Rouletabille at Krupp's

by Gaston Leroux

  Rouletabille and Richter arrived at the tower’s lantern a trifle breathless. The weather was fine, but the horizon was as hazy as that of the sea.

  As Rouletabille gazed into the distance, Richter said to him: “The interest isn’t a long way off, or even in front of you—it’s at you feet. You only have to look down to embrace with a single glance this world of factories, from which the German Empire has emerged as if from an infernal cavern, and with which it now faces up to the entire world. What strikes you first is the surrounding railway, traced like a magic circle around the factory of the hundred gates! It projects a vast radiance of tracks in every direction. Those buildings that extend in the direction of the city are workshops for the manufacture of canon.”

  “What’s that noise?” Rouletabille inquired. “Are they conducting trials?”

  “No, that’s the big fifty-thousand-kilogram hammer at work. It cost two and a half million. It’s supported by three gigantic foundations, one in stone one in oak-trunks from the forest of Teutoburg, and another in bronze, formed of solidly-linked cylinders. It forges four-hundred-quintal blocks! That’s common knowledge.”

  Rouletabille allowed himself to be guided around the lantern. Eventually, he asked, casually: “But what’s that enormous and bizarre construction, which has such a curious roof? We went past it this morning.”

  “That’s the cradle of our new Zeppelin,” Richter replied. “Something astonishing, it seems—but between us, it’s better not to talk about it, in order not to have any disagreements with the administration, which knows everything that happens here, and everything that’s said.”

  “Bah!”

  “Oh, I’d rather you took notice! The police are very efficient!”

  “I don’t doubt it,” Rouletabille said, indifferently. “And down there, in the town, facing us, in the direction of that steeple—what’s that magnificent house?”

  “Oh, that’s the factory’s house. It’s the Essener-Hoff. That’s where Herr Krupp lodges his friends and receives his crowned guests. Kaiser Wilhelm often spends a day or two there. Trials are carried out before him then, on the firing-range hidden by that roof, which extends all the way to the horizon, of new items of artillery whose existence is kept secret...”

  Rouletabille no longer seemed to be following Richter’s explanations, and the latter finally noticed it.

  “What are you looking at in that fashion?” he asked.

  “The Essener-Hoff, which you showed me just now. It’s extraordinary what you can see from here. Look—there are people on the balcony. It would be wonderful, wouldn’t it, if that were the Emperor?”

  Richter started laughing.

  “Why not? You said that he comes here sometimes...”

  Still laughing, Richter knocked on the door of a small cabin adjacent to the lantern. The door opened and a man appeared, clad in a special tunic and wearing a red cap, of a type that Rouletabille had already noticed during his morning perambulations. Richter asked the man for a pair of prismatic binoculars, which he aimed at the place indicated by his new employee, the balcony of the Essener-Hoff.

  “No, no, it’s not the Emperor. See for yourself,”

  Rouletabille looked, and almost immediately handed the binoculars back to the engineer. “No, it’s not the Emperor; he doesn’t resemble his portraits,” he said, laughing in his turn. And he added, privately: It’s not him because it’s Vladimir Féodorovitch, faithfully manning his post, at the appointed hour, on the balcony of the Essener-Hoff, waiting for a message to fall from the sky sent by Rouletabille. He’s arrived! That’s all I wanted to know...

  Turning to Richter, who was already preparing to go down, he said: “Who is the man in the tunic and red cap in the cabin?”

  “He’s the duty fireman,” the engineer replied. “He’s the one who raises the first alarm as soon as a fire starts. He’s in communication by telephone and also by means of luminous signals with the entire factory.”

  “What organization! It’s marvelous!”

  “And to think that it all came out of that little thing you can see down there,” said the engineer. “That poor little forge near the main gate! It was in there that Krupp senior, himself just a simple and wretched worker, worked for a long time beside his own father, who was merely a poor blacksmith, who sold the various objects he made personally, in the vicinity. It’s understandable that the son was determined to preserve that curious and precious testimony to the humble origins of one of the most powerful organizations in the world.”

