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

by Maurice Leblanc

  On seeing Dorothy he said to himself and without the slightest air astonishment:

  “Oh.”

  And he would have continued his journey if he had not caught sight of the clock. He pulled in his horse.

  To dismount he had only to stand on tip-toe and his horse slipped from under him. He knotted the bridle round a root, looked at his watch, and took up his position not far from the clock.

  “Here is a gentleman who doesn’t waste words,” thought Dorothy. “An Englishman for certain.”

  She presently discovered that he kept looking at her, but as one looks at a woman one finds pretty and not at all as one looks at a person with whom circumstances demand that one should converse. His pipe having gone out, he lit it again; and so they remained three or four minutes, close to one another, serious, without -stirring. The breeze blew the smoke from his pipe towards her.

  “It’s too silly,” said Dorothy to herself. “For after all it’s very likely that this taciturn gentleman and I have an appointment. Upon my word, I’m going to introduce myself. Under which name?”

  This question threw her into a state of considerable embarrassment. Ought she to introduce herself to him as Princess of Argonne or as Dorothy the rope-dancer? The solemnity of the occasion called for a ceremonious presentation and the revelation of her rank. But on the other hand her variegated costume with its short skirt called for less pomp. Decidedly “Rope-dancer” sufficed.

  These considerations, to the humor of which she was quite alive, had brought a smile to her face. The young man observed it. He smiled too. Both of them opened their mouths, and they were about to speak at the same time when an incident stopped them on the verge of utterance. A man came out of the path into the court-yard, a pedestrian with a clean shaven face, very pale, one arm in a sling under a jacket much too large for him, and a Russian soldier’s cap.

  The sight of the clock brought him also to a dead stop. Perceiving Dorothy and her companion, he smiled an expansive smile that opened his mouth from ear to ear, and took off his cap, uncovering a completely shaven head.

  During this incident the sound of a motor had been throbbing away, at first at some distance. The explosions grew louder, and there burst, once more through the arch, into the court-yard a motor-cycle which went bumping over the uneven ground and stopped short. The motor-cyclist had caught sight of the clock.

  Quite young, of a well set-up, well-proportioned figure, tall, slim, and of a cheerful countenance, he was certainly, like the first-corner, of the Anglo-Saxon race. Having propped up his motor-cycle, he walked towards Dorothy, watch in hand as if he were on the point of saying:

  “You will note that I am not late.”

  But he was interrupted by two more arrivals who came almost simultaneously. A second horseman came trotting briskly through the arch on a big, lean horse, and at the sight of the group gathered in front of the clock, drew rein sharply, saying in Italian: “Gently — gently.”

  He had a fine profile and an amiable face, and when he had tied up his mount, he came forward hat in hand, as one about to pay his respects to a lady.

  But, mounted on a donkey, appeared a fifth individual, from a different direction from any of the others. On the threshold of the court he pulled up in amazement, staring stupidly with wide-open eyes behind his spectacles.

  “Is it p-p-possible?” he stammered. “Is it possible? They’ve come. The whole thing isn’t a fairy-tale!”

  He was quite sixty. Dressed in a frock-coat, his head covered with a black straw hat, he wore whiskers and carried under his arm a leather satchel. He did not cease to reiterate in a flustered voice: “They have come!... They have come to the rendezvous!... It’s unbelievable!”

  Up to now Dorothy had been silent in the face of the exclamations and arrivals of her companions The need of explanations, of speech even, seemed to diminish in her the more they flocked round her. She became serious and grave. Her thoughtful eyes expressed an intense emotion. Each apparition seemed to her as tremendous an event as a miracle. Like the gentleman in the frock-coat with the satchel, she murmured:

  “Is it possible? They have come to the rendezvous!”

  She looked at her watch.

  Noon.

  “Listen,” she said, stretching out her hand. “Listen. The Angelus is ringing somewhere... at the village church...”

  They uncovered their heads, and while they listened to the ringing of the bell, which came to them in irregular bursts, one would have said that they were waiting for the clock to start going and connect with the minute that was passing the thread of the minutes of long ago.

  Dorothy fell on her knees. Her emotion was so deep that she was weeping.

  CHAPTER XI

  THE WILL OF THE MARQUIS DE BEAUGREVAL

  TEARS OF JOY, tears which relieved her strained nerves and bathed her in an immense peacefulness. The five men were greatly disturbed, knowing neither what to do nor what to say.

  “Mademoiselle?... What’s the matter, mademoiselle?”

  They seemed so staggered by her sobs and by their own presence round her, that Dorothy passed suddenly from tears to laughter, and yielding to her natural impulse, she began forthwith to dance, without troubling to know whether she would appear to them to be a princess or a rope-dancer. And the more this unexpected display increased the embarrassment of her companions the gayer she grew. Fandango, jig, reel, she gave a snatch of each, with a simulated accompaniment of castanets, and a genuine accompaniment of English songs and Auvergnat ritornelles, and above all of bursts of laughter which awakened the echoes of Roche-Périac.”

