“Well, no,” returned Rouletabille, who was opening every door and looking into every room. “Until I am actually in France, keep the letter. One never knows what may happen.”
“Quite right. Be on your guard. I know a certain gentleman who has no great love for you.”
“Have you seen him about here?”
“I think I caught sight of his ugly face near the Syrian dealer’s shop. But he soon made off.”
Rouletabille left him. Tournesol called him back.
“It’s my turn to ask a question. Do you know what has become of Madame de Meyrens?”
“I don’t really. So you are still smitten with the lady’s charms?”
“Upon my word, I believe that she, for her part, rather likes me, but she insists on things incompatible with certain old-fashioned notions which my late father inculcated in me.”
“Might I ask what those notions are?” inquired the journalist, who had slipped behind the window-curtains, whence he could observe, without being seen, the caravanserai from end to end.
“They are notions on the question of honour, Monsieur Rouletabille.”
“Might I ask what she wanted from you?”
“She wanted me to pass over to her the packet which you entrusted to me, that’s all.”
“What an awful woman!... I beg your pardon, Monsieur Tournesol, but I must go upstairs and see if by chance our man is playing round Madame de Meyrens.”
Some quarter of an hour after this short colloquy, Rouletabille came rushing like a whirlwind into the room where Jean and Odette were still exchanging sweet nothings before a dinner which they had scarcely touched.
“My friends,” he cried, “we must make ourselves scarce without delay.”
“What’s the matter?” asked Jean, greatly vexed by Rouletabille’s sudden appearance.
“The matter is that I have just seen de Lauriac and Madame de Meyrens together.”
“Here?”
“Yes, within hearing.... I was able to listen to their conversation. De Lauriac is on the point of playing us a nasty trick. I heard him say to the Octopus, who tried to find out more about it and pressed him to explain himself — these were his own words: ‘You will be satisfied, I promise you, and so shall I. We shall have our revenge within an hour. So hurry up... hurry up, children, and let’s go.”
“Let’s go,” repeated Jean. —
“Oh, yes, let’s get out of this hateful country, agreed ‘Odette. “My goodness, and I thought that all our troubles were over!”
“But how shall we let the drivers know? Besides, we can’t go without horses.”
“We must go on foot. Let us get away as best we can,” urged Rouletabille, walking over to the window. “Do you hear this uproar?”
The uproar rose to a storm, which broke loose with incredible violence. The caravanserai, silent and deserted ten minutes before, was filled with a frenzied mob, armed with rifles, shouting at the top of their voices, led by Andréa and Callista, while standing at one of the hotel windows of the room in which Jean had thrown his light luggage, was an Elder of the Grand Council, whom Rouletabille recognized as the famous librarian with whom he had already had trouble. The Elder was waving a large volume, which was equally well-known to Rouletabille — the Book of Ancestors.
It was easy to guess what the greybeard was shouting to the people as he pointed to the book, which had at last been found.
It was the aliens who had stolen it!... And where had he found it. In Jean’s luggage.
Standing behind him they saw de Lauriac’s pallid and ominous face. Rouletabille had no need to look round or to hear what was said to grasp the situation. “Well, we are in a pretty pickle.”
CHAPTER LVI
IN WHICH ROULETABILLE DECLARES THAT HE CANNOT LEAVE WITHOUT HIS “DRESSING-CASE,” AND WHAT CAME OF IT
THE CARAVANSERAI MIGHT be likened at that time to a huge vat seething with an infuriated rabble. The gipsies in the Patriarchate had undergone such extremes of enthusiasm and despair that it needed but an incident like the theft by the aliens of the Book of Ancestors to drive them to the worst excesses.
The extraordinary business of the queyra had left them with the dismal and maddening conviction that they had allowed themselves to be duped. And by whom, if not by the aliens?
Zina was merely their tool in an affair in which, when all was said, they had endeavoured to palm off upon them a sham queen.
