Collected Works of Gaston Leroux
Page 168
“As long as Virginie stays” thought the Dodger. “It’s a matter of indifference to me who the proprietor is.”
And thus poor man in his journey through life does not suspect that the pebble which he unconsciously brushes against with his foot, may cause him to stumble in the mysterious path of his destiny.
Until the evening he sat on a stone on the quay, leaning on his elbows, like an old pensioner with no other diversion than to gaze into the distance. He did not dine. When he returned quite late he observed a light in the study on the ground floor of the Villa. And he thought in gloomy despondency:
“The Marquis is making his will.”
He was right in his conjecture. But it was some hours since Chéri-Bibi had finished his “last will and testament,” dealing with the distribution of his property. It was his moral testament that he was preparing, the last memory of himself that he was about to leave to Cecily, his supreme farewell to life and love. In speaking to her from beyond the tomb, as the Marquis du Touchais, he was careful to deal briefly with the past in his expression of sorrow; but he hoped by a dazzling picture of his love of the moment to excite a feeling of remorse in the pitiless heart of her who did not know how to forgive.
More than once Chéri-Bibi was obliged to interrupt the flow of his impassioned confession to allow his tears to flow. And thus it seemed that at the moment when he believed Cecily would be his, he was to lose her for ever. A few hours had sufficed to decide irrevocably his fate. The tragic hour was about to strike when fatality would write the word “finis” to his wondrous story. At least so he believed, and with wet eyes through which he caught the vague image of Cecily, and with a heart bursting with impotent despair, he rose and lifted his hands on high imploring her pardon.
Someone was pacing the room above despite the lateness of the hour. It was Cecily’s room, the forbidden temple in which the little feet of his cruel goddess were moving in their “perfumed sandals.” It was in carefully chosen language that Chéri-Bibi spoke of her for the last time. His elementary education, which was completed too late by his reading of the classic authors, led him to adopt a somewhat antiquated style; a style which appealed to him, after he had cast aside slang, by reason of its dignity, its loftiness, its elaborate distinction.
“My misfortunes have enlightened my mind” he sighed. “The blood on my hands grows pale and is being expunged. It was written that the stain should be blotted out by this unforeseen expiation. To-day the words of my mouth are pure, and Cecily is my executioner.”
But why had she not retired for the night?... Why was she not peacefully sleeping if the fate of her unhappy husband was as indifferent to her as she seemed to pretend? If she loved another, was she not on the brink of deliverance?
In the room above, the sound of her footsteps ceased to be heard, and Chéri-Bibi dropped once more into his chair before his unfinished task. Suddenly he drew himself up and his heart leapt within him. Her fragrant presence wrapped him all about. He turned round. She stood before him like a pale, compassionate ghost. He tried to take her in his arms, but she glided from his hands like a shade. He groaned. And then she said in the soft voice which he knew of old:
“What are you doing? Why aren’t you getting what rest you can? To-morrow morning you have to fight this duel. Won’t you need all your strength and all your self-command?”
“No, I shall not need them. When I am dead you will read what I have written, and perhaps you will discover that I was deserving of your forgiveness.”
“I shall not read it” she returned in an increasingly gentle voice. “I shall not read it because you will live.”
She took the sheets of writing paper that lay on the desk, put them to the light of a candle and threw them into the fireplace, and soon they were little more than ashes. But first the fight was switched on in the room, and Chéri-Bibi was unnerved by the disturbing vision of Cecily in her night attire. She had thrown a thin dressing gown over her disorder which added a sense of unreality to this charming and startling apparition. She was like a delicate picture at once of sorrow and love. He fell at her feet. He had the sensation that she bent over his bowed head and — happy, unforgettable, exultant, divine moment — touched with her cool lips his tremendous forehead. He closed his eyes like a fool. When he opened them again she had vanished.
