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

by Maurice Leblanc

  Dorothy told the child’s story in a low voice full of tenderness. The eyes of the Countess shone with tears and she murmured:

  “You acted admirably — admirably; mademoiselle, Only that gave you four orphans to provide for. With what resources?”

  Dorothy laughed and said:

  “We were rich.”

  “Rich?”

  “Yes, thanks to Montfaucon, Before he went his colonel left two thousand francs for him. We bought a caravan and -an old horse. Dorothy’s Circus was formed.”

  “A difficult profession to which you have to serve an apprenticeship.”

  “We served our apprenticeship under an old English soldier, formerly a clown, who taught us all the tricks of the trade and all the wheezes. And then I had it all in my blood. The fight-rope, dancing, I was broken in to them years ago. Then we set out across France. It’s rather a hard life, but it keeps one in the best of health, one is never dull, and taken all round Dorothy’s Circus is a success.”

  “But does it comply with the official regulations?” asked the inspector whose respect for red tape enabled him to control the sympathy he was feeling for her. “For after all this document is only valuable from the point of view of references. What I should like to see is your own certificate of identity.”

  “I have that certificate, inspector.”

  “‘Made out by whom?”

  “By the Prefecture of Chalons, which is the chief city of the department in which I was born.”

  “Show it to me.”

  The young girl plainly hesitated. She looked at Count Octave then at the Countess. She had begged them to come just in order that they might be witnesses of her examination and bear the answers she proposed to give, and now, at the last moment, she was rather sorry that she had done so.

  “Would you prefer us to withdraw?” said the Countess.

  “No, no,”

  “she -replied quickly. “On the contrary I insist on your knowing.”

  “And us too?” said Raoul Davernoie.

  “Yes,” she said smiling. “There is a fact which it is my duty to divulge to you. Oh, nothing of great importance. But... all the same.”

  She took from her case a dirty card with broken corners.

  “Here it is,” she said.

  The inspector examined the card carefully and said in the tone of one who is not to be humbugged:

  “But that isn’t your name. It’s a nom de guerre of course — like those of your young comrades?”

  “Not at all, inspector.”

  “Come, come, you’re not going to get me to believe...”

  “Here is my birth certificate in support of it, inspector, stamped with the stamp of the commune of Argonne.”

  “What? You belong to the village of Argonne!” cried the Count de Chagny.

  “I did, Monsieur le Comte. But this unknown village, which gave its name to the whole district of the Argonne, no longer exists. The war has suppressed it.”

  “Yes... yes... I know,” said the Count. “We had a friend there — a relation. Didn’t we, d’Estreicher?”

  “Doubtless it was Jean d’Argonne?” she asked.

  “It was. Jean d’Argonne died at the hospital at Clermont from the effects of a wound... Lieutenant the Prince of Argonne. You knew him.”

  “I knew him.”

  “Where? When? Under what conditions?”

  “Goodness! Under the ordinary conditions in which one knows a person with whom one is closely connected.”

  “What? There were ties between you and Jean d’Argonne... the ties of relationship?”

  “The closest ties. He was my father.”

  “Your father! Jean d’Argonne! What are you talking about? It’s impossible! See why... Jean’s daughter was called Yolande.”

  “Yolande, Isabel, Dorothy.”

  The Count snatched the card which the inspector was turning over and over again, and read aloud in a tone of amazement:

  “Yolande Isabel Dorothy, Princess of Argonne!” She finished the sentence for him, laughing: “Countess Marescot, Baroness de la Hêtraie, de Beaugreval, and other places.”

  The Count seized the birth certificate with no less eagerness, and more and more astounded, read it slowly syllable by syllable:

  “Yolande Isabel Dorothy, Princess of Argonne, born at Argonne, on the 14th of October, 1900, legitimate daughter of Jean de Marescot, Prince of Argonne, and of Jessie Varenne.”

  Further doubt was impossible. The civil status to which the young girl laid claim was established by proofs, which they were the less inclined to challenge since the unexpected fact explained exactly everything which appeared inexplicable in the manners and even in the appearance of Dorothy.

