The Exploits of Professor Tornada (Vol. 3)

by André Couvreur

  “So,” Vion concluded, “everything is against me. I’ll appear at the Assizes, charged as the most evident of criminals. I’m convicted in advance.”

  “You’ll evidently be condemned,” said Tornada.

  “To what?” Félix gasped.

  “To receive the apologies of the court, the jury, the witnesses and the press, and even our dear Baronne, who has also, it seems to me, begun to disown you.”

  “Don’t give me false hope, Tornada. The final fall would be too painful for me.”

  “You won’t fall, because...”

  “Because?”

  “I have the saving rope about my person.”

  As all accessories to suicide were removed from the prison, the thought crossed Vion’s mind that his friend had brought him a real rope, which would permit him to hang himself from the bars of his window, or a revolver, to put an end to his distress and misery. But it was neither a cord nor a Browning that the scientist brought out of his overcoat pocket. It was a little packet of photographic film, carefully wrapped in opaque paper.

  “Look, and enjoy!” said Tornada, sliding the packet over the table.

  Félix obeyed. For a long time, by the confused light, he studied the negatives, from which prints had not yet been made. They represented, in various locations, scenes and actions that he could not interpret.

  “What does this mean?”

  “It means...” Tornada explained. He spoke in such a low voice, making a funnel of his two hands, that the reader cannot hear him, and the narrator is wondering whether his explanation might not be dictated by insanity.

  “Amazing!” Vion declared.

  “Not really. A physical phenomenon, fundamentally. I’ve had the idea for a long time. It required your affair for me to buckle down to it. It’s you, and your crime, that stimulated me. I have so much other work to do! So many bellies to burgle! It’s to poor Tani and dear Betty that humanity will perhaps owe some return to morality…although humanity is so repulsive that it disgusts one to work for it!”

  The warder came back at that moment to declare that the half-hour was over. He could not conceal his amazement at finding the de-capper of skulls in the process of sketching an entrechat, with his arms rigid and his feet rigid, and hearing him say:

  “Guard-dog, it’s time to patch up this murderer. You’ll order for him, from outside, a bouillabaisse, a roasted partridge, a camembert, peaches Melba, a Corton and an extra-dry. Or rather, no—I’ll do it myself. Your mission will be to force-feed him the grub if he refuses it. If you fail, I’ll operate on you. I’ll open you up like Bordelin.”

  “But there’s nothing wrong with my brain!”

  “Yes there is! There’s no human brain that isn’t an Augean stables, in dire need of a sweep of the broom.” And before leaving, he said to Vion: “Soon, Félix. Eat hearty, as on the day when you knifed Sasoitsu!”

  Chapter VII

  The Félix Vion affair did not drag on. Three months after his incarceration, before the end of winter, the Court of Assizes met for him. Two days sufficed for the depositions, the various witness statements and the speeches for the prosecution and defense.

  They had reached the end of the second session. Maître Giki-Rénaldi, the advocate for the defense, had just sat down. Brilliant as his speech had been, it did not seem likely to triumph over an implacable prosecution sustained, in view of the importance of the individuals involved, by the Procureur Général in person. How could the crushing deposition of the embassy attaché Janai and the chauffeur Abrovici, who had returned from Hollywood specifically to assist in the trial, be opposed? By what moral arguments could the bewildered members of the jury be convinced? They were chaired by a stout butcher, who, accustomed to slicing up animals, promised to be no more tender toward the human species. The prosecutor had asked for the death penalty, without attenuating circumstances, it being impossible for the verdict to be influenced by any. Forced labor was expected, at the very least.

  A carefully-selected audience, mostly of women, invited as if to a social reception, was overwhelmed by the austere surroundings. Not one place was empty. On the two benches reserved for the press, the worst adversaries of judicial reportage were sitting cheek by jowl, as delighted as one another with the windfall of abundant prose to render to their papers. A crowd left standing beyond, in a narrow space, had begun to form a queue in the Place Dauphine at four o’clock in the morning. There were also a number of advocates in robes on the benches designated for them. On the court bench, the solemn counselors were conscious of the gravity of their mission; the president had seasoned his interrogations with witty remarks. His assessors were suffering because they were only there in a consultant capacity.