The lingurari — makers of spoons and wooden vessels — and the liaessi, who were the most poverty-stricken, but also the most turbulent among the tribes, for they had nothing to lose, returning from their wanderings as empty-handed as when they set out, joined together to demand the immediate expulsion of the aliens and the confiscation of their property; and they found the Patriarch somewhat disposed to sign a decree of this nature in order to avoid even greater disasters.
It was then that de Lauriac, realizing that Jean and Odette were about to escape him, devised the “theft” by slipping the Book of Ancestors into Jean’s luggage.
Callista, supported by Andréa, put herself at the head of the movement, which threatened to carry all before it. The town-guards declined to interfere, and the balogards shut themselves up with their riches.
The Council of Elders were in permanent session at the Palace. The librarian proved the theft. The Patriarch was thus placed in a serious position, and he wondered how he could overcome the difficulty without giving the order for blood offerings, which would indubitably bring down upon him the wrath of foreign powers. He fervently hoped that Rouletabille and his friends, whom he had advised to make themselves scarce, had been able to effect their retreat....
“We are in a pretty pickle,” cried Rouletabille.
But as, in accordance with his custom, he had made himself acquainted with the ramifications of the hotel in which they were staying, he at once took Jean and Odette to a staircase which led to the rear of the hotel, away from the caravanserai.... The rooms in the ground floor were by now invaded by a shouting mob, and the sound of blows with the butt-ends of rifles on the doors, which still stood firm, could be heard.
Just then the little group of three was reinforced by Monsieur Nicolas Tournesol, the very picture of despair.
“They’re going to fire the hotel. Let’s get away at once,” he gasped.
“What about Madame de Meyrens? Are you going to desert the poor lady?” asked Rouletabille in a bantering tone.
“Madame de Meyrens can go to the devil. She and that infernal de Lauriac are the cause of all this trouble.”
“Hell and fury,” cried Rouletabille, “I’ve forgotten my case.”
“What case?” asked Jean, astonished to see his friend stop and make a movement to turn back.
“Why, my dressing-case,” said Rouletabille, preparing to dart up the staircase again.
“Look here, this is absurd,” Jean broke out. “I another minute it will be too late to get away, and yet you bother about your ‘dressing-case.’”
“This is the second time, old man, that I have had to provide myself with shirts and things. I am not a millionaire. Wait for me here, and be sure and do nothing without me.”
So saying, pushing Jean aside without much ceremony, he disappeared up the stairs into the hotel.
“He has lost his head,” cried Jean irritably. “Let’s make a move, Odette.”
“He told us to stay here. We had better wait for him,” she returned.
“But we can’t afford the time. Do you hear them? They’re coming.... Listen, here they are!”
“All the more reason,” returned Odette, who seemed to have made up her mind, and sat down on a stone bench with an air of resignation. “All the more reason. You wouldn’t wish to get away and leave Rouletabille in their hands.”
“And all this for a dressing-case!” exclaimed Jean in a distracted tone.
Meantime Monsieur Nicolas Tournesol, who had not forgotten the bag containing his own most precious articles, including
the packet which Rouletabille had confided to him, hurriedly made off across a tract of waste land which brought him to a cemetery, whence he hoped, under the shelter of the dead, to reach the open country.
A harsh fate willed it, however, that he should fall upon a procession taking a balogard to his last resting-place, and at the sight of the alien the mourners made a rush at him, with the result that it was a question, a few minutes later, whether they should bury the living along with the dead. There are crucial moments in the life of a people when fanatics exert all their powers to devise new methods of making respectable citizens suffer.
Luckily for Monsieur Nicolas Tournesol, none of his debtors were among those upon whom his fate depended, otherwise his life would not have been worth a moment’s purchase, and his accounts would have been settled there and then. By promising them to throw open his stock-rooms in the caravanserai he was able to postpone an adverse fate, and was taken back to the city little the worse for the encounter.
