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

by Maurice Leblanc

  “I’m sure you’ll excuse me, old fellow,” said Velmot, “but you’d try the patience of a plaster saint! Do you really mean to say that you would rather croak? Or perhaps you think I intend to give in? Or that some one will come and help you out of your mess? You ass! You chose this place yourself last winter! No boats come this way. Opposite, nothing but fields. So there’s no question of a rescue. Nor of pity either! Why, hang it all, don’t you realize the positions? And yet I showed you the article in this morning’s paper. With the exception of the formula, it’s all set out there: all Dorgeroux’s secret and all yours! So who’s to tell us that they won’t quite easily find the formula? Who’s to tell us that, in a fortnight, in a week, the whole thing won’t be given away and that I shall have had my hands on a million of money, like a fool, without grabbing it? Oh, no, that would never do!”

  There was a pause. A ray of light gave me a glimpse of Massignac. The water had risen above his shoulders.

  “I’ve nothing more to say to you,” said Velmot. “We’ll make an end of it. Do you refuse?”

  He waited for a moment and continued:

  “In that case, since you refuse, I won’t insist: what’s the good? You shall decide your own fate and take the final plunge. Good-bye, old man. I’m going to drink a glass and smoke a pipe to your health.”

  He bent towards his victim and added:

  “Still, it’s a chap’s duty to provide for everything. If, by chance you think better of it, if you have an inspiration at the last moment, you have only to call me, quite softly. . . . There, I’m loosening your gag a bit. . . . Good-bye, Théodore.”

  Velmot pushed the boat back and landed, grumbling:

  “It’s a dog’s life! What a fool the brute is!”

  As arranged, he sat down again, after bringing the chair and table to the water’s edge, poured himself out a glass of liqueur and lit his pipe:

  “Here’s to your good health, Massignac,” he said. “At the present rate, I can see that, in twenty minutes from now, you’ll be having a drink too. Whatever you do, don’t forget to call me. I’m listening for all I’m worth, old chum.”

  The moon had become veiled with clouds, which must have been very dense, for the bank grew so dark that I could hardly distinguish Velmot’s figure. As a matter of fact, I was persuaded that the implacable contest would end in some compromise and that Velmot would give way or Massignac speak. Nevertheless, ten or perhaps fifteen minutes passed, minutes which seemed to me interminable. Velmot smoked quietly and Massignac gave a series of little whimpers, but did not call out. Five minutes more. Velmot rose angrily:

  “It’s no use whining, you blasted fool! I’ve had enough of messing about. Will you speak? No? Then die, you scamp!”

  And I heard him snarling between his teeth:

  “Perhaps I shall manage better with the other one.”

  Whom did he mean by “the other one”? Me?

  In point of fact, he turned to the left, that is towards the part of the house where the door was:

  “Damn it!” he swore, almost immediately.

  There was an ejaculation. And then I heard nothing more from that direction.

  What had happened? Had Velmot knocked against the wall, in the dark, or against an open shutter?

  I could not see him from where I stood. The table and chair were faintly outlined in the gloom. Beyond was the pitchy darkness from which came Massignac’s muffled whimper.

  “Velmot is on his way,” I said to myself. “A few seconds more and he will be here.”

  The reason for his coming I did not understand, any more than the reason for trepanning me. Did he think that I knew the formula and that I had refrained from denouncing Massignac because of an understanding between him and myself? In that case, did he mean to compel me to speak, by employing with me the same methods as with his former accomplice? Or was it a question of Bérangère between us, of the Bérangère whom we both loved and whose name, to my surprise, he had not even mentioned to Massignac? These were so many problems to which he would provide the reply:

  “That is,” I thought, “if he comes.”

  For, after all, he was not there; and there was not a sound in the house. What was he doing? For some little while I stood with my ear glued to the door by which he should have entered, ready to defend myself though unarmed.

  He did not come.

  I went back to the window. There was no sound on that side either.

  And the silence was terrible, that silence which seemed to increase and to spread all over the river and into space, that silence which was no longer broken even by Massignac’s stifled moaning.

