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

by Maurice Leblanc

  “‘Time to think things over. You understand clearly enough that all this is going to give rise to an unheard-of scandal, and one which, for the honor of our families, we might perhaps be able to avoid.’”

  “I opposed any delay. I wanted them to telephone at once to the police. But de Chagny was in his own house, you know. And the days passed waiting for him to come to a decision which he could not bring himself to make. They bad told the servants that d’Estreicher was ill. Only the major-domo was in our confidence, brought him his food, and kept guard over him. Besides, the prisoner seemed so feeble. You would have declared that he had no strength left. How was one to distrust so side a man?”

  Dorothy asked:

  “But what explanation of his conduct did he give?”

  “None, because we didn’t question him.”

  “Didn’t he speak of me? Didn’t he make any accusations against me?”

  “No. He went on playing the part of a sick man, prostrated by pain and fever. During this time de Chagny wrote to Paris for information, about him, for after all, his relations with his cousin only went back as far as 1915.

  “Three days ago we received a telegram which said:

  “‘A very dangerous man. Wanted by the police. Letters follows.’

  “At once de Cragny came to a decision and the day before yesterday, in the morning, be telephoned to the police. When the inspector arrived, he was too late. D’Estreicher had fled.”

  “Doubtless through the window of a pantry which looks down on the ravine?” said Dorothy.

  “Yes, and down a fissure in the face of the cliff. How did you know?”

  “It was the way Saint-Quentin and I took to get at d’Estreicher.”

  And forthwith, cutting short any questions, the added:

  “Well, what was the information you got about him?”

  “Extremely serious. Antoine d’Estreicher, formerly a naval officer, was dismissed the service for theft. Later, prosecuted for being an accomplice in a case of murder, he was released for lack of evidence. At the beginning of the war he deserted. Evidence of it has come to hand and a fortnight ago an inquiry into the matter was begun-During the war he borrowed the personality of one of his relations, who had been dead some years; and it is actually under his new name of Maxime d’Estreicher that the police are hunting for him.”

  “What a pity! A scoundrel like that! To have him in one’s hands and let him go!”

  “We will find him again.”

  “Yes: always providing that it isn’t too late.”

  Raoul quickened their pace. They were going at a fair rate, running through the villages without slackening their pace and bumping over the cobbles of the towns. The night was beginning to fall when they readied Nantes, where they had to stop to buy petrol.

  “Still an hour’s journey,” said Raoul.

  On the way she made him explain to her the exact topography of Hillocks Manor, the direction of the road which ran through the orchard to the house, the position of the hall and staircase. Moreover, he had to give her full information about his grandfather’s habits, about the old man’s age (he was seventy-five), and his dog Goliath — a huge beast, terrible to look at, with a terrific bark, but quite harmless and incapable of defending his master.

  At the big market-town of Clisson, they entered La Vendée. When they had nearly reached the Manor Raoul would have liked to make a detour through the village where they would find the servants. They could take with them a couple of farm-laborers. Dorothy would not hear of it.

  “But, after all,” he exclaimed, “what are you afraid of?”

  “Everything,” she replied. “From that man — everything. We have no right to lose a minute.”

  They left the main road and turned down a lane which was more like a deep-rutted cart-track.

  “There it is, over yonder,” he said. “There is a light in the window of his room.”

  Almost at once he stopped the car and jumped out of it. A turreted gateway, relic of a far-removed epoch, rose in the high wall which encircled the estate. The gate was shut. While Raoul was engaged in opening it, they heard, dominating the dull noise of the engine, the barking of a dog.

  From the clearness of the sound and the direction from which it came Raoul declared that Goliath was not inside the Manor, but outside it, at the foot of the steps, also that he was barking in front of a shut-up house.

  “Well, are you never going to open that gate?” cried Dorothy.

  He came back hurriedly to her.

  “It’s very disquieting. Some one has shot the bolt and turned the key in the lock.”

  “Don’t they always?”

  “Never. Some stranger has done it.... And then you hear that barking.”

  “Well?”

  “There’s another gate two hundred yards further on.”

  “And suppose that’s locked too. No: we must act at once.”

  She moved to the steering-wheel and drove the car close under the wall a little higher up, to the right of the gateway. Then she piled the four cushions on the seat and stood on the top of them.

  “Montfaucon!” she called.

  The Captain understood. In half-a-dozen movements he climbed up Dorothy’s back and stood upright on her shoulders. With that advantage his hands touched the top of the wall. Clinging to it, with Dorothy’s help, he pulled himself up. When he was astride it, Raoul threw a rope to him. He tied one end round his waist, Dorothy held the other. In a few seconds the child touched the ground on the other side of the wall, and Raoul had barely got back to the gate before the key grated in the lock and the bolts were drawn.

  Raoul did not get back to the car. He dashed across the orchard, followed by Dorothy and the Captain. As she ran she said to the child:

  “Go round the house and if you see a ladder against it, pull it down!”

  As they expected, they found Goliath on the steps scratching at the closed door. They made him stop barking and in the silence they heard above them outcries and the sound of a struggle.

