Almost immediately a sepulcher light faintly illuminated a remote corner, where jars began to smoke as if by magic. The relent of the vaults and the aroma of the chapels struck both Johan's nostrils.
"I did not know your magic skills," he said in a slightly guttural tone.
We did not answer. The Marquis took him to the corner of the room. This greenish light lent a gloomy appearance to all things.
Between two tripods from which emanated a wavy cloud, we discovered, cutaway, a kind of silver altar supporting a frame way ended by a triangular pediment. This pediment was adorned with cabalistic inscriptions, and this frame, which resembled at once the portico of a temple and the stage of a theater, was enclosed by a black drapery, fringed with silver.
"Sit down," said the Marquis, in a voice that seemed to resonate under a vault. Today I will not let you know the supreme mystery of my knowledge; my last process might frighten the bravest; it will be for another time.
- Oh that! That's wonderful! Johan snorted. It's like being in a catacomb, and you look like a corpse!
- Take these acorns, one in each hand.
Two braids hung on the right and left of the frame; each of them ended with an acorn. Johan, sitting before the altar on a stool, took the acorns as prescribed.
- Listen, now. A painting will appear to you. It is painted on a canvas woven of aloe and linen; the threads of this canvas continue beyond the frame; plaited in two braids, it is they whose extremity you hold. The weft threads lead to your left hand, the warp threads to your right hand. Look, now!
The two braids blamed the one who held them. The black curtain had just deviated, and at the bottom of a little box there was an unforgettable spectacle.
It was, in the chiaroscuro of the crypts, a severed head, suspended by the hair. A bearded young man's head, of an august beauty. The brown hair had red highlights. The face, stamped with deathly severity, affected the superlative pallor that follows the beheadings. In the blue shadow of the orbits, closed eyes joined their long eyelashes; and the bloodless lips were the representation of silence. The intelligent lighting increased the illusion; an astonishing relief shaped the trompe l'oeil. Johan could not believe that it was a painting spread on a flat canvas, and not some simulacrum executed from nature by a frightfully skillful artist. It looked like a challengein space. There was all the horror of truth there with all the emotion of art. But the black curtain, on leaving, had given way to a cold wave impregnated with an earthy odor so strangely sepulchral,that a doubt remained in Johan's mind concerning the true nature of this machination.
- Saint Jean Baptist? He asked.
"Nobody and all," replied the Marquis. All the dead. This is not necromancy itself. As you will see, we are in the presence of a simple improvement of talking tables. But the spirits seem to prefer this to the tables.
- What should I do?
- Fix the eyes of the dead.
- Here. And after?
- Wait until they open.
- Pleasure? exclaimed Johan with startling voice
The eyelids will rise and fall as many times as there are letters in the alphabet to that which the dead want to indicate. This method couples the system of speaking tables and the means used by some doctors who, in agreement with the patients, have tried to know if the head of a guillotine survives a few moments in the cutting.
Johan turned around:
- Do you have something, come on?
- On my honor, I swear you no. Ah! I forgot: nothing must transpire from the revelations of the hereafter. Neither you nor I should betray anything. The secret of the tomb can only be entrusted to tombs.
The gravity of the spirit distracted his pupil. This jolly fellow, suddenly becoming serious as an officiant, gave occultism a rather high idea. Johan had an involuntary movement of the eyebrows. M. de Varmand observed it, and that was easy, for the light of the den cast his lividity on the young man's face, and illuminated it like a window. This figure, thus clothed with the hues of death, was attentive and somewhat anxious.
- Look. I will note the letters as you write them.
- Say them? Why not you?
- Because you will be alone to see the eyes open, being alone to hold the braids.
For a moment, Johan focused his attention on the eyes of the beheaded.
- Is it necessary for me to think of something special? he said without interrupting his aim.
- No, not at all! The dead will begin by revealing his name to us.
- I distinguished a shudder ...
- Good. Who are you, O Death? Welcome! Do not be afraid to animate this inert form. Go down among those who have only respect for your fellowmen. O Death, who are you?
- A, said Johan.
Eyelids opened slowly. Two eyes rested on him a soft and penetrating look. He saw the eyelids close and start beating unhurriedly, sometimes slowing their silent diction.
- B, C, D, E, F ...
There were several hesitations, letters were spread out, especially towards the end, and then, as if in truth the dead man had blinked to clear his eyes, M. de Varmand heard a hasty succession:
- ... U, V, W, X, Y, Z.
- Z! if he cried. Keep on going!
Again, the dead man indicated the letter Z. Then Johan declared that the eyes did not want to move.
- It does not work, concludes the spiritist. There is something wrong.
"I'm tired," said Johan.