  In vain I tried to force my eyes to see. The water of the river remained invisible. I no longer saw and I no longer heard Théodore Massignac.

  I could no longer see him and I could no longer hear him. It was a terrifying reflection! Had he slipped down? Had the deadly, suffocating water risen to his mouth and nostrils?

  I struck the shutter with a mighty blow of my fist. The thought that Massignac was dead or about to die, that thought which until then I had not realised very clearly, filled me with dismay. Massignac’s death meant the definite and irreparable loss of the secret. Massignac’s death meant that Noël Dorgeroux was dying for the second time.

  I redoubled my efforts. There was certainly no doubt in my mind that Velmot was at hand and that he and I would have to fight it out; but I did not care about that. No consideration could stop me. I had then and there to hasten to the assistance not of Massignac, but as it appeared to me, of Noël Dorgeroux, whose wonderful work was about to be destroyed. All that I had done hitherto, in protecting by my silence, Théodore Massignac’s criminal enterprise, I was bound to continue by saving from death the man who knew the indispensable formula.

  As my fists were not enough, I broke a chair and used it to hammer one of the bars. Moreover, the shutter was not very strong, as some of the slats were already partly missing. Another split and yet another. I was able to slip my arm through and to lift an iron cross-bar hinged to the outside. The shutter gave way at once. I had only to step over the window-sill and drop to the ground below.

  Velmot was certainly leaving the field clear for me.

  Without losing an instant, I passed by the chair, threw over the table and easily found the boat:

  “I’m here!” I shouted to Massignac. “Hold on!”

  With a strong push I reached one of the stakes, repeating:

  “Hold on! Hold on! I’m here!”

  I seized the rope in both hands, at the level of the water, and felt for the hook, expecting to strike against Massignac’s head.

  I touched nothing. The rope had slipped down; the hook was in the water and carried no weight. The body must have gone to the bottom; and the current had swept it away.

  Nevertheless, on the off-chance, I dipped my hand as far as I could into the water. But a shot suddenly pulled me up short. A bullet had whistled past my ear. At the same time, Velmot, whom I could just make out crouching on the bank, like a man dragging himself on all fours, stuttered, in a choking voice:

  “Oh, you scum, you took your opportunity, did you? And you think perhaps you’re going to save Massignac? Just you wait a bit, you blighter!”

  He fired two more shots, guessing at my whereabouts, for I was sculling away rapidly. Neither of them touched me. Soon I was out of range.

  CHAPTER XV. THE SPLENDID THEORY

  IT IS NOT only to-day, when I am relating that tragic scene, that it appears to me in the light of a subsidiary episode to my story. I already had that impression at the time when it was being enacted. My reason for laying no greater stress on my alarm and on the horror of certain facts is that all this was to me only an interlude. Massignac’s sufferings and his disappearance and Velmot’s inexplicable behaviour, in abandoning for some minutes the conduct of a matter to which he had until then applied himself with such diabolical eagerness, were just so many details which became blotted out by the tremen
dous events represented by Benjamin Prévotelle’s discovery.

  And to such an extent was this event the central point of all my preoccupations that the idea had occurred to me, as I rushed to Massignac’s assistance, of snatching from the chair the newspaper in which I had read the first half of the essay! To be free meant above all things — even above saving Massignac and, through him, the formula — the opportunity of reading the rest of the essay and of learning what the whole world must already have learnt!

  I made the circuit of the island in my boat and, shaping my course by certain lights, ran her ashore on the main bank. A tram went by. Some of the shops were open. I was between Bougival and Port-Marly.

  At ten o’clock in the evening I was sitting in a bedroom in a Paris hotel and unfolding a newspaper. But I had not had the patience to wait so long. On the way, by the feeble lights of the tram-car, I glanced at a few lines of the article. One word told me everything. I too was acquainted with Benjamin Prévotelle’s marvellous theory. I knew and, knowing, I believed.