  The members of that brilliant company had not missed a minute of the arguments. They had ended up becoming acquainted with one another. They chatted during suspensions. In accordance with their sympathy for the accused or their personal opinion, some applauded and others protested. At the end of the speech for the prosecution, such clamors rose up that the president was obliged to threaten expulsions. In sum, it was a judiciary ceremony such as the course of events rarely produced.

  Among the audience favored with seats, there were only two individuals whose expressions seemed out of place. One was the massive Abrovici, whose birthmark did not seem to have benefited from the embellishing waves. The patch was still displayed there, just as rutilant, even seeming to have been rendered more vivid by the emotions of a trial of which he had not missed a crumb, in which he had stood up squarely as a witness for the defense. He had, to be sure, been obliged to confirm from the stand, under oath, his deposition to the examining magistrate; to recognize that, having abandoned the cloakroom briefly to go and watch the Japanese ballet, he had witnessed the precipitate re-entry of Monsieur Félix and received from his hands the dagger lent by Madame la Baronne. That, his conscience gave him a duty to admit. But he nevertheless could not conclude against Monsieur Félix, unsuspectable in every regard! And in so saying, he also translated the sentiment of Madame la Baronne, compelled by sadness not to appear in public. He had been applauded.

  But there was also astonishment, even more than in Abrovici’s case, at another disparate presence. That individual too had not missed a moment of the trial. His appearance was reminiscent of a bronchitic snatched from his bed by curiosity. In spite of the warmth of the hall he had maintained a large scarf around the lower part of his face, from his nose to his hermetically-sealed overcoat, and a vulgar beret—unusually tolerated—enclosed the totality of his cranium. All that escaped from that muffling was a sharp gaze and the abnormally-pointed tips of his ears, pricking up at incidents like those of a carnivore on watch for prey. His attitude, his grunts, like belches, and the clenching of his hands in response to the flapping of the advocates’ sleeves, even inspired in his neighbors the dread that he might have escaped from some lunatic asylum.

  Sitting behind Abrovici, his reactions had more in common with his than the rest of the futile audience; like Abrovici, he never took his eyes off Felix Vion; like him, he rejoiced in seeing evidence of a strength of mind, extending as far as apparent indifference. People moved away from the mysterious individual, while keeping an eye on him.

  Only one person was missing from that cause célèbre whose links to the interested parties ought to have allied him with the defense. Professor Tornada had other things to do; and, moreover—which was less comprehensible—he seemed to have lost interest in the affair. To be sure, when he had heard about the return from Hollywood of the Baronne and her chauffeur, he had not failed to present himself at the Avenue de l’Alma one morning. In too much of a hurry and too respectful of the order that isolated Betty, he had contented himself with questioning Marie, the only member of the numerous staff, except the concierge, who had been retained to look after the house.

  He had been satisfied to learn that Marie’s employer had returned transformed by the diversion of her distant occupations; that she pro
posed to cross the Atlantic again as soon as the trial was over to supervise the building of her studio, currently in progress; and that she would take with her all the elements of a terrifying film of which she would be the incomparable star. Yes, directors, cameramen, set-decorators, sound engineers, actors, musicians and all the tra-la-la would be in her baggage. Abrovici would abandon the steering-wheel in order to return to the camera—and she, Marie, certain of obtaining a small role, would exchange the soubrette’s apron for the train of a robe at the imperial court. My God, but it would cost a great deal! But with her new means, Madame la Baronne could meet the expense. And then, what profits if it succeeded!

  As for the health of Madame la Baronne, Monsieur le Professeur need not worry about it. She was sleeping now, she was eating. Once the trial was over, of which Abrovici reported every detail to her, she would surely become the woman she was before.

