“Where do we go afterward?”
“To the Château de Pierrefort, in the Cantal.”
“Yes, master!” And Malteste, the passive executor of orders whose motives he did not seek to understand, directed the monoplane towards the Neuf-Routes crossroads, which is located south-west of the forest, scarcely 1000 meters from the Saint-Germain railway station.
Meanwhile, Montal opened a box fixed at his feet. First he took out a thick black beard, which he attached firmly to his own chin, then a blond beard, which he attached to the face of the impassive Malteste. The visors of their helmets were lowered over the aviators’ goggles, so that nothing could be seen of their true faces but their noses and parts of their cheeks. Next, he took from the box a short blue reefer jacket, which he put on, then a plate bearing a false identification-number, with which—by courtesy to an audacious gymnastic exercise—he masked the genuine identification-number inscribed on a square plate at the rear of the airplane.
As he came back to his seat, Malteste said: “The Neuf-Routes crossroads is very busy, master; the abduction of the young woman might be witnessed. There’ll be a lot of noise in the press, and the police will be on their toes.”
“No matter,” replied Montal, shrugging his shoulders. “Our monoplane resembles any other monoplane; the number we’re displaying is that of the Prefect of Police’s own machine; we’re in disguise—guarantees enough that our trail won’t be picked up. Anyway, you know that I have an unbreakable alibi in case the police should happen, by some extraordinary means, to get on my trail—and the order from Thoth is explicit. Its execution permits no delay. When he makes use of the formula “a safe place” to designate the Château de Pierrefort, it’s a matter of the utmost importance. Taking more precautions would require more time. Besides, I’ve already sent Numa a radiotelegram saying that the thing is done, transmitting a special order to Thoth.”
“That’s fine, master!” said Malteste.
They had just passed over Le Vésinet; they crossed the Seine again and were already within sight of the elevated ground of Saint-Germain. Montal’s airplane was not the only one in flight in the clear sky of that admirable autumnal morning. To the right, above Maisons-Laffitte, two biplanes were visible, one seemingly following the other, heading towards Argenteuil. To the left, over the heights of Mareil, a monoplane was describing large circles, sometimes disappearing behind the black smoke of a factory chimney.
Montal frowned as he gazed at the three birds, white and delicate in the sunlight. “I hope they won’t get in our way,” he said.
“We’ll climb to 3000 meters afterwards,” said Malteste. “Few aviators would dare to follow us to that height, as you know. They’d have to be professionals, and those three, to judge by the quality of their flying, are certainly amateurs. Then again, our engine is the only one in the world, at present, that can give us 200 kilometers an hour on a long run.”
“There’s the Neuf-Routes crossroads!”
“I can see it, master!” And Malteste, stopping the engine, made his preparations to land noiselessly, descending in a shallow glide into one of the wide roads leading to the crossroads.
Presentiments constitute one of the most thought-provoking phenomena of human nature. That morning, Christiane Saint-Clair had got up in a bizarrely troubled mood. She had slept badly, interrupted by nervous periods of insomnia, in which, without any reason, her mind had revisited past days and hours.
Many a time, when a confusion of thoughts or a vacillating will produced something similar in the course of certain dolorous nights, she had relived her entire existence—which only counted 16 summers, as yet.
Even though she bore the name of Saint-Clair so far as the world was concerned, she was not the Nyctalope’s biological sister. She did not know her real name. All that she knew, having learned it from the man she called her brother, was that Monsieur Saint-Clair, the naval officer, Leo’s father, had found her one day on the island of Tahiti, after a terrible cyclone had ravaged the pearl of Oceania, destroying plantations and drowning a multitude of natives and almost all the colonists. She was then one year old. A woman who was found next to her on the mountain-side, and who had saved her, explained to the officers searching the island that the child was called Christiane, and gave Saint-Clair a few papers and trinkets that had belonged to the orphan’s parents. Then the woman had died of exhaustion, because she had been nourishing the little girl for three days with the blood from her own veins, which she had trickled into her mouth one drop at a time. It was thanks to this devotion, sublime and savage at the same time, that Christiane had survived the disaster.
The young woman had never seen those trinkets and papers, which Monsieur Saint-Clair—who had died six years afterwards—had given to his son, with orders not to reveal them until Christiane received a proposal of marriage from a man she loved. She had lived happily and without a care, at first with her big brother Leo, and then alone, with a governess and an old trustworthy domestic, while the Nyctalope devoted himself to the journeys and explorations that had made him so famous.
Christiane lived in Saint-Germain, in a house belonging to the Saint-Clairs—a beautiful old aristocratic house in the Rue de la Surintendance. She enjoyed a calm and solitary life there, divided between reading, music and embroidery, receiving a few friends of the family every week, including a few girls of her own age—but this solitude and mysterious past had shaped Christiane’s character. At 16, she knew how to run a household and reflect on the serious issues of life. She was, however, innocent and pure, with the attractiveness of authentic youth, like a newly-opened lily.
She knew only one sentiment in her heart, one passion in her soul: affection for her big brother Leo. It was a profound affection, though, immense and absolute: a passion that had almost become a religion—so pure, so disinterested, so fraternal that the young woman never even thought that it might one day assume the characteristics of love. She knew, in any case, that Leo Saint-Clair loved Xavière de Ciserat, and it was with genuine happiness that she had witnessed their engagement, content for her part to be loved by Leo as a sister that one adores because one is her only protector in the world, her only brother, her only friend…
Christiane possessed a rare and radiant beauty, in the sense that, although she had the fine skin and mat complexion of beautiful brunettes, and marvelously undulant and naturally curly jet-black hair, she had blue eyes—but it was a blue that was almost unreal in its purity, clarity and profundity. Her eyes made one think of the patches of blue sky—that ideal and paradisal sky which truly gives a sensation of infinity—that appear within a heavy accumulation of cloud.
This was the noble and ravishing young woman who, on the morning of October 11, after a mysteriously restless night, found herself prey to obscure and painful presentiments.
As was her habit, she ate breakfast at about 9 a.m. in the dining-room, in company with her governess, the worthy Madame Rondu. Baptiste, the old maître d’hôtel who, with a chambermaid and a cook, constituted the house’s domestic staff—a staff augmented by Tory when Leo was in residence—served the chocolate and the buttered bread.
“Are you going out this morning, Mademoiselle?” Madame Rondu, had asked, as she sugared her chocolate, which she liked very sweet.
“Yes,” Christiane replied. “It’s a fine morning. It will do me good; I feel a little tired.”
“I’ll come with you, then.”
“No, no—I’d really rather be alone. I need to dream. When you’re with me, you chase dreams away, my good friend because you talk…”
This was said with such an amicable smile that Madame Rondu, although very susceptible to annoyance, dared not get upset. “That’s good, good,” she said, grumbling slightly. “Your dreams won’t prevent you, I hope, from eating up the pear-tart that I’ve planned for your dessert. I shall make it with my own hands while you’re dreaming—but don’t go any further than the Neuf-Routes crossroads, I beg you!”
Chri
stiane smiled again.
And an hour later, book in hand, exquisite in her white dress and bonnet of white felt, she walked through the grounds alone. She went through the gate and across the garden, and went into the forest along the path that led to the lodge.
The little watch hidden in her belt was showing 11 a.m. when Christiane arrived at the Neuf-Routes crossroads. She went to sit down on a bench in the Sun, turning her back to the opening of the wide road that joined up, at the Croix de Noailles, with the main road to Conflans-Saint-Honoré and Pontoise.
At first, her mind wandered, filled primarily with thoughts of her brother Leo: Where was he now? In what unknown regions? Did he know where the kidnappers of Xavière and Yvonne and the other unfortunate young women were hiding? Meanwhile, Christiane’s eyes followed the acrobatics of a young boy on a bicycle, who was describing a complex labyrinthine course around the crossroads. A horseman passed by at the gallop, then two elegant amazons, at a prancing trot. Suddenly, the cyclist disappeared into a path. A man appeared, marching rapidly; then an old gentleman reading a newspaper, dragging his feet…
Christiane found herself alone. She opened the book that she had brought, but the lines were dancing before her eyes. She let the book fall after five minutes of unconscious reading. “What’s wrong with me?” she said, in a whisper. An inexplicable and atrocious desire to burst into tears seized her throat and stopped the beating of her heart. “But what’s wrong with me?” she repeated, in anguish.
Almost immediately, she heard a slight sound behind her, as of someone walking over dry leaves. The crossroads was deserted, as were the roads that radiated from it. Christians was afraid. She wanted to turn her head, and actually initiated the movement…
All of a sudden, though, she leapt up, screaming. The cry of horror and fright, a desperate appeal for help, did not escape her throat, for a heavy mask had just been clamped on Christiane’s face; it pressed upon her eyes, her nose, her mouth, stifling her. She stood up, writhing, terrified… She felt her hands gripped, lifted up… She wanted to scream, but she was choking, her face crushed by the mask…
She was suffocating, about to faint. Then she stiffened, suddenly resolved to fight against the instinctive fear, resolved not to faint, but to listen, to observe…
A powerful arm folded around her; a large hand immobilized her joined hands. She understood vaguely that she had been lifted up, then sat down in a seat, to which she was tied by her arms, her legs and her waist. Then she heard a rhythmic roar, a continuous throbbing sound; a wind immediately lashed her forehead, her ears, her throat and her bare hands. She shivered, but a fur mantle—so it seemed from the sensation she felt in her hands and the nape of her neck—was thrown over her, enveloping her…
Suddenly, she released a cry; the mask had just been taken away.
Christiane, who was courageous by nature, had conserved all her presence of mind, and her intelligence was still sharpened by danger. Within a minute, she had taken full account of her situation.
She was tied to one of the two seats of an airplane. A man was crouched at her feet, between two wooden panels. Next to her, on the second seat, was another man, his fists gripping two control-levers.
She looked at the crouching man; their eyes met. She did not know him. Besides, she could scarcely make out his features, hidden as they were by the large visor of his helmet and his aviator’s goggles. The aircraft was flying very high through the pure air above the meandering Seine. No other sound was audible but the roar of the engine and the throb of the propeller. It was like an interminable glide, without any bumpiness, shaking, vibration or trepidation, only smoothness and infinite ease…
There was a brief moment of stupor and silence. Christiane was submissive to the surprise and physical pleasure of the aerial glide for a quarter of a minute, but she collected herself and, turning her head to the man at her feet, calmly said: “Where are you taking me, Monsieur? Who are you?”
The aviator smiled benevolently and said in a coldly polite tone: “I can’t answer any of your questions, Mademoiselle. Please excuse me. I will tell you, though, that you will not be in any danger as long as you’re with me.”
“As long as I’m with you!” she exclaimed, and a shiver ran down her body. “And after that?” she added, in a distressed voice, in which the instinctive response of human nature, fearful of undefined perils, was expressed in a tone of impassioned terror.
“Don’t ask me anything else, I beg you, Mademoiselle,” said Montal, with condescending coldness.
Christiane was genuinely afraid then, and that fear remained with her. Her physical strength could not resist the terrifying emotion that invaded her mind; she released a sigh, lowered her head and fainted. Without the bonds that retained her, she might have fallen to her death, but she remained firmly seated. No longer anything but a dead weight, she was carried through the air at a speed of 200 kilometers an hour.
The Château de Pierrefort was in the wildest and most deserted part of Cantal, far from any main road or railway line. It was only 20 kilometers from Saint-Flour, but in the steepest and most desolate part of the mountains of the Margeride. It loomed up, black and forbidding, with its four stout feudal towers, at the summit of an enormous crag above the cascade of a small river called the Arcueil. Pine-woods surrounded the crag, as if forming a defense of shadow and solitude.
Between the four rounded towers, the square body of the building was surmounted, not by a roof, but by a terrace that was slightly ridged, in such a fashion as to permit rain-water and snowdrifts—very frequent in that region—to slide off. It was on this terrace that Montal’s aircraft landed, at 1 p.m., having taken two hours to cross the 404 kilometers that separate Saint-Germain-en-Laye from the Château de Pierrefort, as the crow flies.
When they landed, the clouds were very low in the sky, and the airplane emerged from these clouds to touch down almost immediately on the terrace, which was bordered by a parapet two meters in height—so effectively that no passing peasant, if he happened to be in the vicinity of the château, would have been able to see the mechanical bird.
Christiane was no longer unconscious. She had recovered her senses while the airplane was flying over the first mountains of the Puy-de-Dôme. On coming round, the young woman had soon recovered her memory and all her composure. She did not say a word until the moment when, the airplane having come to a stop on the terrace of the château, her captor untied her from her seat.
She stood up and stretched her slightly-swollen limbs.
“Mademoiselle,” Montal said to her, bowing. “Welcome to the château. I am obliged to depart again immediately, but you shall be entrusted to the care of my brother, who is like me. So long as you can remain here, no danger will threaten you…” He fell silent, turning his head towards a man who had just emerged from an abruptly-opened trapdoor, beneath which was a ladder hollowed out in the embankment. The newcomer came towards them slowly.
“Mademoiselle,” Montal went on, “I have the honor to introduce you to my brother, Noël, known by the name of Noël de Pierrefort, the same name as this château…”
Haughty and disdainful, forcing herself to react with all her magnificent pride against the instincts of terror and despair, Christiane looked at the newcomer and said, in a calm tone: “So you shall be my jailer, Monsieur. I congratulate you. Are you and your brother members of the band of individuals that abducts and imprisons young women?”
Noël de Pierrefort bowed, without responding to this stinging invective.
Still calm, Christiane continued: “May I at least know the motive and the purpose of my unspeakable abduction? Shall I be the only prisoner here, or shall I be permitted to have companions with whom to mourn our misfortune? Answer me, Monsieur!”
Noël de Pierrefort raised his head and looked at Christiane with astonished admiration. What was he to make of this feeble young woman of 16, who spoke with such noble courage when any other would have been weeping incessantly and would have f
ainted 20 times in ten minutes!
“Mademoiselle,” he said, not without pride, “We are neither bandits not torturers. You shall judge us later. For the moment permit me to admire your attitude and to recognize in you all the virile qualities of your brother…”
Christiane blushed, astonished in her turn by this sterling gallantry in such strange circumstances, and looked at her interlocutor more closely.
He was incontestably handsome. Of medium height and well-built, blue-eyed, with a slender but solid frame, his clearly-defined mouth surmounted by a blond moustache with raised points, and his curly hair stirring in the gusts of winds blowing from the neighboring mountains, he wore an elegant hunting-costume with knee-length boots of tan leather, which emphasized the military bearing of his entire person. In truth, this was, as they once used to say, a “proud and handsome cavalier.”
He saw Christiane examining him, and understood that the examination was not, in sum, unfavorable to him—and a gleam of satisfaction appeared in his keen eyes. “Mademoiselle,” he went on, bowing, “it’s more than an hour after noon, and lunch awaits you…” Then, turning to his brother: “Are you eating, Franz?”
“No—listen!”
Montal took Noël by the arm, and while Christiane, her mind a trifle disorientated, looked at the surrounding wilderness, the two men isolated themselves in a corner of the terrace.
“Noël,” said Franz Montal, “how did you know that she’s the Nyctalope’s sister?”
“I’ve seen her before—in Paris, three months ago, at the Colonial Minister’s last reception. Such beauty is unforgettable…”
“Don’t fall in love with her!”
Noël shrugged his shoulders.
“Our orders are clear!” Franz went on. “They come from Thoth himself, and include the formula ‘in a safe place.’ There will be threats of death if we dare disobey them…”
The Nyctalope on Mars 1: The Mystery of the Fifteen Page 11
