Collected Works of Gaston Leroux

by Gaston Leroux

  “Oh, there are gendarmes in the penal settlement. At the time I speak of there were, in fact, two very well known, shrewd gendarmes, and it was ‘no good trying it on with them’ as one might say of you and our worthy friend Cornouilles.”

  “What then?”

  “Well, this is what happened...

  “Wait a moment, if you don’t mind. I seem to hear someone stirring near my prisoners.”

  La Finette rose from the table and went outside and listened at the door of the lean-to, then walked round it, cast a glance in the vicinity, and came back with a worried look.

  “I thought I caught sight of some of those wretched people.”

  “Oh, really.... The gipsies on the road. I saw them too,” returned Rouletabille. “You do well to be suspicious. All these people back each other up. But what do you expect them to do against two gendarmes like La Finette and Cornouilles, I wonder?”

  “What were they doing when you came across them, my dear Rouletabille?”

  “Upon my word, they were having something to eat quite peacefully under the shelter of their caravan, and they didn’t even look at me.... Take care, La Finette, you’ll soon be emptying the bottle.”

  “We were speaking of St. Martin-de-Ré,” went on the gendarme. “Have you ever been there?”

  “Yes, to inspect the convict prison. It was when Chéri-Bibi was caught and sent back to the penal settlement for the third time. You must understand that there is never any such thing as an escape in St. Martin-de-Ré; that is when Chéri-Bibi is not there, but when Chéri-Bibi is there!...”

  “What did he do, your Chéri-Bibi?”

  “He helped five men to get away.”

  “The devil he did.”

  “What I’m telling you is quite true. The governor of the prison himself explained to me how the thing came about. At that time they had at St. Martin-de-Ré the very pick of the convict settlements — five blackguards whose reputations were known throughout the penitentiary establishments. These were:

  Cochot, who said to the governor: ‘You ask me if, when I am committing my crimes, I am ever arrested by the fear of punishment. Sure enough if I hadn’t been arrested by anything but fear you would never have had the pleasure of my company at St. Martin-de-Ré.’... Petit, who was captured at Abbeville, and warned the mayor of that delightful city that he intended to leave the prison next day as it didn’t seem to him a comfortable place to live in, and as a matter of fact he was as good as his word.... Piercy, who once made his escape from a departmental prison by faking a warder’s uniform out of paper and putting it on before the eyes of the men whose business it was to take him and his fellow-prisoners to the exercise yard.... Fanfan, who was the terror of the prison warders — he had escaped seven times — and had but to say aloud: ‘My feet itch to get away’ to throw the entire penitentiary into a state of consternation.... Arigonde, who had a genius for disguise. Fregoli, the quick-change music-hall artist, was a mere child compared with him. Put Arigonde with a clown, for instance, and he would make up his hair and whiskers, deface the special marks by which he was identified, and slip on a suit of clothes, whatever it was, before the professional mime could take off his tie. I knew Arigonde very well...

  “Was he a newspaper man?” asked Cornouilles.

  “No, he was employed in a private inquiry office, but they made the mistake of paying too little for his ability.... Finally, there was Chéri-Bibi, the most wonderful of them all.

  “When he learnt that the five of them were there, he made up his mind to play a trick on the administration by helping the whole lot to escape.... Chéri-Bibi always maintained relations with the outside world. On such and such a day and hour a launch lay waiting for the convicts in a little creek some distance away, as luck would have it, from the ‘wild coast’ whence it would be easy for them to reach the mainland. During the night they dug near the fort; a hiding-place as they called it, in which they concealed sailors’ clothes, peak caps and sou’westers which they were to put on, once they left the prison, in order to get to the spot where the launch was moored. The escape could only be attempted in broad daylight. It took place at a quarter past eight in the morning; the hour at which bricklayers started their work on a wall in one of the prison yards.”

  “Look here, that was the trick that was being tried on behalf of our gipsies!”