  Instantly, to frighten the assailant, Raoul fired off his revolver. Then with his latch-key he opened the door; and they ran up the stairs.

  One of the rooms facing them was lighted by two lamps. On-the floor face downwards, Raoul’s grandfather was writhing and uttering faint, hoarse cries.

  Raoul dropped on his knees beside him. Dorothy seized-one of the lamps and ran into the room on the opposite side of the corridor. She had noticed that the door of it was open.

  The room was empty; through the open window stuck the top of a ladder.

  She leant out “Montfaucon!”

  “Here I am, mummy,” the child replied.

  “Did you see any one come down the ladder and run away?”

  “From a distance, mummy — as I came round the corner of the house.”

  “Did you recognize the man?”

  “The man was two, mummy.”

  “Ah, there were two, were there?”

  “Yes... another man... and the nasty gentleman.”

  Raoul’s grandfather was not dead; he was not even in any danger of dying. From certain details of the conflict it looked as if d’Estreicher and his confederate had tried by threats and violence to force the old man to reveal what he knew, and doubtless to hand over the gold piece. In particular his threat showed red finger-marks where they had gripped it. Had the ruffian and his confederate succeeded at the last moment?

  The servants were not very late getting back. The doctor was summoned and declared that there was no fear of any complications. But in the course of the next day they found that the old man did not answer any questions, -did not appear to understand them, and only expressed himself by an incomprehensible stuttering.

  The agitation, terror, and suffering had been too much for him....He was mad.

  CHAPTER VII

  THE HOUR DRAWS NEAR

  IN THE FLAT country, in which stands Hillocks Manor, a deep gorge has been hollowed out by the river Main
e. This gorge rings round the meadows and orchards and buildings of the Manor. Hillocks, humped with rocks and covered with fir-trees, rise in a semicircle at the back of the estate, and a backwater of the Maine, cutting the ring and isolating the hillocks, has formed a pleasant lake, which reflects the dark stones and red bricks and tiles of the ancient building.

  To-day that building is by way of being a farm. Part of the ground-floor is used for storerooms and barns, evidence of a wider cultivation, formerly flourishing, but very much fallen off since the days when Raoul’s grandfather made it his business in life.

  The old Baron, as they called him, had a right to the title and to the apostrophe since the property, before the Revolution, formed the barony d’Avernoie. A great sportsman, a fine figure of a man, and fond of wine and women, he had very little liking for work; and his son, Raoul’s father, inheriting this distaste, had in his manner of life shown an equal lack of care for the future.

  “I have done what I could, once I was demobilized,” Raoul confided to Dorothy, “to restore prosperity here; and up-hill work it has been. But what would you? My father and my grandfather lived their lives in the assurance, which evidently sprang from those legends you have heard of: ‘One of these days we shall be rich. So why worry?’ And they did not worry. Actually we are in the hands of a money-lender who has bought up all our debts; and I have just heard that during my stay at Roborey my grandfather signed a bill of sale which gives that money-lender the power to turn us out of the house in six weeks.”

  He was an excellent young fellow, a trifle slow-witted, rather awkward in manner, but of an upright disposition, serious and thoughtful. The charm of Dorothy had made an instant conquest of him, and in spite of an invincible timidity which had always prevented him from putting into words his deeper feelings, he did not. hide either his admiration or the fact that she had robbed him of his peace of mind. Everything that she said charmed him. Everything that she bade him do was done.

  Following her advice he made no secret of the assault of which his grandfather had been the victim and lodged a complaint against this unknown criminal. To the people about him he talked openly about the fortune which he expected to come to him shortly and of the investigations on foot to discover a gold medal, the possession of which was the first condition of obtaining it. Without revealing Dorothy’s name, he did not conceal the fact that she was a distant cousin, or the reasons which brought her to the Manor.

  Three days later, having screwed double stages out of One-eyed Magpie, Saint-Quentin: arrived in company with Castor and Pollux. Dorothy would net hear of any abode but her beloved caravan, which was installed in the middle of the court-yard; and once more the five comrades settled down to their happy, careless life. Castor and Pollux fought with: less vigor. Saint-Quentin fished in the lake. The captain, always immensely consequential, took the old baron under his care and related to hints and to Goliath interminable yams.

  As for Dorothy, she was observing. They found that she wore an air of mystery, keeping her thoughts and proceedings to herself. She spent hours playing with her comrades superintending their exercises. Then, her eyes fixed on the old baron, who, accompanied by his faithful dog, with tottering gait and dulled eyes, would go and lean against a tree in rite orchard, she watched everything which might be a manifestation of instinct in him or of a survival of the past. At other times Raoul surprised her in some corner, motionless and silent. It seemed to him then as if the whole affair was confined to her brain, and that it was there, much more than, on the estate of Hillocks Manor that she was looking for the guiding clue.

  Several days in succession she spent the hours in the loft of a granary where there were, some bookshelves, and on them, old newspapers, bundles, of papers, pamphlets, printed: during the last century, histories of the district, communal: reports, and parish records.

  “Well,” asked. Raoul, laughing. “Are we getting on? I have an impression that your eyes are beginning to see more clearly.”

  “Perhaps. I won’t say that they aren’t.”