  Emerging from the tower, the two men did not say anything further until they had returned to the engineer’s design-studio. There, as Richter was still silent, Rouletabille—who had assumed a rather preoccupied expression, finally said: “Listen, Monsieur, I’ve thought about it. I accept the proposal you made to me. There’s no reason why I should refuse to deal with a Swiss engineer. I’m not, in fact, bound in any fashion to Blin & Co., who have only made me vague promises, which are, in any case, much less generous than yours. You can, therefore, draw up our contract, and I’ll set to work myself, if you give me the means, on drawing up the plans.”

  Richter held out his hand and Rouletabille shook it.

  “It’s agreed, then,” the engineer concluded. “And you can see that I’m delighted, for myself and for you. You’ve made a good decision. Personally, I wouldn’t have mentioned it to you again. We don’t intend to force anyone, but we know how to reward those who are willing. You’ll see. You won’t have any regrets.”

  Then he headed for a small room that formed an annex to the design studio, and which had only one door—the one communicating with the studio. It served, at present, as a cloakroom and lumber-room. A large window poured daylight on to a large table raised on trestles, which as designed for drawing standing up.

  “You’ll be right at home here,” said Richter, “and never disturbed. No one in fact, comes into my design-studio unless I introduce them myself. You can start work today!”

  That evening, when Rouletabille found himself alone with La Candeur momentarily in the dormitory and the latter asked him whether he was content with his day, the reporter said: “Yes, I’ve worked hard.”

  He had good reason to be satisfied. He had given himself three days to resolve two primordial problems. Already, he knew that he could count on La Candeur and Vladimir; he had familiarized himself with the general layout of the factory, including the place where the Titania was under construction—and where, in consequence, the Pole was—the Energy Laboratory, where Fulbert was working, and the home of the engineer Hans, where Nicole must be living. He had seen Nicole. He was in Richter’s good graces and was working in his offices, where Nicole sometimes came with Helena, Hans’s daughter. And he still had two days left to find out how much more time he had to save Paris from the terrible Titania.

  Chapter XIV

  A Dramatic Interview

  It was not by chance that Rouletabille had assumed the identity of Michel Talmar of Blin & Co. Talmar, who had been apprised of what Rouletabille had come to look for in his workshops, had needed no further recommendation to give the reporter his own papers and to help him study in depth the plans of an invention whose secret the Boche had already attempted to discover in peace-time.

  Everything was going as well as could be desired for Rouletabille, who had naturally promised Talmar only to surrender those of his plans that would be useful for his own enterprise—and the day after the one on which the reporter had accepted the Swiss engineer’s offer, we find him in the process of tracing the first lines of an important diagram under Richter’s eyes, in the small room reserved for him.

  The noise of an automobile drawing to a halt at the front door attracted the attention of both men. Richter immediately left Rouletabille. Through the window, the latter perceived Helena, who got out of the car and came into the office building.

  In the next room there was a rapid conversation between Helena and Richter, in which there was some discussio
n of a sumptuous engagement party to be held in a few days time at the Essener-Hoff, under the presidency of General von Berg, the director of the generalkomando and uncle of the bride-to-be. That important relationship ought to give the party an exceptional luster, and the representatives of the allied States who were guests at the Essener-Hoff involved in dealings with General von Berg would be invited to it. Then a few words were exchanged in low voices, in which the names of Nicole and Fulbert were discernible, and the words “the Emperor’s will!”

  Finally there were some perfectly clear sentences: “No! I haven’t brought Nicole out today. Before going back to the commando, the general wanted to see her in private. I think there’s something new in the air!”

  One can easily imagine the interest with which Rouletabille listened to what was being said on the other side of his door, and how much he regretted that Nicole had not come with Helena.