- Come on! A little energy! ... It's my fault, too. I should have specified. The dead will come in crowds ... Let's see, let's specify. Do you wish to converse with a particular dead person? Do you want us to call ... who? A great musician? ... to be more precise: a great pianist?
- If you want; but in a minute. I do not know why: you see me exhausted.
- Only natural, my boy. Rest.
In front of the pale head that spread her aura over him, Johan, exhausted, closed his eyes like her.
- Drink a little Malaga. He emptied his glass.
- Well?
- Here I am.
- Do you start to believe that I am not an illusionist? This tiredness ...
- Yes, I tend to believe it.
- Trend, trend ... I want this trend to become faith. Take back the braids. Spirits of the dead! We call here the manes of a great late pianist. Shadow, go! Tell us the name you bore among the living!
- A, B, C, D ...
The beating eyes stopped on the letter S. Then on the T. Then on E.
Johan, despite his emotion, continued valiantly to read and speak.
The last letter was a C.
The neophyte had let go of the braids, and looked in the darkness at the confused silhouette of the Marquis. He remained silent. Both were looking for phrases they could not find. The dead dictated this injunction, which was written: KILL THEM!
SECOND PART – Crimes
1 – VENETIAN JUGGLER
That Johan Bansberg died as a famous musician, neither he nor M. de Varmand doubted it. Nevertheless, the decay of the pianist had taken on such a striking expression; the truth had been formulated so unexpectedly; she had profited, to manifest herself, from an apparatus so imposing, that the silence of their stupor was prolonged.
M. de Varmand broke it, not without effort.
- Those dead are resurrected! he said cheerfully.
But the incident had plunged Johan into the obsession of his misfortune; he seemed prey to despondency; and that day they did not mention the dead any longer.
"It takes a certain habit," said the Marquis. Do not get discouraged. I promise you incomparable enjoyments. Remember that today we have only tasted occult science. My painting is only a toy, an accessory of elementary necromancy. Come back to see me. Next time, I'll show you things that are quite surprising.
- Damn! What must it be, then! ... You made me shudder, with your painting!
The voice joked, but hoarse, and the tense face sketched a smile on his lips, which did not irritate either the forehead or the
eyes.
Through the large open bay of the curtain, the light of a beautiful evening invaded the studio. The magical sanctuary was only a corner of shadow behind a screen. The smell of hypogea had given way to the scents of myrrh and cinnamon.
- See you soon, is not it? You will see the wonderful wonder that I discovered!
- See you soon, said Johan softly.
The other declaimed, comical and grandiloquent:
- Remember that I'm mute like the grave!
The closed door animated the skeleton. M. de Varmand, left alone, made a face and checked his baldness with a caress.
"I do not know anything," he murmured.
Devil of a man! "Secret as the grave," he was only too much. Was he sincere, or was he not? Did he really believe in the evocation of the dead? Did he really possess, in order to evoke them, a more terrible means than this cut head painted in trompe-l'oeil? And what about this head, what did he think about it, under that balding forehead that he liked to joke, as if to divert public attention from the contents to the container? ...
It does not matter to us when we are. For, in any case, whether the sitting had been serious or not; that the eyes of the picture were really open and closed for Johan, or that he, yielding to the solicitations of his subconscious, would have thought they were speaking, the result was the same, in a certain respect.
Indeed, in either case, Johan was the master of faithfully translating the language of the eyes, or of disguising it by indicating letters of his choice.
This is why the soliloquy to which M. de Varmand gave himself at the departure of Johan would have learned nothing of his intimate convictions to the indiscreet - or the indiscreet - who would have listened to him.
"I do not know anything," he repeated. The guy, in any case, did only what he wanted. Mastiff! What nerves! What concentration! It is, moreover, on the flank ... I had hoped for more abandonment, less distrust ... If he spelled me all along the name Johan Bansberg, it is because he did not see inconvenience, that's for sure. So, the thing must have no kind of interest ... But what about the first test? Both Z, then silence? The alphabet said twice in a row, until the end, then nothing? Natural scrambling, or intentional scrambling? ... It would not be the first time that a talking table, or a talking board, would provoke illegible, nil answers. But who certifies me that Johan did not cheat? Frightened by the dreadful letter he had to proclaim, not even wanting me to know the initial of the name he felt imminent, why would he not ignore it, and continue the alphabet until Z, twice, for free?
"If I had known, I would have used the means immediately. A more violent impression would undoubtedly have neutralized Johan's presence of spirit. More intimidated, the boy will lose the tramontane, and I will know everything. "
Johan, meanwhile, was going home for dinner.
Katarina was waiting for him with some impatience.
He told him the Spiritism session exactly as we have told it.