  The reader will recall the place which I had reached in my uncomfortable perusal of the report. Benjamin Prévotelle’s studies and experiments had led him to conclude, first, that the Meudon pictures were real cinematographic projections and, next, that these projections, since they came from no part of the amphitheatre, must come from some point more remote. Now the last picture, that representing the revolutionary doings of the 21st January, was hampered by some obstacle. What obstacle? His mental condition being what it was, what could Benjamin Prévotelle do other than raise his eyes to the sky?

  The sky was clear. Was it also clear beyond the part that could be observed from the lower benches of the amphitheatre? Benjamin Prévotelle climbed to the top and looked at the horizon.

  Yonder, towards the west, clouds were floating.

  And Benjamin Prévotelle continued, repeating his phrase:

  “Clouds were floating! And, because of the fact that clouds were floating on the horizon, the pictures on the screen grew less distinct or even vanished altogether. It may be said that this was a coincidence. On three separate occasions, when the film lost its brilliancy, I turned towards the horizon: on each occasion clouds were passing. Could three coincidences of this kind be due to chance? Can any scientific mind fail to see herein a relation of cause and effect or to admit that, in this instance, as in that of many visions previously observed, which were disturbed by an unknown cause, the interposition of the clouds acted as a veil by intercepting the projection on its way? I was not able to make a fourth test. But that did not matter. I had now advanced so far that I was able to work and reflect without being stopped by any obstacle. There is no such thing as being checked mid-way in our pursuit of certain truths. Once we catch a glimpse of them, they become revealed in their entirety.

  “At first, to be sure, scientific logic, instead of referring the explanation which I was so eagerly seeking to the data of human science, flung me, almost despite myself, into an ever more mysterious region. And, when, after this second display, I returned home — this was three hours ago at most — I asked myself whether it would not be better to confess my ignorance than to go rushing after theories which suddenly seemed to me to lie beyond the confines of science. But how could I have done so? Despite myself I continued to work at the problem, to imagine. Induction fitted into deduction. Proofs were accumulating. Even as I was hesitating to enter upon a path whose direction confounded me, I reached the goal and found myself sitting down to a table, pen in hand, to write a report which was dictated by my reason as much as by my imagination.

  “Thus the first step was taken: in obedience to the imperious summons of reality, I admitted the theory of extra-terrestrial communications, or at least of communications coming from beyond the clouds. Was I to think that they emanated from some airship hovering in the sky, beyond that cloud-belt? Leaving aside the fact that no such airship was ever observed, we must remark that luminous projections powerful enough to light the screen at Meudon from a distance of several miles would leave in the air a trail of diffused light which could not escape notice. Lastly, in the present condition of science, we are at liberty to declare positively that such projections would be quite incapable of realization.

  “What then? Were we to cast our eyes farther, traverse space at one bound and assume that the projections have an origin which is not only extraterrestrial but extrahuman?

  “Now the great word is written. The idea is no longer my property. How will it be received by those to whom this report will reveal it to-morrow? Will they welcome it with the same fervour and the same awe-struck emotion that thrilled me, with the distrust at the beginning and the same final enthusiasm?

  “Let us, if you will, recover our composure. The examination of the phenomena has led us to a very definite conclusion. However startling this conclusion be, let us examine it also, with perfect detachment, and try to subject it to all the tests which we are able to impose upon it.

  “Extrahuman projections: what does that mean? The expression seems vague; and our thoughts wander at random. Let us look into the matter more closely. Let us first of all establish as an impassable boundary the frontiers of our solar system and, in this immense circle, concentrate our gaze upon the more accessible and consequently the nearer points. For, when all is said, if there be really projections, they must necessarily, whether extrahuman or human, emanate from fixed points, situated in space. They must therefore emanate from those luminaries within sight of the earth to which, in the last report, we have some right to attribute the origin of those projections. I consider that there are five such fixed points: the moon, the sun, Jupiter, Mars and Venus.

