“But you’re mad! I consent, I? . . . Why, the man saved my life! . . . He saved Coralie!”
“But he’s doing for her now. Think a moment: if he were not there, if he were not interfering, Coralie would be free. Do you accept?”
“No.”
“Why not? Do you know what that man is? A highway robber . . . a wretch who has only one thought, to get hold of the millions. And you have scruples! Come, it’s absurd, isn’t it? . . . Do you accept?”
“No and again no!”
“Then so much the worse for Coralie. . . . Oh, yes, I see you don’t realize the position exactly! It’s time you did, Patrice. Perhaps it’s even too late.”
“Oh, don’t say that!”
“Yes, yes, you must learn the facts and take your share of the responsibility. When that damned negro was chasing me, I got rid of Coralie as best I could, intending to release her in an hour or two. And then . . . and then you know what happened. . . . It was eleven o’clock at night . . . nearly eight hours ago. . . . So work it out for yourself . . .”
Patrice wrung his hands. Never had he imagined that a man could be tortured to such a degree. And Siméon continued, unrelentingly.
“She can’t breathe, on my soul she can’t! . . . Perhaps just a very little air reaches her, but that is all. . . . Then again I can’t tell that all that covers and protects her hasn’t given way. If it has, she’s suffocating . . . while you stand here arguing. . . . Look here, can it matter to you to lock up that man for ten minutes? . . . Only ten minutes, you know. And you still hesitate! Then it’s you who are killing her, Patrice. Think . . . buried alive!”
Patrice drew himself up. His resolve was taken. At that moment he would have shrunk from no act, however painful. And what Siméon asked was so little.
“What do you want me to do?” he asked. “Give your orders.”
“You know what I want,” said the other. “It’s quite simple. Go to the door, bolt it and come back again.”
The officer entered the lodge with a firm step and walked through the hall. The light was dancing up and down at the far end of the studio.
Without a word, without a moment’s hesitation, he slammed the door, shot both the bolts and hastened back. He felt relieved. The action was a base one, but he never doubted that he had fulfilled an imperative duty.
“That’s it,” he said, “Let’s hurry.”
“Help me up,” said the old man. “I can’t manage by myself.”
Patrice took him under the armpits and lifted him to his feet. But he had to support him, for the old man’s legs were swaying beneath him.
“Oh, curse it!” blurted Siméon. “That blasted nigger has done for me. I’m suffocating too, I can’t walk.”
Patrice almost carried him, while Siméon, in the last stage of weakness, stammered:
“This way. . . . Now straight ahead. . . .”
They passed the corner of the lodge and turned their steps towards the graves.
“You’re quite sure you fastened the door?” the old man continued. “Yes, I heard it slam. Oh, he’s a terrible fellow, that! You have to be on your guard with him! But you swore not to say anything, didn’t you? Swear it again, by your mother’s memory . . . no, better, swear it by Coralie. . . . May she die on the spot if you betray your oath!”
He stopped. A spasm prevented his going any further until he had drawn a little air into his lungs. Nevertheless he went on talking:
“I needn’t worry, need I? Besides, you don’t care about gold. That being so, why should you speak? Never mind, swear that you will be silent. Or, look here, give me your word of honor. That’s best. Your word, eh?”
Patrice was still holding him round the waist. It was a terrible, long agony for the officer, this slow crawl and this sort of embrace which he was compelled to adopt in order to effect Coralie’s release. As he felt the contact of the detested man’s body, he was more inclined to squeeze the life out of it. And yet a vile phrase kept recurring deep down within him:
“I am his son, I am his son. . . .”
“It’s here,” said the old man.
“Here? But these are the graves.”
“Coralie’s grave and mine. It’s what we were making for.”
He turned round in alarm:
“I say, the footprints! You’ll get rid of them on the way back, won’t you? For he would find our tracks otherwise and he would know that this is the place. . . .”
“Let’s hurry. . . . So Coralie is here? Down there? Buried? Oh, how horrible!”
