Collected Works of Gaston Leroux

by Gaston Leroux

  He slept until the evening. Men came in to enquire after him. They were rather uneasy about him, but he declared when he woke up that he had never felt better, and was famishing. They asked him what he would like to eat. He thought for a moment and said:

  “That’s my business. I’m going to cook myself something nice.”

  He dressed and made his way to the galley in which he had once been the cook’s mate. Here he set himself seriously to work. He prepared some codfish. It was a Spanish dish of which he had the recipe, and in the old days Chéri-Bibi was inordinately fond of it.

  “Poor chap” someone said. “He still fancies he’s cooking something for Chéri-Bibi. How devoted he was to him!”

  As a matter of fact the Dodger had never shown so much care and attention in the whole course of his culinary career. He prepared the dish in such abundance that it looked as if Chéri-Bibi, whose appetite was equal to that of six men, was really in the land of the living.

  The dish consisted of:

  1¼ lbs of cod

  1¼ lbs of potatoes

  1 lb of tomatoes

  3½ oz of red powdered pimento in lieu of fresh red Spanish pimento of which he would have used 14 oz.

  1¾ oz of onions

  ⅓ oz of garlic

  ⅓ oz of flour

  A little pepper freshly ground

  Salt

  A small bunch of bay leaves in lieu of thyme and parsley

  Stale bread crumbs.

  His comrades left him to himself for they were fully aware that they must not interrupt the Dodger when he was concocting this particular dish of cod.

  He cut the cod into pieces, boiled it, drained it when it was cooked, took the bones out, and kept back half a pint of the water in which it was boiled as dressing. He sighed with regret as he thought that if he had fresh pimento he would have peeled them, and cut them into long thin slices, and sprinkled them with a little pepper, but as he had not got them he had to do without them. He peeled and chopped and half cooked the onions in oil, with the tomatoes cut in slices, the garlic, the bay leaf and the rest of the pepper; he added the dressing and let it all boil for ten minutes; and then he used the flour to thicken the sauce, and continued the cooking for a few minutes longer, took out the bay leaf, and tasted his handiwork, smacked his lips with satisfaction, but added a little salt to the seasoning since the cod had been soaking too long, and strained the sauce and the dressing.

  Meanwhile the potatoes had been cooked in steam. He peeled and cut them into slices. Then he took a fire proof dish and spread a layer of potato slices on it, then a layer of cod slices, and above that a quarter of his powdered Spanish pimento in lieu of slices of pimento, added a little sauce, and repeated the operation in every particular four times. He sprinkled bread crumbs over it, put it in an oven for about half an hour, until the dish had acquired an oily consistency the appearance of which alone was enough to send an epicure into raptures. When he opened the oven a splendid odour, an appetising fragrance as from the Arabian Nights permeated the galley. [Try it and you will see how excellent it is. G.L.] The Dodger closed his eyes. “Oh Chéri-Bibi if you were here!” he cried. He opened his eyes, placed the dish on a napkin, took two spoons, and walking quickly through the alley-ways, which were deserted at this hour, reached that part of the deck where the Marquis was in the habit of taking his walks when the crew, except the night watch, were asleep. And he placed his steaming and odorous dish not on the bench where the Marquis usually sat, but some twenty paces away on a large pulley. Having done so he concealed himself as on the previous night.

  It was not long before the Marquis appeared. It was so obviously the Marquis this time that the hapless and trembling Dodger felt his heart sink within him and he was almost suffocating.

  The Marquis sat down in his customary seat, but suddenly he raised his head and sniffed. He seemed to be inhaling with a certain uneasy enjoyment an unexpected odour. He rose to his feet with quivering nostrils. He took his bearings, and after some hesitation walked to the place from which, on this fine starlit night, the agreeable flavours were being wafted. Oh the poor Dodger’s beating heart!

  Now the Marquis is but two steps from the odiferous pulley. He stoops over the dish, over the cod cooked in the Spanish way.

  He casts a rapid glance on either side to see that he is unobserved.