  “But laugh too, all five of you!” she cried. “You look like five mummies. It’s I who order you to laugh, I, Dorothy, rope-dancer and Princess of Argonne. Come, Mr. Lawyer,” she added, addressing the gentleman in the frock-coat. “Look more cheerful. I assure you that there’s plenty to be cheerful about.”

  She darted to the good man, shook him by the hand, and said, as if to assure him of his status: “You are the lawyer, aren’t you? The notary charged with the execution of the provisions of a will. That’s much clearer than you think.... We’ll explain it to you... You are the notary?”

  “That is the fact,” stammered the gentleman. “I am Maître Delarue, notary at Nantes.”

  “At Nantes? Excellent; we know where we are. And it’s a question of a gold medal, isn’t it?... A gold medal which each has received as a summons to the rendezvous?”

  “Yes, yes,” he said, more and more flustered. “A gold medal — a rendezvous.”

  “The 12th of July, 1921.”

  “Yes, yes — 1921.”

  “At noon?”

  “At noon.”

  He made as if to look at his watch. She stopped him:

  “You needn’t take the trouble, Mâitre Delarue; we’ve heard the Angelus. You are punctual at the rendezvous.... We are too.... Everything is in order.... Each has his gold medal.... They’re going to show it to you.”

  She drew Mâitre Delarue towards the clock, and said with even greater animation:

  “This is Mâitre Delarue, the notary. You understand? If you don’t, I can speak English — and Italian — and Javanese.”

  All four of them protested that they understood French.

  “Excellent. We shall understand one another better. Then this is Mâitre Delarue; he is the notary, the man who has been instructed to preside at our meeting. In France notaries represent the dead. So that since it is a dead man who brings us together, you see how important Mâitre Delarue’s position is in the matter. You don’t grasp it? How funny that is! To me it is all so clear — and so amusing. So strange! It’s the prettiest adventure I ever heard of — and the most thrilling. Think now! We all belong to the same family.... We’re by way of being cousins. Then we ought to be joyful like relations who have come together. And all the more because — yes: I’m right — all four of you are decorated.... The French Croix de Guerre. Then all four of you have fought?... Fought in Franc
e?... You have defended my dear country?”

  She shook hands with all of them, with an air of affection, and since the American and the Italian displayed an equal warmth, of a sudden, with a spontaneous movement, she rose on tip-toe and kissed them on both cheeks.

  “Welcome cousin from America... welcome cousin from Italy... welcome to my country. And to you two also, greetings. It’s settled that we’re comrades — friends — isn’t it?”

  The atmosphere was charged with joy and that good humor which comes from being young and full of life. They felt themselves to be really of the same family, scattered members brought together.

  They no longer felt the constraint of a first meeting. They had known one another for years and years — for ages I cried Dorothy, clapping her hands. So the four men surrounded her, at once attracted by her charm and lightheartedness, and surprised by the light she brought into the obscure story which so suddenly united them to one another. All barriers were swept away. There was none of that slow infiltration of feeling which little by little fills you with trust and sympathy, but the sudden inrush of the most unreserved comradeship. Each wished to please and each felt that he did please.

  Dorothy separated them and set them in a row as if about to review them.

  “I’ll take you in turn, my friends. Excuse me, Monsieur Delarue, I’ll do the questioning and verify their credentials. Number one, the gentleman from America, who are you? Your name?”

  The American answered:

  “Archibald Webster, of Philadelphia.”

  “Archibald Webster, of Philadelphia. You received from your father a gold medal?”

  “From my mother, mademoiselle. My father died many years ago.”

  “And from whom did your mother receive it?”

  “From her father.”

  “And he from his and so on in succession, isn’t that it?”

  Archibald Webster confirmed her statement in excellent French, as if it was his duty to answer her questions:

  “And so on in succession, as you say, mademoiselle. A family tradition, which goes back to we don’t know when, ascribes a French origin to her family, and directs that a certain medal should be transmitted to the eldest son, without more than two persons ever knowing of its existence.”

  “And what do you understand this tradition to mean?”

  “I don’t know what it means. My mother told me that it gave us a right to a share of a treasure. But she laughed as she told me and sent me to France rather out of curiosity.”

  “Show me your medal, Archibald Webster.”

  The American took the gold medal from his waistcoat pocket. It was exactly like the one Dorothy possessed — the inscription, the size, the dull color were the same. Dorothy showed it to Mâitre Delarue, then gave it back to the American, and went on with her questioning:

  “Number two — English, aren’t you?”

  “George Errington, of London.”

  “Tell us what you know, George Errington, of London.”

  The Englishman shook his pipe, emptied it, and answered in equally good French.

  “I know no more. An orphan from birth, I received the medal three days ago from the hands of my guardian, my father’s brother. He told me that, according to my father, it was a matter of collecting a bequest, and according to himself, there was nothing in it, but I ought to obey the summons.”

  “You were right to obey it, George Errington. Show me your medal. Right: you’re in order... Number three — a Russian, doubtless?”

  The man in the soldier’s cap understood; but he did not speak French. He smiled his large smile and gave her a scrap of paper of doubtful cleanliness, on which was written: “Kourobelef, French war, Salonica. War with Wrangel.”

  “The medal?” said Dorothy. “Right. You’re one of us. And the medal of number four — the gentleman from Italy?”

