“In the latter event, you would be obliged—I beg you to pardon me for saying so—again to accept my collaboration. I offer it you in advance, my dear, and without any conditions, while stating quite plainly that all that I have been able to do for you and all that I may yet do gives me no other right than that of thanking you and devoting myself more than ever to the woman who represents my joy, my whole life.”
Hortense, after reading the letter, folded it up and put it away at the back of a drawer, saying, in a resolute voice:
“I sha’n’t go.”
To begin with, although she had formerly attached some slight importance to this trinket, which she had regarded as a mascot, she felt very little interest in it now that the period of her trials was apparently at an end. She could not forget that figure eight, which was the serial number of the next adventure. To launch herself upon it meant taking up the interrupted chain, going back to Rénine and giving him a pledge which, with his powers of suggestion, he would know how to turn to account.
Two days before the 5th of December, she was still in the same frame of mind. So she was on the morning of the 4th, but suddenly, without even having to contend against preliminary subterfuges, she ran out into the garden, cut three lengths of rush, plaited them as she used to do in her childhood and at twelve o’clock had herself driven to the station. She was uplifted by an eager curiosity. She was unable to resist all the amusing and novel sensations which the adventure, proposed by Rénine, promised her. It was really too tempting. The jet necklace, the toque with the autumn leaves, the old woman with the silver rosary: how could she resist their mysterious appeal and how could she refuse this opportunity of showing Rénine what she was capable of doing?
“And then, after all,” she said to herself, laughing, “he’s summoning me to Paris. Now eight o’clock is dangerous to me at a spot three hundred miles from Paris, in that old deserted Château de Halingre, but nowhere else. The only clock that can strike the threatening hour is down there, under lock and key, a prisoner!”
She reached Paris that evening. On the morning of the 5th she went out and bought a jet necklace, which she reduced to seventy-five beads, put on a blue gown and a toque with red leaves and, at four o’clock precisely, entered the church of Saint-Étienne-du-Mont.
Her heart was throbbing violently. This time she was alone, and how acutely she now felt the strength of that support which, from unreflecting fear rather than any reasonable motive, she had thrust aside! She looked around her, almost hoping to see him. But there was no one there … no one except an old lady in black, standing beside the holy water basin.
Hortense went up to her. The old lady, who held a silver rosary in her hands, offered her holy water and then began to count the beads of the necklace which Hortense gave her.
She whispered:
“Seventy-five. That’s right. Come.”
Without another word, she toddled along under the light of the streetlamps, crossed the Pont des Tournelles to the Ile Saint-Louis and went down an empty street leading to a crossroads, where she stopped in front of an old house with wrought-iron balconies:
“Go in,” she said.
And the old lady went away.
Hortense now saw a prosperous-looking shop which occupied almost the whole of the ground floor and whose windows, blazing with electric light, displayed a huddled array of old furniture and antiquities. She stood there for a few seconds, gazing at it absently. A signboard bore the words “The Mercury,” together with the name of the owner of the shop, “Pancaldi.” Higher up, on a projecting cornice which ran on a level with the first floor, a small niche sheltered a terra-cotta Mercury poised on one foot, with wings to his sandals and the caduceus in his hand, who, as Hortense noted, was leaning a little too far forward in the ardour of his flight and ought logically to have lost his balance and taken a header into the street.
“Now!” she said, under her breath.
She turned the handle of the door and walked in.
Despite the ringing of the bells actuated by the opening door, no one came to meet her. The shop seemed to be empty. However, at the extreme end there was a room at the back of the shop and after that another, both crammed with furniture and knickknacks, many of which looked very valuable. Hortense followed a narrow gangway which twisted and turned between two walls built up of cupboards, cabinets and console tables, went up two steps and found herself in the last room of all.
A man was sitting at a writing desk and looking through some account books. Without turning his head, he said:
“I am at your service, madam … Please look round you …”
This room contained nothing but articles of a special character which gave it the appearance of some alchemist’s laboratory in the middle ages: stuffed owls, skeletons, skulls, copper alembics, astrolabes and all around, hanging on the walls, amulets of every description, mainly hands of ivory or coral with two fingers pointing to ward off ill-luck.
“Are you wanting anything in particular, madam?” asked M. Pancaldi, closing his desk and rising from his chair.
“It’s the man,” thought Hortense.
He had in fact an uncommonly pasty complexion. A little forked beard, flecked with grey, lengthened his face, which was surmounted by a bald, pallid forehead, beneath which gleamed a pair of small, prominent, restless, shifty eyes.
Hortense, who had not removed her veil or cloak, replied:
“I want a clasp.”
“They’re in this showcase,” he said, leading the way to the connecting room.
Hortense glanced over the glass case and said:
“No, no … I don’t see what I’m looking for. I don’t want just any clasp, but a clasp which I lost out of a jewel case some years ago and which I have to look for here.”
She was astounded to see the commotion displayed on his features. His eyes became haggard.
“Here? … I don’t think you are in the least likely … What sort of clasp is it? …”
“A cornelian, mounted in gold filigree … of the 1830 period.”