- In sum, he concludes, it is a variant of tables that speak. Instead of being several around a small table, we are alone in front of a painting. It is not a piece of furniture that rises and falls, it is an image that opens and closes the eyes - a rigged image, similar to that Veil of Saint Véronique that everyone knows, where are painted at the same time, intermingling their lines, open eyes and closed eyes.
"But," said Katarina, turning or talking tables, what do you think?
- What you think about it yourself. What all reasonable people think. It is undeniable that they turn and strike; but the spirits have nothing to do with it. They move under the influence of unconscious weighing; and these weighing, unknowingly exercised by one of the participants, reflect the deep thought of his subconscious. There is really neither spiritualism nor necromancy. It is a phenomenon as normal as the dream ... The idea ofmy misfortune does not leave me. I gave him, in my subconscious, an eloquent form: that of the artistic death. My dreams sometimes lend him more sinister forms that, in the waking state, would not come to my mind ...
Katarina was thinking.
"At last," she said jokingly, "the Marquis did not convince you.
- Certainly not. All this is childish, hollow.
- At least, did you hide his opinion?
- Especially as the staging is disturbing, and I was tired enough ... Now it seems that our friend knows something else ... But ...
- You let go of the initiation?
- I'd rather Robert Houdin. It's franker.
The success of the good plot was seriously compromised. Katarina was learning it with despair. What happiness it would have been, for her, to see Johan return from the workshop in wonder and enthusiasm, won by occultism, taken by a new passion! What! tomorrow would be a step closer to the frightening and mysterious term? Tomorrow, Johan would be darker than today, more nervous, more relentless to his pianist's salvation, more prodigal and more maniacal? ...
These last days had been abominable. Johan's neurasthenia was showing an accentuated curve. Several times during the day, he seemed to be suffering from anguish. Suddenly he was seen walking around the little apartment like a lame lion in his cage, haggard eye, involuntary gesture; or, at the end of resistance, let yourself go into an armchair, without strength, livid, the face swollen with cold sweat. Then he was going to lock himself up with his books, his machines, his tools ...
The dinner was brief. Johan ate little. The session of spiritism was already far from his thought. He got up from the table first and headed for the "Hand's Room". Before leaving for the Purple Concert, he had time to do some massage or anointing.
Katarina and Regina, who was serving, exchanged a dismayed look.
A kind of affection now attached the mistress to the servant. Mme. Bansberg had found in this girl a true ally who understood the situation with a great deal of heart and tact, cleverly lavished comfort, cared for the coquetry of the home, and, far from exploiting Katarina's friendship, employed all her industry to achieve in the household train the most commendable savings. Finally, Katarina, although Parisian in this, was grateful to her, to a point that one could not say, to look like a Marquise maid, when she was, in truth, only one of those good-by-all, whose exteriors are more often of sloth than of chambermaids.
The servant pointed to the "Hand's Room".
- Why does not Madame see what's going on in there? she said in a persuasive tone where there was all the tenderness, respect and reproach.
Good advice, more than once given, never followed. The spy job displeased Katarina. But that night, everything seemed to go to hell. It was time to act by oneself. The resolution was taken in the blink of an eye. It was no longer right to neglect, under pretense of scruples, what could contribute to the extraction of the truth. Since the Marquis did not succeed, it was now Katarina's turn!
As well, she prided herself on clairvoyance, and her wit, her education, her reading had, she thought, predisposed to police tricks.
A "666" flamed before her like an imaginary wisp. It was the number of knives, and at the same time it was the unknown of the problem to be solved, the unknown to be released. Recalling her memories of high school, Katarina approached the riddle as a question of algebra, and resolved to first look for the data that allowed the equation of the tragic problem.
Her feet, duly slipped with slippers, carried her noiselessly to the "Hand's Room".
The door was closed. The key, luckily, did not block the keyhole, being turned to the side.
A minute later, Katarina retreated. Johan, pressed by the hour, had just got up from his chair to leave. No sooner had she had the time to glimpse at him closing an anatomy book and squeezing into a box a skeleton hand on which he was following the developments of the book. Dr. Faust, bent over his grimoire, who pushes him away and exclaims in C major: "Nothing! Nothing! Is not darker.
Katarina was ready before her husband. She did not want to leave him for a few days. And then she had noticed that Johan did not want her to appear at the Purple Orchestra; he
seemed to fear that she would learn something from it. Getting there every night was essential.
The musician, seeing that she was about to accompany him, made no objection, but did not open his mouth until they entered the establishment of the Rue Saint-Sulpice.
The time of the concert sounded.
In July, when the weather is nice, the Parisians leave the music for the walk. The Purple Orchestra was about to announce its annual closing. Although it was there and a concert and a coffee, the room was half empty.
Katarina, to breathe better, placed herself near the door, which was left ajar.
Devil's Score: A Tale of decadent omen…. Page 13