He rose with renewed strength like Hercules before the Nemean monster. He would five. He would love. He would be loved. Like a man possessed he paced the room in which a few minutes before he was prostrate with despair; and in the pale beams of the early morning the mirrors reflected his triumphant glance. He opened the window with a conquering hand. He breathed the fresh air of the dawn as though he could not inhale enough to fill his big happy heart. Cecily would be his. There was no longer any room for doubt. Heaven, earth, the waves of the distant sea, the whole world were his. The sun would rise that day but to witness his triumph. Woe betide whoever stood against him in the path of life! That little Baron Proskof, so clever with his pistol, would miss him, while Chéri-Bibi, so clever with his revolver — a much more difficult weapon — would not miss the little Baron Proskof. Because sometimes fortune showers all her blessings at one time; glorious weather, success in one’s undertakings, and luck in the battle of life. Yes there are moments when it is impossible to die! Chéri-Bibi was stifling with the joy of living; he had to tear off his collar, his tie, open the front of his shirt, for he was gasping for breath. And in his glad enthusiasm, in the flush of his high spirits, he exaggerated his dishevelment, and took pleasure in contemplating himself in the great mirror hanging above the fire-place in which a few minutes before Cecily, with a simple gesture, had taught him that his love was not hopeless.
And thus he gazed at himself, proud as a demi-god who eagerly throws off his armour the sooner to achieve victory. Suddenly he turned pale and staggered back. His hand went to his heart. It was as though he were about to fall in a huddled heap stricken with death. He uttered a hollow groan. He drew himself up as wild beasts in the jungle draw themselves up after they have received the shot which, for a moment, has struck them down and which the hunter thinks will be mortal. And he leapt from the window into the garden. He ran without stopping to the Lodge where Hilaire was sleeping, and knocked at the window on the ground floor. The window was opened; and the hapless Dodger fell back at the sight of this wild-eyed, pallid, sinister face.
“What’s happened?” he asked in a startled voice.
Chéri-Bibi went in to him.
“This has happened” he exclaimed showing his bare chest.
The Dodger saw tatooed on Chéri-Bibi’s skin some half dozen designs representing anchors and hearts pierced with arrows, and in addition, the indelible sentence: To Cecily for life Chéri-Bibi. The poor man’s name was engraven on his chest!
“What difference can it make to you? “asked the Dodger who failed to grasp the reason of so much excitement for so small a cause.
“Wretch! Don’t you understand that I am to fight a duel this morning and it’s ten to one that I shall be hit and the seconds and doctor may have to open my shirt front?”
“Oh! say, I say” exclaimed the Dodger simply, placing his hands before his face in an attitude of dismay.
Chéri-Bibi was silent. He buttoned his shirt over his secret. He was breathing hard in hoarse gasps like a wild beast that is trapped.
“Let’s get out of this place” he cried suddenly. “Come...”
He led or rather carried the Dodger into the garden and thence to the cliff which they reached by climbing over a low wall which Chéri-Bibi had often struggled with in the days of his youth.
They turned their steps towards the shore. It seemed to him that the air from the open sea would freshen his mind and perhaps inspire him with an idea. For after all something would have to be done... Something...
“Why didn’t he remove your skin as well?” sighed the Dodger.
“Yes, why?... Why didn’t he? It’s too late to ask him now si
nce he’s dead. Oh, I frequently begged him to take away that particular bit of skin, but he wouldn’t hear of it pretending that it was dangerous since it was so near the heart. He preferred to change my hands telling me that that was much more essential. In that respect, he was right, but he might just as well have done both. The skin over the heart is not more sensitive than the skin on the hand. He must have had some scheme at the back of his mind! I always suspected as much; and I was afraid of it. I never really felt safe until I heard that his body was picked up. Meanwhile we’re in a pretty pickle!”
“Yes,” admitted the Dodger “we are in a pretty pickle. Things were going too well.”
“Of course, things were going too well,” said Chéri-Bibi.
“I often said to you: ‘Monsieur le Marquis don’t make any more blunders. Compose yourself or there’ll be trouble.’ Oh damn the duel!”