“I don’t understand,” he stammered. “Why do you come to me?”
She now removed her veil and laid aside her cloak.
He stepped back, as though terrified by the sight of her, and whispered:
“The blue gown! … The toque! … And—can I believe my eyes?—the jet necklace! …”
It was perhaps the whiplash formed of three rushes that excited him most violently. He pointed his finger at it, began to stagger where he stood and ended by beating the air with his arms, like a drowning man, and fainting away in a chair.
Hortense did not move.
“Whatever farce he may play,” Rénine had written, “have the courage to remain impassive.”
Perhaps he was not playing a farce. Nevertheless she forced herself to be calm and indifferent.
This lasted for a minute or two, after which M. Pancaldi recovered from his swoon, wiped away the perspiration streaming down his forehead and, striving to control himself, resumed, in a trembling voice:
“Why do you apply to me?”
“Because the clasp is in your possession.”
“Who told you that?” he said, without denying the accusation. “How do you know?”
“I know because it is so. Nobody has told me anything. I came here positive that I should find my clasp and with the immovable determination to take it away with me.”
“But do you know me? Do you know my name?”
“I don’t know you. I did not know your name before I read it over your shop. To me you are simply the man who is going to give me back what belongs to me.”
He was greatly agitated. He kept on walking to and fro in a small empty space surrounded by a circle of piled-up furniture, at which he hit out idiotically, at the risk of bringing it down.
Hortense felt that she had the whip hand of him; and, profiting by his confusion, she said, suddenly, in a commanding a
nd threatening tone:
“Where is the thing? You must give it back to me. I insist upon it.”
Pancaldi gave way to a moment of despair. He folded his hands and mumbled a few words of entreaty. Then, defeated and suddenly resigned, he said, more distinctly:
“You insist? …”
“I do. You must give it to me.”
“Yes, yes, I must … I agree.”
“Speak!” she ordered, more harshly still.
“Speak, no, but write: I will write my secret … And that will be the end of me.”
He turned to his desk and feverishly wrote a few lines on a sheet of paper, which he put into an envelope and sealed it:
“See,” he said, “here’s my secret … It was my whole life …”
And, so saying, he suddenly pressed against his temple a revolver which he had produced from under a pile of papers and fired.
With a quick movement, Hortense struck up his arm. The bullet struck the mirror of a cheval glass. But Pancaldi collapsed and began to groan, as though he were wounded.
Hortense made a great effort not to lose her composure:
“Rénine warned me,” she reflected. “The man’s a playactor. He has kept the envelope. He has kept his revolver, I won’t be taken in by him.”
Nevertheless, she realized that, despite his apparent calmness, the attempt at suicide and the revolver shot had completely unnerved her. All her energies were dispersed, like the sticks of a bundle whose string has been cut, and she had a painful impression that the man, who was grovelling at her feet, was in reality slowly getting the better of her.
She sat down, exhausted. As Rénine had foretold, the duel had not lasted longer than a few minutes, but it was she who had succumbed, thanks to her feminine nerves and at the very moment when she felt entitled to believe that she had won.
The man Pancaldi was fully aware of this, and, without troubling to invent a transition, he ceased his jeremiads, leapt to his feet, cut a sort of agile caper before Hortense’ eyes and cried, in a jeering tone:
“Now we are going to have a little chat, but it would be a nuisance to be at the mercy of the first passing customer, wouldn’t it?”
He ran to the street door, opened it and pulled down the iron shutter which closed the shop. Then, still hopping and skipping, he came back to Hortense:
“Oof! I really thought I was done for! One more effort, madam, and you would have pulled it off. But then I’m such a simple chap! It seemed to me that you had come from the back of beyond, as an emissary of Providence, to call me to account; and, like a fool, I was about to give the thing back … Ah, Mlle. Hortense—let me call you so: I used to know you by that name—Mlle. Hortense, what you lack, to use a vulgar expression, is gut.”
He sat down beside her and, with a malicious look, said, savagely:
“The time has come to speak out. Who contrived this business? Not you, eh? It’s not in your style. Then who? … I have always been honest in my life, scrupulously honest … except once … in the matter of that clasp. And, whereas I thought the story was buried and forgotten, here it is suddenly raked up again. Why? That’s what I want to know.”
Hortense was no longer even attempting to fight. He was bringing to bear upon her all his virile strength, all his spite, all his fears, all the threats expressed in his furious gestures and on his features, which were both ridiculous and evil:
“Speak, I want to know. If I have a secret foe, let me defend myself against him! Who is he? Who sent you here? Who urged you to take action? Is it a rival incensed by my good luck, who wants in his turn to benefit by the clasp? Speak, can’t you, damn it all … or, I swear by Heaven, I’ll make you! …”
She had an idea that he was reaching out for his revolver and stepped back, holding her arms before her, in the hope of escaping.
They thus struggled against each other, and Hortense, who was becoming more and more frightened, not so much of the attack as of her assailant’s distorted face, was beginning to scream, when Pancaldi suddenly stood motionless, with his arms before him, his fingers outstretched and his eyes staring above Hortense’s head:
“Who’s there? How did you get in?” he asked, in a stifled voice.
