The Secret of Sarek

by Maurice Leblanc

  CHAPTER II

  ON THE EDGE OF THE ATLANTIC

  Veronique's state of mind underwent a sudden alteration. Even as she hadfled resolutely from the threat of danger that seemed to loom up beforeher from the evil past, so she was now determined to pursue to the endthe dread road which was opening before her.

  This change was due to a tiny gleam which flashed abruptly through thedarkness. She suddenly realized the fact, a simple matter enough, thatthe arrow denoted a direction and that the number 10 must be the tenthof a series of numbers which marked a course leading from one fixedpoint to another.

  Was it a sign set up by one person with the object of guiding the stepsof another? It mattered little. The main thing was that there was here aclue capable of leading Veronique to the discovery of the problem whichinterested her: by what prodigy did the initials of her maiden namereappear amid this tangle of tragic circumstances?

  The carriage sent from Le Faouet overtook her. She stepped in and toldthe driver to go very slowly to Rosporden.

  She arrived in time for dinner; and her anticipations had not misledher. Twice she saw her signature, each time before a division in theroad, accompanied by the numbers 11 and 12.

  Veronique slept at Rosporden and resumed her investigations on thefollowing morning.

  The number 12, which she found on the wall of a church-yard, sent heralong the road to Concarneau, which she had almost reached before shesaw any further inscriptions. She fancied that she must have beenmistaken, retraced her steps and wasted a whole day in uselesssearching.

  It was not until the next day that the number 13, very nearlyobliterated, directed her towards Fouesnant. Then she abandoned thisdirection, to follow, still in obedience to the signs, somecountry-roads in which she once more lost her way.

  At last, four days after leaving Le Faouet, she found herself facing theAtlantic, on the great beach of Beg-Meil.

  She spent two nights in the village without gathering the least reply tothe discreet questions which she put to the inhabitants. At last, onemorning, after wandering among the half-buried groups of rocks whichintersect the beach and upon the low cliffs, covered with trees andcopses, which hem it in, she discovered, between two oaks stripped oftheir bark, a shelter built of earth and branches which must at one timehave been used by custom-house officers. A small menhir stood at theentrance. The menhir bore the inscription, followed by the number 17. Noarrow. A full stop underneath; and that was all.

  In the shelter were three broken bottles and some empty meat-tins.

  "This was the goal," thought Veronique. "Some one has been having ameal here. Food stored in advance, perhaps."

  Just then she noticed that, at no great distance, by the edge of alittle bay which curved like a shell amid the neighbouring rocks, a boatwas swinging to and fro, a motor-boat. And she heard voices coming fromthe village, a man's voice and a woman's.

  From the place where she stood, all that she could see at first was anelderly man carrying in his arms half-a-dozen bags of provisions, pottedmeats and dried vegetables. He put them on the ground and said:

  "Well, had a pleasant journey, M'ame Honorine?"

  "Fine!"

  "And where have you been?"

  "Why, Paris . . . a week of it . . . running errands for my master."

  "Glad to be back?"

  "Of course I am."

  "And you see, M'ame Honorine, you find your boat just where she was. Icame to have a look at her every day. This morning I took away hertarpaulin. Does she run as well as ever?"

  "First-rate."

  "Besides, you're a master pilot, you are. Who'd have thought, M'ameHonorine, that you'd be doing a job like this?"

  "It's the war. All the young men in our island are gone and the old onesare fishing. Besides, there's no longer a fortnightly steamboat service,as there used to be. So I go the errands."

  "What about petrol?"

  "We've plenty to go on with. No fear of that."

  "Well, good-bye for the present, M'ame Honorine. Shall I help you putthe things on board?"

  "Don't you trouble; you're in a hurry."

  "Well, good-bye for the present," the old fellow repeated. "Till nexttime, M'ame Honorine. I'll have the parcels ready for you."

  He went away, but, when he had gone a little distance, called out:

  "All the same, mind the jagged reefs round that blessed island of yours!I tell you, it's got a nasty name! It's not called Coffin Island, theisland of the thirty coffins, for nothing! Good luck to you, M'ameHonorine!"

  He disappeared behind a rock.

  Veronique had shuddered. The thirty coffins! The very words which shehad read in the margin of that horrible drawing!