“There’s only one thing to be done” said Chéri-Bibi “and that’s for me to fire at once trusting to luck to kill him.”
“But suppose you don’t kill him? Suppose he hits you?”
“I intend to stand with my side face towards him. I shan’t move my arm. I shall fire with my fore-arm pressed to my body. In this way there is a chance of being hit in the arm.”
“What’s the good! They’ll take off your shirt just the same.
“Damn and damn again.”
“Yes it’s devilish bad luck. There’s only one alternative, and that is to refuse to fight.”
“You must be mad. I’d rather die than be taken for a coward.”
“What rot you talk. I can see you lying wounded while the seconds pull you about. Suddenly they draw back and utter exclamations. Every one flocks round you. Someone asks what’s the trouble and they all read: ‘To Cecily for life Chéri-Bibi!...”
Chéri-Bibi turned his face to the luminous sun rising in the firmament. Had he been able to emulate Joshua’s feat of arresting the sun he would not have hesitated though he unloosed a thousand catastrophes in the solar system. But since he was powerless, he contented himself with lifting his clenched fists and crying in infuriated tones:
“O thou sun who makest the fight of day to revolve round the world have pity on my unjust torment.”
“This is not the moment for bombast. Rook in front of you monsieur le Marquis.”
The Dodger pointed to a form which stood above the horizon of the pale sea on the path skirting the cliff in which the two despairing friends had just entered.
Chéri-Bibi was not wearing his smoked spectacles that morning and his sight was as keen as his secretary’s.
He gave a start and muttered:
“The Baron!”
It was indeed the Baron who was coming towards them, his hands in his pockets, taking the early morning air. Apparently the eve of battle had found him restless and unable to sleep, and he had determined to relax the tension of his nerves by a healthy walk on the deserted cliff.
Chéri-Bibi told the Dodger to be silent but to keep by his side as they pursued their way.
The Baron, in his turn, caught sight of them and recognised them. It was too late for him to go back. It would have seemed as if he were running away. Moreover the cliff was public property.
The path along which they were walking, the Baron coming towards the two others, was extremely narrow and close to the edge of the cliff. In order to allow the Baron to pass, Chéri-Bibi or the Dodger would have to make way. Chéri-Bibi who was nearest the edge, and who was also the best mannered, the most familiar with the usages of the polite world, made the first movement to draw aside. Baron Proskof took advantage of it, while raising his hat, to slip into the narrow passage which was open to him.
Unfortunately at that moment a series of false movements occurred between Chéri-Bibi and the Baron such as often comes about between two persons who meet face to face and desire to treat each other with courtesy. In these false movements, there was one which was falser than the others, and it sent the Baron sprawling into the abyss.
Chéri-Bibi and the Dodger came to a stand in some excitement. Soon they caught below them the sound of a crash!
“He was a great rotter” said Chéri-Bibi. “Let’s go to bed Dodger. Take my word for it, we mustn’t come here again for a stroll, the cliff offers too many temptations!”
CHAPTER V
IN WHICH THERE IS A TOUCH OF THE SUBLIME
AT EIGHT O’CLOCK in the morning, for the duel was fixed for nine o’clock, Chéri-Bibi and his secretary were walking in the main avenue of the Bourrelier grounds waiting for their principal second Maître Régime.
Chéri-Bibi was certainly good to look upon. His splendid composure before the combat, the perfect serenity of his manner, his quiet language, in a word his dignified bearing, would have astonished the most casual person, for it is seldom given even to the bravest man to be complete master of his nerves a few minutes before hazarding his life.
In the shadow of a window blind on the first floor a feminine form was watching the heroic spectacle.
It was Cecily who had not slept during the night and who stood gazing with increasing agitation at this husband who was about to fight and perhaps die for her...
For her! Since his return to Dieppe the Marquis’s behaviour had completely revolutionised the mind and perhaps the heart of the adorable Cecily. Was it indeed possible that the same man who had made her cruelly suffer, was now giving her such grounds for satisfaction? Two days before, he had forced back the Baroness’s horses, the day before he had turned the creature out of the Château du Touchais which was desecrated by her presence, and to-day he was to fight for his wife!