  The next day, however, the two young women arrived together, still followed by the obligatory guard, who waited for them in the vestibule. The man in question wore a special uniform, half military and half resembling that of a domestic in an aristocratic household, and one could take one’s choice as to whether to think of him as an orderly or a butler. Rouletabille learned subsequently that the factory administration had a certain number of domestic staff of that sort, who were put at the disposal of important people from abroad visiting Essen, and whose fundamental role was to keep them under assiduous surveillance. They belonged to the secret police that La Candeur had mentioned.

  Helena and Nicole had, as was their habit, come into the engineer’s private design-studio, and the latter soon made a precipitate entrance behind them. The first thing he did was go to the door of the little room where Rouletabille was working. He looked inside and saw that it was empty. The reporter, in fact, had just hurled himself into a cupboard in which draughtsman’ smocks were hanging.

  Richter closed the door again, satisfied, and the following scene unfolded. It was to have such important consequences for the remainder of the story that we think it best to reproduce here the text in which Rouletabille described its rapid developments himself.

  “I understood immediately,” the reporter wrote, “on perceiving Mademoiselle Fulbert’s strangely distressed face through the window of my workroom, that there must indeed be something new in her respect, as Fräulein Hans had said the day before—and that my good fortune and the successful outcome of my plans would doubtless permit me to witness and event of the greatest interest for my mission in Essen.

  “When the young women were in the room adjacent to my office and I heard the hurried footsteps of the engineer heading for my door, I did not hesitate to hide and had the joy of seeing the door close again, in the conviction that the room was empty. Richter must have thought that I was busy in workshop number 3, where I had to copy a number of prototypes, in order to establish the difference, from certain technical viewpoints, between them and my own model—with the result that I could hear in total security what was happening in the next room, and even catch a glimpse from time to time, through the keyhole, of the characters in the drama.

  “Richter was striding back and forth, quite agitated. With regard to the two young women, who were sitting on the far side of the room, I only had a clear view of Nicole’s face, which was reflecting the most hostile sentiments at that moment. Until then, I had been primarily struck by an appearance of pain, but that day it expressed a concentrated fury against her torturers. To judge by what I could see, the poor child must have suffered greatly and she seemed to be at the end of her tether.

  “‘Mademoiselle,’ Richter said to her, ‘you know how much Helena loves you. She treats you like a sister. If you’re not more cheerful or healthier, it’s not her fault. Helena has told you that you’re about to find yourself in the presence of Serge Kaniewsky. I shall be particularly grateful to you if you do not conceal from him the care and affection that has been lavished upon you. You are not among enemies here, as you know very well, and I have always has the greatest sympathy for your misfortunes. You’re on neutral ground here, among friends. I hope that you similarly appreciate the delicacy of the procedure in high places that has resulted in my house being chosen for an interview that has been granted to the insistent pleas of your fiancé. You have every facility and liberty to exchange with him the words that are dear to two individuals who love one another—but for the very reason that you are on neutral terrain, you will easily understand that it will be impossible to tolerate the slightest allusion to subjects that have any relationship whatsoever to the war. I’m sure, Mademoiselle, that you have understood me, and that I shall not have to repent of the generosity that Helena and I have always manifested toward you.’

  “After which, there was a silence; and the Helena’ voice was heard.

  “‘Be reasonable, Nicole, won’t you? Answer us, Nicole. It’s necessary. It’s necessary, for all our sakes…who are so afraid for you. It’s necessary, for your father’s sake. It’s necessary, for your fiancé. What is it that we’re asking of you? To tell Serge that we’re treating you like a friend and that we’re caring for you with all our hearts. It’s not difficult to say such a thing, which is true and will give us pleasure! We’re not asking anything else of you!’

  “But Nicole still remained silent. Her beautiful face, ordinarily downcast, was, however upraised—but that movement was far from giving more mildness to her distraught physiognomy.

  “At this point a general came in, whom I assumed to be General von Berg in person, and a man who passed through my field of vision and who immediately seemed to me to be in a state of extreme physical and moral distress. I had no difficulty in understanding that I had the Pole before me, given the first movement he made on perceiving Nicole. He threw himself at her feet. At the same time, the general made a sign to Richter and Helena, and the latter two left the room.