  She leant forward. The woman had come a few steps nearer the boat and,after putting down some more provisions which she had been carrying,turned round.

  Veronique now saw her full-face. She wore a Breton costume; and herhead-dress was crowned by two black wings.

  "Oh," stammered Veronique, "that head-dress in the drawing . . . thehead-dress of the three crucified women!"

  The Breton woman looked about forty. Her strong face, tanned by the sunand the cold, was bony and rough-hewn but lit up by a pair of large,dark, intelligent, gentle eyes. A heavy gold chain hung down upon herbreast. Her velvet bodice fitted her closely.

  She was humming in a very low voice as she took up her parcels andloaded the boat, which made her kneel on a big stone against which theboat was moored. When she had done, she looked at the horizon, which wascovered with black clouds. She did not seem anxious about them, however,and, loosing the painter, continued her song, but in a louder voice,which enabled Veronique to hear the words. It was a slow melody, achildren's lullaby; and she sang it with a smile which revealed a set offine, white teeth.

  "And the mother said, Rocking her child a-bed:

  'Weep not. If you do, The Virgin Mary weeps with you.

  Babes that laugh and sing Smiles to the Blessed Virgin bring.

  Fold your hands this way And to sweet Mary pray.'"

  She did not complete the song. Veronique was standing before her, withher face drawn and very pale.

  Taken aback, the other asked:

  "What's the matter?"

  Veronique, in a trembling voice, replied:

  "That song! Who taught it you? Where do you get it from? . . . It's asong my mother used to sing, a song of her own country, Savoy . . . .And I have never heard it since . . . since she died . . . . So I want. . . I should like . . ."

  She stopped. The Breton woman looked at her in silence, with an air ofstupefaction, as though she too were on the point of asking questions.But Veronique repeated:

  "Who taught it you?"

  "Some one over there," the woman called Honorine answered, at last.

  "Over there?"

  "Yes, some one on my island."

  Veronique said, with a sort of dread:

  "Coffin Island?"

  "That's just a name they call it by. It's really the Isle of Sarek."

  They still stood looking at each other, with a look in which a certaindoubt was mingled with a great need of speech and understanding. And atthe same time they both felt that they were not enemies.

  Veronique was the first to continue:

  "Excuse me, but, you see, there are things which are so puzzling . . ."

  The Breton woman nodded her head in approval and Veronique continued:

  "So puzzling and so disconcerting! . . . For instance, do you know whyI'm here? I must tell you. Perhaps you alone can explain . . . It's likethis: an accident--quite a small accident, but really it all began withthat--brought me to Brittany for the first time and showed me, on thedoor of an old, deserted, road-side cabin, the initials which I used tosign when I was a girl, a signature which I have not used for fourteenor fifteen years. As I went on, I discovered the same inscription manytimes repeated, with each time a different consecutive number. That washow I came here, to the beach at Beg-Meil
and to this part of thebeach, which appeared to be the end of a journey foreseen and arrangedby . . . I don't know whom."

  "Is your signature here?" asked Honorine, eagerly. "Where?"

  "On that stone, above us, at the entrance to the shelter."

  "I can't see from here. What are the letters?"

  "V. d'H."

  The Breton woman suppressed a movement. Her bony face betrayed profoundemotion, and, hardly opening her lips, she murmured:

  "Veronique . . . Veronique d'Hergemont."

  "Ah," exclaimed the younger woman, "so you know my name, you know myname!"

  Honorine took Veronique's two hands and held them in her own. Herweather-beaten face lit up with a smile. And her eyes grew moist withtears as she repeated:

  "Mademoiselle Veronique! . . . Madame Veronique! . . . So it's you,Veronique! . . . O Heaven, is it possible! The Blessed Virgin Mary bepraised!"

  Veronique felt utterly confounded and kept on saying:

  "You know my name . . . you know who I am . . . . Then you can explainall this riddle to me?"

  After a long pause, Honorine replied:

  "I can explain nothing. I don't understand either. But we can try tofind out together . . . . Tell me, what was the name of that Bretonvillage?"

  "Le Faouet."

  "Le Faouet. I know. And where was the deserted cabin?"

  "A mile and a quarter away."