With one hand on her heart whose unwonted throbbing she had some difficulty to restrain, Cecily began to reproach herself; for in the main she was the best person that ever lived, and if she had treated the repentant Marquis with disdain, it was because the past had unfortunately given her only too much reason to doubt the reality of such a transformation in his character. Thus she reproached herself. She thought that she was partly to blame for his conduct which was, perhaps, brought about by her coldness to him in the early days of their marriage. If he now bestowed on her so many marks of his love, it was doubtless because he loved her then. And she had never guessed it!... Yet it was the explanation of many things... the licentiousness of his life, the scandal of the ‘Belle of Dieppe,’ and all the incidents which came after, even up to the terrible night of his departure for Norway in which she now tried to see less the desire of revenge than the irresistible love of a man whom, when all was said, she had scoffed at.
And thus it is with the heart of a woman — always in extremes, passing from love to hate and hate to love with a celerity that nothing can stop.
And the Cecily who was concealed behind the window blind was not far from being in love with Chéri-Bibi.
To begin with the step that she had taken in the night, the kiss that she had given him, the encouragement that she had held out to him by burning his will, before his eyes, were so many proofs, clearer than the soft light of that morning, that her heart was opening to the tenderest feelings, the feelings of forgiveness and love.
She admired his strength of mind in the face of danger and, in truth, she trembled for him. She dreaded the result of the duel.
She shivered at the reflection that his lifeless body might presently be brought back to her. She who a few days before had every right to consider that the death of the Marquis would be a deliverance, no longer struggled against a feeling of anguish at the thought of it. She wanted him to live, and since she was a good Catholic she prayed for him.
Meanwhile Chéri-Bibi began to lose patience for such is the stuff of which real heroes are made; they always desire to be the first to reach the field of battle!
Chéri-Bibi feared to be late. Maître Régime had not yet put in an appearance.
“This man of law will bring disgrace on us” the Marquis said aloud, “I shall never forgive myself for keeping the Baron waiting.”
On recognising the person who accompanied his principal second, Chéri-Bibi could not repress a gesture of disagreeable surprise. This man, short but well-proportioned, with a small head on broad shoulders and shrewd eyes, was his most deadly enemy. It was the famous Costaud, at one time secretary to the Commissary of Police at Dieppe, and now a Detective-Inspector in the criminal investigation department, the infernal individual who had pursued him from the beginning with such relentless energy.
The new Marquis du Touchais was already on the defensive. He caught a glimpse of Cecily’s sweet face behind the blind, and the thought that she was beginning to show a sympathetic interest in him, inspired him with more than sufficient resolution to confront a man like Costaud.
Moreover he had no fear of being recognised. In so far as his voice was concerned he had never held much communication with Costaud whose part had consisted chiefly in putting the handcuffs on; and that was some considerable time ago.
His voice had altered since. Then again Costaud never used to visit the Marquis du Touchais, and was it not absurd to suppose that he would suspect Chéri-Bibi of masquerading in the Marquis’s skin?
The Dodger had nothing to fear from Costaud in particular any more than from the police in general, for since Chéri-Bibi’s first escape he had lived in the shadow of his notorious friend without being directly concerned in any of his enterprises. Never caught in the act, never arrested, he had a clean sheet in police records. Moreover was he not the Marquis’s secretary?
They stood their ground ready to receive the representative of authority who came forward in silence with Maître Régime. The solicitor seemed to be in a state of even greater excitement than on the previous day, but his plump person was brimming over with a certain air of cheerfulness. And when Chéri-Bibi reproached him, as he came up, with his lack of punctuality in keeping the appointment, he explained, waiving his arms enthusiastically, that the fault lay with Detective-Inspector Costaud who had detained him at Le Pollet to give him an extraordinary piece of news, namely that shrimpers had found Baron Proskof’s body at the foot of the cliff.