  And he flings himself greedily on the dish crying: “Fatalitas.”

  “Fatalitas” repeats the Dodger in a delirious voice. “Oh Chéri-Bibi... Chéri-Bibi.”

  They rush forward, shake hands and hug one another.

  “Hush, not too much row... Besides the cod will get cold Dodger.”

  And they fall to. And both of them eat from the dish.

  “Well, I say, you’re a Marquis now?”

  “Hold your tongue, so that the Kanaka may never suspect that you know.”

  “What’s it got to do with him? I shan’t leave you again.... That’s understood eh?”

  “Yes, that’s understood... Oh this splendid cod my dear old Dodger... You’ll come and cook some for me now and then at my own place at home.”

  “Of course, it all belongs to you... You’re Cecily’s husband now.”

  Chéri-Bibi dropped his spoon. He had eaten enough cod.

  “Oh, don’t speak of it “ he said “ The mere idea of it sends me crazy.”

  CHAPTER II

  CECILY

  THE CAR STOPPED on the summit of the hill at Dieppe, a little outside Le Pollet.

  “Must I wait for you monsieur le Marquis?” asked the chauffeur.

  “No, Carolle, you must return to Treport, and stay there until you receive my orders.”

  The Marquis and his secretary alighted from the car.

  “Well, my good Hilaire, here we are at the end of our trials.”

  “You must be greatly excited monsieur le Marquis” said Hilaire looking at his master, a fine figure of a man, tall and extremely stout, while the secretary was a puny mortal wearing a travelling suit which seemed too big for his narrow frame and lank slender limbs.

  “Yes, Hilaire, I am excited, as you may well believe, so excited that I’m not sorry to arrive at nightfall in a place where every paving-stone, you understand, every pebble brings some memory back to me.

  “What long years have passed since those fatal happenings which forced me from the place and with which you are familiar. It was here that I lived as a happy boy and young man. Oh blessed soil, land of my fathers! Now I come back to it after so many hopes shattered, so many struggles and vicissitudes. Is it true that the dearest of my wishes is to be granted? Oh, my dear Hilaire, I never expected that I should die one day an honest man in this Caux country where I was born, and have a grave, one day, in this dear spot.

  “Hail O my country. I see once more your humble dwellings, the smoke ascending from the housetops in the quiet evening, little children chasing one another with happy cries, and the white caps of the good wives of Le Pollet who sit on their doorsteps the better to watch the passer-by.

  “Here we can see the lights gleaming through the windows. How my heart beats at the sight of this porch from which I used to step into the noisy diligence which bore me to Birelle or Criel and through the great open country. Heavens Hilaire let us stop here. You see that road whose ascent branches off towards the cliff? That’s the way to Le Puys where I knew my earliest joys and greatest sufferings. It was here that my little sister and I used to fly like the wind to get to the great hawthorn bushes entwined with honeysuckle and dog roses which shaded Cecily’s house.... Cecily!... Cecily!... How is it that on this day which ought to be the happiest day of my life, an uncontrollable sadness creeps over me and fills me with secret misgivings, as if I were hastening to a fatal catastrophe, a disaster which nothing can avert?”

  “Let’s go on a little, monsieur le Marquis.... People are beginning to stare at us.”

  “You’re right, old fellow, we mustn’t attract attention I am not anxious for the Marquis
du Touchais to be recognised, nor that people should welcome my happy return before I have fully savoured the joy of seeing alone many faces and places which hold me by such tender memories. Ah, there it is... there... the shop front.... Nothing has changed Hilaire.... Nothing has been changed. That is the iron shop front belonging to the butcher with whom I served my apprenticeship.”

  “I confess,” said Hilaire, “that I’m not much struck with those particular iron bars for they recall to my mind the most unpleasant time of your life! And he endeavoured to drag the Marquis off by respectfully taking his arm.