  Tornada had not demanded more. He had gone away, leaving his card. When Betty telephoned the clinic to request a further session of the ultra-green rays, she was told that the professor had left for eastern Turkestan in order to operate on a Chinese aristocrat.

  The last phase of the trial had, therefore, been reached. The President of the Court only had, according to the ritual, to pose one last question to the accused. He had been astonished to see him conserve, until then, a perfectly indolent attitude, neither protesting nor revolting, but disdainful, as if he had no doubt as to what awaited him—unless, completely certain of his fate, he was expressing his resignation in that fashion.

  “Accused, please rise. Do you have anything to say in your defense?”

  “Nothing at all.”

  “It’s me who will speak for him!” shouted a voice from the audience.

  It was the voice of the muffled man! Terrified, people saw him stand up and bound toward the bar, shoving his neighbors out of the way and trampling their toes. At the same time he was waving a package, prudently dissimulated until then, which was assumed to be a bomb intended for the tribunal. They were soon to be convinced that it was one, in fact—at least for the prosecution.

  “Guards!” howled the president—but surprise did not allow him to continue.

  The man had just thrown away his scarf and beret and opened his overcoat, and revealed the world-renowned features of Professor Tornada.

  Yes, it really was the unreal, incredible inventor, with his legendary beard and sarcasm perpetually on his lips: a kind of stranger to the humanity that he scorned.

  “Tornada! Tornada!” The exclamation rose up in all directions.

  He stood there with his arms folded, magnificently authoritative.

  For the President of the Court, with that witness, there was nothing to do but give way. Even though the trial was over, his discretionary power permitted him to let the man take the stand, and he was disposed to hear him out. He submitted a few preliminary questions to him, however—and that as the prelude to a parody of what was expected.

  “What is your name?”

  “I have but one, which the whole world knows.”

  “Your age?”

  “I have no age.”

  “Your profession?”

  “That of the chairman of the jury, with the difference that we don’t work on the same meat.”

  The public was already lapping it up. The witty president passed on.

  “You are neither a relative nor an ally of the accused?”

  “I’m his closest relative, insofar as relationship is a selection. I’m also his best ally, as you’ll be able to convince yourself momentarily. But don’t embarrass yourself by questioning me, my dear President. I know that the rules require you also to ask me whether I’m in Von’s service or he is mine. I reply in advance that we’re in one another’s service.”

  Again, the magistrate did not persist.

  “You have not, insofar as you are an unexpected witness, been deposed under oath.”

  “I intend to be, however. I raise my right hand. I swear to speak without hatred and without dread, to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.” But he had accomplished the sacred gesture without letting go of his redoubtable package.

  “You can’t swear with that parcel!”

  “So be it.”

  When he had done it correctly, the President said: “Speak now, Monsieur le Professeur.”

  All breath was suspended on what he was about to say. A supernatural silence fell.

  “Bravo!” said Tornada, thankfully. “One could hear a microbe sigh. But before my explanation, Monsieur le Président, I will permit myself to ask you to accept what you call my parcel.”

  “Is it relevant?”

  “Indispensable, since it contains the truth. Yes, the truth—which I dedicate to the obstinacy of the accusers, and particularly to the innocence of the examining magistrate.”

  “I will not permit you to question Monsieur de Clair’s instruction!” protested the prosecutor, from his bench. “It’s an insult to the Court!”

  “An insult that recognizes that no magistrate has ever merited his patronym as much?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Come on: the huître de Clair! Which we are about to swallow!”

  The audience laughed. The president hid his delight by concentrating excessively on unwrapping the package that Tornada had just thrown to him. He exposed a collection bound in black morocco, on which was engraved in gilded letters: Film of the Murder of Baron Sasoitsu.

  “Are you also working in the cinema, Doctor?”

  “Scientifically, yes. I am the cameraman of an unknown that has not yet been explored. But that requires a few minutes of explanatory lecture. Are you disposed to grant them to me?”

  The President consulted his assessors aurally. “We authorize it.”