It was then that he beheld the march past, amidst the excitement of the populace, of three prisoners, who were none other than Rouletabille, de Santierne and poor Odette. A general shout followed them and stones were thrown at them, while the town rang with the cry: “Death to the queyra!” Had Monsieur Nicolas Tournesol felt more at ease as to his own future, he would have discovered ample material with which to philosophize on the nature of things. That very morning the same crowd had acclaimed with a veritable frenzy a girl whom it did not know, but who, it thought, bore on her shoulder a birth-mark. That evening, after it had learnt that the birth-mark had disappeared, it clamoured for the poor girl to be sent to the gibbet — and that, too, in the twentieth century, within a stone’s-throw of the bar where, the evening before, Monsieur Nicolas Tournesol had taught Vladislas Kamenos the art of manufacturing cocktails, and of the ballroom in which some hours earlier the Wallachian Consul’s guests were dancing the latest shimmy.... Where is our boasted progress?... Either the guest of Moloch or Bamboula!...
“Do you know these people?” one of the party asked Tournesol, pointing to the three prisoners, who were apparently being escorted to their execution.
“I’ve never seen them before,” declared Tournesol, without turning a hair.
“Those are the people who stole the Book of Ancestors. They’ll have to pay the penalty.”
“They deserve it,” exclaimed Tournesol.
“And woe betide their accomplices.”
“I quite agree. I never heard of such impudence. Steal the Book of Ancestors! Why, some people respect nothing. These tourists think they can do what they like. If they had their way, they would pull down the temple for the sake of adding one of its stones to their collection. It’s disgraceful. There’s a limit in all things. You are quite right to make an example of them, believe me.”
“May Rouletabille forgive me,” said Tournesol to himself, trying to discover an excuse for his odious conduct and at once finding it. “May Rouletabille forgive me. But I am bound to chuck him over if I am to have a chance of delivering the packet which he entrusted to me.... Another job which you, my poor Tournesol, could very well have done without. But you always were led astray by your good heart.”
Meanwhile a body of men, sent by the Patriarch, had come to rescue the three prisoners from popular fury, and they conducted, or rather threw, them into one of the rooms of the Palace, where they were to remain until they received sentence. The three of them were in a state of consternation. Rouletabille, in particular, was a sorry sight. He seemed in a greatly dejected mood, and he opened his mouth only to bewail the ill-luck which had deprived him of his “dressing-case,” for, despite all his efforts, he had failed to get it, or rather there was no time to get it.
“And that’s all you can say at a time like this,” exclaimed Jean. “Why, it’s your fault that we are here.”
CHAPTER LVII
ROULETABILLE PLAYS HIS GAME
ROULETABILLE WAS NOT unduly disturbed by the reproaches. It was to no purpose that Jean, beginning to lose his temper, told him that his wonderful shrewdness was only equalled, at certain times, by his blind obstinacy — he dared not say blundering. Rouletabille expressed no regret for what had happened. And yet “no language could adequately describe” what had happened, declared Jean. To think that he had risked his own and his friends’ lives for the sake of a dressing-case!
Odette, worn out with fatigue, endeavoured to calm Jean, but it was no easy task, for they heard the journalist mutter, as though in a dream:
“I ought to have taken the other passage and then I could have come back by the servant’s staircase, after getting hold of my ‘dressing-case.’”
“Oh, shut up with your ‘dressing-case.’ I tell you straight, that had Odette been willing to come with me I wouldn’t have waited for you.”
“Well, old man, you ought to have made off. What do you expect? Personally, I can’t get used to the idea of going away without my tooth-brush.”
Conversation carried on between Rouletabille and Jean in this strain would drive them both to acts of desperation. — Fortunately — or unfortunately — it was interrupted by Andréa and his armed band, who came to fetch the prisoners and take them before the Pâtriarch.
The latter was waiting for them in a small room adjoining that of the Grand Council, from which it was divided only by heavy purple hangings.
