There were tears in her voice; and so great a despondency overwhelmed her features that Marthe felt a longing to console her, as was her habit in such cases. Nevertheless, she said nothing. Suzanne had wounded her, not so much by her questions as by her attitude, by a certain sarcasm in her accent and by an air of defiance that mingled with the expression of her grief.
She preferred to cut short a painful scene the meaning of which escaped her, although the scene itself did not astonish her on Suzanne’s part:
“I am going downstairs,” she said. “It’s time for the post; and I am expecting letters.”
“So you’re leaving me!” said Suzanne, in a broken voice.
Marthe could not help laughing:
“Well, yes, I am leaving you in this room ... unless you refuse to stay....”
Suzanne ran after her and, holding her back:
“You mustn’t! I only ask for a movement, a kind word.... I am passing through a terrible time, I need help and you ... you repel me.... It’s you who are repelling me, don’t forget that.... It’s you....”
“That’s understood,” said Marthe. “I am a cruel friend.... Only, you see, my dear little Suzanne, if the thought of your marriage upsets you to that extent, it might be a good plan to tell your father.... Come, come along downstairs and calm yourself.”
They found Mme. Morestal below, feather-broom in hand, an apron tied round her waist, waging her daily battle against a dust that existed only in her imagination.
“I suppose you know, mamma, that Philippe is not yet up?”
“The lazy fellow! It’s nearly nine o’clock. I hope he’s not ill!”
“Oh, no!” said Marthe. “But, all the same, when I go up again, I’ll look in and see.”
Mme. Morestal went as far as the hall with the two young women. Suzanne was already walking away, without a word, with the face which she wore on her black days, as Marthe said, when Mme. Morestal called her back:
“You’re forgetting your stick, child.”
The old lady had taken the long, iron-shod walking-stick from the umbrella-stand. But, suddenly, she began to rummage among the canes and sunshades, muttering:
“Well, that’s funny....”
“What’s the matter?” asked Marthe.
“I can’t find Morestal’s stick. And yet it’s always here.”
“He must have put it down somewhere else.”
“Impossible! If so, it would be the first time in his life. I know him so well!... What can it mean?... Victor!”
The man ran into the hall:
“Yes, ma’am?”
“Victor, why isn’t your master’s cane here?”
“I have a notion, ma’am, that the master has gone out.”
“Gone out! But you ought to have told me.... I was beginning to be anxious.”
“I said so just now to Catherine.”
“But what makes you think ...?”
“In the first place, the master did not put his boots outside his door as usual.... M. Philippe neither....”
“What!” said Marthe. “Has M. Philippe gone out too?”
“Very early this morning, ma’am ... before my time for getting up.”
In spite of herself, Suzanne Jorancé protested:
“But no, it’s not conceivable....”
“Why, when I came down,” said Victor, “the front-door was not locked.”
“And your master never forgets to turn the key, does he?”
“Never. As the door was not locked, it means either that the master has gone out ... or else....”
“Or else what?”
“That he hasn’t come in.... Only, I say that as I might say anything that came into my head....”
“Not come in!” exclaimed Mme. Morestal.
She reflected for a second, then turned on her heels, ran up the stairs with surprising agility, crossed a passage and entered her husband’s bedroom.
She uttered a cry and called:
“Marthe!... Marthe!...”
But the young woman, who had followed her, was already on her way to the second floor, with Suzanne.
Philippe’s room was at the back. She opened the door quickly and stood on the threshold, speechless.
Philippe was not there; and the bed had not even been undone.
CHAPTER II
PHILIPPE TELLS A LIE
THE THREE WOMEN met in the drawing-room. Mme. Morestal walked up and down in dismay, hardly knowing what she was saying:
“Not in!... Philippe neither!... Victor, you must run ... but where to?... Where is he to look?... Oh, it’s really too terrible!...”
She suddenly stepped in front of Marthe and stammered:
“The ... the shots ... last night....”
Marthe, pale with anxiety, did not reply. She had had the same awful thought from the first moment.
But Suzanne exclaimed:
“In any case, Marthe, you need not be alarmed. Philippe did not take the road by the frontier.”
“Are you sure?”
“We separated at the Carrefour du Grand-Chêne. M. Morestal and papa went on by themselves. Philippe came straight back.”
“No, he can’t have come straight back, or he would be here now,” said Marthe. “What can he have been doing all night? He has not even set foot in his room!”
But Mme. Morestal was terrified by what Suzanne had said. She could now no longer doubt that her husband had taken the frontier-road; and the shots had come from the frontier!
“Yes, that’s true,” said Suzanne, “but it was only ten o’clock when we started from Saint-Élophe and the shots which you heard were fired at one or two o’clock in the morning.... You said so yourself.”
“How can I tell?” cried the old lady, who was beginning to lose her head entirely. “It may have been much earlier.”
“But your father must know,” said Marthe to Suzanne. “Did he tell you nothing?”
“I have not seen my father this morning,” said Suzanne. “He was not awake....”
She had not time to finish her sentence before an idea burst in upon her, an idea so natural that the two other women were struck by it also and none of them dared put it into words.
