Devil's Score: A Tale of decadent omen….

by Edouard Jourdan

  His mind, moreover, wandered on an adventure. Since the discovery of the books, she was under the influence of terror. She no longer doubted that Johan had reached the end of a slow process which, by degrees, had brought him to the brink of crime. An occult influence worked there. He was about to obey the persecutory will. He was going to shed the blood that the TENS of the scarlet banner commanded him to pay. He was going to kill!

  Who?

  Himself, is not it?

  He was too good and too straightforward to harm others. Powerless to disobey mysterious orders, the blood he spilled would be his! Katarina only wanted to witness the tears he had cried after throwing the knives into the door with such frightful skill.

  - However, ...

  However, the unfortunate became sleepwalker! He got up at night, quite asleep, walked and acted, moved by some strange force. And in those hours of absence, where his soul slept in his waking body, what was the body capable of? Withdrawn from the control of conscience, could he not commit misdeeds which Johan, nevertheless, would have to answer? ...

  At any moment, the presence of Katarina seems to frighten him ... He tries, near her, not to fall asleep ... Is it only that he fears to speak in a dream? ... Ah! if he dreads to succumb to this monstrous temptation, no doubt, no doubt he commits suicide! One day, soon, perhaps later, she will find him lying, one of those knives planted in the heart! ...

  "Close all this," she said to Regina. There is nothing ... It's good, thank you. Close quickly. I have to go out.

  She already sees "Demonoplasm" taking Johan to hell. All his being exclaims:

  " To me! "

  And she turns, in her distress, to the old counselor who loves and supports her.

  She went down as one runs away.

  Two slits in the doorway of the Boulevard told him how Johan, on returning at night from the Concert, had found the fourth and fifth knives. This sight precipitated his escape.

  She knocked at M. de Varmand's, so as to make him believe that the devil was on his heels.

  The old gentleman, luckily, was there. He dressed and came to open his pajamas, a razor in his hand. The creamy straight cheek of a mousse so appetizing that it would have been edible.

  - One minute! Please sit down, "he said, pointing to the bear-skin couch.?

  How to refuse him? It was one of those ridiculous little inconveniences against which nothing prevails, but time. Louis XIV himself would have waited for M. de Varmand to finish shaving.

  Katarina, at the height of fatigue, let herself go among the cushions.

  From the back of his dressing-room, the Marquis spoke with the slightest touch, with the evident fear of making a slash:

  - I got dressed to go see you ... to talk about our meeting yesterday ...

  "Shut up," said Katarina, "you're going to cut yourself off.

  She was looking at Isidore the model, standing by the door and still wearing her white suit. She understood the subterfuge of the spiritist. But, in spite of her reason, she was so angry that she looked away, the simulacrum more than ever resembling Johan's demon.

  Then, his eyes met an angled table on a support, to his left, in the withdrawn part of the workshop.

  It was a portrait of a maharajah way beautifully trimmed. But it was also the indisputable portrait of "Demonoplasm", with his smirking Mephisto, his amethyst rings and his emerald eyes, which he fascinated Katarina ...

  This time, the young woman reacts and, trembling with anxious curiosity, approached the painting to brave him in the face.

  O prodigy! The man who stared at her with piercing eyes was still "Demonoplasm", but no longer the maharajah! A Western gentleman had replaced him in the frame. His elegant costume was of immaculate whiteness. Accepting the challenge of his antagonist, the hypnotist portrait had just rejected his ostentatious disguise and appeared under his well-known exterior. The ghost of Saint Maur arose in front of Katarina!

  The multiplied emotions, the throbbing pain of the wounded hand, the continual alarm, the singular place, this skeleton, this model, this ghost ... What woman would not have succumbed?

  At the end of resistance, she beat the air like a father who goes for it, and collapsed plaintively.

  3 – SIR MELCHIOR

  ... At last the eyes opened.

  M. de Varmand, without ceasing to keep the bottle of salts under Madame Bansberg's nostrils, could not refrain from admiring these. Surrounded by the violets of fainting, they had never been so vast, so beautiful, so singular. They devoured the face and their unusual charm resisted analysis. A peculiar grace was in them, which was felt without it being possible to put it in the account of the glance or the very eye, the brilliancy or the iris, the mind, or the lashes. And the old connoisseur complained that Johan had other things than those of love.

  The eyes were open, and the night of nothingness left them little by little, driven away by a dawn of soul.

  They turned sharply to the portrait.

  The Marquis suddenly understood, and his face expressed the violent annoyance of those who perceive a foolishness they have made.

  "Do not be afraid," he said gently. It's only a painting, a portrait I did before ...

  - Of whom? whispered Katarina.

  - One of my good friends ...

  - "Demonoplasm"?