  "Did you look in?"

  "Yes; and that was the most terrible thing of all. Inside the cabin was. . ."

  "What was in the cabin?"

  "First of all, the dead body of a man, an old man, dressed in the localcostume, with long white hair and a grey beard . . . . Oh, I shall neverforget that dead man! . . . He must have been murdered, poisoned, Idon't know what . . . ."

  Honorine listened greedily, but the murder seemed to give her no clueand she merely asked:

  "Who was it? Did they have an inquest?"

  "When I came back with the people from Le Faouet, the corpse haddisappeared."

  "Disappeared? But who had removed it?"

  "I don't know."

  "So that you know nothing?"

  "Nothing. Except that, the first time, I found in the cabin a drawing. . . a drawing which I tore up; but its memory haunts me like anightmare that keeps on recurring. I can't get it out of my mind . . . .Listen, it was a roll of paper on which some one had evidently copied anold picture and it represented . . . Oh, a dreadful, dreadful thing,four women crucified! And one of the women was myself, with my name. . . . And the others wore a head-dress like yours."

  Honorine had squeezed her hands with incredible violence:

  "What's that you say?" she cried. "What's that you say? Four womencrucified?"

  "Yes; and there was something about thirty coffins, consequently aboutyour island."

  The Breton woman put her hands over Veronique's lips to silence them:

  "Hush! Hush! Oh, you mustn't speak of all that! No, no, you mustn't. . . . You see, there are devilish things . . . which it's a sacrilegeto talk about . . . . We must be silent about that . . . . Later on,we'll see . . . another year, perhaps . . . . Later on . . . . Later on. . . ."

  She seemed shaken by terror, as by a gale which scourges the trees andoverwhelms all living things. And suddenly she fell on her knees uponthe rock and muttered a long prayer, bent in two, with her hands beforeher face, so completely absorbed that Veronique asked her no morequestions.

  At last she rose and, presently, said:

  "Yes, this is all terrifying, but I don't see that it makes our duty anydifferent or that we can hesitate at all."

  And, addressing Veronique, she said, gravely:

  "You must come over there with me."

  "Over there, to your island?" replied Veronique, without concealing herreluctance.

  Honorine again took her hands and continued, still in that same, rathersolemn tone which appeared to Veronique to be full of secret andunspoken thoughts:

  "Your name is truly Veronique d'Hergemont?"

  "Yes."

  "Who was your father?"

  "Antoine d'Hergemont."

  "You married a man called Vorski, who said he was a Pole?"

  "Yes, Alexis Vorski."

  "You married him after there was a scandal about his running off withyou and after a quarrel between you and your father?"

  "Yes."

  "You had a child by him?"

  "Yes, a son, Francois."

  "A son that you never knew, in a manner of speaking, because he waskidnapped by your father?"

  "Yes."

  "And you lost sight of the two after a shipwreck?"

  "Yes, they are both dead."

  "How do you know?"

  It did not occur to Veronique to be astonished at this question, and shereplied:

  "My personal enquiries and the police enquiries were both based upon thesame indisputable evidence, that of the four sailors."

  "Who's to say they weren't telling lies?"

  "Why should they tell lies?" asked Veronique, in surprise.

  "Their evidence may have been bought; they may have been told what tosay."

  "By whom?"

  "By your father."

  "But what an idea! . . . Besides, my father was dead!"

  "I say once more: how do you know that?"

  This time Veronique appeared stupefied:

  "What are you hinting?" she whispered.

  "One minute. Do you know the names of those four sailors?"

  "I did know them, but I don't remember them."

  "You don't remember that they were Breton names?"

  "Yes, I do. But I don't see that . . ."

  "If you never came to Brittany, your father often did, because of thebooks he used to write. He used to stay in Brittany during your mother'slifetime. That being so, he must have had relations with the men of thecountry. Suppose that he had known the four sailors a long time, thatthese men were devoted to him or bribed by him and that he engaged themspecially for that adventure. Suppose that they began by landing yourfather and your son at some little Italian port and that then, beingfour good swimmers, they scuttled and sank their yacht in view of thecoast. Just suppose it."

  "But the men are living!" cried Veronique, in growing excitement. "Theycan be questioned."