  Tornada positioned himself so as to be able to address himself simultaneously to the Court, the jury and the public, toward whom he sometimes turned.

  “Monsieur President of the Court, Messieurs the Counselors, Monsieur the Butcher, Messieurs of the Jury, Mesdames et Messieurs of High Society…and you too, pettifogging lawyers, guards and wage-slaves over there at the back…listen, and try to understand me.

  “Science informs us that matter does not exist in the fashion that our senses perceive it, but in the state of an agglomeration of infinitesimal elements, which are merely various forms of energy, and spend their eternity bombarding on another, putting as much hatred and rage into it as humanity can deploy therein.

  “These forces, these corpuscles, science also tells us, arrive from infinite space as well as from our world, in the form of waves, some of which are collected and put in the service of our well-being. Such are electricity, ultra-violet radiation, infra-red radiation, etc., etc…not to mention others that act upon us without our even suspecting it.

  “I do not want, Messieurs and Mesdames, to extend myself on this subject beyond what your intellect can take aboard, but I beg you to remember that everything that exists is nothing but energy, and that of that energy, one can render oneself master.

  “So, I asked myself, why should not thought, the result of the labor that is carried out in the cerebral laboratory, also be a material phenomenon, the emanation of a similar wave? Does not telepathy prove that it is? And why, since we can capture the forces that reach us from the cosmos, should we not be able also to capture the radiation of the encephalum, and even render it visible by a procedure identical to television, which would permit it to be photographed? It would still be necessary, however, for me to enlist the aid of another energy, to project the cerebral wave toward a recording apparatus.

  “Driven by that conception, I set to work. Oh, it was not without racking the noggin, consecrating long nights to it in my laboratory, sacrificing my patients to it—but I ended up finding it, Mesdames et Messieurs! I finished up harvesting from the cosmos a special radiation, hitherto unknown, the ultra-green—which, when projected on to the skull, traverses it, taking possession of t
he thoughts within, to transmit them to a factor of my invention, susceptible of retaining on film all the images engendered there at the precise moment of the invasion by the ultra-green. To give birth to those images in accordance with what I wanted to learn thus became nothing more than a simple game of suggestion in the course of conversation—and one would not suspect the precision, the rapidity of the images, scenes and the memories that rush forth in no time: the time required to provoke them within the cranial cavity! Thus, I have become an inquisitor, a possessor, a monopolizer and a stealer of souls!”

  Tornada paused momentarily to adopt a more modest attitude.

  “This apparatus,” he went on, “I have baptized the psychovisor. As for the waves, in the same way that others have been called Hertzian waves, I think that posterity, if I deliver them to it, will conserve my name for them. Tornadian waves—don’t you think that has a rather nice ring to it?”

  He swelled with pride. “Now, I have a few things to add, since you’re about to be able to monitor my discovery in the case the interests us today. It will be sufficient to leaf through that album, which contained four photographs on each page—but before then, Monsieur President, one more request...”

  “Go on! Go on!”

  “It’s that you order that no one be allowed to leave this room for as long as your examination of the photographs lasts.”

  “So ordered—guards, close the doors!” the magistrate shouted.

  “Perfect. You can now seek inspiration from my collection. And you too, Monsieur Grand Inquisitor…and you Monsieur Butcher.”

  The President opened the album. As soon as he looked at the first pages, it was obvious that he did not understand any of it.

  “Don’t linger over the beginning,” Tornada told him. The photographs there only relate to animals—for animals too have cerebral processes, a psychology that they apply, in a manner insufficiently appreciated, to mores often more respectable than those of many humans. I restricted my initial experiments, like the prudent researcher I am, to one of our inferior brethren, Callithrix,26 belonging to a class reputed to be the least intelligent of the simian race. Look at what is provoked in that marmoset by the presentation of a peanut. It remembers its youth on the pampas; it gambols, it swings on lianas in company with its comrades. That scene leaves no doubt as to what the delicacy evokes of its past.