  - No, no, my child! I'm an old beast ... The other day, when you gave me your confidences, I should have told you ... I foolishly believed that it was better to silence me momentarily, think ... "Demonoplasm" does not exist!

  - But who is this individual here in the frame?

  - This is the one we called Sir Melchior - Melchior Chadiot - an original, certainly, but the best of beings! And a Luciferian nobleman.

  Katarina passed on her face with white hands with still bluish nails.

  "Sir was my friend," continued the Marquis. I had fun doing my portrait in three different ways. See, this picture is only an ingenious triptych, as one does to entertain people. You know that I do have a passion for tricks and schemes ...

  He rotated the support of the painting, and according to whether he presented it face-to-face or sideways, one saw the same personage sometimes in a white suit, sometimes in rajah and sometimes in a mage's robe. Closer to home, the painting showed fine parallels that scratched it vertically.

  – Yes but, therefore…Katarina said

  "Yes, that is the death of Saint Maur, of which you have spoken to me. Sir was killed in the disaster. I had just been informed of its end when you came, in your turn, to announce your misfortune. My sorrow was profound, but you brought me another that surpassed it! ... I just released this picture, to see the effect it would have on Johan on his next visit; because the test of the manikin did not give anything.

  - So, this model, her resemblance ...

  - Melchior Chadiot was endowed with an impressive face whose strange strangeness he enjoyed. We laughed, when I reproduced it on Isidore's shoulders!

  - But let's see! So, is it Mr. Chadiot that I found dead on Johan?

  - Certainly. And I counted on enlightening you today.

  - And it's him who appeared to me ...

  "There can be no doubt about it," replied M. de Varmand, in a hesitating tone.

  "But then your friend is a criminal, a villain, an odious executioner!

  - That's what I cannot admit. Dead or alive, Sir Melchior cannot do evil. He has never been guilty of venial eccentricities, for example to dress in white.

  - However!

  - That it appeared to you, that it returns, to the rigor, it is possible. But let him come back to harm or to avenge himself ... Johan should have done him a lot of harm! and say, can Johan harm anyone?

  "My God, my God," Katarina moaned, and I thought your explanation was going to explain everything! ... So, Johan, yesterday, in front of Isidore dressed in white? ...

  - Not the shadow of emotion. Moreover, as far as it seems, Sir Melchior is unknown to him. He will have traveled in the same car without knowing it
- until proven otherwise.

  - And this ... Sir, he was strong in occultism?

  - Very.

  "Beyond the spirits, the ghosts, he believed in them?

  - As of right ... And even more: he had made a deal with the devil incarnate.

  - Sir Melchior! ... But I did not notice that name in the list of the dead! ... Ah! if: Chadiot! I remember. But we only put the initial of the first name. "Mr. Chadiot," it did not tell me anything. "Melchior", it would have hit me ...

  "My name is Tristan," said M. de Varmand, "like Hermit and Bernard.

  - How do you have the heart to joke!

  "Because," he replied, "I am convinced that everything will end well, because your black beast, or rather your white man, is incapable of the crimes you accuse him of.

  - The sky hears you!

  - In heaven, I'm not sure ... Now that you're back, let me report on yesterday's session.

  "I did not learn anything, at least nothing positive ... But the deduction made me suppose certain things ... And if Johan agrees to return one of these days ...

  - Unhappy! exclaimed Katarina. But it is immediately that we must act! If you knew!

  And the Marquis was made aware of the Venetian ticket, the scene of the knives, the inventory of the "Hand's Room" and the probable imminence of a criminal denouement!

  He remained pensive, bringing all this to a question that Johan had asked him the day before carelessly: "Have you mentioned the souls of assassins? Then:

  "I found," he says, "the greatest hopes for Johan's next visit. It is essential that he come here at the earliest. Tomorrow, for example. I do my business. And this time, I'll get it! ... Listen: tomorrow night, after dinner, stay home; do not go to the Purple Concert. I will come to see you before Johan returns. I will have received it in the afternoon. I will know. At least, I'll be on the road, or I'm just a cannon - which is possible.

  - Oh! Katarina exclaimed.

  "My dear child," said the Marquis, "do not protest. I have never been very clever, but there were times of stupidity in my life where I thought myself intelligent; and the only proof I have of not being stupid is to believe that I am.

  - Ah! said Katarina, only you can get us out of there! I cannot understand what's going on. Since Johan has recovered his rings - rings that have been stolen and returned - everything has suddenly increased, the race to the abyss has accelerated, and now it's almost the fall! Ah! What about the rings?

  - I think that indeed the rings are for something in all this. One more word: you confided everything to me, did you not?

  - I give you my word.

  - Good. I followed Johan from early childhood to marriage, and I say that nothing in his past has given birth to current events. But you, since your wedding, have you noticed ...