  “Marco Dario, of Geneva,” answered the Italian, showing his medal. “I found it on my father’s body, in Champagne, one day after we had been fighting side by side. He had never spoken to me about it.”

  “Nevertheless you have come here.”

  “I did not intend to. And then, in spite of myself, as I had returned to Champagne — to my father’s tomb, I took the train to Vannes.”

  “Yes,” she said: “like the others you have obeyed the command of our common ancestor. What ancestor? And why this command? That is what Monsieur Delarue is going to reveal to us. Come Monsieur Delarue: all is in order. All of us have the token. It is now in order for us to call on you for the explanation.”

  “What explanation?” asked the lawyer, still dazed by so many surprises. “I don’t quite know...”

  “How do you mean you don’t know?... Why this leather satchel.... And why have you made the journey from Nantes to Roche-Périac? Come, open your satchel and read to us the documents it must contain.”

  “You truly believe—”

  “Of course I believe! We have, all five of us, these gentlemen and myself, performed our duty in coming here and informing you of our identity. It is your turn to carry out your mission. We are all ears.”

  The gayety of the young girl spread around her such an atmosphere of cordiality that even Mâitre Delarue himself felt its beneficent effects. Besides, the business was already in train; and he entered smoothly on ground over which the young girl had traced, in the midst of apparently impenetrable brushwood, a path which he could follow with perfect ease.

  “But certainly,” said he. “But certainly... There is nothing else to do.... And I must communicate what I know to you.... Excuse me... But this affair is so disconcerting.”

  Getting the better of the confusion into which he had been thrown, he recovered all the dignity which befits a lawyer. They set him in the seat of honor on’ a kind of shelf formed by an inequality of the ground, and formed a circle round him. Following Dorothy’s instructions, he opened his satchel with the air of importance of a man used to having every eye fixed on him and every ear stretched to catch his every word, and without waiting to be again pressed to speak, embarked on a discourse evidently prepared for the event of his finding himself, contrary to all reasonable expectation, in the presence of some one at the appointed rendezvous.

  “My preamble will be brief,” he said, “for I am eager to come to the object of this reunion. On the day — it is fourteen years ago — on which I installed myself at Nantes in the office of a notary whose practice I had bought, my predecessor, after having given me full information about the more complicated cases in hand, exclaimed: ‘Ah, but I was forgetting... not that it’s of any importance.... But all the same... Look, my dear confrère, this is the oldest set of papers in the office.... And a measly set too, since it only consists of a sealed letter with a note of instructions, which I will read to you:

  Missive intrusted to the strict care of the Sire Barbier, scrivener, and of his successors, to be opened on the I2th of July, 1921, at noon, in front of the clock of the Château of Roche-Périac, and to be read in the presence of all possessors of a gold medal struck at my instance, “There! No other explanations. My predecessor did not receive any from the man from whom he had bought the practice. The most he could learn, after researches among the old registers of the parish of Périac, was that the Sire Barbier (Hippolyte Jean), scrivener, lived at the beginning of the eighteenth century. At what epoch was his office closed? For what reasons were his papers transported to Nantes? Perhaps we may suppose that owing to certain circumstances, one of the lords of Roche-Périac left the country and settled down at Nantes with his furniture, his horses, and his household down to the village scrivener. Anyhow, for nearly two hundred years the letter intrusted to the strict care of the scrivener Barbier and his successors, lay at the bottom of drawers and pigeon-holes, without any one’s having tried to violate the secrecy enjoined by the writer of it. And so it came about that in all probability it would fall to my lot to break the seal!”

  Maître Delarue made a pause and looked at hi$ audito
rs. They were, as they say, hanging on his lips. Pleased with the impression he had produced, he tapped the leather satchel, and continued: “Need I tell you that my thoughts have very often dwelt on this prospect and that I have been curious to learn the contents of such a letter? A journey even which I made to this château gave me no information, in spite of my searches in the archives of the villages and towns of the district. Then the appointed time drew near. Before doing anything I went to consult the president of the civil court. A question presented itself. If the letter was to be considered a testamentary disposition, perhaps I ought not to open it except in the presence of that magistrate. That was my opinion. It was not his. He was of the opinion that we were confronted by a display of fantasy (he went so far as to murmur the word ‘humbug’) which was outside the scope of the law and that I should act quite simply. ‘A trysting-place beneath the elm,’ he said, joking, ‘has been fixed for you at noon on the 12th of July. Go there, Monsieur Delarue, break the seal of the missive in accordance with the instructions, and come back and tell me all about it. I promise you not not to laugh if you come back looking like a~fool.’ Accordingly, in a very sceptical state of mind, I took the train to Vannes, then the coach, and then hired a donkey to bring me to the ruins. You can imagine my surprise at finding that I was not alone under the elm — I mean the clock — at the rendezvous but that all of you were waiting for me.”

  The four young people laughed heartily. Marco Dario, of Genoa, said:

  “All the same the business grows serious.”

  George Errington, of London, added:

  “Perhaps the story of the treasure is not so absurd.”

  “Monsieur Delarue’s letter is going to inform us,” said Dorothy.