  “If, furthermore, we suppose as the more likely theory that the projections follow a rectilinear direction, then the unknown luminary from which the apparitions emanate will have to satisfy two conditions: first, it must be in such a position that photographs can be taken from it; secondly, it must be in such a position that the images obtained can be transmitted to us. Let us take as an instance a case in which it is possible to fix the place and date. The first Montgolfier balloon, filled with hot air, was sent up from Annonay at four o’clock in the afternoon on the 5th of June, 1783. It is easy, by referring to the contemporary calendars, to learn which celestial bodies were at that moment above the horizon and at what height. We thus find that Mars, Jupiter and the moon were invisible, whereas the sun and Venus were at 50 and 23 degrees respectively above the horizon of Annonay and, of course, towards the west. These two luminaries alone then were in a position to witness the experiment of the brothers Montgolfier. But they did not witness it from the same altitude: a view taken from the sun would have shown things as seen from above, whereas, at the same hour, Venus would have shown then from an angle very nearly approaching the horizontal.

  “This is a first clue. Are we able to check it? Yes, by turning up the date on which the projections of the view then secured as observed by Victorien Beaugrand and by determining whether, on that date, the projecting luminary was able to light up the screen at Meudon. Well, on that day, at the hour which Victorien Beaugrand has given us, Mars and the moon were invisible, Jupiter was in the east, the sun close to the horizon and Venus a little way above it. Projections emanating from the last-named planet could therefore have fallen upon the screen, which as we know faced westwards.

  “This example shows us that, however frail my theory may appear, we are now able and shall be even better able in the future to subject it to a strict control. I did not fail to resort to this method in respect of the other pictures, and I will give in a special table, appended to this essay, a list of the data which I have verified, a list necessarily drawn up, in some haste. Well, in all the cases which I examined, the views were taken and projected under such conditions that they can logically be referred to the planet Venus and to that planet alone.

  “Yet again, two of these views, that which revealed to Victorien Beaugrand and his uncle the execution of Miss Ca
vell and that which enabled us to witness the bombardment of Rheims, seem to have been taken, the first in the morning, because Miss Cavell was executed in the morning, and the second from the east, because it showed a shell fired at a statue which stood on the east front of the cathedral. This proves that the views could be taken indifferently in the morning or the evening, from the west or the east; and it is surely a powerful argument in favour of my theory, because Venus, which is both the Evening and the Morning Star, faces the earth at daybreak from the east and at sunset from the west and because Noël Dorgeroux (as M. Victorien Beaugrand has just confirmed to me by telephone), because Noël Dorgeroux, that magnificent visionary, had had his wall constructed with two surfaces having an identical inclination towards the sky, one facing west, the other east and each in turn exposed to the rays of Venus the Evening Star and Venus the Morning Star!

  “These are the proofs which I am able to furnish for the time being. There are others. There is for instance the time of the apparitions. Venus is sinking towards the horizon; on the earth twilight reigns; and the pictures can be formed regardless of the sunlight. Remark also that Noël Dorgeroux, deferring all his experiments, last winter altered the whole arrangement of the Yard and demolished the old garden. Now this break coincides exactly with a period during which the position of Venus on the farther side of the sun prevented it from communicating with the earth. All these proofs will be reinforced by a more exhaustive essay and by an analytical examination of the pictures that have been or will be shown to us.

  “But though I have written this report without stopping to answer the objections and difficulties which arise at every line, though I have been contented myself with setting forth the logical and almost inevitable sequence of the deductions which led up to my theory. I should be failing in respect to the academy and to the public if I allowed it to be believed that I am not fully conscious of the weight of those objections and difficulties. I did not, however, consider this a reason for abandoning my task. Though it be our duty to bow when science utters a formal veto, on the other hand duty orders us to persist when science is content merely to confess its ignorance. This is the twofold principle which I observed in seeking no longer the source of the projections, but rather the manner in which they were able to appear, for that is where the whole problem lies. It is easy to declare that they emanate from Venus; it is not easy to explain how they travel through space and how they exercise their action, at a distance of many millions of miles, on an imperceptible screen with a surface of three or four hundred square feet. I am confronted with physical laws which I am not entitled to transgress. I am entitled at most to advance where science is obliged to be mute.