  “There’s nothing new under the sun,” went on Rouletabille imperturbably. “How did Chéri-Bibi and his five comrades manage to plan the affair? One thing is certain: a gang of five workmen entered the prison at eight o’clock and came out again at a quarter past eight....

  “The ruffians knew that there was some risk of their escapade being discovered a few minutes later. Accordingly they were eager to get to the hiding-place, and wait events there until the right moment for slipping out, wearing their sou’westers. Unluckily, two gendarmes stood opposite the hiding-place, the two very artful gendarmes whom I mentioned just now — the La Finette and Comouilles of the Ile-de-Ré.

  Well, these two gendarmes saw a man whose head was covered with a coloured handkerchief — to hide his shaven skull — coming up the road towards them. He was dragging a wheelbarrow containing a pick-axe. He was walking at a moderate pace, and when he was on a level with the representatives of law and order who wished him ‘Good morning,’ he stopped for a moment.”

  “What idiots!” exclaimed La Finette. “I bet it was Chéri-Bibi.”

  “You’ve guessed right, La Finette.”

  “Oh, he wouldn’t have had me like that.”

  “They began chatting. The man told them that he had just drawn his pay and meant to have a little time off.... In short, he invited the two gendarmes to have a drink with him at a small public-house which was not exactly next door to the ‘hiding-place.’

  “The gendarmes plied their glasses in that public-house with such good will that when they tried to stand up their legs shook under them.... Chéri-Bibi had to help them to get to St. Martin. He had the kindness to take them to the prison, and when the door was opened, he said: — I’ve brought you a couple of gendarmes slightly “sprung.”’

  “‘Gendarmes! What do you expect us to do with them?’ he was asked.

  “‘Leave them outside if you like, but I’m sure you’ve got room for me here.’

  “He removed the handkerchief from his head and was at once recognized. You can imagine the warmth of his welcome! The entire island was turned topsyturvy when it was discovered that he and five fellow prisoners had made their escape. Still they consoled themselves for the loss of the five by the presence of Chéri-Bibi. When the warders expressed surprise at his carrying out such superhuman labour only to return and give himself up he made reply:

  “‘As for me, you know, there are times when I long for the penal settlement.’

  “I need not tell you, to conclude the story, that our two gendarmes were reduced to the ranks with all the ceremony due to their position.... To allow themselves to be brought back to the prison by a convict — here was something out of the common. Well, gentlemen, won’t you have another drink?” While Rouletabille was telling his story the lunch drew to a finish. Coffee was served, and they were at the stage when they had before them a glass of brandy of the Province called by the peasants grappa. It is a liqueur which is wonderfully cheering, warming the inner man and expanding the heart with gladness.

  After the second glass was consumed La Finette leered at the bottle with a look of desire.

  “Remembering what I told you just now, it would be unpardonable to have any more,” said Rouletabille.

  “Yes, of course, young man,” La Finette broke in bluntly. “Beforehand! You are right. But as long as that confounded bottle is on the table.

  “I’ll take it away,” declared Rouletabille, and left the room with the dangerous object.

  Any one who might have had the curiosity to follow him, would have seen him a minute or two later pour the contents of the bottle into the horses’ manger wh
ich he had just replenished.

  “I don’t like to see gendarmes the worse for liquor,” he muttered between his teeth. “But as to their horses, well, that’s another story!”

  CHAPTER XXIV

  IN WHICH EVENTS COME TO PASS AS ROULETABILLE FORETOLD

  THE DEPARTURE FROM the inn was made without any incident worthy of mention. With the exception of the prisoners the entire party — Rouletabille, the gendarmes, and even the horses — seemed in a lively mood. The horses in particular looked very spry, which was by no means displeasing to La Finette and Cornouilles, who laid claim to be first-rate horsemen.

  “They seem somewhat restive,” observed La Finette simply as he mounted his steed. “You, Cornouilles, must have given them a good feed of oats, what?... Are you coming, Monsieur Rouletabille?”

  “I notice that one of my tyres has burst,” he answered. “I’ll put it right and soon overtake you.”

