“We subjoin a few particulars gleaned in the course of an interview which Benjamin Prévotelle was good enough to grant us. We apologize for being able to give no more details concerning his personality. How should it be otherwise: Benjamin Prévotelle is twenty-three years of age. He . . .”
I had to stop here, as the subsequent lines escaped my eyes. Was I to learn more?
Velmot had risen from his chair and was walking to and fro. After a brief disappearance, he returned with a bottle of some liqueur, of which he drank two glasses in quick succession. Then he unfolded the newspaper and began to peruse the report or rather to reperuse it, for I had no doubt that he had read it before.
His chair was right against my shutter. He sat leaning back, so that I was able to see, not the end of the preliminary article, but the report itself, which he read rather slowly.
The daylight, proceeding from a sky whose clouds must have hidden the sun, was meantime diminishing. I read simultaneously with Velmot:
“An Open Letter to the Academy of Science
“I will beg you, gentlemen, to regard this memorandum as only the briefest possible introduction to the more important essay which I propose to write and to the innumerable volumes to which it is certain to give rise in every country, to which volumes also it will serve as a modest preface.
“I am writing hurriedly, allowing my pen to run away with me, improvising hastily as I go along. You will find omissions and defects which I do not attempt to conceal and which are due in equal proportions to the restricted number of observations which we were able to make at Meudon and to the obstinate refusal which M. Théodore Massignac opposes to every request for additional information. But the remarkable feeling aroused by the miraculous pictures makes it my duty to offer the results, as yet extremely incomplete, of an investigation in respect of which I have the legitimate ambition to reserve the right of priority. I thus hope, by confining my hypotheses to a definite channel, to assist towards establishing the truth and relieving the public mind.
“My investigations were commenced immediately after the first revelations made by M. Victorien Beaugrand. I collated all his statements. I analysed all his impressions. I seized upon all that Noël Dorgeroux had said. I went over the details of all his experiments. And in consequence of carefully weighing and examining all these things I did not come to the first performance at Meudon with my hands in my pockets, as a lover of sensations and a dabbler in mystery. On the contrary, I came with a well-considered plan and with a few working-implements, deliberately selected and concealed under my own clothing and that of some of my friends who were good enough to assist me.
“First of all, a camera. This was a matter of some difficulty. M. Théodore Massignac had his misgivings and had prohibited the introduction of so much as the smallest Kodak. Nevertheless I succeeded. I had to. I had to provide a definite answer to a first question, which might be called the critical question: are the Meudon apparitions due to individual or collective suggestions, possessing no reality outside those who experience them, or have they a real and external cause? That answer may certainly be deduced from the absolute identity of the impressions received by all the spectators. But to-day I am adducing a direct proof which I consider to be unassailable. The camera refuses any sort of suggestion. The camera is not a brain in which the picture can create itself, in which an hallucination is formed out of internal data. It is a witness that does not lie and is not mistaken. Well, this witness has spoken. The sensitive plate certifies the phenomena to be real. I hold at the disposal of the Academy seven negatives of the screen thus obtained by instantaneous exposures. Two of them, representing Rheims Cathedral on fire, are remarkably clear.
“Here then the first point is settled: the screen is the seat of an emanation of light-rays.
“While I was obtaining the proofs of this emanation, I submitted it to the means of investigation which physics places at our disposal. I was not, unfortunately, able to make as many or as accurate experiments as I should have wished. The distance of the wall, the local arrangements and the inadequacy of the light emitted by the screen were against me. Nevertheless, by using the spectroscope and the polarimeter, I ascertained that this light did not appear to differ perceptibly from the natural light diffused by a white surface.
“But a more tangible result and one to which I attach the greatest importance was obtained by examining the screen by means of a revolving mirror. It is well known that, if our ordinary cinematographic pictures projected on a screen be viewed in a mirror to which we impart a rapid rotary movement, the successive pictures are dislocated and yield images in the field of the mirror. A similar effect can be obtained, though less distinctly, by turning one’s head quickly so as to project the successive pictures upon different points of the retina. It was therefore indicated that I should apply this method of analysis to the animated projections produced at Meudon. I was thus able to prove positively that these projections, like those of the ordinary cinematograph, break up into separate and successive images, but with a rapidity which is notably greater than in the operations to which we are accustomed, for I found that they average 28 to the second. On the other hand, these images are not emitted at regular intervals. I observed rhythmical alterations of acceleration and retardation and I am inclined to believe that the rhythmical variations are not unconnected with the extraordinary impression of steroscopic relief which all the spectators at Meudon received.
“The foregoing observations led up to a scientific certainty and naturally guided my investigations into a definite channel: the Meudon pictures are genuine cinematographic projections thrown upon the screen and perceived by the spectators in the ordinary manner. But where is the projecting-apparatus? How does it work? This is where the gravest difficulty lies, for hitherto no trace of an apparatus has been discovered, nor even the least clue to the existence of any apparatus whatever.