  The Countess gave her feelings full play: “Yolande? You are the little Yolande about whom Jean d’Argonne used to talk to us with such fondness.”

  ‘“He was very fond of me,” said the young girl. “Circumstances did not allow us to live always together as I should have liked. ‘But I was as fond of him as if I had seen him every day.”

  “Yes,” said the Countess. “One could not help being fond of him. I only saw him twice in my life, in Paris, at the beginning of the war. But what delightful recollections of him I retain! A man teeming with gayety and lightheartedness! Just like you, Dorothy. Besides, I find him again in you... the eyes......and above all the smile.”

  Dorothy displayed two photographs which the took from among her papers.

  “His portrait, madame. Do you recognize it?”

  “I should think so! And the other, this lady?”

  “My mother who died many years ago. He adored her.”

  “Yes, yes, I know. She was formerly on the stage, wasn’t she? I remember. We will talk it all over, if you will, and about your own life, the misfortunes which have driven you to live like this. But first of all, how came you here? And why?” Dorothy told them how she had chanced to see the word Roborey, which her father had repeated when he was dying. Then the Count interrupted her narration.

  He was a perfectly commonplace man who always did his best to invest matters with the greatest possible solemnity, in order that he might play the chief part in them, which his rank and fortune assigned to him. As a -matter of form he consulted his two comrades, then, without waiting to hear their answers, he dismissed the inspector with the luck of ceremony of a grand seignior; In the same fashion he turned out Saint-Quentin and; the three boys carefully closed the two doors, bade the two women? sit down, and walked up and down in front of them with his hands behind his back and an air of profound thoughtfulness.

  Dorothy was quite content; She had won a victory, compelled her hosts to speak the words she wanted. The Countess held her tightly to her. Raoul appeared to be a friend; All was going well. There was, indeed, standing a little: apart from them, hostile and formidable, the bearded nobleman, whose hard eyes never left her But sure of herself, accepting the combat, full of careless daring, she refused to bend, before the menace of the terrible danger which, however, might at any moment crush her.

  “Mademoiselle,” said the Count, de Chagny with an air of great importance. “It has seemed to us, to my cousins and me, since you are the daughter of Jean d’Argonne, whose loss we so deeply deplore — it has seemed to us, I say, that we ought in our turn, to enlighten you concerning events of which he was cognizant and of which he would have informed you had he not been prevented by death... of which he actually desired, as we know, that you should be informed.”

  He paused, delighted with his preamble. On occasions like this he loved to indulge in a pomposity of diction employing only the most select vocabulary; striving to observe the rules of grammar, and fearless of subjunctives. He went on:

  “Mademoiselle, my father, François de Chagny, my grandfather, Dominique de Chagny, and my great-grandfather, Gaspard de Chagny, lived their lives in the sure conviction that great wealth would be... how shall I put it?... would be offered to them, by reason of certain unknown cond
itions of which each of them was confident in advance that he would be the beneficiary. And each of them took the greater joy in the fact and indulged in a hope all the more agreeable because the Revolution had ruined the house of the Counts de Chagny from the roof-tree to the basement. On what was this conviction based? Neither François, nor Dominique, nor Gaspard de Chagny ever knew. It came from vague legends which described exactly neither the nature of the riches nor the epoch at which they would appear, but all of which had this in common that they evoked the name of Roborey. And these legends could not have gone very far back since this château, which was formerly called the Château de Chagny, only received the name of Chagny-Roborey in the reign of Louis XVI. Is it this designation which brought about the excavations that were made from time to time? It is extremely probable. At all events it is a fact that at the very moment the war broke out I had formed the resolution of restoring this Château de Roborey, which had become merely a shooting-box and definitely settling down in it, for all that, and I am not ashamed to say it, my recent marriage with Madame de Chagny had enabled me to wait for these so-called riches without excessive impatience.”