  Thus they set out.

  Their mounts began to indulge in strange antics.

  “Perhaps these horses are not free from vice,” suggested Cornouilles. “We’re not used to them, you know.”

  “But they were so very quiet before lunch. What’s the matter with them,” exclaimed La Finette, almost thrown from the saddle, for his mount shied with a suddenness which he was far from expecting.

  “Come now, you silly brute,” growled Cornouilles in his turn. “Aren’t you going to stop your pranks?”

  His mare had, in fact, started to prance and rear as though she intended to complete the journey on her hind legs.

  “Give her a whack on the nose. There’s nothing like it when they go frisking about,” advised La Finette.

  But his own horse had started to curvet. Angrily he proceeded to give it a thrashing.

  “I’ll show her the stuff I’m made of,” shouted Cornouilles from his side.

  Then the horses dashed off at a breakneck speed and were lost to sight with their riders in a whirl of dust like those mythological heroes or demi-gods who were hidden from the view of ordinary mortals in the cloud which Jupiter hurled to their support.

  When the cloud had passed away and the eyes of ordinary mortals could discern La Finette and Cornouilles, it was to discover two riders unhorsed, disabled, dejected and bruised, dragging themselves along the road, uttering inarticulate cries, gazing frantically now towards the setting sun, in the direction of which their infernal horses had fled, and now towards the east where the road spread out before them likewise deserted; that is to say, containing no sign of the prisoners entrusted to their keeping.... Then they climbed the road-side bank moaning like children who had lost their mother. They would be able to find their horses again — but their prisoners!...

  “Perhaps Rouletabille is on their track,” murmured Cornouilles.

  “We’ve none the less disgraced ourselves,” returned La Finette, in a broken voice.

  At the same moment the excited company of gipsies who had gathered round Andréa and Callista and relieved them of their handcuffs, turned into the lower road behind the wood of chestnut trees where the car, with its driver with the amber skin and black moustache of a Hungarian violinist, was waiting for them. He was already seated at the wheel ready to drive off.

  “This is the man who brought us here and arranged everything,” explained the spokesman of the party. “He has the sign.”

  No further explanations were offered. Andréa and Callista stepped into the car which drove away at its utmost speed. They were jolted roughly against each other, and at last Andréa with a sudden gesture silently clasped his arms about Callista, who yielded to him without demur. The driver threw them a rug which they wrapped round themselves.

  Half an hour later he slackened speed, turned round, showed the sign which Andréa saluted, and fixing him with a direct gaze through his goggles, asked:

  “Where am I to take you.”

  Callista replied in one word, or rather mentioned the name of a small railway station on the frontier; they reached this place that same evening after an uneventful drive.

  Here, they alighted from the car and Callista thanked their unknown benefactor. He offered to take them still farther, but they declined his suggestion. They no longer had anything to fear. The police would not suspect that they were already on the frontier.... There was no need of passports in Switzerland; and they might as well take the first train, which started in half an hour, if this unknown rescuer would give them some money.

  “This is what I have been asked to give you,” he said, as he slipped a few banknotes into Callista’s hand.

  “You can tell whoever sent you that we are now quite safe,” said Callista. “.Besides, I hope that we shall meet again soon. Our festivals are close at hand,” she added, casting a mysterious glance at him.

  “Soon,” returned the other under his breath.... “ At Sever Turn.”

  Callista put her finger on her lips and departed with Andréa to the station.... The chauffeur sprang into his car and disappeared at full speed round a bend in the road.

  Half an hour later Andréa and Callista had taken their places in a third class carriage.... Callista was wrapped in a shawl which concealed her tatters. She closed her eyes and appeared to sleep. Andréa did not remove his gaze from her. She had returned among her people; they had obtained their freedom; she would be his.

  He would soon be her husband in accordance with gipsy rites, and their marriage would be celebrated one night, now near at hand, under the everlasting canopy between the moss-grown pillars of the tall trees illuminated by the lamps of heaven. He was so greatly engrossed in his dream that he failed to notice the face which showed itself in the triangular pane of glass in the partition dividing the compartments.