Suzanne flew to the door, but Marthe held her back. Why not telephone to Saint-Élophe, to the special commissary’s house?
A minute later, M. Jorancé’s servant replied that she had just noticed that her master was not in. His bed had not been touched either.
“Oh!” said Suzanne, trembling all over. “My poor father!... Can anything have happened to him?... My poor father! I ought to have....”
They stood for a moment as though paralyzed, all three, and incapable of taking a resolution. The man-servant went out saying that he would saddle the horse and gallop to the Col du Diable.
Marthe, who was nearest to the telephone, rang up the mayor’s office at Saint-Élophe, on the off-chance, and asked for news. They knew nothing there. But two gendarmes, it seemed, had just crossed the square at a great pace. Thereupon, at the suggestion of Mme. Morestal, who had taken up the second receiver, she asked to be put on to the gendarmery. As soon as she was connected, she explained her reason for telephoning and was informed that the sergeant was on his way to the frontier with a peasant who declared that he had found the body of a man in the woods between the Butte-aux-Loups and the Col du Diable. That was all they were able to tell her....
Mme. Morestal let go the receiver and fell in a dead faint. Marthe and Suzanne tried to attend to her. But their hands trembled and, when Catherine, the maid-servant, appeared upon the scene, they both ran out of the room, roused by a sudden energy and an immense need of doing something, of walking, of laying eyes upon that dead body whose blood-stained image obsessed their minds.
They went down the stairs of the terrace and scurried in the direction of the Étang-des-Moines. They had not gone fifty yards, when they were passed by Victor, who galloped by on horseback and shouted:
“Go in, go in! What�
�s the use? I shall be back again!”
They went on nevertheless. But two roads offered: Suzanne wanted to take the one leading to the pass, on the left; Marthe, the one on the right, through the woods. They exchanged sharp words, blocking each other’s way.
Suddenly, Suzanne, without knowing what she was saying, flung herself into her friend’s arms, blurting out:
“I must tell you.... It is my duty.... Besides, it is all my fault....”
Marthe, enraged and not understanding the words, which she was to remember so clearly later, spoke to her roughly:
“You’re quite mad to-day,” she said. “Leave me alone, do.”
She darted into the woods and, in a few minutes, came to an abandoned quarry. The path went no further. She had a fit of fury, was on the verge of throwing herself on the ground and bursting into tears and then retraced her steps, for she thought she heard some one call. It was Suzanne, who had seen a man coming from the frontier on horseback and who had vainly tried to make herself heard. He was no doubt bringing news....
Panting and exhausted, they went back again. But there was no one at the Old Mill, no one but Mme. Morestal and Catherine, who were praying on the terrace. All the servants had gone off, without plan or purpose, in search of information; and the man on the horse, a peasant, had passed without looking up.
Then they dropped on a bench near the balustrade and sat stupefied, worn out by the effort which they had just made; and horrible minutes followed. Each of the three women thought of her own special sorrow and each, besides, suffered the anguish of the unknown disaster that threatened all three of them. They dared not look at one another. They dared not speak, although the silence tortured them. The least sound represented a source of foolish hope or horrid dread; and, with their eyes fixed on the line of dark woods, they waited.
Suddenly, they rose with a start. Catherine, who was keeping a look-out on the steps of the staircase, had sprung to her feet:
“There’s Henriot!” she cried.
“Henriot?” echoed Mme. Morestal.
“Yes, the gardener’s boy: I can make him out from here.”
“Where? We haven’t seen him come.”
“He must have taken a short cut.... He is coming up the stairs.... Quick, Henriot!... Hurry!... Do you know anything?”
She pulled open the gate and a lad of fifteen or so, his face bathed in perspiration, appeared.
He at once said:
“There’s a deserter been killed ... a German deserter.”
And the three women were forthwith overcome with a great sense of peace. After the rush of events that had come upon them like a tempest, it seemed to them as though nothing could touch them now. The phantom of death vanished from their minds. A man had been shot, no doubt, but that didn’t matter, because the man was not one of theirs. And the gladness that revived them was such that they could almost have laughed.
And, once again, Catherine appeared. She announced that Victor was returning. And the three women saw a man spurring his horse at the mouth of the pass, at the imminent risk of breaking his neck on the steep slope of the road. It was soon apparent, when the man reached the Étang-des-Moines, that some one was following him with swift strides; and Marthe uttered cries of joy at recognizing the tall figure of her husband.
She waved her handkerchief. Philippe answered the signal.
“It’s he!” she said, almost swooning. “It’s he, mamma.... I am sure that he’ll be able to tell us everything ... and that M. Morestal is not far off....”
“Let us go and meet them,” Suzanne suggested.
“Yes, I’ll go,” said Marthe, quickly. “You stay here, Suzanne ... stay with mamma.”
She darted away, eager to be the first to welcome Philippe and recovering enough strength to run to the bottom of the slope:
“Philippe! Philippe!” she cried. “You are back at last....”
He lifted her off the ground and pressed her to him:
“My darling, I hear that you have been uneasy.... You need not have been.... I will tell you all about it....”