  "Two of them are dead; they died a natural death a few years ago. Thethird is an old man called Maguennoc; you will find him at Sarek. As forthe fourth, you may have seen him just now. He used the money which hemade out of that business to buy a grocer's shop at Beg-Meil."

  "Ah, we can speak to him at once!" cried Veronique, eagerly. "Let's goand fetch him."

  "Why should we? I know more than he does."

  "You know? You know?"

  "I know everything that you don't. I can answer all your questions. Askme what you like."

  But Veronique dared not put the great question to her, the one which wasbeginning to quiver in the darkness of her consciousness. She was afraidof a truth which was perhaps not inconceivable, a truth of which sheseemed to catch a faint glimpse; and she stammered, in mournful accents:

  "I don't understand, I don't understand . . . . Why should my fatherhave behaved like that? Why should he wish himself and my poor child tobe thought dead?"

  "Your father had sworn to have his revenge."

  "On Vorski, yes; but surely not on me, his daughter? . . . . And such arevenge!"

  "You loved your husband. Once you were in his power, instead of runningaway from him, you consented to marry him. Besides, the insult was apublic one. And you know what your father was, with his violent,vindictive temperament and his rather . . . his rather unbalancednature, to use his own expression."

  "But since then?"

  "Since then! Since then! He felt remorseful as he grew older, what withhis affection for the child . . . and he tried everywhere to find you.The journeys I have taken, beginning with my journey to the Carmelitesat Chartres! But you had left long ago . . . and where for? Where wereyou
to be found?"

  "You could have advertised in the newspapers."

  "He did try advertising, once, very cautiously, because of the scandal.There was a reply. Some one made an appointment and he kept it. Do youknow who came to meet him? Vorski, Vorski, who was looking for you too,who still loved you . . . and hated you. Your father became frightenedand did not dare act openly."

  Veronique did not speak. She felt very faint and sat down on the stone,with her head bowed.

  Then she murmured:

  "You speak of my father as though he were still alive to-day."

  "He is."

  "And as though you saw him often."

  "Daily."

  "And on the other hand"--Veronique lowered her voice--"on the other handyou do not say a word of my son. And that suggests a horrible thought:perhaps he did not live? Perhaps he is dead since? Is that why you donot mention him?"

  She raised her head with an effort. Honorine was smiling.

  "Oh, please, please," Veronique entreated, "tell me the truth! It isterrible to hope more than one has a right to. Do tell me."

  Honorine put her arm round Veronique's neck:

  "Why, my poor, dear lady, would I have told you all this if my handsomeFrancois had been dead?"

  "He is alive, he is alive?" cried Veronique, wildly.

  "Why, of course he is and in the best of health! Oh, he's a fine, sturdylittle chap, never fear, and so steady on his legs! And I have everyright to be proud of him, because it's I who brought him up, your littleFrancois."

  She felt Veronique, who was leaning on her shoulder, give way toemotions which were too much for her and which certainly contained asmuch suffering as joy; and she said:

  "Cry, my dear lady, cry; it will do you good. It's a better sort ofcrying than it was, eh? Cry, until you've forgotten all your oldtroubles. I'm going back to the village. Have you a bag of any kind atthe inn? They know me there. I'll bring it back with me and we'll beoff."

  When the Breton woman returned, half an hour later, she saw Veroniquestanding and beckoning to her to hurry and heard her calling:

  "Quick, quick! Heavens, what a time you've been! We have not a minute tolose."

  Honorine, however, did not hasten her pace and did not reply. Her ruggedface was without a smile.

  "Well, are we going to start?" asked Veronique, running up to her."There's nothing to delay us, is there, no obstacle? What's the matter?You seem quite changed."

  "No, no."

  "Then let's be quick."

  Honorine, with her assistance, put the bag and the provisions on board.Then, suddenly standing in front of Veronique, she said:

  "You're quite sure, are you, that the woman on the cross, as she wasshown in the drawing, was yourself?"

  "Absolutely. Besides, there were my initials above the head."

  "That's a strange thing," muttered Honorine, "and it's enough tofrighten anybody."

  "Why should it be? It must have been someone who used to know me and whoamused himself by . . . It's merely a coincidence, a chance fancyreviving the past."