  - I answer him until the catastrophe of Saint Maur ...

  - Perfect.

  - ... But then, alas! ... He is as mysterious to me as masked and hooded. We have been tracking him since then. I saw him day by day more breathless ... He is cornered. He is at bay! The death horn is ringing. But who will die? ...

  - Nobody, we must hope!

  - Ten! They are ten against him!

  - And then after?

  - And seven ... What does it mean?

  "If I do not tell you tomorrow night, it is because I will need to meditate for a few more hours; for I will know the indispensable, having used the great game.

  - This will be the last card!

  - She is all-powerful.

  - It consists…?

  - Ah! I may be wrong to always surround myself with mystery. Today's lesson has been tough. It is…

  - No! I prefer not knowing anything! My weakness dreads both hope and disappointment ...

  - May I assure you that already the reasoning makes me glimpse the truth?

  - But to foresee is not power!

  - Sometimes.

  And the Marquis considered the ceiling, not - great gods! As a host weary of an unwelcome visit, but rather as if he feared that his glance, in posing here and there, would make us guess, by some insistence, the sovereign expedient which he wished to use.

  And he whistled Queen Hortense's Air, with the affected distraction of the Prince-President on the eve of the over throne.

  4 – NIGHT MYSTERY

  Nine o'clock in the evening.

  Katarina, with folded arms and anxious eyes, came and went from the living room to the dining room.

  The door was open to four doors, and for this purpose the two small rooms totaled. But the smallness of the dwelling resisted the process. The grand piano took up a third of the living room, the table of the dining room left only a narrow walk around it. Katarina bypassed seats designed for larger venues and who remembered Rue Lesueur.

  A single lamp burned on the woman, where the neglected embroidery waited for her to be picked up or folded.

  In the half-light, the order of things, the planting of the decor had an air of refinement: this indefinable air of arrangement and shine, which reveals recent care and an approaching reception. Each vase had its reflection, each flower was at his post. The stuffs made the desired folds. The army of trinkets was under arms. No chair point that was oriented for the better. The shepherd, from start to finish, tried to keep as little space as possible. The lamps, to shine, were waiting for a signal. Shaded with shade, but laden with laces, crystals, and goldsmiths, the table sparkled mutedly, as if impatient to shine at the command of the torches.

  M. de Varmand was desired. Katarina sometimes stopped walking; she listened, taking the beatings of her heart for steps on the stairs.

  Regina, passing her head through the crack in the doorway, said happily:

  - Here it is! I hear him sing!

  Katarina was on the landing, containing in her bosom the transports of drunkenness. M. de Varmand ascended, in truth, preceded by his voice. He shamelessly disguised Don José's air of bravery:

  - Stop there! Who's there! Alcala Dragon! ...

  Finally! Finally! He was singing! He had succeeded! The mystery was pierced, the misfortune conjured!

  He made the military salute on the last step, throwing his last note, as the tradition of the comic opera demanded; and as the next-door neighbor was showing a sullen face, Katarina pushed the Marquis into the apartment.

  - Varmand! he said. Without t, with a s!

  He laughed with a wide silent and triumphant laugh, and looked at the splendid young woman with happiness.

  - So ... say!

  - I know everything! he said, touching his forehead with a rigid index finger. With her hand clutching her eyes, Katarina, dazzled, repeated:

  - Is it possible! Is it possible!

  "Do not go too fast," said M. de Varmand. I know everything, but I will not say anything.

  - Oh!

  - Nothing tonight! Tomorrow the stories, the measures taken and the curtain on the last act.

  - Still "tomorrow"! Why?

  - I have all the elements of the solution. The solution, I have it there, in the hand, as I have the arm of this chair.

  - So? What are you missing?

  - The confirmation. I want it, by coquetry. And I know where to take it. Tomorrow, before noon, I'll get it. You cannot not give it to me. A few hours later, everything will be over.

  - Come on, be it! Katarina agreed, her enthusiasm subsiding. But could you, this evening, obtain this confirmation?

  "I promised you to come, and Johan did not leave me until eight o'clock. By the way, what face was he coming home?

  - Fade, as usual. He had dinner at a gallop. He only had time.

  - Did he tell you about the meeting?

  - Vaguely.

  - Impressed? More impressed than last time?

  - Oh! no. As I asked him details, he replied that all this was childishness, and that the subconscious was all the expense of your evocations ... A thousand excuses, Marquis!

  M. de Varmand rubbed his hands and continued to laugh.

  "B
ut you," said Katarina, "will you not tell me what you have done?

  - Super session, Madam, incomparable session!

  - You are annoying! Tell me what happened, see!

  - Well! we talked about souls of assassins!

  - Oh! No, listen, do not look serious; you are scaring me. With you, you never know whether to laugh or cry.