“Is it allowable to suppose, as I did not fail to do, that the projections may proceed from within the screen, by means of an underground device which it is not impossible to imagine? This last theory would obviously greatly relieve our minds, by attributing the visions to some clever trick. But it was not without good reason that first M. Victorien Beaugrand and afterwards the audience itself refused to accept it. The visions bear a stamp of authenticity and unexpectedness which strikes all who see them, without any exception. Moreover, the specialists in cinematographic “faking,” when questioned, frankly proclaim that their expert knowledge is at a loss and their technique at fault. It may even be declared that the exhibitor of these images possesses no power beyond that of receiving them on a suitable screen and that he himself does not know what is about to appear on the screen. Lastly, it may be added that the preparation of such films as that would be a long and complicated operation, necessitating an extensive equipment and a numerous staff of actors; and it is really impossible that these preparations can have been effected in absolute secrecy.
“This is exactly the point to which my enquiries had led me on the night before the last, after the first performance. I will not presume to say that I knew more than any chance member of the public about that which constitutes the fundamental nature of the problem. Nevertheless, when I took my seat at the second performance, I was in a better condition mentally than any of the other onlookers. I was standing on solid ground. I was self controlled, free of feverish excitement or any other factor that might diminish the intensity of my attention. I was hampered by no preconceived ideas; and no new idea, no new fact could come within my grasp without my immediately perceiving it.
“This was what happened. The new fact was the bewildering and mystifying spectacle of the grotesque Shapes. I did not at once draw the conclusion which this spectacle entailed, or at least I was not aware of so doing. But my perceptions were aroused. Those beings equipped with three arms became connected in my mind with the initial riddle of the Three Eyes. If I did not yet understand, at least I had a presentiment of the truth; if
I did not know, at least I suspected that I was about to know. The door was opening. The light was beginning to dawn.
“A few minutes later, as will be remembered, came the gruesome picture of a cart conveying two gendarmes, a priest and a king who was being led to his death. It was a confused, fragmentary, mutilated picture, continually broken up and pieced together again. Why? For, after all, the thing was not normal. Until then, as we know and as M. Victorien Beaugrand had told us, until then the pictures were always admirably distinct. And suddenly we beheld a flickering, defective image, confused, dim and at moments almost invisible. Why?
“At that critical instant, this was the only train of thought permissible. The horror and strangeness of the spectacle no longer counted. Why was this, technically speaking, a defective picture? Why was the faultless mechanism, which until now had worked with perfect smoothness, suddenly disordered? What was the grain of sand that had thrown it out of gear?
“Really the problem was proposed to me with a simplicity that confounded me. The terms of the problem were familiar to all. We had before us cinematographic pictures. These cinematographic pictures did not proceed from the wall itself. They did not come from any part of the amphitheatre. Then whence were they projected? And what obstacle was now preventing their free projection?
“Instinctively, I made the only movement that could be made, the movement which a child would have made if that elementary question had been put to it: I raised my eyes to the sky.
“It was absolutely clear, an immense, empty sky.
“Clear and empty, yes, but in the part which my eyes were able to interrogate. Was it the same in the part hidden from my view by the upper wall of the amphitheatre?
“The mere silent utterance of the words which propounded the question was enough to make me almost swoon with anxiety. They bore the tremendous truth within themselves. I had only to speak them for the great mystery to vanish utterly.
“With trembling limbs and a heart that almost ceased to beat, I climbed to the top of the amphitheatre and gazed at the horizon. Yonder, towards the west, light clouds were floating. . . .”
CHAPTER XIV. MASSIGNAC AND VELMOT
“CLOUDS WERE FLOATING. . . . Clouds were floating. . . .”
These words of the report, which I repeated mechanically while trying to decipher what followed, were the last that I was able to read. Night was falling rapidly. My eyes, tired by the strain and difficulty of reading, strove in vain against the increasing darkness and suddenly refused to obey any further effort.
Besides, Velmot rose soon after and walked to the bank of the river. The time had come for action.
What that action was to be I did not ask. Since the beginning of my captivity, I had entertained no personal fears, even though Velmot had referred to an interview, accompanied by “a little plain-speaking,” which he had in store for me. But the great secret of the Yard continued to possess my thoughts so much that nothing that happened had any effect upon me except in so far as it was useful or injurious to Noël Dorgeroux’s cause. There was some one now who knew the truth; and the world was about to learn it. How could I trouble about anything else? How could anything interest me except Benjamin Prévotelle’s accurate arguments, the ingenuity of his investigations and the important results which he had achieved?
Oh, how I too longed to know! What could the new theory be? Did it fit in with all the teaching of reality? And would it fully satisfy me, who, when all was said, had penetrated farther than any other into the heart of that reality and reaped the largest harvest of observations?