  Had he looked through the glass in his turn he would have seen the face draw back. It was that of a rather thickset man, with a blotched complexion, and a fine, spreading, golden-yellow beard. He had quietly taken his seat beside a stout woman who held in her arms a sleeping child of between four and five; and then the bearded passenger fished out a notebook from his pocket, and appeared to be absorbed in setting down a few impressions.

  Extract from Rouletabille’s diary:

  “Here I am at last at the point which I have so much desired. I am in the train which is taking Callista to the place where Odette is to be found.

  “If I put the facts which I learnt from Me Camousse side by side with the remarks which I overheard both in the church steeple in Ozout and Zina’s cave, and compare them with the contents of the Book of Ancestors, I am bound to conclude that Odette is, on her mother’s side, of gipsy birth, and is being carried off to Sever Turn as the queen whose coming is foretold in the sacred writings.

  “Ana yet the Book of Ancestors mentions a birthmark on the shoulder, a mark in the shape of a crown. Now it seems certain — I may even say that it is certain, for I have no reason to doubt Estève’s assertions — that Odette had no such mark and has no such mark. Consequently I am necessarily led to believe that Zina faked the mark so as to save Odette’s life. These old hags have secret means of their own of producing stains or marks on the skin which appear indelible.

  And she must have satisfied Andréa and Callista that Odette was the gipsy queen.

  “This inference I drew from the course of events, and it was my strength and safeguard... I knew, from that moment, that our Odette was in no danger from the gipsies and that she would be treated as though she were of royal birth. But I was unable to impart this consolation to Jean.

  “I wonder indeed — were he acquainted with it — how he would receive the fact which to-day seems obvious to me: ‘Odette is a gipsy girl. She is not the daughter of Madame de Lavardens.’ No! Until it is absolutely necessary I am not entitled to divulge that information to a soul, and least of all to Jean.

  “Why should I conceal from myself the fact that he does not always look upon me with friendly feelings? The suspicion which preys upon him would, doubtless, lead him to regard such a discl
osure as an abominable invention on my part, made for the purpose of separating him from our Odette, In short, I did well to say nothing.

  “What a number of things the Book of Ancestors has revealed to me!

  “First, it told me the reason why my flat was broken into. Ever since de Lauriac robbed the gipsies of the book they have been searching for it.

  “I can imagine now the commotion which was caused in gipsy-land — Sever Turn — by my article in which I set down the exact wording of the prediction in which the coming of the queen with the birth-mark on her shoulder was foretold.

  “They were straightway convinced that it was I who possessed the book and I who had stolen it from them. Hence the visit of scant ceremony which I received one night and the disorder in which I found my study.

  “Now I learnt the wording of the prophecy simply through Olajaï, who repeated it to me one day when I was discussing with him the debasement into which his race had fallen. Like every good gipsy he knew the text by heart.

  “But though my burglars did not find the book in my flat, it did not take them long to discover that I had a Romany in my service. Hence Olajai’s precipitate departure for Les Saintes Maries. He must have received the order to explain himself, and he had no alternative but to confess that my knowledge of the gipsy secret was due to his indiscretion, an indiscretion which subsequent events were to render particularly serious.

  “The race, indeed, was expecting the destined queen that very year, and it would, perhaps, be still waiting for her but for the intervention of Zina. In any case, Mademoiselle de Lavardens’ abduction, Zina’s disclosure to her kinsfolk concerning Odette’s birth, the coincidence of Monsieur de Lavardens’ tragic death — these things were so many incidents which rendered the position of the Romanys in Camargue, after the appearance of my article, one of he utmost difficulty.

  “It accounted for Olajai’s terror when he met me in the Province. It accounted for the entreaties and threats by which He sought to make me leave it. My presence there was not less dangerous to him than to myself. He might be taken for my accomplice.