Two Elders and the librarian were with him. They wore an equally gloomy expression as they gazed upon the sacred book, which had been recovered from the aliens in such a pitiable condition. They observed with infinite distress that its iron clasp and its precious stones had been torn from it. And the deadly remarks which they exchanged among themselves boded ill for the barbarians who had not hesitated to mutilate this great work of art.
Outside the menacing shouts of the people, “Down with the vandals!” broke upon them in great gusts when a door was opened.
The Patriarch addressed himself to Jean, and asked in a stern voice, the librarian acting as interpreter:
“What have you dont with the precious stones which embellished this book, the priceless illuminated letters with which it was decorated, the clasp which held it together and protected it from the wear and tear of hundreds of years?”
Jean protested that he knew nothing about the book, that he saw it for the first time, that it was never in his possession, and that he was the victim of an abominable plot.
His denial was listened to with obvious disbelief, and Rouletabille interposed:
“It is true,” he said, “that my friend never had this work in his possession. But it is not the first time that I personally have seen it, and I may tell you that I am in a position to give you back one of the ornaments removed from it.”
A great commotion.... Rouletabille with a sudden gesture dived into his revolver pocket. Andréa sprang towards him, but Rouletabille drew from his pocket with a smile an object which he handed to the Patriarch.
It was the chain with pendant bearing the fatal sign, the cross and crescent, which had at one time formed the clasp of the book. The Patriarch and the Elders recognized it. Odette herself remembered it. Why had Rouletabille produced this object the possession of which would tend to incriminate them more than any other adverse fact?
He was questioned. Where had he obtained it if he did not himself purloin it? And in the calmest of tones he made answer:
“I found it in mademoiselle’s room.”
He pointed to Odette, who blushed and was startled by this direct attack from her “little Zo,” which she was far from expecting. Jean grew more and more nonplussed by Rouletabille’s attitude, and observing Odette’s embarrassment strove to assist her by denying Rouletabille’s assertion.
“I have never seen Odette with it,” he said.
“And I say again that I found it in Mademoiselle de Lavardens’ room.”
In the midst of general bewilderment, Odette asked to be allowed to speak. In a trembling voice she said:
&
nbsp; “It is true that this ornament was in my possession, but I would never have believed that Rouletabille would accuse me. When it was given to me, I threw it into a drawer, and the fact that it was found there proves that I forgot about it. I attached no importance to it, I assure you,” she said, turning with a grief-stricken expression to Jean.
“But who gave it to you?” asked Jean.
“I’m very sorry, Jean, but it was a present from Hubert de Lauriac.” —
“There!” exclaimed Rouletabille. “She acknowledges it herself.”
“On the other hand,” said Jean bitterly, Hubert de Lauriac made you a present, Odette, and you kept it.”
“You shut up, old man,” rapped out Rouletabille.
“Gentlemen, it’s my turn to speak. Besides, I will not detain you for any length of time. And you will understand the whole business. This ornament, torn from the Book of Ancestors, was given to Mademoiselle de Lavardens by Hubert de Lauriac. Now I take my oath that I saw the Book of Ancestors in his house. He brought it back from the Patriarchate where he was travelling recently, and he slipped it into my friend Jean de Santierne’s luggage. Hubert de Lauriac is the thief. Do you follow me?
“Let de Lauriac be brought here. He will show these impostors up,” broke in Andréa.
But when the Patriarch assented to the suggestion, which seemed natural enough, Rouletabille implored him not to proceed with it.
“If de Lauriac is brought here he will not show us up, he will deny it,” he explained. “And I, for my part, in making these positive statements, will not be able to confound him either. The evidence of the rascality of which I accuse him, must come neither from him nor me, but possess in the eyes of a council of wise men, such as I see before me, sufficient weight to carry conviction. Listen, therefore, to what I have to say. There is a woman in this city of whose presence you are unaware, but who knows all there is to be known about Hubert de Lauriac. It is this woman whom I should like to hear.”
Collected Works of Gaston Leroux Page 134