Hortense did not even need to turn round to feel assured that Rénine was coming to her assistance and that it was his inexplicable appearance that was causing the dealer such dismay. As a matter of fact, a slender figure stole through a heap of easy chairs and sofas, and Rénine came forward with a tranquil step.
“Who are you?” repeated Pancaldi. “Where do you come from?”
“From up there,” he said, very amiably, pointing to the ceiling.
“From up there?”
“Yes, from the first floor. I have been the tenant of the floor above this for the past three months. I heard a noise just now. Someone was calling out for help. So I came down.”
“But how did you get in here?”
“By the staircase.”
“What staircase?”
“The iron staircase, at the end of the shop. The man who owned it before you had a flat on my floor and used to go up and down by that hidden staircase. You had the door shut off. I opened it.”
“But by what right, sir? It amounts to breaking in.”
“Breaking in is allowed, when there’s a fellow creature to be rescued.”
“Once more, who are you?”
“Prince Rénine … and a friend of this lady’s,” said Rénine, bending over Hortense and kissing her hand.
Pancaldi seemed to be choking, and mumbled:
“Oh, I understand! … You instigated the plot … it was you who sent the lady …”
“It was, M. Pancaldi, it was!”
“And what are your intentions?”
“My intentions are irreproachable. No violence. Simply a little interview. When that is over, you will hand over what I in my turn have come to fetch.”
“What?”
“The clasp.”
“That, never!” shouted the dealer.
“Don’t say no. It’s a foregone conclusion.”
“No power on earth, sir, can compel me to do such a thing!”
“Shall we send for your wife? Madame Pancaldi will perhaps realize the position better than you do.”
The idea of no longer being alone with this unexpected adversary seemed to appeal to Pancaldi. There was a bell on the table beside him. He struck it three times.
“Capital!” exclaimed Rénine “You see, my dear, M. Pancaldi is becoming quite amiable. Not a trace left of the devil broken loose who was going for you just now. No, M. Pancaldi only has to find himself dealing with a man to recover his qualities of courtesy and kindness. A perfect sheep! Which does not mean that things will go quite of themselves. Far from it! There’s no more obstinate animal than a sheep …”
Right at the end of the shop, between the dealer’s writing desk and the winding staircase, a curtain was raised, admitting a woman who was holding a door open. She might have been thirty years of age. Very simply dressed, she looked, with the apron on her, more like a cook than like the mistress of a household. But she had an attractive face and a pleasing figure.
Hortense, who had followed Rénine, was surprised to recognize her as a maid whom she had had in her service when a girl:
“What! Is that you, Lucienne? Are you Madame Pancaldi?”
The newcomer looked at her, recognized her also and seemed embarrassed. Rénine said to her:
“Your husband and I need your assistance, Madame Pancaldi, to settle a rather complicated matter, a matter in which you played an important part …”
She came forward without a word, obviously ill at ease, asking her husband, who did not take his eyes off her:
“What is it? … What do they want with me? … What is he referring to?”
“It’s about the clasp!” Pancaldi whispered, under his breath.
These few words were enough to ma
ke Madame Pancaldi realize to the full the seriousness of her position. And she did not try to keep her countenance or to retort with futile protests. She sank into a chair, sighing:
“Oh, that’s it! … I understand … Mlle. Hortense has found the track … Oh, it’s all up with us!”
There was a moment’s respite. The struggle between the adversaries had hardly begun, before the husband and wife adopted the attitude of defeated persons whose only hope lay in the victor’s clemency. Staring motionless before her, Madame Pancaldi began to cry. Rénine bent over her and said:
“Do you mind if we go over the case from the beginning? We shall then see things more clearly, and I am sure that our interview will lead to a perfectly natural solution … This is how things happened: nine years ago, when you were lady’s maid to Mlle. Hortense in the country, you made the acquaintance of M. Pancaldi, who soon became your lover. You were both of you Corsicans, in other words, you came from a country where superstitions are very strong and where questions of good and bad luck, the evil eye, and spells and charms exert a profound influence over the lives of one and all. Now it was said that your young mistress’ clasp had always brought luck to its owners. That was why, in a weak moment prompted by M. Pancaldi, you stole the clasp. Six months afterwards, you became Madame Pancaldi … That is your whole story, is it not, told in a few sentences? The whole story of two people who would have remained honest members of society, if they had been able to resist that casual temptation? … I need not tell you how you both succeeded in life and how, possessing the talisman, believing its powers and trusting in yourselves, you rose to the first rank of antiquarians. Today, well-off, owning this shop, ‘The Mercury,’ you attribute the success of your undertakings to that clasp. To lose it would to your eyes spell bankruptcy and poverty. Your whole life has been centred upon it. It is your fetish. It is the little household god who watches over you and guides your steps. It is there, somewhere, hidden in this jungle, and no one of course would ever have suspected anything—for I repeat, you are decent people, but for this one lapse—if an accident had not led me to look into your affairs.”
The Eight Strokes of the Clock Page 19