“Yes, you will tell us.... But come ... come quick and kiss your mother and reassure her....”
She dragged him along. They climbed the staircase and, on reaching the terrace, he suddenly found himself in the presence of Suzanne, who was waiting, convulsed with jealousy and hatred. Philippe’s emotion was so great that he did not even offer her his hand. Besides, at that moment, Mme. Morestal ran up to him:
“Your father?”
“Alive.”
And Suzanne, in her turn:
“Papa?”
“Alive also.... They have both been carried off by the German police, near the frontier.”
“What? Prisoners?”
“Yes.”
“They haven’t hurt them?”
The three women all stood round him and pressed him with questions. He replied, laughing:
“A little calmness, first.... I confess I feel rather dazed.... This makes two exciting nights.... Also, I am simply starving.”
His shoes and clothes were grey with dust. There was blood on one of his shirt-cuffs.
“You are wounded!” cried Marthe.
“No ... not I.... I’ll explain to you....”
Catherine brought him a cup of coffee, which he swallowed greedily, and he began:
“It was about five o’clock in the morning when I got up; and I certainly had no idea, when I left my room ...”
Marthe was stupefied. Why did Philippe say that he had slept there? Did he not know that his absence had been discovered? But then why tell that lie?
She instinctively placed herself in front of Suzanne and in front of her mother; and, as Philippe had broken off, himself embarrassed by the obvious commotion which he had caused, she asked him:
“So, last evening, you left your father and M. Jorancé?...”
“At the Carrefour du Grand-Chêne.”
“Yes, so Suzanne told us. And you came back straight?”
“Straight.”
“But you heard the shots fired?...”
“Shots?”
“Yes, on the frontier.”
“No. I must have gone to sleep at once.... I was tired.... Otherwise, if I had heard them ...”
He had an intuition of the danger which he was running, especially as Suzanne was trying to make signs to him. But he had prepared the opening of his story so carefully that, being unaccustomed to lying, he would have been unable to alter a single word of it without losing the little coolness that remained to him. Moreover, himself worn out and incapable of resisting the atmosphere of anxiety and nervousness that surrounded him, how could he have perceived the trap which Marthe unconsciously had laid for him? He, therefore, repeated:
“Once more, when I left my room, I had no idea of what had happened. It was an accident that put me in the way of it. I had reached the Col du Diable and was walking along the frontier-road when, half-way from the Butte-aux-Loups, I heard moans and groans on my left. I went to the spot where they came from and discovered, among the bracken, a wounded man, covered in blood....”
“The deserter,” said Mme. Morestal.
“Yes, a German private, Johann Baufeld,” replied Philippe.
He was now coming to the true portion of his story, for his interview with the deserter had really taken place when he was returning from Saint-Élophe, at break of day; and he continued, with an easier mind:
“Johann Baufeld had only a few minutes to live. He had the death-rattle in his throat. Nevertheless, he had strength enough left to tell me his name and to speak a few words; and he died in my arms, not, however, before I learnt from him that M. Jorancé and my father had tried to protect him on French territory and that the police had turned upon them. I therefore went in search of them. The track was easy to follow. It took me through the Col du Diable to the hamlet of Torins. There, the inn-keeper made no difficulty about telling me that a squad of police, several of whom were mounted, had pass
ed his house on their way to Börsweilen, where they were conveying two French prisoners. One of these was wounded. I could not find out if it was your father, Suzanne, or mine. In any case, the wounds must have been slight, for both prisoners were sitting their horses without assistance. I felt reassured and turned back. At the Col du Diable, I met Victor.... You know the rest.”
He seemed quite happy at finishing his story and poured himself out a second cup of coffee, with the satisfied air of a man who has got off cheaply.
The three women were silent. Suzanne lowered her head, lest she should betray her emotion. At last, Marthe, who had no suspicions, but who was worrying her head about Philippe’s falsehood, resumed:
“At what time did you come in last night?”
“At a quarter to eleven.”
“And you went to bed at once?”
“At once.”
“Then how is it that your bed has not been touched?”
Philippe gave a start. The question took his breath away. Instead of inventing some pretext or other, he stammered, guilelessly:
“Oh, so you went in ... you saw ...”
He had not thought of this detail, nor, for that matter, of any of those which might make his story appear to clash with the facts; and he no longer knew what to say.
Suzanne suggested:
“Perhaps Philippe spent the night in a chair....”
Marthe shrugged her shoulders; and Philippe, utterly at a loss, trying to make up another version, did not even answer. He remained dumb, like a child caught at fault.
“Come, Philippe,” asked Marthe, “what’s underneath this? Didn’t you come straight back?”
“No,” he admitted.
“You came back by the frontier?”
“Yes.”
“Then why conceal it? I couldn’t very well be anxious now, seeing that you are here.”
“That’s just it!” cried Philippe, plunging at a venture along this path. “That’s just it! I did not want to tell you that I had spent the night looking for my father.”
“The night! Then you knew before this morning that he had been carried off?”
Delphi Collected Works of Maurice Leblanc (Illustrated) (Delphi Series Nine Book 17) Page 334