  "Oh, it's not the past that's worrying me! It's the future."

  "The future?"

  "Remember the prophecy."

  "I don't understand."

  "Yes, yes, the prophecy made about you to Vorski."

  "Ah, you know?"

  "I know. And it is so horrible to think of that drawing and of othermuch more dreadful things which you don't know of."

  Veronique burst out laughing:

  "What! Is that why you hesitate to take me with you, for, after all,that's what we're concerned with?"

  "Don't laugh. People don't laugh when they see the flames of hell beforethem."

  Honorine crossed herself, closing her eyes as she spoke. Then shecontinued:

  "Of course . . . you scoff at me . . . you think I'm a superstitiousBreton woman, who believes in ghosts and jack-o'-lanterns. I don't sayyou're altogether wrong. But there, there! There are some truths thatblind one. You can talk it over with Maguennoc, if you get on the rightside of him."

  "Maguennoc?"

  "One of the four sailors. He's an old friend of your boy's. He toohelped to bring him up. Maguennoc knows more about it than the mostlearned men, more than your father. And yet . . ."

  "What?"

  "And yet Maguennoc tried to tempt fate and to get past what men areallowed to know."

  "What did he do?"

  "He tried to touch with his hand--you understand, with his own hand: heconfessed it to me himself--the very heart of the mystery."

  "Well?" said Veronique, impressed in spite of herself.

  "Well, his hand was burnt by the flames. He showed me a hideous sore: Isaw it with my eyes, something like the sore of a cancer; and hesuffered to that degree . . ."

  "Yes?"

  "That it forced him to take a hatchet in his left hand and cut off hisright hand himself."

  Veronique was dumbfounded. She remembered the corpse at Le Faouet andshe stammered:

  "His right hand? You say that Maguennoc cut off his right hand?"

  "With a hatchet, ten days ago, two days before I left . . . . I dressedthe wound myself . . . . Why do you ask?"

  "Because," said Veronique, in a husky voice, "because the dead man, theold man whom I found in the deserted cabin and who afterwardsdisappeared, had lately lost his right hand."

  Honorine gave a start. She still wore the sort of scared expression andbetrayed the emotional disturbance which contrasted with her usuallycalm attitude. And she rapped out:

  "Are you sure? Yes, yes, you're right, it was he, Maguennoc . . . . Hehad long white hair, hadn't he? And a spreading beard? . . . Oh, howabominable!"

  She restrained herself and looked around her, frightened at havingspoken so loud. She once more made the sign of the cross and said,slowly, almost under her breath:

  "He was the first of those who have got to die . . . he told me sohimself . . . and old Maguennoc had eyes that read the book of thefuture as easily as the book of the past. He could see clearly whereanother saw nothing at all. 'The first victim will be myself, Ma'meHonorine. And, when the servant has gone, in a few days it will be themaster's turn.'"

  "And the master was . . . ?" asked Veronique, in a whisper.

  Honorine drew herself up and clenched her fists violently:

  "I'll defend him! I will!" she declared. "I'll save him! Your fathershall not be the second victim. No, no, I shall arrive in time! Let mego!"

  "We are going together," said Veronique, firmly.

  "Please," said Honorine, in a voice of entreaty, "please don't bepersistent. Let me have my way. I'll bring your father and your son toyou this very evening, before dinner."

  "But why?"

  "The danger is too great, over there, for your father . . . andespecially for you. Remember the four crosses! It's over there that theyare waiting . . . . Oh, you mustn't go there! . . . The island is undera curse."

  "And my son?"

  "You shall see him to-day, in a few hours."

  Veronique gave a short laugh:

  "In a few hours! Woman, you must be mad! Here am I, after mourning myson for fourteen years, suddenly hearing that he's alive; and you askme to wait before I take him in my arms! Not one hour! I would ratherrisk death a thousand times than put off that moment."

  Honorine looked at her and seemed to realize that Veronique's was one ofthose resolves against which it is useless to fight, for she did notinsist. She crossed herself for the third time and said, simply:

  "God's will be done."

  They both took their seats among the parcels which encumbered the narrowspace. Honorine switched on the current, seized the tiller and skilfullysteered the boat through the rocks and sandbanks which rose level withthe water.