What astonished me was that I did not understand. And I am even more astonished now. Though standing on the very threshold of the sanctuary, the door of which was opened to me, I was unable to see. No light flashed upon me. What did Benjamin Prévotelle mean to say? What was the significance of those clouds drifting in a corner of the sky? If they tempered the light of the sunset and thus exerted an influence over the pictures of the screen, why did Benjamin Prévotelle ask me on the telephone about the surface of the wall which faced precisely the opposite quarter of the heavens, that is the east? And why did he accept my answer as confirming his theory?
Velmot’s voice drew me from my dreams and brought me back to the window which I had left a few minutes earlier. He was stooping over the grating and sneering:
“Well, Massignac, are you ready for the operation? I’ll get you out this way: that’ll save my dragging you round by the stairs.”
Velmot went down the stairs; and I soon heard beneath me the loud outburst of a renewed argument, ending in howls and then in a sudden silence which was the most impressive of all. I now received my first notion of the terrible scene which Velmot was preparing; and, without wasting my pity on the wretched Massignac, I shuddered at the thought that my turn might come next.
The thing was done as Velmot had said. Massignac, bandaged like a swathed mummy, rigid and gagged, rose slowly from the cellar. Velmot then returned, dragged him by the shoulders to the edge of the river and tipped him into the boat.
Then, standing on the bank, he addressed him as follows:
“Now, Massignac, my beauty, this is the third time that I’m appealing to your common sense; and I’ll do it again presently, for the fourth time, if you force me to. But you’re going to give in, I fancy. Come, think a moment. Think what you would do in my place. You’d act yourself as I am doing, wouldn’t you? Then what are you waiting for? Why don’t you speak? Does your gag bother you? Just nod your head and I’ll move it. Do you agree? No? In that case you mustn’t be surprised if we start upon the fourth and last phase of our conversation. All my apologies if it strikes you as still more unpleasant.”
Velmot sat down beside his victim, wielded the boat-hook and pushed the boat between the two stakes projecting above the water.
These two stakes marked the boundaries of the field of vision which the gap in the shutter afforded me. The water played around them, spangled with sparks of light. The moon had appeared from behind the clouds; and I distinctly saw every detail of the “operation,” to use Velmot’s expression.
“Don’t resist, Massignac,” he said. “It won’t help. . . . Eh? What? You think I’m too rough, do you? My lord’s made of glass, is he? Now then! Yoop! Is that right? Capital!”
He had stood Massignac up against himself and placed his left arm round him. With his right hand he took hold of the iron hook fastened to the rope between the two stakes, pulled it down and inserted the point under the bonds with which Massignac was swathed, at the height of the shoulders.
“Capital!” he repeated. “You see, I needn’t trouble to hold you. You’re standing up all by yourself, my boy, like a monkey on a stick.”
He took the boat-hook again, hooked it into the stones on the bank and made the boat glide from under Massignac’s body, which promptly sank. The rope had sagged. Only half of his body emerged above the water.
And Velmot said to his former confederate, in a low voice, which I could hear, however, without straining my ears. I have always believed that Velmot spoke that day with the intention that I should hear — :
“This is what I had in mind, old chap; and we haven’t much more to say to each other. Remember, in an hour from now, possibly sooner, the water will be above your mouth, which won’t make it very easy for you to speak. And of that hour I ought in decency to give you fifty minutes for reflection.”
He splashed a little water over Massignac’s head with the boat-hook. Then he continued, with a laugh:
“You quite grasp the position, don’t you? The rope by which you’re fastened, like an ox in a stall, is fixed to the two stakes by a couple of slip-knots, nothing more . . . so that, at the least movement, the knots slip down an inch or so. You will have noticed it just now, when I let you go. Blinkety blump! You went down a half a head lower! Besides that, the weight alone of your body is enough. . . . You’re slipping, old fellow, you’re slipping all the time; and nothing can stop you . . . unless, of
course, you speak. Are you ready to speak?”
The moonbeams shifted to and fro, casting light or shade upon the horrible scenes. I could see the black shape of Massignac, who himself always remained in semidarkness. The water came half-way up his chest.
Velmot continued:
“Logically, old fellow, you’re bound to speak. The position is so clear. We plotted between us a little piece of business which succeeded, thanks to our joint efforts; but you have pocketed all the profits, thanks to your trickery. I want my share, that’s all. And for this you need do no more than tell me Noël Dorgeroux’s famous formula and supply me with the means of making the experiment to begin with. After that I’ll give you back your liberty for I shall feel certain that you will allow me my share of the profits, for fear of competition. Is it a bargain?”
Théodore Massignac must have made a gesture of denial or uttered a grunt of refusal, for he received a smack across the face which resounded through the silence.
Delphi Collected Works of Maurice Leblanc (Illustrated) (Delphi Series Nine Book 17) Page 358