  But the Marquis shook himself free:

  “Look at that fine calf, Hilaire, it is splendid,” he said. “And the heart, liver and lungs are magnificent. They always had the best pluck here, because they never bought spotted meat, that is to say diseased meat. I need only point out to you, in proof of what I say, those lungs which are quite “fat” as they say in the business, in other words, first rate. It’s like that ox still hanging on the gambrel, it is a pleasure to see it, I assure you.”

  “I beg of you, monsieur le Marquis, to notice that people are flocking round us.”

  “Yes, yes Hilaire. I’m coming.... You are quite right... but you must forgive me you know. It was here that I first learnt how to use the knife!”

  They crossed the bridge and once more the Marquis encompassed in one glance the harbour and the quays where he had played in the hey day of his youth.

  He pointed to the dark outline of a steamer and said to his secretary:

  “There, that’s the Newhaven boat. We’ll come and see her off to-morrow. Remember this evening to look up for me the time of high tide. And now I’ll show you Duquesne’s statue.”

  They were held up by a great block of carriages on the way to the races, such as may be seen in the height of the season, and he said:

  “I’m glad to notice that we still have a certain amount of traffic.”

  When they reached the Square which contained the statue of the great French sailor, the Marquis placed Hilaire in a favourable spot from which, though the evening shadows had fallen, he was able to admire the noble attitude of the hero of Dieppe in his top-boots.

  “When my sister and I were young,” said the Marquis “we never passed this statue without my saying: ‘You see, Jacqueline, it’s not bronze it’s... Duquesne.’ [In the Northern patois “chêne” is “quêne”; the ch very often becomes qu; so that the pun is: Ce n’est pas du bronze, c’est du quêne (chêne). It’s not bronze but oak. — Translator’s note.]

  The Marquis recalled this schoolboy playfulness with emotion and it seemed to him that he was a boy again.

  “Where shall we dine?” asked Hilaire, who was feeling hungry.

  “Look here, Hilaire, if you’ve no objection we’ll leave the swagger hotels alone this evening, and I’ll take you to a modest eating-house, in the harbour where, in my apprentice days, my friends and I used to regale ourselves when we were on holiday. It will cost us two and half francs each, including wine, but not including extras of course, and we shall have a good dish of fried fish.”

  “I notice, monsieur le Marquis,” said Hilaire who was not very keen on the eating-house, “that you’ve become rather economical lately.”

  “I never liked squandering money, and upon my soul, without being a miser, one can remember that a sou’s a sou.”

  “You were not so calculating when you were poor.”

  “There’s no merit in not calculating when you have no money.”

  “That’s true,” admitted Hilaire.

  “But what are you complaining of? Are we denying ourselves anything, and aren’t we living up to our position? You see Hilaire, the one thing I don’t like is waste. It doesn’t benefit anyone. Besides, we’ve got to make up the loss of six million francs, don’t forget.”

  “Hush!” Hilaire broke in gripping his master’s arm.

  “I’m not saying a word that the whole world mayn’t listen to,” went on the Marquis as he rubbed his arm. “I repeat, six millions... that’s money. What a number of honest men we could make with six millions!”

  He pushed open the glazed door of a restaurant opposite the Fish Market in the arcade to which they had returned.

  About a dozen sailors and clerks were dining somewhat noisily. The proprietor of the establishment — Oscar by name — darted towards them gratified to see such well-dressed customers coming into the place. But the Marquis knew his way about, and had no need of his services, for he went direct to a sort of special room cut off from the ordinary dining room by glass partitions from which depended short dingy-looking curtains.

  “It smells of burnt fat,” said Hilaire with a look of disgust.

  “It smells of the fried fish of Dieppe,” returned the Marquis. Monsieur Oscar please give us four portions of fried fish, some crab and prawns, and four portions of calves head cooked in oil, and two jugs of cider, to begin with.”

  “Do you expect friends sir?” asked M. Oscar obsequiously.

  “No, but I know something about the size of the portions here, and I want to make quite sure.”

  “Do you know me, if it’s a fair question?”

  “Not at all, but I saw your name on the door. In my time the proprietor was called Lavallée.”

  “He’s dead” said Oscar “and I took over the business.”

  “Is business still good?”