  The eyes of Dorothy! In that confirmation of charming things her face, it was they above everything which held one’s attention. Large, almond-shaped and lengthened in the shadow of them black lashes, they surprised one by the inconceivable diversity of their coloring and expression; of the blue which changed like the blue of the sea according to the hour and the fight; of a blue which seemed to vary with the successive thoughts which changed her expression. And these eyes, so delightful that it seemed that they must always be smiling or laughing, were in moments of meditation the gravest-eyes that ever were, when she half-closed and fixed them on some image in her mind.

  Raoul, now, only saw through them, and was only really interested in what they expressed. The fabulous story of the treasure and the medal was wholly summed up for him in the (harming spectacle afforded by two beautiful eyes observant or thoughtful, troubled or joyful. And perhaps Dorothy allowed herself to be observed with a certain satisfaction. The love of this big, shy young fellow touched her by its respectfulness, She who had only known hitherto the brutal homage of desire.

  “One day she made him take a seat in the little boat which was moored to the shore of the lake, and letting it drift with the current she said to him:

  “We are drawing near.”

  “Near what?’ he asked, startled.

  “The hour which so many things have so long foretold.”

  “You believe?”

  “I believe that you made no mistake the day on which you saw in your grandfather’s hands that gold medal in which all the traditions of the family seem to be summed up. Unfortunately the poor man lost his reason before you were put in possession of the facts; and the thread which bound the past to the future has been broken.”

  “Then what do you hope for, if we do not find that medal? We’ve searched everywhere, his room, his clothes, the house, the orchard, and found nothing.”

  “It is impossible that he should keep to himself forever the answer to the engima. If his reason, is dead, his instincts survive. An what an instinct that is that centuries have been forming! Doubtless he has put the coin within reach, or within sight. You may be sure that he has hidden it in such a way that no execrable piece of bad luck could rob him of it without his being aware of it. But don’t worry: at the appointed hour some unconscious gesture will reveal the truth to us.”

  Raoul objected.

  “But what if d’Estreicher took it from him?”

  “He did not. If he had, we should not have heard the noise of the struggle. Your grandfather resisted to the end; and it was only our coming which put d’Estreicher to flight.”

  “Oh, that ruffian! If only I had him in my hands!” exclaimed Raoul.

  The boat was drifting gently. Dorothy said in a very low voice, barely moving her lips:

  “Not so loud! He can hear us.”

  “What! What do you mean?”

  “I say that he is close by and that he doesn’t lose a single word of what we say,” she went on in the same low voice.

  Raoul was dumfounded.

  “But — but — what does it mean? Can you see him?”

  “No. But I can feel his presence; and he can see us.”

  “Where from?”

  “From some place among the hillocks. I have been thinking that this name of Hillocks Manor pointed to some inpenetrable hiding-place, and I’ve discovered a proof of it in one of those old books, which actually speaks of a hiding-place where the Vendéans lay hid, and says that it is believed to be in the neighborhood of Tiffauges and Clisson.”

  “But how should d’Estreicher have learnt of it?”

  “Remember that the day of the assault your grandfather was alone, or believed himself to be alone. Strolling among the hillocks, he would have disclosed one of the entrances. D’Estreicher was watching him at the time. And since then the rascal had been using it as a refuge.

  “Look at the ground, all humps and ravines. On the right, on the left, e
verywhere, there are places in the rock for observations, so to speak, from which one can hear and see everything that takes place inside the boundaries of the estate. D’Estreicher is there.”

  “What is he doing?”

  “He’s searching and, what’s more, he is keeping an eye on my investigations. He also — for all that I can’t guess exactly the reason — wants the gold medal. And he is afraid that I shall get it before him.”

  “But we must inform the police!”

  “Not yet This underground hiding-place should have several issues, some of which perhaps run under the river. If we give the ruffian warning, he will escape.”

  “Then what’s your plan?”

  “To get him to come out of this lair and trap him:”

  ‘“How?”

  “I’ll tell you at the appointed time, and that will not be long. I repeat: the hour draws near.”

  “What proof have you?”

  “This,” she said. “I have seen the money-lender. Monsieur Voirin, and he showed me the bill of sale. If by five o’clock on July 31st Monsieur Voirin, who has desired all his life to acquire the Manor, has not received the sum of three hundred thousand francs in cash or government securities, the Manor becomes his property.”

  “I know,” said he. “And it will break my heart to go away from here.”

  She protested:

  “There’s no question of your going away from here.”

  “Why not? There’s no reason why I should become rich in a month.”

  “Yes, there is a reason, the reason which has always sustained your grandfather, the reason, which made him act as he did on this occasion, which, made, him say to old Voirin — I repeat the: money-lender’s words: “Don’t get bucked, about this, Voirin. On the 31st of July I shall pay you in cash.” This, is the first time that we are face to face with a precise fact. Up to-now words and a confused tradition. To-day a fact A fact which proves that, according to your grandfather all the legends, which turn round these promised, riches come to a heard on a certain day in the month of July.”

  The boat touched the bank. Dorothy sprang lightly ashore and cried, without fear of being heard: