her chocolate at nine o’clock. . . . At ten o’clock she went out with M. Siméon. Then, after we had done the bedrooms, we never left the kitchen. Eleven o’clock came, twelve . . . and, just as the hour was striking, we heard a loud ring at the front-door. I looked out of the window. There was a motor, with four gentlemen inside. I went to the door. The commissary of police explained who he was and wanted to see the master. I showed them the way. The library-door was locked. We knocked: no answer. We shook it: no answer. In the end, one of the gentlemen, who knew how, picked the lock. . . . Then . . . then . . . you can imagine what we saw. . . . But you can’t, it was much worse, because the poor master at that moment had his head almost under the grate. . . . Oh, what scoundrels they must have been! . . . For they did kill him, didn’t they? I know one of the gentlemen said at once that the master had died of a stroke and fallen into the fire. Only my firm belief is . . .”
Old Siméon had listened without speaking, with his head still half wrapped up, showing only his bristly gray beard and his eyes hidden behind their yellow spectacles. But at this point of the story he gave a little chuckle, came up to Patrice and said in his ear:
“There’s something to fear . . . to fear! . . . Mme. Coralie. . . . Make her go away at once . . . make her go away. . . . If not, it’ll be the worse for her. . . .”
Patrice shuddered and tried to question him, but could learn nothing more. Besides, the old man did not remain. A policeman came to fetch him and took him to the library.
His evidence lasted a long time. It was followed by the depositions of the cook and the housemaid. Next, Coralie’s evidence was taken, in her own room. At four o’clock another car arrived. Patrice saw two gentlemen pass into the hall, with everybody bowing very low before them. He recognized the minister of justice and the minister of the interior. They conferred in the library for half an hour and went away again.
At last, shortly before five o’clock, a policeman came for Patrice and showed him up to the first floor. The man tapped at a door and stood aside. Patrice entered a small boudoir, lit up by a wood fire by which two persons were seated: Coralie, to whom he bowed, and, opposite her, the gentleman who had spoken to him on his arrival and who seemed to be directing the whole enquiry.
He was a man of about fifty, with a thickset body and a heavy face, slow of movement, but with bright, intelligent eyes.
“The examining-magistrate, I presume, sir?” asked Patrice.
“No,” he replied, “I am M. Masseron, a retired magistrate, specially appointed to clear up this affair . . . not to examine it, as you think, for it does not seem to me that there is anything to examine.”
“What?” cried Patrice, in great surprise. “Nothing to examine?”
He looked at Coralie, who kept her eyes fixed upon him attentively. Then she turned them on M. Masseron, who resumed:
“I have no doubt, Captain Belval, that, when we have said what we have to say, we shall be agreed at all points . . . just as madame and I are already agreed.”
“I don’t doubt it either,” said Patrice. “All the same, I am afraid that many of those points remain unexplained.”
“Certainly, but we shall find an explanation, we shall find it together. Will you please tell me what you know?”
Patrice waited for a moment and then said:
“I will not disguise my astonishment, sir. The story which I have to tell is of some importance; and yet there is no one here to take it down. Is it not to count as evidence given on oath, as a deposition which I shall have to sign?”
“You yourself, captain, shall determine the value of your words and the innuendo which you wish them to bear. For the moment, we will look on this as a preliminary conversation, as an exchange of views relating to facts . . . touching which Mme. Essarès has given me, I believe, the same information that you will be able to give me.”
Patrice did not reply at once. He had a vague impression that there was a private understanding between Coralie and the magistrate and that, in face of that und
erstanding, he, both by his presence and by his zeal, was playing the part of an intruder whom they would gladly have dismissed. He resolved therefore to maintain an attitude of reserve until the magistrate had shown his hand.
“Of course,” he said, “I daresay madame has told you. So you know of the conversation which I overheard yesterday at the restaurant?”
“Yes.”
“And the attempt to kidnap Mme. Essarès?”
“Yes.”
“And the murder? . . .”
“Yes.”
“Mme. Essarès has described to you the blackmailing scene that took place last night, with M. Essarès for a victim, the details of the torture, the death of the colonel, the handing over of the four millions, the conversation on the telephone between M. Essarès and a certain Grégoire and, lastly, the threats uttered against madame by her husband?”
“Yes, Captain Belval, I know all this, that is to say, all that you know; and I know, in addition, all that I discovered through my own investigations.”
“Of course, of course,” Patrice repeated. “I see that my story becomes superfluous and that you are in possession of all the necessary factors to enable you to draw your conclusions.” And, continuing to put rather than answer questions, he added, “May I ask what inference you have arrived at?”
“To tell you the truth, captain, my inferences are not definite. However, until I receive some proof to the contrary, I propose to remain satisfied with the actual words of a letter which M. Essarès wrote to his wife at about twelve o’clock this morning and which we found lying on his desk, unfinished. Mme. Essarès asked me to read it and, if necessary, to communicate the contents to you. Listen.”
M. Masseron proceeded to read the letter aloud:
“Coralie,
“You were wrong yesterday to attribute my departure to reasons which I dared not acknowledge; and perhaps I also was wrong not to defend myself more convincingly against your accusation. The only motive for my departure is the hatred with which I am surrounded. You have seen how fierce it is. In the face of these enemies who are seeking to despoil me by every possible means, my only hope of salvation lies in flight. That is why I am going away.
Delphi Collected Works of Maurice Leblanc (Illustrated) (Delphi Series Nine Book 17) Page 195
