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

by Maurice Leblanc

  “The men I saw last night?”

  “Yes, half-a-dozen shady Levantines, sham naturalized French citizens, more or less well-disguised Bulgarians, secret agents of the little German courts in the Balkans. This gang ran provincial branches of Essarès’ bank. It had in its pay, on Essarès’ account, hundreds of minor agents, who scoured the villages, visited the fairs, were hail-fellow-well-met with the peasants, offered them bank-notes and government securities in exchange for French gold and trousered all their savings. When war broke out the gang shut up shop and gathered round Essarès Bey, who also had closed his offices in the Rue Lafayette.”

  “What happened then?”

  “Things that we don’t know. No doubt the accomplices learnt from their governments that the last despatch of gold had never taken place; and no doubt they also guessed that Essarès Bey was trying to keep for himself the three hundred millions collected by the gang. One thing is certain, that a struggle began between the former partners, a fierce, implacable struggle, the accomplices wanting their share of the plunder, while Essarès Bey was resolved to part with none of it and pretended that the millions had left the country. Yesterday the struggle attained its culminating-point. In the afternoon the accomplices tried to get hold of Mme. Essarès so that they might have a hostage to use against her husband. In the evening . . . in the evening you yourself witnessed the final episode.”

  “But why yesterday evening rather than another?”

  “Because the accomplices had every reason to think that the millions were intended to disappear yesterday evening. Though they did not know the methods employed by Essarès Bey when he made his last remittances, they believed that each of the remittances, or rather each removal of the sacks, was preceded by a signal.”

  “Yes, a shower of sparks, was it not?”

  “Exactly. In a corner of the garden are some old conservatories, above which stands the furnace that used to heat them. This grimy furnace, full of soot and rubbish, sends forth, when you light it, flakes of fire and sparks which are seen at a distance and serve as an intimation. Essarès Bey lit it last night himself. The accomplices at once took alarm and came prepared to go any lengths.”

  “And Essarès’ plan failed.”

  “Yes. But so did theirs. The colonel is dead. The others were only able to get hold of a few bundles of notes which have probably been taken from them by this time. But the struggle was not finished; and its dying agony has been a most shocking tragedy. According to your statement, a man who knew you and who was seeking to get into touch with you, was killed at nineteen minutes past seven, most likely by Essarès Bey, who dreaded his intervention. And, five hours later, at twenty-three past twelve, Essarès Bey himself was murdered, presumably by one of his accomplices. There is the whole story, Captain Belval. And, now that you know as much of it as I do, don’t you think that the investigation of this case should remain secret and be pursued not quite in accordance with the ordinary rules?”

  After a moment’s reflection Patrice said:

  “Yes, I agree.”

  “There can be no doubt about it!” cried M. Masseron. “Not only will it serve no purpose to publish this story of gold which has disappeared and which can’t be found, which would startle the public and excite their imaginations, but you will readily imagine that an operation which consisted in draining off such a quantity of gold in two years cannot have been effected without compromising a regrettable number of people. I feel certain that my own enquiries will reveal a series of weak concessions and unworthy bargains on the part of certain more or less important banks and credit-houses, transactions on which I do not wish to insist, but which it would be the gravest of blunders to publish. Therefore, silence.”

  “But is silence possible?”

  “Why not?”

  “Bless my soul, there are a good few corpses to be explained away! Colonel Fakhi’s, for instance?”

  “Suicide.”

  “Mustapha’s, which you will discover or which you have already discovered in the Galliéra garden?”

  “Found dead.”

  “Essarès Bey’s?”

  “An accident.”

  “So that all these manifestations of the same power will remain separated?”

  “There is nothing to show the link that connects them.”

  “Perhaps the public will think otherwise.”

  “The public will think what we wish it to think. This is war-time.”

  “The press will speak.”

  “The press will do nothing of the kind. We have the censorship.”

  “But, if some fact or, rather, a fresh crime . . . ?”

  “Why should there be a fresh crime? The matter is finished, at least on its active and dramatic side. The chief actors are dead. The curtain falls on the murder of Essarès Bey. As for the supernumeraries, Bournef and the others, we shall have them stowed away in an internment-camp before a week is past. We therefore find ourselves in the presence of a certain number of millions, with no owner, with no one who dares to claim them, on which France is entitled to lay hands. I shall devote my activity to securing the money for the republic.”

  Patrice Belval shook his head:

  “Mme. Essarès remains, sir. We must not forget her husband’s threats.”

  “He is dead.”

  “No matter, the threats are there. Old Siméon tells you so in a striking fashion.”

  “He’s half mad.”

  “Exactly, his brain retains the impression of great and imminent danger. No, the struggle is not ended. Perhaps indeed it is only beginning.”

  “Well, captain, are we not here? Make it your business to protect and defend Mme. Essarès by all the means in your power and by all those which I place at your disposal. Our collaboration will be uninterrupted, because my task lies here and because, if the battle — which you expect and I do not — takes place, it will be within the walls of this house and garden.”

  “What makes you think that?”