  The Count smiled a subtle smile in making this discreet allusion to the manner in which he had regilded his heraldic shield, and continued:

  “It is needless to tell you, I hope, that during the war the Count de Chagny did his duty as a good Frenchman. In 1915, as lieutenant of lightinfantry, I was in Paris on leave when a series of coincidences, brought about by the war, brought me into touch with three persons with whom I had not previously been acquainted, and whose ties of kinship with the Chagny-Roborey I learnt by accident.

  The first was the father of Raoul Davernoie, Commandant Georges Davernoie, the second Maxime d’Estreicher, the last Jean d’Argonne. All four of us were distant cousins, all four on leave or recovering from wounds. And so it came about that in the course of our interviews, that we learnt, to our great surprise, that the same legend had been handed down in each of our four families. Like their fathers and their grandfathers Georges Davernoie, d’Estreicher, and Jean d’Argonne were awaiting the fabulous fortune which was promised them and which was to settle the debts which this conviction had led them on to contract. Moreover, the same ignorance prevailed among the four cousins. No proof, no indication —— — —”

  After a fresh pause intended to lead up to an impressive effect, the Count continued:— “But yes, one indication, however: Jean d’Argonne remembered a gold medal the importance of which his father had formerly impressed on him. His father died a few days later from an accident in the hunting-field without having told him anything more. But Jean d’Argonne declared that this medal bore on it an inscription, and that one of these words, he did not recall it at once, was this word Roborey, on which all oar hopes are undoubtedly concentrated. He informed us then Of his intention of ransacking the twenty trunks or so, which he had been able in August, 1914, to bring away from his country seat before its imminent pillage, and to store in a shed at Bar-le-Duc. But before he went, since we were all men of honor, exposed to the risks of war, we all four took a solemn oath that all our discoveries relative to the famous treasure, should he common property. Henceforth and forever, the treasure, should Providence decide to grant it to us, belonged to all the four; and Jean d’Argonne, whose leave expired, left us.”

  “It was at the end of 1915, wasn’t it?” asked Dorothy. ‘“We passed a week together, the happiest week of my life. I was never to see him again.”

  “It was indeed towards the end of 1915,” the Count agreed. “A month later Jean d’Argonne, wounded at the North, was sent into hospital art Chartres, from which he wrote to us a long letter... never finished.”

  The Countess de Chagny made a sudden movement. She appeared to disapprove of what her husband had said.

  “Yes, yes, I will lay that Letter before you,” said the Count firmly.

  “Perhaps you’re right,” murmured the Countess.

  “Nevertheless — —”

  “What are you afraid of, madame?” said Dorothy.

  “It am afraid; of our causing you pain to no purpose, Dorothy. The end of it will reveal to you very painful things.”

  “But it is our duty to communicate, it to her,” said the Count in a. peremptory tone. And he drew from his pocket-book a letter stamped withe the Red Cross and: unfolded it. Dorothy felt her heart flutter with sudden oppression. She recognized her father’s handwriting. The Countess squeezed’ her hand. She saw that. Raoul Davernoie was regarding: her with an air of compassion and with an anxious face, trying less to understand the sentences she heard than to to Octave, “I will first, of all set your mind at rest about my wound. It is a mere nothing, no complications, to he afraid of: At the most a little fever at night, which bothers the major; But: all that will pass. We will say no more about it, but come straight to my journey to Bar-le-Duc.

  “Octave, I may tell you without any beating about the bush that it has not been useless, and that, after a patient search I ended by ferreting out from among a pile of boots and that conglomeration of useless objects which one-brings away with, one when one holts, the precious-medal. At the end’ of my convalescence when I come to Paris. I will show it to you. But in the meantime, while keeping secret the indications engraved on the face of the medal, I may tell you that on the reverse are engraved, these three Latin words:— ‘In Robore Fortuna.’ Three words which may be thus translated: ‘Fortune is in the firm, heart;’ but which, in view of the presence of: this word ‘Robore’ and nr spite of the difference in the spelling, doubtless point to the Chateau de Roborey as the place in which the fortune, of which our family legends tell will consequently be hidden.

  “Have we not here, my dear Octave, a step forward on our path, towards the truth? We shall db better: still. And perhaps we shall be helped in the matter, in the most unexpected fashion, by an extremely nice young person, with whom I have just passed several days which have charmed me — I mean my dear little Yolande.

  “You know, my dear friend, that I have very often regretted not having been the father I should like to have been. My love for Yolande’s mother, my grief at her death, my life of wandering during the years which followed it, all kept me far away from the modest farm which you call my country seat, and which, I am sure, is no longer anything but a heap of ruins.

  “During that time, Yolande was living in the care of the people who farmed my land, bringing herself up, getting her education from the village priest, or the schoolmaster, and above all from Nature, loving the animals, cultivating her flowers, light-hearted and uncommonly thoughtful.

  “Several times, during my visits to Argonne, her common sense and intelligence astonished me. On this occasion I found her, in the field-hospital of Bar-le-Duc, in which she has, on her own initiative, established herself as an assistant-nurse, a young girl. Barely fifteen, you cannot imagine the ascendancy she exercises over everyone about her. She decides matters like a grown person and she makes those decisions according to her own judgment. She has an accurate insight into reality, not merely into appearances but into that which lies below appearances.

  “‘You do see clearly,’ I said to her. ‘You have the eyes of a cat which moves, quite at its ease, through the darkness.’

  “My dear Octave, when the war is finished, I shall bring Yolande to you; and I assure you that, along with our friends, we shall succeed in our enterprise—”

  The Count stopped. Dorothy smiled sadly, deeply touched by the tenderness and admiration which this letter so clearly displayed. She asked: “That isn’t all, is it?”

  “The letter itself ends there,” said the Count. “Dated the 16th of January, it was not posted till the 20th. I did not receive it, for various reasons, till three weeks later. And I learnt later that on the 15 th of January Jean d’Argonne had a more violent attack of fever, of that fever which baffled the surgeon-major and which indicated a sudden infection of the wound of which your father died... or at least—” />
  “Or at least?” asked the young girl.

  “Or at least which was officially stated to be the cause of his death,” said the Count in a lower voice.

  “What’s that you say? What’s that you say?” cried Dorothy. “My father did not die of his wound?”

  “It is not certain,” the Count suggested.

  “But then what did he die of? What do you suggest? What do you suppose?”

  CHAPTER V

  “WE WILL HELP YOU”

  THE COUNT WAS silent.

  Dorothy murmured fearfully, full of the dread with which the utterance of certain words inspired one:

  “Is it possible? Can they have murdered.........Can they have murdered my father?”

  “Everything leads one to believe it.”

  “And how?”

  “Poison.”

  The blow had fallen. The young girl burst into tears. The Count bent over her and said:

  “Read it. For my part, I am of the opinion that your father scribbled these last pages between two attacks of fever. When he was dead, the hospital authorities finding a letter and an envelope all ready for the post, sent it all on to me without examining it. Look at the end.... It is the writing of a very sick man.... The pencil moves at random directed by an effort of will which was every moment growing weaker.”

  Dorothy dried her tears. She wished to know and judge for herself, and she read in a low voice:

  “What a dream!... But was it really a dream?.. What I saw last night, did I see it in a nightmare? Or did I actually see it?.... The rest of the wounded men... my neighbors... not one of them was awakened. Yet the man... the men made a noise.... There were two of them. They were talking in a low voice... in the garden... under a window... which was certainly open on account of the heat.... And then the window was pushed.... To do that one of the two must have climbed on to the shoulders of the other. What did he want? He tried to pass his arm through.... But the window caught against the table by the side of the bed.... And then he must have slipped off his jacket.... In spite of that his sleeve must have caught in the window and only his arm... his bare arm, came through... preceded by a hand which groped in my direction... in the direction of the drawer — Then I understood.... The medal was in the drawer.... Ah, how I wanted to cry out! But my throat was cramped.