  “Business is bad, but such as it is I’m trying to sell the place. The big restaurants do me a lot of harm. Customers are very particular, and I have to get my fish from Paris.”

  “How’s that?”

  “Because the big hotels buy up all the fresh fish in Dieppe.”

  “You see yourself that we should have done better to go to a big hotel” said Hilaire dolefully.

  “You’ll be quite satisfied, sir,” Oscar declared. “I’ll run to the kitchen myself.”

  The Marquis sighed:

  “It’s hard that one can’t get a bit of fish in a seaport town,” but he at once added: “Look here, Hilaire, I don’t care one way or the other. It’s the setting of the place that I’ve come to see.”

  “It’s a pretty sight!” said Hilaire.

  But he put a bridle on his ill-humour when a dainty little serving girl made her appearance. She was young and smart, and wore a white cap over her ears, and her bright looks, sly smile, sprightliness and activity, and the graceful manner in which she laid the table sent him into raptures.

  “What is your name?” he asked reddening.

  “Virginie sir, if you please.”

  Hilaire at once engraved her name upon his heart.

  Thus as befits the awakening of love Hilaire remained silent during the whole of the disagreeable meal, and hardly touched the “horrible scraps” as he called them. The Marquis talked enough for two, bringing to mind twenty anecdotes of his youth, and striving, apparently, to escape from himself. Hilaire who knew him well was not deceived, and he felt that all his chatter carefully dissimulated the one thought which preoccupied him but which he did not express.

  Meantime a newsboy came into the restaurant shouting the name of an evening paper, and selling it to sailors in the adjoining room.

  “Hullo!” said one of them almost immediately “it seems that it’s all up with the famous “Bayard.”

  At these words the Marquis and Hilaire gripped each other and listened with strange anxiety.

  “Yes, look here, it’s in the paper. At the finish they caught her after chasing her for a year, and they’ve sunk her.”

  “Read it... Read it” cried several voices.

  The man read out:

  “The “Times” has received a telegram from its Singapore correspondent stating that an end had been made at last of the notorious “Bayard” and her convict crew. The French cruiser “La Gloire” which was on her track during the whole of last year, and from which she succeeded in escaping in the many groups of islands of the Malay Archipelago, came up with her in the Molucca
Sea, near the Sula Islands. “La Gloire” at once opened fire. A quick engagement ensued, and the “Bayard” was blown up. Three fourths of the crew were drowned. The remainder who had taken to the boats and were attempting to escape, preferred to be shot rather than to surrender. “La Gloire” picked up over a hundred dead bodies among which they were able to identify the Kanaka, the leader of the gang, and his terrible wife, the Countess. It is known that the Kanaka took over the position of Captain of these abominable pirates after Chéri-Bibi’s death. Thus ends the amazing organization which had occupied the attention of the whole world for such long months and which terrorised the entire China Seas.”

  The reading had finished.

  The two men in the private room who had turned whiter than the table cloth breathed a deep sigh of relief and muttered: “That’s a good thing!”

  The sailors in the other room indulged in various comments on the Marquis du Touchais and his luck in escaping from such bandits.

  “All the same, it cost him five million francs” said a sailor, for most people were acquainted with the facts, and knew that the Marquis, Captain Barrachon, and many others had barely escaped with their lives; and the Marquis himself on his journey through Paris had freely allowed himself to be interviewed by representatives of the great newspapers.

  “I’ve heard that the Marquis is coming back to Dieppe soon” said another. “The ‘Belle of Dieppe’ will be pleased. She’ll begin to ride the high horse again, while the Marchioness who is good will be crying her eyes out... Say what you like, certain things are not right...”

  “It seems that this evening she’s going to open the Ball in Aid of Poor Seamen in the great hall at the Casino.”

  “Yes, the dear lady is to be accompanied by the Deputy Prefect. It’s the first time that she’s taken part in any public charity since the death of her brother in Australia.”

  “Her brother was a nice object. He died from dissipation and, they say, was an opium smoker. She can’t be over sorry at the loss of him.”