  “Some words which Mme. Essarès overheard last night. The colonel repeated several times, ‘The gold is here, Essarès.’ He added, ‘For years past, your car brought to this house all that there was at your bank in the Rue Lafayette. Siméon, you and the chauffeur used to let the sacks down the last grating on the left. How you used to send it away I do not know. But of what was here on the day when the war broke out, of the seventeen or eighteen hundred bags which they were expecting out yonder, none has left your place. I suspected the trick; and we kept watch night and day. The gold is here.’”

  “And have you no clue?”

  “Not one. Or this at most; but I attach comparatively little value to it.”

  He took a crumpled paper from his pocket, unfolded it and continued:

  “Besides the pendant, Essarès Bey held in his hand this bit of blotted paper, on which you can see a few straggling, hurriedly-written words. The only ones that are more or less legible are these: ‘golden triangle.’ What this golden triangle means, what it has to do with the case in hand, I can’t for the present tell. The most that I am able to presume is that, like the pendant, the scrap of paper was snatched by Essarès Bey from the man who died at nineteen minutes past seven this morning and that, when he himself was killed at twenty-three minutes past twelve, he was occupied in examining it.”

  “And then there is the album,” said Patrice, making his last point. “You see how all the details are linked together. You may safely believe that it is all one case.”

  “Very well,” said M. Masseron. “One case in two parts. You, captain, had better follow up the second. I grant you that nothing could be stranger than this discovery of photographs of Mme. Essarès and yourself in the same album and in the same pendant. It sets a problem the solution of which will no doubt bring us very near to the truth. We shall meet again soon, Captain Belval, I hope. And, once more, make use of me and of my men.”

  He shook Patrice by the hand. Patrice held him back:

  “I shall make
use of you, sir, as you suggest. But is this not the time to take the necessary precautions?”

  “They are taken, captain. We are in occupation of the house.”

  “Yes . . . yes . . . I know; but, all the same . . . I have a sort of presentiment that the day will not end without. . . . Remember old Siméon’s strange words. . . .”

  M. Masseron began to laugh:

  “Come, Captain Belval, we mustn’t exaggerate things. If any enemies remain for us to fight, they must stand in great need, for the moment, of taking council with themselves. We’ll talk about this to-morrow, shall we, captain?”

  He shook hands with Patrice again, bowed to Mme. Essarès and left the room.

  Belval had at first made a discreet movement to go out with him. He stopped at the door and walked back again. Mme. Essarès, who seemed not to hear him, sat motionless, bent in two, with her head turned away from him.

  “Coralie,” he said.

  She did not reply; and he uttered her name a second time, hoping that again she might not answer, for her silence suddenly appeared to him to be the one thing in the world for him to desire. That silence no longer implied either constraint or rebellion. Coralie accepted the fact that he was there, by her side, as a helpful friend. And Patrice no longer thought of all the problems that harassed him, nor of the murders that had mounted up, one after another, around them, nor of the dangers that might still encompass them. He thought only of Coralie’s yielding gentleness.

  “Don’t answer, Coralie, don’t say a word. It is for me to speak. I must tell you what you do not know, the reasons that made you wish to keep me out of this house . . . out of this house and out of your very life.”

  He put his hand on the back of the chair in which she was sitting; and his hand just touched Coralie’s hair.

  “Coralie, you imagine that it is the shame of your life here that keeps you away from me. You blush at having been that man’s wife; and this makes you feel troubled and anxious, as though you yourself had been guilty. But why should you? It was not your fault. Surely you know that I can guess the misery and hatred that must have passed between you and him and the constraint that was brought to bear upon you, by some machination, in order to force your consent to the marriage! No, Coralie, there is something else; and I will tell you what it is. There is something else. . . .”

  He was bending over her still more. He saw her beautiful profile lit up by the blazing logs and, speaking with increasing fervor and adopting the familiar tu and toi which, in his mouth, retained a note of affectionate respect, he cried:

  “Am I to speak, Little Mother Coralie? I needn’t, need I? You have understood; and you read yourself clearly. Ah, I feel you trembling from head to foot! Yes, yes, I tell you, I knew your secret from the very first day. From the very first day you loved your great beggar of a wounded man, all scarred and maimed though he was. Hush! Don’t deny it! . . . Yes, I understand: you are rather shocked to hear such words as these spoken to-day. I ought perhaps to have waited. And yet why should I? I am asking you nothing. I know; and that is enough for me. I sha’n’t speak of it again for a long time to come, until the inevitable hour arrives when you are forced to tell it to me yourself. Till then I shall keep silence. But our love will always be between us; and it will be exquisite, Little Mother Coralie, it will be exquisite for me to know that you love me. Coralie. . . . There, now you’re crying! And you would still deny the truth? Why, when you cry — I know you, Little Mother — it means that your dear heart is overflowing with tenderness and love! You are crying? Ah, Little Mother, I never thought you loved me to that extent!”

  Patrice also had tears in his eyes. Coralie’s were coursing down her pale cheeks; and he would have given much to kiss that wet face. But the least outward sign of affection appeared to him an offense at such a moment. He was content to gaze at her passionately.

  And, as he did so, he received an impression that her thoughts were becoming detached from his own, that her eyes were being attracted by an unexpected sight and that, amid the great silence of their love, she was listening to something that he himself had not heard.