It seemed to Patrice as if each minute that passed meant more than an hour’s delay and as if Coralie’s safety might be jeopardized by a moment’s hesitation or a single false step.
He took every oath that was demanded of him. He swore upon Coralie’s head. He pledged his word of honor. At that moment there was not an action which he would not have been ready to perform.
Siméon knelt down on the grass, under the little temple, pointing with his finger:
“It’s there,” he repeated. “Underneath that.”
“Under the tombstone?”
“Yes.”
“Then the stone lifts?” asked Patrice, anxiously. “I can’t lift it by myself. It can’t be done. It would take three men to lift that.”
“No,” said the old man, “the stone swings on a pivot. You’ll manage quite easily. All you have to do is to pull at one end . . . this one, on the right.”
Patrice came and caught hold of the great stone slab, with its inscription, “Here lie Patrice and Coralie,” and pulled.
The stone rose at the first endeavor, as if a counterweight had forced the other end down.
“Wait,” said the old man. “We must hold it in position, or it will fall down again. You’ll find an iron bar at the bottom of the second step.”
There were three steps running into a small cavity, barely large enough to contain a man stooping. Patrice saw the iron bar and, propping up the stone with his shoulder, took the bar and set it up.
“Good,” said Siméon. “That will keep it steady. What you must now do is to lie down in the hollow. This was where my coffin was to have been and where I often used to come and lie beside my dear Coralie. I would remain for hours, flat on the ground, speaking to her. . . . We both talked. . . . Yes, I assure you, we used to talk. . . . Oh, Patrice! . . .”
Patrice had bent his tall figure in the narrow space where he was hardly able to move.
“What am I to do?” he asked.
“Don’t you hear your Coralie? There’s only a partition-wall between you: a few bricks hidden under a thin layer of earth. And a door. The other vault, Coralie’s, is behind it. And behind that there’s a third, with the bags of gold.”
The old man was bending over and directing the search as he knelt on the grass:
“The door’s on the left. Farther than that. Can’t you find it? That’s odd. You mustn’t be too slow about it, though. Ah, have you got it now? No? Oh, if I could only go down too! But there’s not room for more than one.”
There was a brief silence. Then he began again:
“Stretch a bit farther. Good. Can you move?”
“Yes,” said Patrice.
“Then go on moving, my lad!” cried the old man, with a yell of laughter.
And, stepping back briskly, he snatched away the iron bar. The enormous block of stone came down heavily, slowly, because of the counterweight, but with irresistible force.
Though floundering in the newly-turned earth, Patrice tried to rise, at the sight of his danger. Siméon had taken up the iron bar and now struck him a blow on the head with it. Patrice gave a cry and moved no more. The stone covered him up. The whole incident had lasted but a few seconds.
Siméon did not lose an instant. He knew that Patrice, wounded as he was bound to be and weakened by the posture to which he was condemned, was incapable of making the necessary effort to lift the lid of his tomb. On that side, therefore, there was no danger.
&nbs
p; He went back to the lodge and, though he walked with some difficulty, he had no doubt exaggerated his injuries, for he did not stop until he reached the door. He even scorned to obliterate his footprints and went straight ahead.
On entering the hall he listened. Don Luis was tapping against the walls and the partition inside the studio and the bedroom.
“Capital!” said Siméon, with a grin. “His turn now.”
It did not take long. He walked to the kitchen on the right, opened the door of the meter and, turning the key, released the gas, thus beginning again with Don Luis what he had failed to achieve with Patrice and Coralie.
Not till then did he yield to the immense weariness with which he was overcome and allow himself to lie back in a chair for two or three minutes.
His most terrible enemy also was now out of the way. But it was still necessary for him to act and ensure his personal safety. He walked round the lodge, looked for his yellow spectacles and put them on, went through the garden, opened the door and closed it behind him. Then he turned down the lane to the quay.
Once more stopping, in front of the parapet above Berthou’s Wharf, he seemed to hesitate what to do. But the sight of people passing, carmen, market-gardeners and others, put an end to his indecision. He hailed a taxi and drove to the Rue Guimard.
His friend Vacherot was standing at the door of his lodge.
“Oh, is that you, M. Siméon?” cried the porter. “But what a state you’re in!”
“Hush, no names!” he whispered, entering the lodge. “Has any one seen me?”
“No. It’s only half-past seven and the house is hardly awake. But, Lord forgive us, what have the scoundrels done to you? You look as if you had no breath left in your body!”
“Yes, that nigger who came after me . . .”
“But the others?”
“What others?”
“The two who were here? Patrice?”
“Eh? Has Patrice been?” asked Siméon, still speaking in a whisper.
“Yes, last night, after you left.”
“And you told him?”
“That he was your son.”
“Then that,” mumbled the old man, “is why he did not seem surprised at what I said.”
“Where are they now?”
“With Coralie. I was able to save her. I’ve handed her over to them. But it’s not a question of her. Quick, I must see a doctor; there’s no time to lose.”
“We have one in the house.”
“No, that’s no use. Have you a telephone-directory?”
“Here you are.”
“Turn up Dr. Géradec.”
“What? You can’t mean that?”
“Why not? He has a private hospital quite close, on the Boulevard de Montmorency, with no other house near it.”
“That’s so, but haven’t you heard? There are all sorts of rumors about him afloat: something to do with passports and forged certificates.”
“Never mind that.”
M. Vacherot hunted out the number in the directory and rang up the exchange. The line was engaged; and he wrote down the number on the margin of a newspaper. Then he telephoned again. The answer was that the doctor had gone out and would be back at ten.
“It’s just as well,” said Siméon. “I’m not feeling strong enough yet. Say that I’ll call at ten o’clock.”
“Shall I give your name as Siméon?”
“No, my real name, Armand Belval. Say it’s urgent, say it’s a surgical case.”
The porter did so and hung up the instrument, with a moan:
“Oh, my poor M. Siméon! A man like you, so good and kind to everybody! Tell me what happened?”
“Don’t worry about that. Is my place ready?”
“To be sure it is.”
“Take me there without any one seeing us.”
“As usual.”
“Be quick. Put your revolver in your pocket. What about your lodge? Can you leave it?”
“Five minutes won’t hurt.”
The lodge opened at the back on a small courtyard, which communicated with a long corridor. At the end of this passage was another yard, in which stood a little house consisting of a ground-floor and an attic.
They went in. There was an entrance-hall followed by three rooms, leading one into the other. Only the second room was furnished. The third had a door opening straight on a street that ran parallel with the Rue Guimard.
They stopped in the second room.
“Did you shut the hall-door after you?”
“Yes, M. Siméon.”
“No one saw us come in, I suppose?”
“Not a soul.”
“No one suspects that you’re here?”
“No.”
“Give me your revolver.”
“Here it is.”
“Do you think, if I fired it off, any one would hear?”
“No, certainly not. Who is there to hear? But . . .”
“But what?”
“You’re surely not going to fire?”
“Yes, I am.”
“At yourself, M. Siméon, at yourself? Are you going to kill yourself?”
“Don’t be an ass.”
“Well, who then?”
“You, of course!” chuckled Siméon.
Pressing the trigger, he blew out the luckless man’s brains. His victim fell in a heap, stone dead. Siméon flung aside the revolver and remained impassive, a little undecided as to his next step. He opened out his fingers, one by one, up to six, apparently counting the six persons of whom he had got rid in a few hours: Grégoire, Coralie, Ya-Bon, Patrice, Don Luis, old Vacherot!
His mouth gave a grin of satisfaction. One more endeavor; and his flight and safety were assured.
For the moment he was incapable of making the endeavor. His head whirled. His arms struck out at space. He fell into a faint, with a gurgle in his throat, his chest crushed under an unbearable weight.
But, at a quarter to ten, with an effort of will, he picked himself up and, mastering himself and disregarding the pain, he went out by the other door of the house.
At ten o’clock, after twice changing his taxi, he arrived at the Boulevard Montmorency, just at the moment when Dr. Géradec was alighting from his car and mounting the steps of the handsome villa in which his private hospital had been installed since the beginning of the war.
CHAPTER XVIII. SIMEON’S LAST VICTIM
DR. GÉRADEC’S HOSPITAL had several annexes, each of which served a specific purpose, grouped around it in a fine garden. The villa itself was used for the big operations. The doctor had his consulting-room here also; and it was to this room that Siméon Diodokis was first shown. But, after answering a few questions put to him by a male nurse, Siméon was taken to another room in a separate wing.
Here he was received by the doctor, a man of about sixty, still young in his movements, clean-shaven and wearing a glass screwed into his right eye, which contracted his features into a constant grimace. He was wrapped from the shoulders to the feet in a large white operating-apron.
Siméon explained his case with great difficulty, for he could hardly speak. A footpad had attacked him the night before, taken him by the throat and robbed him, leaving him half-dead in the road.
“You have had time to send for a doctor since,” said Dr. Géradec, fixing him with a glance.
Siméon did not reply; and the doctor added:
“However, it’s nothing much. The fact that you are alive shows that there’s no fracture. It reduces itself therefore to a contraction of the larynx, which we shall easily get rid of by tubing.”
He gave his assistant some instructions. A long aluminum tube was inserted in the patient’s wind-pipe. The doctor, who had absented himself meanwhile, returned and, after removing the tube, examined the patient, who was already beginning to breathe with greater ease.
“That’s over,” said Dr. Géradec, “and much quicker than I expected. There was evidently in your case an inhibition which caused the throat to
shrink. Go home now; and, when you’ve had a rest, you’ll forget all about it.”
Siméon asked what the fee was and paid it. But, as the doctor was seeing him to the door, he stopped and, without further preface, said:
“I am a friend of Mme. Albonin’s.”
The doctor did not seem to understand what he meant.
“Perhaps you don’t recognize the name,” Siméon insisted. “When I tell you, however, that it conceals the identity of Mme. Mosgranem, I have no doubt that we shall be able to arrange something.”
“What about?” asked the doctor, while his face displayed still greater astonishment.
“Come, doctor, there’s no need to be on your guard. We are alone. You have sound-proof, double doors. Sit down and let’s talk.”
He took a chair. The doctor sat down opposite him, looking more and more surprised. And Siméon proceeded with his statement:
“I am a Greek subject. Greece is a neutral; indeed, I may say, a friendly country; and I can easily obtain a passport and leave France. But, for personal reasons, I want the passport made out not in my own name but in some other, which you and I will decide upon together and which will enable me, with your assistance, to go away without any danger.”
The doctor rose to his feet indignantly.
Siméon persisted:
“Oh, please don’t be theatrical! It’s a question of price, is it not? My mind is made up. How much do you want?”
The doctor pointed to the door.
Siméon raised no protest. He put on his hat. But, on reaching the door, he said:
“Twenty thousand francs? Is that enough?”
“Do you want me to ring?” asked the doctor, “and have you turned out?”
Siméon laughed and quietly, with a pause after each figure:
“Thirty thousand?” he asked. “Forty? . . . Fifty? . . . Oh, I see, we’re playing a great game, we want a round sum. . . . All right. Only, you know, everything must be included in the price we settle. You must not only fix me up a passport so genuine that it can’t be disputed, but you must guarantee me the means of leaving France, as you did for Mme. Mosgranem, on terms not half so handsome, by Jove! However, I’m not haggling. I need your assistance. Is it a bargain? A hundred thousand francs?”
Delphi Collected Works of Maurice Leblanc (Illustrated) (Delphi Series Nine Book 17) Page 210