  “Nicole had pulled back her chair before Serge’s movement, but he continued to drag himself toward her on his knees, without hearing the rude objurgations of von Berg, who told him to be reasonable if he wanted this interview with his fiancée to be followed by any others. The other did nothing but weep and moan, however, and beg for forgiveness. He tried to embrace Nicole’s feet and kiss the hem of her skirt, and begged her to tell him that she still loved him—but Nicole did not reply, and her face became increasingly harsh.

  “For myself—this is Rouletabille speaking—I could not help wondering, confronted by that double attitude, whether there might be a considerable component of play-acting within it, designed to persuade the Boche general that he had not been deceived, and that the factory possessed the whole secret of the Titania. There must certainly have been something of that sort, but I was also obliged to yield to the evidence that Nicole’s hostility was too real to be addressed to a man who had only put on a semblance of betraying her. She certainly saw a man whom she knew to be capable of betraying her, and was still ready to betray anything for love of her!

  “That Serge was ready to do that, I could no more doubt than Nicole herself or Fulbert—remember what he had told Malet, as reported by Nourry—and that was my thinking because the sincere tears that the Pole was shedding at present, and his unfeigned despair, could not relate to a false crime in the past, while they were perfectly consonant with a true crime that he was yet to commit.

  “In consequence of that, although the general might have been mistaken with regard to the meaning of the forgiveness demanded by the Pole from his fiancée, neither Nicole nor I was deceived. Serge was about to commit the real treason, and would do so!

  “Still from my own viewpoint—I am obliged to follow my reasoning step by step here—the unusual mental disturbance of which the Pole was giving proof attested that the moment when all would be revealed—that is to say, when he would be obliged to betray it in order to save Nicole—could not be very far off, for such an excess would not be comprehensible if the Pole still intended to continue lying for month
s.

  “The Pole was weeping so helplessly, and Nicole’s face had hardened to such an extent, that General von Berg rapidly came to the conclusion that the conference had lasted long enough. He dragged Serge to his feet, taking hold of him by the collar of his jacket, and said: ‘I promised that you could see Mademoiselle Fulbert! You’ve seen her! You’ve been able to observe that Mademoiselle Fulbert is perfectly well, and she’ll tell you herself that she’s being looked after like a sister by Mademoiselle Hans. Isn’t that so, Mademoiselle? In truth, it’s you duty to say so!’

  “But Nicole continued to say nothing at all.

  “Then Serge fell to his knees, like the madman he was. ‘So you won’t take pity on your Serge!’ he croaked. “Say something! Answer me! Answer him! Tell me that you’re being cared for. Tell me that you’re no longer suffering. Oh, Nicole, tell me that you’re no longer suffering! I don’t want you to suffer any more! You’ll detest me, you’ll curse me, but you won’t be suffering anymore! I don’t want anyone to hurt you. No, no…I don’t want that! I wasn’t able to resist such a thing, you see—your torture, my Nicole, tortured! Oh, rather the end of the world! The end of the world! What it is that makes my world? What is it that makes my Paris and all the cities in the world? I can’t see you any more as I saw you before, on a wretched bed in a dungeon, I can’t hear you sighing in pain any longer. My Nicole, my Nicole! Say something! Go on, curse me! At least I’ll hear the sound of your voice! If you knew, if you only knew! They showed me photographs, the monsters! Atrocious photographs of poor Russian prisoners they tortured in Poland. Broken limbs…breasts torn with red-hot pincers! All the horrors of the Inferno! And they told me that all of that was in store for you! Understand then! I couldn’t! I can’t! I can’t! My God, I can’t! No, no…!’

  “And the poor fellow, in a frightful crisis, having been pushed away by Nicole’s foot, stood up, tottering, and showed me his demonic face, which I hadn’t yet glimpsed. A frightful vision! Hideousness and dolor combined to make that mask the most tragic and most frightful thing to behold that can be imagined.