  And suddenly he too heard that thing, though it was almost imperceptible. It was not so much a sound as the sensation of a presence mingling with the distant rumble of the town. What could be happening?

  The light had begun to fade, without his noticing it. Also unperceived by Patrice, Mme. Essarès had opened the window a little way, for the boudoir was small and the heat of the fire was becoming oppressive. Nevertheless, the two casements were almost touching. It was at this that she was staring; and it was from there that the danger threatened.

  Patrice’s first impulse was to run to the window, but he restrained himself. The danger was becoming defined. Outside, in the twilight, he distinguished through the slanting panes a human form. Next, he saw between the two casements something which gleamed in the light of the fire and which looked like the barrel of a revolver.

  “Coralie is done for,” he thought, “if I allow it to be suspected for an instant that I am on my guard.”

  She was in fact opposite the window, with no obstacle intervening. He therefore said aloud, in a careless tone:

  “Coralie, you must be a little tired. We will say good-by.”

  At the same time, he went round her chair to protect her.

  But he had not the time to complete his movement. She also no doubt had seen the glint of the revolver, for she drew back abruptly, stammering:

  “Oh, Patrice! . . . Patrice! . . .”

  Two shots rang out, followed by a moan.

  “You’re wounded!” cried Patrice, springing to her side.

  “No, no,” she said, “but the fright . . .”

  “Oh, if he’s touched you, the scoundrel!”

  “No, he hasn’t.”

  “Are you quite sure?”

  He lost thirty or forty seconds, switching on the electric light, looking at Coralie for signs of a wound and waiting in an agony of suspense for her to regain full consciousness. Only then did he rush to the window, open it wide and climb over the balcony. The room was on the first floor. There was plenty of lattice-work on the wall. But, because of his leg, Patrice had some difficulty in making his way down.

  Below, on the terrace, he caught his foot in the rungs of an overturned ladder. Next, he knocked against some policemen who were coming from the ground-floor. One of them shouted:

  “I saw the figure of a man making off that way.”

  “Which way?” asked Patrice.

  The man was running in the direction of the lane. Patrice followed him. But, at that moment, from close beside the little door, there came shrill cries and the whimper of a choking voice:

  “Help! . . . Help! . . .”

  When Patrice came up, the policeman was already flashing his electric lantern over the ground; and they both saw a human form writhing in the shrubbery.

  “The door’s open!” shouted Patrice. “The assassin has escaped! Go after him!”

  The policeman vanished down the lane; and, Ya-Bon appearing on the scene, Patrice gave him his orders:

  “Quick as you can, Ya-Bon! . . . If the policeman is going up the lane, you go down. Run! I’ll look after the victim.”

  All this time, Patrice was stooping low, flinging the light of the policeman’s lantern on the man who lay struggling on the ground. He recognized old Siméon, nearly strangled, with a red-silk cord round his neck.

  “How do you feel?” he asked. “Can you understand what I’m saying?”

  He unfastened the cord and repeated his question. Siméon stuttered out a series of incoherent syllables and then suddenly began to sing and laugh, a very low, jerky laugh, alternating with hiccoughs. He had gone mad.

  When M. Masseron arrived, Patrice told him what had happened:

  “Do you really believe it’s all over?” he asked.

  “No. You were right and I was wrong,” said M. Masseron. “We must take every precaution to ensure Mme. Essarè
s’ safety. The house shall be guarded all night.”

  A few minutes later the policeman and Ya-Bon returned, after a vain search. The key that had served to open the door was found in the lane. It was exactly similar to the one in Patrice Belval’s possession, equally old and equally rusty. The would-be murderer had thrown it away in the course of his flight.

  It was seven o’clock when Patrice, accompanied by Ya-Bon, left the house in the Rue Raynouard and turned towards Neuilly. As usual, Patrice took Ya-Bon’s arm and, leaning upon him for support as he walked, he said:

  “I can guess what you’re thinking, Ya-Bon.”

  Ya-Bon grunted.

  “That’s it,” said Captain Belval, in a tone of approval. “We are entirely in agreement all along the line. What strikes you first and foremost is the utter incapacity displayed by the police. A pack of addle-pates, you say? When you speak like that, Master Ya-Bon, you are talking impertinent nonsense, which, coming from you, does not astonish me and which might easily make me give you the punishment you deserve. But we will overlook it this time. Whatever you may say, the police do what they can, not to mention that, in war-time, they have other things to do than to occupy themselves with the mysterious relations between Captain Belval and Mme. Essarès. It is I therefore who will have to act; and I have hardly any one to reckon on but myself. Well, I wonder if I am a match for such adversaries. To think that here’s one who has the cheek to come back to the house while it is being watched by the police, to put up a ladder, to listen no doubt to my conversation with M. Masseron and afterwards to what I said to Little Mother Coralie and, lastly, to send a couple of bullets whizzing past our ears! What do you say? Am I the man for the job? And could all the French police, overworked as they are, give me the indispensable assistance? No, the man I need for clearing up a thing like this is an exceptional sort of chap, one who unites every quality in himself, in short the type of man one never sees.”